Chasing Status Points

Garry and I have just spent a glorious weekend on the South Coast. Regular readers will recall that pre-COVID we regularly attended the Narooma Oyster Festival in May each year. We'd normally base ourselves at a friend’s house in Central Tilba. However, thanks to the pandemic it’s been four years since our last visit.

Sadly, our extended group missed this year’s oyster festival. As a result, after a little diary shuffling, we all agreed to meet up for an extended break in Tilba last weekend. Getting there is normally a 5.5 hour drive from Sydney. However, this year we tried something new. Garry is currently chasing the status points required to renew his Qantas Platinum Frequent Flyer status. He needs just 15 more to secure it for another year.

After crunching some numbers, we decided to skip the drive to Tilba and flew with Qantas to Merimbula, which is located about 60 minutes south of Tilba. This 1:15-hour flight gave Garry a total of 20 points thus securing another year of Platinum privileges. We also had the perfect solution in place for our ground transport needs.

Rob and Jen, two Sydney friends who’ve always joined us for the oyster festival recently relocated to Tura Beach on the outskirts of Merimbula. As a result, shortly after lunch on Friday, they collected us from the airport and drove us directly to Tilba. The hour-long road trip gave everyone plenty of time to catch up on post-pandemic events and renew our friendship.

Our group of six then enjoyed a superb weekend filled with sunshine, great wine, and plenty of laughter. Garry and I managed the entertainment on Friday. We took advantage of our frequent flyer status and literally filled a suitcase with wine and goodies for an enormous charcuterie board heaving with meats, cheeses, and anti-pasta nibbles. 

Saturday dawned warm and sunny. We spent the afternoon walking the Bellbrook Loop Track, a 2km circuit that takes you around a bush-clad valley out the back of Tilba. Our hosts Liz and Eric then surprised us with a mini picnic at a hilltop table halfway around the track.

Saturday night saw us feasting at Queen Chow in Narooma. We’ve previously dined at this restaurant’s main inner Sydney venue. I’m pleased to report that its South Coast outpost is just as good.

After a leisurely start to the day, Sunday afternoon was spent enjoying more wine and dozens of freshly shucked oysters at The Oyster Farmers Daughter. This tiny outdoor venue sits on the shores of Barlows Bay, inland from Narooma. The food was excellent, and the venue’s serene aquatic landscape was good for the soul. Afterward, we ventured out to the headlands to watch the town’s seal colony frolic and loll around in the sun.

We then returned to Tura Beach with Rob and Jen to spend a night at their new beachside home. On Monday morning, Jen took us for a tour of the local coast before heading for the airport. We walked along the headlands at the picturesque Short Point Beach, stopped at Bar Beach, and finally walked along the coast to the mouth of the Pambula River. Without a doubt, the morning’s highlight was watching a large pod of dolphins surfing and playing along the shore at Short Point Beach.

Shortly before 2pm, we boarded our flight back to Sydney and we were back in the office by 3:45pm. Garry and I both agree that, despite a one-hour delay on the way down, the flights to and from Merimbula were a great way to travel. Merimbula Airport is also newly upgraded and is an easy-to-access facility. In fact, much of the town’s infrastructure looked surprisingly new and well-maintained. There’s clearly been a lot of investment in the area over recent years.

Unfortunately, the trip offered up one final surprise. On Monday evening a dose of diarrhea kicked in and duly kept me entertained for the next 24 hours. I suspect a slightly dodgy oyster may have been behind my bathroom antics. While inconvenient, there is a silver lining. I've been on a diet for the last couple of months so a little diarrhea has helped keep off any weight I've regained during such an indulgent weekend.

More countries on the way

Garry and I have booked ourselves on a cruise for this year's Summer vacation. We'll be spending ten nights on the Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas (pictured above). The cruise takes us to Noumea and then on to Vanuatu, making five ports of call along the way. We depart from Sydney on 30 December and return on 9 January. As a result, we'll be celebrating NYE at sea this year.

The cruise ship has a maximum capacity of 2,543 passengers and carries 848 crew, making it the largest vessel we’ve ever sailed on. Believe it or not, it is one of Royal Caribbean's smaller ships. I must admit we're a little ambivalent about such a "large" boat after only ever booking small boat voyages. Until now, the Regent Seven Seas Navigator is the largest vessel we've been on.  It takes 482 passengers but was only three-quarters booked for our cruise in Alaska. 

Our South Pacific cruise will add another two countries to my growing travel list. Thanks to the COVID pandemic, it's been more than four years since anything was added. That was our long weekend in Krakow, Poland. As a result, after including our forthcoming holiday in the Cook Islands, a total of three countries will be added this year.  

