Travels of Jeff and Mia

Um, So I Guess It's Been A While :)

2009-06-08T23:37:00.003-05:00

Sorry we've been M.I.A. for a while, but we are still alive and well! Just thought we'd give a quick update. After 11 months, we finally left Thailand at the end of April. While I went back to the US, Jeff had to fly straight to Kuwait for another assignment. Jeff was supposed to be out there until September, so I snuck in a vacation to South Carolina to visit my parents, and then planned on heading to Kuwait to join him. However, as things go in this job, the assignment ended up changing. It took a few weeks to get him out of there, but after five weeks in Kuwait Jeff actually got to come home! He went into his office for the first time since January 2008 (and even back then it was only for one day!). We quickly found out we would be heading back to Doha, Qatar where Jeff had his very first road assignment. Luckily there were a few delays, so Jeff was able to spend about two weeks back home. We got to hang out with our families, and even caught a Brewers/Cardinals game!

On Friday we left the US and we're now back in Doha. Jeff was here for six months from October 2005 to April 2006. We weren't married yet and I was still in law school and working, but I was able to come out here for a week to visit. It's amazing how much this city has changed (but that's for another post!). It's a little bit nostalgic coming back here, and it seems like things are coming full circle. We're sure most of you know, but Jeff is planning on coming off the road and working in the office for good in September. That means our time left on the road is running out, so its really cool to possibly end things where they began! That's all for now, but now that we're back on the road hopefully the posts will come more often!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2009-03-19T23:49:00.008-05:00

This year was definitely our best St. Patrick's Day since we've been on the road. For starters, we were in a location where there was actually an Irish Pub (I guess Russia and India don't know what they're missing!). Plus, one of Jeff's co-workers was in town on vacation, so we had someone else to celebrate with!

It was a work night for Jeff, so we couldn't stay out too late, but we spent the night at a local pub, Molly Malones. They had several specials going on throughout the night.

There was a live band . . .

. . . free green shooters (still not sure what was in them) . . .

. . . and free t-shirts.

Several of the staff members had on crazy hats, so of course we had to try them on!

Oh, and to top it all off, there was this guy . . .

Yes, he is wearing a skirt and makeup and he does have two melons in his shirt!

Good fun, good friends, and good Irish beer . . . we couldn't have asked for more!

New Photos

2009-02-21T21:47:00.002-06:00

We know it has been a while, but we finally updated our photo site with some new pictures. All of our Christmas photos and our recent trip to Bangkok are up there. We're also trying to post some from Chinese New Year soon.

Also, we recently posted some new albums to Shutterfly that we thought we'd share:

Paris 2007

Our Ancestry Trip

Enjoy!

That's One Big Beer!

2009-02-18T21:53:00.005-06:00

Just a few doors down from the hotel there's a great German Restaurant/Brewery called the Hopfbrauhaus. They brew a great hefeweizen that we've had many times. Typically we order a pint, or a whole liter if we're feeling ambitious. On the menu there's a three liter option. We've only seen it ordered once, and it was by a fairly large party. We always wanted to order it, but it's fairly expensive, and it's a lot of beer, so we never had. A few weeks back Jeff and I went to Hopf and ordered a liter each. Our waiter informed us that there was a special on the three liter jug if we were interested, so we decided to go for it. It took them a while to bring the drink, and when they did we couldn't stop laughing.

It was huge! Do you notice that there is a ladle next to the glass to serve the beer! There's no way you could lift the glass and accurately pour it! We were a little overwhelmed, but eventually we stopped laughing and tried to make a dent in that massive glass!

From left to right pint, liter, and three liter glasses (for comparison)

It took us about three hours, but we managed to finish the whole thing, much to the amusement of those around us! I really think we should have gotten a larger discount or a commission since others around us started ordering the three liter glass too! We were trendsetters for the night!

Our Nieces

2009-02-11T20:58:00.000-06:00

We promise this is our final Christmas post! The last part of our trip to the US was a visit to South Carolina to see Jeff's brother Scott's family. His wife Lou Ann just had a baby in November, so we were excited to meet our new niece Cierra Rose. We spent about 4 days down in SC, so we had lots of time to play with Roxanne and Cierra. Jeff's whole family was there and we had a really good time! Not much to write, but a lot of pictures to share!

First up we'll introduce you to Cierra!

Being rocked by Daddy

Sporting the faux-hawk while napping

Opening presents with Grandma and Grandpa

Such a happy baby!

Sleeping with Aunt Rachel

Outside with Daddy

There was lots of dancing and silliness going on!

Scott and Jeff sporting their Christmas gifts to each other

Roxanne being silly with Aunt Rachel

Dancing to the Madagascar 2 Soundtrack

The fun was too much for some of us to handle!

One afternoon Jeff, Scott, Roxanne and I went disc golfing at a local park.

We tried to take a few good family pictures too!

Jeff, Roxanne and I

The whole Wery clan

Such a cute picture of Scott and his girls

Snow!!!

2009-02-08T22:13:00.002-06:00

Yup, we're still blogging about Christmas :) Before we were home for Christmas it had been almost an entire year since we had seen snow. I talk to my parents almost every day, and they had been telling me about all of the snow they had received in Milwaukee. When we arrived in Chicago we were so excited to see a few inches on the ground. That however was nothing compared to the snow we encountered a few days later at my parents house.

When we arrived, this was the scene in the front of the house and on the back porch:

And as if that wasn't enough, it continued to snow almost every day we were home. My parents let their dog, Gunner, outside in the back yard to do his business. With all of the snow, I had to go outside and shovel the porch just so we could open the door and let him out.

The snow was so deep that Gunner could hardly move. He had cleared a small path for himself that he traced and retraced every time he went outside.

We did manage to find one way to get him off his path: throwing his favorite ball into the snow. The dog is a retriever, he's wired to chase, no matter what the circumstances. We had soooo much fun tossing the ball and watching him chase through the snow to retrieve it.

After all that time in the snow, we needed to warm up by the fire!

After a year without snow it was awesome to have a white Christmas!

It's Santa!

2009-02-03T21:50:00.002-06:00

Yup, its another far overdue Christmas posting :) We arrived back in the US on the 20th and spent a day or two in IL with Jeff's family. We then headed up to Milwaukee to spend time with my family. Every year my Aunt has a Caroling Party on December 23rd, and since we were home we were really excited to get to attend. It's a fairly large party, and there are always plenty of little kids anxiously awaiting Santa's appearance. Santa must have the date on his calendar, because he manages to show up every year. Unfortunately this year bad weather prevented Santa from making the trip. He was kind enough to call my Aunt and let her know he wouldn't be there. He didn't want to disappoint the children, so he told my Aunt that a Santa suit and some candy canes would be waiting in her laundry room. He had scoured his naughty and nice list and determined that Jeff was the perfect candidate to fill in for him. Within five minutes of arriving at the party my Aunt informed Jeff of Santa's wishes, and Jeff was "thrilled" to fill in.

Now it takes a lot of courage to play Santa, so my very generous cousins made sure that Jeff had all of the "liquid courage" he needed for his big performance. Apparently Santa has called and cancelled before, and my male cousins have all been on the nice list, so they have all filled in before. They gladly introduced Jeff to their friend Jack Daniels, who helped him get ready.

We all know Santa is a big jolly fellow. Jeff unfortunately is not, so we had to find some pillows to help him fill out the suit. Our first pillow wasn't quite the right fit. He looked more like Santa-Bob Square pants.

With help from Jack Daniels, my dad, my uncle, and two of my cousins, we were able to figure out the suit. Since Jeff was Santa, I guess that made me Mrs. Claus, so of course I helped get him dressed.

Once he was ready, he came through the front door for his big performance. He was a little nervous, but he handed out candy canes like a pro!

The show could have lasted all night, but my adorable cousin Margaret (who was the flower girl at our wedding) shouted out "You look like Jeff." Not wanting to betray Santa's trust in him, Jeff high-tailed it out of there and was back at the party within minutes. Though he was nervous I think he had a great time. Plus, he must have ensured his spot on the nice list for a few more years to come!

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

2009-01-14T22:05:00.005-06:00

Yes, we know Christmas was a few weeks ago, but we never got a chance to post our pictures, so . . . better late than never! After Thanksgiving I couldn't wait to search for Christmas decorations to hang up in our room (bear in mind that we didn't know we were coming home for Christmas, so we wanted to make it as festive as possible!). You may recall that two years ago in Korea we couldn't find any decorations so we had to make our own (who could forget Jeff's green shirt stretched over a lampshade as our"tree"). I feared the same thing would happen here, but boy was I wrong! Our local grocery store had a ton of tinsel and lights, and after stops at three large department stores we were even able to find a tree! Below are a few pictures . . .

We were told our lamp looked like a festivus pole :)

Our tree!

It's hard to tell in the picture, but the tinsel is green and gold, so we called this our Packer mirror (too bad it didn't help us win!)

Everything we watched was a Christmas movie!

Since we were able to come home for Christmas, we had to take the decorations down on the 21st. But they didn't go to waste, we passed them off to one of Jeff's co-workers who is on a different assignment about an hour from here. He travels with his wife and two young sons, so we thought they'd enjoy the decorations!

Quick Update

2009-01-05T01:14:00.003-06:00

Happy 2009! We know it's been a while since we've posted, so we thought we'd give you all a quick update. We are currently still in Thailand, and it looks like we will be here through mid-March or so. The weather is still fantastic, but we can tell that high season is upon us, as there are WAY more tourists here than in the last six months.

December was very busy for us. Two members of Jeff's crew had to leave for various reasons, and so Jeff was working 8 pm to 8 am every single day. Luckily that ended on December 19th! On December 20th we got an early Christmas present: two tickets home for Christmas!!!! The unit Jeff was working on needed to be shut down for 2 weeks, so we were able to fly back home and spend the holidays with our families. It was a busy 10 days and we split our time between Milwaukee, Lake Zurich, and Columbia, SC. We arrived back here on New Years Day.

I know this is a short post, but we promise more stories and pictures from our trip back home soon!

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T23:57:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope you all had a wonderful day and were able to share it with the ones you love! While nothing could compare to being at home with our families, we managed to have a pretty festive Thanksgiving halfway around the world.

The day started off when Jeff came home from work at about 9:00 am. He got a phone call from the front desk, but wouldn't tell me what it was all about. Then 20 minutes later there was a knock on our door, and a special delivery. Jeff brought in a box, and I knew it was some kind of sweet treat. I had just woken up, but the wheels were spinning and I was trying to figure out what it could be. Immediately I thought pie (based on the shape of the box). It clicked that it was Thanksgiving, and I guessed that it was a pumpkin pie. To my sheer delight, I was right!!! Apparently two other roadies had brought pie into work with them in the morning and Jeff asked them where they got it. They said the hotel, and Jeff ordered on from the front desk as soon as he got home. Without even bothering to get out of bed I devoured the first piece!

It was good, but it wasn't a traditional American pumpkin pie. As you can tell from the color it was more orange than brown. We decided we could make the pie better if we ran to the grocery store and picked up some spices and some whipped cream. We knew it would be asking too much for the store to carry the Pumpkin Pie spice, but we did grab some cinnamon and nutmeg. We got back home and immediately at our second pieces! MUCH BETTER!!!!
After that Jeff headed to bed for the day and I took a little nap with him. I woke up and spent the afternoon at the spa getting a massage! Jeff woke up later in the evening and we headed downstairs to one of the restaurants at our hotel. They were having the traditional Thanksgiving feast, and two of the roadies were nice enough to make reservations for the 16 of us! It may not have been family, but it was great to be at a big table with the people we've lived with for the last 6 months. (thanks to Angela for some of these pictures :))

How many times can you say that you've celebrated Thanksgiving with a Russian, a Brit, a Vietnamese, and two Venezuelans! And how many times can you say you celebrated Thanksgiving outside in a tropical paradise! For being 10,000 miles away from the US, the food was pretty good and pretty traditional! Turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, etc. (although no traditional stuffing, but beggars can't be choosers!).

We stuffed ourselves silly and had a great time! It was by far our favorite Thanksgiving away from home yet!

We Met Celebrities!!!!

2008-11-25T09:16:00.001-06:00

That's right, we met some of the biggest celebrities in the world at Universal Studios in Orlando. Who did we meet you may ask? Does this answer your question:

Yup, we met the REAL Bart and Lisa Simpson!!! Outside the Kwik-E-Mart!!!! Okay, we aren't really that excited about it, but we thought it was hilarious that they were there, so we had to wait in line to have our picture taken. Marge and Homer were around later, but they were leaving, so we didn't get our picture taken with them!

That was just a small part of our day at Universal Studios when we were in Orlando.

We arrived relatively early, and started meandering. We noticed a line outside the Terminator 2 show, and as luck would have it, the show started in 5 minutes. I had seen the show like 10 years ago at Universal Studios Hollywood, but it was still pretty cool.

We then headed to Krustyland (AKA, the Simpsons Ride). The walk up to the ride was really cute. There was a Kwik-E-Mart (which felt strangely like a gift shop!), a Squishee stand, and all kinds of murals with characters on them.

The ride just opened this spring and we were so excited to ride it. Its Krustyland themed, and as soon as you walk in you feel like you're actually in the Simpsons World.

We waited in line for about 45 minutes, but it seemed like five because there was so much to keep us entertained in the line. The best part was the dozens of flatscreens playing classic Simpsons clips as well as original stuff animated for the ride. When we finally got inside the building, there were all kinds of screens playing different scenes that fit with the Krustyland theme. It was so much fun!

The ride itself was awesome. It was very different than any other ride we'd been on before. You enter a room and sit in a typical roller coaster car. However, instead of plunging forward on tracks, we were raised up into a dome that was one large video screen. From there we were jerked, twisted, and turned to make it feel like we were on a real roller coster. It was totally different, but so much fun!

After that we headed over to the Men in Black ride. It was really fun because it was interactive. We were spinning along the track while trying to shoot at the aliens. I have terrible aim, so its no surprise that Jeff crushed me in the final score!

We then made our way to the Jaws ride.

Again, I had ridden the Universal Studios Hollywood version, and this one was pretty similar, but it was still fun. Our tour guide was a complete ham, which made it fun. Jeff was scared to get wet, so I took one for the team and sat on the outside of the boat. Somehow the water managed to hit only one area of my body. . .

Thankfully it was hot out, so my bum dried quickly! We hit up a few smaller attractions and then made our way over to the Mummy ride. We had heard this ride was awesome and we were expecting a long wait. We didn't see a line when we got there, so we were hopeful, but it turns out the ride temporarily closed for repairs! We were bummed, but hungry, so we grabbed some food and sample size beers a the Irish Pub across the street (where we could still see the Mummy line).

As we were ready for our bill, we saw the line reopen. Jeff quickly ran across the street to put our bag in a locker while I paid the bill. We hauled behind to the ride and basically walked straight on! It was awesome! The ride itself was really cool too! All kinds of special effects, and blazing fires! Plus there were dudes on stilts outside, which is always cool!

A few more rides and we were ready to call it a day! We made a quick stop at the Bubba Gump Shrimp company so I could buy a T-Shirt (my one from Charleston got ruined in the hotel laundry some time ago) and were on our way!

Time of Mourning

2008-11-23T03:32:00.000-06:00

November 14th to the 19th were days of mourning to remember Her Royal Highness the Princess Galyani Vadhana. Her Royal Highness, who was the sister of the King, passed away on January 2nd, 2008 at the age of 84 after battling abdominal cancer. When she passed Thailand was in mourning for one hundred days. During that time, and for several months after, Her Royal Highness has laid in state at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. November 14th to the 19th was her royal funeral. It was only the second full royal funeral in the 62 years that King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) has ruled the country, which really shows how important Her Royal Highness was to the King and to this country.

There were countless ceremonies honoring the Princess, all of which were broadcast live on every Thai TV channel. Here is just a rough idea of the different ceremonies performed.

14 November - Evening Rites at the Dusit Maha Prasart Throne Hall
15 November - 7am - The Procession Ceremony, moving the Royal Urn from the Dusit Maha Prasart Throne Hall to the Royal Cremation Ground, Sanam Luang
15 November - 4.30pm - The Royal Cremation Ceremony
16 November - Collection of the Royal Ashes
17 November - Rites for the Royal Ashes
18 November - Moving of part of the Royal Ashes to the Chakri Maha Prasart Throne Hall, where all other Royal Ashes are kept
19 November - Moving of part of the Royal Ashes to the Royal Cemetery at Rajabopit Temple

We were not able to make it to Bangkok to be a part of the ceremonies, but thousands of Thais from all over the country were there. Those that could not make it were watching live on TV.

On Saturday, Her Royal Highness' funeral pyre was lit by the King and she was cremated. In Pattaya, Walking Street, which is filled with go-go bars and working ladies, was basically completely shut down as a gesture of reverence to Her Royal Highness. It may not sound like much, but the hundreds of bars on Walking Street fuel this town's economy. Shutting it down on a weekend really is a feat and is a serious sign of respect. On Wednesday the King and his Queen Consort placed Her Royal Highness' cremation urn in its final resting place, thus ending the royal funeral. The period of mourning is now over, but Thais will never forget the Princess, whom they all loved dearly.

Loy Krathong

2008-11-22T20:09:00.001-06:00

On Wednesday, November 12th Thailand celebrated Loy Krathong, the festival of lights. Wikipedia has a good explanation of the history of the holiday, and what it celebrates. While we defer to Wikipedia on the origin, we can talk about how the holiday is celebrate from first hand knowledge!

