we're finally home ...

... and tired, but after finishing carrying boxes i just set up the internet and wanted to test it, hence this small post.

we have to go back tomorrow to our temporary apartment to do a little cleaning (and fetch the few final plants that haven't yet made their way back), but other than that, we're moved back. well, except for the oodles of boxes stacked all over the place. i guess it while be a little while before we're fully settled in again, but it will be nice to sleep in our own bed again.

oh yeah, and the repairs are almost almost almost done. i really want to be able to call everything absolutely completely done, but realistically, by the time i deal with the final details with the contractor and the insurance company and the bank and all of the associated bureaucracy and paperwork, it could easily be another month before all of the hassles are totally behind me.

off to bed, have to get up early tomorrow morning.

Still sick, but heading home soon

Unfortunately, Lorien and I are still both a little bit sick, so the Tahoe plans got fully canceled. Hopefully next weekend. I suppose I'd be more upset if there were actually decent snow this season, but the continuous sun day after day doesn't seem to understand that this is supposed to be the rainy season.

So we spent most of this weekend sitting around watching movies and eating comfort food. Unfortunately we didn't grab quite enought chicken soup from the freezer before the floors were completed, so we had to actually go out and buy some yesterday. It was okay, but it doesn't have quite the same love as homemade. Tonite we went back to the house for some more, figuring the floors had cured enough that they were ready to be walked on.

Speaking of which, the floors are indeed done. To the first order everything is now done, although there are a couple of minor things left that hopefully ought to get taken care of tomorrow. So we still are on track to be back in the house sometime next week, hopefully next Monday at the absolute latest even if some things go wrong and get delayed.

I think we have finally solved the mystery of Dirk's skittishness heading outside. After being very hesitant to head outside for quite some time, last night I let him out briefly and he took off. I wasn't able to coax him back in before we went to bed, even with some food. So this morning I headed downstairs to see if he was by the door wanting to come in. Indeed, there was a cat by the back door, but it wasn't Dirk. When I went to open the door, the other cat took off to the neighbor's yard behind us. A short while later, I was able to summon Dirk's return. So I think this other cat has our backyard marked out as his territory, which makes Dirk a bit nervous. And when he does head out, I think he takes refuge in the yard of our neighbor to the side. Anyway, soon we'll be back home and he'll be able to roam familiar territory again, which ought to make him happy.

And us too.

sniff sniff

In a mildly unfortunate turn of events, Lorien and I have both managed to get a wee bit sick at the same time, for the first time ever. Well, not the first time ever getting sick, just together, that is. Well, unless you count our dual ear infections while on honeymoon.

Anyway, it's not too bad, and we're still hoping to make it to Tahoe this weekend if we feel better, as Lorien is eager to try out her new snowboarding equipment.

Lorien would like me to blame our collective colds on the cold spell we've been having here, which indeed has made things so cold that Dirk doesn't even want to go outside. And the California citrus growers aren't very happy, as you may have heard. I'm a bit more skeptical, on the whole "being cold doesn't give you a cold logic", but I suppose it does make you more susceptible to catching one.

Luckily we did manage to sneak into the house before the kitchen floor got finished to grab some chicken soup from the freezer. We've settled upon a policy of whenever we make chicken soup, to make oodles and oodles of it so that we have enough leftovers that we always have it "on tap" in the freezer just for such emergencies. Mmmmmm good......

Speaking of the floors, the repairs are progressing on schedule. Actually, from taking a peek at the house this evening, it looks like they might be totally done, but I'm not sure.

After the floors, there's still a couple of other minor things to get done, and a bunch of cleanup (refinishing the floors causes dust to go everywhere, which is why we had to move out), and then moving back. But, if all goes well, all of that will be done by the end of next week, and then we'll be back and done.

Empty Nest

Wow, it really has been a while since I've shared anything here. Sorry about that. I am happy to report that, after a very long time, we are finally reaching the end of the repairs to our house. For any of you counting, it has now been 14 months (exactly, I just realized) since our fire. I never imagined that this ordeal could possibly last so long. I'd always heard people complain about contractors, but kind of assumed that they were exaggerating with how bad it could be. Now I know better.

