Day 1 - Under Way

 

 

 We were up and about and ready for the car at 6:30am - and all the check-in, security and immigration went smoothly.  So after our obligatory duty free purchases we happily ensconced ourselves in the Mabuhay(Philippine Airlines) business lounge.  And of course it is never too early for a champagne!

So much for traveling light - too much swimming/diving gear for that

 

 

Why not - even at sparrows!

The Philippines Airlines lounge was very good – food, ambiance and a view of the airport.  We were called right on time and the aircraft left a few minutes early.  It was all good on a modern business class A330 - fully flat seats, huge screen and comfortable. 

A couple of movies (for me) and another meals later we arrived at Manila where it was a bit soggy.  All formalities went very smoothly until we discovered that the Philippines do not allow transit duty free that is not in a sealed plastic bag.  We tried buying some other stuff so we could seal ours, but we ended up leaving it to the staff and bought some more in sealed bags.

All very comfortable

Then there was a three hours wait in the lounge - or so we thought.  We were called more than an hour before the flight's scheduled departure time and sat on the plane for 40 minutes before moving.  Whatever, and we enjoyed more hospitality on the way to Taipei.  The immigration queue was awful, but once through we were quickly on our way Keeling, about 60km from the airport. 

Here's hoping we see more sunsets like this

A tired and somewhat grumpy passenger

Everything went to plan - nearly

Needless to say we crashed once we were checked in and partially organised. Who knows what is store for tomorrow in Keelung.