Good Morning Vietnam

The wife and I did some role-playing today. We pretended we were Viet Cong (circa 1968) and went for a crawl through the Cu Chi tunnels. It was a tight squeeze for me due to my massive v-shape but Linda can skitter through those tunnels as well as any VC. That was the highlight today but we also toured many other significant places in Ho Chi Minh City on an 8-hour tour that took us from the Rex Hotel where the foreign correspondents stayed during the American War as they call it here, to the War Remnants Museum where the whole history of the conflict is displayed on three floors of exhibits. We passed the site of the American Embassy and the Presidential Palace that even I remember from the newsreels played on all the major networks in 1975. These sites were featured in the last few days of America’s involvement in Vietnam and as the Americans were skipping Saigon, I recall that I was trying to skip out of classes in Grade 12.

We also had a great Vietnamese lunch not far from the Cu Chi tunnels, served in open-air cabanas. We ate 6 courses of delicious Vietnamese cuisine in 90 degree heat accompanied by 90% humidity. It was a hot one! The Cabanas were situated on the edge of a river, which was hemmed in by jungle. As I was eating I could imagine Tom Hanks running out of the Jungle with Gary Sinese over his shoulder.

Our tour guide today was excellent. He quoted Bob Hope and Heni Youngman and he dropped a bunch of one-liners that set the tone for a very enjoyable time. He shared his knowledge of the war along with his political views and although he was born in 1971 his knowledge was extensive. In short he was a very well educated fellow that spoke English, Japanese and French and was able to entertain us for the entire tour. Our group was very diverse and out of 28 individuals there were 2 Danes, 2 Germans, 3 Mexicans and about an even split between Brits, Canadians and Americans making up the remainder.  The coolest thing though was that we sat next to an American Vietnam Veteran making his first trip back to Vietnam since he finished his second tour of duty in 1975. He spent 4 years stationed in Saigon with the Navy and was a gunner on what he referred to as a “brown-water river boat”. John Kerry also served in this capacity during that time. It was really cool to sit next to him as he offered up some of his memories.

The best way to tell the story of the tour is to show some pictures. I will try to upload some tomorrow. 

Hong Kong Photo Summary

 Here are some of the promised pictures from our week in Hong Kong:

Sha Tin Race Track

Linda's Pick Coming Back to Winner's Circle (Note pik and blue silk)

Base of Peak Tram

Linda at Peak looking over Hong Kong

View of Aberdeen and South China Sea from Peak

Building at Peak

Yes they do erect bamboo scaffolding when working on buildings in Hong Kong (see Rush Hour with Jackie Chan)

Big Buddha from the top of the gondola

Shot from the base of the throne of the Big Buddha down the 268 stairs

Glass Bottomed Gondola Cars; perfect training for seasickness

Linda with Big Buddha in distant background

Big Buddha from just below his throne

Jim in Stanley

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Hong Kong by IFC Mall

Four Seasons Infinity Pool

View from Four Seasons

Lobby at Four Seasons

Room at Four Seasons

View of Kowloon from Four Seasons

On to Danang

            After a day at sea we arrived in Viet Nam this morning. The past 24 hours have been a very easy transition to life at sea for myself and as anticipated, a less than easy time for my dear wife. She was seasick immediately after we left Hong Kong and had basically slept for about 20 of the past 24 hours prior to docking here in Danang.  Thank god for Doxylamine and Pyridoxine which is a wonderful combination of drugs that have restored her to a semblance of her former self and allowed us to go on a little 5.5-hour tour of central Viet Nam.

            I have to admit the seas have been a little rough since we left the harbor protected by Hong Kong Island. Even the local guide here indicated that the South China Sea was ‘shaking’ a bit and asked whether that meant that the cruise ship was also shaking. We acknowledged that is was a little turbulent out there. She apologized for the condition of the sea and the brown coloured surf and told us that it was normally a brilliant color of blue and that we would have to come back when the sea wasn’t shaking so much.

