SPG Platinum Game Part II

So its a new year, 2014, not much has changed in the hotel industry, i have here a recent stay for my wife's birthday and how the SPG upgrade program works

First I book the cheapest room:

Sometimes they will upgrade you about a week ahead of check-in, sometimes you have to wait till the moment you check in to see if there will be an upgrade, this time i did get a suite:

Then you want to see how much is that suite worth... 

Yes, its still worth it to try to maintain elite hotel status

This is the view from one of the lanai...with my snack

The sitting area... it had a bunch of balloons and a birthday amenity waiting for me after dinner... super nice touch!

The only SPG property that i have been to that has NEVER upgraded me is the Nines, in Portland, Oregon

Google Glass Explorer's Program

As Google Glass is starting to get more widespread, I would like to talk about my experiences with Glass

I am currently on my second pair.  Google has been really good about taking care of Glass Explorers and getting defective units back to its research facility.

I did not fully understand what was going on with my Glass but it felt like it was slowly dying, according to my wife, i'm a head sweater, not armpit sweater like 'normal people'.  When i get slightly heated up, which is quite often here in Hawai'i, i sweat from my head, and while ive been doing this my whole life, i have been used to it.  Now with Glass attached to my face, I have to be more diligent about my head sweat since im lead to believe that is what killed my first pair of Glass. I dont see this as my fault and I'm glad Google did an RMA for me, I don't see it as Google's fault either but i wish Glass was more 'water resistant'.

Glass is great, from the new firmware that lets me finally wink to take photos with my split frames on.  The new RMA pair even has a date feature and the screw is much easier to replace between the standard Glass frame and my Rx Eyeglasses frame.

My most common questions include, "are you recording me right now?" and "what can glass do?" Its gets annoying really fast but after a few weeks im already immune to the sideway glances and stares... a few bold people just walk up to me and ask to try it on... of course i let them, but its difficult to understand Glass by only wearing it for a few minutes....

SPG Platinum: The Game

Starwood Preferred Guest program is a little daunting at first, many people say they only get upgrades to suites a very minimal amount of times... those people are either unlucky enough to travel during peak dates where other SPG Plats/VIPs beat them to the upgrade or unlucky to use the resources at their disposal...

Luckly, I am equipped with an iPhone, that means, as a SPG Platinum member, i receive free internet with my stay, so even though I'm abroad and my phone is left on airplane mode, i have access to SPG's website


I will describe a typical check-in

The W San Francisco - Booked a wonderful room

"I see your starwood number on file, thank you for being a valued platinum member, we have upgraded you to a nice room"

So i ask, "do you have any suites available?"

Where the receptionist would reply, I'm sorry, our suites are fully book for the evening.

So thanks to this wonderful invention called: the internet, i pull up this screen

Which the receptionist would inform you that it does not show up on their screen

at this point, you could either let it go, ask for a manager or tweet @SPG

I like managers....

After a few minutes of someone in the "back" suddenly my SPG app shows my room was "upgraded"

Published SPG Plat benefit

Bang & Olufsen

The other people checking-in next to me had similar conversations, requesting similar, to fail LOL

and YES there were 2 FULL BATHS

What a year its been!

Hello Life,

What a year its been!  Got married to Yelena Rudenko Sy.  We currently have a baby on the way, due Aug 9th 2012... about a couple of weeks more!

Here are some photos from Victoria Sharov from out last photo shoot, it was taken when Yelena was 36 weeks pregnant.

It was taken at Kahala Beach on O'ahu...

We have completely done up the entire nursery in Winnie-the-Pooh, hence the 2012 Pooh bear from Canada...

As you may know, my favorite brand of luxury goods is Louis Vuitton, here is a photo taken at a recent reception held in Ala Moana called the 'Art of Packing', we learnt how to pack a ton of things in a Keepall, an Alzer and a Pegase... 

Our last trip to Louis Vuitton nearly wiped out my bank account, but this is the last picture of my wife's goodies, minus the wallet thats in the Lockit...

