Singapore - the final installment

The last blog ... kinda sad, huh? We were so sad about coming home. Kathryn and I both thought we could stay another month or so.

We flew back into Singapore and went straight to the hotel. It turned out to be a very nice hotel near the airport. The staff was rude, but the rooms and facility were nice and we were on the club level so that was a nice bonus as well.

At the beginning of our adventure, Singapore felt so foreign and exotic, but coming back this time we all felt like we were home. It is such a western city with western ways. They obey traffic laws, have a similar standard of living to us, etc. Cori even made the comment to grandma in an email that she thought she would like to live there. I think the pancakes that morning for breakfast put her in love with Singapore because they tasted like home.

After getting in around noon, we went to subway for lunch and then checked into our room. Our other room wasn't ready yet so we decided to go to the pool for a little while to relax. It was cloudy and sprinkled on and off, but we didn't care. Since we were on the club level, after we got cleaned up we went to the free happy hour from 6-8 and eveyone filled up on the heavy appetizers and fruit from our room. Everyone but Kathryn and I called it a night and went to bed early.

Kathryn and I went down to Chinatown to finish some shopping. Since we were staying near the airport, it took about 20 minutes to get into town and on the way, we had a very chatty cab driver. He talked about eating dogs and cats and snakes and rats. He said not to eat the rats in Singapore because they were poison .. ok ... point noted. He also said to never eat cats because they were poison. He let us know that sea snakes were really good eats and we should have some. All the way to town, talking and talking until we were ready to throw up by the time we got there.

Much to our surprise after being in Vietnam and Cambodia, Chinatown rolls up the streets at 10pm. Everywhere else we went markets got really busy about 9pm I think because it finally had cooled off enough to want to shop. We bought a handful of things and sat down to an ice cold coconut milk before heading back. On the way back, our cab driver was also very chatty and told us that in the area we were staying in there were a lot of man ladies. He said they were so pretty until they talked...vey interesting again! He also drove so incredibly fast through the winding streets that we thought we might just die in Singapore. We made it safely back to the hotel and went to bed.

The next morning, Kathryn and Chuck were up early so they went to breakfast and then came back and woke us all up about 9:45 as breakfast was ending at 10:30. After berakfast, we got all cleaned up and headed down to Orchard Road to do some shopping while Chuck and Cori went to check out the local fire station. Orchard Road is the Singapore equivalent to Rodeo Drive in California so needless to say we didn't buy much. Next, we met Chuck and Cori at the Merlion and took some pictures. The Merlion is the most famous image of Singapore and is a statue of a mermaid/lion cross that spits water into the harbor. It was nice.

The girls then headed to lunch and the hotel while Chuck and Chase went to lunch in Chinatown. Chuck hadn't been to Chinatown in Singapore yet and Chase was wanting a ring from there. We had lunch at a hawker stall near the hotel and then went back to the hotel to change into our swim suits. Against our better judgement, we walked down to the beach which was only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. The beaches in Singapore aren't that great as it's such a busy port. We had to walk past a ferry terminal to get there and as we were walking we saw something in the water. Kathryn thought it was a snake, Caitlin and Cori thought it was a turtle and I thought it was a lizard. It made it's way to shore and it was about a 4-5 foot long moniter lizard. It came up to within about 4 feet of us and stopped to check us out. After this encounter, we did not feel like going to the beach anymore so we turned around and headed back to the hotel.

The hotel had two pools - one on the roof and one ground level. We hadn't been to the ground level pool yet so we decided to try it out. One wall of it was acrylic so you could see right in it. That was super cool to the kids. The weird thing about it was that you had to walk through the restaurant to get to it. We knew dinner started at 6:00 there so we left at 5:50 to relocate to the roof top pool. It felt a little odd walking dripping wet in a towel through the restaurant to the front elevators to go upstairs ...

We went back and showered and met up with the boys. None of us was really up for much so we tried to go to bed early for our long trip back.

Saturday morning, we took the 6am shuttle to the airport and started our journey back. It was a 7 hour flight to Tokyo. We had about an hour in Tokyo which was just enough time to walk down to our gate and then it was an 11 hour flight home. The flight was packed and a little bit hot so we didn't sleep well. We were so glad to see mom and dad (grandma and grandpa) and get in the suburban to go back to their house. Mom made tacos by request and they were so good!!

We were all in bed by 9pm and then Chuck and I were up at 4am this morning. Hopefully we will be all back on schedule by tomorrow in time to go back to work.

Hope you have enjoyed reading about our adventure as much as we enjoyed living it!

Until next year ...

Love, Kristen

cambodia part two, by both

Only one full day in cambodia and so much happened ...

So we left the nunnery and all felt really enlightened. What an amazing experience that most wouldn't get to do.

Questions by Cori about the nunnery:

why was that little lady's teeth black

why was that lady so little

why did that lady have no hair

why do ladies have boy haircuts

what were all the ladies doing on their knees

why do they sing songs that way

Questions fielded, we were on the way to the floating market.

It was a 15 minute or so ride through the COUNTRY. We were really in the middle of nowhere. We could see inside of many peoples' homes which consisted of recovered building materials making a one or two room house. Children as young as about 2 were playing togehter on the side of the road and in the road. Most of the younger children were naked. Cows were wandering on the side of the road. There were a few stands selling water and other items along the way. There were stray dogs everywhere. Oh - while we're on the subject of dogs ... yes, some people there do eat them. No, it's not a normal menu item. It's more of a black market type item that isn't really talked much about. Black dog's meat is the most highly prized dog meat on the market. They do not eat cats. The road was narrow, bumpy and not paved. Poverty was rampant...very different from ANYTHING we have ever seen. People in the US only think they are poor compared to this. Sometimes parents have to go out fishing and it's so far that they will be gone a night or two leaving their young children to fend for themselves for a couple of days. There is no school that is compulsory and the school that exists is only through grade school. The lucky children leave home around 12 and go to the bigger cities to live in a nunnery or with friends to go to high school. Parents here spend a lot of time training their very young children to sell things both on the river and in tourist areas. There are kids as young as 3 and 4 selling things and they are very pushy. If we never hear 1 dollar again it would be too soon.

Ok - we arrive at the place where we catch a boat to the floating market and village and buy boat tickets. We then douse ourselves in bug spray much to the delight of the locals and walk down what must be the steepest "ramp" I've ever walked down to the dock. On the dock, our tour guide talks to the boat drivers and then chooses us a boat. We have to walk across another boat to get on it and then all take our seats. It's about 2 lawnchairs wide and 25 feet long. The water looks exactly like coffee with cream in it. Kathryn kept saying it looked like a river from the show river monsters. We warned the kids not to touch the water and were off. On the way, we did wind up getting splashed a little bit and I'm certain we'll come down with a dreaded disease from it. We went past more one room houses and saw more very young children just out playing near the water with no adults in sight. We saw a about 5 year old girl on a boat with her dad driving near us. She was the cutest little thing. Soon, she was hopping over to our boat, while both boats were in motion, to try to sell us drinks. It was really disheartening that her dad was using her like that. Next, we saw another boat passing with two young boys and a dad. When they got close enough, we realized that they had about 6 foot long snakes wrapped around them. Kathryn was freaking out a little bit since she doesn't love snakes and we all knew they would be hopping onto the boat in mere seconds. Our tour guide said something right because the boys didn't hop aboard...

We finally arrived at the floating village. It was just as if not even more poor than the homes we saw on the way. People lived on flating platforms with various different structures built on them. There was no plumbing or electricity. We saw people doing various bits of daily life - cooking dinner, washing clothes, etc. We pulled up to a floating market and got off the boat for a few minutes. We saw a boy who was about 7 in a large salad bowl/pot paddling around there. There were also two boats there that had ladies with their tiny babies. They construct a sort of playpen for babies on their canoe type thing out of sticks which one was in. Of course they all asked for money. Cori of course had to go to the bathroom and they did actually have a bathroom there. I took her in there and very nearly fell through the floor when I stepped on a rotten board. It was so gross and we had to "hanitize" after that one. Lots of hand sanitizer on this trip ... They raised crocodiles there at the market as well so we went over to the raised platform and peered down at the crocodiles. They use them for food and for their hide. They also sold them to somewhere in Thailand. We bought a couple of little souvenir type things and a container of pringles strangely enough and headed out. While we were leaving we were asked for money again. Oh - I forgot - there were some teenage boys there with more snakes and Caitlin and Chase both held them for a little while. Kathryn wasn't thrilled again.

The entire lake we were on was only about 5 foot deep ... very strange ... the rainy season has just started and it should be up about 20 feet before it's over. When we got back to the docks, there were little boys just slightly older than Cori that took Cori's hand and helped her up the ramp. It was very cute.

