Roshley in Asia

Despite the fact that my sister has entered her 3rd trimester of her first pregnancy, she was determined to enjoy one more trip (a “babymoon,” if you will)  before the baby arrives in June.  She and her husband decided to come visit us in Singapore for a few days and then planned that we all go visit Kelemen’s friend in Cambodia.  I still haven’t found a job yet, so I was definitely up for it.  Rob is busy at work, but was able to request Friday off to enjoy a long weekend.

I think Bree was a bit surprised at how hot and humid it is Singapore and (being pregnant) did not enjoy that part at all.  I personally don’t mind it that much, but I’m inside a lot of the day.  When Brelemen was here we were outside most of the day seeing all the sights, so we all got pretty hot.

On their first day we decided to go check out Sentosa, which is a nearby island connected to Singapore via bridge.  Sentosa is known for its man-made beaches and casinos.  We’ve been told foreigners get to gamble at the casinos for free, but that locals must pay 100 SGD.  I really didn’t know what to expect, but my expectations weren’t very high.  Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures to show (we only had Brelemen’s camera that day), but I can tell you that it feels very much like an amusement park.  We walked around for a bit and then made our way over to the beach to try and cool off.  It did feel a bit fake, but we were so happy to have access to the ocean it didn’t matter.  We also enjoyed some of the activities offered by the beach.  KP got to try his hand at the trapeze and he also tried this thing called “FlowRider.”

FlowRider is apparently a new sport that has only been around for a couple of years.  None of us had ever seen it before, but KP was instantly intrigued.  (Here’s the website if you want more info: http://www.waveloch.com/attraction/flowrider-double).  Basically, it’s a wave machine that you can “surf” on.  It looked pretty challenging, but Kelemen got the hang of it pretty quickly.  There was a girl there that we were told is the current female world champion!  The three of us were actually talking about whether or not something like that would succeed in our hometown.  Let us know if any of you have some extra money around that you want to invest (HA)!  ;-)

Although, Sentosa was over-the-top touristy I think we all enjoyed the day.  With so many things around to keep you busy, it was hard not to have fun.

The next day we did a little tour around Singapore.  I took them to Clarke Quay, which is the expat bar and restaurant area of Singapore.  And we walked around Chinatown and Little India.

Clarke Quay.

Chinatown.

A Hindu temple.

We were pretty tired after a long day in the sun, but didn’t have much time in Singapore before leaving for Cambodia, so we decided to visit the Night Safari.  The Night Safari is basically a zoo with nocturnal animals, but most of them are roaming around fairly freely instead of being in cages.  There’s a tram that you can ride around the zoo or you can walk.  Again, another very touristy site, but still enjoyable.

I think the most entertaining part of the Night Safari happened right as we were getting ready to leave.  Again, I wish I had the pictures to show, but will have to wait for Brelemen to send us their photos.  Anyway, just as we were about to walk thru the exit gate we noticed a couple getting one of those foot baths with flesh eating fish.  We were all exhausted, but decided to try it anyway.  Some of you may be familiar with my reputation for having a dubious relationship with animals (I am always the one that gets bitten, bucked, or kicked by domestic or wild animals), so this may not come as a huge surprise, but….. after washing our feet the three of us got ready to put our feet in the pool.  After one fish started nibbling on Bree’s feet she immediately started screaming.  She could barely put her whole foot in the bath without getting hysterical.

When I, on the other hand, put my feet in the bath it was like all the fish went completely crazy.  There must have been at least 100 of them nibbling at my feet.  People have told me that it “tickles,” but I felt more like I was getting eaten alive than tickled.  Maybe it was the slight of seeing that many slimy fish swarming around my feet.  ICK!  I got so overwhelmed I had to remove my feet.  The fish were actually jumping out of the water to get a nibble of my legs!

We were all so shocked at how much the fish seemed to enjoy my flesh we decided we to take all of our feet out of the bath, so as not to distract them and then just put my feet back in.  I could barely get myself to do it!  I felt like I was on an episode of Fear Factor!   I think I only lasted a minute or so.  Man, that was gross.

Since our experience we’ve seen several other flesh eating foot bath places, but every time I check them out there’s only a few fish eating at people’s feet.  I don’t know if my fish were starving or what?!?!  I guess I have good smelling/tasting flesh?!?

The next day, I had a meeting in the morning, so Bree and KP went to see the Marina Sands Hotel.  For those who don’t already know, that’s the famous hotel in Singapore that looks like three towers with a surfboard on top, but the surfboard is actually an infinity pool.  I’m sure most of you have already seen pictures of it.  After that, I was able to meet them at the infamous Raffles Hotel, where we enjoyed an overpriced Singapore Sling.  The Singapore Sling was supposedly created by a bartender working in the hotel bar.

