Voyage to VietNam

Hello Everyone!--AnnyangHaseyo!--Konichiwa!--

and now--Chao moi nguoi!

English, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese...we speak the first rather fluently, remember scattered words from the second, still use several phrases from the third, and are making an attempt at basic words for the fourth!   It is time for our long-awaited return trip to James, Jesse, & Joy's birth country of VietNam!

Exactly 2 weeks from today we will be over the Pacific Ocean.  We are now on the "official" family count-down.  John has actually been on the count-down for the past 169 days...but we are all getting more excited as the day draws nearer and the long-time dream is finally on the horizon of reality.  :)  

It occurred to us just tonight that it would be neat to start blogging again for this voyage to VietNam...hence the re-naming of our blog once again.  However, instead of just hearing from John & I, this time the kids hope to also be making entries and sharing with you from their points of view while in VietNam--real-time if possible...

Looking back at the adoption scrapbooks, I'm remembering again the painfully long process at the computer--waiting on the internet in order to email home to Grandma and James.  The record time was 3 hours to write 1 quick email...5 min to log in, 5 min to get to hotmail page, 5 min to enter the password--be-ca-use-I-ha-d-to-wa-it-ea-ch-ti-me-af-ter-en-ter-ing-on-e-to-th-ree-let-ter-s(and if I tried to hurry, it would freeze--sometimes up to 20 min)...10 min to load the page, lots of minutes to write the email--whoops!--daily power outage--wait for electricity to turn back on, reboot and begin process all over again.  We'll see if either this system has improved in 12 years or if the kids' patience will hold out!!  I'm not sure that we'll be able to download pictures while we're there...if text still take so long to load, I can't imagine how long a photo would take!  But hopefully we can give snippets every day or so and then upload photos once we're back home.

So -- our itinerary...
Our flight leaves at noon on Monday, Sept 8, 2014.  Fly through Japan.  Arrive in VietNam at 10pm on Sept 9.  Spend 11 days experiencing VietNam.  Over-night flight to Japan.  Arrive early morning in time to reach Shioda for church and hopefully see a lot of friends we haven't seen since leaving Japan in 2010.   Spend a couple days relaxing at the Onsen and visiting a few of our favorite places.  Fly out Wed evening, Sept 24.  Arrive in Chicago Wed afternoon before we left Japan on Wed night!

Well, that's all for tonight, folks!
~ Wanda