We were back in the van and kinda happy to be there. Our driver and our tour guide had been with us for over 15 hours at that point so we headed back to the hotel and let them go. It cost us $30 for each of them for the day (total of $60). The average annual income for a farmer in cambodia is $250. That's annual ... for a tour guide or driver, it is about $75 a month.

We packed up and went to bed since we had to be up early for a flight back to Singapore. Oh - the water in the showers there was very iron rich so it smelled like we were showering in blood...just thought I'd mention that.

Well - that's Cambodia in a nutshell!! Our favorite country on this trip!!

Hope all is well with everyone!

Kristen

Cambodia - our first full day part one

We woke up so early this morning and I'm not going to lie. I thought about not getting up. I mean - at sunrise, sunset or in the day isn't it the same place? I only had about 4 hours of sleep ... but I got up and got Kathryn and the big kids up. We were downstairs in plenty of time and our driver and tour guide were on time too.

We got to the temple complex and had to buy our tickets. They put your picture on your ticket and our pictures are not too pretty. We parked and started the hike up to Angkor Wat. Our tour guide was amazing. He knew a ton about not just the temples, but the area in general. He was in his 20's and very personable.

He took us to one of the libraries of the temple where we sat on the steps in the dark waiting for the sunrise. It was very peaceful and pretty. There was even a little pony grazing near us while we watched the sky lighting up. several more people came to our special place so we moved across the entry walkway to the pond so we could see the reflection of the temple in the pond at sunrise. There were many people selling books, pictures, breakfast, etc. Several people approached us asking if we would like a chair to sit down in (for a fee).

We bought two paintings for $30 and they wound them up into a straw holder for us. We decided to go back to the hotel since it was so close and get some breakfast. We got some breakfast and woke up Cori and Chuck. We then headed back out to the temples and saw two more temples. They were stunning. It was really amazing to see all of the work that had been done by hand to honor their gods. Very impressive ...

After those two temples, we had a great lunch at an open air restaurant near the temples. We wanted our tour guide to sit with us and eat, but he was not allowed to.

We dropped the boys off at the next temple and all of the girls went back into town for our cooking class.

( the portion below by Kathryn)

We arrived at our cooking class about 20 minutes late, but here it's no worries. The cooking class was at a restuarant, so we sat down at a table and they brought us a menu. They told us to choose an entree and an appetizer. We all looked at each other with some confusion because we were so incredibly full from just eating lunch. Then the lady explained that we could choose anything off the menu to learn how to cook. We all were excited and chose something we would like to make back at home. Cailtin chose a spicy shrimp salad and cashew chicken, Kristen and Cori chose vegetable spring rolls and baby corn and pork, and I chose pumpkin soup and fried vegetable noodles. We waited a few minutes and then came to get us and bring us to start cooking our meals. We all followed them up the stairs into their "teaching kitchen". Now, just to remind you, nearly everything in Cambodia is open air, and this was no different. So, it's the middle of the day and hot and we were in the kitchen with hot stoves. They gave us all an apron and a chefs hat. We put them on and got to work. We were assigned a station and intructed on chopping and cutting and preparing all of the vegetables and then our meats. Our cooking instructor told Kristen to skin the carrot and tarrot root and gave Cori this huge knife to cut up the onion. (I thought it was a little backwards but it seemed to work out) Caitlin chose two recipes that had alot of vegetables and were very work intensive, so we were all finished and were able to sit and rest before moving on while Caitlin was still working. It was so hot by this time that we were going through water like crazy and sweating through our chef hats. (I guess after living here you must adjust to this heat and humidity. We were all so hot, but the staff seemed unphased) When we were finished cooking all of our meals and they were on the table spread out, we were all impressed with the sight of our perfectly prepared meals. Most cooking class participants then go back down stairs to the restuarant and enjoy eating the meal they prepared... We were all still so full from lunch, and the heat has seemed to make us a little less hungry, so we took it in to-go containers. The to-go, or as they call it here, take away comes in a little different form. They brought up three to go styrofoam containers and a box of little plastic bags that looked like the tinest shopping bags. They poured the noodles, rice, soup, etc. into the little baggies and then placed them into the containers. It was different that what were we used to, but got the job done. Since we didn't eat our meal there we were finished early and went downstairs to get a cab back to the hotel. The restuarant had already called our driver (we didn't know they did this until we were downstairs, does everyone know everyone in this town???) It was a very nice luxury to have them so in tune with our time to have already called our driver and about 5 minutes later. our driver arrived and brought us to the hotel.

We had about 20 minutes to relax before we went on our next adventures. Our driver and tour guide came back to the hotel and picked us up and we headed to the nunnery. (The nunnery here is different here. It's a Buddist nunnery where men and women who are nuns live.) We arrived at 4:10pm and there were over 20 nuns in the temple area on their knees praying. (They pray at 4am and 4pm for two hours each session) We walked in and since our tour guide actually lived at this nunnery when he was younger, many of the nuns knew him and were smiling when they saw him. One of the nuns came out of prayer and wanted to show us where she lived and accept the offering we had brought. (Chuck went to the store with our tour guide and they bought milk and tea and sugar) The nuns can only eat from when they wake up at 4am until noon. Then they are only allowed to drink, so our tour guide made the suggestion of what to bring to Chuck. The nuns are not allowed to work so the only thing they have to eat is what the villagers donate. When the nun brought us to her house she showed us and explained to us (through our guide as a translator) how they only sleep on the floor with a mat. The home was a 12x12 square with a bamboo mat on the floor and a couple of pictures of friends or family on the wall. They said they do not have the luxuries of a/c or a bed or anything that makes them too comfortable and could take away from their dedication and prayers. We all kneeled down and Chuck presented the food (actually just liquids) to her and she was so thankful and said a prayer for us and wished us a safe trip back home. It was very interesting to be able to see the nunnery and have the opportunity to go inside and have someone explain everything as we went. I know Kristen talked about our tour guide ealier in this blog, but he really went above and beyond. We were very lucky to have him not only take us to the temples, but bring us to the nunnery and show us how they live and where he grew up. (Many of the people his age and younger were left without their parents when the war was going on. He was split up from his family at the age of twelve and went to the nunnery for support.)

This one has gotten long so we'll go for now and finish up our day later....

K & K

to Cambodia - and beyond!!

So we arrived at the airport and much to our surprise, the international portion of the airport was very modern and closer to what we are used to (we still boarded from a bus and walking up the stairs, but SOME people could board through the walkway STRAIGHT FROM THE AIRPORT!!) This was our last Vietnam Airlines flight and we were a little bit glad about that with the delays and sketchy flying we had experienced. We checked in and the airline attendant told us that the rain was giong to stop and we would not be having any delays. Wow - I thought that was a bold prediction since the past two times were delayed at least once. He turned out to be right!!

Ya know, every airport bathroom we have been in almost, there has been something gross about it. Either it was really old, realy small for a bunch of people, or someone was throwing up. Well, this time someone was having diarrhea - really, really loud. Nice.

We boarded without a hitch and the flight went well. It was a little bumpy, but other than that, quite normal! When we arrived at the Cambodian airport, we were surprised at how nice it looked on the outside. It was a really pretty building and as we walked across the tarmac we took some pictures of it. On to form hell ...

We had to get a visa on arrival for Cambodia which cost $21 per person. There were several stations to go through. First, fill out your forms. that takes awhile with 6 of us, but by now we have a system where Kathryn and I take all of the passports and Chuck herds the kids to a central location. Then, pay and give them your passport. Move to a new line and watch your passport get handed through several people. At the new line you can pick up your passport with the visa in it. Next, we headed to immigration, excited to be through the process. Immigration turns us back because we hadn't filled out our arrival cards. Back to the central area for the kids and back to the forms for Kathryn and I...OK, back to immigration and we get through this time. Last, fill out the customs forms and turn those in. It took us so long that our driver from the hotel left. :( Plan B - get a cab. We were able to get a decent cab and started on our way to the hotel. We past several large fancy resorts which we were not staying at. We then turned onto a very narrow road and started down the bumpy path. There was definitely a lot of local life going on this road! We saw people buying petrol ... from used 2 liter bottles, watching tv outside, children playing in the street, etc. We pulled up to our hotel ...

The staff from the hotel actually came out to the cab to greet us and knew exactly who we were. They took our bags and brought us inside to sit down and have a cold drink and cold towels to wash our faces and hands. Nice start. Then, they asked us if we would like some informaiton first or to see our rooms first and we said information. Two of them gave us all of the information we could need and answered all of our questions. Anything we asked for was "yes of course" or "can". Example - "can you help us get a driver for tomorrow to see the temples?" answer" "can". It was very funny. By the time we were shown to our rooms, we had arranged a driver for the next day, a tour guide for the next day and cooking classes for the following afternoon. We hiked up to our room on the second floor (mind you the ground floor is called ground here so floor one is what we would call floor two ... i guess you could say we were on three - with no lift in this hotel). No worries - all of our luggage was carried up for us.

