Asia pictures

Hello everyone! I finally finished uploading the 293 photos that are in this album. Again, you'll have to log into Snapfish in order to see the photos. Enjoy! http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=547311130794745666/l=65291688/cobrandOid=1000321/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

First Trickle of Photos...

You have to have a snapfish account in order to view the photos. Sorry about the catch (No pun intended)! But it's free and I will be uploading all of my pics onto Snapfish. I'm not sure how Andrew will upload his pics.

http://www.snapfish.com/share/p=192271130458320686/l=64809203/cobrandOid=1000321/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB

What? Who? Where?

Luckily, my jet lag has been minimal, so I can discern easily whether that ("What? Who? Where?") is coming from the Nicholas Cage impersonation on SNL or from yours truly. I think that has something to do with the fact that on our last day in Thailand, we had to get up at around 4:30 AM and were only able to sleep minimaly for the next 36 hours. That led to an immediate crash upon coming home. However, I have been waking up at 8 AM (what the hell) and taking long, extended naps during the afternoon.

So what now? Ideally, I'll be sitting on my ass for as long as possible. I DO have my movie collection I hope to watch. But in reality, for me now I have to a) find a job, b) find a car, and c) find a place to live. Not neccessarily in that order, either. I need to organize my pictures into a digestible format, but until I get my monitor back (currently on loan) that is an impossible task to do. Oh well, maybe it's for the best. I still need to FIND jobs, APPLY, finish my school apps, get a car, clean my room, organize the boxes that will be coming home, and last but not least, trying to figure out how I'll be seeing my friends.

So what do I immediately notice about here compared to where I was? Driving to Wells Fargo, I was just amazed by how big our neighborhoods are. In cities in Taiwan, there are no neighborhoods and there are no noticable zoning regulations. It seems to be everywhere you go there are 4-5 story buildings, with the bottom floor being relegated for businesses and the top floors for people to live. Houses are minimal except in the 'country', and convenient stores are LITERALLY on every corner instead of on every commercial corner. Comparatively, the density of people here to there is non-existent.

And it's cold here! Man. This is me, the guy who hates the heat, who withers and dies. But I must have gotten used to it, at least more so that previously, because I'm not enjoying the SJ autumn, I'm wearing jackets and pants constantly, and my hands are nearly frozen off (I have bad circulation in my hands).

Well, this may be one my last postings on this blog, since it's not mine. Thanks so much to 6Q for letting us post on here and use this space. Maybe I'll make one of my own for my random thoughts and to provide therapy, if you're remotely interested just let me know. So concludes our trip: now, it's 'back to the real world.' Thanks for taking the time to read this, everyone! I hope I get a chance to see you all soon!!

Home. Safe and Sound!

Hello everyone!

We are home, happy and healthy! Our plane was a little delayed and we had some trouble getting our bag (but at least they made it!) The end of our trip was nice, but we got rained on during our trip to see one of the smaller islands, and our canopy trekking was very quick but fun. When I get all of my pics uploaded, I will post a link for you guys to see our pics, and maybe Andrew will get his plethora of great shots uploaded as well.

It's been a great ride, thanks for going along with us!

Counting Down...

Only a couple of days left in our trip! We're enjoying the last few days, doing things like relaxing on the beach and stocking up on last minute supplies.

Huh? Supplies? Well, DVDs and PS2 games are extremely cheap here. (Of course they are burned.) The thing is, I don't know if the PS2 games (sorry, they're called DVD games) will work, but I am pretty sure that they will. But as games have gone from $4 to $2.50 to $2 as we have progressed around Thailand, you can imagine that I've been going a little crazy. Like a moth to a flame is a better description. Not as cheap as $0 for unlimited games like Todd can get, but hey, all the (PS2) games I can want for, what, $50? Not too shabby. Now I just hope they work.

It's also ridiculous the number of DVD's I have bought here. After leaving America with *2* tapes, I'll return with an infinite number of movies.

In fact, I think when I do get home, I'll need a couple of months to get all the games and movies out of my system. THEN maybe I'll start looking for a job. Haha.

Koh Samui is a beautiful Island!

