The road home
1-30
I went and got our bags out of storage at about 4 am because I was bored and proceeded to repack the bags, trying to get the heaviest stuff into our carry-on baggage so that our checked baggage wouldn't weigh too much. Eventually we got on our Japan Air flight to Tokyo. We found Japan Air to be the nicest airline we have traveled to date. One really good thing about this flight was that it was about half empty, so I found a row of 5 seats and put up all the armrests and laid down and slept for about 4 hours straight. It was wonderful and the flight attendents didn't bother me at all. Linh said that they were constantly bringing food and drinks around. The attendents were really friendly and we were impressed with the service and the food on the flight. We arrived in Tokyo around 2 pm local time and had about one hour layover. During the layover we met this huge Socttish guy from Texas. Come to find out he does personal protection work (bodyguard) for Michael Dell. He also holds two records in the highland games. Those are the games you sometimes see on ESPN where people are carrying around and throwing logs and stuff. He also beat the crap out some guy that tried to snatch his bag in Malaysia. He told us the secret to the highland games is that the back rooms are full of empty beer bottles and most of the "athletes" are drunk when they compete. He was flying first class so he raided the first class lounge for us and got us some snacks. We got on our Contitinental flight to San Jose at 3pm. What a drastic change in service on the American airline. Our airlines are crap. This is an overnight flight and we get into San Jose around 10 am tommorow. We both slept off and on and watched movies.
1-30
OK, here is the kicker. We did all that stuff yesterday and the sun went down and came back up, but we crossed the international date line and now it is still the same day as yesterday. In effect, we get to live January 30th twice. We didn't know this when landed and didn't figure it out until Anh Liem (Linh's brother who lives in San Jose) informed us of the date. We didn't beleive him, but had to eventually. Anyway, Anh Liem picked us up from the airport and we got to go to a real house for the first time in about 6months. After 3 nights of sleeping on planes and in airports we were desparately in need of a shower. It was a treat to be able to take a shower and not have to wear sandals in the shower (you never know what kind of funk is in the showers of the places we have been staying in). In fact, just being in the states was a little weird. Just the drive home with the great roads and the big SUV's, seeing all the old restaurant chains and the comforts of home that we had done without for such a long time. It was a little weird to just be able to put our stuff in his house and not have to worry about someone stealing things. Just the fact that I could take off my money belt and leave it laying around in full view and not worrying about it walking off was a pleasure. Anh Liem and his wife, Thuy, made us feel right at home.
The funny thing is after all of that travelling in Asia, they took us to a Vietnamese shopping center where they were still celebrating Lunar New Year and there were crowds of people in the court yard gambling on a traditional dice game and it felt like we were right back in Asia! These people put out scouts for the cops and the cops did come and you never saw so many gambling tables disappear so quickly. It was hilarious. We had VN for dinner. We have decided that pho tastes better here than in VN.
We slept very well on our nephews nice comfortable bed.
1-31
Today is a bonus day, because we thought today was yesterday and we had nothing planned for today. So we took the BART into San Francisco. Out of all the countries and big cities we have been to, this was one of the most intimidating. Some of the beggars here were just getting right up in peoples faces demanding money. We even saw one guy in wool coat with a Starbucks coffee in one hand a cigarette in the other begging change off of people. After seeing the poverty of India, the bums in this country don't know how well they have it. There were certainly all sorts of nuts walking around the city. It seems America has some problems with mass quantities of mentally unstable people. After the day in SF we came home to some home cookin! That is nice.
Our original plan was to spend a couple of weeks in California visiting various relatives and seeing the state, but we were informed a couple of weeks ago that Linhs dad had to undergo surgery on Feb 6th and we felt it important to be home for that. So we cut our California trip to just a short layover of couple days in San Jose and then we are flying to Florida.
2-1
Today my Grandpa from my Mom's side is coming to visit. He and his wife live in Antioch, about an hour away from San Jose. It was great to see them again. We decided to go and see the peak of a nearby mountain where there is an observatory on top. The drive to the top was a lot longer and twistier than any of us had anticipated and Linh ended up getting quite a bit carsick. The observatory was cool, but the view of Silicon Valley was obscured by clouds. After the long ride down we caught a quick meal at Jack In the Box. Ahhhh a real hamburger! It was great getting to visit and trade travel stories with Grandpa and Ann. After spending the day with them we came back and went out to eat with Anh Liem again. Tommorow we take our last plane ride.
