Ten Days - France; Goodbye USA - Hello France. Worrall Traveler Days (WTRD) 1-3

WTRD 1 - June 7, 2018 - Goodbye Vermont.

After a delightful three weeks with our family in Vermont, we were off to the Burlington Airport by 1:00 and in the air headed to Iceland with a plane change United Express to Icelandic Air at Dulles in D.C.  

Lucky us, once again we were bumped from Economy plus to Saga Class and received an invitation to the Air France Lounge where we spent a few enjoyable hours waiting for our plane eating lots of wonderful French Bread, cheese, meats, petite desserts, fruit, and wine.  We boarded our plane and settled into our large comfy seats, greeted with steamed towels and a glass of sparkling wine at 7:30.  In the air by 8:00 we settled in for dinner and a short night (5 hours) to Iceland.

A ribbon of crimson orange hugged the horizon as we skirted over the arctic and the midnight sun dipped and rose again.

WTRD 2, June 8, 2018. - An Awesome Dawn.

At dawn, our plane had begun its descent and we were between a layer of high stratus and the tops of lower clouds in a magical realm above the earth where mountains of white shape-shifted and sunlight shone from their puffy tops, shaded the wispy slopes, and reflectively pooled in golden valleys.

What an awesome way to start the day.

When we arrived in cool, misty Iceland where summer had yet begun and had just enough time to weave our way through the the throngs of red-eyed passengers and passport control and board our plane to Paris.  We gained back a few hours and arrived in Charles De Gaulle Airport around 1:00 pm.   It was cool and foggy.  The airport was teaming with people from all parts of the world, most dressed in modern day western attire, but many wearing ethnic and religious attire.

Airports are fascinating intersections of life moving simultaneously in singular and collective cross directions.













Anxiety, excitement, exhaustion, impatience etched in faces as passengers crowded on to elevators,

waited for anticipated luggage, searched for friends, and shuffled through slow moving lines at passport control.  Snatches of French, German, English,  and occasional bursts of laughter and children squealing rose above the bustle and white noise.

We reclaimed our bag, rented our car, (brand new, Toyota Hybrid), setup the the navigation system from French to English, keyed in our address of our AirBnB accommodations in a small village outside of Paris, and were on our way.

Arriving in Bouffemont around 3:00, we found our little flat in a quaint village.

It is wonderful little gem of a place in the old section of the village.

Right hand door, inches from the street, leads to our flat.

The entry door is less than two feet from the narrow street.  Our host Alan, opened up for us.  The flat is impeccably clean,  comfortable, smart, modern, retro, and fun. Fridge is filled with cheeses,  juice, eggs, and yogurt.  The tables have a bowl of fresh fruit, baskets of bread and pastries, and a bottle of Bordeuax.

After settling into our flat, Russ and I wandered around a little in the village.  We extracted some Euros from the ATM, bought a few items for dinner, headed back to the flat, ate, reorganized our bags for land travel, drank the wine, and went to bed. 

We are heading towards Normandy tomorrow.

WTRD 3 - June 9, 2018 - France Day 2 of 10

Russ slept through the.night.  I woke up at 2:00 am and couldn't get back to sleep.  Finally decided at 3:00 to get up.  I thought a cup of tea would help.  It didn't so I amused myself by reading.  Went back to bed at  4:00, tried for another hour to sleep, and finally got up at 5:00 for good.  Oh well, guess it will take me a few days to adjust to the time change.  I took advantage of the time by starting our blog while Russ slept on.

When we were both awake, we dug into the pastries.  Oh yum!

Can't do that every day or we'll balloon up!  After breakfast, we packed the bags to the car, said goodbye to our cute little flat which we will be returning to at the end of the week, turned in our key, took a morning walk through the neighborhood and got on the road.

Claude Monet Gardens in Girveny

Our first stop of the day was to visit Monet's home and the surrounding gardens that gave him inspiration for so many of his paintings.  They were indeed inspirational.  We were too late for the irises, but day lilies, poppies, roses, and water lilies were abundant. We were one of thousands of visitors...get there before the tour busses arrive from Paris.

Chumond

We passed through this picturesque little village and decided to stretch our legs and take a few photos.  Caught the tail end of a wedding.  

