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.