COS Update

Today was pretty productive. We managed to take a good chunk out of our "close-of-service" checklist, including our final medical appointments and getting our travel per diem (we're getting $64 to spend at the Tokyo airport!).

My stomach has still not recovered from my final Mongolian meal this past Saturday and I am now on antibiotics. Keep your fingers crossed that I am better by Saturday, because at the moment making a 13-hour international flight on a wobbly belly is about the last thing I want to do -- plus once we touch down in LA I'm planning to gorge on either Avila's El Ranchito or Cheesecake Factory (Ashlee and I can't decide what we'd like our first meal to be).

Also, we decided to get a leg-up on the readjustment process and we ordered our cell phones online this afternoon. We have each been wanting an iPhone for years now and we figured it would be now or never. When we placed the order we were asked what area code we wanted. Now I grew up as a 909 and Ashlee a 949/714, so we had to compromise. We figured that since the next two years of our life will take place in Los Angeles, a 310 area code sounded good. The phones will come via 2-day shipping, so hopefully they will be waiting for us in the hands of Ashlee's dad when we land at LAX on Saturday.

Tomorrow the plan is to lay low. Hopefully this little El Nino that has been rocking UB for the past two days will finally blow out of here. Walking around the city has not been fun. Maybe we will take in a movie -- Ashlee says that Kung Fu Panda 2 is playing at the theater just around the corner from our guesthouse.

That's all for now.