Lest I forget....

Ok, so I've been home from SE Asia for about 7 hours and it's time I wrote some of the trip out, so I don't forget it. Of course I'll elaborate more as the week goes one with pictures and stories.

-Flew the non-stop JAL from San Diego to Narita for the long leg of the trip. Everything else was trains, metro, ferry boat, high speed rail or local airlines.

-Lots of transit in the trip. Pretty much it was travel a day, see something the next day and then move to the next place. Probably 7 different hotels in 14 days.

-Got to see people K knew in Korea. Had dinner with them, hung out, and so on. Very nice for all I think. K speaks Korean, and that was beyond value.

-Got to see my old neighbor in Cambodia. It was almost like he hadn't even moved across the Pacific Ocean. V (neighbor) speaks Khmer and again, invaluable. Super D and I can cover European languages just fine but man, Asia is a different story, especially if you are off the beaten path and away from generic tourist areas. I heard some perfect American English in Cambodia that I never heard anywhere in Korea.

-Temples, gates, walls, Buddahs, museums, buildings, parks and soo many crazy man made things both ancient and modern.

-Didn't see one snake. Just some Gibbons doing it by the side of the rode. I got a picture.

-My red hair got me some looks for sure.

-Traffic rules? HA! Korea looked positively tame after Cambodia. Which is funny, cause at one time I was riding in the bed of a pick up truck in Phnom Penh and I was the one getting all the crazy looks from the locals.

-It always entertains me to pull 100,000 of something out of the ATM and have it only be about 100 bucks if in Korea or 25 dollars in Cambodia.

-Food. Wow, Korea was a challenge for me. I tried to be up for it but I eventually broke. Cambodia was much easier.

-I only ever felt marginally unsafe once.

-I missed some things I wanted to see due to poor planning on my part. In Korea I missed the DMZ which evidently is closed on Mondays. And in Cambodia I missed the killing fields due to travel times.

Ok, there you go, some quick hihglights. Pictures and specific stories to trickle in as the days go by.