It's Serious This Time

STOP THE CLOCK!

2013-11-17T18:37:00.003-08:00

I can't keep up with my blog!!!

And I'm currently here:

This is getting out of hand! How do people keep up with their blogs AND live a life off the computer? I am failing at this lately. I rarely ever stop by to visit my old bloggy friends either...just NO TIME!!! I do not like this. No good at all. I miss everyone. I'm sure everyone misses me. (right??)

A Visit to Jim Thompson's House - Thailand Silk Founder

2013-11-05T23:00:00.000-08:00

Yikes, I have been home for weeks and still haven't finished posting about my time in Thailand! I'm almost caught up, and luckily I don't have much of a life to blog about back home!

One of the places highly recommended to visit when in Thailand is the house of Jim Thompson. JT was an American who made Thailand his home after falling in love with all things Thai. He is the founder of the Thai Silk Company, a company providing only the best silk products, at some of the highest prices (from what I can tell).

On a trip to Malaysia at age 61, he went for a hike and was never seen again. Some say he wanted to disappear. Some say he met an untimely fateful death.

His house back in Thailand has become something of a national treasure. Jim was a collector of antiques and his house is an amazing traditional Thai house that made me fully understand why people fall in love with Thailand. I don't love all the antiques - some of the furniture just looks so uncomfortable, but the layout, location, and overall tranquility of the house is spectacular.

Beautiful tree I sat under while I contemplated moving to Asia.

I love how this tree just grew all proper-like just between two buildings.

This is the only place inside the house where they will allow you to take pictures. This woman was our lovely guide and watched us like a hawk with our cameras!

These are actually chairs from China I believe - you heat a fire inside it and the coals heat the seat, which heat your bum! Smart!!

The spirit house in the back of the house.

The backside of one of the five buildings. The city canal runs directly behind it. In Jim's day, he would have used the canal to go everywhere.

In the courtyard of the house is a pond, with some mammoth size fish and some sociable turtles. One of the workers was feeding them chopped up seafood as I happened by.

The employee saw me taking pictures of this guy and without warning, lifted the turtle up by his front legs-something that looks horrifying-and placed him on the ledge for a photo op.

The turtle was not amused and left after one perfect pose.

This woman stands at the entrance and does a very slow beautiful, traditional Thai dance. Behind her is someone sorting silk.

I want to live here.

A Visit to Chao Mae Tuptim Shrine - Fertility Awaits You!

2013-10-28T21:12:00.003-07:00

Disclaimer: I am not looking to get pregnant. Not now, probably not ever again.

While in Bangkok, one of the things I read about as a tourist destination of oddities was the Tuptim Shrine. There are shrines all over Bangkok, tucked away between houses or, as this one, behind a hotel. There is a LOT of praying going on in this country. This shrine was a little different than most others I have visited.

This particular shrine happened to be very close to my own hotel and I had read about it online and found it a wee bit fascinating. The story goes that a Thai woman was trying oh-so-hard to get pregnant and it wasn't working. She went to this particular shrine one day and prayed to a fertility god to help her conceive. And then, thanks to her prayers, she became pregnant. From that day forth, the Tuptim shrine was believed to be the place to go to meet all your fertility needs.

As you enter the shrine, there are these 1-foot tall statues of children:

They are a bit creepy and I couldn't stare at them very long. I could feel them taking my soul from my body and absorbing it through their creepy little mouths....

The shrine itself isn't that impressive. It looks like any other spirit house that you find outside of any other building.

But then off to the side, is this random file cabinet. And dresses hanging from the tree.

I gather these are maybe wedding dresses? They are beautiful, and I'm sure they helped some desperate woman have a baby.

I LOVE this kind of tree. No idea what it is, but it's pretty amazing.

People wrap it in ribbon and say a blessing.

And they leave offerings at the base of it....

Say wha?

I'm pretty open-minded...but this was just a bit much for even me. Its just TOO much.

This is serious....

To the left of the shrine, more offerings!!

And at every possible place in this little area, yet more offerings...

These are about 4 feet tall.

There's not many times in life when you are surrounded by things such as this. Unless you are a porn star -HA!

I'm sure you can insert your own joke here about the "offerings" and the tree. I'll save you from any I have to offer. I kinda felt bad for the tree here, it looks like it's trying (rightfully so) to get away...

I'm not really happy with the quality of the pictures, I would have liked to take them from different angles and be more careful about the lighting and whatnot, but there was a group of three hotel men smoking just outside the area, watching me click away. I was a little self-aware about the fact that I was clearly not there to pray and my mission was to take pictures of wooden penises. I wanted to explain to them that I'm a blogger and I'm documenting for my family and friends back home (cause I'm certain all my family and friends need to know about this place), but I didn't know the Thai word for blogger.

This was an interesting destination...but once you see it once, you don't really need to go again. Unless you want to get pregnant of course.

Hello Again, Thailand! Great to See You, Old Friend

2013-10-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

I love so much about Thailand.
It really is the land of smiles - people are so ready to help you or at least treat you to a smile. If you need something while working in Thailand, the staff will do whatever they have to in order to make it happen. They treat guests like royalty, they never want you to be unhappy in their country. It's so refreshing. (who wouldn't like being treated like royalty!).

Just like in Malaysia, I LOVE my coworkers here. I could see working with every one of them every day. They have such great personalities and they make me laugh, and love to laugh with/at me when teaching me their language. Maybe it's more intense for me since I work from home and have no real team (other than the online one), but I just love these two teams so much! I will be moving on to work with other countries soon and I can't imagine that the new teams will be as wonderful as these last two have been.

What I will not miss about Asia - the insane heat and humidity. There has not been one day where I didn't immediately start sweating after leaving the hotel/office. It's been pretty intense, though it is now monsoon season and it's getting a bit better, or maybe I'm just getting used to it?

The rains are so crazy. I'm from Oregon - I am really familiar with rain. But Oregon rain is like stepping under a shower with light water pressure. Thailand rain is like when you turn the shower head to the highest pulse available and point it directly at your face. And leave it there for a long time. It's relentless. You can't just go out in it and do whatever you had planned. The roadways can't handle it, so they quickly start flooding and normally insane traffic becomes even more of a parking lot. Luckily, it seems to only last a portion of the day. In Oregon, it will rain nonstop sometimes for days and days. Here it will rain for 5-7 hours and then be done for 12-24. The roads clear up soon after it stops raining and people go about their normal business.

Everything here is so cheap - it's hard to stop shopping. I keep finding more things to buy. Everything is like $3.00. How can you pass that up?? "That" being whatever it is you are looking at. Cause so many things are $3.00 and you probably will need it at some point. Or maybe it would be a good gift for someone someday. You just can't pass it up!

The food is pretty great - though it's not like the Thai food I have grown to love in America. America is fooling us all. We are not really eating Thai food. Thai people don't even love *gasp* peanut sauce!! It's at every single Thai restaurant I've ever gone to in the states, in multiple dishes. I've found other things to love though. And if you love fruit-you will be happy here. Fruit is so cheap and you can buy it (cut up and in a bag with a little skewer) on almost every block you are on.

Random pictures from my journey:

This made me lol - it's a helping point. For Swiss people. I've never seen any other country offering a helping point. Luckily, I wasn't in need of help as my Swiss accent isn't quite perfected yet.

This is the pad thai from my hotel restaurant. It's cooked up just like normal, wonderful pad thai, and then they wrap it up in this lovely flattened fried egg package. It's divine. I had it twice. I wish there was a place at home that would make it just like this!

