final japan

hi again! finally found our way out of kyoto -- we got serious temple-fever (thankfully, my actual fever had subsided by then, two fevers would have been unacceptable) and probably would have stayed there forever trying not to miss anything. kyoto was just absolutely amazing. the cherries are everywhere, bursting different shades of red and white almost wherever you look. the temples are all preserved and in various states of restoration going back to their 750AD inception, and each is still an active, important shrine. each of the different buddhist sects has a major complex in kyoto, and each has something interesting to see -- dry rock or floral garden, giant buddha statue, bamboo forest, etc. we were just blown away. we ended up mostly on our own since it was fairly difficult coordinating schedules, but everyone was all together for a great group dinner (with nate and baby echo, yes, echo, sleeping next to each other) and we had a nice zen temple lunch with adam and akiko the next day. the one full day we spent with janis and maxene kind of summed up kyoto: in the morning, we visited wild monkeys that live in the outlying hills, and in the afternoon we shopped for baby clothes at fancy dept store takayama. sometimes it's more like nepal here than anything else, but then when you're done with the fun you get to drink the tap water and ride 250km/hr trains. goodbye third world, hello japan. so by the end of the week a three-story pagoda didn't even get a second glance, and luckily it was time to move on.

backtracking a bit -- the wedding event in kanazawa was quiet, nice, japanese, about 40 guests at a U shaped table eating various courses of fish, soba, and more fish and more soba. oh yeah, and fish for dessert. it was a bit overwhelming. truth is you really wouldn't have guessed it was a celebration, it was really just a nice lunch. two geisha (entertainers) sang songs and played the drums and japanese guitar-like instrument. it sounded like the orient, no surprise i guess. nate got a shot at the drums, as did adam and akiko and others. there were long introductions of everyone present including full resume and education credentials, although we were introduced only as "the cousins", still not sure how insulted we should be.

we also took a day trip to osaka, japan's 3rd biggest city, where there's an impt castle we all know from Shogun (or at least marc and i do, reading that while here is lots of fun) and a nice acquarium.

we've pretty much got the food thing down now, there are a bunch of vegetarian options once you know what to look for and some vegetarian restaurants we've enjoyed. milk, yogurt, and bread are in steady supply, but cheese is virtually non-existant. and there's always KFC where you need it...

rachel is feeling great, quite a bit better than before we left actually and there was really only one day with any nausea. my cold has subsided and is now alive and well with akiko, damn those western germs.

anyhow, now we're up the foothills of the japanese alps where tomorrow we'll do a big hike on the old postal route between two small, very picturesque towns. then it's on to nagano further up in the mountains for some more mountain scenery and an old volcano, finally back to tokyo on tuesday for a couple of days of bright lights big city.

if we don't get to write again, see you next week!

apostrophe is back!

getting my apostrophe back feels REAL good, thank you maxene's good, old-fashioned western-style hotel. by western-style, everyone still bows five times to you as you go up the escalator, but you get a real bed. mmmmm, real bed (rachel and i have crazy hip soreness from sleeping on the floor, i mean, "futon" mats). japan is just really japanese; if it's only an act it's an incredibly good one. we're in kyoto now, the old feudal capital, temples and samurai palaces by the dozen. if nate talks to you about trying to convert, tell him no, we can light incense, rinse our hands in fancy cups, and look at buddha any time he wants to. this time of year kyoto is full of japanese pilgrims here to visit the temples during the cherry blossom season, but everyone is still amazingly accomodating with him. apparently there is some serious anglo-baby-mania: rob told us a funny story about a friend who went to china to adopt a chinese baby and everyone who stopped to peak in the carriage was disgustedly disappointed.

i'm a bit delirious from japanese Contact (didn't know we even still made it), so this one will be this short. hopefully this cold will end with me... hope all is well with you, glad to hear sami is an official crawler, send us a picture! love, r&r&n

all systems go

except for the lack of apostrophe on this keyboard, everything has gone swimingly these first few days. flight over was long but really ok, nate did great. at about hour 8 rachel and i looked at each other and said theres no way we are going to make it to 13.5, but we brought out the wiggles and the time just melted away. spent the first night in a hotel near the airport to catch up on sleep, but nate had other plans (up at 1am). saw the old palace and ginza area (shopping, sony building) in tokyo, then spent the night in the mountains where it was quite a bit colder than we would have wanted (the innkeepers daughter lent nate her mittens) to break up our journey to kanazawa where the wedding reception will be. weve been staying in "japanese" inns, which means there are tatami mats and futons on the floor and tea kettles and sliding paper-covered doors for nate to break. actually, rachel broke the door, but you didnt hear it from me. food situation is as expected, a sometimes not-so-fun challenge unless youre looking for udon noodles or chicken curry. they just really love to put pork EVERYWHERE. in sat question form, that would be japan -> pork as pizza hut -> cheese. today we spent the day in the old samurai and shinto temple district, really amazing old houses and gardens and windy, twisty streets. nate is a ridiculously big hit here. he had them at "blond haired two year old", but when he gives them the "bowwwww" with the namaste hands, its really all over.

