My Travels

With airfares still low, I was able to find a very good fare to Vancouver to visit family. Hopped onto a United flight to YVR . I checked into the Vancouver Marriott Airport hotel. It's always a hit and miss for me about getting upgrades with Marriott. I usually find better luck with the former SPG properties. On this trip, I was given a corner suite which worked out well with my relatives who was staying at an Airbnb nearby. The hotel is within a plaza of other restaurants, so it is easy to get around and get food if you're in need of an airport hotel. Despite the vacation down time, I didn't take many pictures on this sojourn. Activities Billz Beez Berryz - Hung out on a farm picking blueberries at 14291 Triangle Rd, Richmond, BC V6W 1B2, Canada. It was early in the season so many u pick farms are not ready with fruit but this particular one was allowing folks in. Steveston Harbour - Visited this cute port town and walked around the area. There are a number of coffee sho...

 I headed out for a work event to Washington DC via United Airlines . Another quick overnight itinerary didn't give me much time outside my work event and not much in the way of pictures. I took the opportunity on this trip to stay at the Ritz Carlton, Pentagon City . It is very rare when the company rates are the same across an area no matter the hotel level. So I went for the fanciest. I gave up location (near the capital versus Pentagon) for the hotel level (courtyard versus Ritz Carlton). Overall, the room was nice (nothing that stood out for a room) and the service was good. Since I was only staying overnight, I didn't spend much time inside the hotel. I did like that the hotel was easily walkable to the metro station which made traveling to and within DC easy. I don't know if it is because it is DC or the Ritz but there was an atmosphere of pretentiousness. Or maybe I'm just getting old enough to not care about such things. Eat Happy Eatery - A cute Vietnamese fu...

On a lark, I went to New York to visit my friends and accompany my partner attending a meeting. My United itinerary was a quick overnight. Stayed at the Residence Inn Midtown East  on points for this stay. Given the quick turnaround, the hotel was in the right location and offered comfortable amenities. It was such a quick trip, I didn't even take any pictures! Eat After landing, went out to New Jersey to hang out for the day. For lunch, I tried the local hot dog place, Jimmy Buffs  in Orange, New Jersey. The dogs are large which I split with my friend as well as the potatoes. For dinner, went to Egan & Sons for Moules & Frites and Sticky Toffee Pudding. It was a good dinner and the patio was nice. While in New York, I hit a few bakeries and eateries in my food tour: Ess-A-Bagel  - In looking at other bagel shops in Manhattan, I wanted to see if it was worth trying other places besides David's. So on this trip, I bought a dozen to bring home. Overall, I would say...

 After spending time in Singapore, hopped onto my Singapore Airlines to Male. Upon landing into Male, my group had to wait a few hours for the interisland transfer on Trans Maldivian Airways. Our flight carried passengers to the Le Meridien Maldives and another hotel an island over. I think there was some important folks on the flight as the welcome party from the hotel was out in force and clearly welcoming these two individuals. It was nice to see a welcome party reminiscent of Fantasy Island. There was a front desk agent waiting with a cart to which my group to the lobby for check in. After a brief discussion of the facility and opting into the all-inclusive dining option, I was able to get a look at my overwater villa for the week. As standard in many overwater villas, you have the all-important deck leading into the ocean. In addition, the tub/shower room has direct access to the deck making it useful when you're coming in from the ocean and need to rinse. I did make it a poi...

 Although I have transited through Singapore in the last few years, I haven't visited Singapore since 2011. So time to dust off some memories and see what's going on in this part of the world. United started flying directly from the US west coast to Singapore and I was able to hop onto that flight path and do a two part vacation in both Singapore and the Maldives. Due to the current pandemic, United changed my flight itinerary a few times and I ended up taking an extra two days to accommodate the flight changes. I didn't bother asking United to readjust their schedules when the email announcements came but I did find it odd they didn't call to ask about changing the flights by more than 24 hours. Since I was still 1K for some of these changes, I chalked it up to computer automation. The United Polaris chairs feel tighter in their latest configuration and I didn't realize that the middle seats had an "inward" and "outward" positions. The main dif...