The next day we were off to Cambodia!  Between Bree being pregnant and Rob and I being a bit busy from the move, etc none of us had done much research to prepare for our trip.  Thankfully, we had our trusty Lonely Planet travel guide and a good set of recommendations from KP’s friend, Dave.

Our fist day we flew directly from Singapore to Phnom Penh.  From there a private driver (organized by Dave) picked us up and drove us to Siem Reap.  The drive was about 4 hours and was actually really interesting.  We drove through some very rural areas, so I felt like we got a good look at “real” Cambodian life.

While we were there we were surprised how dry the climate was, but we could tell by the stilts under the houses that the rainy season must be intense!

When we arrived at our hotel we were thrilled with the place.  We stayed at the Victoria Angkor Wat Resort & Spa and highly recommend it!  We got an amazing deal at only 85 USD/night and found the hotel very charming with lots of French Colonial influences.  After we checked in it was close to dinner time, so we enjoyed our hotel happy hour for a bit and then went to dinner.  Dave recommended a restaurant called Nest, so we decided to check that out.

This picture doesn’t show much of the actual restaurant, but we were again surprised how well appointed it was!  Throughout our trip I was constantly struck by how much more comfortable it is to travel in SE Asia than China.  The SE Asian countries just get how to cater to Westerners.  China, on the other hand, has a long way to go!

In our LP book we read the best way to see all the temples/sights in Angkor Wat is to leave your hotel around 5am in order to watch the sunrise.  You then return to the hotel around lunch time for some pool and relaxation time and then go back out again to watch the sunset.  It was a bit tough to get up that early every day, but I did enjoy the afternoon R&R time everyday.

Our first day we went to the Bayon Temple, which is well known for its massive stone faces.

Considering this temple was built in the late 12th century or early 13th century, it was in amazing condition!  It was hard to believe how detailed all the carving was.

We saw both Buddhist and Hindu carvings, as control shifted from one king to another over the generations.

Walking around the inside of the temple.

For “brunch”, we asked our driver to take us somewhere to try traditional Khmer (pronounced Ka-mai) food.  See below for what we got.  It was pretty flavorful, but both Bree and Kelemen enjoyed it more than I did.

The highlight of our afternoon was the Landmine Museum, which I wasn’t expecting to enjoy as much as I did.  When we arrived, a man appeared and volunteered to “show us around.”  I think he was an American guy and told us he (and his wife) had been volunteering there for a couple years.

The museum was started by a local Cambodian man named Aki Ra.  He was actually just named a top 10 CNN Hero in 2010.  I HIGHLY recommend you read about his story (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aki_Ra).  I was truly inspired by his life experiences

and donated to his museum immediately after we got home.

After the museum, we went back to our hotel to relax and enjoy one of the best iced coffees I have ever had!  Our waitress convinced me to try it and now I’m so glad I did.  The trick was that the ice cubes were made of coffee, so as the ice melted the coffee didn’t get watered down.  Genius!

The next day, was the day we were expecting Rob’s arrival.  Unfortunately, he could only get one day off work, so he wasn’t able to enjoy as much of Siem Reap as the rest of us.  Still, we saved the best temples for him, so he didn’t miss too much.  :-)

Normally, I consider myself a fairly detail oriented person, especially when traveling, but for some reason on this trip was completely scatter-brained. Maybe I’m tuned out because I’m not working at the moment, or maybe I was just so relaxed I couldn’t focus?  Maybe I’m getting old?!?!?!

Anyway, I mistakenly thought Rob’s flight was going to arrive at noon, so we told our driver to take us to the airport.  However, when we arrived, Rob was not there.  It’s a pretty small airport, and he’s pretty tall (and white), so hard to miss.  We ran all over the airport looking for him (starting to panic a little when I realized I also forgot to send him our hotel info– like I said, out to lunch!) and still nothing.  Thankfully, the airline was able to tell us that he had arrived on a flight at 10:40am, so we knew he was somewhere in Siem Reap!  We decided to head back to the hotel and keep our fingers crossed he made it there.  I was mentally preparing myself to be berated upon arrival, but when we got to hotel we saw Rob calmly reading a book and relaxing by the pool!  He said he was a bit concerned, but once he got to the hotel he figured we would show up there eventually.  We were so thankful to have found each other that we all decided to just have lunch and enjoy the rest of the trip!  :-)

That afternoon we went to Ta Prohm Temple, which was my favorite of the entire trip.  I just loved the green colors and the tree roots winding in and out of the temple.  Take a look at the pics below for a glimpse.

We had to search around for awhile to find this face hidden among the tree roots.

We tried to save the best temple for last, so on our last morning we went to go see the infamous Angkor Wat.  Sadly, when we woke up it was POURING rain, so our experience was probably a lot different than most people’s.  But we had waited days to see this temple and there was no way we were leaving without going inside, so we waited in the car until the rain died down enough for us to walk around.