This is the guy from the movie, Ratatouille. He looked just liked him, did dances around his big skillet, cooked with flair, sang with an Italian accent (though he was singing Gypsy Kings-a spanish band), and he was the star of the market. I watched him for about 20 minutes. He was pretty entertaining.

Train doors have advertisements on them. This might have been one for vegetables in general. It was a bit disturbing.

Asiatique is a newer place to go shopping. It's got a great market, a ferris wheel, random festivals going on and open bars with live music. I met my friend here for dinner, drinks and strolling and had a fabulous first weekend back to the country.

This is one of the shops I wanted to go into. My friend looked at it and said, we can not. It's closed right now. Can you see how she would know?
Of course - the chair and stool are blocking the entrance to go inside. Hence, it's closed!!

These airports reminded me of my mom - we had these growing up at any outdoor event. This booth just screamed out "This is your childhood." Too bad it was closed up tight and I couldn't explore.

My friend and I were bedazzled by the size of the beers that were served at the table next to ours. I asked if I could take a picture of it, as my friend was doing the same on the other side of the table...of the beer glass. My girl pushed the glass forward, fixed her hair and then leaned in. I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't need a photo of her...so we'll give her a little internet love here.

This is the most delicious chicken I might have ever eaten.

Salmon, avocado, squid cake. My friend graciously ate the squid portion - the rest was delicious!

These shorts...they have such great phrases like:
No dude!
Take your passion
Failing
What a feeling
No duh!
Flash
Boo

This creme brulee has welcomed me to Thailand on my first night both times I've come here.

Be Careful Bag!

Graffiti wall in the market - love it!! It's a chalk board. And note the panda on the telephone pole on the left.

Stay tuned for my trip to a fertility shrine..

A Weekend on Penang Island, Malaysia

2013-10-16T08:04:00.001-07:00

My return trip to Asia is coming to a close. I have spent two weeks in Malaysia, and just about two weeks in Thailand. It's getting close to check-in time to go home!! I haven't even been homesick, though it has been 27 days since I left.

I haven't yet written about my trip to Penang Island in Malaysia, so let's go back in time and relive that wonderful, peaceful weekend, shall we?

Penang is a lovely island about 5 hours north of Kuala Lumpur. It's got a really large Chinese and Indian population and is really popular with expats as it's just a beautiful place no matter where you are on the island. There are a fair amount of big-named factories up in this area, and a lot of tourist activities. I was pressed for time so didn't get to see/do much, but it was lovely to just get away from work and go see another part of this beautiful country.

This is the view from my bus. Five hours of this - nothing but beautiful trees, different types all mixed together; rolling hills, blue and gray skies; wild monkeys running on the side of the road (seriously-this happened!).

Something I found really wonderful about the cheap bus I was on - There's a handle behind each seat and each handle has a little knob, from which everyone hangs their food/drink bag. The drink bag was strange to me at first, but now I love this idea. It's a regular small plastic bag that you would put food in...but they put your drink in it when you buy it, with a straw (everyone uses a straw), and then you just carry your drink by the bag handles. Your hands never get wet, if it spills, it lands in the bag (mostly I think), AND the best part - you can hang your drink while on a bus so you never have to worry about it!! Malaysia bus makers are SMART.

This was my hotel view in Penang. I wasn't in my room very long, as I was only there for the weekend, but I could look at this every day. The condos down by the water are about $2.5 million USD. I don't need the view that much...

It's slightly hard to tell from this photo...but the hanger on the back of the bathroom door made me laugh EVERY time I saw it. It was like someone really wasn't trying that hard that day.

I asked multiple people in Penang what I should do with only one free evening on the island. Everyone said to go eat at Gurney Drive and go see the sunset in North Penang Island and visit the night market nearby the beach. And since it's always good to take the advice of strangers - this turned out to be my exact itinerary.

This is where I ate dinner on Saturday evening before heading to see the sun set. This is at 5:45. I was rushing to finish so I could make the 6:30 sunset up the road. There was not one other person in the place while I was there. Apparently in Asia, you just don't eat around 6pm. When I left the beach area, I shared a taxi back to this area with a couple from Australia who were headed to dinner....at 10pm. And it was packed. It's a famous food area:

This was the most amazing sweet and sour chicken. The stuff I have back home is NOTHING like this. EVER.

This is me - at the beach. Ready for the sunset. I put my hair down for the photo. And then put my hair immediately back up because it's a million degrees in Malaysia. If I lived there forever, I would probably have to go all G.I.Jane with my hairstyle, cause longer thick hair does NOT work in this part of the world.

Amazing.

So Amazing.

Enough of the beach. One thing I LOVED about Penang was the friendly people,as you would find all over Malaysia. Ever cab I got in, every restaurant I went to - I talked to locals and they were so happy to share information about their country. This is where travelling alone becomes a really great time. When I normally get in a taxi, I ask if they are local and then we chat up about whatever. When I was with the couple sharing a taxi, we only spoke to each other. As soon as they got out and we headed on to my destination, the taxi driver and I had the best conversation. If I constantly had a travel companion, I would have missed out on some wonderful chats.

One of the things I really hate about Penang - every single taxi driver except the one mentioned above - overcharged me by far. One guy doubled the meter and told me that it's standard for the island. Another told me that taxi's on the island use a different type of petrol and so they use the meter but they also have to charge a petrol fee based on how much the meter is showing. I hate arguing with everyone over what amounts to a few dollars...but when you know you are getting an unfair deal, you have to try to make right. When I was headed to the beach, after a 20 minute enjoyable conversation with a taxi driver, the meter read something like 32 Ringgit. I gave him 100. He thanked me and just waited for me to leave. I said, oh, sorry-I actually gave you 100 Ringgit. And he replied, right, the meter shows half price. And i refused to leave the taxi, stopped partially in the road, slightly blocking traffic because HELLO - that's robbery. Eventually I got him to give me back 45 of the 68 he owed me, but it was literally about a 6 minute ordeal. It gives taxi driveres a really bad reputation! You can't trust them anymore. But then my last taxi driver of the night had a printed sheet with set prices from each section of town to another and I wanted to hug him for being honest.

Anyway....here are some random pictures:

This is a Malaysian baby. THIS is how you become a Malaysian adult who is not bothered by the heat. The day I took this photo, it was probably 98 degrees and maybe 89% humidity. The baby was wearing a long sleeve, pants outfit. With socks! In that weather?? No, thank you! He was as happy as could be though, probably because the large red-faced, sweaty american sitting next to his mama looked like a cartoon character.

This is a cat. In what seems to be a hamster cage, calmly taking a bath. This is in an artists stall, she painted some beautiful pics of cats. Lots and lots of cats in the booth. And then a real cat in a hamster cage. I was told that cats are kept in cages because stray dogs (which there are a lot of) will eat them. Sad. Everything about that -for the cat- is sad.

If you steal the ironing board at my hotel, they will bill you 380 MYR.

I liked this dapper man on the mens bathroom sign.

And I really like that when you enter, you are meant to flip over the Vacant sign yourself - to show that the restroom is "engaged." So quaint!

And that ends my Malaysia pictures...on to Thailand!