We begin to look over all of the information given to us and realize that we probably still had time to make the traditional Khmer dance performance and dinner that night. I call downstairs to see. "can"

Our driver comes and picks us up at 6:50 for the 7:00 show and we arrive about 7:05, but no worries. The show starts in a little while after we've had a chance to make our plates from the buffet. We had a small discussion about how our first night in Cambodia we were eating off a public buffet and how we would probably all wind up sick. Prior to leaving the hotel, we had debated about if we should bring bug spray or not. Malaria is rampant here and although we are on anti-malarials we don't want to be bit up either. We brought the bug spray because most things here even if they are inside are still open air.

The food was good and there were more options than I thought possible. We all found plenty to eat and were able to try some new things too. I should mention at this point that Cambodia is 95% Buddhist so when we walked in, there was a large altar to Buddha as there is almost everywhere when you walk in. This will become key later so don't forget this part.

We were sitting eating and enjoying the show when we noticed that the bugs were starting to get a little bad. The show turned out to be more like international night at Cori's school, but all of the kids loved it and it was dirt cheap for dinner and a show. All of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I see a worker lady chasing something and coming towards us. Then Kathryn jumps. Something large had hit her in the calf under the table. Lucky for her, I had seen it and it was NOT a bug. Hooray...but it was a mouse. It ran off in the direciton of the other diners so we then felt safe again.

The bugs worsened and Kathryn went out front to spray herself down with bug spray. All of the taxis and drivers out there watched her in amazement and laughed. We learned from her experience and went into the bathroom to spray the rest of us down.

Here is the point where I know I have been gone for too long...Kathryn and the big kids got ice cream. Cori of course then wanted ice cream too. Kathryn warned me not to get the vanilla because it had hair in it. It didn't stop her from getting the other flavors though. Instead of saying gross - no ice cream for us, I vowed to scoop around it or get another flavor. Sadly, the vanilla was gone so someone else must have eaten that hair. We had strawberry.

When Cori finished her ice cream, she was not quite full. She said I want a blueberry muffin. I told her that there were no blueberry muffins. I knew this from going to the buffet 4 separate times to scoop out all of the baby corns for her out of one particular dish. She argued that she had SEEN blueberry muffins right next to the pyramid of oranges. This immediately rang a bell and I had to explain to her that those were offerings to Buddha and not for us to eat. Remember when I said not to forget that they were all Buddhist? There was a stack of muffins on one side and a pyramid of oranges on the other side on the altar to Buddha. She disagreed with me - nuh ah ... she thought I was just being mean and not letting her have a muffin. I told her that people had brought those for the statue and she really disagreed then and looked to Kathryn for confirmation. Kathryn confirmed and the muffin discussion then ended...

After the show, we rode back to our hotel and got our wake up call set for 3:45am. We didn't get to bed until 11pm so we knew this would be a stretch, but we had to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Caitlin, Chase, Kathryn and I did get up on time and off to see the sunrise. We let Chuck and Cori sleep.

Well, more later - hope all is well with everyone!!

Love, Kristen

Ho Chi Minh City

We arrived late in Ho Chi Minh City and went straight to the hotel. It turned out to be very nice. It was a traditionl hotel in District 1 which is the middle of the city. It had a lift! Thank goodness because we were on the 7th and 8th floors! It cost $28 per night per room and included breakfast. It would have been 20 per night, but we needed triples.

We just barely woke up in time for breakfast and went downstairs. They were serving Pho, spaghetti, eggs, toast and fried rice. The oranges are different here - super sweet and green on the outside. They are so good! All of the fruit is really exceptional here and we are eating a lot of it. Also, when you order juice, they take the whole fruit and juice it right that minute for you. We have already established that I will be buying a juicer when I get home.

After breakfast, we arranged a private car to go to the Cu Chi tunnels which is about an hour away. We all fell asleep on the ride there so I can't tell you much about it. When we got there, we were surprised that it was so expensive to get in. It cost about 400,000 dong which is almost 20USD. That is a fortune here. Our ride there and back was 40USD. When you go to the tunnels, you start with a film that Cori and I skipped as I knew it probably wouldn't be kid friendly. She took a million pictures of things in the jungle and then we joined up with the others and our guide. Our guide took us through the jungle and showed us a lot of different things. He showed us booby traps and entrances to the tunnels that were so small only Caitlin and Chase could fit in them. He also showed us how they set up their kitchens and vented the smoke away. We ate tapioca and drank tea just as they would have at the time. There was an opportunity to fire different weapons, but it cost 1.50USD a bullet so we didn't try. We instead ate more taro ice cream. I think you get the picture that we aren't coming home much lighter ...

We located our driver and headed back to town. It seemed to take a long, long time. We rested for a few minutes when we got back and then headed out to a night market. It was a ton of fun to bargain with everyone and buy some cool things. It's a little bit funny though because we had to pay 10,000 dong (50 cents)for a bottle of water and Chuck was so sad about that. We are used to paying 5000 dong a bottle. Our perception is now from a dong point of view and anything approaching 20000 ($1) is expensive.

We woke up the next morning ready to go! We went to the war museum and the reunificaiton palace. I think we all enjoyed the war museum for different reasons. I met a very nice vietnamese lady and we talked while Cori enjoyed the children's peace education area and everyone else explored the museum. Reunification palace was closed for lunch so we just looked around a little bit outside (and were harrassed by many, many songtho drivers).

We packed up for the airport and stopped to eat at an Asian fast food chain called Lotteria. I think it originated in Korea and is a little funny. I took a picture of their poster showing a boy and his dad holding what we would think are onion rings over their eyes. They are squid rings though. It was good and had normal ketchup which is a bonus. Most of the ketchup here is very vinegary and tastes almost spoiled. The kids had Milo to drink which has quickly become their favorite beside tropicana twister which they have almost everywhere.

On to the airport - more later!!

Kristen

Goodbye Hoi An, wish we could have stayed longer by Kathryn

Hoi An has definitley been my favorite place so far on this trip. It's a relaxed beach town with a very welcoming fun feel. We didn't get a chance to explore much of the city, but from what we did experience it was great!

So, as our adventure rolls on I have come to realize more and more the little things that I miss. I was especially reminded of them when we arrived at the airport to depart for Sai gon... First I would like to retract anything negative I have said or thought about ANY of the airports in the US. I would also like to retract my previous opinion of American Airlines and their bad delays. Okay, with that being said we had another flight on Vietnam Airlines from Da nang to Sai gon. We were enjoying our time in Hoi An and were running a little late to get back to the hotel to catch our ride to the airport. We hopped in the cab and he got us to the airport in a very timely fashion. (Timely is what the cabs here are know best for, because with no real traffic rules everything goes) Which turned out to be for no real good reason because when we went up to the counter they told us our flight was delayed for mechanical difficulties. (I was thinking great, another flight like the last one!) They said one hour. So, our 8:30pm flight turned into the 9:30pm flight. In an airport that we are accustomed to back home, we would walk around, shop a little, maybe relax in a restuarant, but here you have one option; to sit in your chair tight up next to everyone else who's flight has been delayed. It's crazy the number of people packed into the airport like little sardines. I had plenty of time to think about how thoughtfully designed the airports back home are for setting up the seats angled in different directions so you are not sitting classroom style with very little room between rows. (but I guess you can't pack in nearly as many people) There were several other things I was reminded of while sitting in the airport... (Which luckily had air conditioning this time) I think people in different parts of the world think different things are gross. For example, here a grown person with your finger shoved as far up you nose is completely normal. In fact, we have seen that everywhere since we have arrived in Vietnam. Soap seems to be optional here as well. (So, the "Soap is optional" Williams family fits right in) Bugs are just things that co-exist with the humans here. It's really gross and they have lots of bugs here.

Back to our flight out of Da nag, it was delayed almost an hour and 45 minutes. So, here again we were getting to our new destination late, not knowing where our hotel was exactly or what we were going to find when we got there. The flight was actually good, no excitement on the way to Sai gon. It was an hour flight that was in a huge airplane. (The size of the one we took from Tokyo to Singapore) We arrived at the aiport and again unloaded on the tarmac out the back of the plane from a stair case and took a standing only shuttle bus to the terminal.

I am not sure what I will do when I go back to boarding a plane from an indoor airport that has a nice air conditioned tunnel to board through and has the luxury of shopping and eating and relaxing in our own space. It will hopefully remind me of how lucky I am to live in Texas!

Danang, Hoi An or day 1 of beach life

So after our big rest 3 to a bed, we woke up refreshed and ready to take on the day. We had missed breakfast already so we took leisurely showers/baths and then ate downstairs in the hotel restaurant. It was all decked out like there should be a wedding there and it made us all laugh a little bit.