It’s unfortunate that our pics won’t be very good of Angkor Wat due to the rain, but it was nice that we weren’t inundated with people.  We were able to walk throughout the complex and not be bothered by hawkers or loud tour groups.

These two pics were actually taken the day before when the weather was more cooperative.  We didn’t go inside that day, but were able to get a few pics of the outside.

Our husbands and Sho Pi, the most friendly driver ever!

After seeing Angkor Wat we had our driver take us back to Phnom Penh, where Dave lives.  Besides being able to visit with Dave, the highlight of this city was the Genocide Museum.  I must warn you that some of the pics to follow are tough to look at, so be prepared or maybe skip this section.

This building used to be a high school, but the Khmer Rouge converted into a “security prison.”

These rooms were each found with a person after being tortured.  We walked into all the rooms one-by-one and found a picture on display of each body.  I believe there were 14 victims.  It was not easy to see.

These bars were used to tie their feet and hands to the bed.

Theses are the graves of the victims in the rooms talked about above.

Pictures of the victims (thousands of them) were on display throughout the museum.

The 2nd and 3rd floors of the buildings were covered with barbed wire to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide.

Many of the school’s rooms were divided into cells.  It is estimated that the prison held 1000-1500 prisoners at a time.

If you’d like to read more about the Khmer Rouge and the devastation it caused to the Cambodian people here are two Wikipedia links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khmer_Rouge_rule_of_Cambodia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum

The rest of our trip was filled with good restaurants and visiting with friends.  Generally speaking, I would rank Cambodia as one of the best trips we’ve taken in Asia.  Between the great food, warm hearted locals, and amazing sights it was hard not to enjoy the trip!  If you’re looking for a travel destination in SE Asia I would definitely add this to the list!  I would, however, make the trip sooner rather than later, before all the other travelers hear about how great it is.

To end on a high note, I’ve included a few other random, fun pictures.

Enjoying some local beer.

We saw many moms with their little ones in tow.  Look Mom– no hands!!!!!!

Love the tuk tuks!

Dave!!

We bought a bug from a street vendor for Rob to try.  He was the only one brave enough to eat it.  He said it tasted like garlic!

No squatting on the toilets allowed.

Bye Bye Cambodia.  Thanks for a lovely and educational trip!!!

I’ve often daydreamed of a trip to Bali, so it’s hard to believe that our first visit was so unexpected and unplanned!  After work Rob came home after maybe his 4th or 5th day to report that he was going to Bali for a client meeting.  The meeting was going to be on a Friday, which meant he  could stay for the weekend and that I could tag along.  We hadn’t done any research at all since the trip was so last minute, so we just hopped online and bought the cheapest flight and most reasonable hotel we could find.  Luckily, we were really happy with the places we chose.  Read on for all the details!

Our first night was spent in Jimbaran, which is where Rob’s meeting was.  My flight was Thursday afternoon, so I arrived at the resort first.  I didn’t even have a chance to look at the resort website (limited internet access at our Singapore hotel), so I had no idea what to expect.  I arrived at the hotel reception after easily getting a cab at the airport and was happy to find out that they upgraded our room…. and boy what an upgrade!  Check out the pics below.

The entrance to our villa.

Our private plunge pool.

Our superfluous living room suite.

Separate bedroom suite and outdoor daybed.

After our “butler” (another over the top detail) gave me a 20 minute orientation to our room I flopped down on the bed feeling overjoyed and ridiculously spoiled!  I decided to take advantage of the few hours of daylight left and explore the resort a bit.

Jimbaran beach, which is widely recognized as one of the best beaches in Bali.

Resort pool.

Sadly, Rob wasn’t set to arrive until pretty late, so I had a peaceful dinner by myself on the beach at sunset.

Not too shabby!!

Rob didn’t end up arriving until about midnight and within five minutes of his arrival he already had his computer plugged in working away.  There definitely was not time for my version of the butler orientation.   I fell asleep, so I’m not quite sure how late Rob was up, but I do know he was out of the room before 7am, so he never got a chance to enjoy it.  I feel a bit guilty about that, but I keep telling myself it’s OK because I enjoyed it enough for both of us. 

With Rob gone before I even got out of bed I realized I needed to keep myself busy until he was done working.  Hhhmmm…. beach, pool, spa???  Yup, that’s exactly what I did…… again feeling a bit guilty, but hay– when in Rome right?!?!

Rob finally showed up at that resort around 5pm, feeling and looking pretty exhausted.  We needed to make our way to our other hotel (the one we were actually paying for.  LOL), but I wanted him to at least feel the ocean, so he rolled up his khakis and in he went.

I love these photos.

After spending just a day in Jimbaran, we were off to another area of Bali called Seminyak.  Seminyak is known as one of the more trendy areas with lots of high end shopping and restaurants.

The Haven, our Seminyak hotel.