On Wednesday Beach Road was full of vendors creating elaborate banana leaf boats. Thais purchase the boats, light the candles and incense and place them in the water as an offering. The boats come in all different shapes and sizes, and some are more elaborate than others. They all have some type of flower decoration as well as a candle and incense. Here's a few pictures of some of the stands selling/displaying their boats.

The beach was crowded with tons of people releasing boats into the water. There were so many adorable children running around and having fun!

Of course we had to get in on the boat action, so a few of us purchased boats . . .

. . . attempted to light the incense and the candles in the windy conditions . . .
. . . and placed them in the water.

Since we are on a beach, and not near a river, a lot of the boats were turned over immediately in the tide. Jeff and Sara thought they would roll up their pants and go a little deeper to give their boat a chance. Unfortunately the tide had a different plan for them, and they ended up soaked!

Another part of the celebration of Loy Krathong is launching Khom Fai, which are like miniature hot air balloons. People on the beach were purchasing the balloons, lighting them, and watching them coast into the night. It was really cool when people managed to get a whole string of the balloons lit all at the same time.
However, because of the wind, most of the balloons ended up like this one . . .

There were also fireworks being lit up and down the beach. Police were trying to regulate this, as the country was still in mourning for the death of Her Royal Highness Princess Galyani Vadhana.

After we watched the fireworks and launched our boats, we headed off to walking street. It was absolutely crazy there! We saw tons of guys and girls dressed up in traditional Thai attire (although many of the men were in the traditional female Thai attire).

Jeff had to work the next day, so we called it an early night, but we had a great time. We love it when we get to experience foreign holidays! This was probably our favorite because there was so much for us to do!

Back in the Swing of Things

2008-11-18T18:55:00.008-06:00

I am back in Thailand, and we are back in the swing of things over here. About two weeks ago Jeff received his new assignment here, which meant that I got the green light to fly back out. We are really excited to get to spend some more time in Thailand, as we have really fallen in love with this country! We will miss our families at the holidays, but it looks like we will be staying in Pattaya until the end of January.

I had been out of Thailand for six weeks, and for the most part everything is the same as I left it. However, in the week I've been back I have noticed a few changes. First off, the weather is completely different. When I left it was rainy season. Every day was exactly the same; the morning was sunny, and every afternoon like clockwork the skies would open up to drench us. Since I returned, its been cloudy a few times, but no rain! The absence of rain has been great, but even better has been the drop in humidity! All summer long it was ridiculously humid here. You couldn't walk outside without getting sweaty. Now, I can be outside all day and not break a sweat. It's such a HUGE difference! Case in point: in my difficult daily schedule (note the sarcasm) I try to squeeze in some pool time every day. Before I left, after 15-20 minutes in the sun I would be dripping in sweat and would have to jump in the pool to cool down. All last week I laid at the pool for hours on end without even breaking a sweat! The nights are so much cooler here and all in all the weather's just a lot more pleasant.

Another huge difference is the composition of tourists. Summer is the low season here, so most tourists we encountered fit into one of two categories: 1. Australian families/couples; or 2. Older single white men from the west (US, Germany, Russia mostly). The Australians were on a cheap winter getaway. The single men were taking advantage of what put this town on the map. November to March is high season here, and there is a whole new crowd walking the streets. Everywhere we look there are TONS of older couples on holiday. There are still the single old men, but there are also a lot of single younger men now, and they tend to come in large groups. They do the same things the old single men did, but there's just a lot more of them!

The last difference is probably my favorite. Since it was low season, the hotel here was under construction. Every day we lived with constant pounding, hammering, and drilling. Now that high season is here, the construction is over!!! This is so fantastic considering that Jeff worka night shift and had to try and sleep through the noise!

We have a lot of blog posts to catch up on, so stay tuned!!!

What's Happening?

2008-10-17T08:44:00.000-05:00

We have been busy, busy, busy lately! In the last few weeks we have both traveled back to the US for two weddings and a shower! I flew home on September 26th, and on the 27th I drove down state for a law school friend's baby shower, which was so much fun. We rarely make it home for showers and parties, so I was so happy to be able to attend!

On October 3rd Jeff flew home and drove up to Milwaukee for a wedding on the 4th. One of my sorority sisters was getting married, and I was honored to stand up as one of the bridesmaids. The wedding was an absolute blast, and it was amazing to see all of my college friends again. I haven't seen most of them since our wedding two years ago! On that note, our wedding anniversary was on September 30th . . . I can't believe it's been two years already!

On the 5th we stopped by a brunch at the bride's parent's house, then headed to my parent's house to watch the Packer game with both of our parents. It had been two years since the six of us had all hung out together, so it was a good time to catch up! After the game I packed up and we headed to Chicago. Monday morning Jeff had to stop by work and run downtown to turn in his visa application for Thailand. Then in the evening we headed to O'Hare and flew out to Orlando for yet another wedding. This time Jeff was standing up as a groomsman. The wedding wasn't until Saturday, so we spent Tuesday-Thursday at Disney and Universal Studios. It was our pseudo little anniversary celebration! It had been 15 years since I was last at Disney, but the way I was acting you would think I had never been there before! Seriously, I was acting like a 5 year old pretty much the entire time! I'll have to create another post with pictures!

On Thursday night we went to the future bride and groom's apartment (which was incredible) for a little wedding party/family barbecue. Then on Friday Jeff bonded with the boys while I ran some errands. Saturday was the wedding, which was so much fun! The bride and groom looked amazing, and we had just an incredible time. Sunday morning we ate, stopped by the bride and groom's apartment for a while, and then flew back to Chicago late in the evening. We spent pretty much the entire night doing laundry and packing. Monday morning Jeff headed to the office again, and made it to O'Hare by 9:30 am for his flight back to Thailand! He was completely exhausted, and so was I!

So here's where we're at now. Jeff is back in Thailand, and I am at home in the US. We had hoped that his Thailand assignment would be completed by the end of October, so I never booked a return ticket with him. However, its looking more and more like this job could go well past Thanksgiving, so we're trying our best to get me back out there. We'll keep you updated!

Nights Out in Koh Samui

2008-09-23T04:58:00.000-05:00

While in Koh Samui we went out on the town twice, and had a great time each night. We heard there was a great Brazilian Steakhouse on the island, and we were starving the first night, so we hopped in a taxi and made our way to Zico's.

Jeff had been to Brazilian Steakhouses in the US, but I had not. For those of you who are not familiar, I'll explain how they work. Basically there are waiters constantly circling the dining room carrying different meats on a skewer (at Zico's there were 13 different types!). If you want food, then you flip your card to green and they will come and serve you. When you are full (or just ready to take a break) you flip the card to red and are left to eat in peace. The danger when you flip your card to green is that you will be brought all of the meats you don't want to eat. We had a lot of fun trying to time our card flipping with the passing of our favorite meats!

The key to the Brazilian Steakhouse is to take your time. We planned on being there for a while, so we ordered a pitcher of Caipirinha, the national drink of Brazil. Watching all of the meat circling the room and timing our card flips just right was enough entertainment for us, but little did we know that we were in for a show! About 45 minutes after we arrived Brazilian music started blaring and dancers in native costumes came to the stage (we didn't even notice the stage before they came out!). They performed several dances and even came to the restaurant floor and danced through the tables.

It was so much fun that we decided we should order another pitcher of Caipirinha and stay for a while! There was another short show every thirty minutes after the first one, and they were all pretty entertaining. It was so much fun, especially because we hadn't expected it!

After just over two hours, countless slices of meat, two pitchers of Caipirinha and lots of fun we decided it was time to head out!

On our last night in Koh Samui we returned to an Tropical Murphy's, an Irish Pub that we had been to earlier in the week. Last time we were there we saw an adorable scruffy dog sleeping next to one of the tables outside. When we came back we sat outside and I swear the dog hadn't moved in two days! She was adorable.

We were both pretty tired from our Ang Thong Marine Park tour that day, so we had planned to have one drink and then head home. As we were finishing up two American guys and a Swedish woman sat at the table next to us. We struck up a conversation and it ended up that one of the guys, Jobe, and Jeff had about a million things in common! Jobe was born in Saudi to American parents, had spent some time on the road as a child, and was currently traveling for his work. He was really cool, and I swear after 10 minutes you would think him and Jeff were long lost brothers! After about an hour, and a few friendly drinks, I was exhausted and ready to go to sleep. I could tell Jeff was going no where, so I hopped in a cab and let him and Jobe have their boys night on the town. They had a great time, and snapped a few pics along the way. Most of them turned out blurry, but here's a great one of Jeff's new friend Jobe (with a completely random guitarist).

Jeff finally came home at about 4:00 am, in time to get a few hours of sleep before our 9:00 am flight back to Pattaya!

Ang Thong Marine Park

2008-09-22T22:46:00.009-05:00

While in Koh Samui we couldn't skip the water and the beaches completely (after all, it's what the island is famous for). We heard about the Ang Thong Marine Park and decided it would be worth a tour. We booked our boat tour, which picked us up bright and early at 7:15 am! We ended up waiting quite a while at the beach for the rest of the passengers to be picked up, but eventually we hopped on the boat for the one hour ride out to the marine park.

Our first stop was for some snorkeling. The equipment they gave us wasn't the best (there were no fins and the snorkels tended to leak!) but we made the best of it and got a few cool pictures.

After snorkeling we hopped back on the boat and toured through the numerous limestone formations that make the park famous.

Our next stop was a at Koh Mae (the Mother Island). The island had a small beach, which was great, but we were more excited to hike up to Talay Nai, the lagoon inside the mountain. The lagoon is a salt water lake about 120 feet above the beach. It is surrounded by gorgeous limestone cliffs and is emerald green in color (it's sometimes called Emerald Lake). It was a the hike up was not bad, except that the island was very crowded and it was HOT outside! Once we reached the lake we snapped a few pictures, but then realized there was a lookout even higher up which afforded some great views of the whole marine park.

After Koh Mae we were ready for lunch. Out boat docked at a restaurant located in a tiny village. After we ate we were able to explore the village a bit more to see how the locals live.

We then hopped back on the boat and headed to another beach where our kayaks were waiting. We kayaked around the island and around some of the limestone formations.

After about an hour we beached the kayaks and had fun swimming in the bay.

As the afternoon was quickly coming to a close we hopped back on the boat and headed back to Koh Samui! The tour guides joked that anyone who slept on the trip back would have to pay 500 baht. Luckily they were just kidding or Jeff would have had to pay up!

Koh Samui Safari

2008-08-31T21:34:00.000-05:00

Several weeks ago, on another of Jeff's long offs, we flew to Koh Samui for a few days of relaxation. We had done the beach/boat thing on our trip to Phuket, so we wanted to try something a little different in Koh Samui. We decided to spend a day taking a "safari" around the island. The tour took us to some of the major tourist sights while also teaching us a lot about the culture and the economy on Koh Samui.

Our guide Pat picked us up nice and early from the hotel in what we here in Pattaya call a Baht bus. These"buses" constantly drive around the city and you simply hop on and off where ever you need to. Each ride is only 10 Baht (the Thai currency), so there you have the name. The vehicles aren't exactly buses though. They are more like pick-up trucks with open air seats and a roof in the back.

As soon as we hopped on, Jeff instantly noticed Goldy Gopher (University of Minnesota's mascot) staring at him. What are the odds that our tour guide who lives on a remote Thai island would be wearing a hat from our alma mater! Pat said he didn't know where he got the hat and he didn't even know what it stood for, so of course Jeff quickly filled him in!

Our first stop on the safari was the monkey show. Here we saw monkeys who are trained to climb trees and remove coconuts. It was the cutest thing ever. The little monkeys were on leashes just like dogs and they seemed so proud when they knocked the coconuts down. After the show we posed for pictures with the monkeys, and got to see a baby monkey in training.We then hopped back on the bus and made our way to an elephant park to do some elephant trekking. We started off both riding in the seat with our driver on top of the elephant's head, but in the middle of the jungle our driver hopped down and told Jeff to take his place on the elephant's head. He was a little hesitant at first because it is so hard to keep your balance, but he quickly got the hang of it and was having a great time. After about five more minutes the guide told me to slide down and join Jeff on the elephant's neck. We rode the rest of our jungle trek like that and it was so much fun. We never knew that elephants were so hairy! After our trek we bought bananas and rewarded our elephant (we called him Stampy) for a job well done.As we were leaving we came across these two gorgeous dogs who were playing with a small snake. They kept biting and nipping at it, but you could tell they didn't want to actually kill it. They were having the best time (though I am not so sure the snake was in on the fun). We let them be and came back a few minutes later to find the dogs poking at the poor dead snake. They didn't want to eat him, they just wanted to play!

After this we drove deeper into the jungle to a small hut where we learned how to make authentic Thai yellow curry. The "finished" product you see is then cooked with coconut milk to make the liquid we are used to seeing.

We then walked down a small path to see how coconuts are smoked to create coconut oil for cooking and for beauty products.

We hopped back on the bus and headed to quite possibly the strangest tour attraction I have ever seen, the mummified monk. In the glass case you can see an actual monk, who was mummified in that position several decades ago. Pat told us that when he died they tried to burn his body but it wouldn't burn, so they thought he was sacred and mummified him. People come from all over to worship at his feet.

By this point we were getting hot and a little tired, so we were happy to learn that we would be hiking to Na Mueang Waterfall 2, the largest waterfall on the island. The hike up there was a little hot and sticky, but we were so happy when we got to jump into a small pool near the bottom. It wasn't very big, but it was really deep and FREEZING cold, which felt so good in the heat and humidity! Pat refused to jump in because he said it was just much too cold for him. Easy for him to say, he was wearing jeans and didn't sweat a bit!
After drying off we headed out to a really remote little artisan village where they turn coconut and palm wood into handicrafts. We watched this guy turn a chunk of wood into a beautiful goblet (the guy in the back is holding up the finished product). Of course there was a store at the village, so Jeff and I bought a mortar and pestle so we can make authentic curry when we get home.

It was getting late in the afternoon, so it was a good time to stop for lunch. The food was great, and the view was amazing.

After we stuffed ourselves we hiked up to a scenic lookout where we could see a lot of the island and Angthong Marine park. The views were incredible. We were able to see how much of the island is covered with coconut plantations, a HUGE part of the economy in Koh Samui. Seriously, everything there revolves around the coconut!

Our last stop for the day was the Secret Buddha Garden. This sculpture garden was so amazing and was filled with sculptures of both humans and Buddhist deities.

While we were exploring the gardens Pat went off and picked some beautiful tropical flowers. He bound them together and made a beautiful (and huge) bouquet for me. I guess its normal for tour guides to give each lady on the tour a small flower at the end, but since I was the only lady left at the end of the day I got a lot of flowers! They were so beautiful and Jeff and I loved smelling them in our room for the rest of the trip!

After the gardens we had about a 30 minute bus ride with Pat back to our hotel. We had a really good time talking to him about life in Thailand and about his views on the world. It was such an interesting day and we learned a lot about Thai culture!

Sea Kayaking Phang Nga Bay

2008-08-29T21:18:00.000-05:00

In addition to our tour to the Phi Phi Islands, we also took a sea kayaking tour while we were in Phuket. This awesome tour took us through the cliffs, caves and lagoons of Phang Nga Bay National Marine Park.

Instead of going to the Royal Phuket Marina, this trip left from Ao Pro Pier. We were picked up by our guide Franco who drove us right up to our double-decker boat, which was pretty awesome. The kayaks were all on the bottom level of the boat (where we hopped in and out of the water) while we hung out upstairs where there was food! We didn't know it when we booked, but instead of us kayaking through the park, Jeff and I got to kick back while our guide paddled and we soaked in the sights.

It took us about an hour to get to our first drop off point. Along the way we saw some really cool limestone rock formations.

At our first drop off point they told us we would be going through a fairly long cave which led to a lagoon surrounded by limestone cliffs. When we hopped in the water it was drizzling a little, so it was nice to enter the cave.

The cave definitely had bats (you can't mistake the smell of guano) and our guide used a flashlight to point a few of them out to us.

When we exited the cave we saw the awesome lagoon. We also saw that it was pouring rain! Good thing we were in our swimsuits! Franco paddled us around the whole lagoon, and we felt like we were in our own little world surrounded by cliffs.

We then headed back through the cave, which was so low we actually had to lay down to get through!

We hopped back on the main boat and cruised around some more amazing cliffs.

We hit our next drop off point about 45 minutes later and again were told we would be going through a cave. As we arrived at the cave's entrance we came across a group of playful monkeys who were all too happy to take bananas from our guides.

This time the cave was pretty short, in length, but it was much taller and didn't smell like guano! This lagoon was also really cool, but really shallow! Though it wasn't raining when we first got into the water, as soon as we entered the lagoon the skies opened up. We were really happy that we had our waterproof camera case!

We returned to the main boat and chugged along to our final drop off spot. This one took us to a really cool area full of limestone formations. The most famous of them was "James Bond Island." The 1974 Bond movie "The Man With the Golden Gun" was filmed in the bay, and the island's unique shape made it an unmistakable landmark. I am not a huge James Bond aficionado, but it was still pretty cool to see.

After paddling around the bay for quite some time we hopped back on the main boat and made our way to a small beach where we could swim or kayak on our own. During this one hour boat ride the rain was absolutely torrential, and we all were huddled in the middle of the boat to stay dry and warm.

Amazingly, the rain had completely cleared up by the time we hit the beach, and Jeff and I enjoyed some swimming and freestyle kayaking.

After an hour in the sun we were ready to get back on the main boat and head back to Phuket!