            Central Viet Nam is a part of the world that is in transition. It is being modernized whether it wanted to or not. The government has realized the tourism potential here and there is construction everywhere. There is new infrastructure being built around the city and the shorefront is being beautified with two-way boulevards, which are framed by lush shrubbery. In recent years they have completed a 6 km. tunnel along Highway No. 1 and a beautiful new suspension bridge, which connects to the highway. There are also numerous investments being made by foreign corporations in building four and five star resorts along China Beach, which was a place that U.S. servicemen unwound during the Viet Nam war.  The most interesting thing though is that some of this development would not be possible if it weren’t for the communist government in Hanoi. Now why would a commie government make the development easier you ask? Well, those 5-star resorts can only be built if you are able to re-locate a whole bunch of poor fisherman and their families that have lived close to the beach for generations. And only a communist government could force them to move away from the beach and accept new accommodation in government housing several blocks away from the water. Since no one has property rights, there are no issues.

            The people here are very friendly and seem to have a wonderful sense of humour. Our guide would tell us these long stories about the history of the area and punctuate her lectures with observations about the traffic, water buffaloes on the road or other similar oddities and then laugh after every sentence, which made everyone else laugh.

            We saw some amazing things today. The area here is noted for the marble carvings that are produced around the Marble Mountains and the beautiful embroidery that is done by local artisans. I have never seen such beautiful sculptures or such large and intricate embroideries. What also stood out for me was a little trip to the market and I hope you get a sense for what we saw in these places by the pictures that I am attaching. 

            The traffic here is crazy but it has its own ying and yang. Tour buses need only honk two times and all the traffic shifts over to the right and lets the tourist go by in their buses.  The motor scooter is the dominant form of transport here and there are very few family cars. On the contrary you can see whole families piling onto a single scooter. The winner in the family-touring category was a family of five scrunched onto one scooter. The winner in the scooter furniture mover category was a queen-sized bed being moved by scooter. You had to see it to believe it! Sorry we were not fast enough with the camera.

            The only thing I did not see today but which the guide told us about was the golf courses in the area. I heard her say there were quite a few. I don’t doubt it when the 5-star hotels are running up to $1000 US per night. The Hong Kong tycoons need places to play golf.

            We are off again tonight and will spend another full day at sea before we dock at Ho Chi Minh City (southerners still call it Saigon). I hope to get another blog posted tomorrow with some more pictures while we are at sea.

Street Market

Marble Shop

Lady Buddha Shrine

6x4 foot embroidery

Street Butcher

In the middle of the scooters

            

Moving Day

Hong Kong from M/S Nautica

Moving Day

Goodbye Four Seasons - Hello M/S Nautica

They kicked us out of the Four Seasons yesterday. They didn’t like us wearing cowboy boots and hats in the lobby and telling them that their pancakes sucked so they loaded us into a Mercedes and told the driver to get rid of us. Fortunately, we had a cabin booked in a cruise ship across the harbour.

On the level, we were sad to leave the hotel yesterday morning. It was a beautiful place and we realized we were definitely downsizing to the ship even though we have one of the bigger rooms on board. The transition was flawless though and we arrived by hotel car at the appointed time with no incidents to report.

As I may have mentioned our ship is docked at Ocean Terminal in Kowloon and one of the things that we were missing staying in Central district in Hong Kong was the spectacular view of Hong Kong from the Kowloon side where the ship is parked. We were able to see it last night after dinner and the picture at the top is a shot the wife took which turned out pretty good.  We knew that at 8 o’clock every night there was a light show with all of the buildings on both sides of the harbor displaying neon, strobe lights and lasers. But the best view is of the Hong Kong skyline not the Kowloon skyline, which we saw from the ship after dinner and that is what is shown in the photo. Our Oceania literature indicates that Hong Kong has the world’s biggest skyline with a total of 7,681 skyscrapers, placing it ahead of anywhere else in the world despite the fact that New York is larger in area. Sadly the picture that is shown on the cover shows such a small part of the vast vista that we saw last night and that we will see again tonight as we leave Hong Kong and start our cruise.

Our onboard cabin is a tight space but it is one of the bigger ones on the Nautica. Mirrors are used everywhere to make spaces appear bigger and we have 5 large mirrors in our space. We have a gentleman from Bali whose name is Andy that has been charged with looking after us on this cruise. He is a classically trained butler and he wears a coat and tails. I am not really comfortable with this yet. I have grown to prefer red wine over beer but I am still a Bud sponsored cowboy at heart.