On Saturday night we went to a popular restaurant called Ku De Ta, which was recommended to us by a few different people.  The food was only OK, but the view was beautiful.

Unfortunately, we didn’t think to get a picture until it was already too dark.

We spent the next day walking around Seminyak, doing a bit of shopping and eating.

Lunch at The Junction.  Yum!

After lunch, we had some coffee at Grocer & Grind.

This cracked us up.

As did this.

We finished up the day with dinner at Made.

Our last meal in Bali– breakfast at La Lucciola.

All in all, it was a great long weekend.  Bali is a beautiful spot with friendly people and lots to see and do.  We didn’t make it to Ubud, so we hope we’ll have a chance to come back and check it out.

In other news– in just a couple weeks Brelemen will be arriving in Singapore and the four of us will be taking a trip to Cambodia together!  We’re really looking forward to seeing them and can’t wait to see Cambodia.  I’ve heard nothing but great things!

As mentioned in our last post, Rob and I knew the move to Singapore would be exhausting and wanted to pick a place close to our new home for some R&R.   I looked at quite a few locations, but finally decided on Langkawi.  I had read some good reviews about the area and was happy with the amazing prices!

According to Wikipedia, Langkawi “is an archipelago of 99 islands in the Andaman Sea, some 30 km off the mainland coast of northwestern Malaysia.”  I thought a tour guide told us Langkawi is made up of 104 islands, but I may have remembered that incorrectly.  Anyway, it’s also adjacent to Thailand, so during our fishing trip our boat captain pointed to some islands and said “Thailand!”

After living in and traveling throughout China for the last year, we were a bit shocked to realize how much English was spoken in Malaysia.  It wasn’t all that unusual that the resort staff spoke English, but we were surprised to find the cab drivers did as well.  It was also really different to be around so Muslim people, which is something we didn’t see all that often in China except for our trip to Xinjiang.  We even saw a Muslim woman go swimming in a special bathing suit that fully covered her body and included a headscarf.

After we got off the plane we easily found a taxi that could take us to our hotel.  I had read on the website that we needed to take a boat since our resort was on its own island.  The picture above is of the port that our taxi driver took us to.  33 degrees Celsius is about 91 degrees Fahrenheit, which suited us just fine after suffering through 20 -30 degree temps in Shanghai.

After a fairly short ride we were finally at our destination, the Rebak Island Resort!!

This picture is of the marina where our boat rode into.  We later discovered that a lot of the other hotel guests actually arrived on their own sailboats and/or yachts.  Some people we taking extended time off from their jobs to sail around the world…. pretty amazing.

Here are a few pics from around the resort property:

The view from our balcony, which we used quite often for more morning reading and dinner in our room.

The beach.

The pool and swim-up bar.

After we checked-in we didn’t have much time left in the day, so we laid out in the sun for a couple hours, had some dinner, and called it a night.

We mostly came to Langkawi to relax after a crazy few weeks, so we weren’t planning on doing much, but we didn’t want to leave without seeing anything so we planned a couple of activities.  The first activity we planned was a fishing trip.

Rob hasn’t done much fishing before and I hadn’t been in a long time.  I think my most fond fishing memory is going out with my Grandpa on a night deep-sea fishing trip.  My dad’s side of the family takes fishing pretty seriously, so I’ve grown up hearing about it and when I was in middle school my Grandpa took me out on a boat!  When we booked this trip with the resort I thought that’s what we were doing, but it turned out…. not so much.  The boat ended up just taking us around to different spots around a few island where the (small) fish would collect near the coral.   We didn’t have much luck catching anything, but I did have a good run for about 10 minutes where I caught three fish, one right after the other.  We took them back to the resort and the kitchen cooked up our fish for dinner the following night.

Here’s the 2nd fish I caught.

The Captain’s assistant (not sure what to call him) giving me a hand.

Our fish cooked Chinese style.  It was delicious!!!

After our fishing trip we decided to take a tour of the mangroves after Rob’s parents recommended it and our boat guides confirmed it was the best thing to do while in Langkawi.  We learned quite a bit during a tour, but I think one of the most interesting tidbits was that Langkawi was largely protected from the 2004 tsunami due to the mangrove trees.  Our tour guide told us that surprisingly Langkawi has been positively impacted by the tsunami because more people now choose it as a tourist destination.

A pic of the mangrove tree roots.

For most of the tour we spent time searching for animals.  See some pics below for what we found.

Entrance to the bat cave.

The bats.  Not my favorite part of the tour.  ew.

Monkeys.

Wild dog.

A local fishing boat.

Pack of wild dogs.

Snake.

Eagles.

We got really lucky and were able to see two dolphins!!

For our last dinner before going back to Singapore we decided to try a “traditional Bombay Tiffin” meal that was advertised by the resort.  According to Wikipedia “tiffin” is traditionally lunch, but ours was dinner.  The tiffin is the silver tiered-box that you see in the pic and each tier is filled with a different type of food.

