Home-Sweet-Home, Jet Lag and LAST Learnings

After 32 hrs on the road we made it back to Durness Way in Houston. Sans problems. Halleluia! 2 days later we are still severely jet-lagged with 4 members of the household on 4 different schedules.

Trip One-Liner: Real memory-maker trip, which exceeded all expectations on all fronts

What about the missing blog entries and pictures? Gotta let it go! Can't go back and re-create all that now. Contact me, if you want the link to the full set of pics on KodakGallery.

LAST Trip Blogger Learnings for the record:
1. Devise an offline capture mechanism, so you can keep it going even when disconnected from the network. Spontaneous thoughts and comments are the best. Tedious recreations of events lose their spark
2. Blogging is more limiting than journaling. Lots of thoughts I would have put in a journal, where I controlled readership, that I didn't feel free to put in a public blog. So this didn't really replace the trip logs that we have done in the past, as I thought it might.
3. Send out a note in advance to everyone you want to share with, and explain to them the process for engaging. Don't expect everyone to just "get it". They don't always.
4. Set up a link to a photo album, or consider using a photoblog, if this might be better than a text focused blog.
5. Practice, practice before going public .... read some other blogs and get some tips on how they do this, styles, approaches, etc.
6. Make printouts of key screens in color in English interface to take with you, so you can easily navigate any language interface you encounter.

Thanks to Rhonda, Betsy and Karen for joining me on this ride ... Let's do some more of this in the future!

Signing out, Lynn & The Krausteads

Hong Kong - 19 days later

Back at the same internet PC in Hong Kong airport. Can't believe that it was 19 days ago that we landed full of excitement and anticipation, and we have certainly had a trip of a life-time. Amazing memories and great times had by all. The last night in Manila with Mei-Chiang, Kim-Hong (just flown in from Singapore) and Hendra, Rani and Nina, as well as Kim-Hong's brother Richard and family were a great way to close out the 3 weeks. Can't wait to post the pics once I get a USB port connection again.

We're in-transit from Manila to Chicago, connecting from Cebu Pacific Airlines to United. At first a bit leery of Cebu Pacific, we came to really love this new Asian airline. They are high spirited, young and no-nonsense, rather like our own Southwest Airlines. The cabin is full of lively chatter with groups of friends and maids travelling together. They even played games with prizes for the passengers. We were too slow on the uptake, but could have easily won one of the games where they asked for a picture of George Washington. I had $1 in my wallet, but couldn't reach it in time. One of the locals pulled out a $100 in the row in front of me. Don't believe that has old George on it, but they knew to look for US currency.

The TVs are full of the tragic news about the bridge in the Twin Cities. Have been thinking about all our friends and family in the north and wondering how this will be impacting them.

More from Chicago in 15 hours! Hope they have some good movies.