Krakow, Poland. April 2023

 

Pictures taken during this trip can be seen at:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/esR97sEsLLEV2anv7

In late 2022, I was asked by a member of the Boeselager Foundation of Germany to join meetings to be held in Krakow Poland with members of the Albertine Brothers.  The foundation has supported the work of these brothers in Ukraine for over 10 years.  The purpose of the meetings was to allow the brothers to report on their work in Ukraine and to discuss further work in the years ahead. I readily agreed to join these meetings as the work of the brothers was clearly important and heroic given the ongoing war in Ukraine.  The original idea had been to visit the houses the brothers maintain in Lviv and Zaporizcha but obviously, that was no longer possible.   I	7:21 PM (4 hours ago)
I flew from Miami to Munich and then on to Krakow on April 1. I flew Lufthansa and was lucky as I managed to avoid the current ongoing strikes at German airports.
As I arrived a couple of days before others arrived for the meetings with the brothers, I was able to do a bit of tourism on my own. At a meeting on April 5, 2023, in Krakow,  Alexander Keyserlingk met with the current head of the Albertinian order and his predecessor in the context of their work with the Csilla von Boeselager Stiftung, Osteuropahilfe e.V.   The brothers commented that the number of members of the order had decreased drastically over the last years because they were having difficulty in recruiting new vocations to the order.   Alexander Keyserlingk made some remarks on this matter and his suggestions have been summarized here at the request of the brothers.   Alexander expressed a strong opinion that the brothers were not doing enough to make the order known and respected in the youth community.  He stressed that young people make their decisions on their future life choices based on information they have and on opinions they form about the possible life decisions they make.  He quoted a study made several years ago on the reasons for a lack of vocations in the Canadian Anglican church. That study concluded that young people were not opting to join the Anglican clergy at the same level as in the past because the work of the Anglican pastor no longer appeared to gather the same respect in society.  In the past, the pastor was considered, and was, the most educated person in most communities.  With the higher level of education in the population, pastors no longer commanded the same high level of respect and the work of a pastor no longer afforded the leadership role it had gained in the past.   Thus, the Albertinian order seems to be suffering a decreasing interest of the youth resulting in a gradual decrease in the number of brothers in the community. The reasons for this decrease in interest must be analyzed and understood. Means must be taken to counter this gradual disappearance of the order.   Alexander emphasized that it is the duty of the current leadership of the order to take drastic action to avoid the gradual disappearance of the order altogether. It is the duty of the current leadership of the order to recognize that times are changing and the youth of today take their life decisions based on different criteria than those of previous generations.     It is therefore vital for the current leadership of the order to become proactive in projecting the work of the Order to today's youth to convince them that opting for a life in the Albertinian order is fulfilling and satisfying given the work being done by the brothers. It is the duty of the current brothers to project to the youth of today how the order is fulfilling its goals.   In order to make known the work of the order, Alexander suggested that the brothers bring together a small group of lay marketing experts. This group should be asked to brainstorm with the brothers on how best to develop a plan for informing young people of the very important and respected work of the order. This group of experts should not necessarily look at the recruiting of new members as a religious activity but rather to look at solutions that address the societal aspect of career-making decisions by young people. The group should develop a real plan of projecting to the public the work of the order so that young people understand the importance of the work of the order and feel that joining the order will meet their aspirations for life in the years ahead.    Once the group has developed a marketing plan, the order should dedicate human and financial resources to implement the plan based on the advice and counsel of the experts who have joined the think tank group. The advisory group should continue to work with the brothers to implement the plan developed so that adjustments can be made in implementing the marketing plan.  Financial resources should be secured to ensure the plan can be implemented over months and years.   This matter must be approached with the same professionalism as is applied by any modern company or group when launching a new product into the market. The Albertinian order's future will depend on how effectively the plan is developed and put into action. The brothers should rely on the group of marketing experts to formulate a plan to make known its work and to attract the interest of young people to join in carrying on the important work of the order.    This work is so important to the order that the current leadership should dedicate the time and financial resources needed to save the order from gradual disappearance. The need for the services of the order is greater than ever before. It is the responsibility of the current leadership and members of the order to take the necessary steps to rebuild the ranks of the order to ensure that its work will continue into the next decades. There is no alternative but to act now as such a campaign will require time to provide positive results. I returned to Miami via Berlin where I spent one day. It was an impressive trip to be able to meet and get to know these valiant brothers who carry on their work despite the war.