Super quickly:

Made it to Samui safe and sound, our bungalow is about a 15 sec walk to a very quiet, almost private beach. We've rented a jeep to see the island and it is absolutely gorgeous! We have plans to go sea kayaking, snorkeling, and "canopy climbing" which is apparently going through the trees on ropes, like rapelling, but you go horizontally through the air, instead of vertically down a cave or cliff. Yay!

"Bangkok is bitchin'"

To quote Jerry, the guy who placed us at our jobs in Taipei, "Bangkok is bitchin'."

Well, as it turns out, not really. If you recall, Jerry, the recruiter in Taiwan who placed us at our jobs, is a habitual liar. Some of his other comments include, "Your job isn't far from Neihu." (in fact, on the complete other SIDE of Taipei, a mere 1 1/2 hours away by bus and train), "Teachers have all the leverage.", "Schools have all the leverage.", etc. He has an insatiable thirst for lying.

This isn't to say that we went to Bangkok because of what HE said, no, no no no. It's the capital of Thailand, of course we're going to stop by and say hello. However, bitchin' isn't the term I'd use to describe Bangkok. Big? Definitely. Boisterous? Sure. Belligerent? Yeah, you bet. But bitchin'? Eh...

Bangkok isn't a bad place, but it is what most large Asian cities tend to be: big, unorganized (aka chaotic), polluted (nasty air and nasty stuff on the sidewalk), crowded, and, of course, there's bad traffic. What with 6 million people here, it's understandable that driving around is a lot like Office Space.

But there is some of the stuff that we came here to see: the history, the temples, the art. Today, for instance, we headed down to the river and took a boat up to the Grand Palace and the Green Emerald Temple. The temple is remarkable: typical Thai style architecture ornately decorated. The temples are tall and have many spires seemingly reaching out toward heaven. Inside there is an actual Green Emerald Buddha, who interestingly enough changes clothes every season to reflect the current season (i.e. rainy, hot, cold).

We then went to the adjacent Grand Palace, which is currently being rennovated (deja vu to Beijing). The King lived here, I believe, and performs some duties here still. Quite similar to the Buckingham Palace structurally (of course it does, all kings get big, luxurious buildings) but is more green and has elephants.

Then we took a tuk-tuk to the National Museum. I think we described tuk-tuks, but if not, briefly they are three-wheeled motorcycle taxis (with a roof). Driver in front, two seats in the back. Perfect to inhale car/motorcycle exhaust, feel the full extent of potholes in the roads, and avoid getting ripped off in. Not my favorite.

The National Museum is enormous and remarkably not crowded, considering how close it is to the main attraction in the area (Grand Palace and adjacent temple), which has throngs of people. The first building had the history of Thailand and its kings, and I was amazed by how often Thailand was at war for a Buddhist nation. However, it appears to be all or mostly all defensive in nature, so the museum says (nearly all by Myanmar (ex-Burma), those crazy war-hungry people!). But I am thankful that with the exception of some territorial concessions to France and Britin, Thailand was never colonized, and the evidence is in the language. While many people speak good English, the Thai language is predominant and never adopted roman letters. Instead, Thai characters are used.

Anyway, from there, we explored other parts of the museum, including ceramics, ivory, old war weapons, gold figures, etc. It was massive. There was so much stuff. there were also massive chariots used for what seemed to be funeral processions. MASSIVE. I mean, we saw a video, and there were maybe 3000 people carrying the largest chariot ceremonially. To actually carry some of these massive contraptions, 56 people were needed.

We are now at our guest house. An hour after we got in a massive afternoon storm came by; it was torrential, but it's eased off a bit now. Looking forward to getting to Ko Samui and relaxing, but I'm not too thrilled about the 4 AM wake up tomorrow! Ack!

One night in Bangkok...Well, actually 3...

Well, we are in Bangkok now, we went shopping and found a few good deals on bags, I got some dvds for my mom, but let me rewind to Chiang Mai.

So we went to the elephant camp outside of Chiang Mai, but first stopped at the Orchid & Butterfly farm on the way. Andrew likes orchids way more than I do, so I think he enjoyed it a little bit more than i did. I liked it also though, lots of very pretty orchids, everywhere.

