Billie Walter

We’ve landed!  At least for the next three months.  We rented a nice one bedroom condo in Hollywood, Florida, which is just steps from the broadwalk and the beach.  No, broadwalk is not a misspelling.  Since it is made out of bricks and concrete they don’t call it a boardwalk but it does the same thing as a boardwalk.  Lots of little shops and restaurants within walking distance.

In December we will be moving again.  All the snowbirds come south for the winter and the prices at the beach skyrocket.  We will probably decide to stay somewhere in the southeast Florida area.

We also bought ourselves a “beach car”.  It’s an old Sebring convertible but it runs well and is fun to drive around in.

Now that we are settled, the search for career/job hunt/work begins.  Tom wants to be a beach bum but can’t find anyone who will pay him to do that

Other Subjects:

My dad is still in the hospital recovering from open heart surgery.  He is 85 and the process is slow.  I still haven’t seen him yet but hopefully he will be able to get visitors in the coming weeks.

Seems like I will have a little more time on my hands right now, so I am hoping to get a few more stories written.

I wish you all a wonderful labor day weekend with your family and friends.

Angkor Wat

Before heading for Asia, we asked all of our friends and family if they had any suggestions or recommendations about places to go or things to see.  While we had a few general recommendations, we had two “absolutely must-see” recommendations from two experienced world travelers that don’t even know each other.  They both agreed that Angkor Wat was one of the most spectacular places that either of them had ever been.

Ta Prohm

After a little research and after learning that this was the place in “Laura Croft Tomb Raider” where the tree trunks were growing around the old temples, it all started to sound a little bit familiar.  Since we were in Thailand, and Cambodia is a neighboring country, we decided to make the trip to see what all the fuss was about.  We had originally planned to take a bus there and back, but after finding that it would probably take about twelve hours each way, we opted for a very expensive one hour flight.

Bayon

We arrived very early in the morning, checked into our hotel and hired a tuk-tuk driver for the day.  You can get a tuk-tuk driver for anywhere from $7 to $25 for the entire day.  When I say day, I mean twelve hours or more.  This is Soen, our driver, and we had him for two full days.  He spent the first day driving us from temple to temple while we explored and took pictures for hours upon hours.  He waited for us while we showered and got ready for dinner then drove us to a wonderful little restaurant.  After dinner he took us to a large massage parlor where we both had much needed foot massages.  After about twelve hours he delivered us back to our hotel.

Soen, our Tuk-Tuk Driver

Soen suggested that we get up at 5:45 AM and get to one of the temples early so that we could see the sunrise over Angkor Wat.  It was another amazing day of visiting more temples.  We even opted to go up in a balloon so that we could get a view from the sky.  If you want to see lots of great shots (not ours) of Angkor Wat, just click the link.  I don’t want to fill up your mailbox.

Since we were flying back to Bangkok late that evening, we headed to town for dinner and for a “fish foot massage.”  The fish are supposed to eat the dead skin from your feet but I think the water softens them and it tickles, not sure it really does anything else.

Fish Foot Massage

In the morning we hopped on a plane to our last Asian destination, Macau.  Apparently, they have lots of wonderful old Portuguese historical things to see.  Unfortunately, we were templed out, our feet were worn out and we just wanted to plant our butts in a chair and sit.  It was convenient that Macau has some of the largest casinos in the world.  Many of them even larger and grander than some of those in Las Vegas.  We headed to a poker room, played a little poker and enjoyed a couple of incredible buffets.

On the flight back to Saipan, Tom and I were discussing our trip.  We both agreed upon three things.  We both agreed that climbing on the Great Wall of China felt more incredible than we thought it would feel.  We thought that staying in the Hutong in China was one of the most rewarding things that we have ever done and that seeing all of the temples around Angkor Wat was one of the most amazing things that either of us has ever seen!!!

We spent six days in Bangkok, Thailand.   Some of those days were spent visiting the touristy highlights like Wat Pho also know as The Reclining Buddah, The Emerald Buddah and The Grand Palace.  We also visited Jim’s Thompson’s Thai House and Museum. If you have any interest in seeing the details of any of these places, just double-click on the link.  It’s just way too much information to write about.

Bridge over the River Kwai

We also took one day, hired a driver and went out to Kanchanaburi Province.  This is where the River Kwai is located.  We saw the “bridge over the river Kwai” but it is not the original (it was blown up) and so was the one in the movie, but they built a replica of one so the tourists would stop by, as we did.

The real reason that we headed to this area is because we wanted to ride an elephant through the jungle.  As you can see we had lots of fun doing this.

