Cambodia Part I (Phnom Penh)

(Written by Adam)

We've decided we have the best jobs in the world. Not only are they immensely rewarding, they also give us ample time to travel. We decided to head to Camodia for our two week Christmas holiday. After two short flights from Macau, we arrived in Phnom Pehm and were greeted by Heather's sister Tiffany. For those of you that don't know, Tiffany has been traveling for a year in Asia and is sort of a nomad, but think of a super cool traveling nomad. Jealous...yes me too! So together we grabbed a Tuk Tuk and headed to our hotel.

Our guesthouse was attached to a school and all the proceeds went to supporting the students.  Cambodia's tragic history is quite recent, the country experienced one of the worst genocides in history. One out of every four people were killed during the late 1970's by the Khmer Rouge. However, although this country has a tragic past, the people have put it behind them and truly embrace the spirit of resilience. In fact, in all of our travels, Cambodian's are perhaps some of the friendliest and hospitable people we have ever met. One of our main purposes of going to the capital of Cambodia was to see the killing fields and S-21, two places where some of these horrible events took place. This was a sad and depressing day, but one that everyone should should experience when visiting Cambodia in order to have a better understanding of its people. 

The next day was much lighter. We spent time exploring the hustle and bustle of the city, we ate great food, and explored the Russian market. Tiffany has turned into quite the Durian connoisseur and picked a good one for us to try. This was the first one we have tried that didn't taste like rotten onions and was actually very good!

Adam even got a street haircut for $2 and it holds the new record for fastest haircut at 2 minutes. Not bad!

Also interesting: Cambodia uses the American dollar and everything was super cheap. Draft beer 50 cents. Cocktails $1.50. Food $2-3. Tuk Tuk across town $2. Hotel $15-$25. What a deal! This is part one of three blogs so stay tuned, more to follow.

Summer 2013

Reverse... let's go back in time! We had our first summer holiday as international teachers and we didn't even blog about it. Here's a quick recap...

We went "home" to California for 3 weeks right when school got out. We got to spend time with our amazing family and friends and our sweet Belly dog. We camped, hiked, ate, and enjoyed the wonderfulness that is Northern California. However, it didn't take long before we were back on a plane and headed back to Asia. We spend 18 hours in Macau, sleeping and repacking before heading out again. We traveled for tree days through three countries to get our destination of Sulawesi, Indonesia. It was the dive vacation we had always dreamed. Absolutely incredible. We saw so many diverse creatures that we actually got tired of seeing "another sea turtle" on our dives! How spoiled! After 12 days there, we headed to Bangkok to meet some friends for a few days. We were suppose to then go to Cambodia, but we were tired after all the traveling, so we hopped on one more flight to Koh Tao and Koh Samui, the Hawaiian islands of Thailand. We relaxed for another week or so before heading back to Macau. So there it is, our summer 2013!


Some fun facts of our travels this summer:
-7 1/2 weeks
-21,821 miles traveled (Circumference of world: 24,901 miles!)
-13 taxis
-12 flights
-46 hrs 15 min flight time
-9 hotels
-9 ferries
-6 buses
-5 countries
-3 tuk tuks
-2 long tail boats
and
-1 motorbike taxi!!!!

California:

Sulawesi, Indonesia: 

Bangkok, Thailand:

Koh Tao/Samui:

Bringing Thanksgiving to China

By: Adam

Today I happened to be looking back through our blog and it struck me how much I enjoyed it. It was as if I was reliving the moments of the past. A journal where vivid memories of sights, sounds, and smells have been stored in the recess of my brain. Only to be awaken later by something familiar at a later date. Because of this I have vowed to blog more. I now realize the trend of blogging and moving overseas is as follows: 

1) blog everything from food to cockroaches to silly babies

2) blog trips once every holiday

3) blog randomly, going long periods where family members have wondered if your still alive.

I will reverse this trend and alleviate Heather's exhaustion of writing this blog on her tiny iPhone screen. So, in honor of my small rant I'd like to talk about our favorite holiday, Thanksgiving.

This year we decided that Thanksgiving is all about celebrating with people you care about and what better way to celebrate than invite your Chinese friends over to experience their first Thanksgiving. So, 6 stores later and a specially ordered roasted turkey we set about creating Thanksgiving. The night before we baked our pies in our 10" toaster oven. 

Surprisingly you can make a lot with a little as I think these were the best pumpkin pies ever, or it could have been that we had to work so hard for them. Success never tasted so sweet! The next day we set about cooking all the side dishes. It was a lot of fun and really felt festive. By 5:00 our friends arrived. All our friends are Chinese so this was all very foreign to them. We explained what each dish was and after all sharing what we were thankful for we dug in. Everyone enjoyed the food immensely. We sat around the table until the wee hours sharing lots of laughs and comparing cultures. All in all, it was a fantastic Thanksgiving we will never forget.