Philippines, Taiwan and Vancouver June-July 2023

 

This trip started in June 2023 because of the suggestion of my former IFC  colleague from the Philippines, Manny Gonzalez. Manny suggested an alumni meeting at his 5-star hotel in Cebu, Philippines. He invited several former IFC  colleagues but only a few of us took up his invitation.  Take a look at the great website below:

https://plantationbay.com/

 

You can see pictures of this trip at:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/yfmUrx8tuvSM3Pdi8

 I made my flight arrangements in March for my flight in June. I decided I would go from Montreal to Cebu in the Philippines via Vancouver and Taiwan in one shot.  I always find the most stressful part of traveling by air is getting in and out of the airports. As a former pilot, I really do enjoy flying so taking 3 flights in a row and flying some 19 hours was the preferred route to get to my destination. I did make sure to build in sufficient connection time at each stop given how unreliable airlines are these days in keeping to schedule.

I boarded my Air Canada 8.30 PM flight in Montreal for Vancouver. As I went by the Air Canada check-in counters, I noticed that the queue was halfway around the airport. Poor people. They had over 2 hours just to check-in. This airport is obviously way over capacity.

 

The flight departed 90 minutes late. My next connection was in Vancouver for Taipei leaving Vancouver at 0200 on Tuesday morning.  I made that connection despite the late departure from Montreal.   After an uneventful 11-hour flight on Eva Air, we landed in Taipei at 0500. The last leg left Taipei left on time and landed in Cebu at 10.30 on Wednesday morning. I had just traveled 28 hours since leaving Montreal. 

 I was met at the airport by the hotel car which was a lovely Jaguar sedan driven by Archie in proper hotel attire.  

 

After a 45-minute drive from the airport through Mactan to Lapu-Lapu City, we arrived at the beautiful Plantation Bay Hotel.  This hotel was launched by Manny back in 1996 and has operated since that time with  253  rooms.    

The layout (see the above website) is around a large body of water in a man-made lagoon salt water swimming pool with 15 colonial-style buildings of 10 to 15 rooms each facing this huge lagoon. There are another 6 buildings built around additional freshwater swimming pools.  The rooms are decorated in a beautiful Philippine style with hardwood furniture and glazed brick floors.  The bathrooms are all done with local sandstone walls and are very spacious.  In fact, the whole facility is like living in a small village with stores and 4 restaurants.   Manny has had a hand in developing all aspects of the facility and has invested heavily in training his staff.  Each year he sends a group of 5 to 10 managers off for training to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.  In front of each building, Manny has written on a 4-foot table an explanation of the various building names. Each name represents a different place in the world and he has provided a bit of history about that place. Our building was called EDO HALL, the ancient capital of Japan.

Already in the first days here,  I had the feeling that this place has a friendly, almost family atmosphere with a staff of 400 people who are extremely capable and polite. In true Philippine tradition, one is greeted by all staff with: "Good day, Sir".

On my first day, I was rather tired out from the trip despite having managed to get some 8 hours of sleep in short bursts during the flights.  I had lunch and dinner with Manny and retired early for the night.

In the next few days, former colleagues David Smith, a Brit living in New Zealand and a Dutchman, Ton De Wilde living in Thailand also arrived. David migrated to New Zealand from the UK several years ago to be close to his 2 daughters who now live there. 

Ton had been a consultant working with David and me on various projects. Ton is now practicing his skills as an inventor. He has set up his small factory where he converts shredded plastic waste with sawdust as organic waste. Using a process he calls torrefaction, his machine produces biochar which can be used as charcoal. He hopes that the product can be used in steel making. He estimates this would save 50% of Co2 emissions. We wished him luck in his new adventure.

