Last week we got an email from my sister with the following subject header: I'm coming to Sydney!!!...for four hours‏ Meredith, who is currently living in China, did say she was going to find a way to come see us in Australia. And when my sister says she's going to meet you in some far flung corner of the globe I've discovered it's a good idea to believe her (See also Georgia [twice], India , and China) . In her email she explained that she would be helping organize a food and wine festival and Fiji and would have a 4 hour layover Monday morning in Sydney en route to the island. I got the day off and rolled up to the arrival gate just about when her plane was touching down. First, I finished the chapter I had been reading on the train to the airport. Then I framed a few shots of the arrival gate. A bored little girl in her red Chinese new year's costume doing gymnastics on the hand rail would be perfect in the background I finally decided. I found a good vantage ...

4 August 2010 Jean and I had last seen my sister Meredith on our wedding day, April 10. At the time she had mentioned that she was planning a foray into India over her summer holiday from teaching in China. As Jean and I were planning to be in India in August we thought it only proper that we meet up. I remember being totally oblivious to the sheer size of the sub-continent. Meredith and her party (Chris, Jay and Lindsay) were traveling overland through southern China, Tibet and Nepal. They crossed the border into India at northeast border of the country and cut east to Calcutta on the eastern border with Bangladesh. We arrived in Mumbai located on the lower part of the mid-section of India on its western border. Through several emails over several weeks we decided to meet in Agra located in northwest India. To put it in terms relative to the US. It would be like me being in Austin, Meredith being in Chicago and planning to meet in Topeka, Kansas. And instead of flying we would ...