I am alive

Does this work?

Also behind the castle walls is an enormous wine barrel. A teenager is leaning on a normal-sized barrel to show scale.

Inside the castle walls...

Slip sliding away

Did I say not in good shape?

Heidelberg

For Day 2 of Mannheim, Jen took me to the nearby town of Heidelberg where there is a castle from the 1600s. The castle has been through some wars and fires so it is not in good shape. Then we walked down to the Christmas market, has some Gluwein (heated wine) and hung out. The whole time in Heidelberg I had Carianne strapped to my back.

Cribs

The alligator hovers above the crib while keeping a watchful eye and tooth over the baby.

Smoke Stacks on the Horizon

...as seen from Jen and Doug's place.

 

Church along the Rhein

...near where we parked.

 

Trail to Rhein

...and feeling fine.

 

Autumn is coming... to get you!

Nathan plays with the depth of field again and then "leaves" it alone ;)

Fall already!

This leaf looks jet-lagged.

Pinky and the Brains

Carianne got tired of people asking if she was a boy on our trip so as soon as we got back to Germany, she put on her pink clothes.

 

Priority Boarding

12-12-06 to 12-13-06

I flew to Germany with my sister, Jen, and her four month old daughter, Carianne. I suppose it was inevitable that I would be mistaken as the father of the little one and I stopped correcting people after a while. I was amazed at how much more respect and appreciation people gave us. Even beyond priority boarding, people would just get out of your way more, be more understanding if you bump them and a gentleman even came up and gave us vouchers for free drinks on the flight. Maybe we looked pitiful. I think travelling with Carianne gave me a glimpse at what having a child will be like one day and I am both excited and scared. I have an enormous amount of respect for what my sister is going through.

We arrived to Frankfurt, and my brother in law, Doug, picked us up. Jen, Carianne and I took a nature hike over to the Rhein, which is close to where they live. I hadn't gotten much sleep on the flight so I hit the hay pretty early.

And.... We're Back

Howdy, I have been travelling again but a lot has changed around here since May, so let me get you up to date.

First of all, I have updated my blog design and look. Colors are happier and hopefully easier to read. The blog archive looks different. Also I have the page only display the last 5 posts now. Let me know if you have any feedback on it to make it better.

Second, and most important, I have gotten a new camera. It was hard to put aside my old one, but I really wanted something smaller, lighter and longer lasting battery life. I am proud to say that I purchased a Casio Exilim EX-Z1000. I am happy with it so far and let's see how it goes.

I have been travelling for about 5 days now, however I didn't bring my laptop and I was even questioning whether I wanted to blog at all this time since my trip is so fast (12 days and 4 countries). However Alessandro and Vittorio were nice enough to be busy and let me have a computer here to take over.

Now, without further ado, I attempt to catch you up on my travels.

And the night flew by... And we flew through the night.

And by listening to our ipods. Though it looks more like ipod worship.

We passed the time on the plane by reading.

Our plane is getting ready. 

Indiana Jones themed Pachinko!

Sayonara Nippon

Well, the four of us (Jansuz, Praveen, Pradeep and I) spent the night in a single room for the last night. We woke up in the morning and checked out of the hotel. Then, I was on a quest to play some Pachinko before I left.

We found a place and tried to watch other people and learn what was going on, but to no avail. So the best way to learn is to sit down and play yourself. Well, the basics are that you buy balls for money and at the bottom right there is this dial that decides how strongly the balls will be shot into the machine. Then balls will randomly bounce down and the goal is to get a ball to fall through a slot in the center. Once that happens, then it kind of becomes a bonus round and you might get a bonus, but we never did :( Needless to say, it is an easy way to become very confused and lose money quickly, in other words, it's gambling!

By the end of that, we had to head to our train to Narita. The airport is quite a ways from Tokyo. We had a good time trying to spend up all of our coin yen at McDonald's because the currency exchange will only accept paper.

The flight back had some turbulence, but was otherwise pretty smooth. It took 11hrs to go from LAX to NAA but the way back took only 9 :) I had to wait for those non US citizens I was with, who were in a really long immigration line.

But I am back safe and sound and what have I learned from all of this? Well here are my top 5 useful phrases that I picked up:

5. ______ wa doko desuka? - Where is the _____?
4. Omizu - Water
3. Ikuru Desuka? - How much?
2. Sumimasen - Excuse me, Sorry, Can I bother you...
and the number 1 most useful phrase
1. Wakarimasen - I don't understand (said with a confused smile)

Well that is about it and I don't think I will be posting for a while.

Sayonara!

These guys are having fun. Seriously they are. You will have to take my word for it and not ask me about their whining. Whines of fun!

Spitting Dragon coming at ya! 

I liked the colors. 

Arch with the Nikko shrine symbols. 

Incredibly ornate artwork. 

More shrine. 

The infamous hanicapped monkeys!