There followed several days of 2 or 3-hour-long breakfasts, lunches, and dinners during which we reminisced about our time together at the IFC. It was such a pleasure to meet up again after more than 20 years.  We had so much in common and could tell stories for hours on end.  It was truly a reunion of like-minded people. Manny was an excellent host.

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Our host Manny had been with IFC for some 8 years. During this time, David, Manny, and I worked on various projects in Mexico. We also worked with Joan McDonald who had tried to join us in the Philippines. We did manage to have a Zoom meeting with Joan who was home in Pennsylvania. We shared our Hawaii evening event with her.

After IFC, Manny went off to New York, Hong Kong and then returned to the Philippines.  He is from the island of  Cebu, one of the 2000 inhabited islands of this country of 7640 islands. and 113 million people.   On his return from his time abroad, he bought a piece of land with some partners with the intent of selling it.  One day at lunch with an old aunt, Manny told of his difficulties in selling the plot because it lacked access to the ocean.  Auntie asked him to show her a map of the area.  To Manny's surprise, Auntie informed him that she, in fact, owned the adjacent land which gave access to the ocean.  She agreed to lease the land to Manny. Thereupon, Manny decided to build a hotel on the new combined piece of land. Thus came about the stunning Plantation Bay hotel. It is, in fact, a self-contained village with 253 rooms, a beautiful spa, stores, a tennis court, and 4 very nice restaurants providing a wide variety of top-class food. 

What is particular about this resort, is the extent to which Manny has had a hand in developing so many of the aspects of his hotel into a world-class installation. The concept of the hotel, as well as the development of his capable staff, were his major contributions. Both have turned out to be the basis of the success of the venture.  The project has weathered the recent Asian economic crisis, a cyclone that destroyed much of the resort, and more recently, the Covid shutdown which killed tourism for the duration.  Today,  the hotel is operating at times at 80% capacity and has developed a faithful clientele that returns regularly because they love spending time here.

Manny suggested we use the spa facilities which I did 3 times during my stay. My first massage was a full 3.5 hours and did a world of good. I followed up on two other days with David Smith who also took advantage of these lovely facilities.  The layout is all in Japanese style including steam baths, hot tubs, and saunas.  There are some 12 individual massage rooms that are done in stone and are very cozy. The facility is written up in the description of the Spas of this world. The massage girls are all highly qualified and powerful little ladies.

On our fourth day, we decided to take up the offer of a day off-shore to do some snorkeling and to have a picnic on some neighboring islands, Olango and Banacon.  As one can see from the pictures, the local people use a very unique type of boat for fishing, tourism, and general transport. These boats are about 35 feet long and are very narrow-hulled. In order to provide stability, the boats are fitted with outriggers on both sides made of bamboo.  The result is well-balanced boats that look like spiders gliding across the water.  Boarding the boats is a balancing act requiring long bamboo poles held by two persons on which one holds on while walking the narrow boarding ramps.  We left early in the morning and headed out to an island about 2 km off the coast.  We anchored in about 6 meters of water. We put on our flippers, masks, and snorkels and jumped into the clear water. We were given a couple of hours to swim around and watch the many tropical fish. When we left our spot at least 20 more tourist boats had pulled up so that the spot was teeming with humans and fish.  We then proceeded to a second island an hour further out. Here we landed and were directed to an area that had huts with bamboo roofs and tables.  The island itself had been hit hard by a typhoon some 18 months earlier. The roof of the main building had been blown off and had not yet been repaired. In fact, one saw everywhere ruins from the typhoon.

 

The hotel had provided a nice picnic lunch which was still warm although we had been underway some 4 hours already.  After lunch, we headed back to the hotel which took almost 2 hours over choppy water. Underway, the crew was busy propping up the supports holding up the roof over our heads but the rest of the boat held together. 

That evening was Hawaii night at the hotel. This consisted of a vast buffet set up on a beach area followed by a troop of dancers doing typical Hawaiian dances. In fact, the dancers were all local hotel staff who had learned these dances and who earned extra salaries for doing these routines.  A fun evening.