hope all is well with you, should have somewhat frequent email access so we will write again soon--

back to work

hi! made it back to civilization yesterday, had a great trip down the coast. we saw lots of great beaches, watched some wild kangaroos, met some nice auzzies. everything here is pretty familiar but definitely subtly different. for example they also eat pies here but instead put meat in them. we're in a suburb of sydney now, i'm getting down to business setting things up for jack and rachel and nate are figuring out how to navigate the ferry system…

made it!

plane ride was actually not as bad as we feared, nate pretty much slept when we wanted him to (unfortunately rachel did not) and we had a seat for him on the long flight from LA to AU (thankyou qantas!). he's still talking more about una than kangaroos, but he did have a courtesy vegemite cracker on the boat ride over (we're here: http://www.tangalooma.com). rachel had to eat a cheese sandwich with butter and mayo. yum! today we'll relax at the beach and then tonight we'll go do the dolphin feeding if we're still awake... hope all is well, will write again when we can! much love, r, r, & n

2rachelandrussell1world

man, is it cold here! our first day here was a perfect fall-like day, maybe 65 and sunny. but that was short lived, and we spent day two at the auckland museum (excellent) and the night watching harry potter. anyone understand what happened at the end? we feel like we need the cliffnotes.

we then left auckland on monday and headed up to the "winterless" north and wound up driving straight into a subtropical noreaster, whatever that is. this is what it isn't: nice. where is my fiji? my fiji has gone. we managed to survive the cold and rain and visited the historic village of Russell, formerly known as the hellhole of the pacific (lahaina was a nice family town compared to it). these days it is quite a bit less exciting but there's some old buildings to see. we spent most of the day in new zealand's oldest hotel (1847) warming by the fire and drinking mulled wine. we also saw this really neat limestone cave with these bright blue iradescent glowworms all over. we had a great maori guide who showed us stalagmites and stalagtites (stalagtites hang "tight", stalagmites "might" reach the ceiling some day, he explained) and with the flashlight off the cave looked like a planetarium.

next day the rain stopped and the sun even poked out for sunrise and we headed across the peninsula to an ancient forest filled with these giant, native kauri trees worshipped by maori. the most interesting part of the day wasn't in the forest but in a campervan down by the river. sound sketchy? it's worse: http://www.2boys1world.com. all we can say for sure is that marco makes a mean cup of hot chocolate, though the website flaunts his other skills. we caravanned with them the rest of the way back to auckland, through beautiful rolling green hills, sheep, cows, and even a rainbow!

we stopped north of the city in hopes of visiting this open bird sanctuary we had seen on tv, but the weather was too rough for the ferry to run. after we got over our disappointment, it was back to the 1984 one-speakered corolla for another 3 hour ride further south. this time our luck finally changed and the skies cleared and we had our first taste of what the new zealand countryside is supposed to look like. this is what it is: nice. we arrived in the geothermic capitol, rotorua, early this afternoon to the not-so-sweet smells of sulpher (although some of us claim to actually like it). it's a small city built right in the middle of all this crazy yellowstone-esque volcanic activity. tomorrow we will head up into the surrounding hills for some hiking and a look at some mountain lakes, maybe even have a mud bath, then check out some of the maori cultural activities.

so new zealand is best summed up by the 2 tv channels they have here that show all the hit american shows back to back: take everything that's good and filter out anything that's not the best. unfortunately, you pay extra for it, and things cost as much here as they do back home, which we're not used to when travelling. also you can get whatever you need whenever you need it, which takes some of the fun and adventure out of it. but we are staying at places with shared bathrooms, and that's helping to keep it real.

hope all is well, thinking of you,
R&R.

bula-licious

greetings from fiji! we're down to our last few hours here in the tropics... had a great time.

last week we were in a remote part of the country, the yasawa islands, site of the infamous lagoon where brooke shields lost her innocence. it was only a 2 hour ferry ride to the small island but we felt much further away than that when we were there. there was literally nothing to do but lay on the beach and play new zealand edition of trivial pursuit. even the kiwis couldn't answer most of the questions. the place was a very low key resort (our room was a "luxury" tent complete with mattress), the reception office had sand for a floor and the communal dining area was a big grass shack on the beach. there were one or two activities each day ranging from learning to tie a sarong to traditional song and dance show and a visit to the local village for fijian church services. we had no idea what was going on but we understood when
to put our money in the collection plate. at the aussie beach bbq there were party games with big ticket give-aways. we won a bottle of champagne after a blindfolded russell was able to identify rachel's knees in a lineup. party indeed. the snorkeling was absolutely incredible just right off the shore, beautiful reef and coral like we've never seen, nice tropical fish and a family of squids.

we spent the last few days in the southern "coral" coast of the main island. we rode the local bus to get down here, passing fields and fields of sugar cane. there's a fringing reef here about 100 yards offshore that breaks up all the waves and makes a tranquil bay-like lagoon for miles. underwater is a different story (a more appropriate name might have been the "dead-creepy-get-out-while-you-can-was-that-a-sea-snake?" coast) but from the beach you'd never know it. for whatever reason the resort we stayed at was virtually empty and we had the place all to ourselves.

today we went to a fijian zoo and saw endemic birds and iguanas, but the highlight was definitely the two fruit-bats getting it on. i think we might be permanently scarred.

tomorrow we're off for new zealand where it won't be 85 and sunny, but we're very excited. more adventure to come...

hope all is well with you all. happy summer!

much love and bula,
R&R.