Elephant Riding in the Jungle

Tom also was looking forward to visiting the Tiger Temple where we could walk with the tigers and pet them (this of course happens after they have had their lunch).  This day was the highlight of our trip to Thailand.

Tom at Tiger Temple

We also did some shopping at the various marts and saw the infamous Pat Pong Market.

The prices in Thailand were extremely low and we took advantage of some of their  great deals.  We both agreed that the hour-long foot massage for somewhere between $6 and $9 was one of their best deals.

Next post I’ll tell you about our time at Angkor Wat in Cambodia and our final stop on the trip, Macau.

Hutong at Night

We arrived in Beijing, China around 9PM and headed for our preferred accommodations.  I say that, because we previously had decided that we wanted to stay in one of the last two “hutong” areas left in Beijing.  Hutongs are those areas in China where many Chinese people live in close, cramped quarters with lots of tiny streets and alleyways.  Most alleys are too small for cars, some too small for tuk-tuks.  Mostly bikes or walking was the only way to get around.  Most hutongs have been torn down to make way for large hi-rise buildings.  We opted to stay in a hostel located in the center of the hutong.  Our daily life there couldn’t have been any closer to actually living there (except for our last night which we spent with a Chinese friend of ours from Saipan).  The alleys of the hutong were filled with people cooking, eating, selling things and just hanging out.  It had a wonderfully authentic feel to it like something out of an old movie.  It was the real China not the touristy part.

Forbidden City

Over the next four days we visited the touristy places like Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace and the highlight of our China trip, “The Great Wall.”  It only rained one day while we were in China, the day that we visited the Great Wall.  We didn’t care, we were so happy to be there and to be able to climb around on it for several hours.  It felt amazing.   We climbed as far up as you can see at the top of the picture.  It was as far as they would allow us to go.

The Great Wall

We also spent time shopping and having dinner with some new Chinese friends that we had met.  We ate in all local restaurants when we ate in restaurants, but most of the time we would just find something interesting on the street and just eat that.

Tuk-Tuk Driver

We walked so much that we both got tons of blisters.  Finally, we gave in and took some public transportation.  We usually took subways and buses but our favorite form of transportation was the tuk-tuk.  Most tuk-tuks are motorized these days but this guy was actually peddling the bicycle.

Next post I’ll tell you about Thailand!

I’ve been a lot of places and done a lot of things but seeing Asia was still one of the things on my bucket list.  I want to start by saying that we are not rich and that we worked very hard to pull this trip together.  We did not use travel agents, book tours or stay in first class hotels.  We knew where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do.  Of course, if we had more money and more time, we probably would have gone more places.

Anyway, we wanted to take a trip that would let us mingle in the everyday lives of the people in the countries where we were visiting.  We stayed in hostels, budget hotels and one night with a friend.  We rode subways, buses, trains, cable cars, trams, elephants, boats, sky-trains, balloons, tuk-tuks, and an occasional taxi and airplanes, of course.  We walked so much that we bought nearly as many boxes of band aids as we did souvenirs.

While we didn’t learn any new languages, we quickly learned how to deal with five different currencies.

Below is a snapshot of our eighteen days in Asia.

On the morning of June 25th, Tom and I and two friends from Saipan, Linda & Masha, left for Hong Kong.  We had a stopover in Guam and since Tom, Masha and I had never been there, we decided to spend the day exploring the island.  We rented a car and Linda, who had previously lived in Guam, gave us the island tour.  To be honest it felt like Saipan, only bigger with more shops, stores and restaurants.  We had a nice meal before we hopped on the plane and headed for Hong Kong.

We arrived in Hong Kong around 10 PM, a perfect time to see the lights of the city. We got to our hostel, the imfamous Chungking Mansions, and settled in for the night. The next morning it was raining and continued to rain for the two days that we were there. We didn’t let that stop us though and we went around the city with rain ponchos on.

Dukling Junk

The good: we took a wonderfully fun ride around the harbor on the “last authentic Chinese sailing Junk in Hong Kong, the Dukling.” We explored the city and we were able to go up to Victoria’s Peak for lunch and enjoy the incredible view, but that was after we returned from Beijing.  It was during a stopover on a beautiful sunny day.

Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong

The bad: the jumbo floating restaurant (a pathetic tourist trap) as the food wasn’t that good and the service was worse.  They also charged us $8 for water that we didn’t want. It is barely off the docks, in fact if you go to end of the dock, it is a long jump away from the end. The other disappointment was the “laser” light show over the city that they have nightly. It had one laser, and that was from one building and was only was on for a couple minutes. Additionally, there were only about 6 buildings participating in the light show, another touristy thing to avoid.