Of Course I Found a Catholic Church

2008-08-10T08:54:00.005-05:00

Any of you who have followed us through this crazy traveling journey know that I love seeking out and photographing Catholic Churches in foreign countries. Even though Pattaya is fairly seedy, and Thailand is 95% Buddhist, there is a Catholic Church in town. It's not very big, but I was surprised to find one at all! The church is really unique and has a lot of Buddhist influence in both the style and the decorations.

Ancient Thai Massage

2008-08-07T20:51:00.000-05:00

Thailand is great because you can get just about any beauty or spa treatment for next to nothing. A one hour manicure/pedicure costs about $11, a one hour facial costs $15 and a one hour Swedish massage costs only $10!!! We knew about the cheap prices of treatments out here before we came and were pretty excited about it (okay maybe me more so than Jeff). While it is fun to get the traditional treatments at a great price, I think its even more fun to try out new things you don't see in the US. We have a copy of "1,000 Places to See Before You Die" and noticed that "Ancient Thai Massage" was one of the entries for Thailand. We were intrigued by the fact that a spa treatment made it into the book, so we were excited to try it out.

There are literally hundreds of salons in Pattaya that offer Thai massage, and since we are lazy we tried out the one directly across the street from our hotel :) When you arrive you are taken to the massage area which is just one big room with curtains set up as dividers. They show you to your area and draw the curtains for you to get changed. Normally when you get a massage you strip down, jump on the table and cover up with the sheet. The set-up for a Thai massage is slightly different. Instead of being up on a table, you lay on a mattress directly on the floor. Instead of being mostly nude under a sheet, you change into a pair of pajamas and lay uncovered on the mattress. Once we were ready the masseuse came in and started. We are used to Swedish massages where the masseuse uses oil and is constantly massaging the muscles. Thai massage is a completely different experience. The masseuse sits on the floor and moves your body into different positions. She then puts her whole body weight agains your different pressure points or uses the palm of her hand to strongly massage a certain muscle. Throughout the hour you are constantly being stretched and moved into different positions, some of which hurt more than others. There is a little bit of Swedish style massage involved at the end when they give you a good shoulder rub. We weren't sure how we would feel afterwards, and it definitely wasn't that traditional "muscles feel all relaxed like jelly"feeling you get after a massage back home. You feel certainly relaxed afterwards, but you also feel like you just worked out because of all the stretching and pulling. It was an interesting experience, and we plan on getting the massage again. For $6 how can you say no!

Phi Phi Islands

2008-07-31T22:58:00.000-05:00

On Jeff's last "long off" (he's doing shift work out here, so he doesn't get traditional weekends off, but instead he works many days in a row and then gets 5 days off) we wanted to head out to the Phi Phi islands, which have some of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand. Phi Phi Don is the only island with hotels. Its not very big, but we found a great looking hotel at a great rate and were all set to go. Then, the day before we were leaving our hotel contacted us to let us know they were all booked. We desperately started searching for another hotel that could offer such a great rate (while also having basic amenities like hot water and A/C), but couldn't book anything on such short notice. So we decided instead to stay in Phuket (the city we were flying into) which had a much better selection of hotels. We still wanted to see the Phi Phi Islands, so we booked a tour through our hotel and took a day trip from Phuket to the islands.

A van picked us up early in the morning and took us to the Royal Phuket Marina.

We posed for a souvenir photo and along with about 25 other people headed to our speed boat. By speedboat, the islands are only about an hour away. The sky looked threatening and our guide Axe warned us that a monsoon was coming in, so we were in for an unpredictable day of weather. About 20 minutes after that ominous speech, the skies opened up and pour down on us. While the boat was covered, the roof didn't quite reach the sides of the boat, so water was pouring, soaking everyone on board. I don't know if you have ever been flying through the open sea while soaking wet, but let me tell you, it was COLD! As you can tell, I wasn't having the best time.

Jeff on the other hand was loving it and was actually sticking his head out of the boat to look at the islands. He managed to get some good pictures once the rain died down a bit. Our first stop was Maya Bay on Ko Phi Phi Leh (South Phi Phi Island). This beach is an incredibly popular spot for all of the day trips out of Phuket and Ko Phi Phi Don (North Phi Phi Island). With all of the hype surrounding the beach, I was expecting something huge, but it was actually quite tiny and crowded. The weather wasn't great when we got there, but the clouds started to break apart and we got some great pictures.While at Maya Bay the weather started to clear and we actually saw the sun! After about an hour on the beach we headed to another small bay on Phi Phi Leh. The water was very deep and crystal clear. The boat dropped anchor and we swam around for about thirty minutes. It was drizzling a little bit while we were in the water, but nothing compared to the boat ride in! We then hopped back on the boat and went to the other side of Phi Phi Leh to Viking Cave. The wooden sticks you see are actually scaffolding which the locals use to collect birds nests. The nests are then sold to make delicacies such as bird's nest soup.Next we headed over to Phi Phi Don and made a quick stop at Monkey Beach. This may surprise you, but Monkey Beach is full of monkeys! It's a small little stretch of sand where every tour boat stops for a few minutes to throw bananas at the rowdy monkeys. Some tourists are daring enough to let the unpredictable monkeys climb on them. Wisely, Jeff and I were not those tourists. Unluckily for him, this guy was. Two seconds after this picture was taken, an unseen third monkey entering from stage left lunged to get the banana at the other side of his head. At some point during the lunge, the monkey aborted the banana mission and locked on to this guy's right ear. Monkey shrieking ensued, and subsequently this gentleman traded in his ear-to-ear grin for an "Evander Holyfield after fighting Mike Tyson" look. Damn dirty ape!The sun decided to return and we were ready to hop in the water to do some snorkeling from the boat. We dropped anchor in the open sea and hopped in. The coral and the marine life was so beautiful down there. The underwater camera case we bought in Singapore last year definitely came in handy!

We found Nemo!

By this point we had worked up an appetite, so we stopped on Phi Phi Don for some lunch. Notice in the pictures that the sky was actually blue!

After lunch we headed out to one last beach where we were able to walk right into the coral for snorkeling. We had a great time just chasing after fish and exploring on our own.

We also found Gill, a Moorish Idol

And we found Bubbles, a Yellow Tang

These Parrotfish were so cool!

Some very cool coral

A sea urchin

Unfortunately Jeff must have upset one fish in particular because he went after Jeff with a vengeance and Jeff definitely got bit. Luckily he was filming at the time, and let me tell you it is pretty funny to watch.

After about an hour of snorkeling we came hopped back on the boat for the return trip to Phuket. Our return trip was much better than the trip out, since the rain had all but disappeared! Our tour guide Axe admitted at the end of the day that we were very lucky with the weather because he was sure it was going to be a terrible day! Thankfully for us it wasn't!

Our Hotel

2008-07-29T22:12:00.001-05:00

We are so lucky to be staying at the Marriott here in Pattaya. It's definitely one of the nicest hotels in the city, and it is truly gorgeous. I know we wrote a bit about the hotel, but we never posted any pictures, so here you go!

This is the hotel entrance from Beach Road.

Here are two pictures of our room taken on one of our poker/Wii nights.

This is the pool (where I try to spend as much time as possible) and the pool bar. That's Angela (another road wife) and I enjoying the daily happy hour.

There are two different parrots that hang out by the pool. The white one was here the first month and a half we were here, but he has mysteriously disappeared and been replaced by the blue parrot.

Here's the water slide on the side of the pool for the kiddies.

The pool area by day and by night from the balcony in our room.

The sunset over Pattaya Beach, taken from the balcony in our room.

Snapshot of Pattaya

2008-07-26T22:58:00.000-05:00

Jeff had two days off recently, and we took some time to explore more of Pattaya. We thought we'd share some of our pictures so you can get a better feel for the city. First up, Pattaya Beach. We haven't spent much time here since our hotel has such a great pool and since the beach isn't too large, but we have taken a few pictures.

We hiked up to the Buddha Hill Lookout and got this great picture of the beach and the rest of the city.

At the far south end of the beach is the famous Hollywood style Pattaya City sign. It looks cool from far away, but even better up close.There is a sidewalk the entire length of the beach that separates the beach from Beach Road (its real name is Th Hat Pattaya, but everyone knows it as Beach). Scattered throughout the sidewalk are tons of small statues like this one. They are really cute and they distract attention from the prostitutes along the side of the road :) The light poles along the sidewalk also have cute statues on them. We love this one of a child riding a chicken.
Beach Road is full of shops and restaurants and is always crowded. There's always an interesting variety of vehicles on the road, but this one definitely sums up Pattaya.In addition to the shops and restaurants, there are tons of food stalls on Beach Road, and pretty much every other street in Pattaya. You can get just about anything at these stalls (noodles, fruit, seafood, etc.). Some (like this fruit stand) are more appealing than others (like this pork stand with a pig's head on it). Its hard to go down any street in the city without coming across a tailor shop. They can custom make just about anything for you. We haven't had time to get anything made quite yet, but other co-workers here have had suits and jeans made and they were awesome. We definitely are looking to get ourselves some custom goodies before we leave. We just have to find the right shop. Hmmmm, if only we could find a shop that copied Versace suits . . .

These are just a few of our pictures of the G-Rated side of town, but hopefully it gives you a better insight on Pattaya as a whole :)

Buddhist Lent

2008-07-20T22:30:00.006-05:00

Last week marked the beginning of Buddhist Lent, also known as Vassa or Phansa in Thailand. 95% of Thais are Buddhist, so it was basically a national, not a religious, holiday. In case you haven't noticed, Jeff and I are not Buddhist, so we didn't have a clue what Phansa was all about. We read a few articles, and learned a little bit more about it. We don't pretend to be experts, but the following is our best understanding :)

Phansa lasts the throughout the rainy season (usually about three months). On the first day of Phansa, also called Khao Pansa, Bhikkhu (Buddhist monks) move inside their temple, where they will pray and meditate until the end of Phansa. Traditionally holy men did not travel during the rainy season for fear of damaging the crops. Gautama Buddha (Buddha himself) continued this tradition and it was incorporated into the practice of Buddhism.

Monks are not the only ones to observe Phansa. On Asalha Puja, the day before the monks retreat to the temple for prayer and reflection, lay Buddhists give candles and offerings to the temples. During Phansa most lay Buddhists abstain from drinking leading an "inappropriate" lifestyle in order to intensify their spiritual connections. In Thailand it is common for the laity (usually young males) to take monastic vows at the beginning of Phansa and remain in a temple until Ork Pansa (the end of Phansa).

Before we learned a little more about Phansa, we just knew there was some big holiday coming up, but we weren't sure how it was celebrated and what effect it would have on us (i.e. stores closing, big parades, etc.). Since our hotel is not near any major temples, we didn't notice much in terms of celebration or effects, with two exception. On Wednesday Jeff and I were returning from a mini-vacation to Phuket. We took a taxi from the airport to our hotel (about 18 miles). Things were moving along until we hit town and ended up in a dead stop. We were on a main road with no shortcuts, so we were stuck in traffic like this for about an hour. It turns out there was a procession of school children on the road making offerings to a temple. Normally every Friday night Shenanigans, a local Irish restaurant, serves all you can eat ribs for about $10. A group of us were very excited for the ribs last week so we headed over to the mall where Shenanigans is located. As we approached the restaurant we noticed that the specials board on the first floor hadn't been changed since Wednesday. That should have been our first clue, but we still went upstairs only to notice there was no one sitting outside and the lights were off. The sign on the door confirmed our suspicions and informed us that the restaurant was closed on Thursday and Friday because of the holiday. While we were very disappointed (we REALLY wanted ribs) someone remembered that a British pub which had been closed for renovations just reopened. We headed over there and happily found ribs on the menu, thus saving us from a rib-free night :)

Ko Samet

2008-07-17T22:43:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago a me, Jeff, and several other employees from his company all headed to Ko Samet, a small island not too far from Rayong. The island is technically a national park, but they have allowed some hotels and restaurants to develop along the coast, while still preserving the trees and wildlife inland. We met up at the pier and caught a boat to Ao Prao Resort on the island's remote west side.

The island is known for its beautiful beaches, so we were definitely excited to spend some time swimming and playing frisbee.

Well, some time turned into 4 hours or so, and we ended up with some pretty rocking sunburn by the end of the day. But we had fun, so that's all that counts, right :) After showering and cleaning ourselves up we took some great pictures of the sunset.

After a relaxing dinner we all headed to the other side of the island to the Silver Sands bar. We had a feeling it was going to be a great night as soon as one of Jeff's co-workers informed us that drinks were served by the bucket! We sat on pillows and rugs on the floor and were treated to a great fire show.

Later the early 90's music started and we all showed off our skills on the dance floor.

This area of Thailand has many "ladyboys" and we had fun dancing with this particular one.

At the end of the night Jeff, Zudtky and I decided to walk back to the hotel on the other side of the island, which probably wasn't the greatest idea since we didn't really know the way and since it was PITCH black outside (remember, we were walking through the national park, so there were no lights). We thought there was just one road across the island, but when that road took us to a youth camp we knew we were in trouble. We resorted to taking pictures of the signs (like I said, PITCH black) to try and figure out where to go.

Luckily we were saved when a taxi came by and took us home. It turns out there was a slight turn to the left we missed that would have taken us straight to our hotel. Lesson learned!

The next day all of Jeff's co-workers were heading back to Rayong, but we stayed an extra night on the island. We decided to stay on the east (and more popular) side of the island for the second night, so everyone came over with us to spend they day at the beach before heading back to the mainland. Unfortunately because we got so sunburned the day before we spent the majority of the day in the shade. However we did have fun walking on the rocks from our hotel to the beach.

After everyone departed Jeff and I spent the evening relaxing at our hotel and the night strolling the many kilometers of beaches. The next morning we packed up and headed back to land. It was a short trip, but we had lots of fun and even found some time to relax!

Fourth of July . . . Thai Style

2008-07-07T03:26:00.014-05:00

Happy Fourth of July everyone! Even though we're 10,000 miles away in a foreign country that could care less about the 4th, we weren't about to miss out on a chance to celebrate. Almost everyone had to work on Friday, so we moved the celebration to Saturday the 5th. About 30 people from Jeff's company are in the area, so we all met up at the beach in Rayong for a good old American barbecue. There were Frisbees, volleyballs, and badminton sets, though the crazy wind made it hard to get a good game going.

We set up camp on the beach between two bays, so there was ample swimming and water sports to keep us happy! Of course no barbecue would be complete without brats and burgers on the grill. Chad was our grill master and did a phenomenal job!
And what Fourth of July would be complete without an elephant on the beach!

As the sun set we lit a bonfire and roasted marshmallows for S'mores. And of course there were fireworks (which were not easy to find out here . . . Thanks Mike).

While I had a great day, poor Jeff had to work both Saturday and Sunday from 8 am to 8 pm. He hightailed it out of there on Saturday and made it to the barbecue in time for fireworks and food. Sunday the 6th was Jeff's birthday, so I surprised him with a cake at the barbecue so he could have some semblance of a celebration.

Afterwards we went out dancing for a bit with those who were spending the night in Rayong. Jeff had a great time celebrating the big 2-6.

I don't think we could have asked for more, even in we were in the US (okay, well maybe Jeff not working would have helped, but life goes on :))!

Our Photo Album

2008-06-30T22:32:00.000-05:00

While in India Jeff and I created a digital scrapbook through Shutterfly.com containing some of our favorite travel pictures from the last few years. We has it printed and we are absolutely in love with the book. When I was home I tried to share it with as many of you as possible, but of course we couldn't show everyone! I learned how to post the book online, so if you want to check it out you can do so here. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

Sawadee Ka from Thailand

2008-06-16T05:15:00.002-05:00

Hello all! We are coming at you live from Pattaya, Thailand. Jeff has been here almost three weeks, and I have been here just under two weeks. We are so happy to be here! There are many other employees from Jeff's company in the area, so there are lots of other people for us to have fun with. In India it was just Jeff and I for the majority of the four months, so it is awesome just being able to go out to dinner with a group (not to mention how fun it is going out on the weekends and exploring Thailand!).

We are staying at a just the greatest hotel here. There is so much to do (great fitness center with tennis and fitness classes daily, incredible pool, totally relaxing spa, great restaurants, and more) and I don't think I have ever stayed at a hotel with such great service. We had heard that Thai people were very nice by nature, but the staff here truly goes above and beyond. For example, while sitting poolside the other day the staff came around and brought everyone a plate of fresh fruit, ice cold apple juice and a bottle of cold water. I was ready to charge such a treat to our room, but it was all complimentary! We even have access to the executive lounge for free breakfast and cocktails/appetizers in the evenings! It is truly such a change from India and we couldn't be happier.

Pattaya is such an interesting city that I am not sure how best to describe it. I think the two best descriptions I have heard thus far are: (1) a 24 hour bachelor party and (2) Las Vegas without the casinos, but I am not sure that either really sums up Pattaya as a whole. Pattaya became popular during the Vietnam War when GI's began to arrive for R&R. As happens when you have a group of young of men looking to escape the rigors of war, Thai females became a great source of "entertainment." As a result, Pattaya is now famous for prostitution, go-go bars, and a wide variety of "entertainment" venues offering Vegas-style shows. While the seedy side is definitely what the city is known for, Pattaya has a lot more to offer. There are some great beaches in the city and there are many islands offering the same just a quick boat ride away. We look forward to having some time off so we can explore!

