Hello Vietnam!

The World According to Dennis:
Ok, we’re in Hanoi, Vietnam.  But please allow me to digress, we were on the Viet Jet ready to take off when the flight attendants did their visual in-flight demo on seat belts, oxygen masks, etc. For once I listened. I heard him say something I hadn’t heard before related to an emergency water landing. “Your life jacket has a water activated blinking light over your left shoulder to notify rescuers of your location.”  I thought, “that could happen becasue we’re going over the  ocean between Japan and Vietnam.”  Then I started to chuckle.  When the flight attendant was finished and was rounding up his gear, I tapped his arm and said, “That light on the life vest isn’t really for rescuers to spot us, right?”  He looked puzzled as I said, “that light is to alert sharks in the area so there won’t be any witnesses, right?”  He still looked puzzled. Then I realized, he didn’t speak English.  Some of my best stuff is wasted on people who don’t/can’t appreciate my extraordinary sense of humor!  Which brings me to Cindy.  She overheard my comments to the attendant, looked at me, turned her face to the window where she didn’t think I’d see the eye roll, then turned back to me with a tight lipped smile that said, “you ain’t that funny.” That’s it for my writing today.  You’ll have to rely on her account of what we actually saw and did.  See you tomorrow.
P.S. When she typed this? Hardly broke a smile.

Cindy—
I typed it, no comment.

We are in Hanoi in the beautiful Tirant hotel.  I’m just going to show you some photos and call it a day. Thanks to Sue and Nancy for telling us about Funny Travels. They are the best!

Joe’s (Tu’s) Office

  

Temple or Shrine, Buddhist or Shinto?

On our last day in Kyoto we visited Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples with our guide, Uta.  The majority of Japanese seem to have a happy acceptance of both religions.  Shinto, the indigenous religion focuses on the present and the spirits present in nature from rocks to the sky to animals, including humans.

At Shinto shrines you may make a wish (prayers) but you must be modest and humble.  As Uta said, wish for a Toyota not a Mercedes.  You won’t find graves at a Shinto shrine because that is a future concept, not the present.

At Buddhist temples we were encouraged to pray.  The focus at the temples is your life after this one and reaching enlightenment. So for celebrating and marriage—Shinto.  For farewell to a loved one—Buddhism.  Pretty comprehensive system!

The Fushimi Inari Takisha (Gates) are a Shinto Shrine in Kyoto.  It is most impressive.  I really wanted to see it and it is magnificent!  Inari is the god of rice, sake, and prosperity.  Foxes are the messengers of Inari and are considered to be helpful.  So that little guy who wanders around our golf course should be treated well as he predicts prosperity for us.

From the Fushimi Gates we made a quick visit to the Gion district.  We were treated to a glimpse or two of Geisha and a Maiko (apprentice geisha).  It is a truly astounding career choice.

Finally dinner at Gyu Gyu for a wonderfully fresh and enjoyable meal—Cesar salad, sliced tongue, steak with sauces, a side dish of shrimp, broccoli, and mushrooms.  All accompanied by a chilled white wine.  This was followed by a cab ride back to the hotel, dessert, and a sake toast!

Tomorrow— Hanoi!

The World According to Dennis:
Well, today was temple and shrine day.  To give you a little background on Denny Baby, I consider myself  “a little” spiritual with religion following at a distant second.  So distant, in fact, you could reasonably say it is nonexistent.  That being said the temples and shrines were interesting.  Our guide, Uta gave us a brief history of Shintoism (shrines) and Buddhism (temples) and thier basic tenets.  See Cindy’s above for more detail.  Suffice it to say I’ve always had a problem with a religion or a god that punishes you when you’re naughty and rewards you when you’re nice,  I leave that to Santa.  Hope I haven’t lost all of my readers with that quip.  All in all I enjoyed our 4 hour walking tour in Kyoto.  We think we logged about five miles and were the only Americans (trying not to be “ugly) in the group.  As Cindy wrote, “We topped off the evening with a great meal, a bit of alcohol, and then dessert back at our hotel with a small bottle of sake.  Tomorrow we’re up at 3:30 AM for a two hour van ride to the airport and a flight to Hanoi.

