D-Minus 22 Days - Time to start a blog

 Greetings readers.

Three weeks and a day from the start of our SE Asia trip.  One of the tasks not yet checked off is to start a blog.  I guess that can officially be checked off now.

So a little background on us, our trip and the name of this site.

My name is Greg, and along with my partner, Shirley, we are heading for a nearly four-week trip to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.  This trip was inspired by a wedding invitation we received from our "extra daughter" Sawanya - who goes by "Joy."  Hence the blog name.

Joy lived with us for the school years 2012-13 and 2013-14 while she attended high school.  After graduation, she stayed in the US and attended college. Our home was her home and she came back and stayed with us throughout her college years when she had breaks from school.

Joy's family has twice traveled to the US and visited us.  Once for her high school graduation and again when she graduated from college.  During their second visit, her mother Su, asked Shirley to help find Joy an American husband.  While we can take no credit for it, Joy did meet a wonderful man, Derek, during her post-college days in Seattle.  We have had several chances to visit with Derek and were very honored when Joy confided to us that they planned to be married.  

Derek and Joy are having two ceremonies:  one this fall in Bangkok and another next year in Southern California, where Derek's family lives.  When Joy called us, she said we were invited to both, but would understand if we couldn't make it to Bangkok.  Not make it to Bangkok, are you kidding?  This became the anchor point for our planning.  We visited Thailand briefly five years ago and were treated to the most amazing hospitality by Joy's parents.  This time, we wanted to stay longer and expand our list of countries visited in the region.

I'll share more about our planning in my next installment.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Back in the Hospital - Round 11

I just realized that I have 46 unique text threads going related to Shirley’s current medical situation.  Not only is this not sustainable, but it’s hard to keep track of who I have told what to.  So, I’m reverting back to her old transplant blog to provide everyone with a common set of updates.  I plan to use this entry to let you know her current status and going forward, I’ll provide both recent updates and some background for those trying to catch up. The situation as of today, Sunday, October 6:   Shirley is at St. Vincent’s Medical Center.   This is the 11th time she has been admitted to the hospital since late April.   She came in on Thursday at the urgent request of her primary care doctor because of highly elevated numbers indicating kidney failure.   As of Sunday evening, she has now had two dialysis sessions. The second just finished, so we haven’t yet seen the impact in terms of improved kidney function, but the first dialysis sess...
Read more

Medical Evacuation

Image
 During our final visit to the hospital on Thursday the 9th, we met with a doctor who filled out Shirley's "fit to fly" form.  The doctor recommended that we return to the US for Shirley to continue her recovery.  The form he signed indicated that she was able to return by commercial flight, but also suggested that for her comfort, it should be in business class. With form in hand, I sent copies to both our travel agent and the travel insurance company.  The local representative got back to us with two options:  one flying Sunday and another flying Monday for $1000 less.  They suggested we run them both past the insurance company to make sure they would pay the bill. When we sent it on, the insurance company responded within an hour and indicated they had found a flight - for even less - that departed Saturday morning. As it was now Friday afternoon, we decided to cut our sightseeing short and get back to the hotel to pack up.   The short notice f...
Read more

Planning - where to start

 With a pin in the date of November 18 needing to be in Bangkok for the wedding, we began looking at the options for where to go, what to see and how to get around.  I will confess that it was a bit overwhelming.  Shirley's daughter, a major traveler, had told us that Vietnam is one of her favorite countries on the planet, so we knew we wanted to include a stop there as part of our trip.   I should mention here that Shirley has some health issues and we wanted to make sure what we planned wouldn't overwhelm her.  The idea of a guided tour on a bus was quickly tossed out, as the rigidity of those trips simply didn't work for us.  I ended up Googling "traveling SE Asia with mobility issues" and among the hits was a link to a travel agency that could put together customized trips.  I filled out their web form... I got a call the next day from Nick, at Audley Travel.  Nick and I spoke for about an hour.  He asked a ton of questions and said ...
Read more