Visit to Pulau Orang Utan Island, Bukit Merah, Malaysia

2013-10-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

This was quite the adventure! If you want to visit the wonderful Pulau Orang Utan Island, plan to be on the road for a bit. It's about 3.5-4 hours outside of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. There's not a whole lot in the city so you wouldn't want to spend that much time in the area-there's a water park and a resort on the other side of the island, but there's nothing else for miles. I chose to take a bus an hour north of this area via bus, which turned into a 5.5 hr journey, but allowed me to spend a day/night in a beautiful beach area-pics of that later.

You drive up to Bukit Merah and then you take a 15 minute shuttle across the river to the Orang Utan island. It's a beautiful 15 minutes, blahblah scenery, but more importantly, the temperature drops about 9 degrees AND you get a breeze. It's just so hot here that any reprieve is so appreciated.

Here is a walk-through of this orangutan sanctuary:

Approaching from the shuttle.

At this sanctuary, the bulk of the area is saved for the animals, so the visitors walk through a narrow cage tunnel to see them. It's a bit disconcerting to be in a cage. The orangs would stop and look at you as you wander past - like you were their entertainment.

This is not an orangutan. But they live all over the island and they breed like crazy so there's nothing that the sanctuary can do. The orangutans don't care about them, unless they try to get their food. Look how long this mama's tail is!

This is the feeding tube - one in each section, completely exposed to anyone walking by!

This sign was nearby that pipe, but there really was nothing at all stopping me from passing my water bottle down this tube (other than my extreme need to stay hydrated).

These two babies were wrestling around and playing in their little baby kennel area and at one point were across the kennel from each other. Someone at the far end of the pier (nearby to where this is located) dropped some metal thing on a metal thing and it made a really loud clanging noise and the baby on the right came running over to the baby on the left, who immediately put his arm around him. And my heart melted.

This little baby wanted to play so bad...but the mama just wanted to sleep. I watched him for about 20 minutes, just hopping all over, chewing on things, trying to wrestle...mama just laid there, but always touching him with one of her limbs.

So human like!

This is the biggest orang they have - he was mammoth. I think he's 26 years old...He has the biggest enclosure and does pretty much nothing but lay in this spot every day, and then roams about in other areas at night. They put a girl in his cage hoping they would mate but so far, she avoids him and just stays in the trees until he leaves the area. Arranged marriages are hard.

These are the two year olds. There are three of them, but these two wrestled and romped and made awesome noises and faces to entertain me for about 20 minutes before heading into the shade.

This guy wasn't interested in playing. He just wanted to stay nearby me and the fence...urging me to set him free.

Not an orangutan...but the size of this bee was RIDICULOUS. I'm allergic to bees and I'm certain this bee knew it as he followed me around almost the entire time. The buzzing was like a far-off chainsaw. It's like no bee you have ever seen!!

Note To Self: There Really Are Bad People in This World

2013-10-07T07:57:00.003-07:00

Its easy to be trusting and assume you’re surrounded by only good people.

And then you learn otherwise. I have learned this lesson many times in the past, so I have no excuse for being so trusting, but I just don’t want to live in a world where I am constantly worrying. Worrying about who might steal my car on one of the many times that I forget to lock it, or who might pickpocket the $20 bill in my coat pocket in a crowd. I just can’t. The only thing that matters is our life, not our stuff….so as long as my life is not at stake, I shall not live in fear. (except when it comes to my Andrew-and then Mama instincts kick in and I fear/rage against everything to keep him safe and happy).

And so it goes….my trust was a bit betrayed my first week in Malaysia. Malaysia is such a peaceful, slow-paced, laid back country… I don’t know if my own little suburb feels as safe as Malaysia. I love the Malaysian people, the culture, the language, the way they view life, the beautiful countryside. Almost everything is wonderful about Malaysia.

There are just a few things that really suck about Malaysia though.

The driving kinda sucks. I know there are many countries out there where it’s worse, but I just don’t know how there are not fiery car crashes every 52 feet. It’s just this crazy (and slightly amazing) coordinated chaos. Cars don’t necessarily follow the lane lines, drivers don’t EVER check their blind spot (it’s like it doesn’t exist in this country but how is that possible??), and merging is like a magical dance-you just move your car over and somehow you don’t hit anyone.

The climate slightly sucks. It’s just SO HOT and humid. There was never a time in 14 days during ths visit and 12 days my last visit where I went outside and didn’t immediately start sweating. The sun is just excruciating around 1pm. One day we walked half a mile to a little restaurant called Squirrel Squirrel and I am pretty sure we were all close to having heat stroke. My earrings almost melted. We all looked a little like a Picasso painting-drooping eyes, red splotches in random places on our face, etc. It’s just TOO HOT.

And the most important part about Malaysia that sucks is the asshole who stole my beloved new Windows Surface tablet. I don’t know who it was, but someone went into my room while I was at work and stole my tablet, lovingly named Jimmy. The hotel claims that a man came in while the maids were cleaning and told them it was his room and they needed to come back later. So thy left. And then soon afterwards, he left with Jimmy. It’s very possible the hotel is lying and are trying to save face from their thieving cleaning staff.

Regardless, the hotel luckily decided that they would take responsibility for the loss of my electronic, even though they provide a safe for valuables, because their maids did not follow protocol. In the end, although I do not have the same tablet, I am not leaving the country without one completely.
My new tablet itself is the same kind, but with a different (the cheaper version) keyboard, and the plug is not one I can use in the states, but this actually might be better for my travels-and the thieving asshole did not steal Jimmy’s power cord so now I have two! Almost every picture on Jimmy was on my home computer. I lost some movies that I had copied over to Jimmy and a few short videos I recorded but I don’t think there was much that was irreplaceable overall.

And so now I have my replacement Jimmy, as of yet still unnamed – though Jimmy Choo is a possibility, like Jimmy Two, but a Malaysian name to commemorate its origin.

And some asshole somewhere has my Jimmy….but hey Asshole…you missed a few things. You forgot to steal these items of value:

This coin with some kind of Malaysian value that I had dropped on the floor.

Jimmy's power cord, which was on the desk next to him. JIMMY WILL DIE without it!!!

This $100 hair straightener. Don't have a girlfriend, do you asshole? Cause she would like this!

My jewelry. Right, okay, it's not super high value-but did he know that??

Um...this is my camera. It was in the camera bag next to THE DOOR he walked out with Jimmy. Also in the bag was a bigger lens...so about $2000 of Canon goodness was missed here!

Also in the camera bag- a brand new Sony handycam with amazing zoom lens, still in the bubble wrap from the store. All in a convenient black carrying case BY THE DOOR!

My Paul Mitchell shampoo and conditioner - this stuff isn't cheap, buddy!!!

Anyway - doesn't matter now-I have a new tablet, I don't hate Malaysia, and I'm off to Thailand now (where the new Jimmy will live in a safe if I am away).

Sights of Malaysia - Photo Edition

2013-10-03T23:20:00.002-07:00

Food from the local place - referred to as "dodgy food." I ate here at least 5 times and didn't get sick...though the bugs also ate here, something called "American girl."

Note the size of the domino's box and the laptop above it...This was a Regular size pizza. In America, we would call this a personal pan pizza.

At the orangutan sanctuary, I paid $3.00(USD) more than locals.

Tried the green apple ice cream that I saw last visit. It's not that special...the green apple flavor is just a thin little stripe and it's just a light flavor. Interesting though!

This is being advertised as the new ice cream now - I passed. Banana Crunch with Cocoa Pops. Ick.

We care too, Sanitizer!

A scene of the street life while I sat eating dinner one night.

Not sure why this exists...it's a tshirt for the car seat. It didn't seem like it was a real tshirt...