This will bring the official count of countries I've visited to 71, plus another two I've briefly set foot in but don't count as genuine visits (e.g. crossing the Korean border into North Korea on two separate occasions while visiting Seoul).  Yes - I know New Caledonia isn't technically a country, but neither was Macau or Hong Kong when I visited them. 

However, global organisations like the Travellers Century Club count these territories as unique travel destinations. The Century Club even counts locations like Lord Howe Island, Tasmania, and Corfu as separate destinations. I've visited all of these. In fact, if I use Century Club's definition of unique territories, I've visited 88 on its list. Perhaps, if they're good enough for them, then they're good enough for me. However, for now, I'll stick with my nation-state and self-governing territory definition.

At some point, Garry and I hope to book a Caribbean cruise.  This will dramatically boost the tally.  Pick the right cruise and you can add up to ten new names in one fell swoop. Watch this space!

A month of milestones

I recently came across this image while preparing some retrospective blog posts. It was taken in 2006 during the first return visit Garry and I made home after relocating to London. We stayed with Garry’s parents when we arrived. Garry's sister invited us over for dinner one night resulting in this adorable image. How the world has changed in the years since.

Seventeen years on these three little ones are now full-grown adults. Mitchell, the cheeky one in the middle, is currently employed by our wholesale company. He’ll celebrate his fifth anniversary with us in September and is on track to become our general manager. A week ago, we farewelled his best mate, Jack, who’d worked with us for 2.5 years. 

Jack's departure was one of several milestones and watershed moments in June. Mid-month, Garry and I celebrated the eighth anniversary of Artiwood’s acquisition. The business we own today looks radically different from the one we acquired. In the years since, it's grown almost three-fold, won numerous industry awards, and picked up some impressive, reputable brands.

Last month the company took another strategic step forward. We relocated our third-party (3PL) warehouse from Brisbane to Sydney. Artiwood has been working in partnership with its incumbent Queensland supplier for 20 years. Last year it was sold to an American firm. 

Sadly, within months the entire warehouse team had churned and the service had deteriorated with no hope of improvement. We decided the time had come to consolidate our business in one city. It also created an opportunity to engage a company better able to support our strategic vision for Artiwood. 

In late-June Garry and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. We normally celebrate it on the day we first met. However, thanks to the chaos of Jack’s departure and our warehouse relocation, we’ve yet to toast this incredible milestone. Although, all hope isn’t lost. Two activities we’ve planned in the months ahead are quietly morphing into an anniversary celebration. 

The first is a dinner we've booked as a gift for a friend’s 50th birthday. We’ve agreed to include our anniversary as part of the evening's celebration. We're off to Margaret in Double Bay, a venue we've raved about since dining there last year. The second event is a holiday we’ve booked in the Cook Islands for mid-September.

Rarotonga has been on our radar after forgoing a vacation there eight years ago. At the time, a trip had been tentatively proposed as a celebration of my 50th birthday. However, we’d just bought Artiwood and found ourselves overwhelmed by the learning curve and numerous reform activities. As a result, we reluctantly shelved plans to join my family for an extended celebration.

We're certainly making up for lost time. We've booked the ultra-lux Motu Villas on the island's sheltered south coast for 11 nights. As an anniversary gift, I've also booked us a day trip to the spectacular Aitutaki lagoon. We're flying to the Cook Islands on Jetstar's new direct service out of Sydney. It's only our second time onboard this somewhat notorious budget airline. Fingers crossed it goes smoothly.

More retrospective adventures

Last month I kicked off a series of retrospective posts covering travel adventures that unfolded before this blog began. You'll find links to my first series of posts here.  Since then I've published another round of retrospective posts, including: 

• Garry and my first holiday together in Rome
  
  
• A day trip we took to Paris before moving to London
  
  
• Austria's spectacular Kaprun Hochgebirgsstauseen region
  
  
• A long weekend living it up at the Sheraton Mirage in Port Douglas
  
  
• My first experience with the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an
  
  
• Other highlights from our weekend in Xi'an
  
  
• Garry's first time in Beijing and Shanghai
  

Now that these posts are done, I need to think about how best to capture earlier travels documented by a stack of photo albums sitting in our home library. This is going to involve a lot of sorting and scanning. Until then, I hope you enjoy this latest series of adventures from two decades ago.

Shanghai for beginners

In October 2003, Garry and I traveled to China for two weeks. After spending time in Xi'an and Beijing we finished our first Chinese excursion with a 3.5 day stop in Shanghai. I was travelling on business helping my Chinese team pitch for local representation of a global account. It was also my first time in China’s largest city so, after working solidly for two days, Garry and I spent the following Saturday exploring central Shanghai.

My company put us up in the Hua Ting Hotel. When it opened in 1986 it was Shanghai’s first five-star hotel. Its grand staircase, glass-walled lift, indoor fountain, rooftop restaurant, and cabs waiting in front of the entrance opened up a whole new world for the Chinese. 