On our last day, we decided to do some tourism and to visit Cebu City. The city has a population of 3 million.   Cebu  City was in fact, the first capital of the Spanish colony in the Philippines. Later, the capital was moved to Manila.

Lapulapu is widely known for the Battle of Mactan. On April 27, 1521, he and his men defeated the Spanish forces, led by Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his native allies Rajah Humabon and Datu Zula.^[6][7] Magellan's death ended his voyage of circumnavigation and delayed the Spanish occupation of the islands by over forty years^[8] until the expedition of Miguel López de Legazpi in 1564. Legazpi continued the expeditions of Magellan, leading to the colonization of the Philippines for 333 years.

Modern Philippine society regards him as the first Filipino hero because of his resistance to imperial Spanish colonization. 

One can see some remnants of that period in a cathedral and an old fort. Otherwise, it is a teeming city and really not very attractive. After dropping off our Dutch colleague at the airport, David and I returned to the hotel by  1pm.

 

The next day, I flew to Taipei, Taiwan. I decided to break up my return trip with a day of tourism in Taipei and a couple of days of visiting my sister in Vancouver.

In Taipei, I checked into the Hilton Sinban which is a very modern 32-story building.  With a total population of 24 million, Taiwan is a very prosperous place.  Taipei, the capital, has a population of 7 million and is a clean and well-organized city.

On the following noon,  the thermometer measured around 43 Celsius or 100 Fahrenheit.   With the heat index, the outside air felt like 116 degrees Fahrenheit.  I headed off to revisit the icon of this nation which is the 101 story, Taipei 101 building.  It stands visible from almost anywhere in the city and is quite an impressive piece of architecture. I have provided many pictures in the attached album. The most impressive thing about this building is a huge 5.5 meter in diameter steel ball weighing 660 tons which is suspended from the top floor down to the 88th floor and acts as a counterweight in case of winds and earthquakes.  It apparently works as the building has stood for several decades now.  I would not want to experience such an event at 88 stories above ground. 

They offer a visit to an external observation deck above floor 101 with a safety harness included for about US $ 100. I did not take them up on the offer as I felt it was too expensive to be scared out of my mind at that altitude. I doubt I would have done it even for free...

 

That evening I had a nice hotpot dinner with  Colin Norman,  the grandson of a very dear deceased friend Keith Norman. Colin has opted to live permanently in Taiwan and has been there for 13 years now. He loves the place and speaks fluent Mandarin.  I had not used my Mandarin in over 10 years as I am now learning Russian.  My Mandarin was too rusty to be of any use which was a bit frustrating as I had once been able to converse in that language. 

 

After dinner, I headed to the airport which is some 40 miles out of town but which has an excellent highway directly from the city. In fact, most of the infrastructure of Taiwan is very modern and impressive with elevated highways criss-crossing the city and running smoothly without the huge traffic jams one sees in Beijing and other mainland China cities.

The flight to Vancouver on Eva Airways in the executive economy cabin was long but comfortable. I arrived in Vancouver on the same Thursday evening I left Taipei and managed to have dinner with my sister on that same day.  A long day.  I slept well that night in Vancouver.

I spent the next two days catching up with my sister who has lived most of her life in Vancouver. I also managed to see several cousins and my grandson Emmett who is finishing his teaching degree at UBC. Emmett grew up in Montreal and went to school in French. He will now be teaching history and other subjects using his French language skills. 

 

I flew back to Montreal on Air Canada. The flight left over an hour late. On arriving in Montreal, our flight was not assigned a normal gate and we were loaded into ancient buses. In fact, the bus took over an hour to get from the plane to the terminal, a distance of about 200 meters.  We were dumped at the furthest point away from the exit. Then we had to wait a further hour in a queue to get a taxi.  All in all, it took over 3 hours from landing until I was in a cab heading home.   The Montreal airport is overloaded and cannot handle the volume of traffic.  Recently, my brother-in-law had to wait over 2 hours to recover his checked-in bags from a flight from Europe. Avoid that airport if you can.