I had this pizza with some kind of hairy fruit on it...I have no idea.

In our company car....

Bananas in a plastic bag? No. Not right, Starbucks.

It's so hot...people lift their wipers up so that they don't stick to the windshield. THAT is how hot it is. Cars are melting.

A Visit To Orangutan Island, Bukit Merah, Malaysia - The Video That Made My Visit Worth It

2013-09-29T07:55:00.001-07:00

Last weekend I visited this lovely place called Orangutan Island, up north of Kuala Lumpur.

I had my heart set on going here from when I was here last time and didn't have time to visit. It's quite far...I took a public bus 5 hours north, spent the night there in Penang, then had a private driver take me an hour back south to get to Bukit Merah. It was quite the journey to get here...but worth it I think. Plus it got me away from my work laptop all weekend, which I really needed.

The orangutans live somewhat free. They have about an acre per animal (so they claim) and the animals are being raised to be set free someday on a smaller island nearby that the organization owns (so they claim). I was told there is never any contact between the orangs and staff. Ever. Even with the babies, if the humans have to do medical tests or whatnot, they do so after knocking the orangs out first. They want no human-animal contact, right....cause that wouldn't be natural for a wild animal, now would it? The tourists walk through a long cage, filled with some amazing flora and fauna. The orangutans are beyond the human cage, with about a 3 foot space, then an electric fence between us.

I learned a LOT about these animals. But sometimes people tell you one thing, and then you witness another and then you have to doubt everything they say. Such is life, eh?

I don't have the pictures uploaded from my camera yet...but this video captures the highlight of my trip. Excuse my giddy school-girl laughter.

Every Office Needs a Pet!

2013-09-27T17:53:00.000-07:00

After a long week, I am off to relax!

One of the best ways to explore a new city is by public transportation and so I bought a bus ticket to take me almost five hours north of Kuala Lumpur to go exploring.
When I came to KL in July, I stayed in the city on my one free weekend. And then I learned of an orangutan sanctuary up north of the city. I love me some monkeys!

Yesterday, while training, I nearly overturned the table when I saw a monkey crawling by inside the rafters of our building. It was by far the best moment at work. Maybe of my entire career. Monkeys do NOT just come walking by.

This was my view before almost knocking over the cobference table, right after I screamed MONKEY!

I had to go follow him...and he was perched here, waiting for the photo opp.

And then he made a hideously mean face and ran towards us...this is the pic as I was screaming and running away.

All he wanted was to check out the bag of potential monkey goodies.

Cute, but fierce!

Doin what monkeys do- mischievous little monkey!

On The Road Again - My Return to Malaysia

2013-09-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Back in Kuala Lumpur - land of humidity and heat.

I'm a bit of a zombie at present, but in another 90 minutes I will be starting a week-long training as the only presenter. Luckily, I'm only training three people-yay. In three weeks, I'll be in Thailand presenting to around 18 people, but will have my manager there to assist.

My journey here was fairly horrible only because of my non-stop interrupted sleep pattern. Somehow, I was lucky enough to have a row of two seats together for the first leg of the flight-an eleven hour journey. You can't really lay down much with just two seats, but you can really twist and turn and move around a lot, which makes 11 hours of sitting much more comfortable. I don't know why I didn't sleep well, just didn't. But I did watch three movies, two of which I would highly recommend. One of which I actually remember the name of: The East. Go watch it, it's good!

I had a 2 hr layover in my least favorite airport-Narita. It's just dirty, there's almost NOTHING there and it's uncomfortable. Did I mention dirty? And the toilet stalls are soooo tiny so getting into a stall with your roll-on luggage is literally a climbing adventure. The only food place in the vast part of the airport I saw was McDonalds. And there were huge lines there the entire time.

I asked the gate attendee if I had an empty seat next to me and he said, no, sorry, it's a very full flight, very few empty seats. And then I overheard many other people asking as well. There were quite a number of groups of people flying together and they ended up spread out all over the plane. So it was quite the surprise when we got on and they told us the doors were closing and I found myself with an entire row of three seats to myself. As did the guy in front of me. And the woman in the aisle next to me. I would say the plane was probably only about 65% full, to the puzzlement of all of us. I blame the Narita airport for the confusion...cause I strongly dislike that airport and anything bad that happens can be blamed on that place.

And from there - I was off on a six hour bumpy flight (thank you anxiety pills for helping me through that one) to Singapore. I was able to completely lay down in my three seats, but then my stomach was upset (probably due to being at Narita for two hours) and I didn't sleep well.

Landing at Singapore at 1am, I had a layover of 6 wonderful morning hours. I got quite a bit of work done, did quite a bit of walking, and just hung out for much too long. And then when it was time to go through security at the gate, my 4th trip through security in 20 hours mind you, they told me that my boarding pass was not acceptable and I had to go to the transfer desk. I debated a bit about it with the security folk, holding up the line, and they insisted I trek half a mile through the now-busy terminal to get a new boarding pass. Which I did...and found that my boarding pass was fine....but unfortunately, my baggage ticket wasn't transferred over to this new airline and it wasn't going to be on my flight. Sigh. Awesome.

Trek back to the gate and the lady who sent me off on the hike across the terminal waves me to the front of the line, where I explain that the Transfer desk told me that my ticket was fine. Her response - okay, please come through. Ugh...somehow this must be Narita's fault.

Typically, to win the fight against jet lag, the best thing to do is to force yourself to stay awake NO MATTER WHAT the first day you arrive so that you are on the right time schedule. I just couldn't keep my eyes open though, so I laid down with my alarm set for a 2 hour nap. A 2-hour nap will be just perfect, right? And then I had a great sleep. For eight hours. I missed dinner time, I missed time to adjust to the time zone, I missed an entire weekend due to flying. Thanks for nothing Narita!!!

This morning I will be training my team here in Malaysia and hopefully coherent words come out of my mouth. I have been awake since 3am, having a nice conversation with the love of my life, young Andrew.

I'm pretty confident that I can get back on a good sleeping schedule by just not coming back to the hotel until 8pm. So I'm going to get a massage immediately after work (not a laying down one, just a foot and shoulders one), will do a little touristy shopping, and then have a nice working dinner at a local restaurant.

Did I mention how heavy my eyelids are? Maybe the altitude is higher here..my lids are HEAVY!!

Here's some photo from my trek so far:

The Singapore airport is mammoth. It has these wonderful signs that tell you how far you're going to have to go though - genius!

I've seen these foot massage things all over, but never stopped at them before as I didn't ever want to dig for change to put in the machine...but they are FREE!!! I spent quite a bit of time right here in this chair.

The rules around using the chair (note that some of the words are cut off). I was really trying to capture the rule that you shouldn't get your feet and legs massaged while menstruating.

In the bathroom in Singapore - you can trap your baby in this thing on the wall so you can do your stuff while that child is trapped. Genius!

In every bathroom in Singapore, this is on the wall as you walk out. You just select an emoticon. I appreciate that they say the screen is sanitized regularly. I actually saw them sanitize it so I believe it must be true!

This was my home for about 5 hours in Singapore. Note all the hoards of people waiting with me. Not a popular location at 1am apparently.

This was on my last flight - I slept for most it but every time I opened my eyes, I saw these knife patterns on the chair in front of me. KNIVES ON A PLANE!!! (Or maybe they are meant to be seagulls??)

Sometimes Life is Random...And Most Times This Blog is Too.

