5 humans, 1 world, lots of adventures!

Some stats: We were gone 99 sleeps We moved locations 31 times 9 of those moves were for one night only We rented 5 cars We took 13 flights (I took 21 given my trip back to Portland) We traveled with 8 pieces of checked luggage (5 bags and 3 carseats) We never had a single piece of checked luggage delayed, let alone lost

WE had an absolutely amazing time in Japan. The things we observed / learned / felt: (1) Japanese cab drives do NOT want kids getting their cabs dirty. They have covers on their seats and expect kids' shoes to be clean when they enter and their shoes to get NOWHERE near the cab seats. (2) the cab drivers wear gloves. They hand a tray onto which you put the money to pay. They then make change and hand the change-on-the-tray back to you. (3) kids are to be seen but not heard in most places. (4) kids are adored. Really cherished. But expected to behave well. (br> (5) The hotel room we stayed in was SO SMALL. It meant our immense amound of luggage and carseats lived downstairs in their lobby (they were mortified but very polite) while the 5 of us shared a postage-stamp sized hotel room. (6) the sights are amazing. Absolutely gorgeous. (7) hand-made, Japanese authentic (vegetarian) sushi is OHMYGODSOGOOD.

We woke up at 5am in Bangkok and headed to the airport. There, we learned thatnour flight was delayed an hour (it was coming from PARIS!) and then it was delayed another hour on the tarmac as we waited for the mechanics to fix the engines that wouldn’t start! Eventually, we were off! This was a huge A-380 Airbus. Our seats weee in economy, on the upper deck. The last time I flew up in economy upstairs on a 747, there were only a handful of rows upstairs. On this plane, there were at least 40 rows, each row with 8 people in it. Huge plane! Some 5 hours later, we made it to Narita, Japan! We checked into our hotel (funny story: G made the reservation but it turns out it never was made and he wasn’t surprised that the non-English speaking receptionist didn’t want an email address to send him a confirmation email. That was in January. I called today to confirm, only to learn we had no reservation. They found us one room with 3 single beds ... so we will be snuggling! We move to 2 room...

They have a veggie / fruit garden!

Geoff decided it might be nice to finish this adventure of a lifetime up with a “real vacation” and he chose the Intercontinental Hotel Pattaya. Wow is it nice! There are pools gallore and, as I just learned when i took the girls to watch them in the kids’ play area, a supervised childrens’ area. So away I went! We got here yesterday afternoon after a car ride that was supposed to be 1.5 hours but in fact took 4 hours. My Thai aunt, Sam-Ang organized the driver they use to take us, so away we went in the same van that picked us up from the airport. Bangkok is SO HUGE. I cannot even explain to you how many cars, how much traffic, and how much pollution was on the road. G and I have been very affected this trip, particularly by seeing the injured turtles, at the damage single-use plastic is doing. But while the US and Australia play HUGE rolls in this (straws, take-away coffee cups, to-go meals), Thailand is out of cobtrol. All of the fruit we have seen is wrapped in cling wrap. Ever...