Good Morning, Vietnam!

Sake, Sake, Sake: 18 of the best!

We were so lucky to have Koichiro as our guide for this amazing tour.  He met us at Bank Soft Shop. This was our second challenge.  Luckily in Japan people are always ready to help so we managed to find it with the help of a travel agent.  We had already walked by it.  Our first challenge was how to get to this spot.  We chickened out and took a cab which was expensive but got us there.

Koichiro met us and promptly took us in hand and our tour began at a fountain from which delicious sake is made.  The fountains which are found all over the Fushimi area have water pumped up to the surface from the many underground waters.  My favorite water was the first, White Chrysanthemum. We stood in a short line while people from the area filled their bottles.  At one of the fountains, the people who were next in line let us go first as we were only tasting a sip.

Koichiro at the White Crysanthemum Fountain

This was followed by visits to a couple of distilleries, a restaurant for a huge and tasty lunch, and the Gekkeikan Okura Sake Museum.  The sake is served in a glass sitting in a small shallow saucer in a puddle of sake.  This, to me represents the generosity of  Japan.  You are given a generous pour and can then add the extra to your glass as you have room for it.

...finally a large sake bar where we had 18 different kinds of sake.  Yes, 18 but we shared them and Dennis assures me that we really only had the equivalent of two glasses of wine.  Really?!

All 18 were finished!

To get back to our hotel Koichiro took us to the train and got on with us, assuring us that this is how he was going to get home.  We got out two stops after him and made it back all in one piece, stuffed and happy.  Dennis was asleep in about 15 minutes and I followed after about two hours.  We slept for most of the night though Dennis was up to read in the wee hours and we were both up and moving about by 6:00 AM.

Today we’re off on a cultural tour and are hoping we have a guide who is half as good as Koichiro.  This is a tour we should have had our first day but due to my inability to understand AM and PM we had to reschedule.  

The World According To Dennis...
:-) Today was the sake tour!  We set aside 3 hours with Koichiro and he was kind enough to stretch it  to over 4!  What a guy! His English was excellent as he spent about 10 years in the U.S. (Seattle) working in management for Microsoft before leaving to open his own French Restaurant.  Why French?  He thought French offered a broader client base and he had extensive experience with wines.  Koichiro taught us as much about Japanese culture as he did about sake.  About sake—we learned about how it is made and most importantly, how it tastes. Our last stop offered us a tasting of 18 different types, all delicious! Glug, glug, glug.

We shared a train ride back to our hotel, thanked him, and wished we could have utilized his experience touring other parts of Kyoto.  But time has run out and we leave for Vietnam on Tuesday at 4:00 AM.  At breakfast this morning Cindy said what I’ve heard so many times during past visits and adventures—“Dennis, I love this place.  We have to come back.”  My thoughts? So many places we haven’t seen...trying not to run out of money so we don’t end up living under a bridge somewhere in the world where it’s always warm.  And how to discreetly ask her to get a job so I don’t have to! :-)

Kicking Up Our Heels in Kyoto

Palace Side Hotel

Great Selection

I need my coffee!

We’re missing the day we missed in Kyoto but are doing our best to make up for it.  We started our day yesterday at the Imperial Palace. They have the route laid out beautifully and along the way staff members explain the areas in more detail.  A relaxing morning stroll through the Imperial Palace grounds with a bit of snow showers thrown in for drama.

On the Grounds of the Imperial Palace

In the afternoon we went to a Japanese Tea Ceremony with a Tea Master hosted in a machiya (wooden house). We selected the option that included complete kimono dress. One review we read said that they can stuff anyone into a kimono. Guess what? They can! We learned about the origins for the tea ceremony as well as how to drink the green tea. We stumbled through the Japanese phrases we were to use but loved her patience as she repeated them over and over with us. Akeiko and Tomeiko were wonderful hosts, very lovely and very organized.