We signed up for a number of side trips this morning. Coming right up are our first stops in Viet Nam and then we loop around southeast Asia with stops in Singapore, Thailand and Myanmar. We have arranged special tours in all these stops and I will give you the blow-by-blow descriptions of these adventures as we experience them.

The wife and I are experiencing a little bit of déjà vu on the M/S Nautica. We spent a week and a half on her sister ship a few years ago and the set-up is identical. Our kids had a most memorable trip at that time except for the day after New Year's when they were recovering from emptying the bar fridge in their room the night before. Looking back I would have altered the sleeping arrangements somewhat. But I’m rambling again, we are pleased with the new accommodations and the bed is very comfortable, perhaps an improvement from the ones they had been using on our last cruise. 

I must relate to you a funny thing that I just realized. Linda did a beautiful job of packing our luggage in Calgary and unpacking it here onboard the ship yesterday. She is truly an invaluable traveling partner in this respect and I wanted you all to know that I do appreciate her for this wonderful organizational attribute that she has always shown me. Sadly though, when I look at most of the clothes that we have lugged halfway around the world the tags on them say “Made in China”. We have in essence returned all these clothes to the place where they were made. Funny?

Cheers!

Stanley in a Double Decker Bus

We worked-out this morning, had showered and were in our room planning our day trips when the wife noticed our cruise ship steaming into the harbour. It reminded us that this would be our last full day in the Four Seasons since we would be checking out on Saturday morning. We would try to make the most of the day.

At about 9 o'clock this morning we hopped on the No. 6 bus. The No. 6 is a double-decker bus and it runs from our hotel in Central over to the other side of Hong Kong Island to a place called Stanley. From a historic point of view Stanley was where Canadian and British troops last fought the invading Japanese before they surrendered the island. Stanley is also a really cool little part of the island and a very exciting bus ride over the mountain and along the hairpin turns perched high up on the cliffs above Aberdeen and Repulse Bay, which are also very cool places by the looks of them.  A word to the wise though, do not ride over the mountain at the very front of the upper deck on one of these buses. It is like being in the leading car of a 45-minute roller coaster ride.

The market in Stanley is supposed to be the best in terms of value and although we did not buy anything we wandered through it and checked it out. It was a very relaxing atmosphere in that there were no pushy street vendors. We were really most interested in finding a place to have some brunch and we found one on the waterfront overlooking the Stanley Main Street promenade. It was a little open air place that was popular with the locals and they had a decent breakfast menu. The setting was very mediterranean. After the meal we crossed over the peninsula to the other shore and checked out the local beach. It was not beach season so it was pretty deserted but the sand was nice and it was interesting to see that all the beaches in the area were protected by shark nets. These beaches would be fine for Tracey to swim at.

We hopped back on our No. 6 bus but this time did not ascend to the upper deck having learned our lesson on the way over. We proceeded back to Central and subsequently took the train back to Kowloon where I picked up my new suit. It is beautiful and of course fits me perfectly.

We finished the day by dining in the Four Season's restaurant. We are now familiar with many of the staff in the hotel and they are all wonderful. We are very glad we stayed here. We have checked out the Conrad and the Peninsula and I think they would have been poor alternatives.

The Big Buddha

Today was a training exercise for the wife as we traveled to Lantau Island and the Big Buddha to begin motion-sickness conditioning and get a little religion in the process. We begin a very long cruise on Saturday and we had to start the training program today. Our training today consisted of a longish train ride which was the entire length of the Tung Chung Line, followed by a 5.7 km. ride up a mountain in a cable car with a glass bottom, punctuated by a visit to the Big Buddha (more on that later), followed by a bus ride down a very windy mountain road to the coast where we finished up with a mini-cruise consisting of a 40-minute ferry-ride back across the China Sea to Hong Kong. She passed! Not one barf bag was opened.

Our respite at the Big Buddha or Tian Tan Buddha included a visit to the site of the Po Lin Monastery and the village at the top of the mountain. The village is really kind of a tourist trap which in my mind takes something away from the presence of the large bronze Buddha. But I think that the proceeds of the tourist dollars spent up there must in part go to the monastery or they would not allow it.