Jumieges Abbey

Our last stop of the  day was at the ruins of one of the oldest Benedictine monasteries in Normandy. The abbey took 26 years to build from 1040-1066 and endured the ravages of time and change, and lack of funding for repairs after the 100 year war and the French Revolution.  It was sold to a private party in 1796 and the materials were quarried.  What remains are the architectural bones of the grand abbey.

After our walk through the ruins, we found a cute sidewalk cafe in the shadow of the Abbey and had our dinner, sharing an omelette and salad, and a glass of wine.

Accommodations for the night are in a lovely chateau on the River Seine.

Another  great place!  I am sitting in front of an opened window looking out at the river as I write this blog. 

Very nice. Continuing on after breakfast tomorrow

All is Well with the Worrall Travel R's after our the third day of travels and our second day in France.

Love to all.   

Day 4 FF Western Tokyo Homestay, WTRD 49 of 49, October 22, 2017

Prelude to Typhoon Lan - a True Water Color

Sayonara Japan - Hello California

It rained steadily all night.  We arose early to take care of last minute packing,  blogging, and printing of boarding passes. Yukiko served us coffee, sausages, green beans, and fruit for breakfast.  Takashi ate a single piece of toast with melted cheese for his breakfast.  Yukiko commented that in their household, they usually at  bread for  breakfast, noodles for lunch, and rice for dinner.  

Even though our plane flight was at 4:55 pm, we were walking out the front door with umbrellas and bags at 10:25 am.  It would take an hour to drive to the bus station, and two hours by bus to the airport.  We bade our heartfelt goodbyes with promises to keep in touch and to visit one another.  Yukiko suggested we come back during cherry blossom time, and we could rent the wonderful traditional Japanese house together that Russ and I stayed in while we were in Hakone.  We waved good bye through rain soaked windows of the bus as we drove away.

A Japanese Watercolor

We arrived at the airport about 1:15, and had a couple of hours to spare.  When we arrived the terminal was nearly empty.  Was it the typhoon?  Would our plane be on time?  Turned out we were just early for and international flight, and any worries we had about getting to the airport melted.

We breezed through baggage drop, security clearance, immigration and were eating lunch next to our gate by 2:00 pm. and saw our inbound Tokyo flight from SFO arrive at 2:25.  

An army of people were on hand to meet the Dreamliner, carry out garbage, linens, and empty food containers. Cart trains came out to unload luggage and once that was done the same amount of effort, if not more went into reloading all of the supplies, servicing, and cleaning, while two fuel trucks loaded the tanks.

Our plane left the gates exactly on time.  By 5:00 pm the wind was picking up and the nose of the typhoon was edging its way up the coast.  I was a little anxious because of thunder and lightning forecast. We waited on the tarmac for clearance for an hour. 

As it turned out, there was a little, but not a lot of turbulence upon take off.  We headed north than arced to the east.

A little over nine hours later, we arrived safely the morning of the same day we had left Tokyo in the afternoon.

Our plane heads east Sunday evening and catches the dawn of the same day

The Golden Gate - Always a Welcome Sight

South Bay Salt Flats

So ends, our wonderful two month adventure to. South Korea and Japan.  

We had a great time, and we are  grateful that we maintained excellent health and energy throughout the journey.  Never once did we fear for our safety. Everyone we met reinforced our faith humanity and the power of friendship.

Heh! Heh!  We are also glad that this is our last blog, perhaps you are too, until our next trip.

All is Well with With the Worrall Travel R’s sleeping in our own bed tonight.

Day 3, FF Western Tokyo Homestay, WTRD 48 of 49, October 21, 2017

Last Full Day in Japan

Our last full day in Japan dawned under clouds.   Typhoon Lan was moving north to Tokyo with landfall expected late in the evening of the following day.  We had received the day before, a notice from United Airlines that the typhoon could cause flight disruptions, and that we could exchange our tickets with no fee for a flight out before or after the typhoon.  Our hosts indicated that if our flight was canceled due to weather, we would be welcome in their home until the storm passed.

We checked the weather conditions, tracked the typhoon, made inquiries about earlier flights, and then decided that we would keep our original flight at 4:55 pm, hours before the winds would begin to strengthen.  Periodically, we checked the tracking and speed of the typhoon.  Narita airport is two hours drive by airport bus.  Faster by train, if the heavy rain didn’t disrupt train travel.  We decided to book tickets on the bus.  

