We finally made it back home. We left Tokyo at 4:15 PM on April 22, flew 11 hours and arrived in Minneapolis at 1:15 PM on April 22. In other words we got back three hours before we left. I’ve crossed the International Dateline at least three times in my life, but I still don’t understand it. We flew a Northwest 747 back and got to sit in the upper deck. That’s also a first for me. Here’s a recap of our trip by the numbers: 13 foreign countries visited 28 hotels/beds slept in 19 airports visited 20 separate fli [View Full Entry]

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Ah, Tokyo - Pearl of the Orient. We didn’t spend much time in Tokyo, just a day and that one was pretty rainy. But guess what: rain lends itself (and Cheryl) to --: that’s right, shopping! Our early morning Shinkansen (bullet train) from Kyoto allowed us to watch the countryside out the window. It seems that everywhere we look there are people. The country is mostly mountainous so that 95% of the population lives on 5% of the land. There are lots of farms in that stretch - mostly rice with a few other vegetables mixed in for flavor. Of course [View Full Entry]

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Saturday was another full day of travel. We left our Seoul hotel about 6:30 AM for the bus ride to the airport. We had worked our Korean currency down to the point where after paying for the bus, there was only about 7 cents worth of Korean Won left. Fortunately, Burger King at the airport takes Visa. Our Japan Airlines 767 was comfortable but nothing fancy. We arrived at Tokyo’s Narita airport late afternoon and had bit of a hassle to find an ATM that accepts foreign cash cards. Up and down, back and forth to and fro until finally, I [View Full Entry]

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After the Korean War (1950-1953) the parties agreed to a truce that call the 38th parallel north the line of demarcation between the two Koreas, North and South. In between the two countries an area was established to separate them. In my opinion, the highlight of the tour was the first stop, the Third Infiltration Tunnel. This tunnel stretches for 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) starting in North Korea and running under the DMZ into South Korea. It is 2 meters high by 2 meters wide (6’ 6” X 6’ 6”) and is capable of moving 300,000 troops per hour. When first [View Full Entry]

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The next morning (no too early) we hopped a subway for downtown and hooked up with the half-day bus tour of Seoul’s palaces. It’s not really a full half-day since we only get one ride around the city for a 1½ hour tour of the palace sites, but it was just right for us. We were most impressed with the canal area with its sculptures of Korean life. WE could get off and get back on as many times as we like, but after one 2-hour stint at a single pair of castles, we were toast! We walked back to the [View Full Entry]

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Our scheduled departure from SIL Bagabag was 4:30 AM Easter Monday. Our destination was Manila and the main highway, EDSA (I have no idea what the acronym stands for), only allows certain vehicles access from 10 AM to 2 PM. They call it color coding, although there are no colors involved. I gather that it means that if your license plate number ends in a 1 or 2 you can drive in Manila on Mondays and if it ends in a 3 or 4 you can drive there on Tuesdays, etc. If your vehicle does not meet the criteria, you are [View Full Entry]

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The reason for choosing to come to the Philippines at this time is so that we could spend Easter with our Friends, Carl & Cheryl Rich and their15-year old son David. This and our Exodus tour starting in late February were really the two anchor dates for our whole trip. Fortunately, the rest of the people we were to visit were flexible enough to accommodate a couple of aging Americans with a thirst for adventure. Our time leading up to Good Friday services found us exploring the SIL compound and surrounding towns with Carl and Cheryl. We visited classrooms, school activities, [View Full Entry]

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We left Beijing mid-morning Sunday for our overnight train to Guangzhou (AKA Canton and pronounced “gwong JOE”) in southern China. We could have flown for about two hours to make the connection for our next flight, but then we’d fly over about half of China north to south. We opted instead for a sleeper train where we could at least look out the window as the countryside and the people flashed by. The scenery was very urban for what seemed like an eternity leaving Beijing. But the then it is a city of 17 Million people and about 17,000 square kilometers [View Full Entry]

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There are dozens of must see sights in China. With our limited time, we had to pare that down to the sights in Beijing. Of those, the biggies are 1) the Olympic stadia, 2) the Forbidden City and 3) Tiananmen Square. There are plenty of others like Ming city wall ruins, Lama Temple, Temple of Heaven, the summer Palace, Beijing Zoo, the new National Center for Performing Arts and the list goes on. We saw them all. However, I’d like to get to sleep sometime tonight and you probably would too. China is a country with a population of 1.3 billion. [View Full Entry]

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How can you go to China and not climb on the Great Wall? Early the next morning, we arose, shone and departed with our 7-person tour to the closest site, the town of Badaling. There are three good spots to experience the wall. Badaling is a) the one closest to Beijing, b) the best preserved/restored, c) the most overrun with tourists. That’s where we’re going. The Great Wall of China was built from the 5th century BC to the 16th century AD. It is estimated that 2 to 3 million Chinese lost their lives during the 2,100 years that it took [View Full Entry]

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