So until next time folks....

So Tokyo, what can I say about you?

I first arrived in Haneda and stayed in the Hearton in Shinagawa Seaside... we were close to the bay so I decided it would be best to check out Tokyo Disneyland for a day then Tokyo DisneySea the next day. I love you DUFFY!

The next day we went to the island of Odaiba... VenusFort outlet shopping as well as a giant rainbow bridge and rainbow ferris wheel are some of the highlights, but I spent the most time at Toyota's largest showroom. Did you know there's a statue of liberty there as well? Did you also know there's a kitten store where they have a back room full of cats? Anyways, The MegaWeb where I finally checked out the Lexus CT 200h... It's a lot smaller that I would expect, but it still would be a great car.

Later, we headed on the Shinkansen Tokaido to Shin-Oksaka, the first thing I saw was tons of snow in Nagoya, where the winter olympics were held so I was slightly freaking out.

We luckly found a giant red check-in luggage. So it was a lot easier transporting all our goods we've acquired. On the trip back, I decided it would be a prime time to propose to Yelena.... she said yes! We celebrated by going to a 270yen dinner. LOL.

When we got back to Tokyo from Osaka, we made our base the Shibuya Tobu Hotel, which I must say has AMAZING customer service, I found a cardboard box, and the front desk person managed to find rope and a handle for me to transform it into a check-in luggage.

We did a lot of sightseeing. We met up with a good friend from college, Noriko. Some of the cities I was able to check out were Akihabra (Akiba), Shinjuku, like the government building.

The Haneda airport had the most lavish Hawaiian Airlines Premier lounge ever! We were the first people in there and it was like having 4 Japanese servants wait hand and foot... they had to teach me how to dispence hot water. I made off with a lot of aged scotch, cookies, and sushi galore. The massage chairs were coin operated, but they give you coins so you can sit as long as you want, and the internet is free as long as you enter your last name in ALL CAPS... goodness.

Bohol

So I guess I should consider myself very fortunate. I have been to many more destination that most I suppose, yet there are still people who travel more than I, but in the short time that I have been given to explore this earth, I have done my fair share of exploration.

Just recently, I went from Manila to Tagbilaran, Bohol. We stayed at the Dumaluan Resort on the island of Panglao. Food was very expensive at the resorts only resto so we asked the lifeguard at the pool who recommended a barber shop. This particular barbershop was a home business just a few kilometers walk from the resort and the owner was from Quezon City and was a chef. He made us chicken, and pancit canton, and spaghetti and chicken adobo.

The day tour brought us to the blood compact, a site where historically men slit their wrists, and dripped their blood it into their wine cups which they shared. We then went to historical churches, including the second eldest church in the Philippines. Following that, we visited the Tarsier. It's a little monkey creature with giant eyes, very cute and koala-like. Then we had lunch on a Loboc River Cruise, where the restaurant floats along the Loboc River and we are entertained by locals along the way. Then after fighting the crowds for the CR (comfort rooms, aka bathrooms, wash rooms, rest rooms), we ventured to a butterfly sancturaty where we saw bakla butterflies and learnt that mariposa are moths and they differ from butterflies in that they are active at night, whereas butterflies are active during the day.

Chocolate Hills, after an earthquake, caused the land to look like Hershey kisses.

Then we went to look for a bathroom at an animal sancturary. It was very cheap, and we were given Peacock Feathers which have fallen off, and was able to hold a baby python.

Worlds Largest and Longest Python (in captivity), and we were entertainted by the python princess, a bakla who sang and danced along to Lady Gaga.

Weight Loss

So many who have known me are surprised by the way I look today. It's simple really, I just stopped eating simple carbs. That includes rice, noodles, potatoes and bread. The reasoning behind this is I live a fairly active lifestyle, being a swimmer and runner, yet I weighed in at over 360lbs, even whilst eating ice cream and chocolate, which I wasn't willing to give up. Simple carbohydrates break down to simple sugars, which, if not burnt off become stored in the body as fat.