So have you missed us?  It has been quite a while and
I'm afraid I have my work cut out for me.  

Since our last update from Xian, we have travelled to
Louyang and Beijing China during the first of May
holidays where every conceivable sight was overcrowded
with Chinese tourists.  Even so, we saw buddhist
carvings in the Longmen Grottoes, beautiful Peonies at
the famous Louyang Peony gardens, the many sights of
Beijing and the Great Wall.  While in Beijing we were
met by Than's contact Jing who was very gracious to us
and made our visit most pleasant.  

Afterwards, we spent 1 week in Seoul mostly relaxing
and visiting my Korean friend Kaity.  Kaity gave us
shelter and even fed us some most excellent home
cooked Korean food which we have added to our list of
favorite foods.  We saw some of the sights of Seoul
and spent our evenings with her and her friends. 
Kaity even demonstrated her beautiful voice and
musical ability and I was happy to hack around at the
guitar and become reinspired to pick up a guitar.

The following 9 days we spent in Japan.  The first few
days we spent in Kyoto and 1 day in Hikone.  While
there we visited many temples, castles, and were lucky
to even spy a few geisha on their way to dinner
appointments!  Of course we sampled the food and met
our new friend Yasuko who we joined for a few most
excellent meals and an afternoon of sightseeing. 
After a failed attempt to HITCHHIKE to Tokyo, we took
a bus to Tokyo and spent our last 2 days there. 
Yasuko's parents, whom I was lucky enough to be put in
contact with, gave us shelter and treated us royally
during our stay.  We endured constant rain while
there, but made up for it with good company and most
excellent food.  Our first evening ended with a few
rounds at bat at a downtown Tokyo batting cage!  

Now we have arrived in Taiwan and are being well cared
for by Than's old college friend Roc and his colleages
who have taken care of every aspect of our stay and
shown us what Taiwan is all about.

So that is the rough overview of how our time has been
spent.  I will write a couple follow up emails to
provide a more detailed account of our time and try to
keep each to a managable size.

We're both doing great and always enjoy hearing from
our friends and family at home and abroad.  You may
not realize how nice a message from home can be even
if we are constantly seeing new and amazing sights.

I should mention that Than and I may be splitting up
in Hong Kong next week.  Than will fly on to Thailand
and is wrapping up his travels by late June while I
may enter back into China enroute to Vietnam, Loas and
Cambodia before hitting Thailand.  It will definitely
be strange travelling alone after nearly 10 months of
travel together.  His presence will be missed.

Best wishes to all,

Chris and Than