Shortly after the new year, we got everything packed up to vacate the house for the final repairs (mostly painting and refinishing the floors). Our original plan was to stay in some corporate hotel kind of place (but with small kitchenettes) in Emeryville (which is where I work), but when we stopped by to visit the place, it was a bit of a disappointment. We briefly considered another place that was a bit nicer (and about twice the money), but then decided that maybe we should just look around for a place that would make us a bit happier. We managed to find on craigslist a short-term rental on a 1 BR half of a duplex that's very close by to our actual house (only about 4-5 blocks away). It would be a bit cramped for the long term, but it's fine for the 3-4 weeks that we expect to be here.

Thankfully we had some other company to do the main work of packing up and moving most of our stuff into storage. But moving still was a bit of a pain. Partly because this company (like every other company we've dealt with) turned out to be a bit incompetent, and didn't really fully do the job that they're getting paid to do, so we ended up having to do a bunch of stuff ourselves anyway. And they didn't really have any way to take care of the growing collection of indoor plants that we have accumulated, so we ended up moving all of them to the new place, which was a bit of a delicate operation.

Even for a very short journey, Dirk doesn't like to travel, and he was a bit skittish at first in the new digs. He spent a lot of the first few days hanging out under the bed, but he has grown a bit more accustomed to his new surroundings and is now more relaxed. The backyard here is beautiful, with a number of redwood trees, some of them quite mature, and Dirk likes the opportunity to wander outside. That is, when he's not intimidated by the bitter cold that we've been experiencing lately. (We've wrapped our small lime tree back at the house in christmas lights leftover from the wedding to try to protect it against the frost.)

The painting at the house was finished on Friday, and the refinishing of the floors is scheduled to start tomorrow morning. If all goes well, that will be done at the end of this coming week, and the following week will be devoted to cleaning up and moving back. And then we'll be done. I'm fully expecting things to go wrong, because they pretty much have given any opportunity to do so, but maybe just maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised and 2 weeks from now we'll be back in our house and can get on with our lives.

I do have tons more to say, trying to catch up on the past 4 months when I've been a bit negligent in my blogging, but both Lorien and I (she's working now) have to work tomorrow morning (corporate America doesn't seem to feel that the achievements of Dr. King are sufficiently worthy of a day off), so I should be turning in. More to come soon...

PhinisheD

After 6 long years (which Lorien would like me to point out included a Master's degree), Lorien filed her dissertation today. She is now officially Dr. Fono. Lorien's plans for the upcoming month include camping, cycling, sewing, and sleeping. Which sounds much more exciting to me than waterproofing our basement, which is how we spent last weekend.

I know it's been a while since I've blogged, and I have some catching up to do once again, but for now I just wanted to get you all current with the latest news. We're off in a few minutes to a midnight showing of The Science of Sleep, so I'll write more later.

Congratulations to Lorien!

3 days, 3 more mice

After a bit of a hiatus, Dirk has resumed his mice collection. I guess they're not all gone yet. Hopefully this might be the end, or at least the beginning of another hiatus. It's day 4 and still no sight of one today. Yet.

Lorien is busy finishing up her dissertation. Which is one of the reasons that we're here and I'm posting this now this week, and we're not at Burning Man. I'm a little sad at not being there this year, but I just don't think I could have properly handled it right now. I hope to be back next year.

Birthdays weekend

For a while now since moving into our house we've been having a monthly cocktail hour, usually on the first Thursday of every month, but sometimes moving around as convenient. This month we decided to move it to the following week, and on a Friday, so that it could double as an excuse to celebrate our birthdays. Yes, in case you don't already know, Lorien and I share the same birthday. We were both born on August 12. Although a few years apart...

We got a chance to put to use some of the knowledge we gained from planning a wedding. We loved the wedding cake so much, we decided to order birthday cakes from the same bakery. They were a bit on the small side for putting 37 and 29 candles on respectively, plus I suppose one more each for good luck, so we just settled on the good luck candles. Here we are blowing out the candles. And getting ready to cut the cake with our lovely cake cutter (thanks Maureen!) and serve it on our new dishes (thanks Larry and Sheryl!).

