Life in Wodonga: Our Holiday Story

Kite Surfing Beach

(Michael and Me)

Hi everyone,
We have been so distracted the last few days with the magnitude of all the fires back home. We check the Herald Sun a few times an hour for news, and can’t believe how bad it must be to be there. I know there is nothing that we could have done if we’d been there, but it’s the uselessness of being so far away that gets to us in so many situations – the price of being away I suppose. So I thought, I could do a long post about how we are feeling in response to the fires, or I could tell you about our holiday, I thought the latter may break the constant bushfire news back home a little.
So – Off to Boracay went Rippon-McGregor!
We started out holiday in Suzhou on Friday 20th as it was cancelled due to severe weather – Beauty J
The weekend was spent huddled up under blankets, eating soup and watching Entourage! – Great
Chinese New Year came with an onslaught of fireworks, -Yay!
Finally Monday came and we were supposed to catch the bus to Pudong Airport in Shanghai and stay the night in a hotel there. To start with Kane got the time wrong on the bus ticket and we missed the bus to the airport. Luckily we were going a day early, so we went home, put the heater back on, cancelled the hotel and booked a car for 6am on Tuesday. Tuesday went well and we got to the airport with heaps of time and all good to Manila. The hotel was OK, but it was in a bad area called Malati. It scared us a bit outside on the road with many very poor people milling around and the cops talking to some people as well, kids were asking for money, etc. So another early morning on Wednesday, 4am and we caught a flight to Caiticlan. All good, we got to the hotel, it was beautiful and checked in early.

Alta Vista de Boracay

A view of the golf course from our pool.

We rested and went into town for a look around. The rest of our holiday was spent swimming, resting, eating, reading, drinking, very cheap beer and cocktails. Another few people from school came to the same hotel as us, and that was great. It was good to have people to hang out with. There was a family from Perth (one boy is in my class) Australia and another 2 teachers (You will see some of these people in the photos). The beach is wonderful, like walking on icing sugar.

Puka Shell Beach

White Beach

The water was a turquoise blue and so warm, very little waves on the main beach, but a lot choppier on the others. The weather was average, being very windy and overcast for 8 out of the 10 days we were there.

Sunset on White Beach

We did a little shopping and bought some board shorts for Kane, 2 dresses for me and a ‘needle’ basket, like a wicker basket for coffee stuff.
We were supposed to come home on the Saturday 7th of Feb. We had booked a 7.25am flight from Caiticlan to Manila and an International flight from Manila to Shanghai at 12.25pm. We got up at 4.20am and checked out, got breakfast to go and hoped in the car, it was raining pretty steadily. We got to the ferry station and were very wet by the time we got under cover. We were saturated by the time we got to the ferry/very old boat(!), and enjoyed the choppy dripping, cold, windy trip to Caiticlan. We got in a car and ran to the airport terminal, drenched by then! I went to get our passports out and removed the breakfast we hadn’t eaten yet to be told we couldn’t take it in with us (Problem – Kane loves his food), they take some Boracay sand off me (sad), and tell us that the 7.25 flight has been cancelled, not too much of a problem because they have rescheduled us on the 7.05 flight. We started hear announcement cancelling flights and thought, we’ll be OK, they’ve told us J No – we were wrong, flight cancelled, catch a bus to Kalibo (1.5 hours away) and catch another flight. We told them about our international flight and a girl faxed through our details and we were told ‘someone will be waiting for you and they will usher you through quickly’, we were a little relieved. Now - we’re hungry. Not much food.
We got to Kalibo and they didn’t know we were coming. We had to wait around for all passengers to check in before we could find out if we would fit. There were 23 people standing in that airport, and only 18 people could get on the plane. Kane did a really good job trying to find out what was going on and we were so happy to get a ticket as we needed to catch the 12.25pm International flight to Shanghai from Manila. It was 11.00 when we got on the plane. When we landed 40 minutes later there were more issues, no one to meet us, we missed the flight.
It’s 2.00 and we still haven’t eaten.
Because it was a weather issue and PAL express had cancelled the flight it was not our fault that we missed the flight. So they put us up in a hotel with transfers and meals all for free and put us on the 6.35 to Shanghai. We finally eat at 4.00. We were well looked after with a buffet dinner worth a lot of money.
We waddled over to a shopping centre to have a look around and Kane bought some cigars.
Another early start 3.15am on Sunday 8th. While at the airport on Sunday it was then that I went on the Internet and started to read about the fires back home. I was in shock a little I think, because it was not until Sunday afternoon that we realised how bad it all was.
So we were due to land in Shanghai at 9.35, at 9.30 they tell us ‘we can’t land in Pudong, we must divert to Hangzhou’. Not really knowing what was going on we were thinking ‘shit, not again.’ We find out Pudong has zero visibility and we sit on Hangzhou runway for 2 hours. Finally we get to Pudong and had met a German with a driver going to Suzhou and get a lift with him.
36 hours since we left Boracay. I’m still shattered.
Yesterday we received an email from a trustee telling us that our school is feeling the financial downturn, so now we are all a bit scared about a meeting that will be held tomorrow night after school, we think we are going to lose our bonuses and possibley have take a pay cut, there are many rumours flying around. So I guess tomorrow we will find out.
I need to stop now because I am making so many mistakes while typing. Sorry if you’ve found some J
Take care,
Love to all,
Kelly

Sunset on White Beach at Nigi Nigi Noos Too (Kane, Michael and Ben)