Not Quite Ready for Gilbert & Sullivan

After the ceremony on the way back to the hotel we wanted to stop in a Japanese bar.  We couldn’t find one so where did we end up?  In an Irish pub drinking Killian’s beer.  The bartender was a young woman from Hanoi, studying in Japan.  A quite amazing person who learned her English not just from an instructor but from the Disney channel.  I had to ask her where she grew up because she had an American accent.   The next shift came in, a young man from England and a young woman from France. They had great stories of their travels and we were well-entertained.

The World According to Dennis...
The tea ceremony was fun. In particular, I enjoyed being wrapped up in a kimono, given a samurai sword, and told to look fierce. What twelve year old boy doesn’t like to play soldier? I also learned to make and serve tea, bowing as I did so to Cindy.  I think it gave her ideas that I won’t find much fun.  Tea? Well, I prefer Sake but that’s going to be tomorrow complete with tastings.  Yum!  I too enjoyed the Irish/Japanese bar on the way back from tea. Not cheap though. Four beers (2 each) and an order of chips (fried wedges of potato) was about 40 bucks. Oh, and it was happy hour so 10% off!
  

Why Cindy Needs a Travel Agent

In my younger days I flew from Chicago to Phoenix and back.  On my return flight my friend dropped me off in plenty of time to catch my noon flight back to Chicago. But no one was around the AA check-in counter.  Finally someone came out and then the bomb was dropped—it was a midnight flight, hence the name redeye!  Luckily I could get on the next flight without much of a wait.

Imagine my dismay, disappointment, chagrin when the same thing happened with our Eva Airlines flight to Japan. We were in plenty of time for our noon flight.  But there were no agents in sight.  So we had breakfast and coffee.  Still no agents.  The information booth was just outside the restauant kiosk.  “Oh dear,” she said. “That flight left at  :20” or in my time, 20 minutes after midnight.  I didn’t do this again!?  I couldn’t do this again!!  I did it again!  Bad word, bad word!!!
Dennis in his good natured caring way urged me not to beat myself up.  (He’d do it for me.). So ...
The World According to Dennis:
Okay, we made it to Kyoto (a day late) and are ready to try (again) to begin this adventure, :-) How did this happen? We thought we’d get to O’Hare at least three hours early because of possible delays with TSA and the government shut down. We arrived at 8:00 AM for noon flight. We were the only ones checking in. Strange? We thought so too. We asked the lady at the EVA Airline desk when we could check-in. She said,”Tonight about 9:00 PM. What? What! Instead of arriving four hours early we were eight hours late! Our flight left at 12:00 AM NOT 12:00 PM. We missed our flight, our connection to Japan in Taipei, our transportation to the hotel, and our first night at the hotel! Holy #@*#!!! Long story short? After many phone calls and time spent our travel agent managed to untangle this ball of yarn. Debbie, our agent got it worked with just a little additional collateral damage ($) for the flight change We were lucky. Word of advice? Whenever you plan a trip with lots of stops and logistics, always work with a travel agent. If problems occur, they can save you a lot of time, heartache, and money.

At O’Hare

Hello Kitty!!

Impressed

So as I said starting this post, we’re now in Kyoto (a day late) ready to try (again) to be in this adventure. Wondering what else we did and didn’t do...aye Karumba!! Stay Tuned.
PS Did you notice? Cindy is strangely quiet.



Sent from my iPad

It's Bloody Mary Time!!

Salut!!

The weather is a bit iffy today with ice beginning in Indianapolis and snow in Chicago.  We put off our leaving for Chicago until tomorrow when it is supposed to be better all around!  We're making good use of the delay by starting off our trip with Bloody Mary's.  Salut!!

71 Days in the World

Planing for the Trip 

Many hours in the office

How do two old people plan a trip that involves three continents and eight countries in 71 days? Just thinking about packing for 2 1/2 months is daunting, especially when one of the pair (yes, that would be me) insists on 21 inch wheeled suitcases plus under seat bags that fit over the extended handles.  No checked bags, please—too easy to get lost between connections and never catch up.  Now I’m thinking compression packing cubes.  Hmmm.