A little bit later in the evening some friends showed up with a 6-pack of champagne. I bet you didn't even know that you could buy champagne in a six pack. I sure didn't. And good stuff, too. Thanks Todd!

And here's Dirk busy doing one of the activities he loves best, just laying around relaxing. Although he's been a bit busy too, bringing us not one, but two mice, on back to back days. Kind of an early birthday present, I suppose. We had previously heard some squeaking coming from the far corner of the backyard, but we haven't heard anything in a while. Perhaps the surviving mice took the hint, decided that the yard of one of the few cats in the neighborhood wasn't the smartest place to make their home, and moved on.

Since we've been back, 3 of 3

We've been trying to make the time to cook a bunch since we've been back. Which has given us the opportunity to use many of the wonderful wedding gifts that we've received. We got a craving for steak and barbeque'd one weekend. And it turned out so good (I've concluded the secret to success is in the marinade) that in an uncharacteristic display of meat consumption, we decided to do it again and invite some friends over. Lorien would like me to point out that here we are enjoying our final bottle of Canadian wine from our cellar. Which means that when we're in Toronto in a couple of weeks Lorien is going to try to get some more.

And on the non meat front (which usually does a better job describing our habits) our garden is doing quite well. We're starting to harvest what promises to be an over abundance of tomatoes. Besides the several varieties that we planted, we have quite a few volunteers -- plants that just sprung up on their own after laying down compost. We've also learned that if you plant the root end of a stalk of green onions, you'll end up with another stalk. And while we missed what probably would have been one of the last edible artichokes for the season while we were on honeymoon, the plus side of that is that it turned into this amazing artichoke flower that you see here.

Since we've been back, 2 of 3

Less than 2 weeks after returning, we had the joy of going to someone else's wedding. Ben and RD were joined by their families and friends up in the hills in Tilden Park on July 15. It was another beautiful day, and Lorien and I rode our bikes. The pictures in this installment are from their wedding.

You may remember Ben and RD from our wedding. As the first of many couples getting married after us, Lorien presented them with her bouquet.

Other of our friends and family getting married in the coming year are Ben and Sara, Arnab and Alicia, and Scott and Kathleen. And also upcoming, but without precise dates, are Neal and Genevieve, and Roger and Vanessa. Apparently coupling is in.

Since we've been back, 1 of 3

We've been keeping busy since we've been back, although I have been a bit neglectful in posting. Sorry about that, I'll try to keep up with things a bit more.

Shortly after returning from honeymoon, Lorien got her EIT results. This is the Engineer in Training exam, a grueling 8 hour exam (14 hours if you count the ordeal from door to door) that Lorien wasn't too keen on having to repeat. And the good news is that she passed!

Lorien has been lately keeping busy writing her dissertation, which she hopes to finish up in the not too distant future, and have a little time off before she starts work at Carollo, an Engineering consultant firm in Walnut Creek, sometime this fall.

And I've settled back into the work routine, which wasn't nearly as difficult to adjust to as it was after the last time we went traveling. I'm currently working on a cell phone application of turn by turn driving instructions.

And we've both been enjoying the beautiful weather that we've been having here this summer. Maybe it was partially a month in the tropics that helped us adjust, although being by the coast probably helped too, but we enjoyed the warm weather of a few weeks past. It was comfortably warm here, not quite the sweltering heat wave seen in some further inland parts of California. We just got a wee bit into the low 90s F, not into the 100s, 110s, and 120s F.

One of the places that we suggested on our page of Local points of interest and things to do from the wedding web site was the Albany Bulb. I'm pleased that a few people actually took us up on the suggestion and went there. I'm a bit ashamed, howeverk, to admit in retrospect that although it's a place I had been meaning to visit for a long time, I had never actually been there personally, I had just heard a lot about it. (Lorien had been a few times.) Anyway, one of these past weekends we went for a walk there, and that's where these pictures are from. I call the last one "My heart between a diamond and a spade."

And then we're home!

