Traveling to Japan

So, we left for Kyoto on May 29 from ELM and had the typical layover in DTW before flying to LAX.  We arrived about 3:30PM local time.

We went straight from the airport to our college friend Ralph’s house in Manhattan Beach.  We visited for about two hours and then WE DROVE THEM to the airport.  

The next day we had lunch at the lovely home of Mark and Alyssa.  We  met them on the Baltic Cruise in Aug 2017. We have multiple small world connections including that her uncle was Ron’s Cantor and she’s from Schenectady where Ilene lives now and we have other friends who are from there.    For dinner we continued to drive south, and met up with Seth and his wife Karen.  Seth lived across the street from me briefly when we were preschool but then we met again in High School for marching band and a few classes.   My brother and his brother are good friends.

Friday, we met some cousins on my Dad’s father’s side.  Steve and his wife Sanna and his sister Susan met us for lunch.  They remember meeting my grandpa Hyman and I remember meeting their grandma Gussie and mutual great aunt Esther.   I remember my Dad mentioning their Dad Henry but I don’t exactly remember ever meeting him.  I do hope we can meet again.

Finally in our stay in LA.   We had Shabbos dinner with Debbie and Joey Green.    I knew Joey in grades K-2 at Greynolds Park Elementary and then met him again in 7th grade and through high school and we’ve kept in touch (even before Facebook ) all these years.

Then, on our anniversary, we went to Honolulu.  We had a nice swim in the ocean and then we met Kathy’s son Jackson (who is in the Navy) and his wife Kate for dinner.  And brunch the next day with business colleague Miles and his wife Joanne.   We then toured part of the island using an app we found for our last Hawaii visit, GyPSy, a GPS based mobile tour guide.  We ultimately found a nice mini-golf a about 20 minutes from Waikiki.

Then on to Japan.l…