Cookie travels

While I was looking for a van to transport us from Ilo-ilo to Boracay, I stumbled upon a van service thru the internet. BUT this one does not offer transportation services in Ilo-ilo, instead it provides ground transportation services throughout New York City and the outskirts.

So if you are visiting New York City and the surrounding suburbs, and you need airport shuttles or private vans, this company provides transfers between JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark Airports to your hotel, or homes and offices between Battery Park and 125th Street. Go! Airlink Shuttle has a customer service assistance in every terminal at JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark and is a proud official permit holder by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which means that their motor coaches can load on the inner curb just outside the baggage claim area.

Thru their website, you can request for a fare quote online like JFK Airport Shuttle or you can book a ride thru their 24/7 online reservation facility. You can also make use of phone reservation agents who are available from 6:00 AM to 10:30 PM. They also have shuttle ride special discounts and special offers. What’s more, you can check out tours and attractions in NYC from the website. This is a feature I find useful coz not only can you book for transportation but NYC tours as well.

So come 27 Nov. 2008, it’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Don’t forget to book your transportation for this event.

There are many ways to reach Boracay, Philippines depending on where you are coming from. I will only mention here two ways. The first one is the most convenient and the second one is what we will take.

1. If you plan to go to Boracay from international flight, it would be better if you land in Manila. It’s convenient if you are departing from Manila coz there are direct flights from Manila to Caticlan. Then from Caticlan, you can take a boat to Boracay Island.

2. In our case, we are departing from Bacolod City, so to reach Boracay from Bacolod, we have to travel by boat from Bacolod to Ilo-ilo, take a road trip from Ilo-ilo to Caticlan, and then catch a boat ride from Caticlan to Boracay Island.

A road trip from Ilo-ilo to Caticlan is about 4 hours travel. A friend in Ilo-ilo reserved a van for us thru her vehicle contact. The price would be about a 100usd. If this travel is work-related, I could have enjoyed travel reimbursements or car allowance but this is completely not the case. On the other hand, these vans could be personal vehicles used for business such as picking up passengers, vans for hire with drivers, and the likes. How are these drivers monitored and reimbursed? Continue Reading »

New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida offers a great choice of amusement and state parks for the family to enjoy.

In Florida, the most popular amusement park kids would like to visit would probably be the Disney World/Magic Kingdom. I can see the kids gleaming at the sight of Mickey and other Disney characters. Adding to the kids’ excitement would be a trip to Sea World, Animal Kingdom, MGM, Epcot and Universal Studios. In New York, kids can enjoy the Splish Splash, Zoom Flume, or a day at Rye Playland. Other amusement parks and state parks nearby would be Great Adventures, Keansburg Amusement Park, Steel Pier/ Atlantic City, Mountain Creek in New Jersey, and the Dorney Park, Hershey Park, Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. I might as well add here the Busch Gardens, King’s Dominion, and Historic Williamsburg in Virginia.

If you are traveling in a group, booking a charter bus nyc would be a good choice for your transportation needs. Take for instance NYC Bus Charters, this company offers charter transportation for travelers in groups. About 9 to 57 passengers can be accommodated in their charter vehicles. They can arrange ground travel for your group as well as admission to amusement parks throughout New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Florida. If you need one, you can get a free and immediate online quote from the link given above.

Do you know that Gunnedah in New South Wales, Australia is also known as the Koala Capital of the World?

koalas at Waterways Wildlife Park ©infogunnedah.com.au

For those who would like to attend the Ag-Quip Field Days event in Gunnedah and looking for more information, I hope you find this post useful.

Let me begin with the town’s attractions. There are other attractions in Gunnedah that you can visit aside from the  event. To make the most out of your trip, you can visit Lake Keepit State Park, Gunnedah Rural Museum, Water Tower Museum, Waterways Wildlife Park, play at their “A Grade” 18 hole golf course, and more.

Traveling to Gunnedah by road would take about:
from Sydney to Gunnedah - 5 hours,
from Brisbane to Gunnedah - 7.5 hours,
from Newcastle to Gunnedah - 3.5 hours,
from Dubbo to Gunnedah - 2.5 hours,
from Armidale to Gunnedah - 2 hours,
from Tamworth to Gunnedah - 45 mins

Alternately, you can travel to Gunnedah by rail via Countrylink - Daily Explorer service to and from Sydney. You may contact 13 22 32 for reservations.

For more tourism information about Gunnedah, visit Tourism Gunnedah. Here you can get information on Gunnedah attractions, accommodation, dining, conference venues, and calendar of events. If you are interested in a Town Tour, which is a self drive tour around Gunnedah, you can print a copy of the Town Tour from the website then simply follow the signs from TOUR SIGN NO: 1 to TOUR SIGN No: 36.

You can also visit Gunnedah’s Visitor Information Centre:
Address: Anzac Park, South St Gunnedah (near overhead rail bridge)
Tel: (02) 6740 2230
Fax: (02) 6740 2237
Email: tourism@infogunnedah.com.au

Hope you enjoy the serene environment of this agricultural town.

The Shire of Gunnedah in New South Wales, Australia will once again get busy as it prepares for the upcoming Ag-Quip Field Days next year. Gunnedah has thousands of visitors for the Ag-Quip Field Days or trade fair held every August. This event is one of the many attractions in Gunnedah, Australia.

