Space bear at Starship Launch 5

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As you know, I’m a big fan of space.  As evidenced by my multiple times playing Commander Sumi Shepherd for Mass Effect.

You may also know that I’m a big fan of SpaceX and real space efforts and I would do anything to live out my commander space fantasies on Starship.

Today I feel like I’m on paw closer. My bud and Pokin took me to see the Starship 5 Test Flight in Boca Chica Texas.

We flew a red eye late at night, got in at 5:30AM to Brownsville Texas, and rushed to the launch site. Along the road were lines of cars with photography gear stationed to capture the moment. En route, cars snaked, bumper to bumper, headed towards a viewing spot.

We get there as the sun is above to rise.

The crazy engineers at SpaceX were going to launch Starship and then attempt a landing back on it’s own pad catching it with these new experimental ‘chopsticks’ named Mechzilla. This shouldn’t work, not first try with so many potential things to go wrong. We fully expected the landing to be aborted, or if attempted, a giant fireball to destroy the landing pad. The launch was originally scheduled for 7:15, and then they pushed it to 7:25AM. I knew they only had a short launch window. I was nervous. They decided to go for it.

They started counting down. It’s going to be a go! My bud gets his camera in place.

It takes off!

We cheered as it went into space, performed the separation.

It was time for the booster to return. Were they going to try the maneuver? It wasn’t automatically scheduled and they were going to make a game day decision.

And they announced they were going to go for it! 😮

They went for it! The booster comes back like it’s falling out of the sky and then right as it looks like it’s going to just plummet into the ground the boost-back burners fire back up straighten the booster, and then just slides in place to be caught by the mechanical arm.

We cheer, we go mad. It landed it’s first try!!!

!!!!!!

! This is history!

We did not expect that everything would go perfectly, absolutely nailing every last aspect and maneuver, making history in the process.

This was SO COOL. The rumble of the ship, watching it go up and back down in the sunrise, the sonic boom and sticking the landing… It doesn’t get better than this! Mars, get ready for a future with bears!

To Greenland!

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From Copenhagen we’re flying to Greenland. Wait – What? Greenland? Isn’t it cold there?

Either way, we’re going with our newly acquired camera gear.

I was going to write all about our trip to Greenland — but let’s be honest, I’m a lazy bear. My bud decided to show off his video editing and music production skills and made a video that recaps the situation pretty well, so I’ll just post that instead.

Sumi’s note: Hey wait, LAZY BEAR? Who wrote this stuff? Nicholas stop editing my posts!

Copenhagen Camera Quest

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We are in Copenhagen!

My first time to Denmark!

Nope, we are not sightseeing.

Instead we are hunting down a camera store for Pokin because she waited till she was already on a trip to realize she is missing camera gear for her upcoming photography tour to Greenland (in 2 days.) We’re supposed to be sailing and shooting icebergs, and she had zero telephoto lenses and one broken wide angle lens.

So we got to the hotel, dropped off our bags, and walked to the camera store. We ended up going to the Foto/C store. At least we passed some cool views.

Lucky for her, they had a lens in stock. It was their only one. She was able to buy a 70-200mm. Then everyone was tired, ate dinner at a nearby restaurant and went to bed.

A party in my bedroom while I was gone

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There was a weather advisory, so at first we just camped out in the hotel room.

I wasn’t about to get wet or blown away.

But then late afternoon, the weather started looking better so Pokin decided we should walk to the Dubai Mall.

The night before, PoOn asked Pokin about the Waldorf stuffed animals.

“What Waldorf stuffed animals?” Pokin asked.

“Just ask front desk,” PoOn said.

So anyway she went up to front desk and told them her sister wanted to know about the Waldorf stuffed animals.

The hotel staff had basically no idea what she was talking about.

“I don’t know,” Pokin said “at the other hotels like Conrad in HK they had these stuffed animal bears.”

“We sometimes have welcome gifts, is that what you want?”

“I have no idea,” Pokin repeated again. “Whatever you find sounds great.”

“We’ll see what they can do,” front desk answers.

Anyway we go to the Dubai mall, walk around, see some sharks, walk around some more, see the Dubai Fountain show, and then head back. I deliberately left Peep behind.

“Peep” he says.

I should have known that Peep always gets himself into trouble. I come back and there’s a party going on in the room.

“What is wrong with you Peep?” I glare.

Peep, says Peep.

And there on the chair is a party full of stuffed animals, none of which are Waldorf stuffies.

Our doorbell rings. It’s Prashant, our housekeeping attendant with a note. “I hope you like the animals,” he said.

Turns out they sent someone out from the hotel to fetch these, because we were asking for them.

I ended up sleeping on the couch while Peep continued to hang out with those pink monsters. Ulgh.

Well PoOn is getting a bounty!

Dubai in a day

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Got up bright and early for some breakfast at the Waldorf. Pretty good spread.

Then it was time for our blitz tour. We weren’t sure what to see so Nicholas booked a 1 day driving tour.

