New Environs

This is my natural habitat for the next almost five weeks. It's a room in the ParkView Hotel in Hue, Vietnam. While the room doesn't yet feel like home, the city does. It's good to be back.

When I reach Ho Chi Minh City from the east, I will be able to say that I have traveled around the world, having reached it from the west three years ago. I will again see the moon shine on the other side of the world. The moonshadows look the same there; only the surroundings are different.

And You Thought Daylight Savings Time Shocks the System!

Forget setting your clock ahead one hour. Try crossing the international date line into tomorrow. These two days will meld together into one as we fly over the Pacific from san Francisco to Hong Kong. We'll get the day back on May 1, when we will fly into yesterday on the way from Melbourne to Los Angeles.

Travel Wisely

This sage resides on the top of a walking stick I bought in Hue three years ago. I will likely not feel as calm as he looks as this post loads timed to coincide with our departure, but at least I will be underway.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

This is my carry-on bag, packed save for the netbook on which I'm typing this. The suitcase is upstairs, awaiting the pie I baked for younger son this morning. Assuming that fits, and that the pile of stuff on the table fits in the husband's carry-on, we are good to go in tomorrow's very wee hours. Lunch and a pedicure with a friend with whom I have not spent enough time recently have helped to calm my spirit. I will admit here that, in the interests of stress reduction, the posts for the next three days were done several days ago and programmed to post at a relevant time on the appropriate day.
I'll be back to posting soon enough, from the other side of the world.

Half the Clothes and Twice the Money

Possibly the clothes I will be taking on the upcoming trip. "Possibly" in that I may decide to remove some of these, though no new things would replace them. These are hanging in the open after having been sprayed with permethrin, a fairly powerful insect repellant. These clothes were chosen with great care in that I am fully prepared to leave most of them behind in favor of new, tailored things. The two long-sleeved collared shirts and the skirt came from the Goodwill store, for example. I figured that it was time to get the spraying out of the way given that we are leaving in less than 48 hours. I am still trying to decide if my not feeling freaked out is a good thing or a bad thing.

It's Crooked for a Reason

Perhaps if the path to getting this visa had been a straight one, the photo would also be straight. There was some glitch in the authorization number process and we may never have gotten a real one (the one they said was ours was actually in someone else's name), but we got visas. There's a whole hockey-sock (it's a Canadian expression) of things still to do, but the ones that are critical will get done and the ones that don't won't matter. I have spoken.