All in all, we had a fun time in Hong Kong.  Coming up, our trip to Beijing, China!

We arrived back in Saipan from our Asian trip on July 13th.  We had a wonderful time and I plan on posting some pictures and stories in the coming week.  We had less than three days to pull ourselves together before we headed back to the mainland.

We’ve gotten lots of e-mails asking whether we are returning to Saipan or staying on the mainland.  I will try to answer all or most of your e-mails in this post.  First of all, when we left Las Vegas, we left because we were looking for a change.  We wanted to live on an island in the Pacific for two reasons.  First to experience living on an island and second to be close enough to Asia to visit some of the countries that we both had looked forward to visiting.

Well, we were there for nine and a half months and while we both had jobs, we got to experience what island life was like.  We also had a chance to visit Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Thailand, Cambodia, China, Guam and Tinian.  We feel that our adventure on Saipan and our trips to Asia were highly successful.  This was never meant to be a lifetime move and we feel that it is now time to move on.

Leaving Saipan 7/16/10

Due to some recent events, we made the decision to return to the states.  Tom’s mom is still recovering from her car accident and my dad having survived a recent heart attack and congestive failure has recently had a pacemaker put in.  Both parents are in their eighties and we wanted to be able to spend some more time with them.

We are currently visiting Tom’s mom in Chicago and in August we will be visiting my dad in Boston.

So what’s next?  Where will we go and what will we do?  We have no idea.  It will probably be somewhere in the states and somewhere with warm weather year-round.  We figure that if we can go half way around the world to an island where we didn’t have jobs, didn’t have a place to live and didn’t know anyone, that where ever we choose next should be a fairly easy transition.  Any suggestions?

We have been extremely busy lately, finalizing the details of our upcoming trip to Asia.  No, we didn’t use a travel agency (we’re trying to save money), so dealing with other countries, languages, airlines, hotels and currencies that we have never heard of, wasn’t very easy.  Anyway, we leave first thing in the morning and will be visiting Hong Kong, Beijing, Xian, Bangkok, Angkor Wat, Macau and maybe a few other side trips.

We decided not to take cell phones or laptops or visit internet cafes during our trip, therefore, we will be incommunicado with everyone.  We will be returning to Saipan on July 13th for a few days and then returning back to the mainland on July 16th.  At that point I will resume posting and we will get back in touch with all of you.

Since we won’t be online for the 4th of July…….Happy 4th of July to all of you.

I borrowed books from the library and spent hours doing research on the Internet before I left for Japan.  I wanted to be prepared.  The following is a list of “everyday things” that either surprised me or amused me.

10.  People stand in line for more than an hour and a half just to get into a Crispy Cream Donut Shop.  There is a guard posted at the entrance to make sure the line moves smoothly.  I wonder where the cops hang out?

9.  No one Jaywalks!  If the sign is showing “don’t walk,” even if there are no cars in sight for miles, everyone stands there and waits for the sign to change.  I crossed once and the looks of horror that I got kept me in line for the rest of the trip.

8.  There are vending machines all over the streets.  They all look brand new and freshly stocked.  They hold not only soft drinks, juices, water and coffee drinks but cigarettes, beer and food, as well.  They seem to be quite popular but they are expensive (but so is everything else in Japan).

7.  They have recycle bins all over the streets for can and bottles, but you won’t find a garbage can in sight.  I guess people just take their garbage home with them and throw it away.  By the way, the streets are spotless.

6.  The trains (including the bullet trains), subways and buses are spotless and orderly.  The all run quietly and smoothly.  There are hundreds of shops and restaurants underground, in and around the train station.  Everything is spotless and we never had second thought about eating from these places.

5.  Since the above transportation was so great, we never considered taking a taxi, but we thought about it.  Why, you ask?  Maybe because all of the taxi drivers wear a suit and tie and even some of them wear white gloves.  They must have a button close by, because the doors all seem to open and close magically to let you in and out. The seats in the taxis are covered with what looks like large white doilies or crocheted tablecloths.  I’m not sure what it was but it looked very fancy for a taxi.

4.  People actually looked like they had a plan when they got dressed in the morning.  Whether you like their style or not, everyone seemed very stylish, trendy and pulled together.  You hardly ever see an overweight person and you see lots of suits and dresses.  Maybe living on the island has relaxed my style a little too much.  It seems like people on the island put on whatever falls out of the closet first, including me.

3.  They have many restaurants where you enter, choose what you want from a picture on a vending machine, pay for the meal and then go and take a seat and wait for it to be prepared and delivered to your table.  No more waiting for the busy waitress and then giving her a hard time.  The best part, NO TIPPING in Japan for anything and the people still treat you like you’re about to part with a Ben Franklin.

