Saturday and Sunday, November 4 & 5 is birthday weekend.  It’s Halyard’s 16th birthday (and Avalon’s 11th and my 40-something).  To celebrate Halyard’s 16th we decided to go on a little weekend getaway.  Nagashima Spa Land is an amusement park that he had asked to go many months ago.  It’s actually just one part of the larger Nagashima Resort which encompasses the amusement park and a water park, a hot springs onsen, an outlet shopping mall and a large flower garden called Nabana no Sato.  Nagashima Spa Land reminded me of a mini Six Flags from the US. It’s about 2 hours away near the city of Nagoya so we rented a car the night before.  We rented a large…

We rented a car on Saturday, September 9 and made the 2.5 hour drive south to Shirahama Beach to meet up with our friends.  We were able to make our reservation in advance by phone in English.  But we’ve never rented a car before so we had to ask the rental agent a lot of questions.  He set up the GPS for us.  When we went to pick up the car, check out what was stuck on the back trunk by the license plate!  Hilarious.  It’s a big magnet so it peels right off.  This is the same beach that we went to last year, the one with the beautiful soft white sand that was brought over from Australia.  This…

Thursday, July 20, we are leaving Cambodia today.  It was a quick stop in this country but the short time we spent here was educational and interesting.  Now we are going back to Thailand to come full circle and close out our trip.  We are finishing up in Phuket (Poo-khet) and Phi Phi (Pee Pee) Island, locally known as Ko Phi Phi.  I scheduled our flight so that we could spend a little extra time in Siem Reap and now we won’t arrive in Phuket until after 8pm.  By the time we get off the plane, find a driver and check in to our hotel it’s probably going to be well past 10.  Update:  Our plane was super delayed and…

It’s still Wednesday, July 19.  The second half of our one full day in Cambodia began after lunch.  We said good-bye to our friendly and funny guide.  He told us so much about Cambodian history and his country’s struggles.  He told us how his parents had been killed by Vietnamese and his aunts and uncles killed by the Khmer Rouge.  We got the feeling they might have been scholars who were the first to be executed in the same type of sweep that Mao led to kill off the cultured and educated in China during the Cultural Revolution. When he left us I felt so sad that the Cambodian people have suffered so much at the hands of corrupt governments,…

Sunday-Tuesday, July 16-18 is a time to rest and sightsee in Hoi An, Vietnam. It’s another traveling day, this time from Hanoi to Hoi An, Vietnam.  We must fly to the Da Nang Airport and then a car will pick us up to take us to Hoi An.  John heard that Da Nang is a relatively new seaside town meant to cater to booming Vietnamese growth and wealth.  There is a large, fancy housing complex going up on our way outside of Da Nang and our driver tells us that the most famous soccer star, Ronaldo, has bought a place there.  John tells the driver he’s never heard of Ronaldo.  Our driver cannot believe this and he must have thought John…

By now we’ve traveled as a family to many countries and we can’t help but make comparisons between one country or city to another that we’ve already been to.  It’s a small world after all.  Something we see in one place will remind us of another place around the world. But Hanoi is a city like no other place that I have ever been to.  It is crazy, congested, chaotic.  Crossing the street means taking your life in your hands every time.  If you cross the street 10 times to get where you want to go, that means you are testing fate 10 times.  For anyone who loves a vibrant, lively city, and John and I do, Hanoi is the…