2013-09-17T20:45:00.003-07:00

So much going on lately! And I am leaving the country much too soon to head back to Asia. Yikes. The cats have been a bit clingy since I pulled out the big suitcase. I miss them already....but luckily, I have some great friends who are checking in on them.

I found that my camera has this option of letting me take a self portrait of myself while taking a picture of something else. And I pop in like a little postage stamp, as if I'm proving that I am in a particular location? I don't know why I would want a postage stamp of my face on a picture I'm taking...but it's available if I need it, I guess.

A few weeks ago, I took my foster girl to the local pet shelter (the one where Andrew and I fostered kittens a year ago), and we literally spent two hours there playing with all the babies.

This is why we should all spay and neuter our pets:

Seriously - please spay and neuter your pet!!!

Andrew and I babysat a young relative before he left at end of summer. Battles were had.

This bucket of Star Wars toys comes in handy! It contains toys that are up to 15 years old.

This last weekend, there was another wonderful local kids fair that my foster girl and I went to, standard kid fest things - rock climbing wall, games and prizes, hot dogs (ew)...and then there was a man making balloon animals. But it wasn't your run of the mill stuff, this man could make ANYTHING. He was the most amazing balloon shaper I've ever seen in my entire life!!

She wanted a purple cat, he produced this cartoon style cat with it's tongue sticking out. She was thrilled with it. I wasn't as thrilled because she spent quite a bit of time having the cat lick me-which meant this rubbery-balloon material repeatedly rubbing against my skin. And I learned that I dislike the feel of balloons against my skin.

A Walk In The Woods of Beautiful Oregon

2013-09-13T08:58:00.002-07:00

I don't often get a chance to hang out with just my girl friends as a group, so we planned a little hike and lunch on Labor Day (which was ages ago). I thought I picked a nice flat 1.5-2 mile route to walk, but immediately upon leaving the parking lot, we just kept ending up going down down down hill. It was worth it though because we came across a nice spot on the water that none of us knew about. It was a really beautiful day and we got a fair amount of exercise, including the unexpected hills, and then we had a yummy lunch together, just chatting about girl stuff. We really must try to do this more frequently. I think we underestimate the value of same-gender friends. Especially when you're single, it's easy to feel more comfortable around men who sometimes inadvertently flatter you, and there's no unintended jealous feelings that come up when there are no girls around, and men are fun in some ways that women aren't...but having female friends is so important! We are all going to try to value them more and get together more in the future.

Here's some pictures from our hike in the beautiful Mary S. Young Park nearby.

Walking through the woods....random fire hydrant right in the middle of the trail! I've never been in the woods and come across this before.

Clearly it must be for animals to lift a leg on?

Our amazing river view!

Taking a break in the woods, halfway back up the hill.

There was this really short STEEP trail nearby and young Natalie thought it would be a good idea to challenge herself to run up it. It really was much steeper than this photo portrays.

It was so steep that she couldn't come back down it...so she just kept blazing a trail through the forest and looped back around to find us.

Our scenic rest stop.

Young Andrew - On The Move

2013-09-06T13:42:00.002-07:00

I'm a wee bit behind on noting some significant life changes happening lately.

Young Andrew was home for the summer, but really I think I only saw him about 60 minutes in 3 months. And he was asleep for 50 of them. Such is life. You create life, grow a human, they absorb your heart and then they leave you.

Luckily he left me to go learn how to be a successful businessman so that he can provide for me in my elder years (in about 2 decades).

I miss his face already.

After I requested a kiss....

Maybe the wind was strong that day...

He seems to have gotten blown back in the yard...

Luckily he is strong and fought the wind.

Me and my baby.

He has my heart.

Off to college!!! Driven by his cousin and her wee one.

Bienestar Backpack Project v4: How I Spent $35 for 170 Backpacks

2013-08-29T11:55:00.000-07:00

It's almost time for school to start - and that means there is a little flutter in the hearts of many parents who can not afford to buy school supplies for their kids. Getting an education is so important - our future depends on it! We need to help the youth of our world be prepared as much as possible.

And so it goes that I hosted the 4th annual backpack drive for the Bienestar homework club.

I feel so passionate about helping these particular children, not just because I love to help kids in need, but these kids are making some great effort to be successful in school. You can't just stop by the homework club after school - you have to apply, with parental permission, and you sign a contract and agree to bring in progress reports from school, and you commit to coming prepared after school to study and work on schoolwork and have an open mind and LEARN - outside of school hours even! These children are making a wonderful effort.

And as such - I want to help them in some way.

I don't have a lot of money. Especially at this time of year when I have just recently sent my own son off to college with every bit of money I can muster together to pay for tuition, books, frat dues, food, essentials needed to start off the school year. But just because I don't have money doesn't mean I can't make a difference. My contribution is one that anyone can do - I coordinated gathering backpacks and supplies for 150 children in the homework club. We actually ended up having about 173 backpacks and supplies for 150, which is another increase from the year prior, which was more than the year prior to that, and the year prior to that!

Lesson of the day: You don't need money to make a big difference in the world.

I purchased about $35 of school supplies out of my own pocket for this project. But I emailed out fliers and begged people and promoted the good cause and somehow, within a three week span of time, everything came together. Here are just some of the stats:

173 backpacks
620 spiral notebooks
3632 pencils
372 pens
388 erasers
455 glue sticks
162 boxes of crayons
150 pencil boxes
150 pencil sharpeners
507 folders
80 rulers

I can't even begin to guess the value of all the bags and supplies we passed on to Bienestar. But more important than just coordinating the gathering of supplies, what makes this project so rewarding for me is seeing the children who get the school supplies.

The collection of supplies is all done at my house - taking over my living room for the month. Throughout that time, it's constant counting and sorting as more supplies come in.

On a particular day near the end of the month, I gather some volunteers - 8 wonderful people this year came to help (most having helped at one of my backpack projects in the past) - and we set everything up and begin stuffing all the bags. But first comes the unloading, and the kids are always excited to help with that!

Two SUV's full of supplies means a lot of teamwork unloading!

Lots and lots of unloading...

The children help us sort the bags by grade so we can tag them.

It was fun to see the kids digging through their bags to see who got what - and we let them trade out colors of notebooks/binders that they didn't love.

Unpacking CAN be fun!

The kids who volunteer with us get to have the first selection of which bag they would like.

We were able to personally hand them their backpacks once they were filled.

supplies supplies supplies

sorting sorting sorting

stuffing stuffing stuffing

more stuffing

My wonderful volunteers (minus 2 hidden adults and one photo taker).

Some very happy and appreciative kids!

Thanks to everyone who helped contribute - this would not be possible without the kind and generous people in my life who either donated, volunteered (or both!), and spread the word around helping to look for donations. Working together, we have all made a difference in the world. The world is a better place because of us - thanks all!!

Squirrels From Heaven

2013-08-21T21:47:00.000-07:00

I came across these trees growing up together, forever entwined.

And I took a moment to consider relationships and love and life and how great the world really is....

And then a squirrel fell from the tree next to me.
A SQUIRREL FELL FROM A TREE!!

That doesn't happen. Squirrels don't fall. They fly around very nimbly, they prance on their tiny little bear-like feet. They are little ballerinas of the trees.

So what does it mean when one falls from the branches above?

Let's hope it's not an omen...

Good Times, Good Friends, Good Love

2013-08-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

Have you ever hung out with people and when it's done you think to yourself: do I even like those people?? Why did I even put on clean clothes? (I hope so-I can't be alone here right??)