We Hope You Haven't Missed Us Too Much

2008-05-23T07:22:00.004-05:00

Hello all! Yes, we are still alive and we hope you haven't missed us too much lately. Things in India were a bit rough and we kind of got into a bit of a funk. Anyways, we write this post alive and well and almost completely out of India! About two weeks ago our computer stopped working. That was the breaking point for me. I opted to leave Jeff and head back to Chicago last Monday. While I was sad to leave Jeff by himself, it felt SO good to finally be back in the US. When we arrived we planned on being in India for just one month, but we were there for four, which led to a severe shortage in our usual entertainment and personal supplies. I am back here restocking, fixing our computer, and recharging my personal battery!

Jeff in the meantime was left in Panipat by himself. When I left we were fairly certain that within two weeks Jeff would be heading straight to Thailand for his next assignment. While his company was confident with the departure date we were still nervous, since our original departure date of February 20th had been pushed back many times. Still, I left him hopefully that he would not be alone too long. On Wednesday we received the fantastic news that Jeff could leave Panipat! He headed to Delhi on Thursday to get his Thai visa processed. If all goes according to plan he should be basking in the Thai sun in just a few short days! As soon as he's squared away in Thailand I will start my visa paperwork and should be joining him in about a week or so. We plan on being in Thailand for at least three months and we couldn't be more excited. For the first time since we were married Jeff will be with a large crew of employees from his company. That means plenty of people to play with on the beautiful Thai beaches. I think it will be a much needed change of pace for us and we can't wait!

Holi-day . . . Celebrate

2008-04-10T22:39:00.001-05:00

March 22nd and 23rd were Holi, a huge holiday here in India. It's a two day party that celebrates the coming of Spring. The first night there are huge bonfires meant to signify the burning of the demoness Holika, hence the name Holi. Some bonfires will even burn effigy of Holika. If you want to learn more about why Holika is burned or who Holika was, click on the links above. On the second day there is a lot of celebrating and people throw water and colored powder at each other.

We were told the celebrations can get out of hand and that foreigners (especially women) should likely avoid the parties, so we decided to spend the weekend relaxing in the hotel. Our hotel is located on a very busy road and there is a constant stream of traffic and noise. On Holi it was eerily quiet outside. There were only one or two cars on the road the entire day and NO ONE was out on the streets. The hotel was completely empty and there were only one or two employees here working. It was totally different than what we have been used to, but it was so nice to finally relax in some peace and quiet.

Even though we stayed in the hotel we didn't miss out completely on all the Holi celebration. Jeff scared me slightly when he came home from work on Friday looking like this:

He got "colored" by both his co-workers and his driver. On Friday night we went to dinner in the hotel's restaurant and we were asked several times if we knew about the holiday and wanted to celebrate. Everyone just seemed really happy and festive, which made us happy, even if we weren't celebrating per se.

P.S. - We know it's been a while since we have posted, but we are still in India and we are doing alright :) There hasn't been too much going on, so we've gotten a bit lazy with the posts. We have had a few weekend trips lately, so we'll try to post more soon!

Another New Photo Site

2008-03-13T00:25:00.002-05:00

We know we just changed our photo site a few months ago, but we have decided that we really did not like the winkflash site. It has taken a long time, but we have moved all of our photos to our new site at www.jeffandmia.shutterfly.com. We have updated the site with all of our past and present photos (about 50 albums worth!), so please feel free to check it out. Incidentally, if anyone is looking for their own photo site you might want to check out shutterfly. We really have fallen in love with the site (we promise we're not getting paid to say that, we just really like it :)). Anyways, this is now our site for good and we promise to keep it up to date.

Finally Getting To See India

2008-02-26T22:03:00.000-06:00

About two weeks ago Jeff finally had a day off work. We (me, Jeff, and two other employees from Jeff's company) took the opportunity to head out of town and see the Taj Mahal. We hired a driver and headed out in the early evening. Because traffic is so chaotic, it took us about 6.5 hours to get there, an hour and a half longer than the 4.5-5 hours we were expecting. But we got there safe and that's all that matters!

Right now is prime tourist season in Agra because the weather is not too warm. Before we left we called a bunch of different hotels looking for open rooms, but everywhere was booked solid. We decided to just head out and hope to find open rooms when we got there. Our car was pretty big, so if all else failed we could sleep there. It sounded like a good idea when we left, but after the long drive I was really dreading the thought of marching from hotel to hotel searching for a room. The first hotel we came across was the Holiday Inn. We had called them before and they said they were booked, so I was not optimistic. Jeff and his trainee from the Delhi office went inside while I waited in the car. I saw them getting ready to leave the lobby with no keys in hand, so I looked in my book for addresses of other hotels. When I looked back up they had disappeared. I had no idea where they went but I was thinking maybe they were using the phone to call other hotels. Suddenly they reappeared with two room keys! The hotel had two cancelations just minutes before we arrived. We were all ecstatic that the first hotel we tried worked out! Plus the hotel was really nice, which is important, because the standards of hotel vary widely in Agra. We all slept soundly on the most comfortable beds we'd laid on in over a month!

The next morning we met up early feeling refreshed. Our driver took us straight to the Taj Mahal, as we knew the earlier we got there the smaller the crowds would be. To prevent pollution from damaging the marble, no one can drive within one kilometer of the Taj Mahal. We easily could have walked the one kilometer, but in the parking lot there were many carts pulled by camels to take you there. The ride was really cheap, so we decided why not just take the cart and have the experience. Before we all hopped in the carriage they let me hop on top of the camel for a photo op!

We reached the gates and there in front of us was the Taj Mahal.

It was just as incredible as we had imagined. The pool in front of the Taj has countless fountains, which look really cool when they are on. But when they are off you can get a great picture of the Taj and its reflection. We were lucky and got photos with the fountains on and off.

We were so impressed by the intricate inlays all around the Taj. It's amazing to think of how much time it must have taken to complete all of this work.

I am sure most of you know, but the Taj Mahal was built as a mausoleum for Emperor Shah Jahan's favorite wife, so while the outside is incredible, there is not too much to see on the inside. There's just one center chamber. It still has the same gem and marble inlay as the outside, but unfortunately over time a lot of the detail has been destroyed.

After a quick stop at a nearby shop for some souvenirs, we headed to the Agra Fort. The fort is absolutely massive. Only a small portion is open to the public, but it was impressive.

The outside and the entrance were crawling with monkeys, which was totally unique.

The fort has tons of different rooms and all kinds of passageways to explore.

Jeff and the boys found an old narrow passageway that lead to this balcony.

We were also able to get a good view of the Taj Mahal from the fort.

After the fort we decided to head out of town, in hopes of seeing a bit of Delhi on our way back to Panipat. We would have liked to stay longer, but at least we hit the two big sights! The drive to Delhi took quite a long time, but luckily we made a stop at McDonald's along the way so we had full bellies. In Delhi we briefly drove around the diplomatic center and took some pictures. We then headed to the city center which is full of shops and restaurants. We did a little shopping and enjoyed a good old American meal at TGI Fridays. We then hopped in the car and made it back to Panipat by 11:00 at night. We were all exhausted from our whirlwind 28 hour trip, but it was definitely worth it to get out and see more of what India has to offer.

P.S. We meant to post this a while ago, but we have been without internet for the past week!

"Life in Chicago is Easy"

2008-02-14T23:47:00.003-06:00

That is a direct quote from Jeff's trainee on this assignment. He is originally from India and works out of the New Delhi office, but he spent about a year in Chicago training, so he can definitely compare the two. The following are a few things he pointed out that make life in Chicago so easy:

1. The power almost never goes out in Chicago, and when it does, it is usually because of a major event like a storm. In Panipat (and we understand the Delhi region too), the power constantly goes out for absolutely no reason at all. The first time it happened we were kind of freaked out, but when it kept happening we realized it must be a chronic problem. I did a little research, and I guess the demand for power grossly exceeds amount of power the city's system can generate. I am stuck in the hotel room for the majority of the day, so I started keeping a tally of how many times the power goes out. We've been here four weeks and on average the power has gone out about 12 times a day. It usually doesn't stay out for more than 10 seconds or so, but sometimes it lasts up to a minute. Many hotels have back-up generators that kick on pretty quickly to minimize the impact, but we aren't sure that our hotel has one as some of the outages can get quite lengthy. We've gotten used to it, but it still can get pretty annoying when you are in the bathroom or the elevator or in the middle of doing something online (the wireless internet goes out when the power goes out too).

2. Driving in Chicago is easy. That's right, I said it, driving in Chicago is easy . . . compared to driving in India. Jeff's company doesn't let employees drive here, and I can definitely see why! In the big cities people are earning more money and one of their favorite big ticket purchases is a new car. That has lead to a boom of vehicles on roads that simply weren't built for this level of traffic. Driving is not only hard because of the number of cars, but also because of the way Indians drive. I think it must have something to do with the culture, but Indians drive very impatiently. If you leave the littlest space in front of you, it is pretty much guaranteed that a car will sneak in there. If there is a little gap between your car and the edge of the road, someone will drive on the side of the road and try to pass you. People drive so close to each other that you constantly feel like there is going to be an accident. However, traffic moves so slow that accidents don't seem extremely common.

That is city driving. Driving in the country, and out here in Panipat is slightly different. There is still a great deal of traffic, and people still drive very impatiently and use their horns incessantly, but there are not nearly as many cars here. But if there aren't as many cars, then how can there be traffic you ask. Good question. In Chicago traffic may get backed up, but at least you know you are only fighting with other cars and trucks for space. In India cars, trucks, rickshaws, bicycles, ox/horse/donkey/camel carts, tractors, pedestrians and stray herds of animals are all competing for space on the roads. Now all of these vehicles cannot move at the same pace, so it is a constant battle to get around the slow moving vehicles and drive at a reasonable speed. I don't know what the speed limit is around here, but in those few rare moments where you are unencumbered by traffic you are fearful that something is going to jump in the road and cause a serious high speed accident (we have seen a few of these and they are not pretty). As of 2000 (which was the latest statistics I could find) an average of 270 people died on the roads each day in India.

One thing that initially drove us crazy is the number of times that Indians honk their horns. In the US you may hear a horn honking every so often if a person is driving like a jerk. In India, horns are constantly honked so that other drivers know you are there. If there is someone in your lane that is going to slow you just keep honking until he moves over. If you are frustrated with the guy in front of you and want to pass him in an incredibly tight spot, you just keep honking so that everyone around you knows what you are doing. It almost seems like drivers don't really use their mirrors or watch for other drivers; they just honk and people will get out of their way. It is really something amazing. When we are back in the city in traffic we will have to try and take a video to show you what it is really like. The thing that is amazing though is that despite all of the chaos on the roads, no one seems to be getting angry. They all just accept that this is a part of life and they don't let it stress them out. Even as a passenger I get completely stressed out by the driving, but the drivers are cool as cucumbers.

3. You don't have to constantly worry about what could possibly be in your food in Chicago. Anyone who talked to me in the very brief amount of time we had to prepare for this job knows that I was borderline paranoid about getting sick from the food in India. Hygiene isn't quite the same here, and I had read reviews of our hotel detailing horrible illnesses from the food. We started off slow, eating very little hotel food, but now we full meals and so far we have been okay. Jeff was extremely sick two weeks ago and could hardly move for several days. We're not sure if it was from the food, our malaria medicine, or just exhaustion (he's been working 10-14 hours every day) but luckily he is much better now.

4. There are not nearly as many people in Chicago as there are in India. And not just that there are not so many people, but there are not so many really poor people. Everywhere you look here you cannot help but see the poorest of poor. It seems to me that in this town you either live in a gated community or in a shack (if you are lucky). Our hotel, which is light years away from many of the hotels we have stayed in, is by far the nicest place in town. We chuckled to ourselves because it is a "three star hotel," but compared to the city surrounding it, this is a 25 star hotel.

5. You don't have to worry about having hot water in Chicago. In India, access to hot water is not as easy as you would think. Even at our extremely nice hotel in Delhi our first night here, the water was luke-warm at best. At our hotel here in Panipat the water is hot, which is excellent, but it is only available a few hours a day (a lesson I learned when I attempted to take a shower the first afternoon here). And lets just say that the water pressure leaves something to be desired.

6. There are places to go and things to do in Chicago. This comment is specifically aimed at the city of Panipat, not the country of India as a whole, as there are TONS of places to go in the country. In Panipat however there is absolutely positively nowhere to go and nothing to do. There is work and there is the hotel and that is it. There are no shopping malls or restaurants or bars. There is work and there is the hotel and that is pretty much it. If you look at our pictures and videos from the previous post I think you will agree.

Some may read this post and think that it is just us sitting here complaining. I can see how it can come off that way, but we had a purpose. Being here has really opened our eyes to a whole different lifestyle, different than any country we have been to before. While we may complain about silly things in Chicago, we really have so much to be thankful for. Life may not be perfect all the time, but remember, it could be worse!

Portait of Panipat

2008-02-13T05:47:00.018-06:00

Panipat is really the poorest place either of us have seen. A large portion of the population lives in tents, shacks, or small huts made of cowpies and covered in straw (there are tons of these huts around, and most of them are used to store cowpies for fuel, but we were told that people live in the larger huts). There really is no way to explain what we see on a day to day basis, so we thought pictures/videos would say it best.

There are literally thousands of stray dogs all over the city. Tell me these puppies aren't adorable!

This is a stack of cowpies on the side of the road. The more moist ones are used to create the huts while the dried ones are stored inside to be used as fuel.

Some roadside shops.

This is a very common sight. It's kind of cut off, but there are at least 10 people in this tiny rickshaw.

These two pictures are of the same small village in the city. It consists of hundreds of tents, shacks and cowpie huts all crammed together.

Like the pictures, these videos were all taken from the car, so they move pretty quickly, but we think they show what life in Panipat is like.

This is a video of that same village above.

This is another small village in Panipat. If you watch closely you can see the cow pie huts as well as some stone shacks. There are also a lot of shops and wild animals in this area.

This video pretty much sums up what its like to drive in Panipat. Bear in mind this is a divided highway meant for speedy driving.

You can see a lot of the cowpie/straw huts in the background and the foreground here. You can also see a lot of cowpies laying out to dry.

Happy Indian Republic Day

2008-02-08T22:43:00.000-06:00

January 26th is Republic Day in India. It is a huge celebration throughout the country that commemorates the signing of the Constitution of India. In Delhi there is a huge parade from the president's palace to and old fort (you can read all about the parade in the link above). Military regiments from all over India come in their dress uniforms to march in the celebration. When we were driving from Delhi to Panipat we passed by a regiment on camels making their way to town. They had the most incredibly awesome moustaches. Unfortunately we weren't able to snap any pictures.

Here in Panipat there was music and celebrating in the streets. The company Jeff is working with had their own parade and in the days leading up to Republic Day spent a great deal of time working on their floats. We weren't able to attend the parade, but we did see the floats in the company's township the day after the parade. Our particular favorite was this peacock, as the employees who were supposed to be helping Jeff and his coworkers spent many work hours creating it.

Something you may not know (at least we didn't know it): peacocks are the national bird of India and you often see them walking along the side of the road.

We're Here

2008-02-07T01:38:00.000-06:00

We know it has been a long time since we've posted, but we wanted to let you all know that we are here in Panipat, India. We didn't think we would have internet access here, but it was a very happy surprise when we learned that our hotel had recently installed wireless internet. We intended to post earlier, but our internet service has been disrupted for at least the past week. In case you haven't heard, five internet cables were cut around the Middle East. It's still unclear what happened, but there are many theories out there. In any case we were sans internet for many, many days. It seems that things are back to normal, so we hope to be posting more about India soon!

Penguins on Parade

2008-01-14T18:47:00.000-06:00

We couldn't help but notice that there was this 6-foot tall painted fiberglass penguin outside of our hotel in Tulsa.

We figured it was just a clever advertisement and didn't think much of it until two weeks later we noticed another penguin in a different part of the city. Another week later we saw a third penguin and realized some research was in order. We learned that the penguins were part of the "Penguins on Parade," a fundraiser for the Tulsa zoo to bring an African Penguin exhibit to the zoo a few years ago. There are about two dozen painted penguins throughout the city of Tulsa, and I really wanted to try and find all of them! I couldn't find a website that listed out all of the locations, but after some scouting we were able to find quite a few of these cute little buggers. Unfortunately, because we had to leave Tulsa so quickly we weren't able to get to all of the ones we had found, but we did find a few and thought we would share some of the pictures with you.

This next one is clearly a faker, but he gets credit for effort :)

What a Crazy Life We Lead

2008-01-13T20:30:00.000-06:00

As of 5:00 this morning we are now back home. Though the job in Tulsa was not yet complete, there was a more pressing job that Jeff was needed for, so we left Tulsa yesterday evening (after watching the awesome Packer victory) and drove straight through the night. As soon as we get our visas sorted out we are heading to Panipat, India. It is a smaller city in northern India, a few hours north of New Delhi. We have talked to other employees who have been to this location, and it seems like we will not have internet access, so it is possible that you will not hear from us for a while. We should be there for about a month or so. I will try to post a few fun things in the next few days before we leave so you don't miss us too much!

More of the Ice Storm Aftermath

2007-12-21T15:59:00.000-06:00

The weather here has been warmer lately, so a few days ago Jeff and I headed to a local park to play some disc golf. Every single tree in the entire park seemed to be effected by the ice storm. Here are a bunch of pictures to show you just a bit more of the devastation.

Seeing these definitely reminds us how lucky we were that we suffered basically no impact from the storm, while just a mile from here it looks like a war zone.

Ice Storm

2007-12-16T22:55:00.000-06:00

As I am sure many of you have heard (and some of you experienced), last weekend Oklahoma was hit by a pretty bad ice storm. Several hundred thousand people in the greater Tulsa area lost power, but we we VERY lucky to be in what seems like the one area of town that kept power throughout the whole storm. The worst of the storm hit on Sunday during the day. Starting Sunday night the hotel here became completely booked with people who had no power at home. It was absolutely amazing how many people they were able to cram into this little building!

