Patrick and Molly

After hearing the golden words "welcome home" from immigration, we grabbed our packs and headed for Waikiki. We love Hawaii and this was a very special trip for us - back to the US! Aside from being the grand finale to our long voyage around the Pacific, Pat's mother and grandparents also met us there to celebrate our homecoming. We also had some of our best friends from back home in town vacationing with their family. The only thing better than spending time in paradise is enjoying it with your family and friends. Of course we toured all the major sights, AZ memorial, North Shore, Dole Plantation, Diamondhead, Kona Brew Co. (for Uncle Dan of course), but by far the greatest highlight was snorkeling with Mor Mor and Debi in Hanauma Bay. The six foot ... read more

After three nights in Tokyo it was time to head south to Kyoto. We took one of the super fast Shinkansen trains and we were there within a few hours. The Kyoto train station is a massive open air complex that houses all sorts of offices, shops and restaurants. It also provides some great views of the whole city from the rooftop garden area. After after a tasty ramen and gyoza lunch we headed for our accomodation. We stayed at the unknowingly infamous Yuhara Ryokan (traditional Japanese guesthouse). The patrons are a mother and son family duo and quite possibly the sweetest people on earth. The Ryokan itself hasn't been updated since the first episode of the Brady Bunch. Our hostess was featured in the NY Times, LA Times, SF Chronicle and numerous news programs ... read more

We took the overnight train to Shanghai and were fortunate to have the cabin all to ourselves. The soft sleeper trains in China are fantastic! Very new, very clean, and super comfortable. We made our way to the new Pudong side of the river to check into our hotel (thanks for hooking it up Noonan). It was great having a few extra days to check out Shanghai before leaving China. We spent our first day walking through Xintiandi and the French Concession. We had an afternoon drink at a great bar called Face on the Rui Jin guesthouse grounds. That night we spent our time at the "Million Brands Mall", it's as big as it sounds, and saw the Pirates of the Caribbean III, in English thank god. They like their movies loud in Shanghai, ... read more

We arrived in Xi An with just enough time to squeeze in an afternoon bike ride around the ancient city wall. It was a lot of fun and the part when Pat's bike chain fell off and he almost landed in the hospital was pretty great too!! He's OK though... just a few bumps and bruises. That night we had dinner in the Muslim quarter of the city. We were given a large piece of flat bread which we had to tear into tiny pieces and put in our bowl. They took our bowl away and added some lamb stew which the bread shreds soaked up. It was very tasty! We also has this delicious sour plum juice to help cool off the spice... On our second day we woke up early and took a ... read more

We boarded one of the new high speed CRH Trains at Shanghai Train Station and made our way to Suzhou. It was quite exhilarating traveling at speeds over 200k per hour (120mph)! The high speed trains make towns like Suzhou very close suburbs of Shanghai with a speedy commute. Upon arrival we walked through the new train station's construction site to our transport bus bound for out hotel. Our hotel was in the middle of Suzhou's old town and a close walk to the markets and canal district. Our main objective in Suzhou was to meet with a representative from the parks district for a presentation on the city's well know gardens. It was a great experience having a meeting in an official Chinese municipal office. After a breakdown of the parks and the UNESCO ... read more