Vacations and interesting work trips
After a 1/2 hour ride through miles and miles and miles of sugarcane, we finally got to the river and the boat. From there it was a 20 minute boat ride through a slow, muddy estuary before open sea. From there it was 20 minutes straight out to sea, and the Frankland Islands, which are a national preserve and sanctuary. The 35 of us on the boat were the only people on the island (this particular company is the only group to have permits to go there).
Up this morning at the crack of dawn (yeah, right!). We grabbed a lift to the Botanical Gardens, where we went on a small walk-about. We climbed up a hill on the northern outskirts of town, through kind of a rain forest/bamboo forest. It ware really king of beautiful, and a little surprising at times.
Day Two : Bill got in this morning, ready for a long day. He waited at the airport for the 8:00am shuttle rather than taking a taxi like I did. By the time he got here, I’d been up for a couple of hours, and was ready to go. We had John drop us off downtown again. This time we ended up at a large open-air market, selling everything from fruits and vegetables to T-shirts to brass tables. It reminded me ALOT of the Itaewon Shopping District outside of Seoul.
I just woke up in the plane after actually sleeping for 5 hours. I still can’t believe that I’m on my way. The little computerized map displayed here in the cabin shows we’re over some islands (I think they are the Solomons, one of them is Guadalcanal).
The Denver-Dallas leg was uneventful, Dallas to Los Angeles was a little more eventful, but the event tended to resemble a paint shaker.