*Note: Cindy forwarded the email, so here is Mom and Dad’s account of the first travel day. –Jim*

After you left us last night, we got our boarding passes and went  to our gate and then started the adventure! The board stated the  flight would leave at 9:11 and then once I looked over and it said  1:00. We knew we would have a three hour layover in Las Vegas, but  that was four hours! They didn’t have any pilots who could fly the  plane. The only ones were coming in from Cincinnati and would  arrive at midnight.

They said international passengers would have to go down to  ticketing to make arrangements and they were putting everyone going  to the East Coast up in hotels because they would miss their connections. So the other three headed down to ticketing and I  stayed with the luggage.

Then an agent came to the gate and made an announcement and as he  left the podium I asked him about our connections. He got our names  and went to work on it. In a few minutes he came back with tickets  for us on an American West flight leaving in about a half hour.  Needless to say the others weren’t back yet and I couldn’t carry  all of our carry on stuff all by myself. Just then an empty cart  came by and the agent flagged him
down and loaded all our luggage  onto his cart and we took off from our D gate to the A gate. Half  way there we met dad and the Kane’s and they jumped on also.

Then we got over to the new gate and wouldn’t you know it, it was  late too! But it did manage to take off and got us to Las Vegas  with a half hour to spare. We made the connection to the Korean Air  Flight which was also a little late. It was a great flight with  lots of stewardesses who really worked hard and took great care of us.

We are now in the middle of our ten hour lay over in Seoul. We  didn’t get ourselves organized enough to take a tour of Incheon. It  would have cost us $50 each, so we weren’t sure we really wanted to  go on it. In Las Vegas we met a mother and son who are on their way  to Jakarta to spend three weeks with her other son. We are spending  the time with them. We played Category Five for a while.

Now here comes the real reason for this e-mail. Dad has figured out  that he somehow managed to leave our camera home. Please call Brian  and have him look for it. It could be anywhere, but most likely is  upstairs in the bedroom. We will send you our address tomorrow and  would like you to mail it to us. Oops, I hit a wrong key and this  computer started typing in Korean, but the lady who works here  fixed it for me! The camera is about the size of a pack of  cigarettes and is in a black leather cover. I sure hope you can  find it and Dad did not lose it out of his pocket on one of the  planes.

We don’t know yet if our luggage made the changes. The gate agent  had me describe them to him and he went to look for them, so we  will find out when we get in Jakarta if we have luggage. We leave  here in about five more hours and the flight is a seven hour  flight. It is very cold here in Seoul, but luckily the airport is  warm. That is another reason we were reluctant to take the tour,  none of us have coats!

Well, you can forward this on the everyone else. I don’t have all  of their e-mail addresses in my aol address book yet. The Mongolian missionaries we traveled from the MTC with made their connection to  Ulan Bator and are now on their way. Their flight from here is only  a four hour flight.

We love you all!   Mom and Dad

We made it. We are at the hotel in Jakarta. I e-mailed Cindy a description of the adventures of the first half of our trip. She should post it for us so the rest of you can read all about it. [Note: I’ve added Mom’s email to the blog. See the blog entry before this one. –Jim]

We arrived in Jakarta at about 10:40 PM and sailed through immigration without any problem. We were met by two of the missionary couples – the Leishmanns who we are replacing and the Petersons who are friends of the Don and Vivian Ostler. from Orem. I got us a couple of porters to help us get our luggage. They were really nice men and I was able to use a little of what Indonesian I know without them laughing at me too hard. I convinced the Kanes to do the same thing and then we over-tipped them by a mile. It turns out you are supposed to not tip very often. I think I will continue to do as I do at home only reduce the amount. It seems only fair with the economy being so low here.

After getting our luggage we got into two small SUVs and got just a taste of the traffic problems we were told about. Actually there were not many vehicles on the road but we hit a couple of construction areas which called big bottlenecks. It is rather hard not to get a little anxious when a 20 ton truck is about one inch from your door and trying to get even closer. But our driver seemed to know what he could do and what he could not do so we got through without a scratch. The other couple said it gets worse during the day because of the motorcycles who weave through every crack and seam in the traffic pattern.

When we arrived at the hotel there was 6 to 10 security men on duty. Most of them were just standing around talking – rather like a gaggle of men rather than a working group. The cost of having them must be really cheap or there is no way that they could pay for themselves.

At least the reservation was still good and since they had filled the standard room, they up-graded us to the penthouse suite. When we got to the room we could not turn on the lights and neither could the Kanes. It turns out that you have to insert your room key in a special slot for them and the air-conditioning to work. It is a good system because it keeps down the cost of lights left on.

Speaking of air-conditioning, it was quite hot and humid at the time we arrived. I can not imagine what it is like when the sun is up. We were told that the smog is very bad – so bad some couples can not take it so must be sent to the country. I am sure we will be fine but another part of me would like to be in a less crowded place.

The room is two decent size rooms and a small bathroom. The tub is quite long but really narrow. Rather like a narrow casket. However nothing mattered since it was the first time we could take a bath or shower in over two days. It felt like heaven. The room also comes with wi-fi which is how I could write this post.

It is now 6:15 am on Friday the 22nd here. We tried to see if anyone was online so we could Skpe them but no one was available. If you read this before 5:30 pm Provo time, please ry to Skype us. After that we will away for most of the day getting set up.

We are excited about getting started and hope that we can get the details out of the way by Tuesday.

Love to all of you – more later.