Golferb1

Sunday, March 18, 2012 Sadly, we had to leave today to return to reality. We thoroughly enjoyed our stay in Japan. A couple of observations made about Japan. 1. There are no people on the streets begging (we did see two homeless people at the Tokyo train station). 2. Everyone that we encountered spoke a little English to get by. 3. Everyone bows out of respect. 4. No trash cans anywhere except in the hotel room or in the toilet area of the trains. 5. There is no trash anywhere 6. Everyone respected each other no matter what. 7. People would come out of nowhere to help us. 8. When the Japanese are sick, they all wear mask. 9. A lot of school children were seen on tours. 10. The Japanese seem to be ... read more

Saturday, March 17, 2012 Today is St, Patrick’s day in the US. We have not been home for St. Patty’s day in years, always been traveling. We are scheduled to visit Nikko today. This is about a two hour train ride. Cindy and Jenny slept in today, almost 8:00 am before they woke up. I got Michael up because he wanted to work out. Today was the only rainy day of our trip. It was light, but annoying and very cold. After a very quick breakfast (not as good as the Osaka Hilton), we reserved a train to Nikko. We had to take two trains, a JR rail and then a local train. This city is a fairly small and easy to walk around. We did not arrive until 1:30 pm, the site we ... read more

Thursday, March 15, 2012 I was up at 5:00 am this morning. Since everyone was still asleep, except Jenny, I went to the hotel lobby to work on my blog. When arriving in the lobby there was a man, in a suit with his briefcase, sleeping in a chair. Within 10 minutes he moved to the floor for sleeping. By 5:30 am, it looked hotel security woke him up and asked him to leave. This is pretty funny. Jenny was skyping a friend when I returned to the room around 6:45 am. We headed to breakfast around 8:00 am. Breakfast was as good as Wednesday. I had the yummy Miso Soup again. We made our way to the Osaka train station to get our seat reservation for our journey to Hiroshima. We arrived around ... read more

Tuesday, March 13, 2012 In typical fashion, I was up at 5:00am, jet lag, what is that? Since everyone was still sleeping that early, took my computer to the hotel lobby to check email, etc. While walking in the hall and standing in the elevator, there was a very faint sound of birds over the speaker system. What a relaxing way to start your day. Around 8:00 am everyone was up and ventured down to the hotel restaurant. The breakfast was a nice mix of Japanese and American fare. We packed the couple of bags we carried on and heading to the lobby to plan our day since the original plans changed due to our late arrival. Today our plan included a visit to the Tokyo tower, Kamakura to see the Great Buddha, and ... read more

Back in Portsmouth, NH this week. Arrived very late last evening, early morning. I had an excellent flight on Continental/United from Houston via Newark to Boston. Amazingly, our planes left on time and arrived on time in both locations. This is awesome news. This week I am staying at a Homewood Suites by Hilton. Arriving at 12:30am in the morning, I did not know what to expect at this hotel, or any hotel that time of night. Pleasantly surprised the front desk person was friendly as you can be at that time of the morning. This hotel is fairly close the one I stayed at that last week, however this week is much nicer. It is located in a small residential area and plenty of walking/running areas. Early in the morning I was up and running. ... read more

Today was a busy day here in Portsmouth, NH. I ended up working late this evening. One of my co-workers said he liked this small seafood restaurant outside of Portsmouth, Badgers Island, to be exact. For dinner, we ate seafood. The restaurant is Hebert Brothers Seafood (http://www.hebertbrothers.com/). This restaurant defines a "hole in the wall," in a good way. The restaurant is located on Badgers Island, north of Portsmouth, NH by one minute. The exterior of the building is very basic. To the right of the building are picnic tables, a good place to be during the warmer summer days/nights. Tonight it was cold for this southerner. Amazingly, the inside of the restaurant had no more than 10 tables. These tables are not your typical restaurant tables, they folding card tables with matching folding chairs. You ... read more

This morning started my week long business trip to Portsmouth, NH. This week will be the longest business trip I have taken since the end of July. Felt a little odd packing, driving to the airport, going through security, and dealing with delays. We were about 40 minutes delayed leaving Houston today due to fog. Once we finally left American Airlines moved quickly to arrive in DFW. I have 20 minutes from when I landed to when my connecting flight to Boston was scheduled to depart. I arrived at the American gate with 10 minutes to spare. Amazingly they mentioned my name at the gate and when I got to the plane, the flight crew welcomed me again by name and told me that they had space for my bags set aside (I was sitting in ... read more