Hi folks... still working on getting up to speed on travel plans.
Happy New Year! Happy Inauguration! Happy Happy!
Decided it was time to leave Japan and get on to new travel prospects in Asia and the rest of the world. I'd like to post some more about the Japanese experience, but it will have to wait until I get a few more bearings on what to write about that.
Until then, though, I'll be traveling in the US before heading back to Japan, Thailand, and other destinations Asiatic.
My current itinerary:
Presently in Atlanta, GA with my folks and extended family, helping my Grandfather recover from some recent ills and now my mother from breaking her wrist during dancing. Having fun lazing about and enjoying some missed American lifestyle. Everything's so big! ;)
January 29, I go to Oregon to visit my Aunt, Uncle, Grandmother and dearly missed friends for a few weeks. Be nice to be in the cold and rain for a bit... er... yeah.
February 19, I head back to Japan for just one more week of enjoyment of Japan as a semi-tourist and last minute western-style life before leaping into the unknown of Thailand.
February 26, I go to Bangkok, Thailand for at least a month of adventure, excitement, and otherwise. Hoping to get in a week of Vipassana Meditation at a retreat, some detox and healthy living, visit the sights, and get a bit of partying in on some beaches if all goes well.
Planning on looking into some nearby country hopping to Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.
Then off to India.
After that, who knows.
I'll be trying to stay in contact here a bit better when I am on the road. I seem to like blogging best while traveling. But feel free to keep in contact with my email in the sidebar as well.
Take care all!
Be well!
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Christmas 2007
Merry Christmas everyone!
This is the Christmas Card that I made for the kids at school. You'll see it has all kinds of useful Christmas words.
On the back I put the following:
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
By Francis Pharcellus Church, Editor of the New York Sun,
in response to a letter by Virginia O'Hanlan (1897)
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
Dear Editor,
I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in the Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
THE END
This is the Christmas Card that I made for the kids at school. You'll see it has all kinds of useful Christmas words.
On the back I put the following:
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus
By Francis Pharcellus Church, Editor of the New York Sun,
in response to a letter by Virginia O'Hanlan (1897)
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
Dear Editor,
I am eight years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in the Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
THE END
I'm going back to the US for a few weeks this winter vacation. I'll have two weeks with my parents and relatives in Atlanta, GA, and then another week for New Year's with friends and relatives in Oregon. It'll be too short, I'm sure, but packed with fun.
Have a good new year! Here's to more blogging in the future!
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