The Last Day before Vacation

This has been a long stretch of working this last month. After working most every day for the past 30 either at UCLA in the Cardiothoracic ICU or in the Acute Dialysis Unit, I AM TIRED! Sorry to all of you that were growled at these last couple of days, it should be better when my eye-balls don't stick to the inside of my head like they have been these last couple of days.

Traveling to Japan

My wife Jennifer and I will be "leaving on a jet plan, don't know when we'll be coming back again, Oh babe I've got to go." Japan Airlines is a partner of American Airlines and all of those frequent flyer miles will add up. By tomorrow evening we will be in Tokyo enjoying a hot tube and sake with a little sushi. How does that sound! We have never been in Japan and this is going to be very interesting. After visiting most of the Asian countries these past couple of years the largest industrial country has only been flown over. Last year when I visited Thailand and China we flew over Japan. From the air the Japanese islands are amazingly mountainous with densely populated small delta areas on the coast. For the most part the Japan Islands look like very open nonpopulated forested mountains. That is quite a different picture most of us have of the country. My experience is from the air and to think of it flying over the United States is interesting too. Most of the South West looks pretty God forsaken desert you know. Pretty bleak stuff. But Japan is amazingly green from the air and mostly steep mountains. It seems that the only habitable regions are the relatively small deltas formed between the mountains where streams and rivers collect all that rain water and flow to the sea. The coast in these deltas are very heavily populated even if they comprise a small area in comparison with all of the Japanese islands. Well that is just what it looks like from the air. Now we get to see the cities and the people.

Friends at UCLA

These are the faces of people that I will miss while we are away. I will think of all of you and remember the compassion and care that you provide on a daily basis to the sick and defenseless people that you serve.









I will try and keep this log going while we are away and keep updating regularly. This will depend on computer access while traveling. For the most part I will be able to do this. As far as uploading pictures I will try. At any rate I will have them and be able to fill them in when able. To all of my friends please keep in touch and stop by from time to time to catch up with me. I answer all e-mail regularly at davidgodden @ hotmail. Talk to you soon and farewell for now.