Access to Personal Stats

This morning, I wanted to do a short walk to the other end of downtown and back.  My new watch notices when I'm walking along and asks me if I want to mark it and keep track of the outing as exercise.  This is exactly what I was doing so I tapped, YES, on the watch face.  It seems as though I'll be marking individual sessions, in addition to checking on my daily steps (kilometers).

When back at home, I opened the Fitbit app on my phone.  Of course, I do not bother paying for a subscription and just use the basic information provided by the Google Pixel watch.  I don't want coaching.  And I certainly don't need video tips!  I'm not in training; I just like access to daily stats.  I find all the free information sufficient for my needs.

However, when the app was open, I noticed I had a single day, in 2024, when I walked more than 20,000 steps.  Under normal circumstances, I aim for 8,000.  I wondered what I'd done on February 19th to merit a special badge. 

 

Because I blog religiously, I knew I could look up what occurred on that date.  I discovered this was when Jay, his sisters, and I were in Bangkok, Thailand.  We took many trips on the SkyTrains and by rail, but we did a whole lot of walking as well. The accomplishment that Fitbit was talking about, happened on the day we visited the Big Buddha Statue at Wat Paknam.  I do like having things documented.

UL 405 from BKK to CMB

Day 117 - It was actually quite an easy day getting back to Sri Lanka. We ate breakfast at our hotel at the Holiday Inn Express Sathorn at our usual time. We'd arranged for a big taxi to the airport at 10:00 AM. Jay's sisters had done a fair amount of shopping but had bags weighing around 25 kg. They gave some of the extra things to Jay and me as we had travelled with half-empty suitcases. 

Our driver managed to get through light traffic (for Bangkok) to Suvarnabhumi Airport in record-time of around 45 minutes. So, we had plenty of extra time before boarding our Sri Lankan flight 405. Interestingly, Sri Lankan Air co-partnered with Air Belgium and is using an old Airbus for this route.  The plane displayed AB and its logo.

   

Flying between Bangkok and Colombo takes just three hours. All of Asia seems like a hop, skip, and jump when visiting. Getting here from North America is a slog though.  

We got into Colombo at around 4:00 pm because of the later time zone.  Immigration and customs were a breeze.  Jay and I purchased new, online visitor visas because our former 2-month extension will run out about five days before our March 17th flight to DXB and subsequent YVR home flight.  We have fresh 30-day ones now.

It only takes minutes to get home from the airport.  We got here before 6:00; well, six o'clock in this time zone.  Nazeer stopped by and brought dinner.  It was a great two-week trip to Singapore and Bangkok.

Wrapping Up our Singapore and Bangkok Trip

Day 116 - Tomorrow at 2:00 PM we fly back to Colombo, Sri Lanka.  These last two weeks seem to have passed very quickly.  We were in Singapore for just four nights and by tomorrow will have been in Bangkok for ten.  We did preliminary packing today and took some last glimpses of the Sukumvit / Silon area of the city.  For today's blog post, I thought I'd pick a representative night and day picture from both cities.   

Singapore Daytime - February 12, 2024 - 11:15 AM

Singapore Nighttime - Feb 13, 2024 - 8:02 PM

Bangkok Daytime - February 21, 2024 - 11:39 AM

Bangkok Nighttime - February 18, 2024 - 7:18 PM

Our Last Saturday in Bangkok

Day 115 - Going back to Chinatown wasn't my idea of fun but I guessed it'd be better to go along and experience the events. Jay's sisters came to shop and even though I really don't understand the whole process, I see they enjoy what they're doing. 

Me? I'd much rather know exactly what I am going after, hone in on the product, and return with it in as short a time as possible.  Oh, and definitely with as few steps as possible too!

   

My philosophy of buying goods is clearly in the minority. We took the BTS and then transferred to the MRT and disembarked at Wat Mangkom. There were hundreds, no thousands, doing the same thing. Founded in 1782, Bangkok has one of the largest Chinatowns in the world, after all.  Weekends are busy in Chinatown.

 

We stayed a few hours.  I mostly stood by as Jay's sisters spent their time looking around the crowded shops.  They got some foodstuff, such as cashews, almonds, and raisins.  Also the got some cosmetics.  Jay looked around the shops and I mostly stood around protecting the bags of items already purchased.

When it was lunch we did duck into a small Chinese stop for a small meal with rice. Jay's sisters are not vegetarians. They eat fish but do not eat animal meat. The Chinese seem to eat anything that moves, so we looked around so they could eat river fish. Jay and I had pork and rice. We tipped (and obviously most people don't).  The total came to $8.30 for the four of us.

 

Lumphini Park and China Town

Grand Palace

Wat Arun and Wat Pho

The Big Buddha

Pratunam Market and Asiatique

Chatuchak Weekend Market

Santosa / Clark Quay / Chinatown

Singapore Sightseeing

Supertree Observatory

After Flying First Class for Four Hours

A Little Above My Station

Day 101 - Jay and I have done a pretty substantial amount of air travel. Since the 1980s, we've been flying internationally for work as well as for pleasure. Moreover, we often find ourselves on really long-haul routes. For example, next month, we'll be taking two flights to get from Sri Lanka to Vancouver. The first flight to Dubai is only around four hours but our second flight clocks in at 15 hours and 50 minutes.  It takes about the same amount of time if we fly home westward through Asia.