Ag-Quip Trade Fair ©flickr.com/lfom5608

Event: Ag-Quip Field Days (2009)
Address: Blackjack Rd, Gunnedah, New South Wales, Australia
Tel: (02) 6762 2399 - Rural Press Events, for those interested in exhibiting
Fee: Entry is FREE
Date: 18 – 20 August 2009
Opening hours: Car park opens at 7:30AM, main gate opens at 9:00AM and closes at 5:00PM.

Description: Ag-Quip not only offers an extensive range of agricultural products, machinery and equipment, it also offers a wide choice of products from clothing to fine bed linen, jewelry, travel destinations, educational displays, caravans, camping gear and more.

Traveling to Europe? Most countries in Europe will turn back their clocks one hour earlier on 26th October 2008.

Helsinki, Finland (taken July 2008)

Europe’s Daylight Saving Time (DST) is based from the European Union directive which states that the last Sundays in March and October would be the dates definitively adopted for the daylight saving schedule among EU countries.

Thus on 26th October 2008, Daylight Saving Time ends for the following countries (not a complete list) as follows:

Finland, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Turkey will shift the clock back from 4:00 AM to 3:00 AM local standard time.

Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland need to shift the clock back from 3:00 AM to 2:00 AM local standard time.

Ireland, Mexico will move the clock back from 2:00 AM to 1:00 AM local standard time.

For a complete list of countries observing Daylight Saving Time (DST) this year, you can check timeanddate.com.

One of the places that we are going to visit during our December vacation is Boracay Island in Philippines. What attracted us to visit Boracay? Boracay is a tropical island that boasts of sugary white sand beaches and azure blue waters. It is one of Philippine’s most popular tourist destinations and it’s for us to see and experience.

As a first-timer to this place, I did some research. The White Beach is the most popular and well developed beach location in Boracay. There are lots of activities you can enjoy in this island like island hopping, riding little motorized boats and watching the beautiful sunset. You can also learn diving, play beach volleyball, ride a banana boat, and indulge in a relaxing beach massage. For sports enthusiast, there is a tennis court and golf resort in the island. But… Continue Reading »

building K on the right side of Satakunnan Keskussairaala (for emergency or first aid) and building B on the left side; both buildings are connected by the glass bridge or walkway

This is one of the many hospitals in Finland. This hospital is located in Pori and is called ‘Satakunnan Keskussairaala‘. It has many buildings: A, B, D, E, H, K, L, M, N, O, P, S, R. But I am sharing here photos of buildings A, B, and K only coz these are the structures that you immediately see when you come to this hospital.

This was where I traveled about a week ago. I have been here many times but this October, my visit here was due to hubby’s appendicitis operation. And we have to come back last Saturday coz hubby’s operation got infected. So these photos were taken last Saturday. The weather was really nice that day.

There’s an ongoing construction in front of the building. It was not like this last month. Because of the repairs going on, the taxi stand and bus stop were moved near the parking lot. It is quite an inconvenience for patients who want to avail of public transport.

For those who are traveling, please make sure you don’t get sick and end up in a hospital. If you ever get sick in Pori, Finland, this is what the hospital looks like.

Have a safe travel and vacation!, travel bugs.

building A of Satakunnan Keskussairaala (front), coffee shop or canteen is located in this building; building B on the right side

We are going to have our most awaited family vacation this December in Philippines with few days stopover in Thailand. Thailand has been our home for more than 10 years so we are all eager to have a stopover even for a short time.

Vacation duration would be a month. No definite travel itinerary but Boracay Beach in Philippines is in our ‘must visit’ list.

This Monday we finally received our flight tickets for the whole trip, so all is set for our family vacation this December. We got worried earlier that we might not get confirmed seats coz it’s December and usually a lot of people travel during the holidays. But with our eTickets, no more unconfirmed seats to worry about.

To give you an idea, our flights/airlines as arranged by the travel agency are…

• Pori-Helsinki via Finncomm,
• Helsinki-Bangkok via Finnair (direct flight),
• Bangkok-Manila via Philippine Airlines,
• and the rest of domestic flights in Philippines via Philippine Airlines.

December will be another busy yet exciting month in terms of traveling as we hop from one country to another, then from one island to another in the Philippines before flying back to Finland.

Do you have any special place to visit this December?

Photo credits: wikipedia.org

I know, I’ve been ‘sleeping’…I always woke up guilty of not posting much (really sad face). So sorry to my dear readers. I hope you are still lurking around.

It’s good to be back and start a post with an award. I’m soooo happy to receive an award for this blog.

Moms are really moms. They make your heart jump with their praise and appreciation. Even in blogging, a mom can say ‘I love your blog’ despite its shortcomings. Thanks a lot mom811 (of ‘The Lighter Side’) for this first ever award.

What to do:
1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog;
2. Link the person you received your award from;
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs;
4. Put links of those blogs on yours; and
5. Leave a message on the blogs that you’ve nominated.

It’s difficult to nominate only 7 persons. Only??? And did the rule say you can’t nominate the person who has already received this award? Nope, yeah. Oh gee, who cares if they’ll get the same award. I know his award has been roaming the blogosphere for some time now so I’ll hope that the persons I’ll mention here won’t get bored of this award, if ever.

Here are the seven nominees randomly picked from my commenter and visitors:
1. Thailand Land of Smiles
2. RennyBA’s Terella
3. Prague connection
4. iWalk, u2?
5. Beyond Taiwan
6. Good Life Review
7. A Taste of Both Worlds

So there you are. Now, don’t ever forget me guys. Hehe.