Lucky for us Jeff had the weekend off, so we opted to stay indoors Sunday and enjoy the view from our hotel windows. On Monday Jeff had to go to work at midnight (I guess technically Tuesday morning). We needed to get groceries, but upon seeing our cars coated in over 1/2 inch of ice we decided that we would walk to Chipotle across the street. The place was an absolute zoo, probably because it was one of the only restaurants open, and because everyone from the hotel seemed to be going there. After waiting in line for about 15 minutes we learned that they were out of pork, chicken, tomatoes (also including all tomato salsas) and chips. Clearly the supply truck wasn't able to get there!

After eating we decided that we needed to try and tackle the ice covering the cars so Jeff could get to work. Jeff wasn't feeling well, so I took on the job myself. I have seen some serious snow and ice storms while living in Minneapolis, but I have never had to scrape so much ice from a car! It was insane. Here are some pictures of my car to give you an idea of what it was like.

After about an hour I was able to get both of our cars clean. Jeff headed off to work and got to see the damage as he drove. There were branches snapped off trees everywhere you looked. Some trees looked like they had been split right down the middle. Neither of us had ever seen anything like that! Unfortunately Jeff couldn't take pictures from the car, but here are a few pictures of the tiny trees in the hotel parking lot.

Even though these are small trees, you can see how the weight of all of this ice could snap branches on huge trees, thus pulling down all of the power lines.

On Tuesday I made it to the grocery store and it looked like people were stocking up for the apocalypse! Shelves with essentials (bread, lunch meat, soup, water, etc.) were completely bare. It was a surreal experience that made us realize how bad it was in the rest of the city. We really did get lucky!

It's been a week since the storm, and things are starting to look a lot better. Last I heard there are still over one hundred thousand people in the Tulsa area without power. Tomorrow is the first day that Tulsa public schools will be open, but I guess seven schools will not reopen because they still don't have power. We went to the grocery store and the shelves have been restocked. Chipotle is even offering a full menu now :) I guess slowly but surely life is getting back to normal.

By Popular Demand

2007-12-10T13:22:00.000-06:00

As some of you know, we were able to find cute Russian style fur hats while we were in Russia last month. Last time we were there it was spring and the selection was slim, but since this time we were there right at the start of winter it was easy to find hats that we liked. We've had a few requests to see a picture of the hats, so here you go:

The picture isn't the best, but Jeff's is made of brown leather and otter fur and mine is made of mink. They will definitely keep us warm on all these cold winter days we are having!

We're in Tulsa

2007-12-05T19:47:00.000-06:00

We are so excited because for the first time in our travels we have an assignment in the United States!!!! On Sunday we packed up my car and made the 11 hour drive from Chicago to Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was so fun to not have to worry about airport delays, luggage weight restrictions, jet lag, or any of the other not so glamorous parts of international travel. We just packed the car with as much stuff as we wanted and headed out on our own time. It was fantastic!

Our hotel room is beyond perfect, as we finally have an actual kitchen to use, but it is hard to want to cook when we have all of our favorite restaurants within just a mile of our hotel! In case you can't tell, we are really excited about this job :) We should be here until early January, but at least we will get to spend Christmas and new year's in the US!

Happy Belated Thanksgiving

2007-11-28T10:57:00.000-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday and were able to spend time with loved ones. Because of a family emergency, we were able to return from Russia on the Saturday before Thanksgiving and spent the holidays with our families. It was really a wonderful time and we are glad we were finally able to be here for at least one holiday! We will be heading out again shortly, but more on that in another post!

A Little Lesson in Aviation History

2007-11-14T22:55:00.000-06:00

Throughout modern history there have been many famous Russian aviators. Two such pilots have hailed from Nizhny Novgorod. On our tour of Nizhny a few weeks back our translator taught us a little bit about these two famous men.

The first is Pyotr Nesterov. Nesterov was a pioneer in the area of in flight acrobatics. In 1913 he was the first person to ever perform a 360-degree loop in an airplane. To this day, when pilots perform a loop it is known as a Nesterov loop. But that is not the end of Mr. Nesterov's fame. He was also the first pilot to destroy another aircraft in flight. During World War I Nesterov was a pilot for the Russian military. While in flight he came across an enemy spy plane. At the time planes were not armed, so Nesterov had no way to stop this enemy plane. Instead of allowing the plane into Russian territory, Nesterov rammed the plane with his own plane, causing the spy plane to crash. It is believed that he intended to ram the plane with his landing gear, but instead Nesterov hit it with his propeller, causing his plane to crash also. Both pilots died in the crash. While Nesterov did not survive this first attempted at ramming an enemy aircraft, his idea was perfected over the years and was used frequently and successfully by Russian pilots during World War II. There are several monuments and plaques honoring Nesterov throughout Nizhny. These are a few that we found and took pictures of.

A replica of the plane Nesterov flew when he rammed the spy plane

The largest monument to Nesterov

A close up of the same monument (you can actually see the snow falling in this one!)

I have no idea what this says or stands for, but I can read that it says Nesterov

The second famous aviator from Nizhny is Valery Chkalov. Chkalov was the first pilot to fly non-stop from Russia to the United States flying over the North Pole. The nearly 5,500 mile flight from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington took place in 1937 and lasted 63 hours. Chkalov too has a huge monument in Nizhny (as well as several in Washington state). Here are a few pictures we took of the monument.

Jeff and I in front of the monument

The monument is in front of the Kremlin (notice what a difference a week makes in terms of the weather!)

Close up of the base of the monument, which has a map of the historic flight

Happy National Unity Day

2007-11-04T22:37:00.000-06:00

Today, November 4th, is a huge holiday here in Russia: National Unity Day. The day is similar to the Fourth of July in the US, as it celebrates the Russian victory over the Polish which lead to the unification of Russia as a state. The holiday was celebrated from 1613 until 1916. However, in 1917, following the Bolshevik Revolution, the holiday was abandoned and replaced on November 7th by the Day of Accord and Conciliation (which celebrated the Bolshevik Revolution instead). The Great October Socialist Revolution (another name for the Bolshevik Revolution) was celebrated as a national holiday until 2005 when President Vladimir Putin eliminated it and reinstated National Unity Day on November 4th. We are told that there are groups throughout Russia that still celebrate November 7th, but they are a minority.

The day is particularly important here in Nizhny Novgorod because the cavalry of troops that came to Moscow and defeated the Polish originated in Nizhny Novgorod. If any of you have ever been to the Red Square in Moscow, you surely saw this monument in front of St. Basil's Cathedral (we took this picture last time we were here in Russia).

When we saw this monument we really didn't understand what it stood for, as the plaque is written in Russian. However, last weekend while touring the city with our translator we learned that it was a monument to Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky. Minin was a common merchant from Nizhny who was called upon to arm and organize the volunteer forces that would march to Moscow. During the battle he was Prince Pozharsky's "right-hand man." Prince Pozharsky was the man who actually lead the troops in the liberation battle. When the monument was originally produced it was supposed to lie in the Kremlin here in Nizhny, but apparently Moscow requested it come to the capitol and reside in the Moscow Kremlin instead. Nizhny did not want to be deprived of the monument's beauty and significance, so an exact replica sits in front of a cathedral just outside of the Nizhny Kremlin's lower gates.

Late last week Jeff received an email alert from his company reminding us of the holiday weekend. It warned us that there would be large public gatherings and a lot of drinking. As in the US, any time you have the combination of drinking and large groups of people, there is a slight chance for criminal activity, so we were advised to shy away from the celebrations. However, we did walk to the grocery store during the afternoon and observed some of the interesting preparations for the evening's celebration. First, like Fourth of July in Chicago, many of the major streets were closed (and regulated by traffic police) to accommodate the increase in pedestrian traffic. Second, and I think most interesting, liquor was not being sold during the day. We are guessing this is to cut down on over indulgence and the violence that can often accompany it. We are not sure if this was city wide, or just at our grocery store which is near the Kremlin, but in any case the aisles of liquor were blocked off and all displays were covered in plastic wrap.

Later in the evening, as we were preparing to watch the Packer's game, Jeff and I started hearing extremely loud bangs outside of our hotel room. At first we figured it was just cars backfiring (that happens here ALL the time), but when we looked out our window we realized there was a huge fireworks display! Though we weren't out on the streets, we felt like we were part of the celebration, as we think they were being shot off just a few blocks from our hotel. We took a few pictures and the following video.

Finally a Traditional Russian Meal

2007-10-31T02:16:00.000-05:00

Though we previously spent nearly two months in Russia, up until last week we had never sat down for a traditional Russian meal. It never happened in Ryazan because we didn't speak the language and we really didn't have anyone who could translate for us. Here however, Jeff has a translator (several actually!) and a very generous group of co-workers who offered to take us out for a meal and some sightseeing.

The traditional Russian meal does not differ too much from a traditional US meal, but there are of course some differences. The beginning of the meal focuses on the one thing all Americans would expect of Russians: Vodka. When we first entered the restaurant, we checked our coats, and were instantly offered a shot (vodka for the men and sweet brandy wine for the women). After the first shot we began to realize why vodka might be so popular here. We were both rather chilly from walking around outside, and that shot started a fire in our bellies that really warmed us up!

We then sat down and the group immediately ordered a bottle of homemade flavor infused vodka. These types of vodka are very popular and are made in flavors that are not too common in America. Everyone has seen citrus, vanilla, and berry flavored vodka, but have you ever tried sweet grass, black pepper, or even garlic? Well we can now say that we have had not one, but two shots of radish flavored vodka. I have to say, it was a completely unique taste; very different than anything I have ever had. But surprisingly, it was not bad! Russians are very big on eating some sort of snack while drinking any type of alcohol, and each drink seems to have its own coordinating snack. Our radish vodka came with a piece of dry rye bread (very popular in Russia) with two pieces of fish on top. Very interesting!

After the flavored vodka, the regular vodka came out. With the vodka came the corresponding snacks, which consisted primarily of raw fish, mushrooms, various vegetables, and three different types of bread. It was not all that unlike something you may see in America. Every so often there would be a break in the conversation and one of our generous hosts would announce a toast and a shot of vodka would be taken by all. The toasts were very similar to American toasts: good company, good food, beautiful women, cooperation, good health, etc. Each time a shot was downed the waitress promptly refilled the shot glasses so we were prepared for the next toast. While it is considered strange to take your vodka any way but straight up, we were served a mix if cranberry juice and water on the side in case we needed a chaser after each shot.

After a few more shots and some snacks our soup arrived. Soup is very popular in Russia and is always served with lunch, and sometimes served with dinner. We have noted that Solyanka and Borsch seem to be the most popular varieties. Solyanka is an onion based soup with many vegetables and either fish, meat, or vegetables. Borsch is a beet based soup with a few vegetables and sometimes some meat. At this meal we had a meat Solyanka which was very good.

After the soup came the main course. These were very similar to something we may order at an American restaurant: beef in a red wine sauce and brazed pork. Of course there were more shots of vodka to accompany our entree.

After the main course they insisted that we eat a dessert, so we shared a bowl of ice cream with chocolate shavings. We felt a little awkward since we were the only ones eating dessert (they are not very popular in Russia), but it's hard to turn down ice cream!

The meal lasted about two hours, and we were absolutely stuffed by the end of it (and also a little tipsy from the countless shots of vodka). It was such a good time and we were so glad that we were able to finally experience a somthing authentically Russian!

Back in the Motherland

2007-10-29T04:53:00.000-05:00

Hello all! We know its been a while, but we are still alive and we are back in Mother Russia. Last time we were here we were in the city of Ryazan, which some of you may recall was not necessarily our favorite place in the world. This time however, we are in the fabulous city of Nizhny Novgorod, which is just so much better.

The first week here we felt like we were at summer camp in Northern Wisconsin. The higher powers had us stay in Kstovo, a small suburb of Nizhny Novgorod, which was closer to Jeff's job site. We stayed in a small "hotel" in the middle of the woods. We use the word "hotel" lightly, as it was not one building, but rather a collection of smaller cabins spread throughout the property.

To further the campy feel, there was also a central dining hall for meals and a few sporting activities spread throughout the grounds.

The rooms were huge and we had access to a kitchen, but there was no where to go besides the hotel property and there was no internet access or cable television.

So while it was nice to relax for a week or so, we were very excited when we were moved to our current hotel, which is located in the city, has free wireless internet, and has English TV! Now that we are downtown there will be much more time to explore the city and enjoy our month in Russia!

Finding Our Roots

2007-09-24T10:57:00.000-05:00

Last year when we were in Korea we decided to subscribe to Ancestry.com so we could start creating one family tree for our newly formed family. We were able to trace our lineage back to when most of our ancestors came to America. On our European adventure we realized that the cities from which both of our father's families originate were within a few hours drive of Gelsenkirchen.

First we decided to visit Tourinnes-la-Grosse, Belgium. Jeff's father's side of the family left here in the 1850s to head to America. It was a super cute, super small town. You can tell everyone knows everyone because as we drove through the streets people looked at us with a look of "who are these strangers driving around!?!" After driving around the town we found the really old church that we were pretty sure Jeff's family belonged to. Inside we saw a cornerstone indicating that the church had been standing since the 1700s (which is a huge feat given the destruction caused by World War II). After looking inside the church we examined the cemetery surrounding the church to see if there were any family headstones. We weren't able to find any from Jeff's family, but there were a ton with the last name Degreve, who at some point married into Jeff's family. We believe that a Degreve married into Jeff's family and left her family behind when his family traveled to the US.

Later on in our trip we drove to Glandorf, Germany, where Mia's father's side of the family lived before coming to America in the 1830's. We were also able to find her family's church, St. Johannis, but unfortunately the church is not the same one that the family attended. The church was destroyed in World War II, but parish rebuilt a new church, which was still pretty cool to see!

We also found the "old" town cemetery, but we didn't find any graves there for people who passed away before World War II. Our best guess is that maybe the cemeteries were destroyed in the war, and the "old" cemetery was created after the war. Since the family left in the 1830s, we weren't able to find any grave, but it was still really interesting to walk through the cemetery and the town.
We have to say that visiting the exact places that our ancestors used to live was really a once in a lifetime experience that neither of us will forget.

Manneken Pis Party

2007-09-19T07:10:00.000-05:00

A few weekends ago, before the job in Gelsenkirchen was completed, we took a road trip through Belgium and stayed in Brussels. The last stop on our city tour was the popular tourist attraction "Manneken Pis." You may recognize this naked statue of a boy peeing, as we did in the tourist books. As we approached the area of the statue we saw that there were tons of people crowding the streets around the statue. We just figured they were all there to see the cute little bronze tyke. However, when we arrived we were shocked at what we saw - Manneken Pis was wearing clothes!

His little hooh-hah was still providing a nice fountain stream, but what was with the frock and pink elephant? After looking around we noticed that not everyone was there to admire the statue. They were across the street enjoying free beer, compliments of Delirium Tremens. It took us a second but we finally made the connection between the Delirium Tremens logo (a pink elephant on a blue background) and the outfit that little Manneken Pis was wearing. The statue was all dressed up as a part of this big promotional party.

Not being the type to turn away free beer, we grabbed a few drinks and joined the crowd in the streets. At this point we noticed another hilarious part of the beer promotion. A crazy looking older guy (I'll explain more about him later) was pushing around a cart with a replica of Manneken Pis on top of it. With the push of a button the replica could spray unsuspecting passer-bys. Occasionally the guy operating the cart would begin to chase through the crowd spraying any and everyone in his path.

Needless to say, this was completely hilarious to watch. We are not exaggerating when we say that we watched clueless tourists being chased and sprayed for over an hour!

An event like this certainly brought all of the crazies out of the woodwork. They were probably all attracted by the gentleman chasing people through the crowds with the Manneken on a cart. If there were a contest for the world's craziest moustache, this guy would win hands down!

Some of our other favorites in the crowd included this young woman who danced to some great 90s tunes,

and this guy who, well, we're not really sure what to say about this guy!

Life Update

2007-09-14T08:27:00.000-05:00

Hello all! We know it's been a while, so we thought we would give you a quick update on our lives. We left Gelsenkirchen on August 25th and headed off on a two week vacation. We decided to rent a car and drive through Western Europe. Along the way we stopped in TONS of different cities and were overwhelmed by all that we saw in such a short time. We will post more details later, but our main stops were Amsterdam, Paris, Geneva (Switzerland), Lucerne (Switzerland), Fussen (Germany), Munich (Germany), Rothenburg o.d.t. (Germany), and Dusseldorf (Germany). Throughout the trip we constantly commented that it felt like we were on our third honeymoon (the first being the real one in Costa Rica and the second our month in Australia). I guess it's hard to complain when you can have three honeymoons all before your first wedding anniversary!

Anyways, we left Germany on Sunday and Jeff left on Wednesday for a quick job in Daesan, South Korea. I decided to stay back because the town is very small and there's not much for me to do there during the day. Plus it's a quick job, so I know Jeff will be back soon!

Our German Travels

2007-08-20T00:52:00.000-05:00

The greatest thing about being in Gelsenkirchen is that we are within driving distance of a number of really unique German cities. Normally we have to save our sightseeing for the weekend when there is time to drive further out, but since everything is so close we were able to travel to a different city every night last week.