All in all, we had a great few days.  I finally caught up on some much needed sleep and Rob was able to relax before starting his new job.  We didn’t really do much considering we were there for 5 days, but that was sort of our plan.  We wanted to plant ourselves on the beach and that’s exactly what we did.  :)

Sorry it’s taken me so long to get this post up.  We finally got internet access installed in our new apartment (yes, we found a place!), but then had an impromptu trip to Bali.  Rob had a meeting there and since I’m not working yet I was able to tag along.  We just got back and will be doing another post on that trip, so keep a look out for that post in the next few days!

I still need to do a bit of work on the apartment, but we’ll post some pics of our new place soon as well.

We’re currently at the airport of Langkawi, Malaysia on our way back to our new “home.”  We spent the last 5 nights here recuperating from our move from Shanghai, which was a HUGE headache, but we survived!

Let me back track a bit and bring you all up to speed on the most recent developments in the life of Roshley.

As most of you already know we were settling into our Shanghai life quite nicely.  Day-to-day activities had evolved from laborious chores to run of the mill errands, mostly due to our Chinese speaking progress (thank you Bing!).  Both of us we’re fairly accustomed to our jobs and we were very thankful to be well supported by a solid group of friends.    Basically, we were content with our lives and really didn’t have any plans to be moving.   In fact, I think both of our minds were starting to think of when we’d be moving back to the States.

Then one day Rob received a call from a firm in Singapore with a really great opportunity.  The interview process went on for a few months, but we were surprised to find ourselves leaning toward him taking the job.  I think part of our motivation was feeling the contentment I described above….. we were longing for a new adventure and in some ways I think feel a bit addicted to experiencing something new.  That being said, if the job offer that Rob received wasn’t something that he was really interested in, I doubt we’d be writing this blog post!

Once the decision to move was made we were forced to make a series of other decisions.  One of which was whether or not to take our dog, Cooper, with us to Singapore.  We talked to a few people about the idea and the general  consensus was that we could easily move her, but after discussing the idea for several hours (yes, we spend way to much time thinking of our dog’s well-being), we decided to send her back to HB to live with her “other Mommy” (our good friend Holly that we lived with before we got married) and my parents.  Cooper will be going back and forth between the two families and will be able to continue life in sunny CA!  She’s with Holly right now and we’ve received good reports so far.  :-)  A special thanks to Holly and Mom and Dad for helping us out!!!  We feel so lucky to have family and friends who have all been so helpful throughout the last 13 months (and counting).

Once we established that Cooper would be returning home we started to make plans for her trip.  This fiasco is partly what made these last few weeks feel like a living hell, albeit a hell sprinkled with wonderful visits with several family members and friends!  Rob and I already had plans to head back to the East Coast to visit his parents and a few friends in NYC for Chinese New Year.  Since we spent CNY in China last year  we wanted to take advantage of the week long holiday to get back home.  Our flights were booked before Singapore was even a thought in our minds and we had booked with Continental.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Continental will not allow dogs to fly in-cabin on international flights and because Cooper is a pug (flat nosed dogs don’t breathe very well), she cannot fly as cargo.  So that meant that Rob and I would first fly to NYC for a couple days to see some old friends, then continue on to Maryland for a visit to where Rob grew up.  We then returned back to Shanghai on Tuesday night and while Rob returned to work on Wednesday I prepped Cooper and myself for our trip to CA leaving the next day.  We left on Thursday morning and hopped into a cab headed for the airport.  I was a bit nervous about getting her through the export process, but it turned out to be amazingly easy.  It wasn’t cheap, but at least there weren’t any problems.

Cooper was a real trooper the entire 11 hours we were in the air and I was so thankful to finally be in sunny San Francisco!!  Yes, we flew into San Francisco, which probably sounds crazy to most people, but there was a method to my madness.  United was the only airline I found that would allow Cooper to fly in-cabin and the only direct flight they have is to SFO.  When Rob and I flew Cooper to China we had used an airline that made us connect in Detroit, which made the process painfully longer.  Luckily, I somehow convinced my crazy, highly energized and pregnant sister to join me on the drive down to HB, so I could deliver Cooper to Holly.

Cooper and I arrived at SFO early Thursday morning, rented a car, got lost driving in SF, but were at Brelemen’s place by 10am!  The customs process to get Cooper into the US was insanely easy.  I had tripled checked to make sure we had all the proper paperwork, but they didn’t even check her once!  I don’t think anyone would have even noticed that I had a dog if I hadn’t said anything.

By the time we had arrived at the house I was exhausted, but we were greeted by a mildly excited Wiki (Brelemen’s pup) and I was happy to be back in CA.  Bree and I decided to meet for lunch and I got the chance to do a little shopping and get my nails done (not a luxury I get to enjoy very much while in Shanghai).   For dinner we met up with our cousin, who I hadn’t seen in over a year and had a great night.