Got to the elephant camp, watched elephants take a bath in the river, then they walked up to do the elephant show. We saw how elephants can move very heavy logs, they can play musical instruments (incl. the harmonica), and they can play basketball and soccer. Then we got to ride the elephants, which was like riding a very tall, slow horse. We were dropped off at the local village to buy handicrafts, where apparently Andrew and I took way too long at (more Andrew than me, I SWEAR!) and missed the ox cart ride back. So we started walking back to the camp, and a guy came on a motorcycle to pick us up and drop off us at the cafeteria for lunch. We couldn't find Noi, our tour guide, so we just sat down and started eating, and she showed up half way through with a shocked look on her face. Our first reactions were that we weren't supposed to be eating here.

But actually, it was shock that we were already eating, because she was waiting for us at the ox cart drop off, but we didn't show up. So she went to the bathroom and told the driver to watch for us, but he was reading the newspaper. When she came back someone told her a group was being brought back by motorcycle, but she didn't think it was us. We had a good laugh.

Then we took a ride down the river on a bamboo raft, got picked up by Noi, and then we were taken to a few different factory/handicraft places. We got to see silkworms and how they make thai silk. Then we went to a pottery/ceramics place that made beautiful ceramics for really cheap! If it didn't cost so much to ship stuff home, I think I would have bought more!!! And the last stop was a paper umbrella making place, where we saw the process from bark to hand painted umbrella. Quite interesting.

The next day we spent the morning wandering Chiang Mai and seeing some beautiful wats (temples). We then got picked up for our 3 hour spa package, that incl. an hour long massage, body scrup, facial, herbal steam room, and jacuzzi! (Andrew opted for the foot massage instead of the facial, I don't know why...). We went night market shopping and I bought some nice, light clothes to wear in the Thai heat.

The next day was sleeping in, walking around Chiang Mai some more and visiting the oldest wat in Chiang Mai. They had a 25oo year old Buddha statue! Small, but very old! Then we took a taxi to the train station to take our 12 hr train ride to Bangkok, arriving at 7am the next day.

From Bangkok we went straight to Sri Racha, which is a little bit above Pattaya on the east coast of Thailand. We went to the tiger farm and got to bottle feed a baby tiger! He was so cute and soft, and I have pictures to prove it! (we also got the polaroid, the cub was just too cute.) We then saw baby crocs, and their croc farm that had way too many crocs in one area. It was a little scary. After the elephant show, we went back and slept and watched TV. We've realized it's a lot harder to sleep on a train than you would think it is.

The next day (yesterday) we went back to Bangkok, but didn't get to our hotel until late in the afternoon. So we checked in, and then searched for dinner, and found a "Big C" shopping complex, which is kinda like a Thai version of Walmart. Yes, we did some shopping, and got dessert at the Swensens shop!

Today we saw a museum that had artifacts from a very old civilization that lived in Northern Thailand, then went to the Jim Thompson house. He was an architect, enlisted during WWII, came to Thailand, and decided to make Bangkok his home. He revitalized the Thai silk industry, made a fortune, built a beautiful house, and then disappeared while on vacation in Malaysia. No one knows what happened to him, and it's been 37 years since he vanished. But he left behind a beautiful house made from old Thai style homes and a great collection of antiques from throughout SE Asia.

And definitely last but not least tonight, SHOPPING! We went to a huge shopping mall, then to a night bazaar. Lots of fun, but my feet are tired and I am ready to go to bed. Tomorrow we are going to be doing a few boat trips on the river to see the Grand Palace, Emerald Buddha, and the National Museum. After that it's a 6am flight to Koh Samui, where we get to relax on an island beach for five days. I can't wait. Time sure does fly when you are having fun, one more week and I will be home! It's gone by so quickly!

I just ate delicious Thai food, cooked by ME!

I realized I forgot to mention our trip to Tainan (Southern Taiwan) in between Penghu and Kending to see Kate and her family for a day. Her little brother (Charlie) was so sweet, and drove Kate and Clay out to the Kaohsiung airport to pick us up so we wouldn't have to take the train to Tainan. Then we got to take part in the neighborhood BBQ celebrating Mid Autumn Festival and be completely stuffed with Chinese BBQ! After we got to stop by and see Charlie's beautiful wife Olivia, and their adorable 2 month old daughter, Fion. Then we walked along the river front to see fireworks, lit sparklers ourselves, then hung out at a nice cafe (which didn't have cold beer, so Andrew and Clayton had to drink their beers on ice! Ha!) They helped us find a place to stay for the night, and then the next morning we had shaved ice at a famous Tainan spot and went go-carting! My legs were too short to comfortably step on the gas, so my fastest lap was slower that Kate's slowest lap. yay being short! We were then dropped off at the Tainan train station to take the train to Kending.