On Monday we traveled into downtown Gelsenkirchen, which is really cute. There's a large shopping area with cobbled pedestrian walkways (you may remember we previously got to see these when our taxi driver thought these were roads).
On Tuesday we headed to Munster, about 45 minutes away. We toured the altstadt (old city), which was beautiful. The creepiest/most interesting sight we saw there was St. Lambert's Church. At the top of the steeple you may notice three hanging cages. These were used in the 16th century to display the bodies of the leaders of the anabaptist Munster Rebellion. Talk about creepy! It is pretty cool that the cages and the cathedral itself are so well preserved considering it was built in 1375.
We also had our first authentic German meal at the Pinkus Mueller Brewery: sausages, potatoes, sauerkraut, and of course beer brewed on-site. There was even a band playing old time German music.
On Wednesday we drove to Dusseldorf. Despite our crazy taxi ride, we learned that it really does take just a half an hour to get there! Again we went through the altstadt, where we found this cool octagonal shaped art museum.

We also spent some time strolling through the cobblestone streets and the walkway along the Rhine River.

On Thursday we went to Essen. We heard there was huge Synagogue there with a really unique museum in the basement. Unfortunately the museum was closed, but the building was certainly impressive.

Just like all of the towns in this area, there was a huge Catholic Cathedral there. We went to check it out when suddenly the church bells started ringing and people began filing out of the church. We watched for a while and realized that the Bishop was saying mass for some reason. We watched in the courtyard for a while as the Bishop greeted everyone. The one really unique thing about this cathedral is the golden statue of the Virgin Mary which dates back to the 11th century.
On Friday we stayed in the Gelsenkirchen-Buer area and had dinner at this gorgeous old castle (complete with a moat!) that has been converted into a restaurant. We didn't stay out too late because we were gearing up for our weekend trip to Belgium. We had an awesome time there, but that's for another post!

The Lotus Pond

2007-08-18T03:54:00.000-05:00

One of the coolest places we found in our short time in Kaohsiung was the Lotus Pond. We were hit by two typhoons (thank you very much Pabuk and Wutip) while in Taiwan, so the weather never really allowed us to get out to the pond until the last day we were there. It was still pretty rainy the whole day, but we made the most of it and got some pretty cool pictures along the way.

When you first arrive at the pond, it's really an amazing site. Everywhere you look you see pagodas and temples, many of which are actually in the water.

Our first stop was the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas. They looked like they could be really cool, but unfortunately there was construction, and we weren't allowed to go inside.

We headed further around the lake and came across the Spring and Autumn Pavilions. The area where the Pavilions are located is filled with really unique statues and gorgeous lanterns. They also provided us great cover, as the skies decided to open up right as we reached the pavilions.

There was also this huge statue of Confucius out on the water. As we approached, we realized the statue was actually a three or four story temple. It was pretty cool.

The temple was also surrounded by a big Koi pond containing the largest Koi either of us had ever seen. We bought some fish food and had fun fattening them up even more!

Our final stop along the pond was the Confucius Temple at Kaohsiung, which is the largest Confucius temple in Taiwan.

The Love River

2007-08-15T02:49:00.000-05:00

One of the main tourist attractions in Kaohsiung is the Love River area. The river used to be filthy from polution and was an embarassment to the city. However, it has been recently renovated and is now a really unique area with different buildings and parks surrounding the banks. Jeff and I walked around this area on several occasions and took a bunch of pictures.

Our favorite part of the river area was definitely the large dragon statue. We couldn't really tell, but it looked like it had a mermaid tail, so we called it the mer-dragon.

At night, the river is full of lights, which is really cool, because it looks completely different than it does by day.

We Have a New Photo Site

2007-08-13T23:26:00.000-05:00

Thank you for all of the recomendations we received regarding photo sites. I think we have found a winner. Our new photo site is jeffandmia.winkflash.com. It is still a work in progress, but we have most of our pictures from Australia and Taiwan posted. We think this should work out well, but if anyone has any trouble, just let us know!

Hallo aus Deutschland

2007-08-12T13:25:00.000-05:00

Hello from Germany! Jeff and I have left Taiwan and arrived here in the land of sausage and beer (sound like Wisconsin to anyone else?) this morning. We flew into Dusseldorf and had to take a taxi to our hotel in Gelsenkirchen, about 30 miles away. We didn't think it would be that big of a deal since we had the address and phone number of the hotel. We went to the front of the taxi cue, loaded up our luggage, and gave the driver (who spoke very little English) the address. He looked confused, but said "Ok, ok. I have good GPS." Okay, clearly he didn't know firsthand where it was, but we all know GPS is great, so we still weren't worried. He typed the address into the GPS, but could not find our specific road. After sitting on the side of the road at the airport for about 10 minutes while our driver repeated this same process over and over, he decided to head to Gelsenkirchen in hopes that he would find better directions once we were there.

So off we went on what we thought would be a quick half hour ride. We were cruising the autobahn when we noticed that we passed the exit for Gelsenkirchen. We didn't speak up, and luckily there was another Gelsenkirchen exit further down the road. After entering town, the taxi driver again tried his GPS to no avail. He then decided to stop at a gas station for directions. We still didn't think too much of it, as gas stations usually know the area. Our driver came back into the taxi and seemed confident that he knew where he was going. After a few more minutes of driving, he started stopping pedestrians and asking them if they knew where the hotel was. Since we don't speak German we really had no clue what these people were saying, but after each pedestrian conversation our driver seemed confident that he knew where he was going. After it became painfully clear that we were hopelessly lost, Jeff and I discussed that he must not have a cell phone because he obviously would have called the hotel by now to get directions. About a minute after that conversation we heard a ringing coming from the center console and our driver answered his phone. When he got off Jeff suggested that he simply call the hotel for directions, but he swore up and down that he knew where he was going.

After a few more minutes of driving in circles around the city Jeff and I noticed that our brainiac driver was driving us down a pedestrian walkway surrounded by different shops and cafes. The pedestrian walkway ended at the central train station, and after yelling at a few more pedestrians, our driver learned that the local taxi cue was just on the other side of the station (presumably on the side where there is an actual road, not a pedestrian walkway). So what does our driver do? Put the car in park and leave Jeff and I in the car in the middle of the pedestrian walkway for nearly 10 minutes while he got directions. Oh, and to top it all off, where does he decide to park? Directly outside of the local police station! Let me tell you, I think I can relate to animals at the zoo, because so many people walking by stared at us like we were some sort of foreign creature.

While sitting in the car alone Jeff and I discussed the possibility of grabbing our luggage, throwing some money on the seat, and taking off to find a better cab. However, we have a lot of luggage and it was locked in the trunk so we decided to stay put. Finally our driver returned and proceeded to yell at Jeff and I telling us that we gave him the wrong address for the hotel. At this point, Jeff and I got a wee bit frustrated (after all, we had been traveling for about 24 hours) and said, "Well that's great, just take us to the hotel" as nicely as we could. We took off and headed towards what we hoped was the hotel.

After stopping a few more pedestrians, Jeff again pleaded with him to please just call the hotel. He again said it was not necessary as he knew where he was going. After stopping at another gas station for directions, Jeff implored him to just call the darn hotel, but he swore it was just two more kilometers up the road. After a tense few minutes, Jeff finally spotted the hotel and was able to direct the driver, who apparently didn't see it, to the hotel. As we turned onto the hotel's road, we took the time to point out to the driver that we were in fact on the same road that we had told him the hotel was on. He just got all frustrated and kept saying it was the GPS's fault. As we drove up to the hotel thoughts of a tip must have been swimming in his head, as he then tried to be very nice to us telling us we were staying at such a nice hotel, etc. Jeff and I just stayed quiet and eagerly awaited getting the heck out of the cab.

After over an hour and twenty minutes and a fare that was twice what it should have been, we were finally out of the cab, and we couldn't have been happier. While it was completely frustrating to be stuck in this taxi from you know where, at least we were able to get a "free" tour of downtown Gelsenkirchen!

A Truly Unique Experience

2007-08-05T17:30:00.000-05:00

On Saturday Jeff and I spent the afternoon exploring Kaohsiung. I knew there was a minor basilica, Holy Rosary Cathedral, nearby, so of course we stopped in to take some pictures.

I swear we have a knack for finding weddings (but I guess that's what happens when you explore on Saturday afternoons)

During our visit we noticed that there was an English mass on Sunday, so Jeff and I decided we would go the next day. We arrived at church about 15 minutes early and took our seats. A few minutes later a woman from the church approached Jeff and I and asked if I would be willing to read the first reading. I was a little hesitant, but Jeff spoke up and said I would. I figured it couldn't be too bad; at least I knew the language! We were transplanted from our discreet seats in the back corner to the very empty front row! I was still a little nervous as I walked down the aisle with the priest at the start of the mass, but I thought, "hey, when am I ever going to be in church in Taiwan reading before a bunch of people who speak English as a second language!"

I got through my reading and had some time to relax and actually look around the church. Jeff pointed out that the church was full of Filipinos. Initially we weren't really sure why, but as we listened to the priest talk, we realized that they were primarily migrant workers here to earn money for their families back in the Philippines. Given the audience, the mass had a very different tone than others I have been to. It was really interesting to hear the priest encourage the migrant workers, but also warn them about dangers like infidelity. He even gave a long speech at the end of the mass reminding people that the minimum wage in certain sectors had been increased, so they should make sure to check their pay stubs.

All and all I realize that it was definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I am so glad I took it. Incidentally, the prayers were slightly different than the ones we say in the US. I won't go into detail here, but if anyone is interested in some of the really cool difference, feel free to send me an email and I will gladly fill you in!

Where Are All Our Pictures?

2007-08-02T22:55:00.000-05:00

Those of you that peruse all of our pictures on our Yahoo photo site may be wondering why we haven't posted pictures from our recent travels. In all honesty, I haven't had a chance to upload them, but that isn't the point of this post! I just found out that Yahoo photos will be closing, so Jeff and I will have to find a new website to post all of our travel pics. Yahoo recommended a few other websites, but we aren't really sold on any of them because they have very limited storage, and as you all know, we take a lot of pictures.

We plan on doing some research into other websites, and as soon as we set something up, we will post the link on our blog. And if anyone out there has their own photo website that they love, please let us know so we can look into it!

Greetings from Taiwan!

2007-08-01T19:55:00.000-05:00

After a wonderful weekend at Adam and Katy's wedding, Jeff and I left for Kaohsiung, Taiwan on Tuesday. Jeff was here for two weeks before the wedding, and it looks like we should only be here about 10 days, so it's definitely a quick trip. After that it looks like we will be sent straight to another job in Europe.

From what I have seen so far, Taiwan is really cool. The city we are in really big (almost 1.5 million residents). There are a few taller buildings, but for the most part, the buildings are all about 6-7 stories high, and as large as a city block. Here's a few pictures from our hotel room.

We should have a little time for exploring, so hopefully we will post some more pictures soon!

Kuala Lumpur

2007-07-13T18:30:00.000-05:00

About a month ago, just a few days before we left Malaysia for our vacation, Jeff and I flew to Kuala Lumpur for a weekend getaway. I can't speak for Jeff, but I really think Kuala Lumpur was my favorite "big city" that we have visited thus far. It was incredibly clean, easy to get around, and had absolutely amazing shopping!

We flew in late on a Friday night and checked into the JW Marriott Hotel. Since Jeff has Platinum status at Marriott we were upgraded to an incredible suite, which was so comfortable! For those of you who don't know or who haven't yet realized, I kind of have an obsession with finding Catholic Churches and Irish pubs in every city we go to. So after checking in, we wasted no time and headed straight to Finnegan's Irish Pub and Restaurant just down the street.

We relaxed with a few Kilkenny's before turning in for the night.

Saturday morning we headed out to the Kuala Lumpur Craft Complex, which was truly a unique experience. The complex is a collection of huts rented by different artists. You can walk through the grounds and stop in the various huts to see the artisans creating different pieces. Of course they also had all of their artwork for sale.

We spent several hours here and purchased some really unique pieces of art. Our favorite by far was a painting done on silk that is semi-transparent (so when you hold it up to a light the light shines through and illuminates the painting). Now all we need is a house to display it in!

We returned to the hotel, dropped off our purchases, and cooled down with a drink in the executive lounge, where we had an incredible view of the Petronas Twin Towers.

Then we took our map of the city and went on a walk to see some of the historic sites. We saw some really cool Mosques, a super unique fountain that is shaped like a tree with elephants coming out of it, the first Christian Church in Malaysia, and Merdeka Square, which is basically the Malaysian Independence Square.

As we were passing through Merdeka Square, the skies opened up and we got soaked. Luckily we were able to find a bus stop not too far away to shelter us a bit. After the rain subsided a bit we headed to another shopping center.

Later Saturday night we decided to check out some more of the Kuala Lumpur night life. We went to this really cute Mad Hatter themed jazz bar. It was a great day to relax after a busy day! We also went to another funky outdoor bar that was amazingly relaxing despite the fact that it was basically on the sidewalk!

On Sunday we spent the day around Petronas Towers and the KLCC. We shopped our hearts out at Suria KLCC, walked around the park, went to the aquarium and went up to the bridge connecting the two towers.

After two busy, but very fun, days we had to fly back to Kijal Sunday night so Jeff could get to work nice and early Monday morning! Little did we know that Jeff would be released from the job on Tuesday and we would be off for a month long vacation!

Did You Miss Us?

2007-07-12T10:17:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while since we have last posted - did you all miss us? Well we have finally returned from our extended vacation in Singapore and Australia. We had an amazing time and promise lots and lots of posts over the next few weeks. We returned from Australia on Friday and Jeff already had to leave for his next job in Taiwan yesterday. I decided to stay back to take care of a few things at home. But Jeff will be back in two weeks for Adam (Jeff's best man) and Katy's wedding, and after that I will fly back out to Taiwan with him for the rest of the job. Since I am home alone and have a little down time I will try my best to post as much as possible. So the moral of this post - stay tuned for more excitement to come!

Footy Fun

2007-06-18T02:52:00.000-05:00

In Melbourne, the popular winter sport is Australian Rules Football, or "Footy." Rugby is more popular in Queensland and New South Wales, and Cricket is the sport of choice in summertime.

Footy was invented in Melbourne as a winter sport to keep cricket players fit during the off-season. Out of the 16 teams in the AFL, 9 of the teams call Melbourne home. Unfortunately, this week's round of play has been split over two weekends, and we could not find a game playing in Melbourne.

However, an hour long train ride away is the city of Geelong, who were playing host to the Brisbane Lions. The Geelong Football Club "Cats" are on the top of the ladder (standings). We decided to hop onto the train Sunday to catch the 1 pm start-time.

It was raining for the first quarter, but afterwards the rain stopped and the sun peeped out of the clouds occasionally.

The game is played on a cricket pitch (a large oval field), and a goal is scored by kicking the ball through the center two posts. A goal will fetch you 6 points. If you kick the ball through the posts next to the center posts, you will score a "behind." Behinds will add 1 point to your score.

Since it was rainy, the game looked really sloppy in the first half. No one could hold onto the ball, and the Brisbane team didn't even score a goal before halftime. Luckily the weather cleared up and we were able to enjoy some more scoring second half.

In the end, Geelong won 85 - 35 which was a low scoring game.

Mia and I purchased some local attire to fit in and cheer for the home team.

Where in the World Are We?

2007-06-14T04:20:00.000-05:00

Where are we? Good question. For the next few weeks you may not hear from us. We promise its not because we don't love all of our readers. Rather, we will be on holiday! Our job in Malaysia is over, and we are currently on holiday in Singapore for a few days. Then its off to Melbourne (via Perth) where we will spend a few days with Jeff's sister Rachel who's studying abroad there. Then its back to Perth for a few weeks of traveling the Western Australia. We should be back in the US around July 6th or so (which is also coincidentally Jeff's birthday). We don't know if we will have internet access along the way, but we will try to post pictures and updates as often as possible. But if you don't hear from us, then know that there will be a whole bunch of exciting posts to come during the month of July!

Pulau Gemia . . . Or to the non-Malay, Gem Island

2007-06-10T21:08:00.000-05:00

For the past two weeks Malaysia and Singapore have had a school holiday. What does that mean for Jeff and I? That the hotel has been absolutely overrun by large tour groups full of screaming children. In an effort to seek some tranquility and see more of Malaysia, we decided to take an overnight trip to Gem Island, which is about two hours north of here. Gem Island and Kapas Island (its larger, more popular neighbor to the south) are two of the best places to snorkel on the east coast of Malaysia. Kapas is the larger of the two islands and has several beaches and resorts scattered throughout the island. We read that it can be really busy on the weekends and school holidays, so we wanted to avoid that at all costs. Gem Island however is a private island that you can only get to if you are staying at its villa resort. We read that the snorkeling tended to be more accessible on Gem Isle, with less people around scaring away all the fishies.

To get to Gem Island, we drove north two hours to the fishing village of Marang.

From there we took a quick 10 minute boat right right to the resort's front dock. The island is really cool. It is basically a large rock with a few areas carved out for beaches. All of the villas over look the water and are situated on top of the rocks and the beach.Speaking of, the villas at the Gem Island Resort were awesome. I took a ton of pictures of the room because this is what I would love my bedroom to look like some day.

After lunch and a quick rest we rented some snorkeling gear and hit the water. We weren't really sure where to start, so we jumped in on the far isolated end of the island. This was when we encountered the large monitor lizard running into the bat cave (as noted in Jeff’s lizard post). There was a lot of older coral and some really cool fish, but there were also super tiny microscopic jellyfish constantly stinging us. We couldn't even avoid them because you couldn't see them!