2-2
Anh Liem dropped us off at the airport and we caught our flight to Houston where we had a connecting flight to Jacksonville. It was turbulent flying most of the way across the country. We made our connection with no problems. We were supposed to arrive in JAX around 10:30 p.m. but when we got near the city the Capt. informed us that there was some pretty severe thunderstorms in the area and that JAX was accepting any flights. So we flew in circles for about an hour when the Capt. came on and said we don't have enough fuel to hang around, so we are going to have to land in Orlando and refuel. When we land we find out that it is going to be at least an hour before the refueling guy gets to our plane. So I got to a payphone and called my Dad's cell and told him what was going on. Thank goodness I called because the JAX airport had pretty much shut down and weren't telling people anything there. He and my Mom went got some coffee at a Denny's. Long story short, it was 4 am when we pulled into my parents driveway. My brother Tim and his wife Heather had just pulled into the driveway. Well we sat up talking for a bit and then we all got some well deserved rest.
2-3
After the long night last night, today was pretty much a lazy day. Just relaxing and enjoying family with everyone doting on my nephew Liam.
2-4
Today Tim, Heather, and I took my boat out to the intracoastal waterway and went fishing. We caught a lot of little grunts and a black drum and a butt-ugly toad fish. My dad and I also got my van reloaded with all my tools and my brother Stephen helped me get my motorcycle loaded up into the back of the van. It went entirely too quickly but we have to leave Fla and go home to Raleigh tommorow.
2-5
After saying goodbyes we packed our packs for the last time and loaded up all our stuff into man and headed home. The 7 hour drive set us back about $100.00 in gas in my fully loaded down van. When we Left on our trip gas was $1.78. Now it is $2.33. Yikes! At least we missed out on the $3/gallon stuff. We hadn't told Linhs parents we were coming home and they weren't expecting us until the end of Feb. When we walked in Linhs mom slapped her in disbeleif, it was hilarious! Her dad looked really confused for a few minutes. The kids were all delighted to see us and we made it just in time to see the Super Bowl and eat all the good Super Bowl food.
It' hard to believe after all the travelling we have done and livning on the road for the last 11 months that we are back to stay. We have circumnavigated the earth and seen so many things.
I intend to write a more in depth conclusion later....
I went and got our bags out of storage at about 4 am because I was bored and proceeded to repack the bags, trying to get the heaviest stuff into our carry-on baggage so that our checked baggage wouldn't weigh too much. Eventually we got on our Japan Air flight to Tokyo. We found Japan Air to be the nicest airline we have traveled to date. One really good thing about this flight was that it was about half empty, so I found a row of 5 seats and put up all the armrests and laid down and slept for about 4 hours straight. It was wonderful and the flight attendents didn't bother me at all. Linh said that they were constantly bringing food and drinks around. The attendents were really friendly and we were impressed with the service and the food on the flight. We arrived in Tokyo around 2 pm local time and had about one hour layover. During the layover we met this huge Socttish guy from Texas. Come to find out he does personal protection work (bodyguard) for Michael Dell. He also holds two records in the highland games. Those are the games you sometimes see on ESPN where people are carrying around and throwing logs and stuff. He also beat the crap out some guy that tried to snatch his bag in Malaysia. He told us the secret to the highland games is that the back rooms are full of empty beer bottles and most of the "athletes" are drunk when they compete. He was flying first class so he raided the first class lounge for us and got us some snacks. We got on our Contitinental flight to San Jose at 3pm. What a drastic change in service on the American airline. Our airlines are crap. This is an overnight flight and we get into San Jose around 10 am tommorow. We both slept off and on and watched movies.
1-30
OK, here is the kicker. We did all that stuff yesterday and the sun went down and came back up, but we crossed the international date line and now it is still the same day as yesterday. In effect, we get to live January 30th twice. We didn't know this when landed and didn't figure it out until Anh Liem (Linh's brother who lives in San Jose) informed us of the date. We didn't beleive him, but had to eventually. Anyway, Anh Liem picked us up from the airport and we got to go to a real house for the first time in about 6months. After 3 nights of sleeping on planes and in airports we were desparately in need of a shower. It was a treat to be able to take a shower and not have to wear sandals in the shower (you never know what kind of funk is in the showers of the places we have been staying in). In fact, just being in the states was a little weird. Just the drive home with the great roads and the big SUV's, seeing all the old restaurant chains and the comforts of home that we had done without for such a long time. It was a little weird to just be able to put our stuff in his house and not have to worry about someone stealing things. Just the fact that I could take off my money belt and leave it laying around in full view and not worrying about it walking off was a pleasure. Anh Liem and his wife, Thuy, made us feel right at home.