Here’s everything we hit –

Dubai Marina
Souk Madinat
Palm Jumeirah
Atlantis
Burj Al Arab
Jumeirah Beach
Jumeriah Road
Carpet store upsell stop (*not advertised)
Jumeriah Mosque
Dubai Mall
Dubai Aquarium
Dubai Skating Rink
Burj Khalia
Old Dubai Spice Souk
Fragrance store upsell (*not advertised)
Spice and tea store upsell (*not advertised)
Gold Souq

Even though we booked a private tour, there were a lot of forced upsell stops where our guide just disappeared for a smoke. After the first carpet stop, which we insisted on leaving early, we asked the guide to not take us to any more forced sales stops. Yet he did it two more times at a perfume and spice place. Disappointing for the price point of $700 for two people + bear, but we got a taste of Dubai.

Visibility wasn’t super great because of the high winds, but it’s supposed to rain the next day so good to get out today. After a day driving around, we ended up at the Dubai Mall/ Burj Khalifa, where I got to see sharks up and close. Closer than we did swimming in the Maldives! I would have been scared if they got this close. No sharks in this photo, but we saw a giant grouper which was cool.

We ended at the Burj Khalifa, which is the highest building in the world. We only got tickets up to the 148th floor, which is already higher than normal. You can get up to the lounge at 152 but that requires a $250 minimum spend. Since we were with a guide that felt too rushed. Another time!


Onwards to Dubai

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It’s our last day in the Maldives and of course today the weather was perfect. Calm waters, clear skies.

Luckily, our flight out wasn’t until the end of the day, and we were allowed to stay in our room until 3:00pm and our flight out was at 4pm.

Pokin was feeling FOMO so she decided to snorkel again. It really is convenient being able to hop off the deck and get straight into reefs full of fish.

Again she headed straight for the reef cliff edge. This time she was alone so she didn’t stay long. She tried to look for the sharks again but there were none. She saw some tuna though.

As she’s getting ready to take a last shower before the flight out, I comb through the villa to make sure nothing is left behind.

And I find our problematic bunny in the coffee. Of course he’s there making a mess.

Peep, says Peep.

My mood is lifted a bit when I go into the room and see that we have a towel animal farewell. This is a whale I can ride!

Then it was 3pm and Meera was here with a golf cart to pick us up to wait in the lounge. Not a bad view. I can see our seaplane in the distance.

Given we are on island time, the flight doesn’t actually leave on time. And it turns out to be a full plane, but eventually we make it on.

The transfer was pretty uneventful, other than flying through some active storms. 40 minutes or so later, we were back at the Male terminal, where we transferred over to the main airport for our flight to Dubai.

Onwards!

Since it wasn’t an redeye, we didn’t get an amenity kit or PJs, but we did still get a meal. We tried not to nap since we were going to arrive at night, and about 4 hours later we were back in Dubai.

Our friends were headed home, so we said our farewells and made our way out.

The thing about booking business class flights with Emirates is that it sure comes with benefits! One of them being you get a chauffeur ride. All you had to do when you got off was to head to the chauffeur counter where they gave you a ticket, you went out the door, and a driver picked you up to head to your hotel.

This is something I can get used to.

“Don’t,” said Pokin. This isn’t how we’re always travelling. This was a splurge!

Well we should!

In Dubai, we are staying at the Waldorf Astoria DIFC. We weren’t originally going to stay here, but our friends who were travelling with us normally come here so we decided to book near them. They had to change their plans, so we were splurging on our own.

Luckily again, Pokin got a suite upgrade. I took my usual spot in bed.

Time for bed. Early day tomorrow!

The abyss that is the reef

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The waters were way too choppy to swim yesterday so we aborted our attempts to make it out to the John Aster Estate where we were told to go snorkelling.

In general, we were told the best views were at the edge of the reef so today we made an attempt to snorkel to the edge by our villa, even if we couldn’t make it out as far as John Astor Estates.

See this photo here? See where it’s light and then it gets dark?

Well we swam over to the edge there on the left.

And let me tell you, if you had no fear of the deep ocean, you get one. Right after you get to the edge, you are looking down into the abyss.

Nicholas swam to the edge and noped out. So did our friend.

Pokin swam to the edge, looked down, popped back up above water, and nonchalantly said “I think I see some sharks out there.” Our friend immediately swam back towards the hut.

Nicholas went to look too. “Yep I think those are reef sharks.

Right about now, we realize the current is pulling us out, out away from the safety of the house reefs.

Time to head back.

Pokin reluctantly looked over the ledge down at the 3 swimming bodies, grudgingly admitting she’d be freaked right out if the sharks were anywhere closer than something like 30 feet down.

Time to call it a snorkelling day.

The St Regis Overwater Villa

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Check in to our hut wasn’t supposed to be until 3pm, so I was pleasantly surprised when our Butler, Meera let us know our room was already ready for us.

Even better we had been upgraded to room 519, which is a St Regis Overwater Villa. Instead of being massive, we got an even more massive bungalow with 2 bathrooms, a giant infinity pool, and 5 hammocks! I guess we should be thankful Pokin signed up to be a travel advisor to get all these upgrade perks!