Of the hundreds of hours we've spent in the air, we only flew First-Class when upgraded for short flights in Central America.  Oh, and when I left a job in Damman, Saudi Arabia, I had to leave the country by air. My next job was in Bahrain and I flew there in Business Class!  That is around a 40-minute flight. I smoked cigarettes in those days and the vice was allowed when flying. However, this particular flight was so short the pilot never switched off the no-smoking indicators!

I'm writing this only two days before the start of additional tourist flights totalling nine or so hours. The first segment is Colombo to Singapore. We are taking Jay's sisters for a two-week exploration of both Singapore and Bangkok. We had the chance to do online check-ins on Sri Lankan Air UL 803. To our surprise, the seats they assigned will be in Business Class! Being unaccustomed to the perks when sitting in the front of an airplane, I had to write to a friend who worked as a flight attendant for years. Here's my message:

    

Hey Ed, you know we fly a lot but usually in the cheapest, tiniest seats near a lavatory.

We just checked in 48-hours before Sri Lankan Airlines 308 to Singapore. It's an Airbus 330-300 with a usual 2-4-2 configuration. We all got bumped to the 1-2-1 Business Class with the seating pods.

As folks who only ever see the front of the plane when boarding and deplaning, we need advice. How do we maximize our 4-hour experience up there in the front? In other words, what special things can we do or get? Looking for hints.

A Special Sunday in Sri Lanka

Day 95 - Today is the 76th National Day of independent Sri Lanka. Happy Birthday! We've been watching most of the activities on TV. 

Also today, we booked some segments of future trips. That's one good thing about the Internet; it really doesn't matter where one is when it comes to planning travel adventures. We've really become quite adept at organizing our travels. We do the things early that give us better deals but we wait on things when it makes sense. We've become adroit travel agents for ourselves. 

Today we ensured that next winter will start for us on November 11th. We know we'll be doing a bit of the familiar before embarking on things never explored. We're happy there are now direct, Air Canada flights between Dubai and Vancouver. We'll be going home on one of the 15-hour flights in mid-March. And now, we have made steps to ensure we'll head the other way next November! 

Before all of that, we have plenty of other plans. In fact, in a week from tomorrow, we'll be heading to Singapore for a few days. We'll continue to Bangkok, Thailand for ten days too. We fly back to Colombo before February ends. 

In anticipation, I used AI to create an image. It's called, 'Singapore Shopkeeper'.

 

Trip Planning in Expedia

Day 91 - Jay and I have used Expedia to buy online travel tickets for a very long time, at least since the company was a part of Microsoft.  They started the company in 1996 but spun it off in 1999.  Using the website greatly accelerated our transition away from physical travel agencies.   

  

We each have our own account.  When it comes to a purchase, one or the other of us completes the booking.  We've found it easy to pay using credit cards with either name. 

Of course, it was always a little bit confusing remembering who had bought the airplane tickets and who booked the hotels.  Logging on to view them was never much of a chore.

It was less of a problem for us because we still keep file folders with info for most upcoming journeys. The blue one is for the upcoming one.  Red is for the subsequent.  Yellow for the next.  I was an instructor and organizing paperwork was always a forte.  I have a wifi printer that primarily functions nowadays to print out itineraries.  

However, it was just this month that we discovered how easy it is to share trip information with each other.  When added to a trip and shared between us, everything magically appears in chronological order.  Flight segments even find their proper place.

Our next trip of this winter begins on February 12th.  It has been a breeze to organize even though we will be in several countries during a two-week period. 

Thirty-Three Years Ago

Day 80 - Jay and I just went to print out a few PDFs from Expedia.ca.  We bought our own tickets and hotels for a planned February trip rather than relying on an agency.  Jay, his sisters, and I will fly to Singapore for four nights and then we will continue to BKK for ten nights in Thailand's biggest city.  

Although everything is on our phones, we appreciate being able to reference paper before and during trips.  We are in Nugegoda so services such as printing are just outside the door.  We walked to the intersection and stopped at a shop that prints and does photocopies.  (I had my haircut for the first time this year too.  The barber was experienced and did a good job so I tipped him an extra 31 cents for a total cost of US $1.87.)

All this planning for Bangkok made me consider when Jay and I first visited.  Right at the end of Operation Desert Storm better known as the first Gulf War, we were able to fly again.   We left from work in Bahrain.  We had hunkered down during the war and were ready for a vacation.  We stayed for five weeks.  So as well as visiting Bangkok, we spent time in Pattaya and Phuket in the south, and Chang Mai in northern Thailand.

 

All Thai'd Up

Day 79 - Today we had to run back to the Majestic City Mall because the travel agent neglected to return one of Jay's sister's old passports. They used it when completing the documentation for visitor visas to Thailand for the ladies.  We'll be taking a short trip to Bangkok next month. 

Jay and I don't need visas. We've stayed before. In fact, I have a selection of scanned pictures on Flickr from 1991 when we stayed for five weeks in the country. I have a few pictures of Bangkok from 2009 and 2013 too. I think during other visits to Thailand, we may have skipped the big city.

   

It was close to midday when he had the passport in hand and we walked downstairs in the mall to see what was up in the food court. Interestingly, we noticed a table of visiting Thai monks eating at a fast-food Thai restaurant.