Wow, what a ride!
We took off from PDX just
after noon. As we flew on I saw land again. I was expecting ocean all the way.
I asked and found out it was Alaska! Next I saw Ice floes on the water. What?
Really? For miles and miles there was ice.
Then to my surprise we flew
over Russia! Huge mountains and snow. Then it was china. Volcanic mountains and
lots of lakes and rivers. Then it was Japan and we saw lots of rice patties
very neatly laid out around every source of water.
We landed in Tokyo and spent
most of our 2 hour layover in line for customs.
Finally we got on a plane and
spent another 2 plus hours getting to Mindeno where we spent forever in customs
again. Then we went looking for our transport to the hotel and were unable to
find it so we called a cab.
We were caught in a traffic
jam and went through a very alive and very pour part of the city full of every
kind of traffic all doing whatever they wanted in traffic and pulling it off
flawlessly.
We arrived at the Isabelle
Garden hotel around midnight totally exhausted and fell into bed.
This morning we were awakened
by roosters and airplanes. The
view of rusty tin roofs were outside our window. We went for a walk
through the surrounding streets and had some coffee in a street side shop. We wondered
through a neighborhood that was built of pits and parts of everything you can
imagine all cobbled together.
We will fly out this
afternoon to Mindeno.