I used to get in these ruts where I would hang out with friends and just not feel like I belong, or that maybe I don't even like them, or maybe they don't like me, or maybe I don't care either way. Not all of them of course, but some people are just not-good-people and it takes you a bit to figure that out, but in the meantime you soak up the negative energy and they just make your inner soul itch.

I don't mind paving my way through the world solo. I am alone quite a bit - single mom for so many years, just me against the world ya know- I think I have learned to love being alone too much. While I was out of the country, wandering lost and alone in different cities, I sometimes wished that I had a friend with me. But most times, I was thankful just to be alone and doing my own thing.

I have never been someone who MUST HAVE a relationship. I just don't feel the urge to have someone around all the time. And it's the same with friends. As much as I love my friends, I'm okay on my own and I'll see them when I see them.

Sometimes you meet a group of people, from random places, and everyone comes together and it's a disaster.

But then there are times when you have a group of friends together and everything just feels right.

And you laugh so hard you cry.

You smile so much your jaw hurts the next day.

You realize that there is so much love in the world, and you are part of it, and it's wonderful.

I had a bbq on Saturday night and at the end of the night, I felt so at peace in the world.

We told jokes.

We ate food that we all helped make.

We collected donations for my backpack drive.

We told bad jokes.

We told raunchy jokes (some of which were really bad).

We laughed.

We laughed til we cried.

We teased each other in good fun.

We had fun watching each other tease each other in fun.

And it all just worked.

It was a fabulous night and now I'm in a love zone. I love everyone. You, and you, and you, and you. And especially you!! All of you.

Adventures in Malaysia - Photo Edition

2013-08-04T22:29:00.002-07:00

After spending two weeks in Bangkok, I was off to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to meet with my team located there. The weather was similar to Bangkok - ridiculously hot and humid. I adore my coworkers but overall comparing the two countries, I would almost say the people of Bangkok were more friendly in general. The people in Malaysia are very laid-back though and I loved how quick they were to share a story. Every taxi driver I spoke to was ready with something to share about their country, or their hometown, or the city, or where they would like to go in America (Vegas was the most popular answer to the question I never asked).

I can't vouch for Malaysian food, as I wasn't in a location where there were any stalls or mom-and-pop style restaurants, and the one restaurant I went to that promoted itself as Authentic Malay, I had sweet and sour chicken (hey China!) and a chicken satay (again with Thailand!). It was genuinely the best meal I had in the country, but was it really Malaysian? I was at a food disadvantage since it was Ramadan and my coworkers were not eating during daylight hours and my hotel was set off from the main part of the city. I will return in mid-September and we have food plans already in place.

FYI- if you want to lose any weight you might have gained on the first part of your trip, plan the latter part of your trip in a country that is fasting. Even though I had a coke with dinner each night and dessert almost every night, I still lost 4.5 pounds. Eating one meal a day is great for the waistline!

The hotel I stayed in was attached to a mall, with over 450 stores. It was pretty intense, but allowed me a place to take a walk in the evenings, as my hotel was surrounded by freeways.
The view of one section of the mega-mall from the 3rd floor balcony (there are 6 floors).

The view from my hotel room - 25 floors up.

Malaysia is a country without many guns. They are hard to get a license for and expensive to buy. I found one in the mall though! The jewelry store has a guard with a very large rifle, and he just stands there hour after hour, ready to shoot someone down? Crazy.

The view from my hotel every morning. The haze was out of control, caused by voluntary burning in Indonesia. People were not hanging outside much. The air just didn't feel right. Thanks Indonesia!

Reading the morning paper about the haze...note the box in the middle - personalized advertisement!! This particular cola company is advising you to buy their soda to "fight the haze." Ridiculous.

Hungry for corn but don't want to go to a restaurant? No problem!! Just head for the mall kiosk and get yourself some corn in a cup!

The McDonalds in the mega mall had an ice cream station in the front of the restaurant so that if you were just interested in buying ice cream of some sort, you didn't have to go inside and wait in line. Note the three ice cream cones...normal, normal, and Green Apple?? I didn't get a chance to try it (I had already had dessert the day I found it and never made it back this way), but I'll check it out when I return next month.

This was a breakfast option in the bakery and I think there was a typo on the sign. It should read: Sausage No Appetite. Cause this looks quite unappetizing.

About 95% of the people driving a motorcycle looked like this - driving along, wearing a coat backwards. I guess it's to protect their arms from the wind and sun, but it's so hot that as soon as they stop, they need to take the coat off quickly. Two of the taxi drivers I spoke to about this said that it's done because people are too lazy and don't want to take them on and off all the time.

Also to note about motorcycles - although there are safety laws, most people do their own thing. Such as driving a motorcycle with a baby on your lap. I saw this so many times!!! Another one I really wanted to capture a pic of was the male driver with a toddler in front of him, then a female sitting behind him balancing a tiny baby in-between them. I just wasn't fast enough to get the shot for that, but I saw that exact scenario at least three times.

The streets of Chinatown. I hated it. I love to bargain shop and I love exploring, looking for treasures. I do not love when people harass you to buy things from them or give you an asking price of more than double of what it should be and then have a debate with you to bring it down to a normal price. This was my least favorite place in all of my travels and I could not leave there fast enough!

BABY MONKEYS!!!!!!!

The bird park in Kuala Lumpur claims to have one of the largest flights in the world (a flight is an open area for birds to fly around in). I walked miles and miles uphill to find this place, slightly lost and maybe dehydrated - but it was worth it to sit with an eagle and owl on my arms. This is in a special photo section, where they charge you money to have an employee put a bird of your choice on your arm, but then they give you the option to have the picture taken with your own camera or with their camera and printed out. I opted for my camera and was pleasantly surprised to see that he didn't just take one quick photo - he took a dozen!!! All for about $4.00. DEAL!!

Taking a moment with a friend behind a waterfall.

Clever garbage cans at the bird park! They had different bird trash bins all around the park.

MONKEYS!!!!

MONKEYS BARING TEETH!!!!!

In a Muslim country, even construction workers stop and face Mecca to pray wherever they are at the time they need to pray. Note the grassy area between the roads - they just rolled out their prayer mat and took a moment (or 20).

Driving in Kuala Lumpur is like a video game. As a frequent rider in taxi cabs, I was winning the entire time. On the way home from the office every day, we went by an international school and I happened to be going home at the same time the school let out every day. The school doesn't have a parking area for parents to pull in and pick up the kids, and the school is located on a busy 5-lane road. So every day at 3pm, parents just pull over on the road and wait for their child to come out. Even if that means blocking 3 of the 5 lanes!! The most inefficient school transportation system ever. Cars get blocked in and even if your child comes out, you might be on the far left lane, surrounded by 30 other cars, 27 of which are also blocked in.

Apparently there is a scam going on against tourists - a person will sit on the street and beg for money as the tourist goes by. The kind-hearted tourist will stop and as they go to drop some money in the beggar's cup, a motorcycle drives by and they snatch the persons purse and drive off into the bustling traffic. This sign reads something like: Don't snatch purses!

Reflections in Malaysia - Time is Ticking

2013-07-24T05:43:00.001-07:00

I found myself back in an Irish bar on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, and I wish I could bring together friends from days of old to join me for a toast.

I have meetings to attend to later tonight and need to get some work done prior, so there's no drinking for me...but if my friends were here-we would share a cold one. That's what friends do, right?