Even the hotel's name was carefully crafted to sound similar to a renowned global hotel brand. This created some confusion between myself and the Chinese team as we got ready to fly to Shanghai. They'd constantly refer to it as the "Hilton Hotel".  However, it wasn't, and never was, part of this global chain. Over the years I've encountered a lot of these homophonic translations in Asia.

Sadly, these days the hotel is showing its age with dated decor and well-worn fittings. The service was also a little haphazard at times, starting with an airport transfer we'd booked through the hotel. After arriving in Shanghai we waited more than an hour for a car that never arrived. We eventually gave up and caught a taxi into town.

Guided by our Lonely Planet bible, we made the most of our free time in Shanghai. After a hearty buffet breakfast, we caught the metro into the central city and spent the day visiting the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center, walking along the Bund, then crossing under the Huangpu River via the incredibly kitsch Bund Sightseeing Tunnel before venturing up the iconic, bauble-clad Oriental Pearl Tower.

The tower is an impressive edifice. It was built in 1994 as a television transmission tower on what was, at the time, an undeveloped eastern shore of the Huangpu River. It rises 430 metres and it is dominated by three pink bauble-like structures. These include restaurants, viewing platforms, a small 20-room hotel, and the tower's signal transmission infrastructure.

From the tower, we enjoyed uninterrupted views of the river, the austere Communist monument on the opposite bank (the Shanghai People's Heroes Monument), and the recently completed Jin Mao Tower. Earlier in the day we'd walked along the Bund as far as the monument. It's a classic totalitarian monolith that leaves you baffled as to what its creators were thinking when they conceived it.

At 430 metres, the Jin Mao Tower was the tallest building in Shanghai at the time. It was also the first of three supertall skyscrapers that were ultimately built in a cluster in the Pudong district. During our visit, it sat in splendid isolation surrounded by vacant plots of land.

Earlier in the week, my China Country Manager had taken Garry, a visiting expat, Brian, and me, for cocktails at Cloud 9, located on the 87th floor of the Jin Mao Tower. I recall it being one of the more hip, and exclusive, venues in town with a queue waiting to enter. Years later I took my mother back to the same cocktail bar.

Decades later, two things still stand out from that first trip to Shanghai. First, the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. This extraordinary venue houses a scale model of the central city that features a model of every building in the area, plus those with planning approval yet to be constructed. It was here we first saw the three supertall buildings planned for Pudong. Over the years I’ve been lucky enough to return and watch each of them coming to fruition.

The second standout memory was our visit to the Oriental Pearl Tower. I distinctly recall exiting the lift that took us up to the Space Module, its highest observation deck. At a height of 351 metres, it's housed in the smallest of the tower’s three distinctive baubles.

As I marveled at the uninterrupted view, I turned to share the moment with Garry, only to find him cowering against an internal wall. The observation deck's curving, floor-to-ceiling windows had triggered his moribund fear of heights leaving him unable to move any closer. We still laugh about it decades later.

Our trip finished with a quick stopover in Hong Kong. We landed late in the evening on Saturday, 1 November, and spent the following day sightseeing. I then worked on Monday before we both flew home that night. We finally landed in Sydney early on 4 November, after two hectic weeks on the road.

We spent most of Sunday exploring Kowloon. After a lazy morning, we caught an MTR train across Hong Kong harbour to Prince Edward Station. We then made our way back toward the water by wandering through the market streets of Mong Kok. Along the way, we took in sights like the Bird Market, the Goldfish Market, and the Fa Yuen Street Market.

Having been dazzled by Mong Kok on a previous trip I wanted to share its colour, vitality, and chaos with Garry. As you can see from the image above the crowds were simply heaving during our visit.  I must admit I cannot recall what we bought that day if anything. In the years since I’ve never been back to Mong Kok. Twice was clearly more than enough.

Once we'd had enough of the market crowds we walked down to the Tsim Sha Tsui promenade. Here we took in the city's panoramic skyline before returning to Wanchai on the Star Ferry. On a whim Garry and I decided to finish the day with a ride up The Peak Tram. 

The tram is a funicular railway that takes you to the upper levels of Hong Kong Island. It starts from Admiralty, near City Hall, and rises to Victoria Peak via the upmarket Mid-Levels district. In those early years of business travel, I frequently stayed at the Bishop Lei International House Hotel in Mid-Levels, including this trip. It has the smallest rooms you can imagine but is surprisingly well-priced for Hong Kong.

The view from the Victoria Peak observation deck is one of those classic tourist experiences. It offers a stunning panorama of the harbour and the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, a scene that inevitably appears in the album of many first-time visitors. I have a photo my parents took here more than 30 years ago, along with that of my first visit. On this occasion, Garry and I timed our excursion perfectly, arriving at the observation deck shortly after dusk, just as the city's iconic buildings were lighting up for the evening. 

