Trip to Japan and Southeast Asia

At Golden Palace in Tokyo

Traditional Japanese Restaurant

Explanation on how to use a toilet that is a hole!

For those of you who don't know Jeff and I are currently on a trip for a month to Tokyo and Southeast Asia. Jeff just graduated from the UCLA MBA program and I just quit my job at UCLA so we decided what better time to take an amazing trip! We will be traveling to: Tokyo, Japan Kyoto, Japan Luang Prabang, Laos Siem Reap, Cambodia Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Hoi An, Vietnam Hanoi, Vietnam Halang Bay, Vietnam Phuket, Thailand Ko Phi Phi, Thailand Bali, Indonesia

Currently I am sitting in the Hanoi, Vietnam airport were it is about 100 degrees inside, waiting for our flight to Luang Prabang, Laos. So far, we have been out of the US for 5 days and have travelled to Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan.

We spent two of our first nights in Tokyo, one night in Kyoto, and our last night back in Tokyo. Jeff and I have both found it to be super hard to get over the jet lag coming over here. The first night we went to bed at 8 and woke up at around 5:30, we got off to an early morning start in Tokyo seeing the Imperial Palace and a couple of other famous areas. We got back to our hotel and took a nap at around 4 and didn’t wake up until 8 PM, decided to take a sleeping pill and sleep until 7 the next morning. Let’s just say it has been rough adjusting to the time change, in Japan we were 14 hours ahead of LA time. It rained almost the entire time in Japan, but we just had to suck it up and get wet..good thing we brought our Cetaphil umbrellas! We have been having a fantastic trip so far, seeing all the main sights in Tokyo and travelling about 2.5 hours south of Tokyo to visit Kyoto. Tokyo is like NYC on steroids, so many people and so many lights and sounds, it is very overstimulating! Our first experience on the subway in Tokyo was like being on Bourbon street on Fat Tuesday; I felt like I could not breathe we were stuffed into the subway car like sardines! Kyoto was a much different experience..it was a big city, which was not expected, but it did have many Japanese Temples and great Japanese culture. One night we ate ” Indian style” and drank green tea and had noodle soup for dinner in a whole in the wall restaurant. The next day we had sushi on a conveyer belt for lunch for only 5 dollars a person. Jeff had an encounter with a Japanese young school girl who approached him, probably about a foot away from him, to say hi and the giggle with all her school girl friends like he was an alien. Then in broken English she asked if we would take a picture with them, and we all held up the peace sign! All in all Japan was great to see! The people were friendly and very accommodating. The public transportation was fantastic in both cities making it very easy to see a lot all over each city.

We look forward to our next adventure which will be 3 days in Luang Prabang, Laos, which I have only heard great things about…