While it's a little sad to end traveling, in general I'm actually feeling pretty good about returning. Much moreso than I did after my last trip. Maybe part of it is that 1 month seems like a holiday, and after 3 months you've adjusted to being away all that much more, and there's more of a culture shock. But some of it is also probably that I'm just a lot more content with my home and my work and my life and lots of other things (like just being married!) compared to last time.

Our garden took off like crazy in our absence. (Lorien having installed an irrigation system shortly before the wedding presumably helped a great deal with that.) The bougainvillea (take a look back at the Malaysia pictures from the Cameron Highlands) is thriving, which is somewhat amazing considering that last year we didn't even know we had it, because it was totally surrounded by the wisteria. Speaking of wisteria, it grows like crazy. In just one month of being away it had totally climbed up the pole to the clothesline. When we moved in I concluded that the previous owners had totally neglected it, since it was so overgrown. Now I realize that it just grows and grows and grows and grows. I think I've already spent way too much of my life trimming it, and we need to maybe seriously cut it way back and try to get it a bit more under control. Our vegetables and herbs are also doing pretty good, lots of big tomato plants.

Dirk is quite happy to be home. Or at least in the general vicinity of our house, as I think it's the outdoors that he missed the most. We brought him back from a friend's place, where they were taking care of him while we were away. We let him out of his travel box, he looked around the house a little bit, and in probably less than a minute he was out the cat door and wandering around outside. Thankfully he doesn't seem too angry at us for abandoning him for month.

And we were blessed the day we got back with a gorgeous sunset.

Thanks for the good wishes we got from people while we were traveling, and we're glad that some people got some enjoyment out of this blog. We're going to keep it for a while and see how it goes. It seems like a convenient way to keep in touch with people, posting here and there about what's going on in our lives, and people can check in sometime if they're curious about what's up. In case anybody is wondering, it was incredibly easy to set up. And while the software has a few quirks and is sometimes a little bit buggy, in general it goes pretty smoothly.

another brush with royalty

Another thing we forgot to post earlier. On our first day in Kuching, we saw the Queen of Malaysia! We were walking down the street by the river, and a big motorcade came by and stopped in front of us. We walked to the other side of the street and asked what was up. Someone told us that the Queen had just arrived and was shopping in the clothing store that we were in front of. We joined the gawkers for a bit and got a glimpse of Her Highness. I mostly saw a big bouffant with a headscarf perched on top.

Later that day, we discovered that the King and Queen were in town for a festival of indigenous Borneo culture. We went to the festival, driven by the proprietor at our guest house. It was alright, a lot of speeches in Malaysians by Ministers of Culture and such, then traditional singing and dancing and a play about a native boy becoming a hero in order to win his girl's affection, with little bits of how well all the cultures in Malaysia get along.

More catchup, Japan

Here we are in the Bangkok airport about to leave Thailand for Japan. Lorien and I both still had ear infections, and we decided before boarding the plane was a good time to administer ear drops. It also gave us an excuse to lie down for a bit before the long plane ride.

We didn't really have a lot of time in Japan. Narita is not really very close by to Tokyo. Which I can understand in a crowded country like Japan, but I can't understand for example why the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia is so far from the city. So with all of the time in transit, we only really had about 5 or 6 hours I think.

Usually we're accustomed to having guidebooks, maps, and stuff like that. This time we had none of that, our only main preparation was about an hour the previous day in Bangkok where we scanned the web, and managed to get some useful information off of wikitravel.org. It helped that we had limited goals -- our one main goal was to get some good sushi. Which we did, by going as close to the source as possible, one of two places recommended that's located right in the fish market. The fish comes in in the early morning hours, and people start queuing for sushi for breakfast. We weren't there quite that early (more like 10ish AM), but we still had to wait about an hour. But it was worth it. Quite good.

