Corel Draw 5/Corel Draw 5 CD1.iso/ventura/typeset/abook.txt

Text File | 1994-09-30 | 4KB | 81 lines

Chapter 1

The Adventure Begins

This trip really began in September last year when Gerry
won first prize in a raffle at the fashion show which Rush-Presbyterian-St.
Luke's Medical Center holds every year. The prize was two round trip
tickets to Hong Kong on United Airlines, and ten nights in the Hong
Kong Hyatt Hotel. Analyzing our good fortune, we concluded that we
wanted to do more than spend ten days in Hong Kong and return, but
at the same time, United, having just gotten its routes and equipment
from Pan American, had not yet received authority to fly to other
destinations or between points in the Far East.

On February 10th, United acquired this authority, and on February
11th Debbie began putting our trip together. We left on March 2nd
and returned on March 26th. We entered seven countries, traveled
over 25,000 miles on four airlines, made over 500 Kodachrome<M^><190><D>
slides, almost 200 Kodacolor<M^><190><D> prints, and 5 1/2 hours of
color and sound videotape.

Chicago to Tokyo

11:03 P.M. Chicago time. 39,000 feet somewhere over the Western Pacific,
we are 8 hours and 42 minutes out of Los Angeles with about 2 more
hour to go to Tokyo. We were about an hour and ten minutes late out
of Los Angeles.

Travel Log

So far, it's been a long and interesting day and I guess it's just
about half over. We did the following:



Arose at 5:30 A.M.

Left the house at 7:00 A.M.

Arrived in Los Angeles at 12:35 P.M.

Arrived in Tokyo at 11:46 P.M.

11:31 P.M. Tuesday, March 4th

It's been a long day, but in many ways really quite fabulous. Let's
go back to the beginning. As related above, our trip yesterday was
a good one with fine weather, accompanied by underlying clouds much
of the way. Our 5400 mile<$FNautical miles> flight from Los Angeles
took us north almost to the Kurile Islands and then down into Tokyo.
Letting
down through the clouds over a rough sea we saw many fishing boats
and other vessels all headed into Tokyo. Our approach into the Narita
Airport involved a long, slow descent which, after passing the shoreline
(strangely reminiscent of the West shore of Lake Michigan although
with some sandy beaches), gave us an opportunity to see many small
patches of cultivated ground. Tiny houses, and even small factories.
Everything
seemed miniature. At 4:25 P.M.<$FLocal time> the sun was still fairly
high in the sky, but due to what appeared to be smog visibility was
probably not more than 5 miles. Quarantine and customs proved no
problem, but immigration was slow with much attention to detail. Our
5:15 P.M. limousine<197>really a rather large bus departed promptly
and carried us on our hour and fifteen minute, 66 kilometer trip into
the center of the city and the Imperial Hotel. Much of the super highway
into town is screened by noise abating walls. Traffic moves steadily
at about 50 miles an hour and we observed no speeding. The new Imperial
Hotel is every bit as good as its reputation<197>somewhat more elegant
than the Ritz Carlton. Our room in the new tower looks exactly like
the picture in the travel folders. It's not exceptionally large. It
has a bay window overlooking the Ginza with the ocean in the background,
very nice furniture, and a well-appointed onyx and plastic bathroom.
<169>Extras<170>
abound: Toothbrushes, terrycloth bathrobes, kimonos, slippers, coffee
making equipment, etc. There are eleven separate restaurants in the
hotel, all<197>as we have found by inspection (reading the menus that
is) very expensive. To settle later discussion by the way, the price
of our room is 34,000 Yen per day plus 10% gratuities and 10% tax
on the whole thing.