Travel – FunkyPilot

Living and Working in China during the Coronavirus Outbreak
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Living and Working in China during the Coronavirus Outbreak
Aviation, My Story, Travel, Uncategorized

Living and Working in China during the Coronavirus Outbreak

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2020-02-15T14:10:07+08:00February 14th, 2020|Aviation, My Story, Travel, Uncategorized|

14-day Curfew in Hangzhou So, I have been stuck in my apartment for the last week or so. That’s because I live in Hangzhou, China, and there are some restrictions in place. I had a two-night trip from China to Cambodia recently. When I came back to Hangzhou, the gate guards at my apartment complex told me about the new restrictions. All this, of course, because of the coronavirus outbreak. I was told I should stay home for the next 14-days. They told me the 14-day rule is not a complete house arrest though, I could leave my apartment if I needed to leave the country, or if I had a work trip. I had to get a work-proof letter from my company explaining I work as a pilot. The letter would allow me to leave my apartment complex if necessary. This was about a week ago, and things [...]

Greece Vacation, Part 4 – Costa Navarino, Peloponnese – The Westin Resort
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Greece Vacation, Part 4 – Costa Navarino, Peloponnese – The Westin Resort
Cities, Countries, Hotels, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 4 – Costa Navarino, Peloponnese – The Westin Resort

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-03-04T19:52:19+08:00March 4th, 2018|Cities, Countries, Hotels, Travel|

Greece Vacation, Part 4 - Costa Navarino, Peloponnese In this post I will introduce our next stop in Peloponnese peninsula in our Greece vacation. Take a look at my previous Greece Vacation posts for the full story if you are planning to visit Athens or somewhere else in Greece. In my previous post I talked about our visit in a beautiful seaside town called Nafplio in the Peloponnese peninsula of Greece. From Nafplio we continued driving to our next destination called Costa Navarino. Driving through Peloponnese With the guidance of my GPS based Sygic Navigation app and Google Maps it was supposed to take us around 2 hours 36 minutes to reach to our destination - Supposed that is; It took us a lot longer. During this leg of our road trip our GPS guidance wasn't very reliable. We took a few wrong turns driving through couple [...]

Greece Vacation, Part 3 – Nafplio – Seaport Town in Peloponnese
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Greece Vacation, Part 3 – Nafplio – Seaport Town in Peloponnese
Cities, Countries, Hotels, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 3 – Nafplio – Seaport Town in Peloponnese

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:08:00+08:00February 10th, 2018|Cities, Countries, Hotels, Travel|

How to Spend a Day in Nafplio, Peloponnese In my Destination Greece: Part 1 and Part 2 I talked about our road trip in Greece I did with my wife in November of 2017. Our choices of destinations were mostly based on my research of best things to do in Greece among other reasons. The trip started from Athens with a short stop in Ancient Corinth, then we continued driving on to Nafplio (also could be written as Nafplion). We decided to visit Nafplio because I found in many travel guides it was one of the top places to visit while in Greece. It was also conveniently located for us on our trip through the Peloponnese peninsula. Nafplio has a long, interesting history, has beautiful scenery, and it used to be the capital of Greece long time ago. Because of my short vacation time and many other places we [...]

Greece Vacation, Part 2 – Ancient Corinth
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Greece Vacation, Part 2 – Ancient Corinth
Cities, Countries, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 2 – Ancient Corinth

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-12T21:51:34+08:00January 22nd, 2018|Cities, Countries, Travel|

In my Destination Greece Part 1 post I talked about our visit in Athens. I was in Greece on a vacation with my wife, and first we spent three nights in Athens. From there we rented a car and went for a road trip. The car rental was effortless. There was a Sixt car rental office at the Hilton Athens hotel, which made the drop off at the end of the rental period convenient because that's the hotel where we spent our last night in Greece. I booked a small Toyota car but I got a free upgrade to a BMW X1. Such a smooth ride! This was only my second time renting from Sixt but I have a good status with the company as I explained in my post Pilot's Guide to Hotel Benefits. With the wheels under us we were ready for a road trip! [...]

Greece Vacation, Part 1 – Top Ten Places to Visit in Athens
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Greece Vacation, Part 1 – Top Ten Places to Visit in Athens
Cities, Countries, Travel

Greece Vacation, Part 1 – Top Ten Places to Visit in Athens

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T14:19:03+08:00January 15th, 2018|Cities, Countries, Travel|

I travel a lot for my work but the best trips still are the vacation trips that I have with my wife. That is when we are free to do what we want without worrying about possible schedule change. Why Greece? Our recent leisure trip was in Greece . We chose to visit Greece because it is essentially the birth place of western civilization with thousands of years of history. Although I had visited Athens once before as a kid I wanted to visit there again at an older age now that I can better appreciate different cultures. Also Greece was a convenient location to visit from Dubai where I happened to be training just before my vacation. My last day of training was October 29th and we flew to Athens on 30th. I made a travel plan before our trip and found out this was really not the [...]

Corporate Pilot’s Guide to Hotel Benefits
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Corporate Pilot’s Guide to Hotel Benefits
Hotels, Travel

Corporate Pilot’s Guide to Hotel Benefits

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2019-04-04T14:44:50+08:00January 10th, 2018|Hotels, Travel|

Hotels, hotels, hotels 2109 update - Marriot, SPG, and The Ritz-Carlton Hotels have now combined their loyalty program into one combined program, that is called "Marriott Bonvoy". The loyalty benefits are still almost the same as before. However, there are now six membership levels: Standard Member, Silver Elite, Gold Elite, Platinum Elite, Titanium Elite, and Ambassador Elite. Details of the program benefits and how to reach each level can be found here. Good think for the customers is that there are now more than 6700 hotels and resorts using the same loyalty program - many hotels to choose from! Below is the old blog post that you may still find interesting to read. How to Maximize your Hotel Benefits That's the topic of the day. It is not the most exciting subject but I feel it is necessary for me to talk about hotels before I start posting more travel related articles. Hotels [...]

Destination: Anchorage, Alaska
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Destination: Anchorage, Alaska
Cities, Countries, Travel

Destination: Anchorage, Alaska

By FunkyPilot - Vesa|2018-02-15T16:33:45+08:00January 3rd, 2018|Cities, Countries, Travel|

Stuck in Anchorage This post should give you a good overview of a corporate pilot life. Last April I got stuck in Anchorage for about a week and this is how it happened. This post is about Anchorage, but let me first do a quick recap of the events that led me there. The aircraft I currently fly is a Bombardier Challenger 605. It is a medium size business jet with seats for 12 passengers, two pilots, and one flight attendant. All aircraft need to undergo regular maintenance inspections annually or between certain flight cycles. Our Challenger aircraft is required to have a major maintenance inspections every year in which the aircraft is essentially taken apart and then everything is put back together. During the inspection the parts that are worn out or otherwise need replacing are replaced. This inspection usually takes three to four weeks to complete [...]