Friday morning Bree, not one to skip on the gym (pregnant or not, bless her), woke me up at the butt-crack to join her at her favorite exercise class.  I was so jet-lagged it really wasn’t that hard to get up.  After the gym she had two more appointments she needed to go to and then we were off for the 6 hour + drive down to HB with both Cooper and Wiki in the back seat.

Thankfully, my sister is quite the talker.  Without her ongoing conversation I doubt there was any way I could do that drive on the 5 (I was the only one insured, so she couldn’t drive) for so many hours.  Once in LA we luckily got to meet up with one of Bree’s good friends for dinner, which made it easy to avoid Friday night rush hour traffic.

We got to my parents empty house in HB around midnight and immediately went to bed.  My parents were unfortunately vacationing in HI, so I missed seeing them.   Saturday we got up early and began an exhausting day of running all over Orange County to get everything done that she and I needed to do.  A trip to the mall, a visit to the Dr., a Target run, Cooper exchange, Evy pick-up (my parent’s dog was going back up to SF with us), lunch, mid-day ice cream, and dinner with friends…… it was a long one.  Sunday, we again got up early and after a visit with some family we were off for another long drive back up to SF.

By this point in the trip, my ongoing joke was that I was “without time zone.”  I basically slept when the opportunity presented itself (i.e. whenever we weren’t running around full speed) and ate when someone put food in front of me.  The luxuries of eating when I “felt” hungry or going to sleep when I “felt” tired were long gone.  I had been running on about 4-5 hours a night for a good two weeks now and it was starting to take effect!

The drive on Sunday was another long one, but we made it without too much drama (there was a small, minor incident with the rental car, but it only caused more anxiety on my part, as there weren’t any significant consequences).  On Sunday night I along with Brelemen (and the two dogs) finally enjoyed a quiet night of TV and takeout.

Monday morning I was off again….. back to what Rob and I now affectionately refer to as, “THE CHINA.”

I know many are wondering about our trip to Langkawi, Malyasia and we will post about that soon!  This post however seems to be getting a bit long, so keep your eyes open for a follow-up sometime in the next week or so.  In fact, I’m sure we’ll get back to posting more often as we’ll have more things/experiences that our worth mentioning.

Happy reading!!

xoxo,
roshley

Shanghai is slowly learning about Christmas and how to celebrate it, but it’s still a bit difficult to get the full effect, so we decided to fly to Hong Kong, where we heard “Christmas is everywhere.”

On Christmas eve we flew to Shenzhen, which is a city in mainland China, across the water from HK.  Although it takes longer, it’s usually much cheaper than flying directly to HK.  We arrived in Shenzhen (SZ) around 7 p.m. and rode the MTR (subway) to Kowloon, which Wikipedia refers to as an “urban area” within HK.  It’s a bit far from Central HK, where many of the touristy things are, but the hotel options are usually a bit cheaper, which was great for us.  Our hotel wasn’t the most convenient, but it was nice and comfortable.  For dinner we went to a quintessential Cantonese Noodle House.  We’ve already been to a similar resturant while my Mom and Aunt visited us in SH, but wanted to try out the “real” thing.  This restaurant was recommended to us by our Michelin Restaurant Guide (thanks Brelemen!) and was conveniently located to our hotel.

It’s sort of become a thing for Rob to take my picture eating the local cuisine.  We must have 10-20 pics similar to this last one.

On Christmas morning we got up early and trekked out to Disneyland.  We decided Disneyland was probably the place that felt the most “Christmasy” and we turned out to be right!

Christmas morning by the tree in our hotel.

Unlike the original Disneyland, the best way to get to HK Disney is by public transportation.  We rode the MTR and then transferred to the Disney Resort MTR Line.

It’s sort of similar to the parking lot tram that we’re used to, but to be honest, I expected it to be more festive.  There wasn’t even happiest place on earth music playing.  lame.

After a bit over an hour, we finally made it!

We stopped to take a few pics of Main Street, which was decorated for Christmas, but didn’t spend much time there because I had read it’s the most crowded in the morning.  We planned to return later in the day.

It’s a bit strange to see mountains behind Sleeping Beauty’s castle isn’t it?!?

One of interesting differences between HK and the original Disneyland was the food!  We didn’t see much of the stereotypical “American” cuisine (pizza and french fries).  Instead there was mostly Chinese food…. we even saw dried squid being sold at the concession stands and the locals were loving it!!!

(Check out the menu.)

Definitely, not your typical meal at Disneyland.

After lunch we wanted to check out the “Let it Snow” parade, which was pretty much what we expected.  True to the name, it did in fact “snow” which was kinda fun.