I don't typically feel the need to have a drink when alone, maybe it's a deep-seated fear that I will love it too much and turn into a drunkard faster than you can wipe the spittle from my chin, or maybe because I hear someone's voice in my head telling me I'm "more fun when I'm drunk", or maybe it's the ever-present calorie count shouting out how many calories are in each beverage (though I snuff that voice well enough when it comes to cherry coke), or maybe it's just that I don't LOVE the taste of most alcoholic drinks.

Anyway, here in this lovely open-air Irish bar, my friends from days gone by would all sing along to the 60's American music playing (odd), we'd make up rules to the cricket game playing on the tvs, we'd whisper about the waiters hovering nearby who always appear to have NOTHING to do and just stand around and wait for you to beckon them over, and then we'd discuss what it could possibly be that waiters in our country do that make them so busy all the time when waiters in SE Asia seem to be on stand-by for your every need. We'd join the older British couple at the table next to ours who are softly signing "bye, bye, Ms American pie..." and soon, the entire bar would be singing along and there would be smiles all around.

But for now....this is where I am:

The emptiness of the restaurant can slightly be attributed to the fact that it's Ramadan and the sun is still up, so 80% of the population is still fasting at this time of day.

But only for two more days, and then I head to the airport for a ridiculously long journey home!
I'm certainly not miserable traveling...but I am ready for my own space, my own foods, my handsome sons smiling face (or irritated face when I start singing "bye bye, Ms American pie..."), and my little furbabies-one of whom has spent almost the entire month of July hiding under the bed or cowering in the corner.

Adventures in Thailand - Photo Edition

2013-07-21T07:20:00.001-07:00

This was pretty common to see in the business district - the trees are bound and gagged and forced to grow straight. It's hard to tell in the picture, but they have posts and wires and all kinds of contraptions that are drilled into the trunk of the tree and adjusted to stay with the tree as it grows at the correct angle. It made me sad to walk by this every day, trees don't need to be tied up!

This might look yummy to some people. My supervisor and coworkers loved it. I had trouble even allowing any part of it in my mouth. I can't describe it in any other word other than: slimy.
Also to note, people in Thailand only eat with a fork in the left, spoon in the right. The fork is used to push food around and onto the spoon, you actually eat the food on the spoon. Noodles and meat are cut with the side of the spoon. I didn't know this trick for about half a week and I bent almost EVERY fork I ate with. None of the forks could take the pressure of just cutting so I would eat with one tine bent quite inwards. Knives were never present.

This is at Mr. Donut in one of my favorite malls. Mini-donuts on a stick attracted me into the store (not because I wanted to eat one but because it was ridiculous), but then I saw the name and realized that the name wasn't the most ridiculous thing about this scenario. For the record, these cost about 48cents each. I can't vouch for the taste but they look yummy enough. And who wouldn't want to eat a holething for a snack?

This was our afternoon snack - we had something similar every day. They all came in these individualized boxes. There was almost always one little sweet bread thing and then one bread/dough thing stuffed, either with a different kind of tuna, or pork.

On the left is a durian, which is a very popular fruit. Its VERY heavy and has very thick, hard spines covering it. If it falls on your head, it could kill you, so you don't just go wandering through a forest of durian trees. If you cut it open, it smells like the worst fart imaginable (this is not an exaggeration -they are banned from most offices).
I'm not confident on the fruit on the right, I like to think of it as AlienFruit based on the design.

At the floating market. My guide insisted we arrive early, which was genius. Within an hour, this canal was filled with boats and you had to just sit and wait and wait and wait for others to move. You just sit in the boat, the owner will paddle wherever you tell her to, so if you want to shop at one of the stalls on the far left, she'll paddle that way, and then you just bargain away. I would love to shop by boat every single day for every item I need.

This is outside of one of the million temples that are in Thailand and every time I passed by one I always thought to myself: Free Shoes!!!!

This is in the Grand Palace in Bangkok. It's a Buddha statue made entirely of jade. SOLID JADE!!!

This is one of the many palaces for the King. The King of Thailand has over 100 homes all over the country. I'm not sure how the entire population of Thailand loves their government SO MUCH that they aren't even a tiny bit bitter about the crazy amount of properties. It's not like the palaces upkeep themselves...and land is VERY valuable! I was a little bitter and it's not my country.

hahahaha, monks with phones??

A Nike guitar??? I regret not buying it because it MUST be a collectors edition.

Peace.

Um, people suck the little meaty worm things out of these....I was offered the chance to try them but I had to pass. See previous concern over slimy food.

Every single sign at this Buddhist temple has a pepsi logo on it!!! I was disgusted.

This can be filed under pet abuse.

These are spirit houses and are present at every house and office. Even if you move into a condo or an apartment, you would have one of these on the roof. It protects over your home and wards off the spirits. Some of them are really elaborate. The average price is about $80.

Every day to get to work, we crossed this road. You can see there is a pedestrian overpass at the light, but most people play Frogger and just weave between cars. I love this game!

Grand Palace - it's literally lined with gold!! It's the most elaborate building I've ever seen in my entire life!

Walt Disney would not approve of these tshirts!

This was my favorite place to go! I can't wait to get back there later this year. This trail of people is headed to the weekend market, which is this massive space of booth after booth of anything you could ever want or need. I had the most fun here bargaining a day away.

Me at yet another temple.

This was the most delicious thing I tasted - it's a dough like thing, filled with a salad like thing, with cucumbers, onions and some spices across the top. DELICIOUS!

Adventures in Thailand - Five Days Remaining

2013-07-12T09:40:00.002-07:00

I have only been away from home for 10 days?? Is that possible? It feels like longer in some ways.

I've done a LOT in 10 days in Thailand - visited lots of temples, a palace, gotten lost all over the city, eaten lots of different foods, learned a handful of key words in Thai, bought tons of super-cheap souvenirs, had a foot massage that literally left bruises on my leg for four days, crammed into a skytrain so close to people I didn't even need to hold on to anything, nursed my feet of blisters all week long, played Frogger crossing this super busy crowded street in rush hour, etc etc...it's just crazy.

(These are all pics from my phone, as I still don't have a cord for my camera)

Riding the sky train at 6pm leaving the business district.

Amphawa Market - the place to go to try tons of different types of food.

The view from my hotel

This is in a mall. Like with real stores-expensive stores-fancy restaurants...and then a clinic on the main floor where you can go from an exam room to the treatment room to the xray room all in 5 feet!

This is my view during the day for about 7 hours. Except for 6 of them, they are all staring at me. I really like every one of these people!!

Tomorrow I might just lounge about and read for a bit. It's the first day in 7 that I haven't had to work about 10 hrs and I'm really looking forward to it. In the evening, I'm going to dinner and a market with some coworkers. Sunday...who knows.

And then Wednesday afternoon I'm off to Malaysia!!