You can get up close to the Buddha by scaling 268 stairs that lead up to the base of the throne on which the Buddha sits and then once you are up there you can go inside the buddha and make an offering which allows you to see the religious relics inside. So a couple of the fringe benefits from our little trip today included some exercise and a little Buddhist grace both of which could benefit us in this life or the next.

Shopping in Kowloon and Dining in Soho

Late yesterday we met a local, name of Linda Chow. Linda Chow or Auntie Linda as she is known to many of her clients is a custom Tailor. She comes recommended by the Four Seasons Hotel so you know she has a decent reputation. I have never had a made-to-measure suit and I had heard that Hong Kong has the best and most affordable tailors anywhere, so we went across to Kowloon and found her establishment in a broom closet (no bigger than 15'x15') on the 11th floor of an old office building not far from the famous Peninsula Hotel. Her office has cloth stacked in shelves on two walls and on the third wall photos of Linda with all of her famous clients which include Jennifer Lopez, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger and almost every Admiral in the U.S. Navy, who go to her for their dress uniforms.

My wife Linda and Auntie Linda hit it off pretty well and before you could shake a stick we had a pattern picked out along with two matching shirt cloths and I had completed my first fitting. I have shopped at some high-end places and bought some expensive suits before but never in my life have I ever been fitted like that. I was measured everywhere! There were literally 2-dozen separate measurements, with Auntie Linda holding the tape and barking out measurements to her assistant May in Chinese.

It was less than 24 hours later and I had already seen a mostly finished product during a second fitting today. The wife says it already looks pretty amazing. I have to agree with what I saw in the mirror. But the coolest part was that Auntie Linda and May have become our buddies. May personally took us on a tour of the area, provided us with Maps of how to get to the establishments that my Linda wanted to see and Auntie Linda even introduced us to her friend the Jade dealer and another buddy who sold 'higher quality' illegal knock-off hand-bags. Both these things were establishments that were on the wife's list of shopping missions that we had to find so Auntie Linda was very helpful in allowing us to cut to the chase. The wife is triumphant in two successful purchases of a nice Jade item and a couple of handbags from friends of Linda Chow.

This evening we wandered up to Soho and found a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. We both had a tasty salad and some pasta. The food seems to taste better here and I think it is because we are closer to the farms. In Calgary during the winter we eat the produce but we forget what it is supposed to taste like because we are eating stuff that is so far from the farm. Here we can only be a day at most from the farm whereas in Calgary where winter produce is probably mostly from California we are several days of freshness away from the farm. I find the prices are better here than in Calgary but an automatic 10% tip is added to every bill and then you feel obligated to add something extra. I guess that's fair enough if you consider 10% as a base gratuity. I assume the minimum wage is very low here.

There are dozens of really neat restaurants up in Soho. Everything you could ever desire and mostly all smaller 10-20 table establishments chiseled out of the narrow buildings along the narrow lanes that are really only roomy enough for one car and a very narrow sidewalk. Given the uneven pavement and the steep inclines it is not a good idea to drink too much at dinner because the escalators only go up and most of the hotels are down on the harbour-front. I am curious about the Mexican restaurants I saw today. Maybe tomorrow...

Sorry about there being no pictures so far, we are having camera troubles. I do not think we have lost any pics and eventually they will make their way unto the blog at some point in the near future (I am listening K.O'D.)  

Meandering About Town

We are beginning to branch out now. Once one has walked around a little bit, used the subway and the Star Ferry you begin to feel a little more comfortable. You also begin to realize how big this place really is and how many people live here. Here are some observations:

1. Forget about New York or London. They are passe. There are 10 times more Rolex stores here than in all of Las Vegas. I have seen so many Bentleys and Mercedes here that it is mind boggling. Years ago you might see some bikes on the street (I think I saw them in one of those Jackie Chan movies a few years ago). There are none now. The business district here is incredible. Every big bank in the world has an office building within a few blocks of where I sit right now and you can almost feel the wealth flowing through here.

2. There is no parking! No-one worries about commuting except the ultra-rich who own those fancy cars. If you lived here you would not have a car. In North America everybody drives but here I would guess 99.9% don't own a vehicle. Everyone takes mass transit. And why not, it is safe, clean and affordable. And for those in the Zegna suits, you are comfortable in these modes of transportation where you might not be in some of the cities in North America.