Chuck and Caitlin headed out of Danang for Hoi An to check into our new resort and go to My Son while the rest of us got ready for a day at the beach. Chuck and Caitlin checked into the new hotel which was very interesting, but nice and then went and toured an ancient temple grounds about an hour outside of Hoi An in the jungle. They had artifacts and lots to explore out there and both of them loved every second of it. I think if we had come a year or two later, that site would have been way different. They just have artifacts laying around that you can walk right up to and touch. I bet it will be some sort of museum or something soon.

The rest of us got a cab and had him take us to China Beach. It was so nice. We saw some of the traditional basket boats on the beach and walked all the way down to the original resort we were supposed to stay at. We got a cabana there and played in the ocean and then swam in the pool for a little while. We had to have some more taro and coconut ice cream after all that playing outside before we headed down to Hoi An. Kathryn and I are going to miss that stuff.

We headed down to Hoi An and went to silk road to do some shopping. Chase got a kick out of taxi because it couldn't idle. If we weren't moving forward it stalled. This isn't really unusual. We came upon the silk factory there and they gave tours so we took one, but not before I got the "Delhi Belly" as the Indian people here say. I did spend a while in the silk factories one stall restroom with no toilet paper. I had to use the butt rinser which thrilled Cori. I think she's going to make us install one when we get home. It's just basically a hose with a vegetable sprayed at the end of it. Moving on, we toured the silk factory from baby silk worms to weaving the fabric and it was super interesting. We also saw the amazing embroidery work that they were doing. Some of the pictures they were making took two people up to 8 months to complete. I just can't imagine going to work to work on one picture every day for 8 months!

We left the silk factory in a little bit of a hurry because of my belly and headed to the hotel. When we pulled in, let's just say it didn't have any curb appeal. The lobby was nice which gave us hope. We had to walk along the trail to our room past the pool and it was very tropical. The whole time Cori kept saying " this isn't our hotel. Let's go back to where we slept last night". We've taken to calling her little Emily - sorry Emily! Once we got into the room and Chase broke the toilet paper roll by climbing in the window, we realized that it was in fact very, very nice. Unusual, but nice. There was a window with no glass, but just shutters separating the bathroom from the bedroom. There were three twin beds - two right next to each other and one down a few stairs ... Also, we had two of the rooms facing the back of the property so we overlooked someone's little farm complete with farm animals. That darn rooster crowed/roostered/cockadoodled what ever you say ALL NIGHT LONG. They also had dogs that howled all night. It was kinda in the country so during the day, the side gate was opened and you could walk right out into some rice fields which was cool. We are still a little bit puzzled about the rice and how it grows/is harvested, but we're working on that. We ate dinner on the roof that night at a japanese style raised platform table. It was good, but just as we were finishing dinner, the largest grasshoppers you have ever seen started hopping around the roof. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal, but the wait staff got excited and began harvesting them and putting them into a baggie. They didn't eat them in front of us ...

We booked a snorkeling trip out to Cham Island for the next morning. We woke up and enjoyed some breakfast before going. They swung by and picked us up in a little bus and we went down to the dock. There were 18 of us total - 3 divers, a dozen or so snorkelers and some spectators. It was definitely not a speed boat and the sea was a little bit off flat so of course Chase got sea sick. He was sitting over by the rail in the very first seat and I see him start to look sick. I told him to go to the back of the boat and he was very put out by that. The boy has thrown up on every boat he's ever been on - I don't know why he can't remember to do it at the back of the boat yet!! We arrived at the first snorkeling site soon after that and it was pretty. Not the best snorkeling I've ever seen, but nice. The sea was the exact right temperature and the perfect color of turquoise. Soon after we got in the water, we noticed stinging sensations. Nothing too serious, but stinging none the less. That's when we noticed that there were jellyfish about the size of half of the palm of your hand. We snorkeled around getting stung from time to time, but after the third sting, Cori had had enough. To tell you how mild they were, she didn't cry or really complain even too much, but she didn't like the sensation either. She and I got back on the boat and the people there once again doted over her. They rinsed her off with the fresh water and even combed out her hair. They also gave her 5 ankle bracelets which she is still wearing. Then she and I laid down in the shade on the boat and napped for 15-20 minutes. The kids and Chuck jumped off the second story of the boat a few times. Kathryn stood up there for quite awhile, but chickened out ... you had to step over a rail and balance on the edge to jump off. We picked up and moved to a second snorkeling spot. Yeah - no jellies! Cori rode on my back and put her face in the water and we snorkeled like that for awhile. I'm sure it looked pretty funny, but it worked for us! She loved seeing the starfish the most I think. They were the brightest blue. We picked up again and went to a beach for a barbeque next. We were starving at that point and I was glad I had smuggled two big slices of bread out of breakfast for Cori as she couldn't wait. The barbeque was really good. It wasn't a back home barbecue though. We had noodles, sticky rice, whole fish cooked in foil, some water spinach (which Cori can't seem to eat enough of the way it's prepared here), spicy calamari, and some egg type thing. Oh - they also served fish tail soup, but only Chase ate some of that. We then relaxed on the beach for awhile before heading back.

When we got back to the resort, we jumped in the pool for a minute and then took showers for our flight to Saigon (preferred here to Ho Chi Minh City).

I'll have to update our flight from Danang to Saigon and our day here in Saigon later as we're off to the market now.

Hope all is well with everyone.

Love, Kristen

Hello Danang, maybe??? by Kathryn

So, we arrived at the airport in one piece after a flight where I for the first time thought I might die. We grabbed the stroller and hopped in a cab. We were all so thankful to be on our way to beach paradise. We arrived to the airport at midnight, it was raining and we all piled into what he thought was a gocart on a race track. He took corners without slowing down, he just drove straight instead of turning thru the corner. He at one point was driving from the right lane all the way to the other side of the road and Kristen and I thought he was falling asleep. She notified Chuck of our worry and Chuck pretended to look around often and make sure he was awake. Awww, we finally saw our resort, like an oasis in the distance, we made it, again in one peice... We hop out of the cab excited because this place was so nice. We got into the lobby (Which was completely silent and empty) and Kristen went up to the desk. She did not look happy. She got her you will give me this voice and kept talking to the receptionist. I walked closer to find out what was going on; for some reason they had us down to arrive there on Sunday, not Friday. So, she just asked for another room, really any room at this time would be ok. Just one room we would all share. Nothing, they were completely booked. The man was not helpful and basically said there was another hotel down the road. So, luckily several drunk people stumbled out of a cab jamming techno music and we jumped in and asked him to take us to the hotel just down the road. We formed a plan that Kristen would run in and make sure that they had a room before we got out and lost our cab. Kirsten was in there quite sometime and Chuck decided to go in a see what was the delay. All three kids were in the back seat arguing about being squashed and Cori was directing them at how to make it better. Then Kristen and Chuck came back and got in the cab. No luck, there was some sort of a conference going on and all of the hotels in the area were booked. While Kristen was inside the lady at the counter told Kristen that there were no 5 star hotels available and started checking the 4 star one, when Chuck walked in they offered to check the 3 star hotels. Great! They thought there was one just down the road. We were exhausted and would take anything, or so we thought. We arrived at that hotel and it was booked. Our taxi driver decided to take things into his own hands and started driving around to what seemed like houses, but maybe they were hotels? We stopped at several where he got out and knocked on a garage door/ locked gate to only find out they were full too. Then we came into another "neighborhood" Chuck was sitting in the front seat and said as we were driving on the streeet he saw several, SEVERAL very large rats, the size of small cats. We pulled into a drive way by a house, that reminded me of the tv show criminal minds and the taxi driver got out and started banging on the locked gate. (I think he was ready to get rid of us, it was 1am by now.) Chuck pointed to the very large rats scampering around the drive and wall, none of us were even going to open our door to step foot in this place. About that time a very scary looking lady came out. She was obviously woken up by his banging and did not seem happy. She came to MY back seat window and asked me what we needed. I didn't know what else to do so I asked her if they had a place to stay. She said no, but then very slowly gazed into the car taking a full look around and said yes, she had somewhere. Then we immediately made a unanimous decision without even speaking to each other to move on. Chuck said the cab fare was almost as much cash as he had already, so we needed to go somewhere close where we could get out and find an atm. We decided to go back to one of the really nice resorts and get some help or access to the computer. When we arrived at the Life Resort they welcomed us with open arms. They had lots of really comfy couches (where all the kids passed out) a restroom, an atm, and allowed Chuck and Kristen to use the computer. They were also calling all around to find us a hotel. (They were completely booked too) They found us a five star hotel near the airport. When we were getting ready to depart on another adventure at 2am, they gave us the nicest ice cold delicious smelling towels to freshen up and several bottles of water for our journey. The gave us their card and told us to call them is there was ANYTHING else we needed all night. After a 15 minute cab ride, which thankfully they all drive fast, because he turned up his radio very loud and the song, "Will I ever see you again" came on his cd player. Kristen's eyes got real big from the front seat as she looked back at us. Then it went into the chorus, which was saying will I ever see you again in heaven. It was blasting Christian music louder than I have ever heard christian music and the song was on repeat. We arrived at our hotel at 2:30am and even with three people per bed, were thankful to be there. This was a 5 star hotel that was so nice. It has a 70's swank style to it, but the first real "back home" style air conditioning. Chuck, Caitlin, and Chase slept in one room in one king bed and Kristen, Cori and I slept in another room in one king bed. We all slept so good until 10:30am! (We missed the complimentary breakfast but it was well worth it. And Kristen had to discreetly take an extra breakfast ticket off the counter anyways)

Kristen will be back to update you on the stay in Hoi An.