And I forgot to talk about the point of our Three Gorges Cruise, the Three Gorges! They were, as I kept calling them to the annoyance of Andrew, "'Gorge'ous." We passed through them so we saw them from the boat, they were beautiful and breathtaking, and we took lots of pictures. I wish I could have come earlier to see them at their full height, but at least I saw them before they are 20 meters shorter! Definitely glad we did the cruise down the Yangtze. (We learned from Michael that the whole river in Chinese is called another name, but a British guy named the entire river Yangtze because the section he saw was called the Yangtze, he didn't see the whole river or bother to ask if it had a different name.

OK, back to where I left off:

We had breakfast at the airport and then figured out the MRT (subway) system to get to the stop closest to the train station. When we got to the train station, we dropped off our big bags at the left luggage room since we would only be in Singapore for a little bit. We stopped by our hostel, but it was too early to get our room, so we walked through Chinatown, and took the MRT to see the ultra famous Raffles Hotel, and window shop at the gigantic shopping complex of Raffles City. We had a delicious Indian lunch buffet, and then went back to the hostel and completely crashed for the afternoon. (we were exhausted in Beijing, and really didn't get much sleep on the plane to Singapore) We wanted to see the Botanical gardens, but never had time to. But we made it out to the Singapore Zoo for the "Night Safari." They have the nocturnal section of the zoo open from 6:30pm to 12am, so you can see animals doing their thing at night when they are active, instead of just sleeping during the day time. And the zoo has natural barriers and clear panes so you are just mere inches from an animal, or can see them clearly without any cages. I really liked how they have the zoo set up. Anyway, we were mere inches from leopards, had harmless fruit bats hanging inches from our (well, Andrew's) heads. We got to see a flying squirrel leap past us, lions, sea otters, mousedeer, and a whole bunch of other cool creatures. We watched their "Creatures of the Night" show, where they trained sea otters to sort cans and bottles for recycling, hyenas, a gigantic python, barn owl fly by our head, bearcats scaling a rope over our heads. It was all a lot of fun. And if you made a donation, you could have your picture taken with a wild cat of some sort, and hold a snake and take pictures! Andrew held the snake, I just stuck with the cat that hissed at me.

The next day we went back to the zoo to see the rest of the animals, which ended up taking the whole day! They have a cool "Fragile Forest" area, where it mimics a rainforest, and you get to walk in and have hundreds of butterflies flying around, bats hanging in trees, birds squawking at you, and my favorite, curious lemurs that go by your hand as you try to take a picture. They had the standard zoo animals (lions, giraffes, white tigers, hippos, etc.) but they also had cool primate areas that was big enough to support a few families of monkey (or baboon or whatever the primate was.) So the primates weren't just a few chimps in a cage staring wistfully at you, it was packs of primates ignoring you because they were busy defending territory, or grooming, or taking care of their young.

After the zoo, we headed to the train station, and took a sleeper train to Kuala Lumpur, arriving at 6:40am in the morning. Head breakfast at the train station and then taxied to our hostel. Of course, we were too early to check in to our room again, so we had some coffee and tea at a local cafe, and then went to see the Petronas towers! Too bad the sky bridge is closed on Mondays, the one day of the week we were there. But we walked around the Petronas mall, which was very upscale. Then we went back to our room and, guess what? Crashed. We woke up in the afternoon and went to a really tall communications tower that I can't remember the name of. But you can go to the top and see Kuala Lumpur from above, and be eye level from the Petronas towers. We had dinner at a cafe in the tower, and then headed back to our hotel because the next morning was a 7am taxi ride to the airport.