The Star Ferry is pretty cool, one of the best deals around. The Star Ferry still has two classes of tickets because of course it has 2 decks. The Lower Deck is down by the engine and we were told it is kind of cramped and noisy. The Upper Deck has a view of the water and is a little more open and airy. We paid about thirty cents C$ for Upper Deck tickets. I wonder what the Lower Deck costs?

3. Hong Kong might be the most cosmopolitan city in the world. You see and hear everything here. I have never heard so many languages spoken nor seen so many different races of people in one place mixed together like they are here. Obviously this means you can also get anything that you could possibly ever want to eat.  Within a kilometre of the hotel you can find any type of restaurant you can imagine.

4. We stumbled on one of the coolest things not far from our hotel. I am a typical guy and I like to navigate by feel. Linda doesn't like my "free range mode" but I was born this way. This has gotten me into some racy areas in the past but yesterday I led my lovely wife by chance right on to the  Central-Mid-levels Escalators. As I have indicated before, Hong Kong is built on the side of a mountain? And what has been done to help the zillions of pedestrians in Hong Kong? Get this, they built an 800 metre-long escalator that rises 135 meters from bottom to top crossing a multitude of narrow cross-streets all at different angles  to each other. We stumbled upon this on our way to the Peak Tram and then we went back again last night and found an Aussie restaurant and bar for dinner. (Again we stumbled into the eatery and half way through dinner found it it must have been authentic Aussie because we were surrounded by the Australian National Rugby team who were in town to play in the Sevens World Series Tournament.)

Hong Kong is a must-see place. With the emergence of a middle-class in China, Hong Kong is where it is happening. The power of the wealth creation to the north can be felt here in this port. And that vibe is multiplied many times over by a heavily populated ultra-modern city. It is a humbling experience to be a visitor here.

A Journey to the Peak D+4

I'm a little late getting this one out but I was exhausted last night. And since most of you are on the other side of the International Date Line I felt I was getting it to you early even if I posted it in the morning since it is still yesterday where you are. I like being ahead of all y'all.

We looked at the 7-day weather forecast yesterday morning and it looked as though it could be one of the clearest skies we might experience in Hong Kong so we decided to go to the Peak. Victoria Peak is 552m in height which is not that big of a deal for an Albertan but the view from up there is unparalleled. All of Hong Kong and Kowloon are spread out in front of you to the north and if you turn around you can see Aberdeen Harbour and the islands that flank Hong Kong Island in the South China Sea.

To get there you should stand in line or a few hours in the sun and listen to cranky Brits and Yanks trying to figure out how to beat the queue (British). Since we were on vacation and we had no other pressing concerns we queued quietly and tried to do something about the vitamin D deficit that we had developed during a particularily cold and dark Calgary winter. Unfortunately, I forgot that I am the original white-man and I think I got a little sun-burned. But I am rambling, why were we in line you ask? We wanted to take the Peak Tram to the top.

The Tram is basically 2 street cars lashed together that are pulled up the side of the mountain by long steel cables and while one tram is going up the only other tram is being lowered down. It is quite an experience because at some points you are ascending the slope at a very steep angle. I found out later that some form of the Tram has been running since 1888, with a short rest during WW2.

Once you get to the top there is a building that houses the tram station and a number of shops and restaurants including a Burger King and a Bubba Gump's which was weird. But the building is really cool. It is like a half-moon lying on its side supported by a rectangular box that seems to small to hold up the oddly shaped upper part. On the top is where we had those great views.

We hiked around quite a bit yesterday including a forced march led by me through the jungle in back of the Peak. There are some nice trails that our niece Maddie told us about so we made our way along one of them for a while and then climbed back up to descend back into to Hong Kong and our home at the Four Seasons.

The Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong Derby 2011 @ Sha Tin Race Track

We went to the races at Sha Tin racetrack today. This was something that was on my Hong Kong bucket list. Horse racing is a very well established pastime in this former British colony. It is something that the Chinese have taken to heart and really adore, what with their general love of gambling and the complete absence of other team sporting events that are so prevalent in North America and Europe.