Goodbye Hanoi, Hello Danang

Last night was not the best ... the power went out at about 2am and Kathryn's room got quite warm so they didn't sleep well. She decided we should be up too so she came down early and woke us up.

We spent our last day in Hanoi seeing the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum (which we didn't see, more in a minute), The "Hanoi Hilton" (POW prison), a buddhist temple and the temple of literature. We went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum first as it's only open in the morning. You have to wear long pants and cover your shoulders in order to go inside so we decided I would wait outside with Cori and let everyone else go in. I didn't really have an interest in seeing a body lying in state anyway ... For whatever reason, Chuck did not zip on the bottom poriton of his pants before we left. He sat in the front seat of the cab and proceeded to zip them on. The cab driver kept trying to sneak a peak at what he was doing and thought it was quite funny. We arrived and hiked over there. Cori and I shopped on the street while they walked the rest of the way. I bought baby Sydney a little present and Cori some more stuff because that's just what she needs. We finished shopping and went to our meeting spot just when everyone else was walking up. Ho Chi Minh cannot be viewed on Fridays. Boy Chuck was not happy. He was really looking forward to that. He and Chase both wanted a bust of Ho Chi Minh so we went back to the same vendor I had bought from and they bought some busts. Then Chuck was hot ... he decided to zip off his pants in the street. It drew an onlooker following with everyone pointing and laughing. We went back to the american restaurant for lunch that day.

We then went back to the hotel to shower and change for our flight. Wow - I'm glad we did because we just started sweating again in the cab. The cabs here have air conditioning, but most won't turn it all the way up. We can't figure out why, but I swear I almost got my hand slapped once for doing it. On the way to the airport, we had to take two separate cabs...no earthly idea why because we paid a flat rate that our hotel arranged, but I do know that we had another person riding silently with us in the very back of the cab ... very strange.

We went through security at the airport and Chuck's pipe that he bought was cuse for concern so they had to open it and look at it. Then the kids were hungry so we explored our food options. There was one food vendor in the airport that served hot dogs on a stick, nasty fried rice, instant noodles or a sandwich with mayonaise from a jar that must have been 3-4 years old. We went with hot dogs on a stick. We then found out our flight was delayed for "mechnical competency issues" ... then another delay for a change of aircraft. That meant we got some free fried rice from the food vendor. I talked them out of a couple of sweet rolls (didn't know what they were , but they turned out to be good). Kathryn basically forced them to give her the noodles and they were very unhappy about that. We boarded our aircraft by walking out the door, getting on a bus, riding acrosse the tarmac and then walking up either the front or back stairs. Strangley, there was a flight attendant's seat at the exit row kinda positioned like a hall monitor. Very odd ...

The boy in the seat behind Cori was so bad. He was stanidng up on take off, etc. He was peaking through the seat with us and I looked at him very meanly and loudly said SIT. He sat and then for the rest of the flight if I looked back there he climbed onto his mother. Kathryn also helped give bad looks.

Now, this flight was supposed to be 1 hour and it started good with freshing up wipes and bottles of water. Then things started going south ... first, it was a little bumpy - no big deal. Then we almost landed ... seriously, we went down very low very fast and then straight back up into the air. We then banked for a little while. It was a little scary and we talked aout how we were glad mom wasn't there. We seemed to circle for awhile and someone threw up. Then we landed.

Finally, finally to danang - watch out beach here we come ... we even booked a nice resort on the beach!

more to come

Kristen


We got to the airport in plenty of time

Hanoi, Vietnam Part 2

So I'd like to back up a tiny bit and comment on a couple of things from my previous blog. I was so tired when I typed it and Kathryn pointed out that it wasn't very good.

First, there was nothing else funny at the airport...I dunno why I put that ... sorry...

Next, I'd like to explain why we sat and had lemonade (called lemon juice here) at the hotel on arrival. It was because our room was not ready and the power was out. We did arrive fairly early so we weren't too surprised that our room wasn't ready. The power outage seems to be an almost daily occurrance so if I would have known that before arriving, maybe that wouldn't have been a surprise either. The power lines here look like maybe New York might have in the 50's. Lines are going everywhere and some are a little bit low so you have to be careful not to touch them. We were upgraded to a family room that could "sleep five or six people" and also given another regular room. I will start with the family room. It was only a family room in that it had about a 12X12 area that was empty. I mean it could have had a seating area or another couple of beds, but no, empty. The bathroom was a true wet room style bathroom. The shower was just poking out of the wall so when you showered everything got wet. Here, the toilet paper dispenser thingies are different too - they have a little rain roof so when you shower you don't get them too wet. We noticed that there was a decent amount of street noise in our room being just one storey up so we checked to see if the windows were open and noticed that the bathroom window was open, but it was not closeable ... All rooms came with a 1990's style computer with internet so that was nice.

While we're talking about what floors there were ... we were on the first floor as I mentioned, but there is only one staircase and each floor only has 1-2 rooms on it. All of the people going upstairs walked right past our room. Kathryn and the big kids stayed in room 403 which was a hike to get to. You would think that it would just be 4 flights of stairs, but no ... you kept going and going and it was straight up. Every other floor had a mattress on the landing for some reason so it was tricky going up. Their room also had a double bed and a twin bed in it, but no open area. Their bathroom was slightly better than ours as they had a proper shower in it. Granted, it was a three foot step up into the bathtub to take a shower, but it worked out.

General comments on life in Hanoi:

there are a trillion motorbikes everywhere

every one of them that is in motion is honking

honking is not rude or a sign that someone is mad, it simply means, hey, I'm here

you can carry ANYTHING on a motorbike - ex, a family of four, live chickens, live fish, a full harvest from your garden, a ladder

when we say motorbike, we really mean scooter

a motorbike can serve many purposes including a bed at times

motorbikes are welcome anywhere - they are often in stores and homes

proper motorbike attire for females is a helmet (required by law), a cloth mask over your mouth and nose, a jacket thingie with extendo arms to cover your hands too (tanning is ugly to them) and high heels

there are half a trillion tiny taxis in Hanoi

there are people EVERYWHERE at ALL TIMES of the day and night

stores are open almost all day and night - stores here isn't meant in a literal term. a store is an 8 foot wide opening in a building front that people live behind or above. There is not a door except a garage door to pull door and there is not air conditioning

you can eat on the street, off the street or in the street with handy tiny stools (maybe the size of a steppie for a small child) everywhere

you can wash your hair on the sidewalk with a pot

you can wash your dishes in a tub of water on the sidewalk

you can park your motorbike on the sidewalk

you can sell your bread laying on the sidewalk in a basket (which we did eat)

you can sell beer on the sidewalk

you cannot walk on the sidewalk (see above for activities on the sidewalk)so you must walk in the street with the sea of motorbikes

to cross the street - watch for cars then walk - the motorbikes will go around you

to cross the street (chuck's version) - just close your eyes and walk

You are only allowed two children - if you have a third you pay a fine and are demoted if you hold a government job

don't ever think that any flooring/street/sidewalk is level - you will fall

OK - so that's all I can think of for Hanoi life comments. I just feel like we can't describe it. It has been very hard to write aobut as it's a whole sensory experience that is nothing like you could know or expect.

After we left our bags at the hotel, we headed out on the town. First, we headed to the water puppet theater to buy our tickets for that evening's performance. All of the performances except the 3:30 were sold out so we bought tickets for that one. We had some time to kill then so we walked around the Hoan Kiem lake area. We were going to go see a temple in the middle of the little lake, but didn't have enough cash. Almost everywhere requires cash here. We decided to walk through a little park and Chuck ran across the street to atm some money. Caitlin, Chase and Kathryn had to go to the restroom so there was a little restroom here to use. Cori and I were sitting on a bench alittle bit away and Kathryn comes around the croner quickly..."Kristen - we have a problem .. Chase has a problem and needs money" I couldn't imagine what could happen in 2 minutes that he would need money for, but I didn't have a dime. Apparently, Chase had to use the restroom so bad he rushed in a didn't notice that he had to pay to use it. Chuck came back across the street and paid and then Kathryn and Caitlin had the pleasure of using the squatty potty. I guess the lady cleans it after each person leaves, but that just seems to make it wetter and grosser.

