The Olson's Asian Adventure

You can take people out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the people.   Leaving the USA for the first time is a bit tough… making China your first destination is kind of ridiculous.   China is just really, really foreign; the characters, the congestion, the communication, the internet, and the smog all make it harder than most international trips.    Still they did it.   They started the 10-day trek on early Monday morning and arrived mid-day Tuesday.   I met them at the airport with our driver and then we motored home.   It took a bit of time getting through customs, but they did it like champs.   Traffic on the way home, however was horrible so we didn’t get to the house until 4:30pm.   The kids (both ours and theirs) were so excited to see one another.   They instantly returned to friend mode and immediately ran around the house giving tours and playing at the same time.   Amanda prepared pulled p...

One of the "coolness factors" about moving to China was Jacob getting to tell his old soccer team that he was going to play in international tournaments.  We didn’t know exactly where they would be, but the first one landed us in Bangkok Thailand.  I merged this trip with a required board meeting and brought Jacob down 1 day early.  This gave he and I a full weekend to travel together, hang together, and enjoy one another.  We started early on day 1 (left at 6am) and this was after getting home from South China around 9pm the night before.  I knew it was going to be a tough turnaround, but we made it work.  It is a long flight to Thailand, but since we arrive around noon, it gave us the entire afternoon to find cool stuff to see.  My colleague gave me a nice agenda to follow… Basically, taxi to one temple, then walk to another, then walk to a palace, and then taxi to a cool street for food.  The temples were built to honor Buddha...