Cambodia

Let me start off by saying, I never thought I would go to Cambodia. My list of places to go some day didn't have it, and I still don't know much about the country. However, we planned our spring vacation with our friends the Fendricks, and Mike definitely had it on his list. Well, after talking to some other expat friends who had recently been I was convinced. Someone told me it was there favorite place ever.

We flew into the city Siem Reap which is the most visited area because there are some very famous temples (Angkor Wat)there. Angkor Wat literally means 'city of temples', and it is the biggest religious structure in the world. Billed as the eighth wonder of the world, it was built in the 12th century and is now one of the most enduring architectural achievements in the world.

http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_guide/asia/cambodia/angkor_wat.php

Check out this video if you want to learn more about it:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/specials/ancient-mysteries/angkor-wat-temples.html

So, we were planning our trip and I knew we had to go to these temples. A little further research made me really interested in seeing a floating village on Tonle Sap. The whole idea of living on a lake is so interesting to me. I learned that even during the low-water season, thousands of people live on the lake on houseboats, without access to electricity or sanitation. Some people have generators they use at night, and we did see some TVs, but in all it is like camping, or some sort of adventure we would only do for a short time. These people live this way for their entire lives. We saw people bathing in the lake, washing dishes and fishing. We even saw a little boy using the lake as a toilet. It was something we will never forget.


This photo is what you typically see, except for the bike. We assume he is taking it to land (maybe 10-15 minute paddle) to run an errand for his family, maybe to buy vegetables or work (one job we saw was collecting recycling near the river bank).


This photo is showing some of the hundreds of houses on stilts that we saw. Every year the village people move to the higher ground for about two months and camp. Then, when they return they are forced to rebuild (mostly out of bamboo) their homes again.


These girls were trying to sell some plates to all the tourists. They thought Trejan was adorable, they even kissed him!


We walked around a bit, and I loved seeing this grandmother rocking the baby in a hammock, just a slice of life.




Famous area to take a photo, Angkor Wat at sunrise. We got up at 5am to catch this view. When we left there was a mob of kids trying to sell us trinkets and souvenirs. It was really hard to say no, and then after we did buy some things, other kids were jealous and one girl started to cry. It was so sad.




Faces at Angkor Thom and Bayon



These strangler fig trees and creeping lichens devour ruins at Ta Prohm. It was amazing. This area was once home to hundreds of monks.

Thailand

Destination for relaxation = Phuket, Thailand. One of our main goals on this trip was to lay by the water and just play, read and sleep. Weather was perfect, we were at the beach and pools almost every waking moment we were at the hotel.

We took a two "day trips" during our week.

One day trip was to Phang Nga Bay. This is a about an hour boat ride in the Andaman Sea between the island of Phuket and the mainland of the Malay peninsula of southern Thailand. These are some of my favorite beach photos of our trip.


We spent the day exploring caves in kayaks and admiring the gorgeous limestone islands. Many of these places can only be entered when the tide is out because you need to enter through caves. If you don't time it right then there is no room. We were on a boat with about a dozen people and the boat would stop outside the island, then we would all jump into our kayaks. We would go into these lagoons by kayaks, ducking down and laying down as our guide paddled us through the dark eerie cave (and one even had bats!) The guides called to the monkeys and brought bananas to feed them, we had a great turnout, five monkeys at once!



The other day trip was on a speed boat to snorkel on Monkey beach and to have a picnic lunch on Ko Phi Phi Don Island (made famous by the Leonardo DiCaprio movie "The Beach"). The snorkeling was fantastic! The kids enjoyed feeding the fish as well, this photo is when I felt like I was getting attacked because the kids were throwing the food right by me.


These photos are around our hotel. This first one is from our room.

Damon got kissed by the hotel's pet elephant Lilly and Trejan swam in the ocean with her!

Skiing in China

We skied three times in 10 days! The first time was a Thursday during vacation, then a day rest, then Saturday and the following Saturday. Now we need to wait until next year. This place we go is about an hour and a half drive, and it is really small.

The snow is man made, and the slopes are not steep at all. It is actually just a hill, not a mountain at all. In general everyone there is learning to ski. Most of the Chinese people can't ski at all, and they crash all the time. They run into each other constantly, they ski like they drive!

The first time we skied was during the Chinese new year holiday break. Damon had to go to work, and the kids still had school off, so I met some friends up at the mountain. We had a great time. The kids had huge smiles on their faces the first couple times down the hill. There is a "magic carpet" you can take up. You stand on it like a people mover at the airport. The run is so small, you can walk up faster than taking the people mover. Trejan went straight down and stopped at the bottom by falling. Nicole learned to turn really quickly and so she would snow plow down really slow and turn at the end. After a few times, she was ready for the chair lift.

The chair lift is pretty close the chairlifts in the US. I get a little worried about safety when I think too much about it, so I just don't think about it. I was going to have each kid wait at the bottom by the lift while I took the other one up. The next thing I knew, instead of waiting, Nicole was on the lift by herself! She astonished me with her confidence and courage. No fear at all! Because the lift is so short, you can see the top of it from the bottom. There is only about 30 seconds where they are out of sight, so I felt pretty comfortable letting her go with her friend (and her friends' mom).


The third ski day we had Damon came with us, and he tried snowboarding and skiing! He is a natural, but can't say he'll spend hundreds of US dollars when we move back home to continue this hobby.

Chinese New Year and Lantern Festival

Xinghai Square, Dalian firework extravaganza! (pictures don't do it justice)

Celebrating Chinese New Year with our driver Pan, and his family. They taught us how to make a dumpling called jiaozi. This is our favorite Chinese meal, unfortunately it takes a long time to make them and very little time to eat them. It reminds me of Thanksgiving, where hours of preparation go into eating a meal that lasts only minutes. We will eat thousands more jiaozi here, but I can't guarantee we will make them when we move back to the US.

We had a wonderful time, used a lot of hand motions and spoke as much Chinese as we could. They don't speak English, so it was really comical at times. We laughed a lot and had a night full of memories.




In our neighborhood we celebrated the lantern festival watching an amazing show full of Chinese Dragon dancing, acrobatics and music. The kids and their friends made a desert with sweet flour and red bean paste called Tongyuan. They made a HUGE mess, but had lots of fun. Inside activities were followed by a parade and firework show that lasted over half an hour.