The stands were packed today with a very vocal crowd and when the $16M Mercedes-Benz Cup race came around everyone stood and cheered like they were ready for the Red Mile. I have never seen a racing crowd like that in Calgary except at Stampede during the Chuckwagon Races.

I had fun today but the wife had way more fun. She was raking in the $HK. She had a complex and quite bafflingly ingenious system and if you don't tell her that I have told you the secret of her system, please read on.

Today Linda's winning bets were always on the number 8 horse.  It wasn't any numerology thing, it was just that the names and the colours of the jockey's silks seemed to be so fine.  Here is an example of the first two races:

Race No. 4 (our first) Linda bets on No. 8 horse named Super Horse whose silks =                
Linda's Bet: $100HK Linda Wins: $400HK

Race No. 5 (our second) Linda bets on No. 8 horse named Elegant Bachelor whose silks =
Linda's Bet: $100HK Linda Wins $485HK

Need I go on? What happened to the time-tested system based on statistical analysis of a multitude of proven methodology that render an intelligent risked choice? Well, let's just say I got blanked thinking too hard. Let's face it, at least when you bet on the silk colour you can easily see your pick as it pushes past all the other 'smart choices' for the finish line.

I will try to import some photos of the races tomorrow.

Hong Kong (D+2)

So we have been safely deposited in the Four Seasons Hotel in Hong Kong. I would have written something early this morning when we arrived but I thought that we had to try to get to bed so we could get used to the timezone.

We are about exactly on the other side of the world from home and we took about 30 hours to get here. Now you can imagine how tired, frumpy and dazed we were getting off that Japan Airlines plane and waving goodbye to the crosses between Geisha girls and large Japanese Porcelain Dolls that served us as stewardesses during both our flights with JAL. Well you are going to be surprised when I tell you that the best part of the trip so far was the period from getting off the air bridge or if you are British the Jetway, to the point where we were left in hotel room by the bellhop and the concierge staff at the Four Seasons Hotel.

Now think about that last statement. What I am suggesting is that navigating one of the largest airports in the world, being processed in a customs hall that was the size of a CFL football field, finding our luggage in a cavernous bay that contained 12 baggage carousels for wide-bodied jets, finding where our pre-arranged ground transportation was situated, making our way 45 kilometers to the hotel in one of the most densely populated cities in the world and then going through the hotel checkin procedure was the best part of the trip. You would say,  "bullshit!". Be honest, this set of circumstances is not normally pleasant. Our experience was swift and unmarred by any unpleasantness. It all unfolded like a pleasant dream and that is because I paid about $125 Canadian to let the Four Seasons concierge desk look after it all.

We were met at the air bridge by an agent hired by the hotel, whisked down the long corridors to the baggage area in a power cart, picked up all of our luggage immediately, guided through customs by the agent and transferred to onsite Four Seasons staff who handed us off to a Four Seasons chauffeur driving a new model Mercedes limo. I will stop there and say two things; we had not waited in a line yet and we were in the airport for about 20 minutes tops. Upon pulling into the hotel entrance way we were unloaded and met by the Bellmen and Reservation personnel who took us straight to our room to register (no front desk). The whole experience from air bridge to room was 1.5 hours tops!

Once in your life make a reservation in a Four Seasons Hotel. It is a little pricey but you get what you pay for.

Our harbour view is non-existent this morning as the whole city is bathed in a thick fog.

D-Day is here!

We woke up on Friday morning and all we have done is fly across the Pacific with very little time wasted and here we sit in Tokyo's Narita Airport having just got off the plane and it is Saturday afternoon.  We have been cheated out of a day!

So what is the feeling in Narita? Did you expect mobs of panic-stricken ex-pats and saddened Japanese nationals crowding the departure areas? Were the baggage handlers wearing nuke suits? Have I been offered $100,000 for my tickets to Hong Kong by people desperate to get out of the country? No, no and no, the feeling is very much business-as-usual, professional, kind and considerate Japanese people going about their business as if Anderson Cooper didn't exist.