The funny thing is after all of that travelling in Asia, they took us to a Vietnamese shopping center where they were still celebrating Lunar New Year and there were crowds of people in the court yard gambling on a traditional dice game and it felt like we were right back in Asia! These people put out scouts for the cops and the cops did come and you never saw so many gambling tables disappear so quickly. It was hilarious. We had VN for dinner. We have decided that pho tastes better here than in VN.
We slept very well on our nephews nice comfortable bed.
1-31
Today is a bonus day, because we thought today was yesterday and we had nothing planned for today. So we took the BART into San Francisco. Out of all the countries and big cities we have been to, this was one of the most intimidating. Some of the beggars here were just getting right up in peoples faces demanding money. We even saw one guy in wool coat with a Starbucks coffee in one hand a cigarette in the other begging change off of people. After seeing the poverty of India, the bums in this country don't know how well they have it. There were certainly all sorts of nuts walking around the city. It seems America has some problems with mass quantities of mentally unstable people. After the day in SF we came home to some home cookin! That is nice.
Our original plan was to spend a couple of weeks in California visiting various relatives and seeing the state, but we were informed a couple of weeks ago that Linhs dad had to undergo surgery on Feb 6th and we felt it important to be home for that. So we cut our California trip to just a short layover of couple days in San Jose and then we are flying to Florida.
2-1
Today my Grandpa from my Mom's side is coming to visit. He and his wife live in Antioch, about an hour away from San Jose. It was great to see them again. We decided to go and see the peak of a nearby mountain where there is an observatory on top. The drive to the top was a lot longer and twistier than any of us had anticipated and Linh ended up getting quite a bit carsick. The observatory was cool, but the view of Silicon Valley was obscured by clouds. After the long ride down we caught a quick meal at Jack In the Box. Ahhhh a real hamburger! It was great getting to visit and trade travel stories with Grandpa and Ann. After spending the day with them we came back and went out to eat with Anh Liem again. Tommorow we take our last plane ride.
2-2
Anh Liem dropped us off at the airport and we caught our flight to Houston where we had a connecting flight to Jacksonville. It was turbulent flying most of the way across the country. We made our connection with no problems. We were supposed to arrive in JAX around 10:30 p.m. but when we got near the city the Capt. informed us that there was some pretty severe thunderstorms in the area and that JAX was accepting any flights. So we flew in circles for about an hour when the Capt. came on and said we don't have enough fuel to hang around, so we are going to have to land in Orlando and refuel. When we land we find out that it is going to be at least an hour before the refueling guy gets to our plane. So I got to a payphone and called my Dad's cell and told him what was going on. Thank goodness I called because the JAX airport had pretty much shut down and weren't telling people anything there. He and my Mom went got some coffee at a Denny's. Long story short, it was 4 am when we pulled into my parents driveway. My brother Tim and his wife Heather had just pulled into the driveway. Well we sat up talking for a bit and then we all got some well deserved rest.
2-3
After the long night last night, today was pretty much a lazy day. Just relaxing and enjoying family with everyone doting on my nephew Liam.
2-4
Today Tim, Heather, and I took my boat out to the intracoastal waterway and went fishing. We caught a lot of little grunts and a black drum and a butt-ugly toad fish. My dad and I also got my van reloaded with all my tools and my brother Stephen helped me get my motorcycle loaded up into the back of the van. It went entirely too quickly but we have to leave Fla and go home to Raleigh tommorow.
2-5
After saying goodbyes we packed our packs for the last time and loaded up all our stuff into man and headed home. The 7 hour drive set us back about $100.00 in gas in my fully loaded down van. When we Left on our trip gas was $1.78. Now it is $2.33. Yikes! At least we missed out on the $3/gallon stuff. We hadn't told Linhs parents we were coming home and they weren't expecting us until the end of Feb. When we walked in Linhs mom slapped her in disbeleif, it was hilarious! Her dad looked really confused for a few minutes. The kids were all delighted to see us and we made it just in time to see the Super Bowl and eat all the good Super Bowl food.
It' hard to believe after all the travelling we have done and livning on the road for the last 11 months that we are back to stay. We have circumnavigated the earth and seen so many things.
I intend to write a more in depth conclusion later....
posted by BananaCreamPie | 12:16 AM
1 Comments:
I didn't know you guys were going home now. I will miss your adventures. It has been really exciting to know my cuz is out there doing all this cool stuff. I kind of feel like I've been with you in a very small way.
Thanks
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