We arrived at BKK International around 12:30am. Mom was waiting with my aunt, uncle, cousins, and her friend. We got back to the condo and finally made it to bed around 2:30am. We awoke to a breakfast of coffee, puff pastries filled with tuna and pork, and potato balls kind of like tater tots. Stu started his morning with a massage while Jason and I ran down to the pool. We had lunch next door at a little noodle shop as well as having some pork satays. Total tab for 4 people...$6. Quite a difference from Japan. We took a taxi boat down the Chao Praya (main BKK river) south towards downtown as we're up on the burbs. The taxi dropped us and we trekked across the street to the Grand Palace. The king no longer ... read more

We left off the last blog waiting for Jason to arrive. He made it. We've since visited Kyoto (old old old capital of Japan) and just arrived to Bangkok. It's 2:30am here. We're exhausted. We'll fill in the details tomorrow.... read more

So it's Friday, Feb 1. I'm still at work and getting pretty anxious for the trip. I leave in about an hour to go get Bob, Brandi, Ron, and Pierce at the airport. I've been babysitting both dogs (Barley and Zeus) for the last month and they've been great but it's definitely like having kids (unless you have kids, then I'm sure you'd tell me it's nothing like having kids). I'm partially packed, will finish tonight and we depart for Detroit at 10:50am. Then on to Tokyo. We get in at 4:40pm Tokyo time (15 hours ahead) and will hopefully not be too jetlagged. I'm not sure what our plan is that first night other than finding our way to our hotel. If we get that accomplished I'll be happy. We'll be leaving behind 40 degree ... read more