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.