As I look back, our return journey on the Star Ferry was probably the day's most memorable highlight. After an exhausting day in Mong Kok, it was wonderfully refreshing to watch the sun setting over Hong Kong's bustling harbour. I think the photo below says it all.

Beijing means business

In October 2003, Garry and I traveled to China for two weeks. While I’d visited China twice before on business, this was Garry’s first visit to the Middle Kingdom. On this occasion, he accompanied me while I was there for work. During the trip, we spent eight days in Beijing, including a weekend filled with excursions. The company also took us out for dinner several times, including a meal at one of the city's famous Peking Duck restaurants.

Despite my busy schedule, we found time to explore some of the city’s classic tourist attractions. This included a nighttime visit to Tiananmen Square, a private tour of the Temple of Heaven and Forbidden City, and a day trip to walk the Great Wall at Mutianyu. According to Lonely Planet, the Mutianyu section of the wall is considered its best-restored section. I'm pleased to report that this star billing lived up to the hype.

Mutianyu really was a highlight. We spent Saturday there with my China Country Manager, and Brian an expat visiting from Text 100’s San Francisco office. This was my third trip to the wall. Previously, I'd been lucky enough to walk it at Simatai during the height of Summer (while en route to the UK for business in 1998). I then visited it again, covered in snow, at the traditional tourist haunt of Badaling during an executive board offsite in January 2003.

However, despite these previous excursions, Mutianyu didn't disappoint. This 2.25km restored section of the wall rambles through one of its most scenic locations, tracing the crest of tree-clad hills, framed by soaring craggy mountains. It’s built mainly from granite, is 7 to 8.5 meters high, and up to 5 meters wide along the top. This section also boasts 22 impressive watch towers, an unusually high concentration of these fortifications.

We began our excursion by parking in a nearby village and taking a cable car to an outpost near the wall. We then climbed a steep switchback section of stairs up the final hillside. These eventually finished in front of the wall itself. I’m not afraid to admit that I lost my breath more than once during this rather arduous climb. 

However, it was well worth the effort. Our visit coincided with the height of autumn. As a result, the surrounding hills were awash with golden foliage, creating a truly stunning backdrop on a highly memorable day. I’ll let our photos speak for themselves.

The following week I took a half day off to join Garry and Brian on a private tour of the Temple of Heaven. I then left them to enjoy a guided tour of the Forbidden City while I returned to the office. The weather was perfect all day. It was one of those rare blue skies days that are few and far between in smog-clad Beijing. Two decades on, a photo of Garry and me on the steps of the marble-clad Circular Mould Altar still sits on a console in the main bedroom. It’s the image that opens this post.

The Temple of Heaven is laid out in an axial arrangement. The Circular Mound Altar to the south opens to the sky. Immediately to its north lies the conically roofed Imperial Vault of Heaven. This structure is then linked by a raised, marble-clad, sacred causeway. This elevated walkway extends for 360 metres and is framed on both sides by a series of white marble balusters. You can see a short section in the image above. 

The causeway leads you towards the spectacular circular, three-tiered, conically roofed Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests location at the northern end of the axial layout.  To the west is the Hall of Abstinence where the emperor fasted after making a sacrifice. To the right is a second complementary building. I read recently that 92 ancient buildings, with more than 600 rooms, fill the complex.

The emperors of the Ming and Qing dynasties visited this sprawling complex three times a year to act as interlocutors between humankind and the celestial realm. On each accession, they offered sacrifices to heaven and prayed for bumper harvests. 

On the day of Shangxin in the first lunar month, the emperor would hold a ceremony named Baguli in the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvest, praying for an abundant harvest of all cereal crops; on an auspicious day in April, he'd hold another ceremony named Dianli on the Circular Mound Altar, praying for rain; on Winter Solstice, he'd hold the final ceremony, named Gaosidi, in the Circular Mound Altar, reporting to Heaven on the year's successful harvest.

The Hall of Prayer is one of Beijing's iconic symbols. You see its image reproduced everywhere. In advertising, as a recognizable silhouette or illustrating all manner of literature. I've visited many times over the years. My first visit was in 1998, then again on this trip, and then a final time in 2012 with my parents. On each occasion, I always walked away with postcard-perfect images of its conical roof and elegantly tiered white marble podium.

As noted above, I got to share Beijing with my parents a decade later. I took them both to Mutianyu and the Temple of Heaven, as well as the Summer Palace and the Ming Tombs. One of the most iconic images I took during this trip shows my father leaning on the Great Wall as its winds away into the distance. This was also the last time I walked on the Great Wall. Given the current political climate, I doubt very much I'll ever return to walk it again.

Follow this link to read about our first time in Shanghai.