Here's my favorite picture from New Zealand. This was taken from the air, obviously, as we flew into Auckland. Doesn't it look like a beautiful country? I had to take it slantwise to get everything in, but it works well, I think.

Here's the view from the breakfast verandah at the gorgeous resort I stayed at in Cairns. We looked out on a rainforest, complete with stream in the gully below. It is a wonderful bed and breakfast, and you must stay there if you are ever in Cairns - The Reef and Rainforest Bed and Breakfast.

Before I traveled to Japan I would occasionally see a street scene from Tokyo on the news that showed ordinary people going about their day. Usually it was meant to illustrate a story about something the government of Japan had done that affected the U.S., and we were supposed to focus on the reporter in the center of the frame.

I often found the folks in the backround more interesting, though. One thing that struck me was the number of people that walked around wearing cloth mask over their nose and mouth. Were they worried about germs? Was it effective?

Well, when I visited Tokyo myself I finally found out the answer.

Well, it was getting into Fall by the time I got there, but we had such mild weather it felt like Summer would never end. Quite a change after coming from the cold early spring of the Northern Hemisphere.

Finally, I have the pictures from Australia for your viewing pleasure! I loved Sydney. I think I could quite easily live there. All these Australia pictures are from there. I'll put one up from Cairns later.

One more picture from Japan that I meant to include. Don't forget to look down for the others. This one shows the Takahashi-sans (Hello Emiko-san!) and Mihoko-san in the in the tea house that was our own personal restaurant at Ukai Toriyama, the restaurant I glorified in my entry "Ode to Ukai Toriyama". Mmmmm, sooo good! Here you can see that we were sitting on the floor level, though we had seats with back. Makoto-san is on the floor level, and the women are sitting down with their feet in the square recess that the table sat in. It was a wonderful meal. Like you so much Takahashi-san!

Here's my second entry with photos from Japan. The first excellent set was taken by my friend Mihoko-san. I've tried to choose slightly different ones to give a wider picture.

I loved Japan. It is hard to capture in pictures. It was the place that was the most different from America, with a completely different set of assumptions. Imagine being the only person with blonde/brown hair (not counting dyed) for days. Or a place where the major ethnic minority, treated much like illegal Mexican immigrants in this country, looks to the untrained US eye exactly like the natives. (It is the Koreans. And they have slightly rounder, flatter faces generally compared to the Japanese. Closer to Chinese, you see. This difference is obvious to a Japanese person.)

During my stay my brain began to adopt the standards of this new culture. One day on the train I was sitting down and noticed a Japanese woman standing across from me. She was wearing very high heels and seemed incredibly tall from my seated position. She certainly stood out amongst her fellow train passengers. I just couldn't get over how tall she was - until I stood up. Then I realized that in my sneakers I was a good inch or two taller. How odd I must have looked to the Japanese.

But now I will try to convey some of my experience in Tokyo to you through pictures. Onward!

Here submitted for your perusal are the best pictures from the Scotland leg of my world trip. Scotland for me was really just the wedding of my friend Michelle to her long-time beau, Gareth. I arrived on a Friday, the wedding was Saturday and I was gone by Monday. So pretty much I just went to the wedding, which started officially at 2 p.m. (so of course we got there earlier), and continued well past midnight. When I left at 12:30 am there were still folks chatting and dancing at the reception, though the staff was trying to get people to leave so they could go home themselves. Great wedding I must say. One of the best. Do try to have a Scottish wedding if you have any say in the matter. I recommend them highly.

Read on to see my three favorite photos by clicking the links.

I bought this great book in Japan about Harry Potter. In honor of the first day of sale for the new book I thought I'd tell you about it.

I am finally starting on a project that I have been meaning to get to for some time: putting more photos online!

One obvious way to organize them is by country, and I have done so. Granted this is not entirely fair, as I did not spend the same amount of time in each country. But this is my blog, and I make the rules, and that is the way we are going to do it. They will also be chronological within each country grouping.

I took film pictures because charging batteries is too difficult on a long international trip like this. A scanned these pictures in and zoomed in on some. As a result the resolution may not be perfect on all of them, but they give you an idea of what I saw.

And now, without further ado, I present: Ireland!

Your ipod will charge all over the world, but your GMS World-ready phone won't.

You will need a voltage converter.