We went to the temple. I'm sorry, but it smelled bad from the nasty lake water and was miserably hot. I know I'm supposed to say it was so amazing, but I couldn't breath through the incense and was dying of heat. We were literally soaked through with sweat it was soooo hot and humid.

Now, to the water puppet theater. For those who don't know, it's an ancient art form that isn't to be missed while you're in Hanoi. We didn't love it, but Cori seemed to really enjoy it. We sat down in the front row (that's how we roll) and were waiting for it to begin and enjoyed the attempt at air conditioning. Suddenly I hear Cori who's a couple seats down say " Mom! Mom! Look! (pointing at the stage) A real mousy!!" Sure enought there was a little field mouse scurrying about through the set right there in front of us. Of course a few people who understood her laughed and then there were a bunch of camera flashes. The show itself was a little weird and of course we couldn't understand a thing they said.

We did a little shopping and went back to the hotel. We moved into our room (the family room as the other was not ready still). We went to the mall and bought some supplies at the supermarket (they are in malls here).

The next morning, we got up and met our Hanoi kids in the lobby. This is a program where local college kids give city tours for free. Cori loved having "the teenagers" as she called them with us. They first took us to the Ethnology museum which was not loved by all. A little boring. Next, we had lunch and had to walk through the kitchen and up a super steep spiral staircase to a funny little private room for lunch. Then we went to the Ho Chi Minh Complex and saw the presidential palace and Ho Chi Minh's house. We also went to the Ho Chi Minh museum on that same campus. Everywhere we've gone in Vietnam, as soon as we walk out a door or get out of the taxi, we are assaulted by buy this, ride in my bike thingie, etc. Well, here we were assaulted with - Can I take Cori's picture/touch Cori/laugh because your'e fat. They think fat is soooo funny here. One family wanted to ake Cori's picture with the mom and son so we let them. They ran and bought Cori some chips to say thank you to her which we thought was nice. We did try the chips later, but they were basically squid and msg chips so we really didn't care for them. As we were leaving, we ran into them again and they showed us a 5X7 that they had made of their family with Cori. It was so funny.

After that we shopped and then went to an american restaurant for dinner. Cori declared it was Texas food and actually didn't need a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that day! It also cost us $40 which is a small fortune here.

That's all for now!

Kristen

Hanoi, Vietnam Part 1

Hi all-

This is going to be a long one so I will not try to tackle it all in one entry.

On the plane to Hanoi, we had ordered food. The chicken hot dog things were pretty good as was the sandwich. The chicken foccacia (sp?) was not really edible. The fried rice, which happened to be mine, was a surprise. It had some sort of satay on top (maybe chicken?) and then little crunchies on the side. I looked at it for a couple of minutes and decided not to have the satay. I looked closer at the crunchies. They were either the tiniest whole fish or something like a flash fried meal worm. I didn't eat any of it, but Chuck finished all of it and said it was fairly good. We slept the rest of the way.

On arrival, something funny happened, but I forgot what it was. I'll ask Kathryn to fill in that part. We cleared immigration and were really on our way then ... hmmmm....our hotel is in the middle of the city and there is a duck quacking outside of my window right now....anyway, we got into the arrival hall and looked for our ride. There were a lot of people with signs waiting, but none was ours so we went outside and got a cab. Our cab driver didn't really know where he was going, didn't speak a lick of English, seemed to be injured somehow on his shoulder and was very angry.

We drove a little ways outside the airport and Chuck and I both thought oh my ... maybe we've gotten in over our heads with this choice. It was insane. Motorcycles everywhere, no real traffic rules, vendor stalls along the side of the road selling all sorts of stuff and just general poverty everywhere. Our angry/injured cab driver got us close and then made about 4 circles until he could find it. At one point he was hitting the steering wheel. Then he turned up the vietnamese music super loud. It was really a bit overwhelming ... I was glad we had agreed on a flat rate at the airport.

OK - so we get to the hotel and the people here are so nice. They speak fairly good english and immediately show us inside and give us some lemonade. We debate on the lemonade. Finally, we drink the lemonade, but buy Cori a bottle of water and put the crystal light I had brought from home in it. We didn't want to take any chances with her belly.

Wow, I've only gotten us here and to the hotel and am going to leave you hanging. There is so much to tell that it is hard to get everything in. Everywhere you look there is something to see, smell, hear, etc...

goodnight for now

Kristen

end of KL

Wow - it seems like an eternity since I've written.

Last day in KL:

We woke up at a reasonable hour and went to the Batu Caves. This is a very holy area for Hindus and they hold a festival here every January/February that includes thaipoism (I know I spelled that wrong). That practice is where people hook sharp hooks into their skin and carry things or pull things with them. There is a small market near the base and then a huge staircase (272 steps) up to the cave entrance. It was hot, but we had received advice to go early and we figured out why. The steps are on the west side of the hill so if we would have gone in the afternoon, we would have just fried.

On the way up the steps, there were so many small monkeys just hanging out. Hindus are very loving towards animals and try to care for them as much as possible so the monkeys are used to being fed. They even sell fruit to give to the monkeys at the base of the hill. As we were walking up, Cori and I took our time while Caitlin and Kathryn went ahead a bit. We couldn't really see them too much as there were a lot of people walking up the steps. Apparently, about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the steps, they stopped to look at some of the monkeys. One monkey did not like Kathryn and hissed and bared it's teeth at her. Just then another monkey jumped on her leg and started to shake her leg. She kicked it off, hopped over a concrete separator thing and ran the rest of the way up the stairs. While this was happening up above us, we were feeding some monkeys part of a granola bar down below. Chuck was even getting down on his knees so the momma monkey could take it off his head. Before we went there, we had heard that the monkeys weren't always friendly and not to feed them so my number one rule was even if we don't heed that advice and we feed them that Cori could not feed them. Well, when we saw how tame they were, we let Cori give them a piece of granola bar which they took. She held out another piece and the daddy monkey that had taken it before quickly reached out a swatted her hand with his finger nails. It didn't break the skin or anything, but it startled her and she now thinks that monkeys are bad. We finished walking to the top and checked out the main temple and several groupings of statues. After walking downstairs, we had popsicles and coconut water.

While we were at the caves, a couple of different people stopped to see Cori and a couple of middle eastern women even asked if they could take a picture of her. This really has been a theme of the trip.

We went back to our super good hotel and went for a swim next. It is so humid here that all of our shirts are drenched everyday. Kathryn has literally been able to wring out her hair at times. I keep thinking, it's not that hot, but I'm pouring sweat. We met a vey nice lady and her little girl from Kuwait at the pool and did laundry with her. She was wearing a full burka. Just thought it worth mentioning for some reason ... Chase met some indian boys and played tag with them in the pool for awhile.

While we were swimming and doing laundry, Chuck and Caitlin went to the fire station for some patch trading and shop talk. It was a little bit interesting to note that they have motorcylce firemen there as well as normal truck firemen. The traffic is so incredibly bad that the motorcycles can go first to change all of the lights and try to get traffic moving. When they get there, they actually have hose, etc to start fighting the fire.

Next, we hit somewhat of a low point of the trip. We had been advised to go on the city tour in the morning, but we only had so many mornings ... we went on it in the afternoon. It was a double decker bus called the hop on hop off and it basically went around to all of the highlights of the city and you could get off and back on at will. It was hot - so hot ... It was ariconditioned, but just barely. Also, they didn't do commentary over the PA or anything like that. About half the seats had a set of headphones you could wear to hear some commentary. We got off the first time because we were all starving. We ate at McDonalds ... I know, not very adventurous, huh? It was fast, familiar and close. In the kid's meals, you have a choice of fries or corn and for the drink you can have Milo, a black currant drink that starts with an r that I forgot the name of, or soda. Feeling refreshed, we hopped back on the bus and it seemed even hotter. We got off as soon as there was anything remotely interesting to see. It was at the national palace which was cool, but you couldn't go in ... and it was 30 minutes until the next bus came. Cori played in the fountains a little bit to keep cool and we looked around until the bus came back. This bus was a little bit cooler, but also crowded. We saw an australian family we had befriended earlier on the trip and talked to them while we rode around back to our hotel. It seemed like a good plan...and then Cori had to go to the bathroom so we had to get off the bus. She has had a touch of diarrhea still so we knew if she had to go, she had to go. Fortune smiled on us as the bus came to the next stop and took a 5 minute rest. Schedules, rests, etc are all very loose here. There was nowhere at all to use the restroom so we went between two cars in a parking lot and Caitlin and Kathryn stood on either end. Cori was freaking out because she didn't want to go which was surprising since she usually doesn't mind ... finally she went and I knew why she was freaking out. It was a sound I won't soon forget. She had diarrhea ... OMG. I had no wipes, tissues anything. I was like Kathryn, Caitlin, what do you have in your pockets, quick. No one had anything remotely useful so I started taking off my tank top that was under my shirt and suddenly thought of my socks. I used one, but needed more ... Kathryn offered one of her socks, but I told her it would be better to lose them in pairs and just took off my other sock. Wow ... back on the bus just in time. Now we sat in traffic forever and ever. We were supposed to meet up with my friend at 6:45 for dinner and we arrived right at 6:45 sweaty and nasty. It was ok - he had a friend joingin us who was also running late so we ran upstairs to change. Oh, but not Chuck. He had to ride the bus two more stops to get to the hop on hop off office since we left our bag on an earlier bus. We were not able to retrieve it, but it wasn't a great loss except that our other bags were stuffed.