Backing up a bit, we had an uneventful Air Canada flight to Vancouver from Calgary and a long (10+ hour), albeit pleasant Japan Airlines flight from Vancouver to Tokyo. We are now sitting in a JAL lounge waiting for the connection through to Hong Kong. The lounge here is 20 times bigger than the one in Vancouver and they are serving French wines and numerous Japanese delicacies that are even new to me and I considered myself somewhat familiar with the cuisine.  Don't tell Linda but there is Sake in my glass, not water. Domo!

Unfortunately we are not going to experience Japan outside of the airport but I have seen enough to want to come back to this fascinating country. The people are wonderful, the country looks very intriguing and the food is very appealing to me. Here are some other observations:

1. I have never seen so many golf courses flying into any city anywhere else in the world! Furthermore, these golf courses look spectacular. They look challenging with perfectly groomed grounds. We must have passed over thirty on our approach.
2. There is nothing wild about Japan. the countryside is groomed just like the golf courses. I saw several woodlots where the evergreens were pruned up several feet so the grass could grow green underneath.
3. There is no rusting machinery in any of the farmyards.
4. In the airport, the mens room had the coolest urinals I have ever seen and the hand dryers were space-age blowers that looked like they were activated by lasers.

That's it for now. Shortly we will be saying so long to Japan and if I am not to tired I will write something when we check into the Four Seasons in Hong Kong.

D-Day Minus 1

I still have a few things left to do tonight but I am finished at work and am ready to leave the office.

One more sleep to the big vacation!

I am almost packed and ready to go. Linda (my dear wife) was packed a month ago. We leave tomorrow at 6 am in the morning from our home. Our son Chris, has begrudgingly agreed to drive us to the airport in Calgary. We then hop on a domestic flight to Vancouver where we will then transfer over to a Japan Ailines Boeing 777 for the ride to Tokyo. We are supposed to be in Tokyo for 4 hours and then onto another Japan Airlines jet and on to Hong Kong.

Everything appeared to be business as usual in Tokyo's Narita airpot today. Following is some verbage from the Narita Airport Website:


[As of March 18th 08:30]

 [About Terminal Buildings]

It is confirmed that Terminal and Runways are safe. 

Scheduled power outage do not operate at Narita Airport.

Tomorrow is D-Day (D=Departure)

D-Day Minus 2

As soon as I got home from work last night the phone was ringing from Victoria where my father has based himself for a short vacation for the next couple of weeks (my father is 85 and he still goes to the office in Calgary most days).

"Are you still flying to Asia with all that nuclear fallout floating around Japan?", he asks.

I confirm that we are still going as we had planned and that we will actually be connecting in Tokyo on our way to Hong Kong. He immediately gasps and indicates that this course of action will be a worry to him. I hate to add to the list of worries that a father of 7 and a grandfather of 18 has at any given time but I have to be honest with him. I know that this may work in my favour though because the short stopover in Tokyo has now earned a Hail Mary in the nightly Catholic bedtime ritual which can not hurt our chances in making a routine connection through to Hong Kong. I hope to contact him as soon as we get to Hong Kong so that he can drop that Hail Mary from his long list of prayers.

I went onto the Narita Airport website this morning and it was business as usual with hundreds of flights routinely arriving and departing in what I am sure is the typical, very efficient Japanese fashion. Can you imagine that this is in spite of all those aftershocks and the problems at the nuclear power plant.

D-Day Minus 3

It is Wednesday afternoon and I am leaving 3 days from now on what is for me, the longest vacation of my entire life. This is a big year since my wife and I celebrate her 50th birthday and our 25th anniversary in the same 12-month period. So we have hit a couple of big milestones and our kids are old enough (we hope) to be left alone in charge of the house and our two dogs. Why not do something big?

This long journey takes us around the world in 9 weeks. I am excited, but at this stage the main thing occupying my mind is our connection at Narita airport in Tokyo 7 days after the massive earthquake and tsunami has devastated that island nation. The connection has us only in Narita for a few hours as we wait to board a second Japan Airlines jet to Hong Kong but anything could happen. I will definately pass on my observations from the airport if possible, but if I don't that probably means everything went according to plan and the connection went smoothly.

I must also report that in advance of the trip I have come down with a wicked cold after working for months without any illness whatsoever. How fair is that? I have started pounding the ColdFX tablets and if they don't work my first stop in Hong Kong will be the Chinese pharmacy for some ancient chinese herbal remedies.