Date: Sun, 17 May 1998

Hey there, all! Welcome to our page. As you can see, there's not much here but raw information. But it'll at least give you an idea of what's going on. And it's kinda a journal for us as well. Hope you enjoy this. We're really excited about the trip, and darned if I still don't have everything ready to go (haircut is #1 on priority list tomorrow!). We do have our first hotel reservations lined up, our plane tickets in place, our rail passes ready, our in-flight entertainment purchased, our passports valid, and Kel's nervous about the flight. What could be better?





Date: Tue, 19 May 1998

Welp, I'm tired. I'm very sleepy and I need to pack. Too much to do and no time to do it. Still have a bunch to buy and a lot to get together. I was hyper earlier, now I'm just sleepy. But at least I started cleaning up for Mike. :)       -Marc

As you know already I'm the Queen of Procrastinators, so instead of packing I worked on this page and the Fence Austin page. At least I know what my priorities are. :) And Bianca and I are moving tomorrow into our *NEW* apartment, so I have a lot to do! Little wonder my stomach is upset. :) -Kel      





Date: Wed, 20 May 1998

I'm tired. Sooo tired. Doing laundry and such before leaving. I look at it this way - at least I won't be too jetlagged. Kelly got her grades; she got another 4.0 this semester! She's still worrying about the plane, but at least this made her feel better somewhat. Before we left Austin, Casey and I tested the Pilot against the Japanese ISP I signed up with. Worked like a charm. Casey was really excited, as was I. It was like I gave him an engineering assignment to complete, and he got an A+. :) Thanks too to Toren and Cindy for their invaluable assistance on getting that running! Still have yet to see if it will work on a Japanese phone system. We'll find out soon enough. We also realized on the way to Houston that we OVERpacked. We'll be going through our stuff and repacking with only the clothes that we *really* want this time. Less than 7 hours until takeoff...





Date: Fri, 22 May 1998

Sorry about the delay folks... No batteries. See below.

Well, here we are at LAX. Really nice international terminal! They've got more Japanese food than I've ever seen in any airport. Kel finally got excited when she heard an announcement played in Spanish and then Japanese.

Whoa! That was CLOSE! They almost didn't let the modem through. Since I couldn't prove it wasn't a bomb, they finally let me take it without the batteries. How odd.

WOW! Singapore Airlines kicks ass! 747's are huge... Each seat has a monitor and each person can play SNES games and watch 17 different channels of movies and TV. Not to mention a phone. We probably didn't need all the books we brought.

8.5 hours. 2 more hours to go. They turned the lights back on. Kel and I are allowing ourselves 1 hour naps to ward off jet lag. Kel's getting very anxious to get off the plane. I've watched 3 movies and waaaaay too much TV. More when we get to Japan.

OK, we're here! Now we're really excited! 10.5 hr flight. Everything went smoothly after the flight, too. All our luggage got here and customs was a snap. We're staying at the Rhiga Royal Hotel Narita by the airport. Kel felt much better after she saw a Titanic poster in the lobby. Since we stayed up so long we're both sleepy now and no jet lag. :) Oh geez. A Japanese Mentos commercial. Ack. And, if you're seeing this, the connection works!       -- Marc



Hi! We are on the way to Tokyo. Will write more when we get there. I miss you guys -- especially Bianca. But we are having fun already. :) -- Kel

DAMN! The public phones in Narita have both analog and ISDN ports! -- M



:: Beginning : Tokyo : Matsushima : Hakodate : Sapporo : Kyoto : Hiroshima : Beppu : Shikoku : Tokyo : The End : Travel Notes ::


Marc Hernandez :: Kelly Bickford