Waiting for the parade to start while enjoying hot cocoa and candy canes.

The snow

After the parade we went to ride a few of the rides.  We rode Space Mountain twice and were surprised how good it was.  I can’t be sure, but I swear it was faster and longer than the original.  Sadly though, there was no Thunder Mountain, Matterhorn, Pirates of Caribbean, Indiana Jones, etc.  Most of the rides there were focused on the really little kids.

I was happy to see It’s A Small World and it was even decorated for the holidays.  I was also looking forward to see how America would be represented.  I don’t think the original has an American section, does it???

Mei guo jia you!!!  (Yay America!)

This park is much smaller than the one in CA.  It only has three lands, Fantasy Land, Tomorrow Land and Adventure Land.  We arrived at 10 am and it was a stretch to stay until 5 pm.  One of the best things was a Lion King performance that was sort of like a mini-production of the Broadway musical.  I think we were both shocked how good the singing, dancing, and costums were.

Generally speaking, I think HK Disney was exactly what we were looking for.  It’s much smaller than the original one, but it was still a fun day and interesting to see how the park was localized.

After we left the park we decided to ride the ferry over to Central HK and check out Lan Kwai Fong (LKF), which is a well known bar street.   Rob had been to HK twice before, but never found the time to check it out, so he was looking forward to the trip.  It was much busier than I expected, but fun.  We went to a few different bars and ran into many drunken expats enjoying the holiday.  We even saw a British guy doing the worm in the middle of the street, but couldn’t get our camera out in time to get a video of it.

Our ferry ride.  The buildings were all lit up with holiday decorations!!!

LKF.

We started our night with a drink at Azure, a rooftop bar.

After that we went to a bar called Bulldogs, which I had read some good reviews of.   Rob was happy with the beer selection and I, in the effort to be festive, ordered an apple cider.

Rob was ecstatic to end the night with a late night slice of pizza. That is definitely something you can’t do in SH.

The next morning we wanted to get dim sum before we had to head back to SZ.  We referred to our trusty Michelin Restaurant Guide again and got an amazing recommendation for a small dim sum joint.  Nothing special as far as decor goes, but we got there 35 minutes before it opened and there was already a line!  We took this as a good sign as we stood in line and tried to stay warm.

Before the restaurant even opened.

A very small place, but you know what they say…. don’t judge a book by its cover!

I’m not usually a fan of baked bao, but man– this stuff was AWESOME!

The food was so good, it was definitely worth the wait.

After brunch, it was time to head back to the hotel to pick up our luggage and return home, to SH.  It was a short trip and definitely a new way to celebrate Christmas, but we still had a great time.  HK is such an amazing city with tons of good food and places to go.  We hope we’ll have more opportunities to go back.

As many of you may already know I am a total Christmas nut!  Something about all the preparation, parties, and good quality time with loved ones always puts me in a good mood.  Every year the day after Thanksgiving I initiate a strict regimen of Christmas traditions that last all the way through NYE.  During this time I (much to Rob’s dismay) enjoy a solid month of Christmas carols, Christmas movies, and of course decorating galore!

This year is the first in many that I’ve found myself having to change my methods of Christmas celebrating.  Some things have of course stayed the same– KOST 103.5 has Christmas carols streaming live online (YAHOO!!!) and I made sure when we moved that my collection of Christmas movies came along with us.  But outside of music and movies, everything has been very different than what we’re used to.

While I wanted to decorate our apartment for Christmas, it just wasn’t practical given that we couldn’t bring our entire collection of ornaments, etc to China.  We could have purchased all new stuff, but that didn’t seem all that practical either.  I was feeling a bit down without a Christmas tree, so my sweet husband surprised me one day with what we’re calling the “Christmas shrub!”  He trekked all the way out to the flower market and found the closest thing to a Christmas tree he could!  I came home one day and found it sitting in the middle of our living room.   The branches aren’t very strong, but I did manage to put the few ornaments we have here (purchases we’ve made during our travels).

Normally, one of my favorite holiday events is an annual party (girls only allowed) made up of three generations of close friends that are more like family than friends.  I think I’ve only missed one of these parties in my entire life and I wasn’t about to make it two, so I had my mom bring her laptop to the party.  I woke up at 5:30 am, climbed into our guest bed, so as not to disturb Rob, and joined in on the fun via the internet!  It wasn’t quite the same, but still better than nothing.

To help keep the Christmas spirit alive while in China, some of our friends decided to get together for a holiday dinner before everyone made their way back to the US to see their families.   We all met up at Madison (Austin’s delicious restaurant that I’m sure we’ve mentioned before) for some fabulous holiday grub.  We made everyone wear ugly Christmas sweaters, holiday hats, and participate in a Secret Santa Exchange.  See below for a few pictures from the joyous event.  :-)

Me, in my “ugly Christmas sweater,” posing with our Christmas shrub!  We thought it would be fun to have everyone wear ugly christmas sweaters, until we realized those aren’t very easy to find in China!  We made the best of it though and got creative.  :-)

All of us with our festive gear.