Our endeavors were also helped by a few things that I remembered from my previous trip to Japan. One, that the public transit system is amazing. It really makes it clear how horrible all American public transit systems are when you see just how good it can be. The other is that so many Japanese people are so helpful, to the point sometimes of being absurd. If you're in a big city, where most of the people can speak decent English, even if you think like you look a little confused, and are staring at a map or looking around for a sign, chances are that someone will come up and ask you if you need any help, before you even have the chance to think about asking someone for help. One time we entered a subway line by heading into a stairwell that, in an unusual example of something not being organized well, put us on the wrong side of the station (with the tracks going the other way than we wanted), with us having had no other choice. Not really that big of a deal, we just had to walk down the platform, head up some stairs there, cross over the tracks, and down the other side. And we were pretty certain that we knew exactly what we were doing and I don't really think we looked confused at all. So as we're heading out of sight and climbing the stairs to get to the other side, this guy is running after us trying to catch up to us. I can't imagine what's going on, and he just wants to make sure we know what we're doing and that we're going where we want to go. And even when we get to the other side he's similing at us and pointing and making sure that we're all set.

We had wanted to walk around the gardens of the Imperial Palace, but they're closed on Mondays (and Fridays). Nevertheless, we headed to the area instead, and wandered around some other nearby gardens. By that time it was getting close to us having to head back in the direction of the airport anyway, and we were also starting to get a little bit weary, our first stage of jetlag beginning to catch up to us.

I'm glad we took the time to head in to Tokyo. It would have been nice to have more time, although you can easily spend as much in a very short amount of time in Tokyo as you can live on for probably a whole month in Southeast Asia.

Fire Play

No holiday would be complete without a little fire spinning. I just wanted to add that we found the one person on the island (Kecil, that is) with fire poi, and she let us play with them. Thus, we found everything we needed for our well being (good scuba, good food, fire poi) on the island before being struck down by the gods with ear infections. But, as they say, it's better to have played then gone to the hospital, than never to have played at all.

Another day, another round of catchup (Thailand)

Time for some more catchup. There's not really all that much left to say about the remaining parts of our honeymoon. Our short time spent in Kota Bharu had two main highlights, namely the general hospital and the night market. Not a lot of noteworthy pictures there. It was then about a 45 minute taxi ride to the border (we really weren't in the mood to deal with a public bus that day) where we got dropped off. I enjoy walking across international borders. Here's a shot leaving Malaysia

And here's a shot preparing to enter Thailand. A reasonably organized crossing, where it helps that both countries drive on the same side of the road (the left). Last visit, when we crossed from Cambodia to Thailand (also by walking, also after getting dropped off by car at the border, but driving the roads on the Cambodia side is a bit more of an adventure than in Malaysia), there's the issue that Cambodia drives on the right side and Thailand drives on the left. In this case, Thailand sort of "won". The bridge connecting the countries was left hand drive, which on the Thailand side neatly flowed into their organized highway system. On the Cambodia side it didn't really matter, because there really was no organized system of roads at the border. The bridge just ended in a pretty rundown and disorganized location, so there wasn't much of a side of the road to be driving on there period.

Our remaining time in Thailand was occupied mostly be eating, getting massages, and shopping. No, this isn't at a conventional fruit stand. All of the fruit that Lorien is standing in front of is plastic. One of the odder sights we saw at the (huge) Chatuchak [sp?] weekend market. They had replicas of I think just about all of the exotic Southeast Asian fruits you can think of: mangosteen, longhan, durian, rambutan, lychee, bitter melon, to name a few. Perhaps you're seeing the theme of the tables at our wedding by now, if you didn't before? If only we could have gone on the honeymoon before the wedding, we could have bought plastic fruit for all of the tables and used those as centerpieces instead of the labeled cards. Although I'm not sure if then anybody would have known what table they were at. Ok, maybe banana would have known.

And here's another image from the market. Ok, so we're a little obsessed with cats, perhaps.

