Got up early today and headed out to go visit Phi's (bro-in-law) in-laws home down south. Evidently they have some type of farm where they grow different types of fruit. Stopped for breakfast, thought we were getting Pho but it ended up being dim sum. Don't get me wrong, I love dim sum but just not at 8am...:-) Drove down south about 2.5 hours to the in-laws house. Definitely way out in the boonies and it was one of many farms in the area. They had about 5 acres covered with all types of fruit...pineapples, logan, coconuts and stuff I've never seen before. Mom-in-law cooked a great lunch...a chicken/rice soup, a chicken and vegetable dish in a citrus marinade and fresh shrimp cooked in coconut juice. The coconuts are special to the region and are some ... read more

Finally...after all the delays and headaches, we arrived in HCMC (Ho Chi Minh City) last night right on time...about 10:30pm locally. Our flight out of Dallas was right on time, they took a more southernly course, over more ocean area, so it cut about 1 hour off the flight time which was nice. We had seats that we're at the end of a section (flew in a 777) and the wall was behind us, so the seats didn't recline much. It also cut down on the room between our row and the row in front of us when their seats were reclined. It's tough for a 6'2" guy to squeeze between a 5"-6" space...:-) We had a couple of headaches going through Tokyo. The DFW duty free shop didn't tell us that we had to go ... read more

...that we're going to Vietnam and Japan in less than 1 week. I printed out a couple of travel lists and we started picking up misc things for the trip. Stuff like suntan lotion, bug spray, pepto, etc. It's one thing to go on a trip for a weekend or a week or two...but to pack for a 4 week vacation half way around the world is something else...:-) This will be my first attempt at a blog...so if it gets boring, try to enjoy the pics...:p On our last big trip (Europe), I took way to much camera stuff...this time I'm just taking a Canon SD1000 and a Kodak Zx3 for video. Let's hope everything turns out good. ... read more