Jennifer sporting her custom made traditional Indian wear in the tea producing village of Darjeeling, India. All of the women wear elaborate sarees while the men typically wear western style clothing that is about 10 years behind the States stylewise. I personally think Jennifer makes all the pretty Indian women look bad.

Our wonderful Nepalese cooks, Kaji and Toran. During our 10-day trek they treated us to some of the finest fresh Nepalese foods including momos, chowmein, vegetables, eggs, potatoes, and some unpronouncable foods. Toran even treated us Americans to apple pie. Our evenings in subzero temperatures were frequently spent singing Nepali songs and dancing with our porters and Kaji and Toran. These people are masters of their trade and work incredibly hard in a very difficult environment - their wages... just over US $2 per day.

High on Kachenjunga! Straddling the Nepal/SIkkim border, Kachenjunga is the third highest peak in the world. This face has never been climbed. We managed to get 16,000 ft up but wisely choose to turn back when we realized we had more than 10,000 ft of sheer vertical ice to go (impressed huh Mom?).

Looks like a comfortable ride, right? Wrong. This is the main highway in Sikkim and that 7 seater jeep was crammed with 14 people, including a couple on the roof.

We are in India! This is a place that you can absolutely love and hate all at the same time. We have been overwhelmed with how wonderful the people are and how beautiful the culture is, yet the extreme poverty, illness, and terrible sanitary conditions have put knots in our stomachs and kept us up at night. Still, we absolutely love this country and wish that we did not have to leave in 5 days. One of the many things we have had to get used to is the fact that there are two different prices for everything here - note the 10x price increase for foreigners to get into the zoo. When asked why this was they simply said "because you foreigner." Still we love this place and can't wait to come back.

The majestic Pandim mountain in the Indian Himalayas. We took a 10-day trek to Goecha La Pass, 16,000 feet up Kachenjunga (the third highest peak in the world). We trekked with a British couple and a German couple and hired a team of porters, cooks and a guide to accompany us. The trek was difficult but unbelievably rewarding - we were consistantly treated to views such as this.

On our way to India!

Tomorrow (Oct 2.) we depart for Kolkata, India. We finally got our visa to enter the country (they tried their best to keep us out) where we will stay for one month. 14 days will be spent trekking to Kachenjunga, the world's third highest peak. This is in a region called Sikkim, which is nestled between Nepal, Bhutan and China. Then we are hoping to visit Varanasi, Agra and wherever else the spirit leads us.

On the Emperor's Chair in Hong Kong. Dave, Jennifer and Clare (l to r).

We are in Hong Kong, Asia's World City. This is where Western culture collides with the far East. You can find U.S. Investment Banks (I can't get away from them) right next to Buddhist and Taoist monastaries dedicated to the god of farming. At 6'1" and 160 pounds I never thought of myself as the slow, clumsy, sweaty American that has a physically imposing stature - but I find myself a good 8 inches above the median here (little did these people know I played golf and not football). Even Jennifer's stature beckons respect in this city. We are here visiting Clare a foreign exchange student that stayed with Jennifer in high school. Her family has been incredibly gracious and has offered hospitality that far surpasses anything in the states. Fortunately they have interpreted all of the menus, shown us all the sites, and not told us we were eating chicken feet or goose heads until after we had eaten them (they don't really have sweet and sour chicken here).

Disaster averted. This is Jennifer on the phone with China Airlines after the website erroneously stated that our flight departed 24 hours earlier than scheduled. Jennifer's fluency in Cantonese saved the day and we made it to Hong Kong with no hiccups. Hey, who thought vacation was easy?

We celebrated our first anniversary by taking up a new sport together. This is us in Hawaii as newly certified SCUBA divers. A few highlights from our dives include a WWII shipwreck and plane wreck and cave diving.

At Seattle-Tacoma airport - with everything we need for the next year!