Tokyo - Written Saturday evening, after 7pm Japan time, en route to Bangkok We’re back in the air, Japan behind us and Bangkok, Thailand in our immediate future. The six hour flight barely registers as an annoyance with our memory fresh with the thirteen hour trip from Chicago to Tokyo. We opted to pay about eighty dollars extra for the extra five inches of space that United adds to “economy plus” seating (that’s economy plus Roger’s knees, which we elected not to leave in Japan). We will prepare another entry collecting our various general impressions of [View Full Entry]

---

---

No reason, just had to use the reference while we were still in Japan..... Written on March 7, 2006 - Tuesday - 11:12 am Here we are again on the shinkansen bound for Tokyo. Our Japan Rail pass expires today and so this is the last bullet train we will take. We wish we could take these trains around the world. They are privately owned and operated, clean, comfortable, easy to use, fast and on time (to the minute). They don’t remind us of Amtrak at all. The Japan Rail pass allows for unlimited travel within a certain time frame and [View Full Entry]

---

---

9:30 a.m. We’re back on the bullet train, Hiroshima at our backs and Kyoto in front of us. We had a full two days in Hiroshima. The city is very comfortable, the people are friendly and, at least in our case, extraordinarily hospitable, and the local cuisine delectable. Hiroshima is so synonymous with the conclusion of World War II that it is redundant to mention it. August 6, 1945. Atom Bomb. It’s s little surreal coming from a culture that uses atomic terms to sell Mountain Dew and going to a place where the entire city remains consumed by the reality [View Full Entry]

---

---

Tokyo time 9:35am We are currently on the shinkansen (the bullet train) headed from Tokyo to Hiroshima and the scenery is whizzing by. It’s a diverse mix of seascape, mountains, agricultural land, and high density homes and businesses. Every flashing vista is different. Last night we landed in Tokyo, cleared immigration and customs, retrieved our bags, obtained cash and left the airport by 6:00 pm. By the time, we took the train into Tokyo, changed lines to the Ikebekuro station and located our hotel 2.5 hours later, it was cold and rainy and we were exhausted and hungry. We do [View Full Entry]

---

---

So we’re finally off. As we type this we are flying over the Cherskogo Mountains in Siberia. We’ve spent the last week packing, repacking, moving our remaining things in to storage, saying our good-byes and eating the things we will miss (Hi, Fuddrucker’s!). The various miracles of technology have enabled us to type this as we fly as well as to watch two episodes of The Office that we downloaded. Forty minutes of TV may not seem like a lot, but the in-flight movies included The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which is almost as bad as Bio-Dome with Pauly Shore (intern [View Full Entry]

---

---

Note: we wrote this over a week ago but Amy just realized it was never published. Oops! Kyoto will hopefully be up in a day or 2. Before leaving on our around the world trip we made visits to Roger’s parents in Southern Utah and Amy’s in Kansas City, Kansas. Both trips were great fun and it was very nice to spend uninterrupted time with out families before taking off for the year. Both visits also passed way too quickly and it was very hard to say goodbye to our parents. Our first day in Utah was spent in Nevada in [View Full Entry]

---

---

We leave in a week but our itinerary continues to evolve. As you can see we have built in lots of flexibility because we know what we want to see might change. Throw in the odd civil war or massive worker's strike and let's just say it pays to be flexible. Our flexibility should make it easy for us to connect with visitors if anyone has an interest in meeting us along the way. We would also love to know if you have any suggestions, recommendations, or contacts. And by contacts Roger means people who will feed him. Twinkies. February 28, [View Full Entry]

---

---

Everyone is curious about our shots. We got them from Smartravel International Health Clinic in Alexandria, Virginia. We had the following shots (costs are per person): Polio - $49 Hepatitis A (2) - $160 Hepatitis B (3) - $240 Yellow Fever - $95 Flu Shot - $35 Oral Typhoid - $80 Meningitis - $120 Tetanus (Amy only) - $50 Total per person = $779 for Roger and $829 for Amy. We decided not to get the vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis because the side effects suck and we shouldn't have a high risk while we are in Asia (we will generally b [View Full Entry]

---

---

We were in New York from Jan. 12-16. Rather than giving you a play-by-play of our weekend, we wanted to provide a list of what we enjoyed. In order to put our experience in context, 2 things are important to know about us. First, we're not big museum people and rarely do anything touristy in New York. We like to walk around the city and take in all of the different interesting neighborhoods. Second, we like cheap delicious food and like to treat the city as one big tapas menu so we have a little bit to eat at a bunch [View Full Entry]

---

---