2.  Hospital Masks, you know the one like Michael Jackson used to wear and all of those other people afraid of catching something…..well, in Japan you will see some people wearing these masks but not for the reason that I just mentioned.  If you see someone with a mask on, you can safely assume that this person has a cold or the flu and is considerate enough to wear the mask so that they do not infect others with their illness.

1.  The public baths!  These are great, popular and they are everywhere.  In both the hotel and the Ryokan where we stayed we took advantage of them.  The men’s and women’s are separate.  When you enter the bath area, you remove ALL of your clothing.  You place it in a basket or a locker.  You then enter an area designated for washing oneself.  We’re not talking about a quick rinse-off shower, we’re talking about a 10 to 20 minute scrubbing of ones body.  Rinse and scrub again and then you can enter the “bath.”  It is a large tub much like a big jacuzzi without the jets.  Our women’s bath could easily hold 20 or more women.  Nothing goes in the bath with you, no towels or swimwear.  This is just a place to soak and let the troubles of the day be forgotten.  I think the nudity puts everyone on a similar level.  You never know if you are sitting with the president of the company or the janitor.  This is a great tradition and we really enjoyed it at the end of our busy days.

I hope you’ve enjoyed some of my personal thoughts about Japan.  I truly believe that they have got a lot of great things going on in their country, things that we might learn from that could be helpful in our society.  I know that I learned a few things that I will personally be incorporating into my lifestyle.  Thanks Japan!

The third city that we visited in Japan was Osaka.  It is also a former capital.  While Osaka is a modern, trendy and hip city, we opted to spend a night in a traditional Japanese Inn called a Ryokan.  As you can see by the picture it has the feel of a real Japanese Inn.  We were served tea upon arrival and while we were out for dinner they prepared our futons and comforters on the floor for sleeping.  To be honest, as charming as it appears, it still had the feel of being at camp (a very expensive one at that).

Traditional Japanese Ryokan

The one traditional thing that we opted to go and see was the Osaka Castle.  It was one of our favorites and so was this monk.

Osaka Castle

The Monk

After that, we decided to do some more modern kinds of things like shopping (and there were tons and tons of shopping areas and stores) all which were very hip and current.  Unfortunately,  by then, we were so tired and we had so many blisters on our feet that shopping became just another sightseeing event.

Shinsaibashi Shopping Area

After a wonderful Japanese barbecue dinner, we headed up to the “Floating Garden” which was located between the 40th floors of the two towers of the Umeda Sky Building.  It’s actually a perfect place to get a complete view of the entire Osaka skyline.

Osaka Skyline

This was just one view from the top of the building but it is pretty much the same view all 360 degrees, as the greater Osaka area has about 18 million people.

While I’ve given you some of the facts about our trip, in my next post I will give you my “Top Ten” surprises about Japan.

We spent Friday and Saturday checking out the highlights of Kyoto.  Since there are more than 2,000 temples and shrines, we decided to pick some of the more popular sites to see.  We started our day by going to a Buddhist Service at one of the temples.  While

Buddhist Service

most monks usually sit on the floor with their legs crossed, you can see that the modern option of sitting on a chair is also available.  We only stayed for about fifteen minutes since we had no idea what they were saying, but it was still kind of interesting.

After this service, we headed over to the Imperial Palace and had a complete tour of the grounds.

Garden at the Imperial Palace

The grounds were actually more beautiful than the palace buildings were, so peaceful and serene.

After a few more temples, shrines and palaces we headed over to Philosopher’s Path for a long, leisurely walk.  Tom said he was having deep thoughts but I was actually contemplating where we were going to be having dinner.

Philosopher's Path

On Saturday we headed over to The Golden Pavilion.  It was one of our favorite temples and is probably the most famous of them all.

The Golden Pavallion

Another nice temple was the Kiyomizudera Temple which is up in the hills overlooking Kyoto. We drank from the waters there to have our wishes fulfilled!

Kiyomizudera Temple

At night we went to eat at restaurant row, a narrow pedestrian street and then headed over to the Gion area where you can catch glimpses of Geisha and Geishas in training.

Geishas in Training

Restaurant Row

After two days experiencing Kyoto’s past we headed to Osaka from Kyoto station, which reminded us that while Kyoto has a rich tradition, it is still a modern city.

Kyoto Station

The Deer of Nara

We arrived in Osaka on Thursday morning and decided to head to Japan’s oldest capital, Nara. It took us about an hour by train. Nara was Japan’s first permanent capital and it’s still full of historical treasures, including some of Japan’s oldest and largest temples. It’s also home to Nara Park where more than 1,200 deer roam freely and have been designated as a natural treasure by the government. We discovered that the deer not only love eating the crackers that you give them, but will follow you around and try to eat anything else that you might be carrying on you.