And here's a tuk-tuk driver in Bangkok doing what they do so well, just lounging around. It's not that they're lazy, there's just way too many tuk-tuk drivers. A tuk-tuk is basically a small, open cart attached to what I think is pretty much just a motorcycle drivetrain. They've I believe outlawed the older 2-stroke models in Bangkok (or maybe that's just for new tuk-tuk's?) in favor of 4-stroke models, which is I think improving the air quality somewhat. Or maybe I'm just more used to the pollution than I wsa the first time around. Most guidebooks now recommend against using them -- if you're getting a fair fare, you can probably get just about the same price in a metered taxi; and many of the drivers (esp. in the heavily touristed areas) try to charge you way too much (it helps to know how much a comparable taxi fare would be); and if they quote you a way low fare they're probably just trying to be a tout and drag you to some place where someone else is going to try to sell you some crap you don't want. Nevertheless, we've found them quite fun. Even for about the same price, and despite sharing the same roads, they can be WAY faster than a taxi. They can squeeze past spaces that a taxi could only dream of, and tuk-tuk drivers have a pretty low respect for local traffic laws. One more word of transport advice, though, is that if you're going a long distance from north to south or vice-versa and it's during the day, the best combination of cheap, fast, and fun is to take a river taxi, and just bypass the city traffic.

Anyway, that's the next bit of catchup. More on another night.

Catch up #1 - Beach and scuba

It's been a while since I posted, so I'm not even sure if anyone is reading this anymore. But I feel like I left things a little bit unfinished, esp. since it wasn't easy to post pictures at the end, so I'm going to include a few more posts that are retroactively going back in time to the tail end of the honeymoon.

We spent a while (a bit more than a week I think) in the Perhentian Islands. On Long Beach at Pulau Perhentian Kecil (Kecil means the small island; contrasted to Besar, the big island). Long Beach is the most developed area of the small island, with the most to do, but that's really not saying much. Most of the people are on the island to dive, and there's really not much of a late night party scene. Which was fine with us. (Are we getting old?)

We did a bunch of scuba diving, with Coral Sky Divers. Sometimes the visibility was awesome, sometimes it was less than spectacular. The dive sites are very close to the islands compared to Koh Tao, where they were still fairly close. It's easy to get two dives in a day and still have plenty of other time. Our favorite dive spot was Temple of the Sea, which we ended up diving at twice.

The island has no roads. There's just a number of beaches, some connected by paths through the jungle. The only other way to get around is by boat. It's the kind of place where you can take off your shoes when you get there and keep them off for a week. Which is basically what we did, with two exceptions -- one time when we talk a walk to the other side of the island, and the other time when we decided our initial accomodations (at Panorama) weren't quite good enough, and we packed up our belongings and moved to the north end of the beach, to Moonlight.

One somewhat downside of the island was the food. There's not a lot of places to eat besides the guest houses, and they generally serve up the same monotonous variety of both Malay and Western food, but most of it not very imaginative or all that great. Although there is plenty of fresh fish (the nightly BBQ is a decent deal), and the mangos were plentiful and quite sweet and juicy. And various places seem to be able to make decent french fries, if that's what you have in mind.

We were complaining about the food to Trish, one of the divemasters at Coral Sky, and she clued us in. She recommended a place for us to go, Aziela Cafe. We had actually already been there and weren't too impressed. But the key is to not order anything that's on the menu. She gave us a bunch of recommendations for other things to order. Which is the kind of thing that we could have been able to do in Thailand, but not having enough familiarity with Malay food, we weren't really capable of doing something like that without assistance. Anyway, we went there, and kept going back repeatedly over the next few days, and tried everything she recommended, and it was all quite good. I don't understand why they don't just put the good stuff on the menu so that enough people can have it. They seem to be quite happy to make it when you ask for it. And not all travelers want crappy Western or Westernized food.

We ended up getting to be a bit friendly with the people there. I had been looking for durian (the spiky fruit with a bad reputation), but nobody had it for sale on our part of the island, since it's not something a lot of Westerners want. I had even been considering taking a boat to the village to see if I could get some myself at the market. I asked them at Aziela if they had any, and the answer was no, but they volunteered to get some for me the next time they went to the market. Which they did. And the next day, when we had the durian, we ended up eating with a bunch of other people, and sharing a bunch of dishes, and I got a bunch of people to try durian that never had had it before. It's funny -- everyone seems to have their own opinion of what it tastes like, and everyone describes it as something totally different than what everyone else says. Including brie, honey-garlic, and jackfruit. My recommendation is to definitely try it if you're traveling in Southeast Asia and get the chance. But you probably don't want to give it a go in North America -- I'll let Lorien tell you why.

