Hal and Cheryl
We are a retired couple a bit past 60 and have undertaken an around the world adventure. We're visiting missionary friends in some out of the way places and enjoying some famous places where we don't know missionaries. We're going to:HalAndCheryl
Ethiopia Kenya Egypt Jordan Israel Ukraine Russia Cambodia Thailand China Philippines Korea Japan
Travel Blog Posts
February 7th 2010
In just over a week (15 Feb 2010) I'll be leaving on another Around the World adventure. When I told Cheryl what I wanted to do, she said, "See ya. Have a nice time!" So I'm off with my long-time travel buddy, Loren, on the 15th. (gotta stay with my Valentine on Valentine's Day, ya know) We'll be backpacking through SE Asia, Oceania, India/Nepal, Eastern Europe, UK and Iceland. If there's time, we may even hit some of Western Europe. Our first stop will be Bangkok and that's about the only place we have reservations (air or hotel). The only other reservations at the moment are flights from Kuala Lumpur to Melborne on 10 March and from Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur on 28 March (that would have been my dad's 99th birthday). The rest of the ... read more
April 22nd 2009
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 flights 13 different airlines 10 different aircraft 7,493 pictures taken 470 voice recordings 70 movie clips recorded 1 God who guided us the whole way We were surprised and pleased to see that our grandchildren had made ... read more
April 21st 2009
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 the farms are very small compared to the farms in our Midwest. Then about every 15 minutes or so, we came to a town with apartments and factories and industry of all sorts. Population, population, ... read more
April 18th 2009
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 found a machine that would take my US cash card. We were soon to discover, that it’s like this all over Japan. However, you’d think that an international airport the size of this one would ... read more
April 17th 2009
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 discovered in 198, the North Koreans claimed that the South Koreans had built it to infiltrate the north. Upon examination, the dynamite borings run from north to south. Oops said the North Koreans, I guess ... read more
April 16th 2009
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 canal and picked up on the sights that we missed from the bus, Our “get-off” focused on the first of the castle/temples that was on the tour. We could have stayed there for a year, ... read more
April 15th 2009
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 able to drive on the major highway only outside rush-hour times (i.e. 10:00-2:00). Since our hired van was restricted, we had to get in and get the van & driver in and out before he ... read more
April 9th 2009
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, Bible studies and pray times. We became familiar with some of the local Ifugao (the regional people group) customs and even visited an American expatriate living in a nearby town. We ate breakfasts by ourselves ... read more
The Long Journey - Beijing to Bagabag, Philippines
Published: April 17th 2009Asia » Philippines » Manila
April 7th 2009
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 (6,500 square miles). That’s more people than 46 of our 50 states and more land mass than 3 of our states. No wonder it takes a long time to pass through it. After a while ... read more
China Beijing sights & random thoughts
Published: April 7th 2009Asia » China » Beijing » Forbidden City
April 4th 2009
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. That’s down by 100 million from 20 years ago mainly due to their One Child law. By law Chinese couples may have only one child. If they exceed that number they must pay a fine ... read more
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