Our hosts would drive us to the bus station about an hour from their home by car (30 minutes by train which would include 5 or 6 train changes).

We heard that most of our FFSAC group had rearranged their flights to leave today.  I was a bit envious as I too was anxious to get home, but was also not as concerned as some of them may have been as I think we could have been quite safe in our host’s home which was positioned on the lee side of a tall hill away from the sea.  They had storm shutters to close over the windows.  Their sturdy home had protected them before in typhoons.  We knew it certainly wouldn’t flood, but there were tall trees around their home that could be worrisome in high winds.

Asakusa Shrine

With all of this in mind, we had a leisurely breakfast and left home with Takashi to see Asakusa Shrine and shopping street in Tokoyo.  All of us carried large umbrellas, and we would need them all day as the rain came down.  The trains in the morning were not too busy this Saturday, but by noon, the crowds with their umbrellas were quite large and jammed the walk ways around the shrine.  

No one here seemed too concerned about the impending typhoon.

After we entered through the large gates protected by sculptured dieties, we found ourselves at the foot of a long shopping walking path.  

The shrine was at the end of the path.  

We meandered up the path, our umbrellas bobbing up and down over and under other umbrellas while browsing the store fronts of souvenirs, kimonos, and sweets.  We watched cookie makers filling molds with dough and sweet bean fillings (doll cookies) to bake on a griddle.  

Takashi bought a few for us to try. The cookies were still hot from the griddle molds and they were a delicious snack.

As we approached the shrine, smoke filled the air rising from a fire pit in the middle of the walkway.  The smoke was not from  incense, but from burning paper.  On the side of the fire pit, throngs of people were shaking cans and pulling out a sticks with numbers on them.  

Each picked stick had a number on it that corresponded with  a long wall of drawers.  Each drawer contained a fortune.  If you paid a hundred yen, equivalent to $1.00, you got to pick a stick, and recieved the corresponding fortune.

If the person received a bad fortune, (i.e. be cautious today as you are prone to be in a car accident), they could tie the bad fortune on a tree, and try for a better fortune by contributing more yen, picking more sticks until they got a fortune they liked. 

≥Once they had the fortune they liked, they took that fortune to the fire pit, and set it on fire, inhaling the smoke to infuse themselves with the good fortune.  

The Buddhists here really know how to capitalize on superstition, and the fear of bad luck.

The ceiling of the shrine has some fine artwork that looks Hindu and the shrine itself glitters in gold as faithful, toss coins into the  slotted coin boxes in front of the shrine alter.
After our visit to the shrine, we walked to a restaurant for a noodle and tempura lunch, where we were able to get out of the rain and warm up.  We didn’t linger too long as we were heading to the National Museum, and then home by 4:00 pm.  We saw artifacts considered national treasures back to 2,000 BC.  and as far forward  as the early Edo period.  Here is a glimpse of the insie of the museum.

We  met a young giraffe on the way to the museum

We only had one hour to walk around the museum before starting our multiple-train one hour trip back Takashi’s home.  We are sure glad that he knows where he is going.  We could have eventually figured it out, but we followed him blindly as we were only going to be here a couple of days.


When we returned home at 4:00, Russ and I immediately set about organizing our packing and enjoying some time with Takashi and Yukiko's grandsons.

 Judy M. and Lyn & George with their respective hosts were coming over for a pre-typhoon dinner party between 5 and 6.  Yukiko must have been preparing our meal all day.  Yukiko teaches home economics.  After living in Silicon Valley for several years, both she and Takashi embraced  eating and preparing “American” food. Rarely are chop sticks used in their household.

For appetizers there was a nice selection of cheese, olives, pickles, and sausage, with chips and homemade quacamole, red and white California wines.  The main course was lasagna and tossed green salad and French bread.  Yukiko baked two pumpkin pies with whipped bream and a jello salad with fresh fruit.

We couldn’t have asked for a better farewell dinner with excellent hosts, terrific food, and delightful friends and conversation!

Us with our hosts Takashi san and Yukiko san

We are fascinated by the single cup, coffee drip bag.

Russ shares some travel tips with Takashi and Missouri

It is amazing how quickly we were able to bond with this group of people over a couple glasses of wine, their gracious hospitality,  and an impending typhoon.

All too soon, it was time for everyone to to return to their homes and pack up for the following day.

All is Well with the Worrall Travell R’s in Machida City