Then we moved to the other side of the island where we heard there was newer coral. While the tiny jellyfish were still there, they were not nearly as bad as on the other side of the island. The coral over here was much more vibrant and colorful. We must have seen at least 10 different types of coral. With the different coral of course comes different marine life. On this side we saw "Nemos" and "Doris" (clownfish and palette surgeonfish for the non-Disney aficionados) and dozens of other colorful and interesting species (such as blue ring angelfish, many varieties of rabbitfish and the cool giant clams). Unfortunately we weren't able to get an underwater camera, so we don't have any cool pictures to share.

When we woke up Saturday morning, the sun was shining and it was just beautiful outside. We grabbed the cameras and took a ton of pictures on the beaches. Then we headed to breakfast and did a little bit more snorkeling in the newer coral. It was high tide this time, so we didn’t have to worry about our bellies scratching the coral surface at certain points. With this extra room to swim, Jeff would randomly take-off chasing a fish of his fancy leaving me in the dust (hmm, ok … what is dust in the ocean … fish poop?).

The Gem Island Resort also operates its own turtle hatchery. When giant green sea turtles come ashore and lay their eggs, the hotel moves them to their protected sanctuary to keep them safe from predators. Then, when the turtles hatch they are placed two different tanks where they can grow and develop free from predators. Once they are big enough, the hotel lets them loose and hopes they will come back some day to lay eggs there again.

After that, we showered up and headed back to the Awana Kijal. While it was only a one night get away, it was definitely worth it to have at least one night of relaxation and amazing snorkeling.

Happy 50th Birthday Malaysia!

2007-06-06T19:39:00.000-05:00

It's hard to watch TV, read the newspaper, or drive around the city without seeing some sort of reminder that 2007 is the 50th anniversary of Malaysia's independence from the British (we feel you Malaysia - it's been 231 years for us and we still celebrate the 4th of July). For the 50th anniversary, the government officially declared 2007 to be Visit Malaysia Year. The tourism board came up with an elaborate advertising campaign using the catchy slogan of Visit Malaysia 2007 (the ever so addictive Malaysia, Truly Asia advertising campaign already noted in a previous blog post is also part of this effort). They have really gone all out promoting the best that Malaysia has to offer. There's a pamphlet we found at the airport detailing a different celebration happening somewhere in Malaysia each week of 2007. Unfortunately none of the celebrations in Terengganu are happening while we are here. While we won't be here for the actual independence day (called Hari Merdeka) on August 31st, we still feel like we are part of the celebration just by being here in 2007.

While 50 years of nationhood is great, there is a far more important (okay maybe that is an exaggeration) anniversary this year. 2007 marks the 25th anniversary of McDonald's arrival into Malaysia. So let's celebrate the 7 red stripes, 7 white stripes, the yellow crescent moon and 14-pointed star by picking up a Shrek 3 action figure, available only at McDonalds. Badabadada ... I'm Lovin' It, Malaysia.

So if you are looking for a vacation spot for 2007 we highly recommend Malaysia!

Lizards! with Photos and Amusing Anecdotes

2007-06-02T23:50:00.000-05:00

Hello everybody! Jeff here to bring you this installment of Animal Planet - Malaysian Style. This post is dedicated to the reptilians I encounter during my day to day routine.
The creature I encounter most often is the Common Butterfly Lizard. At work, these guys rule the complex. I'd see about a dozen a day. When they fight, the lizard will run on two legs (on the same side) while flaring out his chest and neck-sack. Every now and then, I will notice a large male trying to get frisky with an unsuspecting female. The resultant action would appear like fighting to the untrained eye, but if you pay enough attention you will see the difference. This one instance, a lizard had another lizard's head completely in its mouth. I couldn't tell if he was trying to fight, mate, or eat the poor chap. I scared the big guy off, potentially saving the life of the smaller butterfly lizard. Do I consider myself a hero? I'm just an average man, doing his job everyday. But to answer the question, yes. Yes I do.In the morning, you will find these guys patrolling for bugs in the grass. It is always exciting to see one dart and attacking an aloof butterfly as it hovers above the ground. If these guys were around in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, I have a feeling the Szalinski kids and the bratty neighbors wouldn't have lasted long. The Common Butterfly Lizard is a shy creature, but I was still able to take some nice photos. They burrow in the sand, which gives them a sort of prarie dog look when they pop-up their heads.

Next on the list is one of the largest lizards I have seen in the wild, the Malayan Water Monitor. This guy is huge (photo from our trip to Pulau Kapas). He is in the same family as the Komodo Dragon, but he is non-toxic. I'll normally spot this species as roadkill on the way to work. Every now and then you'll see a live monitor crossing the road. One morning as I left the elevator at the hotel, I walked over the grating covering the water drain. Splash splash splash! I look under my feet, and this lizard about 6 feet long head-to-tail is struggling to get away. It was pretty cool (as long as they don't figure out how to come up through the toilet!). On our recent getaway to Pulau Kapas, as Mia and I walked to the beach behind the spa, we noticed a monster monitor lizard. This guy was massive! He waddled lizard-style into an adjacent cave, as we must have startled him. As he entered the cave (pictured above), about a hundred bats started flying out over our heads. It was a pretty amazing site! Too bad we didn't have our camera or camcorder handy!

The next specimen is a common site for many of our readers, the Gecko. For the past two months, we have shared the Awana Resort with these creatures. Trying to identify the species, we are leaning towards the Flat-Tailed Gecko with the Spiny-Tailed Gecko and Four Clawed Gecko a possibility. In the early morning and evenings, you cannot miss the geckos as they distinctly scuttle away on the wall. Not used to having little lizards leisurely dwelling on the wall, my first instinct tells me its a giant insect or spider! However, after a while you get used to their movement and it is no longer startling. One of my coworkers showed me a cool trick for these guys. Apparently, these geckos go nuts for laser pointers. They think the red spot is a nice juicy bug! It's a full day of enjoyment sitting in your room and controlling the poor little gecko as he runs around chasing the laser trail. On a recent assignment in tropical Southeast Asia, one of my coworkers would use this trick as an icebreaker to help meet some local ladies. All you have to do is get the gecko to following your laser, and then run the laser right up some unsuspecting person's leg. I am not sure how many friends he made, but I can guarantee it was entertaining. Unfortunately, Mia and I do not own a powerful enough laser pointer to replicate this experiment.

The last creature I have encountered out here is the Yellow Striped Tree Skink (please don't snicker at his name, it's not his fault he 'skinks' ... um ... ok, that was dumb). So as I was leaving work for my normal lunch at the McDonalds, I notice this lizard creature on the ground. This was not the normal butterfly lizard as detailed above. I took a good look at him, until he skittled into the drain. The guard at the security gate wondered what I was looking at. He thought it was the 'sand lizard' (local name for the Common Butterfly Lizard), but I gave him the description and he had never seen that species before. Now curious, I looked online and discovered it was the Yellow Striped Tree Skink, which is rarely encountered in the wild as it is a very shy species. So now I got THAT going for me!

Beach Day!

2007-05-27T07:18:00.000-05:00

After several weeks of non-stop working, Jeff finally got a day off this weekend. It was a school holiday here, so it was far to busy to go to the islands and go snorkeling. Instead we decided to make it a beach day and enjoyed the hotel's 8 kilometer long private beach. One of the other employees here with us, Greg, also had the day off, so he came along to play.

The day started off with ping pong and Tiger Beer. The boys had some fun while I took pictures.

The ping pong table is located just outside of the children's play area. Normally there is a hotel employee working inside the play area to prevent hooligans from entering, but she was called away long enough for us to run in and take the following picture:

We then headed to the beach, making sure to avoid the golf course and any errant golf balls.

We took many breaks along the walk to look for crabs and to play a little Frisbee.

We walked all the way down to this great rocky area full of small tidal pools. Jeff and I climbed on the rocks for some great pictures.

Then Greg and Jeff decided sumo wrestling in the sand would be a whole lot of fun!

We spent several hours like this just relaxing, having fun, and trying to get some sun. I'm not going to say who, but based on this picture and our tans can anyone guess which one of us works and which one sits at the pool all day?

Russian Pop Music

2007-05-14T20:12:00.000-05:00

I know we are not in Russia anymore, but this was a blog I was thinking about writing in Russia and never did. We had a conversation at dinner the other night that inspired me to finally sit down and write it.

While in Russia we didn't have any English TV (although for some reason the last two weeks we were there Animal Planet changed to the UK version), so if we watched TV at all it was usually the music video channel, which often played American bands. In case you are interested, the most popular American artists in Russia (at least based on how often the videos were played) seemed to be Jennifer Lopez, 50 Cent/Eminem, Fall Out Boy, Akon, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake and the Pussycat Dolls. The channel also played a lot music from other European artists. We didn't really think about what music was being played until one day it dawned on us that we only saw videos in Russian about one third of the time. Jeff and I could really only identify a handful of artists by then end of our stay. If you don't believe us you can check out the top video chart from Russian MTV and see how many of the artists Russian, American or European.

While we could only remember a few artists, our favorite by far was a "rapper" named Timati. We constantly saw a video with him and another artist named DJ Dlee that was rather amusing. If you watch the video I am willing to bet that the song will get stuck in your head!

Another artist that caught our eye was Dmitriy (Dima for short) Bilan. We could not help but remember Dima based on his unforgettable hairdo. Though it has waned in popularity in the US, the mullet is all the rage for stylish Russians (a fact that Jeff and I didn't realize until we walked around the metropolitan streets of Moscow). As you can see from pictures, Dima sports an excellent mullet. We also remembered him because this video reminded us of Rico Suave for some reason (who knows why). He has an official site in English located here if you are interested.

The other night we were at dinner with the couple here from Russia. The subject of pop music came up and Jeff and I mentioned that we could only remember a few artists. They both laughed and confirmed that Russia was lacking in the pop music area. The direct quote was "Pop music is the shame of Russia." I don't know if I would go that far, but it confirmed why Jeff and I didn't see quite so much Russian music on MTV Russia!

Imu Barbecue

2007-05-13T00:56:00.000-05:00

Every time Jeff and I ride the elevator at the hotel we see an advertisement for an authentic Hawaiian style dinner every Saturday night down near the beach at the hotel. The pictures looked fun and we were definitely curious to see the Malaysian take on a Hawaiian tradition. Because Jeff was working such long hours we never had the chance to attend, but the crew recently started working shorter shifts, so Jeff and I made reservations for last night.

The formal name of the dinner is the "Banana Plantation Imu Barbecue." We didn't know what imu meant, but a quick trip to Wikipedia informed us that an imu is an underground oven traditionally used by Hawaiians to cook a pig (based on the pictures that's what we figured, but we wanted to make sure). We were curious as what would be prepared in the imu since Malaysia is a Muslim country and since Muslims do not eat pig.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't the best last night, so the hotel had to move the party into the restaurant where we eat breakfast every morning. Despite the change in scenery, there was still a festive atmosphere. We were greeted by a yummy tropical fruit juice drink and started to make our way through the massive buffet. The hotel did a pretty good job preparing food you would expect to see at a luau (although of course there were also a few traditional Malaysian dishes just in case you forgot where you are!). The focal point of the whole meal however was the meat prepared in the imu. In lieu of pig, they roasted a leg of lamb, and it was delicious! Of course the night wouldn't be complete without a stop by the very large dessert section. I don't know if it was an homage to American culture or just a coincidence, but there were more desserts there than I have seen the whole time we have been here! I was in a sugar lover's paradise! All in all, we had a really good night and for a moment there it almost felt like we were back in the US at a Hawaiian luau.

What is Petronas?

2007-05-09T02:31:00.000-05:00

This is a question I have asked myself many times while here in Malaysia, and I finally have an answer. Before arriving here the only thing I knew about Petronas was that it was the name of the two connecting towers in Kuala Lumpur (completely random side note - my whole life I thought it was Kuala Lampur . . . oops!). I figured it was some corporation that was headquartered in the Petronas Towers or some famous Malaysian named Petronas. Well it turns out I wasn't that far off (okay, maybe I was on my second thought!).

In driving around Malaysia I have seen the Petronas name everywhere, so I finally decided to investigate what it was all about. Jeff informed me that Petronas is a gas and oil company owned by the Malaysian government and that "Petronas" was actually short for Petroliam Nasional Berhad. Jeff drove me to his plant on his last day off and we certainly hit the petroleum district! You couldn't drive 10 feet without seeing a building or a person with Petronas emblazoned on it. Jeff explained that the company controls all of the gas and oil production in the entire country, and let me tell you there is a lot of it! Now it makes complete sense to me why the towers in KL (that's what everyone around here calls Kuala Lumpur) are named after Petronas!

Who Doesn't Love a Layover?

2007-05-03T03:06:00.000-05:00

The layover. Unfortunately in today's travel market it's almost unavoidable if you are traveling more than a few hundred miles. In our travels Jeff and I have had many layovers in many different airports. Some were excellent while others were, well . . . lets just say less than enjoyable. Since we do so much traveling I check the Travel section on MSNBC.com almost daily. Today I came across an article that I could really relate to: the Best Airports for a Layover. As I read the article I noticed that Jeff and I have been to the majority of the airports listed - most of them in the past few months!

After reading the article I clicked on the link within the article to get the actual list compiled by Forbes Magazine. If you are planning on doing any international travel any time soon I would definitely check it out. In case you are too busy (or lazy!) to click on the link and see the pictures, here is the list along with Jeff and my experience with the airports:

Changi International Airport, Singapore - We both flew through here on our trip to Malaysia. I got in at around 12:00 at night and walking through the terminal was like a breath of fresh air. There were all these gorgeous native plants and little ponds everywhere that just seemed to put me at ease.

Hong Kong International Airport, China - Jeff flew through here on his way to Malaysia (I went through Tokyo). He agrees that it is a really nice airport.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, Texas - We flew through here on our way to Costa Rica for our honeymoon. The terminal was really nice and it had a TGI Fridays so we were happy campers!

Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland - Never been there - if you have feel free to share your experience!

Munich International Airport, Germany - Never been there either, so if you have, share away!

Incheon International Airport, Seoul, South Korea - Jeff and I flew through here on our way to Ulsan, South Korea. Honestly, I don't remember being all that impressed with it, but I also don't have a negative opinion of it!

Central Japan International Airport, Ise Bay, Japan - Never been there, so let's hear about it if you have!

Luftansa First Class Terminal, Frankfurt, Germany - We have never been in the first class terminal, but we have been in the Business Class Lounges. Let me tell you, they look NOTHING like that picture! While there were a few beverages and some snacks, there was no elegant food and seating was cramped and hard to come by. I guess we are in need of an upgrade!

In the article they also mention the Doha, Qatar International Airport. While the first class lounge there may be nice, the rest of the airport is quite possibly the scariest/busiest/least organized airport I have ever been in! Thank goodness they are building a new larger one - hopefully that will be an upgrade!

While these places are awesome, there is one that I have seen on previous lists of this kind that I think should be included: Schiphol International Airport, Amsterdam, Netherlands. I have flown through here several times and there is so much to keep you occupied and entertained. If you ever fly Northwest/KLM to Europe you will likely end up here.

In closing, to all of the airports out there making the layover better for all of us travelling fools, thanks for keeping it interesting!

Hail to the King!

2007-04-29T02:07:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, April 26th, Terengganu (the state in which we reside in Malaysia) celebrated the Sultan of Terengganu's inauguration as the new Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King of Malaysia). The election of the King of Malaysia is a very unique process (not to mention the fact that it's unique just to elect a King). In Malaysia there are nine Rulers, known as the Conference of Rulers, who are essentially the leaders of nine Malay States. Though there are 13 states, the governors of four of those states are excluded from participating in the election of the King (for more information on why, read the link above for the Conference of Rulers). Every five years the Conference elects a new King, but not on an arbitrary basis. Basically the Kingship is passed from state to state every five years, and the new King is the Ruler in power when it is his state's turn for the throne. This is a very abbreviated version of the process, and if you click on the link above you can get more detailed information. 2006 was Terengganu's turn in the schedule, so in November the Sultan of Terengganu, Mizan Zainal Abidin, was elected as the new King. He officially took the throne on Thursday, so there was much celebration in Terengganu and the day was declared a state holiday.

Selamat Datang ke Malaysia

2007-04-29T01:16:00.000-05:00

"Selamat Datang ke Malaysia" means "Welcome to Malaysia" in Malay, the native language here in Malaysia (though English is widely spoke as Malaysia used to be a British colony). The phrase is seen everywhere, and honestly, its just a lot of fun to say.

We are staying on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia. For those of you who don't know about the geography of Malaysia (and I know there are a lot of you out there based on questions I have received), let me give you a quick lesson. First, Malaysia is located in Southeast Asia, not too far north of the Equator. It consists of two main parts: first the peninsula, which is shared with Thailand, and second, the Borneo part, which as you may guess is on the island of Borneo, and is shared with the countries of Brunei and Indonesia. Malaysia itself is divided into 13 states, two on Borneo, and the rest of the peninsula. We are staying in the state of Terengganu in the town of Kijal.

The hotel we are staying at, the five star Awana Kijal Golf, Beach and Spa Resort, is incredible. They have tennis, golf, a fitness center, a pool, a mile of beach, nine restaurants, a really helpful business office, and one of the coolest lobbies I have ever seen. As far as entertainment and amenities go, this is by far the best hotel we have stayed at yet. Here are just a few pictures we snapped from around the hotel:

Part of the open air lobby.

Path along the top of the beach

The beach (the body of water is the South China Sea)

View of the pool from our floor

Giant chess anyone (I will leave out the Harry Potter reference)?

No Giant Chess? Okay, how about Giant Chutes and Ladders?