Here are some pics of the gift exchange, which was a lot of fun.  Everyone got pretty into it and came up with some good ideas, which always makes it more entertaining.

JT got really into the Christmas spirit and bought Rob beer and…. you guessed it!  That must have been a fun purchase to try to make in China.  LOL.

“Soft poo” (as we call it) is sort of a regular topic of conversation in China and has become somewhat of an inside joke within this circle of friends.  As such, Rob thought it would be appropriate to gift Brian with a “SHIT KIT” made up of many things including a brightly colored toilet seat warmer that you see in Brian’s hands.  It’s a genius invention sold on practically every street corner in SH during the winter.

In this last photo I’m enjoying Madison’s apple strudel and an amazing brick of pecan ice cream!  YUM!

Tomorrow will be Xmas eve here and we’ll be off to HK to celebrate.  We hear that Christmas is a fun event in HK, so we’re looking forward to the experience, but nothing compares to being home with family, friends, and all the traditions you’ve grown up with.  Rob and I will be missing you all, but we hope your holidays are merry!

It hasn’t been a very cold winter so far, but today we got snow!   I doubt it will stay for long, as the weather forecast is showing temperatures back into the 60’s this weekend.  I had to get some pics while I could.

Here’s a view of our complex from the 24th floor.

Cooper’s never seen snow before today, so we decided to take her out and she how she reacted.  She mostly just looked  cold!

She has on a sweater and a pink parka we bought for her when we were in Taipei.  On our walk today, a Chinese guy said (in Chinese), “What kind of dog clothes are those?!?!”  We hoped the parka would help keep her warm, but she was shivering the whole time.

After Rob got home, we decided to go back out and take a few more pictures.  It was a lot colder without the sun!

I hope everyone is having a good Holiday Season and is keeping warm!  We’re off to Disneyland HK in a few days!

For Thanksgiving this year we were thankful to celebrate in Taipei with Rob’s cousin and his family.  It’s hard to believe that we would have family living so close while being in China, but we do, and we wanted to take advantage of that!  Rob has used most of his vacation time already, so we could only go for the weekend, but it was still a welcome change from Shanghai!

Rob and I with his Cousins once removed (looked that one up on Wikipedia).

After we arrived late Friday afternoon we played with the boys for a few hours and then met up with Danny for dinner in the city center.  After dinner, Danny and Zachary took us to the famous Shilin night market.

The market is most famous for its food, but we were still full from dinner, so we just got some shaved ice.  I got the mango shaved ice and it was SO good.  I’ve eaten it several times before in Shanghai, but it never compared to this.

On Saturday, we started the day with breakfast and then followed with a great hike up Yang Ming Shan, a dormant volcano.

The view from the top.

After we returned from our hike we got ready for Thanksgiving dinner.

The boys get a look at the turkey for the first time.

Uncle Rob gives a lesson on turkey carving.

After dinner, we all watched Charlie Brown’s Thanksgiving special together.

Sunday was Benjamin’s birthday and we were lucky enough to be there to celebrate with him!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENJAMIN!!!

After Bree and Kelemen returned home, my Mom and Aunt came the following week to SH.  They stayed for a great ten days and at the end of their stay we stayed overnight in Xi’an to go check out the Terracotta Warriors (兵马俑).

The Terracotta army was discovered in the Spring of 1974 by a farmer while digging a water well.  The army was created by First Emperor Qin to help protect his tomb.  Since the time of discovery, archaeologists have excavated three different “pits” made up of over 8,000 soldiers as well as chariots and horses.  Our tour guide told us that when the soldier are originally excavated, they are colored, but that the paint evaporates (?) within a few days of being exposed.  The Chinese government hasn’t figured out a method to preserve the color yet, so until they find a solution excavation has been postponed.  Even so, there museum is still quite impressive.  Here are a few pics from our trip.

Before we entered the museum there was a long walk filled with all kinds of touristy….. well, crap really.  lol.  We took a quick picture with these headless statues, but I think we were supposed to pay (and didn’t)…. oops!

This is the most impressive pit of the three.  I think it has over 5,000 soldiers in it…. pretty amazing in person!

It takes about six months to put a soldier together after it’s discovered.

And no two faces are the same!

We were lucky enough to meet the farmer who discovered the army and get a picture with him.

After the museum we wanted to try some local cuisine, so we went to a famous restaurant and ordered the soup.  It looks kinda strange in the photo, but it was actually pretty good.

After dinner, we shopped a bit at the market and then headed back to the hotel, on our way to the airport.

It was a quick trip (only one day), but we still enjoyed it and it was great to be able to go with my Mom and Aunt!