Adventures in Thailand - Lost in Bangkok

2013-07-05T07:07:00.000-07:00

I made it to Bangkok!!
This is how I got here:

2 hrs early to the airport - and I needed 1.5 of them to get through the international check-in process and security.
10.5 hrs - flight from Portland to Narita (where I found the dirtiest airport bathrooms you will ever encounter)
almost 2 hr layover
6 hrs - flight from Japan to Thailand
40 min - customs & baggage claim
35 min - drive to the hotel

Quite the journey!
It really wasn't so bad. My first leg I had three seats to myself so I was able to lay down for a bit. It sounds great and all, until you try to make yourself fit in three airline seats comfortably. You can't hang your feet out, so your knees always have to be bent. And where do your arms go? It's just an awkward attempt at sleep. I think I only laid down for about an hour total, and then slept sitting up a bit as well. It was really nice having all the space to spread out though.
The second flight-TONS of turbulence and I didn't take my anxiety pill cause I felt like I would be totally fine, just like I was on the last flight (um, where I actually did take the pill). But by the time I realized I really wanted it, I realized it was in my bag up in the luggage bin. I had a window seat and the turbulence was really bad so there was no way I was getting it.
About halfway here, I started sneezing. Not just a couple sneezes here and there, but like a couple sneezes every 15 minutes. The guy in front of me probably thought I was deathly ill. Funny thing about that - I didn't see him at the Japan airport, but when I got my seat on the second flight, he was in front of me AGAIN! What are the odds of that happening?? Esp given that the first flight was only half full and the second was completely full. Anyway, I sneezed behind him for 16.5 hours. Sorry!!

And the sneezing has continued. I sneezed all over Bangkok today.

I found a little convenience store at one point when I was lost and wandering the streets near the Grand Palace and went in to find none of the workers spoke English, so I tried to explain to the girl what I wanted by showing her my tissues and pretending to wipe my noise, and she offered me some tissues. So I said, "achoo achoo" and the three girls behind the counter laughed like it was the best joke ever. She gave me a red packet of pills that look like Tylenol. They didn't help. I later found a pharmacy and the woman did speak English and offered me something for colds. She opened the box right up and sold me just enough for four days. I took some shortly before coming back to the hotel (I had a deadline to meet for work) and within an hour, my eyes were closing. typically cold meds don't make me sleepy but it's possible the meds and a little jetlag were what did me in. I woke up in a panic and somehow got my work done on time.

Half of my first day was nonstop walking and boy can you tell by the blister on my foot. And I think I sweated out 2 pounds of water. But I had some great adventures - I took the metro train, it's a really cool subway that is 2 stories and runs all over the city above the streets. I got to see a LOT of it because I was lost almost every other hour. I also took the water taxis - who knew Bangkok was like Venice?? Not me. I love the water taxis. And they are super cheap, so when I got on the wrong one and had to go back to another one, it wasn't expensive! And then I got lost when I came off the subway-train-thing on my way back to the hotel and had to take a taxi, which cost me the same amount as my combined train and water taxi rides to go about 6 blocks (he was supposed to turn the meter on, he didn't and just started driving and later quoted me a price-I should have fought harder on paying him!). Three local forms of transportation in one day! A great way to explore a new city.

I took tons of pictures already, but alas, I forgot my cord to upload them so they will have to wait. I will have to try to take some with my cell phone so I can share.

We had a thunder storm that may have been the most severe one I've ever seen -lightening striking everywhere, the rain was just pelting, the sky was so gloomy, and the thunder was SO LOUD. Luckily it started right before I sat down to lunch and it somehow magically ended right after I finished. Just like I planned..hahaha. I took a video which I might be able to upload, but not tonight.

I'm off to bed so I can try to get some sleep before my 630am tour in the morning. It'll be nice to have a guide with me so I don't gain any more blisters just by being lost, though if I hadn't gotten lost, I wouldn't have made some girls so entertained with my achoo achoo. And I would have probably been caught walking in that horrible storm.

Good night from Thailand!

Moral Dilemma - Level: Elephant

2013-07-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

I'm ridiculously busy getting ready for my work trip to Thailand and Malaysia. There's so much to do when you're going to be away almost a month! Like figure out all the little things you need to write down for my son in the hopes that he will take the utmost care of my home and cats while I'm gone. And plan touristy things to do for 3 free days before work begins. Oh, and create and edit a 150 page powerpoint and prepare myself to present that monster powerpoint to a team of 5-8 people who weren't born speaking my language and who are going to look to me to be the expert and maybe I'm not really the expert and they are going to unmask me and I will get fired and have no where to stay and no way to get home and I will have to swim off to the island where The Beach was filmed and find a rogue group of tourists to live with until we get kicked off the island by the drug lords...but Leonardo DiCaprio will be there to catch fish for me and I'll play beach volleyball and lose loads of weight and maybe live a happy alternative existence all the same.

Back to my main dilemma at hand - in Thailand there are a couple different elephant farms where elephants have been brought in and live as a way for locals to make money. You can pay a small fee and find yourself riding on the back of an elephant through the jungle, you can ride them to their watering hole and help bathe them. Fun right? Fun for us anyway. But is this a good life for the elephant?

I spoke to a native Thai person here in my city and she agreed with me that it IS sad for the elephants. However, they aren't horribly mistreated. They just don't live their life as an elephant should (in theory). But also, if tourists didn't go to visit these elephants, the locals would do other things with their elephants to make money, like bring them to the edge of the city and set up a temporary camp to make money in a less humane way. And she reminded me that the people of Thailand are very poor and tourists coming to visit is what allows the locals feed their families.

There is also a tiger sanctuary run by monks where you can feed baby tigers and watch them eat and just hang with the young ones all morning. Same moral issues with that place...

I suspect I will end up doing at least one of these. But my conscious feels heavy for those animals all the same.

The Last Unicorn - Or The One Where My Niece Graduates

2013-06-20T14:42:00.002-07:00

Once upon a time, a long time ago, my eldest sister had a baby. And the entire family far and wide welcomed our first little girl to the brood. My grandparents have five grandsons-but just the one granddaughter.

She hung tough with the boys, she played in the dirt, she wore skirts but never let it slow her down. She's a tough little cookie. We babied her, but we didn't. We played with her hair, but just let it be a mess when she was having fun.

And that baby girl has gone and done it...she's grown up.

I have a handful of videos from when she was little, but for some reason I got stuck on this clip:

She had been trying to inch her way closer and closer to touch the bird so many times prior to this clip, but she just never stopped trying, and didn't care how many times we told her the bird would bite her -she had a good spirit and just kept pushing on with what she wanted...and that's how she still is today!

We are all extremely proud of this little sprite - she's just wonderful, so smart, compassionate, beautiful, etc etc...but we miss our little girl. She's just no longer that wee one, she's a full-grown lass. Ridiculous how life works that way, isn't it?

My parents went on this whirlwind US-tour and hit twelve states in 5 days (or something crazy like that). My other sister had a son graduating the week prior, so my parents drove from Iowa to South Carolina to be with him and then they drove to the other side of the US and joined us in Washington for my niece's graduation in less than a week! Crazy retired folks!

Anyway, my niece's graduation was nice - under 150 students, not a lot of songs or speeches, and it wasn't too horribly crowded. It was quite warm and toasty in the pavilion, but it wasn't plane-stuck-on-the-tarmac stuffy. She actually graduated with an AA from the local community college, thanks to the wonderful Running Start program and now she's heading off to college in the fall. We're so proud of her!!

For those who are entertained by pictures of other peoples kids, here's some photos:

Just one of many "walls of Alyssa" - there is no shortage of photos of this girl!

So pretty!!!

My favorite photo of any graduating friends ever. This setup is awesome.

Eye spy....there are 9 of the 10 graduation attendees pictured. This is before we started sweating.

Proud parents!!!

And proud grandparents!!

This is my family! (plus one girlfriend and one dog)

Nothing strange about this photo.

Grandma love!!!

This little boy won my heart.

And this little girl has my love. Clearly Andrew approves.

Sometimes It's Good to be Single

2013-06-13T23:34:00.000-07:00