COME

"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD...He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." Micah 4:2

2014 Travels

Our trips to Southeast Asia are always full of adventures.
Here I hope to record our experiences which will be full of fun happenings, some good tried foods and even some beautiful tropical scenes while I spend time with family.

For this trip, Don chose to start my travels with me and took his 2 week vacation and get out of the winter with me. I will remain on the tropical island for another month and only arrive back in KC when Spring blossoms have begun to put an aroma in the warmer air.
We left snow on the ground and very cold temperatures, but praised God it was a sunny day with nothing in the forecast to delay our flights. Although we took different flights out of KC, we met up in LA and made the rest of the journey together.

Our itinerary took us for the first time to mainland China, just for a layover, but we were excited to visit a new city. We landed in Guangzhou, China. We needed to walk quite a distance in the airport, including a single lane passageway from international to domestic in order to stay in China for our 11 hour layover.

We were thrilled to learn that our airlines gave a complimentary package to travelers with long layovers with beautiful hotel accommodations for rest and relaxation between flights. After 24 hours of flights and layovers, a hot shower and a place to stretch out sounded awesome! We took their offer with pleasure!

Our hotel accommodations were absolutely beautiful and so welcomed by our tired bodies!
A large air-conditioned room holding two queen sized bed, decorated with white downy coverlets and many pillows, invited us immediately to take a nap. Then, a modern shower with wall and ceiling heads refreshed us and then, the finishing touch of two easy stuffed chairs allowed us to relax and enjoy the scenes from the sixth floor overlooking a busy Guangzhou starting its day.
To top off our accommodation, we were given a complimentary breakfast of a boiled egg, sweet cake, 3 tiny oranges (called kumquat), a box of coconut milk, and a couple of cups of sweet Earl Grey Tea.

Also, having accommodations allowed us to leave the airport and see some of Guangzhou.
The flowers along the highway were breathtakingly beautiful. No photos as we rushed along, but their their beauty reminded me how good it was to be out of the winter of northern America.
A airport shuttle returned us to the airport when we needed to ready ourselves for boarding the plane for the next leg of our journey.
On our drive back to the airport, this gateway rose majestically to our right with the beautiful boulevard behind it. I wished we had a little more time to visit and enjoy this city.

But our plane was waiting and we're were soon on our way to our final destination. Finally, the thrity-nine hours completed and we arrived at Penang Airport in the cool of the night, ready for a good night's sleep before four grand children greeted us in the early morning hour!


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