We got into Chiang Mai around 2:30pm yesterday, and was picked up by Noi, a wonderful lady that works at the hotel/hostel we are staying at. She asked what we wanted to do while here, and is helping us book our stuff, everyone at the hotel has been so nice! So today we had the day course in Thai cooking. I learned how to make: Hot and Sour soup, spring rolls, green curry, pad thai, papaya salad, and chicken with cashew nuts. Andrew made: Fried bananas, thai beef salad, coconut soup, yellow curry, and chicken spicy noodles. We got to eat what we cooked, and it was all delicious!!! Needless to say, we were allowed to take our leftovers with us, since no one could finish all of their food. We also got a cookbook that included the recipes of what we made today, and lots of other yummy thai dishes. Tonight we are going to try shopping at the night bazaar, and tomorrow we are getting picked up at 8:30am to go bamboo rafting and elephant riding! I love Thailand!

In Chiang Mai! This blog goes to the end of China, more later!

So I thought we would have time to post in Beijing, but Beijing is HUGE, so even though we were there for four days, we didn't see everything we wanted to, but would like to go back to see all the finished construction for the Olympics in 2008. Everywhere you look, there are massive cranes dotting the skyline building Beijing the city out at an ever increasing pace.

I left off with Penghu, it was nice, we got to the main island and scootered around and saw gorgeous beaches and a gigantic temple under construction. After that was Kending, which is the southern most tip of Taiwan. It's kind of like a postcard picture from Hawaii (gorgeous blue scenery and a rainforest in the background), and with fewer resorts. We were there during the week so there weren't that many people and hotels were cheaper. While in Kending, we went to the Aquarium (very interesting with lots of cool exhibits), and just went to a few different scenic spots and beaches.

Next was our one day stopover in Hong Kong. We took the Star Ferry from Central (where we spent the night) to Kowloon on the other side of the water and got to take in a beautiful view of the Hong Kong skyline at night, lots of high rise buildings and awesome lighting against the waterfront. Our pictures don't do it justice. We walked around, went down the "Avenue of Stars" and Andrew took a picture with Jackie Chan's star and handprints! The next morning we took the tram up to the top of Victoria Peak, but really couldn't see too many great views because of all the smog.

We then flew into Chongqing (China) that night, the taxi driver had trouble finding our port, but eventually we made it to our cruise ship. It wasn't that big, like those Princess cruise ships you see in adds, just a small 5 floor ship, but it did have a small bar and dance floor, and the top deck had a mini bar and lots of chairs to view the gorges. We had a great view of the Chongqing night line from our cabin window, and met Mike, our wonderful English speaking river guide. Turns out the Germans love to visit China, so half our boat was a German tourist group from Northern Germany and the other half was Chinese tourists! We were the only two Americans on board. There was a Chinese-Australian couple (hand surgeon and OGBYN) who could speak Mandarin, and had an awesome Australian accent! They were very nice and were lumped with us on the day trips for the English speaking guide.

We left port at 9am, and the first day was a visit to the "Ghost City." There we went through the three tests to see if we were good enough during our lives to be reborn as humans, or to be tortured and then reincarnated as something lesser. We also saw the living human town newly built on the opposite side of the river because by 2009 the original town will be under water. All the way down the Yangtze, there are signs marking the water level, and anything below the "175 meter" mark will be below water by 2009. So some of the homes we saw that have been standing for hundreds of years will be under water within a few years.

The next day was getting pulled up stream in tiny wood boats by six men, they literally got out of the boat and pulled it along the river bank while we sat inside at one point. I felt bad, like we were using slave labor to cart our butts around. But we got to see some of the lesser gorges up close, and a point where local villages used to meet and trade goods, which, surprise, is now going under water.

That night we went through the ship lock of the Three Gorges Dam, which took a total of four hours. There are 5 locks total, and we were packed in with a total of 6 other boats (two cruise ships and 4 coal boats). We could touch the lock wall, and reach out and touch someone on the boat next to us, that is how packed into the lock we were. Which is also why it takes so long, because all of the boats have to slowly maneuver in. Across the locks we were dropped a total of 75 meters. Crazy!

The next day was a trip to check out the dam itself. It is a monsterous site, with over 20 generators and a spillway, not to mention the locks on the side, as well as a currently being built "ship elevator" that will move small boats so quickly through (45 minutes vs. 4 hours).