It was raining at this point - hard. My friend had his driver pick us up at our hotel, drop us off at dinner and then turn around and go back to the hotel and pick up Chuck when he go there. We went to the BEST indian restaurant. Once again, Scott and his friend ordered everything family style. We had potatoes, vegetable dumplings, onion ring thingies and some chip like things with a mint/dill yogurt dipping sauce for appetizer. Then, for Cori, the most amazing thing happened. They brought out HUGE leaves for plates. Our dinner was delivered next - very spicy lamb, butter chicken, rice, nan (very good flatbread), tandori chicken, tiger prawns, fruit nan ... I'm probably leaving something out, but suffice it to say that we all loved everything! Cori couldn't get enough Tandori chicken and Kathryn loved the fruit nan. We said goodbye and went back to the hotel to pack and crash.

We had to get up at 3:30am the next morning to make our flight. It was difficult, but we all made it. The kids liked being able to walk up and down the steps in to the plane. Oh - and we snuck through the carry on bag check area quickly while they weren't looking so we could carry our bags on. They can only be 7 kg each which we are way over. Then we almost got on the wrong plane. They boarded three planes at the exact same time and once we were through the gate, we were all together on the tarmac. We were in line to go to India and realized that we should switch planes. We did get on the right plane.

I have much , much more to write both about our plane ride and the food we had ordered and about Vietnam, but I'm out of time!!

Hope everyone is well!

Love, Kristen

WARNING

several of our accounts (not bank thankfully) have been hacked so if you get a suspicious email from us, please do not respond. We do not need your password, money, etc. We are doing great and having a great time - more tonight!!

Kristen

Singapore update from Kathryn - A little delayed from KL

Okay, so Kristen promised I would update the blog on our trip to Sentosa Island so here it goes. We went to Sentosa Island not knowing exactly what we were going to find, so having an open PATIENT mind was very important. (I'll get to the patient part in a minute) The taxi dropped us off very close to the Underwater World, so we started off there. After we bought our tickets we were on our way in when Caitlin and Chase saw a guy with two large snakes they could hold and have their picture taken. (Eww, you know I would not be getting near the snakes!!!) So, of course they went over and Caitlin went first and then Chase. Both of them ended up holding the two snakes and then the man placed this funny looking hat on their heads. When Chase was holding the snakes, wearing the crazy little hat, the snake charmer started playing his little flute thing and told Chase to dance. We have some really funny pictures and a video we will post later. In the aquarium there was a "petting" tank where you could pet all the fish, I know it sounds strange but it was really cool. They had sharks, fish (I'm sure Chuck could tell you the exact kinds) and sting rays. There was a tank right next to there where you could feed the large sting rays. None of us wanted to do that because the sting rays were coming up the walls and splashing and very eager for some food. There was a "magic" tank there that was a fish tank taller that us that had two open holes you could stick your hands in and feed the fish. None of us could figure out how that could be. The rest of the aquarium was neat but nothing out of the ordinary, in fact our fish specialist, Chuck, pointed out that many of the fish they had were actually native to close to back home.

Moving on from Underwater world, the next part is going to use ALL of the patience we had. (It was totally worth it though) We decided to go on the zip line. The same zip line they used for the Amazing Race (I don't follow it but that's what Kristen told me) We walked down to the beach and then hopped on the beach tram to take it all the way down to the ticketing counter for the zip line. We waited several minutes for the tram (This was the first tiny wait), then the tram arrived and we rode it maybe 100 yards(If that) and then realized it was our stop to buy our tickets. (Laughing that we had waited to get on the tram for such a short distance) We waited in line (The second line to wait in, took maybe 15 minutes) to buy our tickets for the zip line and even paid the extra two bucks to get a ride to the top. Well then we waited for what seemed like eternity, and by this time we were wondering if the ride to the top was going to be as short as the beach tram we had recently been on. Then the little gator/mule/ whatever you want to call it finally arrived (after another 20-30 minute wait) to take us to the top. We were all so excited because what we have been waiting for was about to happen!!! Then we arrived at the top... There was a ticket counter there, which meant ALOT of other people were up there waiting in line to zip. So, we "qued up" and waited for a while longer. (By this point Chuck pointed out how Kristen would not have tolerated this) Then finally, we got to have our harnesses put on, yes the time has finally come! While walking over to the tower we realized that were about to climb three flights of stairs to wait in the que yet one more time. We waited on the actual stairs for about 10-15 minutes and the we reached the top where there was a little sign that said the estimated wait time from that point was 25-45 minutes. The sign was right, we waited that long. We finally got to go on the zipline that lasted maybe about 2 minutes. It was very exciting and all of the waiting was worth it once we were finally strapped to the line!

Whew, even re-living it while typing it out wore me out! It was about the same when we were done. We decided to sit at one of the patio bars on the beach and have a water and then head back to the hotel and check on Cori and Kristen and have some dinner.

Sentosa Island was very much like a theme park atmosphere. There is a Universal Studios and they are building a bunch of roller coaster rides and in the next year or two I bet the whole island will look completely different with all the attractions they are adding. The beach was beautiful sand and if you like the view of large boats and tankers a beautiful view. The water was not exactly what I thought I was going to see in Singapore, but you did not see a bunch of oil or fuel from the boats in the water. I did not see a need to get in the water at that beach and hope as our trip carries on the water and beaches improve.

There is alot to talk about in KL, but I will let Kristen fill you in on the adventures we have had. I will just make a quick mention that ALL of us, including Cori have picked up a strange accent with some of our sayings and words. It has kept us all entertained. We leave for Hanoi tomorrow morning very early.

KL

Hi all-

KL is really cool. We all have enjoyed it very much. When we first got in, our friend Scott had sent a car for us and we had a nice ride/tour back to the hotel. Our hotel here is AMAZING. It's a 3 bedroom, 2 bath place with a full kitchen and has been a welcome respite! The pool is freezing, but it is so humid and warm here that even I got in it.

I only have a minute this morning ... let's see thoughts in KL so far. I'm glad they have napkins ... I know that sounds weird, but there are no napkins in Singapore. Really - unless you go to a really nice restaurant (which we couldn't afford there by a long shot), you don't get a napkin ever. Most people bring their own. I really like having a napkin and will not take them for granted again.

Yesterday we went to the bird park which was a little overwhelming since I don't love birds. At one point, I had about a dozen on me, preening my hair, biting me, etc. I didn't love that, but according to Chuck it's the best video footage yet. We also went to the butterfly park which was cool and then out to a very cool restaurant for dinner. Scott ordered basically one of everything off the menu and it was all served family style. Amazingly, everyone liked everything. I think Chase ate enough chili crabs to last him a lifetime. We also had beggar's chicken which was a whole chicken cooked until it was falling off the bone tender in a wonderful sauce. We also had shrimp, beef, some spicy chicken, a new vegetable that we hadn't tried that we all liked, nuts, and we ended with a huge cut fruit plate with fruit packed in ice. We washed it all down with copious amounts of a hot sweetish tea that everyone but Cori and Kathryn couldn't get enough of and Tiger beer.

I have to run. We are headed to the Batu caves this morning, on a city tour this afternoon and then dinner with our friend tonight.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Love, Kristen

Singapore in retrospect, KL now!

Hi all-

This one might have to be shorter than I would like.

We are now in Kuala Lampur which is very nice. We are staying at a beautiful serviced apartment just a 5 minute walk from the Petronas towers ... more on this later

Ah Singapore ... I woke up missing your breakfast already. In the parts of Asia we are going to be in, they don't really differentiate too much between breakfasts and other meals so you pretty much have the same options all day. The hotel we stayed at in Singapore was really kinda in a residential area. Most people eat out for a lot of meals so there were a ton of dining options on the street where we stayed. All were on the first floor of the buildings and just open air so when they opened for the day, they just rolled up their garage door and were ready for business. There were two we particularly enjoyed. One served prawn nee which is a noodle soup with prawns in it and one had a variety of choices. We generally stuck to chicken or duck and noodles or rice.

