You ever want to travel outside the West, but think…”I can’t do it with kids”? Ever wonder what your 8-year-old might be thinking while you’re traveling with him…and your boyfriend? Well, pull up a chair. Here are the unexpurgated files…my only writing to survive the 70s.

Day 1: Sat or Sun

The plane trip was in a 747. I liked looking out the window and seeing the foggy ocean below. To eat I had chicken, string beans, rice, peanuts, crackers, and apple juice. I had two naps and a card game with Ken. When we got off of the plane I kissed the ground. A little later Ken met Momoko and all of us met Momoko’s husband, Harocky, who likes to be called Harry. We got on a bus which went to a place where we got a taxi. The taxi drove us to the Ginsu Tokyo Hotel. We made reservations for room 761. We took the elevator up to our apartment. Ken, Mom, Momoko and Harry had a conversation. I thought I was going to sleep in a cot but it was really a couch made into a single bed. Harry and Momoko left.

Day 2: Mon

I went down to the coffee shop and ordered orange juice. The coffee shop was closed so the waiter fooled me and didn’t pour me anything. Instead, when my mother came down, we discovered An American Restaurant and ate there. Ken came down later. We went looking for a new hotel because the first one was too expensive. But all we found were hotels that were more expensive so we stayed at the first one. We went sightseeing at Ginza and Imperial Palace. Later we met Momoko at McDonald’s. We took the subway to the stop nearest her mother’s apartment and walked from there. We had dinner there and watched a Japanese form of “Heidi.” While me and Momoko were at the park Harry came home. A half-hour later, we left. We got on the subway with Harry and Momoko and got off.

Day 3: Tues

We ate breakfast and took the subway to the Imperial Palace, which we walked through. We heard flies that sounded like electricity. We also heard people fighting with sticks. We bought postcards and had milk in a pyramid-like container. We then took the subway to Ueno. At Ueno I had a doughnut, popcorn, and orange juice. We saw a raven and went to two museums. We went to a playground and I went on three rides at a small amusement park. We went to the apartment and I had a bath and took a nap. The nap seemed to cost me all my night’s sleep for when I woke up it was 4 o’clock A.M.! I thought: that low-down, sneaky, shifty, mean, cruel, ruthless and truthless mom of mine! She sent me to bed without any dinner and without brushing my teeth! When my mom woke up she said sorry.

Day 4: Wed

First I went down to the first floor for breakfast. Then I went up to the 11th floor restaurant to see what it was like. On my way coming down to the first floor I stopped at the 8th floor. Two people from Honolulu, Hawaii came in. I had a little conversation with them until we got to the 1st floor where they went to a restaurant and I went up to the seventh floor. I put my seek-a-word book back and ran around. By the time I got back Mom and Ken were up and getting dressed. While they ate breakfast I wrote postcards. When they came back Mom told me to stamp and mail my postcards. Then I had to take a pill. I got it down slowly but surely. Ken said “Hooray” because it had taken so long. Then we checked out of our hotel and took a 3-hour ride to Kyoto on a bullet train. At the Kyoto station we met Kumiko who showed us to a Japanese custom hotel.

Day 5: Thurs

Yesterday I got a kimono and I slept on a mattress on a tatommy [editor’s note: tatami]. Today I put on my kimono and looked around the inn we were staying in early in the morning. We ate breakfast at an American/Japanese restaurant and took the bus to the Nijo castle. We got taken on a tour through the castle. The floors tweeted like birds when you walked on them. Then we walked on a path around a castle on an island. After we got off the island we had a refreshment. Then we went on a bus ride to the Kinkakujji Temple. We saw sculptures and heard those electricity flies. Then we went to a restaurant because Kumiko was hungry. Then we walked to the Ryoanji Temple. We saw 15 rocks there. We also went to the Sonjusangendo temple and saw statues that were “well armed.” When we got outside it rained cats and dogs. Then we got back to the ryokan.

Day 6: Fri

We ate breakfast and got on the train to Mihara. It took 9 stops on the bullet train to get to Mihara. At Mihara we got on a hydrofoil to Motosuyama. On the way I saw fishing boats like the ones in Hong Kong. Several of them had sails and all of them had roofs. At the Matasuyama Dock we got on a taxi. It took us to another hotel. We got to know our apartment and then walked to the castle. On the way we saw a garage and decided it was the way to the castle. Ken had gone up about 9/10 of the garage and said it dead ends. I went up further and saw the chair lift for the castle. So Ken was wrong. We went to the entrance but instead took the cable car. After we had walked through the castle we came down and had dinner. While walking back to the hotel we saw “Mister Donut” and decided to eat breakfast there.

Day 7: Sat

We walked to “Mister Donut” and had breakfast. Then we took a streetcar to the A-Bomb Dome. We went to a museum nearby the A-Bomb Dome which showed what the A-Bomb did. Then we went to the children’s monument and went to a castle. The castle had things from the olden days and back then men were the big shots. So we saw a penis symbol. We didn’t do very much else that day except go back to our apartment. I had a bath and I used a little hose that was like a shower. Earlier in the day we smelled the incense of the ones who died during the explosion of the A-Bomb. The A-Bomb hit the Dome in the center of the city so only the people in the city died. The people in the suburbs got sick, and the people in the outskirts weren’t harmed. So I got to sleep then. Let’s hear it! Yeahhhhh! [editor’s note: ?]