We then arrived in Yichang, and luckily, got tickets for a sleeper train from Yichang to Beijing that arrived in Beijing the next afternoon. We had a cute old Chinese couple in our cabin, the husband spoke very good English, apparently he was in the information from the internet/computers field and had been to the US on training trips. The first night we stayed near the Bell and Drum towers (very interesting, they told the time back when most people didn't have clocks.) We also saw some hutongs, old courtyards with homes built very close together, with very narrow alleys. We tried to find a theatre house to see a Peking Opera performance, but couldn't find it.

The next day we moved hotels, closer to the Forbidden City. We then rushed to another theatre house to get two of the last three tickets for that nights performance, then explored the area around the house, including the Temple of Heaven and surrounding park. We were in the park for over three hours and still didn't see all the small temples and museums inside it. It was ENORMOUS!!!! We then had a delicious steamed bun/dumpling dinner and went to the opera. There were two skits, the first about a general and his concubine and how the concubine eventually kills herself because the general is losing hope after fighting a ten year old war. The second skit had a lot of acrobatics and sword play, it was about the famous monkey king trying to steal a magical fan that could create wind.

The next day we saw the Great Wall. Absolutely breathtaking, no words to describe. I had always wanted to go to the Great Wall after seeing Big Bird on a quest in China and he was walking along the wall ( from a Sesame Street show I watched when I was little.) There were way less tourists then expected, and met a nice lady from Denver who had been teaching English in China. The weather was cloudy so we didn't get to see the whole expanse of our section (the Mutiyang(?) section) but it was still very cool. And an exhausting trek.

The next day was walking around the Forbidden City, also incredibly large that we didn't see all of, Tiananmen Square (which was closed off for the National holiday), and the Beijing Zoo (I got to see pandas!!!) and largest inland aquarium in the world (like any other aquarium, but they had dolphins!).

Our legs were quite sore after walking part of the Great Wall, and walking all around Beijing, but we thought we could take more punishment. Our last day was biking to the Summer Palace. It was fun (and a little scary) biking through Beijing, 2 hours one way. We then walked around the lake at the Summer Palace, again, enormous and we didn't even see half of it I don't think. Then we did the 2 hour bike ride back to our hotel. By that point my entire lower body was aching (along with a sore butt from the bike seat!) That night we flew to Singapore, and arrived bright and early at 5:45am.

Next post: Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, and Thailand! We are going to a show and dinner tonight, tomorrow is an all day Thai cooking class, the next day might be white water rafting and elephant riding!!!!

Travel update

So Mei I think is posting what we've been doing in full (see above). I have a little less time to post, so I'll try and be a bit more brief.

WE'VE ESCAPED THE FOLLOWING DEATHTRAPS:

- Dengue Fever! Apparently as we were in Singapore, the DAYS before we got there, there was an outbreak going on. The day we got there, we saw on the TV of a bus reading: Singapore turns corner in outbreak. That day, there were only 73 new cases as opposed to 87 the day before. Oh. Comforting.

Malaysian terrorists. Apparently the bombers were from Malaysia. Unfortunate. The Malaysia I briefly saw was serene, gorgeous, and extremely polite. Definitely a place I want to go back and explore more of later on. And as the ads say here, "Malaysia truly AAAAASIA!"


I'VE CAUSED THE FOLLOWING CARNAGE:

Made my OWN dam. Passing through the Three Gorges Dam, I happened to create my OWN dam. Enough said.

Did my part to destroy China. While there, I made a dam, ripped off a towel rack from the sleeper train, and.. what else.. broke another small thing...


THOUGHTS:

I've definitely been happy with where we've gone. Loved soaking it in. But we've been at each place only for a couple of days, a few places the exception. That's the cost we paid trying to see more. However, we will now be relaxing more in Thailand: less hectic running around, more relaxing. So far, so great. But now, a truly relaxing vacation awaits us (and I do enjoy both the sight-seeing and the relaxing!). What's next? Massages, cooking classes, riding elephants, and rafting in Chiang Mai, followed by sights in Bangkok, and gorgeous beaches in Koh Samui (haha operation Koh Samui from Meet the Parents). Can't wait! Now, we just need to watch out for people with backpacks... Take care all.