Alive and Well

Hello everyone!

This is the first blog entry of a series yet to come.  The flight from Chicago to Hong Kong was extremely long, but visually rewarding at times.  Our plane traveled up north over the Canadian tundras, up and over the north pole, down over the mountains of Russian airspace, then finally making a landing approach from South China Sea into Honk Kong International Airport.  After a rather quick 3 hour lay-over in Hong Kong, we flew another 2 hours and 45 minutes to Vietnam, but this time Colin and I were ever so lucky; our plane tickets were bumped up to business class.  The flight to Vietnam took a little longer than expected due to a serious typhoon that developed around the coastal areas of Vietnam, so the pilot used extreme caution and flew around most of the storm.  Upon arrival, we waited for our visas into the country and cleared customs.  Our shuttle bus for the hotel picked us up and drove through the busy streets of Ho Chi Minh at around 11:30 pm.  Our hotel is called Windsor Plaza and it is amazing.

It is currently 6:20 am, Oct 1, 2006.  We are meeting up with Professor White in the lobby at 6:30am to eat breakfast and then to travel a small bit north to see some of the famous tunnels created by the Vietnamese and Chinese armies during the Vietnam war.  I plan to create another blog later this afternoon with plenty of pictures to see.  Please check back often.  Thank you again for viewing our blog!