Made in China

As Americans, we all know the phrase, "Made in China", but we have a new theory about that. We think there's "Made in China-for America" and "Made in China-for China". 

Here's our "proof"... We have lived in China just over a year and the following items have broken (or been broken):

- one ironing board (while we were only once ironing, our house cleaner had it lasting just fine.)

- one metal handled broom (literally snapped in half while killing a cockroach.)

-one metal peeler

-one knife (the blade separated from the handle itself!)

-two wine openers (no comment)

-one garlic press

-one can opener

-one lime squeezer (Adam's too strong for his own good)

-two French coffee presses

-one electric water kettle (which subsequently melted the power bar, which failed to turn off like advertised, and blew out all of our electricity to the apartment for 24 hours)

-one stainless steel trashbin rusted over from humidity (so much for stainless steel right!)

Not too mention, all of our sinks, toilets, and faucets have leaked, the airconditioner remote stopped working (no it's not the batteries), our window handle broke in half, and our wall is literally falling off! 

Should we also mention that we had to throw our bedding and pillows away after the summer holiday because when we returned they were covered in mold and mildew? 

And it's things like these that remind us that even after more than a year, the adventure is still alive and well! :)

One Year Later

Time flies! We're sure you already know that, but seriously, where has the time gone? One year ago, we were writing about selling all of our worldly belongings to sugar plum fairies, and now here we are, one year later. We have lived in Macau for a year, completed our first year of teaching, and have had the opportunity to travel to 8 countries in Asia. 

We have definitely learned a lot in the past year; about living in a foreign country, traveling, teaching, and more about ourselves than we ever would have imagined.  For as many benefits as there are to our living abroad, there are sacrifices as well. We miss our family and friends, are unable to attend meaningful events and holiday celebrations, and have to continually struggle with the 15 hour time difference between lives. 

It will be interesting to see what the next full year brings. To us, our New Year has magically become the beginning of a new school calender rather than the solstice calendar. We look forward to learning more about the region of the world we now call home and all the people who inhabit it. 

Malapascua, Philippines

Manila is only a 2 hour flight from Macau, with Cebu being only 1 hour more. So hypothetically you could be in Cebu in 3 hours, except as with everywhere in the world, travel is not that simple. We took a bus, 2 planes, a long nap on the Manila airport floor, a 3 hour car ride, and a 30 minute boat ride to a tiny little island blessed with no cars or even bungalows higher than 2 stories.

Over the last 11 years, we've visited many islands and beaches around the world, with each being unique and beautiful. However, not until we arrived in Malapascua, had we seen such a "calendar worthy" tropical escape. You know what we mean, an arching palm tree, stretched over a image of turquoise and blue waters, with azure colored skies, and emerald mountains as the backdrop in the distance. Of course it must be photoshopped... Except it isn't in the Philippines. It was the most picturesque place we've ever been. We floated on our backs in the nearly 90 degree sea for a week, looking around, saying "I can't believe this is real". Yes, the diving was amazing too and we had the opportunity to dive with the infamous thresher sharks which only come up the the depths of the oceans in this one place on earth. Malapascua is a pretty special place!

While there we experienced not only the incredible seas and beaches of the Philippines, but the people too. Of the people we met and spent time talking to, they all were working towards a better future, not for themselves but for the generations to come. They spoke of ending the cycle of poverty by working grueling hours for minimal pay in order to put their children through college, so that their grandchildren would never know what it's like to bail their bath water from a dirty well and run around barefoot because they have no shoes. But the most amazing thing we noticed about being surrounded by poverty in the Philippines was the tight knit community, the smiling faces, the people singing and laughing on their way home from their 15 hour work day, gathered around eating together. For as little as people had, they made the best of it and they didn't let it interfere with their overall happiness. Kids without iPads, itouches, iPods, nintendos, and televisions were playing outside with their friends. A group of  8 year old boys got together on the beach every night we were there. Sometimes they would take turns throwing mismatched flip flops at a pile of plastic bottles to see who could move them the furthest; other nights, they would play leap from over each other, adding one more boy to the length after each successful jump. One of our other favorite groups of kids met on the beach during the heat of the day. There were several boys between the ages of 4 and 6, with just one girl no older than three. Their bare little bottoms would swim and splash for hours, all paying the closest attention to the little girl. She was always the lucky one who got to balance on the boys shoulders as they pretended to walk a tight rope through the water. While on another occasion, she was the reason that the bare bottom boys climbed up a coconut tree to get her a treat. They were happy and laughed until their hearts were content.