Bangkok is a great place to shop. You can find everything here from clothing to computer cables. Stores range from high-end Gucci and Prada (real and fake) in the huge malls to a small stand on the street selling sarongs. It's truly amazing. We ventured out to Pantip Plaza first, J's favorite spot. Pantip is full of small shops selling every computer related gadget you can imagine. Next we walked over to Central World, a mega-mall boasting the largest Christmas tree in Asia. After our shopping adventures, we met up with J's aunt and uncle for dinner and a movie. But [View Full Entry]

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We were greeted with a smile at the new Bangkok airport by Kuhn Deng who had been our driver on our visit 9 years ago and again 2 years ago. Deng has a top of the line van complete with AC and a DVD player. He is an avid US sports fan, so on our last visit we brought him a Seahawks cap. It was so nice to be with family again at J's uncle and aunt's house! J had been battling a cold since Tokyo and our first morning in Thailand he awakened with a case of food poisoning (dim-sum [View Full Entry]

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Both of us had been to Hong Kong before it was turned back over to the Chinese so we were interested to see the similarities and differences between that era and today. We stayed near Causeway Bay on the "Hong Kong side" meaning Hong Kong Island as opposed to Kowloon across the harbor on the mainland. Our hotel room overlooked a massive sports complex with indoor and outdoor pools. It was not far to the Bank of China tower which is 70 stories and was the tallest building in Hong Kong when I was last here in 1990. Today the tallest [View Full Entry]

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To escape the hustle and bustle, we walked down to the Hamarikyu Gardens just behind our hotel. Although we huffed a bit at the hefty entrance fee, we enjoyed this massive park very much. On a pond in the center sits a traditional Japanese teahouse. After taking off your shoes, you don a pair of slippers and sit either inside on tatami mats on the floor, or outside on the deck. We chose the deck and watched the ducks as we drank our green tea and ate the accompanying sweets. Simple and elegant, the epitomy of Japan. [View Full Entry]

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Well, we survived the longest flight of our journey: London to Tokyo in 11 hours! Still not as long as Seattle-Taipei at 13 hours which we've made 3 times before though. We arrived at Narita airport in the to sunny skies and a welcome warm temperature of 70 degrees. Narita has the most efficient arrival process of any airport we've seen. You are directed to Immigration where an airport employee stands at the head of one line (like the post office) and gestures to the next open booth. I contend that ALL queues should be one line with the person at [View Full Entry]

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We saved this post for the end of our time in Europe. Over the past few weeks we have had some stimulating conversations with Europeans on American politics. What amazes us most is their level of interest in our recent November 7th mid-term Congressional elections. Sadly, I personally would have no idea when elections were taking place in pretty much any other country, let alone know anything about the key players, parties, and issues at stake. Here are some excerpts from those conversations: 1) After a one hour discussion with a Dutch couple in Venice, the husband shook J's hand and [View Full Entry]

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The title of this post refers to the sign in the tube car on the way to our hotel. Cockfosters is the name of the last station at the Eastern end of the Piccadilly line so it's the equivalent of seeing "Orange Line to Vienna" in the DC Metro. Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? The first afternoon, we headed over to the discount ticket booth (TKTS like in Times Square) in Leicester Square to see if we could get tickets to that night's showing of Billy Elliot or Wicked. There are no shows Sunday, so this evening was our only chance. We [View Full Entry]

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The first night we ventured out to a nearby palacsinta place for a quick bite. Palacsintas are similar to crepes and can be sweet or savory depending on the filling. We had ham and mushroom in one, chocolate and vanilla pudding with whipped cream for the other. Prices were very reasonable, with the total with drinks coming in at around $5. Breakfast each day at our pension consisted of the standard hot chocolate, cereal and yogurt along with salami, ham, and cheese mini-sandwiches on hot dog bun shaped rolls. One day we stopped at a pastry stand for a little snack: [View Full Entry]

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J's paternal Grandmother is very proud to be Hungarian so we wanted to check out Budapest on this trip! Arriving at the airport and getting to our hotel had a similar feeling to it as when we arrived in Prague last year . We were told by the innkeeper that a private taxi company would be waiting for us with our name on a signboard when we came out of baggage claim. This much was true. The man ushered us outside to the curb and said in very poor English "wait here." He then disappeared back into the airport without further [View Full Entry]

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Today we took a ferry out to Suomenlinna, a sea fortress built in 1748 just outside of Helsinki. Over the years, it has been under control of the Swedish, Russians, and Finnish. The visitor's center has a great history museum. Check out J's spectacular photos of the sunset (remember, the sun set at 4:07 PM!). [View Full Entry]

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