Day 8 Sun

We checked out of our hotel at six-thirty. Then we looked for a coffee shop to have breakfast at but all opened at seven. Isn’t that tooooooo bad! So we packed and went to the bullet train stop. While we were walking there we found a bar and ate there. When the bullet train came, we got on. I played WAR with my mother on the train. When we got off the train we took a cab to the Tokyo Air Terminal and took a bus to the airport from there. We got on the airplane to Hong Kong and while we were landing I looked down and all I saw was tall buildings! At the airport on the island Kowloon we got on a cab to the Hong Kong Holiday Inn. We had already made reservations for it. We went up to the swimming pool which was on the 19th floor and then we went down to our 15th floor room.

Day 9 Mon

I woke up Monday morning and I looked out of the window and all I saw below was a dirty alley. We went down to the 1B [sic] and had breakfast at the Delicatessen Corner. We then got a ferry to Hong Kong Island. From there we got on a streetcar to the top of the island. At the top there was a tower and at the top of the tower we had lunch. We then took the streetcar to the bottom and sightsaw around the market area. While we walked we saw Omnibuses running and we decided to ride on one. It took us to a place we didn’t know about so we got on another Omnibus which took us to where we started: the dock. So we got on the “Star Ferry” to Kowloon. From the Kowloon Dock we walked to the Holiday Inn and rested. Then we ate dinner at a restaurant nearby. After we ate dinner we came to the Holiday Inn and slept.

Day 10 Tues

We ate breakfast at the Café Vienna. I tried to eat more than Ken and I failed. We did more sightseeing on Hong Kong Island. We tried to tour all of Hong Kong Island but we couldn’t. So we just self-toured ourselves around the half we were on. When we got back to the Holiday Inn I went swimming and I met a boy named Jeffrey.

Day 11 Wed

We took a tour on a boat around Hong Kong Island. I met three men from South Pasadena. They teased me about the places I was going to. They told me India was the armpit of the world because it had so many diseases. They told me to go kiss a castle in Germany. They told me to go to the bathroom in the moat. They told me to go outside and get mud and come back inside and throw it on the rugs and beds. After that water tour we got on a bus tour around Hong Kong Island. A fat guy from Georgia asked my mom a question about Cal. We went to the beach where I waded. At the beach there was a club where we had a drink. Then we got back in the bus and soon we were at Holiday Inn. At Holiday Inn we packed, ate dinner and went to the airport. We got on the plane to Bangkok and when we landed I barely made it to the Amarin Hotel cause of zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Day 12 Thurs

We went down to one of those “first minute you order, next minute you get it” places. Then we got on a bus tour around Bangkok. The tour guide took us to four temples. Two were old and two were new. A Buddha in one of the temples was lying down. It was a giant Buddha. Me, Natasha, and Ross could all fit in it’s ear. Another Buddha just looked down on you very wisely. We went to the Grand Palace too. At one of the temples there was a school where kids were doing exercises. Each one of them did it at the exact same time. It was amazing. They were doing jumping jacks, touch-toes and all sorts of things. When we got back to the hotel I was starved because we had not eaten anything. We had lunch and only one hour later we had dinner. We first wanted to eat at another restaurant but it did not open until 7:30 and we were starved. So we made a reservation for the next night. We ate at another place. Then we went to bed.

Day 13 Fri

We ate breakfast and we went to the palace. After that we went to the riverside and got a water see [sic] to the other side. We wanted to go down the river but could not because we could not find one. We also went to the Temple of the Dawn. There were stairs up to each of the three levels. Each flight of stairs was 12 stairs long and each stair was 12 inches long. So the important saying was “don’t look down.” After that we went back to the Amarin Hotel. We ate lunch a little and ate dinner. The food was bad but the shows were great! They had Thai dancing and Thai boxing. Thai boxing is just sword fighting. Though they use swords that can kill you. (They come pretty close to doing just that!) It takes lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of practice to learn how to do that. I got tired and left to go to bed.

Day 14 Sat

We ate breakfast and a tour guide took us to the Summer Palace far north of Bangkok. We then took a super fast boat along the river. There were many shacks on the shore so I waved and said “Sawadee” many times. All waved back except the ones that weren’t looking. The boat stopped at a city called Ayutaya. There we saw the old capital of Thailand. We also went to the museum. We had lunch at the boat. A lot of people passed by in their canoes. I had fun eating lunch on a boat. We had to wait a long time for the driver to get to Ayutaya. We had to stay under awnings and roofs. It was so hot! We all said “thank goodness” when he finally came. It was almost an hour trip back to the Amarin Hotel. We ate dinner at a place near the Amarin Hotel. It had vanilla ice cream which I had for dessert. After dinner we went to a silk shop and there I bought a turtle named Swifty. I took him and Choga to bed.

Next week: Part 2 of 2