I wasted no time getting situated. Living room sofa feels pretty comfy. They had fruit and chocolate greetings for me.

Next, I went outside to check out the view. Not too shabby at all.

The sun is really strong here, so I knew not to sit out too long. In fact my bud made that mistake. Even though he slept outside in the shade, he got a pretty bad sunburn, so I went back inside.

“Peep” comes a sound. WHAT???

I haven’t seen that bunny in months but it seems he has chosen to crash my trip. He really doesn’t deserve to be here at all. It’s not fair. Completely nonplussed, he just ignores my protests and settles in just where he feels like.

Sigh. Good thing they gave me some complimentary champagne. I’m going to need that whole bottle.

PEEP says Peep.

Ulgh.

Well at least I have a nice view.

First time to the Maldives

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Back when my bud and Pokin decided to get married, they also had to choose where to get married. While they eventually settled on Bora Bora, the Maldives was a strong contender. The political instability in the Maldives broke the tie. “Chance of uprising” were not among the risk factors my bud wanted to deal with. So they booked Bora Bora.

Now 7 years later, they decided it was time to see what the other option looked like. That decision was in no small part helped by some expiring use-or-lose credits they had with Emirates. I’m not complaining!

There are a lot of different options of places to go in the Maldives. At the current count, there are 172 resorts in the Maldives, all spread across different some 26 different atolls and 1,192 islands. Pokin had her sights on some place called Anantara because they had a cool underwater restaurant and an observatory, but because we did the St Regis Bora Bora, it only made sense to check out the parallel resort in the Maldives. Also our friends have been here and loved it and wanted to come back. So to St Regis!

Last time around, we got an upgrade due to planning our wedding there. And back then, St Regis was still part of Starwood. Since then, St Regis became part of the Marriott family. And since then, Pokin learned how to level up her travel booking optimization game. She booked the trip personally as a travel advisor, used the STARS program, and additionally got herself Platinum status through the Bonvoy Brilliant credit card. So we were hoping for some sweet upgrades here too.

The journey to the Maldives is long, especially from Vegas.

We left Tuesday morning a 8:00AM for our 10:00 flight to SFO. It was promptly delayed so we got in at 1pm. We wanted to leave a lot of buffer before we caught our 5:05pm flight to Dubai. We arrived in Dubai at 7:36PM on Wednesday, and then at 2:45 AM Thursday morning, hopped on a 4 hour flight to Male, Maldives (with the time zone change, arriving around 8:00AM).

On arrival, our St Regis host greeted us, transported us to the Maldivian Airways counter where they promptly weight all our luggage (30KG limit per person). Then we hopped on a shuttle to the float plane terminal where we waited in the St Regis lounge. This terminal was just a square building full of lounges.

flight was scheduled only the night before, and fortunately they had us booked for a 9:30 AM departure.

Shortly before it was time, we were escorted to a holding area, before we got on a flight plane over to St Regis.

The flight plane trip was a noisy 40 minutes, but we were lucky to have good visibility over all the atolls. I had fun looking out the window, and then we started descending towards Vommuli island where the resort is situated within the Dhaalu Atoll.

On arrival, just like in Bora Bora, we were greeted by a line of hotel staff. Then it was over to the outdoor waiting area where branded coconuts awaited us.

It was surprisingly not that hot and stuffy for how hot and stuffy we would feel later! I guess that spot is well situated with a persistent breeze.

Fortunately for us, our room is ready!

Bear on Emirates

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Hot off my trip back from Mexico City I’m outward bound again. To Dubai!

We are taking Emirates for the first time via SFO, so we are checking out the lounge.

Starting our journey with a delayed flight so let’s see how this all goes. My bud’s loving this already.

Emirates lounge was super spacious. Which felt all the more awkward given we were one of the only people in the lounge. Lounge is nice. They had a good spread of middle eastern food.

Even nicer is you board directly from the lounge into the plane. Didn’t have to worry about going back outside. I could get used to this! They called for boarding and we got on.

As a splurge, Pokin booked us business class flights using her Chase points. From there, there was an option to upgrade to first class (the way to go versus paying full fare), but we figured this was enough of an indulgence!

Emirates business class is pretty nice. Not only do they have lie flat seats, they also give you pyjamas. Really soft ones. As always they didn’t have anything in my size but I was able to appreciate it on my bud’s behalf. There they are with their matching PJs.

There’s also this lounge in the back where you can help yourself to snacks and order additional drinks, which made the flight go pretty smooth.

Some 14+ hours later, we landed to Dubai, pretty well rested given we were on a flight.

Because our friends were flying first class, we had an escort help us get through security on god mode. Passed all the lines and were escorted over to the lounge.

The Emirates lounge in Dubai is the biggest lounge I’ve ever seen. I feel like it practically stretched the whole airport terminal. Again when we arrived it was pretty empty (we got in around 8pm), but I guess most of the flights are red eyes because by the time we left at 2:00 AM it was really really full.

We passed our 7 hours there doing calls. And then it was onwards to the Maldives!