Painfully our alarms went off at 3:30am. We made it to the airport, checked our bags, and went through customs with enough time to grab breakfast. In an effort to stay authentic, I ordered a Teh-O (Kopitium tea with only sugar) along with my apple turnover and Fred had a beef soup with his Kopi-C. We did see a funny restaurant in the airport- instead of Church's Chicken, they have Texas Chicken! Fred exchanged our left over Singaporean dollars at the airport exchange office so he had a starting cash point for Japan. Since it didn't work out perfectly, we were able to grab some chocolaty snacks for the flight. With 6 1/2 hours at my disposal, I utilized the flight to develop Tokyo itineraries and catch up on journal entries. With a quick pass through ... read more

Fred and my hostel roomies must be from somewhere here in southern Asia, because they didn't want the air conditioning on last night. I woke up hot, sweaty and ready to get out of the hostel moving. A fantastic shower later to cool me off and wash away the grime of the past day did a lot to make me feel human again. To start our morning right, Fred and I headed across the street to the mall to try out one of the Kopitiams (local Singaporean coffee shops) called Toast Box. The shop had a number of different type of toast with spread options or you could get a traditional Asia dish with noodles and meat. I grabbed some toast with a spread name I didn't recognize. The spread was super salty and was some ... read more

In an effort to simplify the early airport trip by sharing an Uber ride, Fred graciously allowed me to crash on his couch the night before. The morning of our trip started with my alarm waking me at 4am to quick freshen up before our 4:30am departure. The night before Fred told me he had not packed yet, so I expected to see him up and moving. To my surprise, the space under his door was dark. With a knock, I opened the door and asked a simple "Fred?". I got the groaning response "What time is it?" My 4 o'clock answer received an explicit response. Fred jumped out of bed to gather his things while I went on my way to get ready. Amazingly, we managed to get down to the street for an Uber ... read more

Despite our late arrival home, I managed to get everyone up and out of bed at 10am to get ready for another fun filled day. We headed out to get a taxi to Corcovado but ended up getting a service from the hotel that brought us up the mountain, helped us get our tickets to go up to Christ the Redeemer and waited for us to take pictures. The day was beautiful so we got some amazing pictures of the city and like usual clouds covered the mountain tops. After many pictures, we shuttled it back to our van who brought us to another viewing point - which happened to be very near the helopad from the previous day. Multiple pictures later, we headed back to the hotel. To save room for a Brazilian steakhouse dinner ... read more

The four of us enjoyed the most amazing breakfast buffet at the Windsor Martinique hotel. It had fresh fruit, fresh fruit juices, amazing waffles, eggs, bacon, and rolls. We definitely look forward to that the rest of our trip! Outside it was raining so we decided to do a little planning before heading out to explore. Talking with the front desk we set up two events for the next day. Then we went for a walk in the rain. James joined us but Kevin stayed at the hotel because he wasn't feeling well. The five of us wandered around Copacabana and walked along the Ipanema beach. The beach was empty - no people around at all. Which if I lived in a city like that, I wouldn't pick the beach on a rainy day either. James ... read more