To begin:

Settled on Travel Leaders, a local travel agency that did a great job on booking flights, making all the between continent flights for about $2500.00 per person. Downside: it has taken from August to December to complete the details for this trip. Upside: budget—that’s a biggie.  All in all we have used our local agent for long intercontinental flights, transportation to and from airports, hotels in some countries, including Japan, Ethiopia and Germany, and some day tours. And she did a fantastic job booking an internal flight in Ethiopia.  I gave up after five frustrating hours online and the phone and she did it!! 

Then: we used a local agency, Funny Travels in Vietnam and a local guide, Cheru in Ethiopia as well as a contact from the Peace Corps who went on to become the head of Save the Children in Africa. That’s a story for another time. We asked friends for recommendations and a contact from Selamta, a charitable organization that I support.  We used our credit card travel agency to book hotels using our reward points.  We were able to book for two weeks (all of England and Ireland) using points because the points are worth more when used for travel.

And: I booked a phone call to Rick Steve’s travel consultants.  I had to prepare my questions ahead and submit them before hand so that our consultant would be prepared and able to make the best use of our time.  The charge for this was $75.00 for a half hour with 15 minute increments for $25.00.  Lisa managed to get all of my questions answered within the half hour.  It was so worth it.  She was knowledgable and patient with specific suggestions for transportation and day tours. She’s my new best friend! 

Now: In March we’re going to visit my cousin and his wife in Sweden.  Then we were going to Belgium but getting there became very complicated so we thought we would do a return visit to Amsterdam. However in looking at that choice I began to fret.  There are just too many places in the world that we haven’t been.  I looked at the map and saw Scotland. Perfect! So we can take a flight to Edinburgh (which I can’t pronounce) and then go on to Bath (which I also can’t pronounce BAWth, not Bath).   

In the meantime: I’m going to Weight Watchers religiously because who wants to go to a developing country 50 pounds overweight? I mean, really.  That’s embarrassing and I’m exercising because I have to be able to walk at least 5 miles a day. So When Dennis says you can’t go on a vacation because you’re retired, he’s right. Does this sound like a vacation? 

The world according to Dennis:
I’m compelled to make a comment here. I never said, “you can’t go on a vacation because you’re retired.” What I said is, “in order to take a vacation, you have to have a job.” Perhaps a minor distinction but...If you’re not working, what are you vacationing from???

Back to C—
So far: February 12th Flight to Addis Ababa cancelled.  Rescheduled to arrive on February 11. I contacted Joe (Tu) in Hanoi.  We made the changes with little frustration. On the 9th we were to have a free day in Hoi An but we’ve already done that so, YES, we can reschedule!  

What comes next?  Those compression packing cubes!  Our friend Phyllis stopped in to see my run-through packing and happened to mention that many international airlines only allow one 15 pound carry-on and one personal item. Oh #@*#. So we will have to check the wheeled suitcase and pack for overnight, plus two days worth of clothes and toiletries in the under seat bag in case of lost luggage.  Dennis said maybe we should take larger bags but then we have to maneuver them over dirt roads, into buses and trains, cobbled walks and up stairs. I think we can do it with our back pack as a personal item.  Should be fine.

Next up: booking trains in the UK which I can’t do until January and maybe not then as they usually only book two months out.  As I write I am mentally scrolling through what else I haven’t done—prepare a literacy workshop for the adults of Selamta in Addis, come up with a plan for a young adult book club when they don’t have multiple copies of a single title.  So who do I know who could give me suggestions for that?

All filed, ready to go: Japan & Vietnam, Ethiopia, Germany & Sweden, United Kingdom  

The world according to Dennis:
Did someone ask for suggestions? Well, if you made it through this treatise my hats off to you!  I kinda know what she’s talking about and I’m confused.  Rest assured though that with passport in hand, I’ll be running to keep up.  Oh yea, regarding running.  I’ll have a pocket full of Imodium tablets to prevent any little accidents from happening.  Holy #@*#  is right.  Cindy likes to embellish.  Me? Look for my future comments on this blog to give you the “real” picture of what’s happened. It’ll be just like being with us...let’s see if all of us can keep up with her. ;-)