July 15, 2024

Back in my Happy Place!

I'm back! No trip home would be complete without a visit to my happy place Ocean City, New Jersey! I took NJ transit from 30th street station to Absecon ( stop before Atlantic City)  and my good friend Bonnie picked me up. Easy Peasy! Bonnie and Steve are the friends that hooked me up with my fabulous stay in Mexico for the month of January and offered me a stay in their lovely OCNJ home, this weekend. Bonnie is a beach and bike lover like myself and Steve is all about the fishing! I got in many bike rides courteous of my friend Laureen's beach cruiser, that Bonnie and Steve are currently housing for Laureen and Joe, since we have all sold our OCNJ homes.

On Thursday night after dinner, Bonnie and I went for a walk down to my old neighborhood. As we came up to the block, a huge rainbow lit up the sky and when we walked to my old house lot - I saw pansy flowers randomly popping up all among the plowed lot!

I took this as a special Hi and so happy to see you here, from Mom and Dad! So many great memories here!

Got to have some great beach time and circle conversations with my brother Michael and wife Joyce and friends Aida & Joe DeColli & Bonnie - also got to catch up with old neighborhood friends Kyle and Brian & Rose.

KOTA KINABALU, SABAH, MALAYSIA

By Pat Patrick • May 25, 2026
We only had about 8 hours of port time in KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia today, due to Port operations. I went out with Delia to see one of the most notable buildings in town, the floating mosque or Masjid Bandaraya. Our GRAB driver actually took our picture when we asked him to wait for us, and then take us to the mall afterwards.

SANTUBONG RIVER, SARAWAK, MALAYSIA

By Pat Patrick • May 23, 2026
MALAYSIA , on BORNEO ISLAND made palm seed oil their biggest export back in 1966 and was the top global exporter until 2008, when Indonesia surpassed them. Sadly, the resulting tropical deforestation has created major habitat losses and population declines for the Borneon Orangutans, Pygmy Elephants and Proboscis Monkeys . Many of us on the ship took tours to see these amazing creatures and I wanted to share some of their amazing photos too.

KUCHING, MALAYSIA - BORNEO ISLAND

By Pat Patrick • May 22, 2026
BORNEO ISLAND is a fascinating place, that I had honestly only heard of from the reality tv show Survivor. I'm still learning so much, but I had no idea it is the largest island in Asia and 3rd largest island in the World! It is a mini continent, with 3 different Countries sharing the island's land mass ( Indonesia 73%, Malaysia 26% and Brunei 1% ). We are only going to 2 ports in Malaysia now, one in each of the states of Sarawak and Sabah . Below is a video that highlights and explains thing well.