Japan - Tokyo & Kyoto We have arrived in Japan in the Wet Season!! Why didn't anyone tell us! After a long flight from San Francisco we arrived at Narita Airport, collected our luggage and boarded a shuttle bus to take us to our hotel - 2 ½ hours later we arrived at Shinjuku Washington Hotel by many elevated freeways, Tokyo traffic was incredible!! We walked around our local area - found the Takashimaya Department store and went up to the roof ar...

We set off for the big drive up the historical road, Highway 1 which follows the coast up the whole length of the western seaboard. We were going as far as San Francisco. Our Pontiac had lots of features we were not aware of and no manual so for the first day we had difficulties ie how to get out of the doors, how to start it, turning lights and radio off etc.We only discovered the very useful direction indicator on our last few days, it stopped us going the wron...

We picked up our car from the airport at Las Vegas (a midsize Pontiac which was good) and drove across the desert - 110⁰F although we were comfortable in our air-conditioning! We found Ken & Karen's house in San Clemente although we had taken the long way to get there which was on the Ortega Highway, over a very twisty road over the mountains - very scenic but an hour's extra journey! Ken & Karen have a very nice house in a large estate which is very n...

We flew into Las Vegas and waited one hour for our baggage at the new terminal - this was possibly by design as there were poker machines next to the baggage carousels as well as everywhere else in the terminal. Even the supermarkets have poker machines in them and they are on the pavement on The Strip (the main walking street in the new casino area). Our Hotel, Las Vegas Hilton, has now been relegated to the second biggest in the area; it's on a huge block with ...

We caught the Amtrak train from Washington to New York which was pretty good but not a patch on the European trains; arrived at Penn Station but had to sit in the dining car as no room in the regular cars; then a yellow cab to hotel, walked to Times Square now pedestrianised, (lots of people sitting in deck chairs looking at the neon signs!!!) then to MOMA - as it was free on Fridays and so busy, so much fantastic contemporary art. Our hotel was on 42nd & 10...