Todaiji Temple

This is Todaiji Temple which is the world’s largest wooden building. It houses Japan’s largest bronze Buddha statue.  (See if you can find Tom in the picture)   It must have been field trip week because all of the temples had masses of school kids at the sites. They loved to come up to us and ask us “in English” where we were from and if they could have our autograph and picture taken with them.

5 Story Pagoda

This is the Kofukuji’s Temple grounds that houses this five story pagoda which is Japan’s second tallest pagoda. The grounds are massive with lots of other buildings but I don’t want to overflow your e-mail box.

Tomorrow I’ll show you a little of Kyoto.

First of all, I would like to thank all of you for your well wishes and prayers.  It seems they worked.  Tom’s mom is feeling much better and getting back to her usual routine of playing bridge and going out with friends.  My dad is now home from the hospital and working on getting his strength back.  They are both doing remarkably well and we are thankful for that.

They are both encouraging us to go forward with our planned trips so we are leaving next Thursday morning for Japan, Kyoto and Osaka.  We are really looking forward to getting away, relaxing and seeing the sights.  When we get back I will post some pictures.

Not much else is new. We have both been working very hard and haven’t had much time for anything else.  I have been doing terrible as far as diet, exercise and writing goes.  I blame it all on work!  I look forward to doing a lot of walking in Japan and I am working on some new stories to add very soon.  I’ll keep you posted.

This week has not been a good week for us.  We received bad news regarding both of our parents who are in their eighties.

Early in the week we got a call that Tom’s mom, Sarah, had been in a car accident.  She was not driving but a passenger in a car that was totaled.  She spent several days in the hospital and was released after they were certain that nothing was seriously wrong.  She was badly bruised and is now recovering at home.

A few days later we received a call from my brother, Bob, saying that my dad had had a massive heart attack and has pneumonia.  The first day they weren’t sure if he was going to make it.  It is now two days later and they have just moved him out of the intensive care unit and into a regular room.  While not in great shape, they expect him to live.

Hearing things like this are never easy and being so far away makes it even harder.  We can’t just hop on a plane and be there in a few hours.  This just adds to our thoughts and considerations regarding staying on this island.

I’m just asking that you keep them both in your prayers.

I don’t agree.  Actually, I think that no news is better than bad news but not nearly as good as good news.   Since we’re both working full time right now, not much new is really happening in our lives.  But…something is going to be happening soon and I would like any input that I can get from you.

We are starting to plan a couple of trips, one to Japan (probably Kyoto and Osaka) and the other one to Asia (Hong Kong, Macau, Beijing & Xian in China, Bangkok,Thailand and Angkor Wat in Cambodia.  We will be doing all of the usual touristy things in these places.  If any of you have any other suggestions of things to see or do in or near any of these locations, I’d love to hear about it.  I don’t want to wait until we get home and hear about what we should have seen or done.

Once we get our trips confirmed, I will be posting our itinerary so you’ll know exactly where we are and why we’re not responding to e-mails and phone calls.

By the way, these trips for us are good news!

Sometime in my 20's

Most of you know that prior to my moving, I unloaded a couple of trunks with more than 40 years in daily diaries, appointment books and pictures, as well as various mementos.  I decided that if I put my stories and pictures on my website then I could have all of my mementos with me wherever I went without having to lug those trunks around everywhere.  I have to admit that it was a little bit difficult at first, but as I progressed I got the feeling that I was freeing myself of material things while keeping the memories alive.

On occasion, I ask myself if that was the right thing to do.  One such occasion was when I started filling out applications for jobs here in Saipan.  One of the things that they require in order to accept an application is a High School Diploma or transcripts.  Well, I lugged my Diploma around with me for 42 years and no one had ever asked me to see it before, so I just tossed it.  Fortunately, the high school where I graduated is still in business and I was able to get my transcripts from them.

Another occasion that arose recently, was when a friend that I hadn’t seen in over 35 years contacted me.  I had carried a picture of us around all of those years but when it came time to scan my pictures I decided to keep my choices to a minimum and that photo was one of the ones that I decided to let go.  It’s vivid in my mind but it is forever gone.  Maybe that is why some people don’t want to throw anything away.

Well, hearing from my friend after so much time is a much better gift than any photo could ever be.  Over the years my memories of the bad things have faded but my memories of the good things just seem to get better all of the time.  All I can say is “Thanks for the Memories!”