I'll have to let Kathryn on here later to update the trip to Sentosa Island on Friday. They did go on the long zip line over the ocean and all loved it. There was an extremely long wait and it was so expensive though. They also went to an aquarium which they also loved and got to pet sharks. This was when I had Cori at the hospital.

Yesterday, Saturday, we all went to breakfast and then Chuck took Cori back to the hotel to rest for a little while while Kathryn, Chase, Caitlin and I went to Chinatown. It was super interesting! I'm glad we didn't take Cori because it was so hot and it was an assault on the senses. The smell alone will not soon be forgotten. We didn't buy much - Caitlin bought a little elephant and I bought Cori the coolest little monkey water whistle. That was while she was sick and I would do anything to make her feel better. Now the whistle seems so loud and annoying! The funniest thing happened when we bought the whistle. The guy selling them was of course blowing one which is how we even knew they existed. It was a great marketing ploy because we went straight over to check it out. When we got there he filled one with water from a little bowl and handed it to Kathryn insisting that she blow on it. I immediately started laughing knowing how sicked out she probably felt about that. She blew on it and we all laughed. That, however, was not the whistle we wanted so we showed him the monkey one we wanted. He dumped the water out of the one Kathryn just blew in back into the bowl and filled up the monkey one once again insisting that she blew on it. I was dying laughing at that time and bought that one.

The best parts of Chinatown were the Hindu mosque and the Buddhist temple. We went into the Hindu mosque first. It was all open air and hot on Caitlin's feet since she wasn't wearing socks. We had to pay $3 per camera, which I expected, to photograph anything, but it was worth it. They were getting ready for some sort of ceremony/celebration that evening. I'll really just have to post pictures as words can't describe it. I will say that it was so foreign to us that it almost seemed a little bit scary. I feel funny saying that because I know there is nothing scary there, but it's just so far removed from anything we've ever experienced...

The Buddhist temple was super cool too. It was several stories high and had different things on different floors. Kathryn and I both had on tank tops so we had to wear a pillowcase thing around our shoulders to go in. On the ground floor was the main worship area. It was all red and gold and had 100 buddhas lining each wall. There was a museum of sorts on one of the upper floors that told the story of Buddha and we enjoyed it. We also got to bathe a buddha there. I offered to let Caitlin and Chase get a candle or flower and get a blessing from the monk, but they both declined. Chase said he thought he would laugh when the monk hit him on the head with the sticks ... it was a little humorous from the outside looking at it. There weren't many people there so we got to wander around pretty much at will.

Saturday night was a little bit of a bust. We went to the night safari at the zoo. It was super cool, but Cori's belly was hurting a little bit and it was SO CROWDED so we decided to leave after only the tram ride and dinner...and spending over $200

Sunday we walked to breakfast and then packed up to go to Kuala Lampur (KL). It was an extremely short flight and we were greeted by a driver arranged by my friend Scott.

Well, someone else is waiting to use the computer and I have to go get ready for the day ... more later about last night in KL.

hope everyone is well!

Love, Kristen

We're here!

Hi all!

We got into Singapore last night at 11:47pm Singapore time. We flew from Dallas to Tokyo and it took about 13 hours. We had left at 10:10am so no one really slept on the plane and when we landed, it was 1:00pm Tokyo time, but we felt like it was 11:10pm our time and we had been up since 6:00am (which is exceedingly early for each and every one of us!). The flight was unremarkable and long, but the saving grace was seat back entertainment. We had tv shows, movies, games, etc to entertain us and you could even play against other passengers. We were served lunch, snack and dinner.

When we got into Tokyo we were totally exhausted and running on fumes. They couldn't check us in for our Tokyo to Singapore connection in Dallas so we had to go to the Japan airlines counter and check in. It turns out that we couldn't check in because Chuck and Chase have the same names ... it took awhile and a supervisor to sort out. It didn't help that the air conditioning was just about non existent.

While I was getting all of that done, Cori and Caitlin checked out the bathroom and Cori came out saying "You can wash your butt. Hey, do you want to wash your butt?". I came over about that time and she took Kathryn and I straight into the bathroom. There were two airline employees in there and Cori came into the stall with me. She started pushing the button for the music and the flushing sound saying "it's rude for others to hear you pee Mom, push the buttons". Of course after that she got a big kick out of pushing the "wash bottom button" too.

We found our gate and laid down on the seats and slept for a little while in the airport.

When we boarded the next flight, we realized that there were several empty rows behind us so as soon as they closed the doors, we claimed them, stretched out and slept. It was about a 7 hour flight. I woke up just when the dinner cart was by my row and the lady asked if I wanted ketchup rice or curry vegetables. I was really out of it so I knew I must have heard her wrong. She showed me a picture and sure enough - rice with ketchup was being served!! I ordered the ketchup rice and it really was rice with ketchup with some scrambled egg on top. Super delicious! After dinner was served, they came by 6 times, 2 times for each type of tea they were serving. Green, black and english. When we were about 30 minutes from landing, they came by with ice cream that was like a pineapple sorbet kinda. It was so good and refreshing.

That was when Cori started to feel sick and run a fever. We got a cab when we got here and got her some panadol (tylenol) and went to bed. Our hotel has the smallest rooms you have ever seen (you will see as soon as we find a computer to upload them at). We reserved three rooms and each had a double bed, very small desk and chair and a tiny wardrobe. There really was about 18 inches on two sides of the bed to walk on and the other side of the bed was against the wall. When I took a shower this morning, the shower was so small that I couldn't shut the door...oh and we're paying $60 per room per night for this.

All night Cori's belly hurt, but then this morning she felt fine. We walked to a local place and had breakfast (everyone but Chase and Kathryn had prawn nee which is prawns and noodles in a broth). It was so good. Chase ordered prawn and pig tail soup. He liked it. Kathryn had plain noodles in broth and she loved it too. We all loved it but Cori so I walked her across the street and she got a chicken puff and chicken biscuit crackers for breakfast.

We then braved the bus (two buses actually - one a double decker which Cori called an English bus and was thrilled to sit upstairs) to the Singapore Flyer. The buses here charge by the distance you travel, not a flat fare so it is extremely difficult to determine how much to pay and then you have to have exact change. For those not familiar, the Singapore flyer is the largest ferris wheel in the world. I believe it's over 160 meters high. It was amazing and cost us $150 ...

After that, Cori's belly started hurting again so she and I hopped in a cab and came over to the hospital complex. We saw an ENT because we thought she had an ear infection, but she didn't. He gave us some medicine for the diarrhea and said she would be fine. She just has a little bug. I was relieved at the $117 bill which included her medicine. The staff here was amazing and we were seen within 10 minutes of walking in the door. They separate the people in the hospital by complaint and apparently no one else needed an ENT today because we went straight in. I am so glad we weren't needing x-rays because there seemed to be a bunch of people in that complaint area.

I'm in the international patient area of the Raffles hospital right now where they have free internet and Cori is alternating between playing on the other computer and laying on the couch. I'm waiting for her to finish her medicine before we get on our way back to the hotel for a little rest. Poor little thing. I guess if I could pick where she would have gotten sick, Singapore would have been it.

Everyone else is going to Sentosa park for the afternoon to ride zip lines, etc and we're going to take it easy at the hotel and then go grab some dinner later.

Hope all is well with everyone. I can't promise this much detail every time unless Cori continues to have to drink medicine dissolved in water that she doesn't like.

Kristen

only one day to go!

I feel like I'm sprinting to the finish line ... one and a half hotels left to book. Yes, a half .. I'm not convinced that we have an understanding of rates on one of the hotels I booked so I'm still trying to get that worked out.

All airfare has now been purchased.

All in flight entertainment has been purchased.

Have confirmed that the dogs are not going to eat their dog sitter.

What am I forgetting ... what am I forgetting??? I haven't packed myself yet, but everyone else is completely packed.

I guess we can buy most of what I'm forgetting there probably for half the price if I've forgotten something.

one more day ...

kw

finishing packing

We have so much excitement in our lives right now!! I have almost finished packing everyone and have set a deadline of today for myself as we have a busy couple of days coming up. We are looking forward to spending time with Grandma and Grandpa Wyland while they're in town and have to get in at least a couple of Sydney visits before we leave.

Cori told her friend Anne Marie that we were going to be gone for 7 or 25 days. We'll actually be gone from the 7th-24th.

Going to take more passport pictures now to take with us for visas.

Hope all is well with everyone.