August 21, 2024

Meeting my cousin Gerard for first time in person.

My maternal grandmother, Anne Conway was the fourth born of twelve siblings. Her brother Tom was #10 and ten years younger. My Mom Mom left Castlebar, Co. Mayo Ireland for the USA in 1929, at the age of 21. Tom later moved to England, first Liverpool and then married and moved to Birmingham, England. I believe my grandmother never saw her brother Tom again, who would have been 11, after she moved away.

 Gerard is Tom & Nora's only son and he goes between Birmingham and Stoke on Trent and works as an electrical engineer, for GE. Gerard and I have exchanged emails and notes over the years, as we were introduced by other Mayo cousins and both of us had looked into tracing our family's history. I reached out to Gerard to see if we could possibly meet when I went with group to Liverpool, this past weekend. Gerard agreed, since his home is only about an hour away. So Sunday, we meet at the Albert Docks and caught up over a nice brunch at Botanicals Cafe. Then we enjoyed the sunshine and open air on top the Hop on and off bus getting off to see St. Luke's Farm Market and the interior of the Liverpool Anglican Cathedral.   

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After a couple of hours touring and getting to know each other, we went back to Albert docks to join the Beatles Magical Mystery Tour.

ENTERING HONG KONG HARBOR

By Pat Patrick • September 1, 2026
On Saturday August 29, 2026 we achieved another historic milestone on this circumnavigation of the World , we cruised into Hong Kong Harbor. Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. The land encompassed by Hong Kong is confusing. It includes part of the southern coast of mainland China, just below Shenzhen, Hong Kong Island, Kowloon and the New Territories . Looking at a map helps, but the rules changed so many times! I asked my buddy Chat several times, to tell me if what I was looking at was the Hong Kong that the British had owned for years. The answer was never straight forward!

HA LONG BAY, VIETNAM

By Pat Patrick • August 31, 2026
Ha Long Bay in Vietnam is one of those bucket list places I have had in my sights for years. It's the iconic picture in my mind's eye, whenever I think of Vietnam . We had made plans to go with 8 others on a brand new, swanky Red Dragon Junk boat for a harbor cruise and overnight stay, but sadly the weather did not cooperate the whole 4 days we were in port. No ships were permitted to sail, per the local government. Many of us were bummed! This is typhoon session and there was a lot of rain and high winds our first couple of days - we were hoping it would blow out the last day and we could at least do a day trip but no luck! 

HAI VAN PASS to HUE, VIETNAM

By Pat Patrick • August 30, 2026
To get to the final stop on our Vietnam FUN Tour in Hue, we had our driver take us on the scenic route called the Hai Van Pass. This 3 hour drive took us back through Da Nang and then into mountains and along coast for what is generally a very scenic route. Unfortunately for us, it was mainly covered in clouds and fog.