Today Michael and I were up at 400am, however never really got out of bed until 500am. Michael wanted to run and I wanted to walk. I left the apartment and walked for 15 minutes and it began to rain. Interestingly enough even at 500am there were still bars open in town. The drinking age is 18 years old. Michael back to the apartment at 630am soaked in rain water. I put his wet clothes and shoes in the dryer; he needed to wear for the day of touring. Cindy’s Dad came to our apartment around 730am and then we went to breakfast the same place that Michael and I had coffee at last evening. Breakfast is awesome at Henry’s however very expensive. The Flat White coffee was the best part of the meal for me. ... read more

Michael and I shared a room at the Grand Medina Hotel. He woke up at 300am due to the jet lag, however I told him to think of koala bears and kangaroo’s. This must have done the trick, somewhat, went back to sleep. Michael and I finally got up at 530am. I worked on sorting photos and Michael went to the lobby to FaceTime friends. At 630pm Cindy’s Dad was up. I went across the street to the Town Hall train station area to fetch breakfast, Danish. The room had coffee. We left the hotel at 730am and returned to the Sydney airport, but the domestic section. Prior to departing, we waited in the Qantas Business Lounge. Our flight to Ayers Rock was delayed by 40 minutes. The pilot indicated the cause was due to strong ... read more

Today is our first day of our awesome trip to Australia, the land down under. Michael, Cindy’s Dad and I arrived at the Houston airport (IAH) around 3:15pm. Our flight was scheduled for 5:20pm. Before going to the gate we stopped at the United Club in Terminal E for a few beverages and snacks. We began boarding at 4:40pm. We were very fortunate to be in first class for our first leg of the flight. Cindy’s Dad was very generous to miles to upgrade Michael and I. As mentioned, our flight was scheduled to depart at 5:20pm, however the fueling crew had difficulty loading the fuel. We were delayed 40 minutes. We finally left at 6:00pm. While on the plane, United served a great dinner. There were two choices, short ribs or penne pasta. Michael and ... 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