Back in Boulder

Hello family and friends,
We wanted to let you know that we are back in Boulder, safe and sound.
We arrived home before we left Japan!!! That international dateline is good for helping us get back to the states in a timely fashion:)

We came home a gorgeous Boulder afternoon and a lovely welcome sign on our doorstep and food in our refrigerator from our good friends the Riedels!!!

The kids were thrilled to see old Jack who was loved well at Kipp, Kimberly and Kalib's home. We so appreciate all the comments and email support you gave to us! It has been an adventure of a lifetime and we are blessed to have had the opportunity and the friendships. In the next week we will be adding some detail to our posts for memoir-sake if that interests you.

Cheery-o, Bhalo Thaken, Kapcoon Krup, Seyonara, and now we sleep...

Asakusa, Japan

Today we hung out with Sachiko and Aoi (Aoi went to Creekside her 3rd grade year with Courtney). Sachiko was a wiz tourguide as we jumped the train to Tokyo and checked out Asakusa. The train (like a bullet train) was smooth as silk and clean and fancy. It was practically silient too! Sachiko said it was one of the newer trains. This stained glass dragon is back lit and creates a gorgeous image along the train station wall.

Japan is the cleanest city I've ever been in. We wondered how high the income taxes are here to pay for the cleanliness. The Sekiyama's lent us some warm jackets to wear today because it was the coldest day in the winter here in Japan! Huge snowflakes fell from the usually blue sky. So we had a rare day in Tokyo.

We enjoyed Asakusa market and temple (you can see the gate in thie picture...behind Rusty is an incense well where you can swaft the smoke over your body to cure you of any ailment.) We went to the well and then up to the temple where I am standing to take the picture. Opposite to the sucess of the well all four kids played their fortune at the temple receiving only bad luck!! YIKES! Sachiko couldn't believe it, becuase bad luck is so rare!!! LUCKILY there was a place to tie the bad luck papers to release them away from us.

We purchased some more souveniers and ate a delicious Japanese lunch before heading to a museum to learn the fascinating history of the Edo era with the Shogun. We also checked out the fire wars exhibit which was just as devastating as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The picture below shows original transportation.

We tailored our touring to accomodate the freezing temperatures. Unfortunately the Emperor's garden was closed on Fridays, but the winter cold wouldn't showcase the garden in best form anyhow.

We joined Shoyushi and Nobu for dinner at an all you can eat family restaurant close to their home. ALL YOU CAN EAT sushi etc!!! We were in heaven and ate more for dinner that we've eaten in 30 days!

Tomorrow we zip to one more market before heading down to Narita to catch our flight home. We've learned so much and thank goodess we've kept our journals filled with details so we can remember it all!

Oh did you know that Chinese characters and Japanese characters are the same, but their pronuciation is completely different? That means that when talking they cannot understand eachother , but they can write each other and completely understand? Fascinating fact.

See you all soon! TTFN (as Tigger says...everyone loves Pooh, Hello Kitty, and Disney in this country...many elements of cuteness everywhere).

Lots of love!

Hello from Tokyo

Hey there everyone,

We somehow made it to Tokyo today after 8 hours on the train, 5 hours of sleep and being booted off our standby flight early this am. But we're here with the Sekiyama family enjoying amazing Japanese food and company.

The islands of Thailand were wonderful. We ate fresh fish and met many people from different countries ready to relax and take in vacation time after long travels.

I've decided that watermellon freezes are my favorite refreshment in the hot sun (and when I say hot...whew!!!!) Jeremy said, it's so hot here, I wonder how hot it is when you are on the equator!

We ended our island stay with Thai massage...Charlie was practically asleep after that.

Tonight we enjoyed our most excellent hosts.

Courtney and Aoi reunited and have been inseperable. They are so happy to be together.

Tomorrow we tour Tokyo and pray that we make our standby flight to the states on Saturday (it looks a little tight :).

We look forward to seeing everyone at home.

Sayonara!

Paradise

Hello all,
We have spent the past 4 days in heaven on earth. Koh Tao. We are on a teeny laptop from our new German friends so I can only check in with everyone.

We've been h anging on the beach and relaxing with silk sand between our feet and tropical drinks in our hands. The highlight of the beach was snorkeling as a family. "This is the best thing Ive done in my life" says Jeremy.

We have great tales to tell but limited time tonight. Maybe tomorrw we can get online again.

We take the train up to
Bangkok tomorrow am and the hope the plane to Tokyo after a short night slee p in Bkok.

We're coming home folks and we can't wait to see you. It's been an absolutely amazing trip.

Peace and love,
theHooks

Tham Lod (Through Cave) at Cave Lodge

Hey Raderstorfs! We made it to Cave Lodge and met John Spies...a cave master from Australia who had discovered and mapped many caves here in N. Thailand. We stayed at a paradise in the middle of the jungle in a bungalow last night! Heavenly.

Once there we wasted no time figuring out how to get down to Tham Lod...a cave that is large enough to boat through. We stopped inside the large cavern to walk through 3 separate caves. YES Camille managed to do a little caving (shocker, eh?). It was phenomenal.

At the end of the cave (the second opening) we watched and thousands of birds called Swift streamed into the cave to perch for the night. Literally a managerie of them racing into the cave for well over 30 minutes. They perch in the ceiling of the cave, just like the bats. Though the bats were leaving as the birds entered.