As in many other places along these travels, we encountered plenty of cats. Well, more specifically, plenty of kittens. Really an overabundance of kittens, which isn't actually a good thing, if you think about it. But many of them are incredibly cute, so I couldn't resist posting at least one photo.

All in all we had a pretty good time there, the biggest downside being that we both got ear infections, which ended our diving a little bit early.

That's about all for now. I'll continue playing catchup with reportings on our journeys, and some more photos, on another night.

We're back

We're back home safely, and happy to see Dirk (the cat) again. Our plan to avoid jet lag by staying up last night until a normal hour local time was thrwarted by the fact that we then slept for something ridiculous like 15 hours.

Anyway, once we've recovered a bit and gotten things here in order we'll post some more with some of the final details, as well as a few more pics. All of our wedding and honeymoon pics will eventually be posted online, but it might take a little while for us to get around to that.

Tokyo advice?

I've probably asked for this before, but we've got a very long layover on the way back in Tokyo and our plan is to head into the city. We've got I think something like about 6 or 8 hours that we can actually be in the city. If anyone has any advice about things to do in that time, feel free to reply here and/or e-mail us. I've been to Japan before, but never Tokyo other than passing through. This is Lorien's first visit to Japan, unless you count hanging out in the Narita airport.

Heading home soon

So we've left the beach and returned to Thailand. As I was about to show you in pictures, but things don't seem to work quite right uploading pictures with IE7, and no Firefox here, so I give up. We'll have plenty more pictures later.

We did manage to get on the train that we wanted to get on. Indeed the computers magically started working again right on time as predicted.

We've been spending the past few days enjoying the familiarity of Bangkok. Between two trips and this being the transit center for various itineraries, this is actually now our fifth visit here. We've been eating, getting massages, doing some shopping, doing some more eating, etc. It's our last night here, so I won't spend too much time catching up on all of the events since my last long posts, but I'll fill in the missing gaps after we return. And get over the jet lag.

Thankfully our ear infections are improving somewhat, so hopefully the flight home won't be too bad. Or at least nothing that enough drugs can't overcome.

Oh yeah, one more little detail I was going to include in my previous post that I forgot to mention. Of all of the various (four) health care people that were in our path on our long visit to the hospital in Malaysia, they were all women. Not that there's anything wrong with that, it just came as a bit of a surprise to me that that was the case in a predominantly Muslim country. (And they were all definitely Muslim, given the head scarves).

Anyway, it's getting late, and we ought to be moving along. Lorien and I have enjoyed posting during our honeymoon and we're glad to see that people are actually paying attention.

gradually on our way back

Walked across the border back into Thailand today. We're now trying to book a train ticket back to Bangkok. Not having all that much luck right now. Their excuse is that the computer is down, but I'm a little suspicious of the somewhat professional looking, preprinted sign that indicates that the computer is down. Sounds like an excuse for a mid day siesta to me.

Not content to do activities separately, Lorien has decided to join me in having an ear infection. Although hers isn't quite as serious, possibly because we recognized it and started treating it earlier, having learned a bit from my experience. We spent about 5 hours or so in a hospital in Malaysia yesterday (stupidly we forgot to bring reading material) trying to get examined by someone. I wasn't too impressed with the people that we immediately saw -- one of the things I was asking for was a painkiller stronger than ibuprofin, so she was trying to give me Motrin. I didn't have much luck convincing her that Motrin is just a brand name for ibuprofin (like Tylenol is a brand name for acetominaphen). Anyway, we finally managed to see someone that I think was a real doctor, and was knowledgeable, and spoke decent English. And I think we've both turned the corner and are on our way to recovering.

Anyway, at the train station they told us to stop by again after noon (funny how they know just when they'll stop having computer problems?), and it's a few minutes past that now, so we probably ought to get back.

We'll try to post a bit more, and maybe some more pics, if we have the luck and manage to find our way back to Bangkok one of these days.