Cave Lodge is just outside of Sappong (9km) a small village here just inside the Mayanmar/Thailand border. We're just along the Nam Lang River watching the water buffalo eat and bathe. The food is delicious. I had a muesli this am that knocked my socks off with plain yogurt, pinapple, watermelon and banana. Rusty is eating every new Thai dish available and still sneaks a taste of a pepper regretting it immediately every time! Mild spicy here is flaming spice in America! WHOA!

We are now in Pai for the night, a small touristy town that has exploded in the last 2-3 years from a quiet town to buzzing with hotels and activities for visitors. The night market is quaint along the river. The air is cool and refreshing. When in the villages, the tribes are constantly burning leaves, for fertilizer and such. The stench which is almost unbearable to me, is one the tribesmen grow accustomed to. So the little towns actually have fresher air than the villages. We are staying in this tropical paradise bungalow. This is a picture of "the lobby" of our guest house.

Pai kind of reminds me of Buena Vista CO with all the rafting, caving, trekking companies. Everyone here is smiling, it's impossible not to. We could easily stay here for 3 or 4 nights. We head to the gulf-side beaches tomorrow to stay at Camphon and take boats out to Ko Tao, which is the place to be apparently. Phuket and Ko Phi Phi are over touristed, according to many of the travellers we have met. Yes gorgeous but very crowded. We will not see as many crowds in Camphon.

We wish we could checkin with each of you separately to see how your February's are going. Hope the skiing has been great and the long weekend! We look forward to seeing you and just enjoying your February stories and catching up. Love and friendship to all of you,
Camille, Rusty,Courtney, Charlie and Jeremy

Elephants and trek to Hoi Hoi Village

We absolutely LOVE your comments! It makes us feel less homesick to talk about friends and family following us on our travels. Your words are priceless, warm and soothing. We are brimming with joy :).

4:20pm we arrived back in Chiang Mai from a 2day trek to Hoi Hoi Village (1 hour drive SW of Chaing Mai outside of Chum Thang).

We spent an hour on elephants , feeding them bananas and bumping along enjoying their gorgeous, immense, grace. We loved the baby that tagged along. A bit sad that these creatures don't roam free, but it is the way of the village people. They live amongst these animals in small stilted huts making their wage from the tourist.

We ate a Thai lunch of fried rice and potato curry and fresh pineapple and watermelon to fuel us for a 2 1/2 hour hike straight up to the Karin Tribe in Hoi Hoi Village. We walked along the Kun Poi River in blazing sun and welcomed refreshing shade. The kids were absolutely stellar hikers! Hot, tired and speechless at the landscapes we arrived at a luscious waterfall to quench the heat before the final 30 minutes of uphill trekking.

A NOTE FROM COURTNEY: "As we were hiking up I observed that they hill tribes did most of their farming on terraced land. Dormant terraced rice paddies gave the hills a feeling of dead, dry, "winter" season also known as the dry season. When we were in the village I took note of the fact that these peopl do not have a high standard of living. For one, they have to make their houses using the materials that nature gives them. These are bamboo, dried banana leaves and jute or pieces of old tire. The roof was made with dried leaves woven/folded over bamboo and tied together with jute. The floors and tables were made of stripped bamboo that surprisingly held our weight. Interestingly enought, to be polite we would always take off our shoes when entering the house, even though everyone was dusty and dirty without shoes on." (by Courtney)

The evening was fasinating with all the interesting people around us telling about their travels. Jeremy made friends with every single person trekking and in the village area. We could hear people who didn't even speak English saying "JEREMY!" as he ran from hut to hut and group to group to check in with all his new friends.

At dinner he asked if everyone would mind going around the table to tell what they wanted to be when they "grew up." It proved a very interesting conversation topic. What a gregarious fella! It turns out there were many interesting folks travelling with us which makes our travels incredibly interesting as we learn about other countries and languages.

Jeremy and I woke up early this morning and walked to the village school with a young mother and her son Riko. We watched their morning flag ceremony and took some pictures. Once again I had a chance to hand out the scarves you all donated to give in thanks for the village people's generosity of sharing thier lives. It was wondrous!

It was a long trek back to base, but we made it...probably 4 miles each way...even Jeremy!!! What an incredible adventure! Once back at base we went on a 45 minute bamboo rafting ride in the cool river! EXCELLENT 2 days!

Tiger-iffic

Welcome to Chiang Mai! After a 14 hour night train we arrived at 10:30am. The train was AWESOME. The kids got such a kick out of our seats that could be changed to a table and then when it was time to sleep they turned into bunks with privacy curtains and bed lights.

We all got the best night sleep of the trip! After dinner, Courtney came to me and said, "Mom! Did you know that the toilet empties onto the track! I felt the breeze!" Sure enough when you look into the commode you can see the track zooming by!

Today we took it easy as we settled into a sweet little guest house in Chiang Mai and packed for our Elephant Trek (2 days, 1 night) where we will ride, hike and raft on a bamboo boat, stopping to play in water falls 2x along the way!

We managed to fit in a trip to the Tiger Santuary where we were able to pet and roll around with tigers 4 and 7 months old. Once they loose their baby teeth, they become too dangerous. Poor Jeremy couldn't come in. Apparently the smaller children are so enticing to the cats that they create a danger. This was evidenced as Jeremy walked by a cage and the sleepy tigers, jumped up poised to play while making feisty gurgles deep in their throat! That was enough to take away and blues Jeremy was having about not getting to go inside the cages!

We also, much to my protest, stopped at a monkey school which we had learned mistreat ed the monkey's by chaining them up around their necks. We saw a short show and talked to the kids about fair, humane treatment of animals. We paused for a silly picture with this monkey that was not listening to the trainer and we loved him, since he was getting the better of his trainer (go monkey go...you rebel!)