In addition to the great hotel, this job is a lot of fun because there is an entire crew of six employees here. Plus, one of the other employees is traveling with his wife, so I have had someone to hang out with while the boys are hard at work. It has really been a nice change of pace to have people to hang out with and to be social with. Just being able to go to dinner with someone else really makes a difference!

All and all, I am really enjoying my time here. Jeff has been working really long hours, so I think he appreciates being able to come back to such a nice hotel!

Malaysia Truly Asia . . .

2007-04-19T09:02:00.000-05:00

. . . the mountains and the sea. Malaysia Truly Asia. We are guessing that many of you have never heard this little ditty, but for at least the past 9 months this jingle has been a highlight of a commercial promoting tourism in Malaysia and has aired regularly on CNN World. When Jeff returned from Saudi Arabia before our wedding he sang this song non-stop, and I had no clue why he was singing about Malaysia. He told me about the commercial and about how it was on all the time and also about how it was just one of those jingles that sticks in your head. After hearing Jeff sing it all through our honeymoon I was curious if I would ever hear the actual version (as opposed to Jeff's rendition). Well luck would have it that as soon as we arrived in South Korea I too got to join in on the Malaysia Truly Asia fun. And let me tell you I started singing the song just as often as Jeff had been! Since then we have seen the commercial on a regular basis in both South Korea and Russia. In case you are interested in seeing it, you can access it here. Just select "TVC - Malaysia(30's)" from the drop-down menu under the "Europe/America Campaign." Disclaimer: Jeff and I take no responsibility if the song gets stuck in your head!

So I am sure you are wondering why I am writing about a commercial (or you are wondering why I won't just state the obvious), but Jeff and I are heading out to Malaysia. Actually that is not true, Jeff is already in Malaysia, and I am heading out there tomorrow. When we left Russia we thought we were heading back to Ulsan, South Korea at the end of April, but when Jeff went back to work we learned that in fact we were heading out to Malaysia . . . in four days. Unfortunately, those who know my legal side know that I have been trying to schedule a time to get officially sworn in as an attorney since I was in Korea during the mass admission ceremony. After nearly six months of trying to get the swearing in scheduled I was slated to get sworn in at the exact time we were slated to leave for Malaysia. Obviously I couldn't miss this meeting, and unfortunately Jeff couldn't delay his departure, so Jeff flew out without me last Tuesday. Since I knew there was no immediate reason for me to leave I decided to book a flight to visit my parents in South Carolina for a week and then fly out to Malaysia. I returned from South Carolina last night and leave for Malaysia tomorrow morning.

I haven't been able to talk to Jeff much since he left, but if Malaysia is anything like the commercials I think we are in for one heck of a good time!

Oh, and as a side note, we promise a Moscow blog soon, but as you can imagine things have been a little chaotic around here!

London Calling

2007-04-07T23:02:00.000-05:00

I know this is post is incredibly delayed, but hey, better late than never :) While on my quick visa trip to Guildford, England I was able to spend a day in Central London. Now anyone who has ever been to London (and I am guessing there are quite a few of you out there) knows that there is no way to see London in just one day, but I did my best to see as much as I could.

After taking an early train into Waterloo Station I started my day by heading over towards Westminster Abbey. The weather was as I would expect it to be in London . . . rainy and chilly. But I wasn't letting the weather slow me down - I was on a mission to see as much of London as possible before my afternoon train back. On the way to Westminster Abbey I saw my first big sight: the London Eye (note that this picture was taken later in the day when the rain cleared up).

The Eye wasn't open yet, so I kept on moving towards Westminster Abbey. On the walk across the bridge I saw probably the most iconic London sight, Big Ben and Parliament.

After stopping for a few pictures I walked another block or two and ended up at Westminster Abbey.

I went inside and took a tour, which was incredible, but unfortunately I couldn't take any pictures. After a quick stop in the gift shop I headed out towards Buckingham Palace. The route brought me across the British Horse Guards, which I hadn't actually intended to see. However, I saw a huge group of people staring at something, so I figured I would cross the street and check it out. I got there just in time to see the changing of the guard, which was a pleasant surprise!

I then headed through St. James's Park and followed the Diana Princess of Wales Memorial Walkway, where I caught my first glance of Buckingham Palace.

I had hoped to take a tour of the palace or catch the changing of the guard in front of the palace, but unfortunately the palace was closed and the guard changes every other day and I was there on the wrong day.

However, this opened up some more time in my day, so I was able to walk around and see more sites. I stopped by Trafalgar Square next . . .

. . . where they were taking down the Lion's Scarves. I didn't know what that was all about, but I did some research when I got home and learned that knitters from all over the country knit the scarves as a major charity project.

After seeing Picadilly Circus and Downing Street I decided to get off my feet and return to the Eye for a relaxing ride. The views were amazing and I posted a ton of pictures on our Yahoo Photo Site. I then started to ride the Tube to see a few far lying sights. I am sure that many of you know that I love the Harry Potter books and movies, so I had to take a train into King's Cross Station.

Though no trains were loading at the time I was determined to get on the platform and take a picture of the wall all Hogwarts students must run through to ride the Hogwarts Express. I was promptly yelled at for being on the platform, but I got my picture :) A few interesting facts for Harry Potter fans. First, the wall they run through is actually between platforms four and five. Second, the station only has 8 platforms, so there is no platform nine and three quarters. I also took the Tube to London Bridge so I could take a picture of Tower Bridge.

I think many foreigners believe that Tower Bridge is London Bridge (or at least I always thought it was), so I learned something! After Tower Bridge I was exhausted and had to head back to Guildford to make sure I could get my passport so I could return to Russia! However, I left London feeling like I packed in as much as I could. I can't wait until I get to return to see so much more!

Back from the USSR ... errr ... Russian Federation

2007-04-05T09:05:00.000-05:00

We are back home! Jeff was released from the job in Ryazan on Friday and Saturday we headed to Moscow for a little bit of work and a little bit of sight seeing. We will definitely be posting pictures and a blog about the trip soon. We left Moscow on Wednesday afternoon and got back here on Wednesday evening.

We're not sure how long we'll be back or where we are off to next, but we will let you know as soon as we find out!

PS - Watch out for Mia's London post with pictures ... coming soon!

Apparently Daylight Savings Time Has Started

2007-03-26T06:57:00.001-05:00

So apparently yesterday (Sunday) daylight savings time started in Russia, a fact that Jeff and I learned this morning (Monday) when a co-worker called telling Jeff that the van to work was waiting for him. We were still asleep and were very much confused. After taking a few moments to clear our heads we realized that it must have been daylight savings yesterday, as we thought it was 7:10 a.m., but the co-worker on the phone said it was 8:10 a.m.

That got me to thinking, how do you know its daylight savings? Maybe some people out there pay close attention to the dates, but for Jeff and I daylight savings always just sort of rolls around without either of us really knowing about it more than a day or two in advance. When you are in the States you normally hear about it on the news or someone who heard it on the news reminds you (we were in Russia when daylight savings started a few weeks ago back home, but because we read US news, we knew that clocks were changing). Even if for some reason you failed to hear about daylight savings before you wake up Sunday morning, there are usually a myriad of things that will clue you in to the new time, such as an automated clock (cell phone, computer, cable box, etc.) displaying a different time than your watch, tuning into your favorite TV show only to see it is not currently on, or even showing up at an event at the wrong time. In any case, we are willing to bet that by the end of the day Sunday most people have managed to figure out the new time (after all, neither of us can remember a time where we didn’t figure it out in our 50 combined years of life on this planet).

With all of that said, how in the heck did we fail to figure out that the time changed? Well, for starters . . . how are we supposed to know which countries observe daylight savings time? Honestly, I couldn’t list the countries that do and do not spring forward and fall back each year (even though ironically Jeff and I saw a map with that exact information earlier this week – but we were just looking at it to see what time it was in Brazil, not to see if daylight savings was coming)! But besides that, all of the normal things that would clue us in back home are absent here. Jeff didn’t work on Sunday, and we spent the day relaxing in the hotel for the most part. When we went to eat, we were well within the hours that the restaurant was open, so there was nothing to clue us in there. We don’t have a cell phone that is synched up with Russian time, and both of our computers are set to Central Time. We don’t speak Russian or follow Russian news, and we don’t get any English news stations that might have tipped us off to the change. We watched American TV through our Slingbox, but because the time didn’t change in the US, all of our sporting events and shows were on at their regularly scheduled time. Finally, there is only one clock in this entire hotel, and it is in the lobby above the elevators. Since we didn’t take the elevators from the lobby, we didn’t see the new time (not that we would have been looking since we had no reason to suspect we were off by an hour).

I guess we have learned our lesson for future travels!

Adventures in Guildford

2007-03-20T14:34:00.000-05:00

I had to do my paperwork for my visa renewal Monday morning, but I got to spent the afternoon exploring Guildford. The town was founded almost 1500 years ago, so I knew there was some history to explore. I wasn't quite sure where to start, so I decided to head out to the tourism office, which was really helpful. I got a few maps and found one for a historical walking tour of town. The tour took most of the afternoon, and I got some amazing pictures. I won't show all of them (though they are up on our Yahoo site), but here are a few of my favorites.

This is a picture of the Great Tower, which is part of the old Guildford Castle. The Tower was built in 1130 by the Normans (though the castle was built much earlier). I guess it never was really used for the military purposes, but it was the primary prison of the region for some time.

This arch, which was built in 1256, served as the main entrance to the Guildford Castle.

Here are a few more pictures of the Castle Grounds.

This is St. Mary's Church, which is the only remaining building in Guildford that dates back to the Saxon times. It was build in about 1050 and had some really old looking gravestones outside. Unfortunately, the grounds were closed when I was there, so I couldn't walk through and take a closer look.

This is the Holy Trinity Church. I'm not sure when it was originally built, but I guess at some point in history the spire collapsed, so they rebuilt it. This is the rebuilt church, which was finished in 1761.

Across the street from the Church is The Hospital of the Blessed Trinity, which is commonly called Abbot's Hospital. It was founded in 1619 by George Abbot, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

While it may look sunny in that picture, the weather quickly changed, and I was caught in a freak hail/snow storm. It was too funny, and I just had to take a picture!

After that I called it a day and high tailed it back to my hotel room to dry off and warm up!

Russian Photos

2007-03-20T13:32:00.000-05:00

We never were able to upload our photos from Ryazan into our old blog, so I thought while I have free internet I would post some of them for you all to see.

This was the view from our hotel when we first arrived. Now all of that snow has melted and we can see that most of that icy area is actually a parking lot!

This was our super small first hotel room (minus a small bathroom, this was it - not even a closet!):

Here are a few pictures from the Ryazan Kremlin:

There is a pretty cool memorial to World War II Veterans on one of the main streets. Every Saturday we have seen Brides, Grooms, and entire wedding parties at the memorial (we are guessing to pay homage?). Here are some pictures:

In Case You Didn't Already Know . . .

2007-03-20T01:18:00.000-05:00

Okay, so I am sure many of you guessed it already (or logged onto AIM where I proudly proclaimed it), but yes, I am in London! I have free internet here, so I will definitely be posting a few new blogs for our loyal readers.

First of all let me tell you about my trip here. On leg one of the journey I had a driver pick me up at the hotel in Ryazan and drive me to the airport in Moscow. It was a really interesting drive. The drive spoke English pretty well, so we chit-chatted a bit. He gave me a lot of the history of Ryazan (it used to be really important), and explained that while most of the country modernized after the fall of communism, Ryazan is exactly the same. This is pretty consistent with what Jeff and I have noticed, namely that it seem like the town is just about 15 years behind (for example credit cards are accepted in only a few isolated stores, restaurants, etc.). My driver, along with many we have talked to from Moscow, didn't think too much of the city as a result of the stagnation. The drive was pretty quick compared to what I thought it would be (only about 2.5 hours), but probably because we were going about 140 kilometers/hour (almost 90 mph) for most of it! I seriously felt like I was in a race car at times!

Leg two consisted of a flight from Moscow to London. It took about 4 hours and went pretty smoothly, minus the dude next to me who was yelling at the flight attendants before we were even off the ground (he felt his view of the TV was inadequate). The final leg of the journey was a drive from London to Guildford, where I am staying. I was picked up at the airport by the NICEST driver who drive me out here (about a 45 minute drive southwest of London). The driver had the nicest car and I seriously felt like a VIP.

So my plan is to take care of the visa, explore Guildford and hopefully spend some time in Central London! More posts to come . . .

Where in the World is Mia???

2007-03-19T01:42:00.000-05:00

My Russian visa has expired, so I was forced to leave Jeff in Ryazan while I left the country to get a new visa. Stay tuned for more information on my present location. Oh, I think when Matt Lauer does this he gives a few clues, so here you go:

1. I have never been here before.

2. The flight here was about 4 hours from Moscow.

3. There is a lot of history here and I can't wait to do touristy things.

I think many of you already know where I am , but I will take guesses! Stay tuned!

Happy (Belated) St. Patrick's Day!

2007-03-19T01:14:00.000-05:00

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Anyone who knows my family knows that St. Patrick's Day is close to THE most important holiday in the Hoffman household. Although Russian's know March 17th is St. Patrick's Day, they don't know much about why and how it is celebrated. In Ryazan, we did not see any celebrations or indication that it was a holiday. In fact, some people didn't know that Jeff and I were wearing green to celebrate, not because we are that creepy couple that likes to be matchy-matchy. However, we did some research online and read that in Moscow the holiday has gained popularity since the fall of communism and that there is at least one parade in some area of Moscow (I don't think we are talking the Boston Parade by any means) to celebrate the day. There's an interesting history of the holiday in Moscow if you follow the link above.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day Jeff and I ate at a Mexican restaurant :) It may sound odd, but there are not a lot of really nice restaurants in Ryazan, and there are even fewer that have an English menu (believe me, it takes forever to order when you are trying to use a Russian Phrasebook to translate the menu.) Jeff asked around to find the best restaurant in town that also has an English menu, and when we told people we were going to the "Gin Mill" restaurant they were like "Ohhhh, that's so expensive!" It was a cute place that reminded us of a Chili's back home. The food was really good (nachos, tacos and chocolate milkshakes), and it was so nice to have something different for a change. We then returned to the hotel to watch NCAA basketball online while enjoying a few beers (no St. Patrick's day would be complete without them). All in all it was probably the most fun day we have had since we were here!

Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage …

2007-03-11T12:10:00.000-05:00

… it’s an institute you can’t disparage.

So a few weeks ago while channel surfing, Jeff came across the intro to the now-defunct show, The Nanny … or so we thought. However, we noticed that instead of Fran Drescher and her annoying voice/laugh, it was a Russian doppelganger. The same characters it seemed, but not being a big fan of the original show, we didn’t focus in on it.

So yesterday, again while channel surfing, we came across this scene (and yes, we photographed the television).

For all the fans of Married with Children out there, let it be known that the show is alive and kicking here in Russia. Since Mia and I were big fans of the show when we were younger, we watched the episode. It’s a complete knock-off re-make with Russian actors playing the Bundy family. The plot line had Kelly Bundy dance in front of everyone which she turned into a provocative stripper-esque routine. Maybe you remember the same episode in its American form. As you see, they don’t even make up new material! Now maybe Russian standards are different, or maybe because its 15 years later, but it seemed Kelly showed a lot more skin than we remembered. Other than that, the plot line was the same. The show even has Marcy Darcy. Sadly, they left out the opening Sinatra song and Buckingham Fountain scene.

We’ll have to keep our eye open for the next Russian knock-off. Harry and the Henderson’s? Mr. Belvedere, is it you? Charles in Charge, I am looking in your direction.

Happy International Women's Day

2007-03-09T04:46:00.000-06:00

March 8th is International Women’s Day here in Russia. On Women’s Day men traditionally shower the women in their lives (mothers, wives, etc.) with flowers. It is similar to Mother’s Day, which they do not celebrate as a separate holiday here, but lucky for us ladies more than just mothers are honored. Many employees have Women’s Day off work and it is seen as a day to relax and be with family, which I certainly did. And in case you were wondering, no, Jeff did not shower me with flowers, but I’ll cut him some slack since there aren’t any flower stores around here. He did however figure out that you can order French Fries in the café at the hotel, so I was as happy as can be!

Men, don’t feel left out, there is also a men’s day of sorts celebrated on February 23rd, which just so happens to be the day we arrived in Russia. Unfortunately for Jeff, he didn’t get showered with my praises since we didn’t know the holiday existed! Its called Protector of the Motherland (or Fatherland depending on the source) Day, and from what I can gather it is similar to a Veteran's Day combined with Father's Day.

The Soul of Korea

2007-03-07T07:13:00.000-06:00

The Soul of Korea – that’s the slogan for the city of Seoul. We know this is a little delayed, but we wanted to still post something about our short trip there before leaving Korea back in January. First off, we stayed at the Westin Chosun Hotel, which was awesome. It’s listed as one of the top 100 hotels in the whole world and is the oldest hotel in Korea (as proved by the following plaque on the side of the building).

Seoul was quite different compared to Ulsan. There were a lot more American restaurants and stores (we ate at Subway and Cold Stone – so good!) and in general a lot more Americans.

As we said in previous posts, we were (okay, at least I was) really excited to see the Myeongdong Cathedral, which was the first Catholic Church in Korea, built in 1898. It was really close to our hotel, so as soon as we arrived and unpacked a bit we headed out towards the Cathedral. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized that the whole outside and front of the church were under construction, so we didn’t get to see the tower portion. However, to not disappoint the many tourists who come to visit the Cathedral, the church raised scaffolding all around the Cathedral and hung a canvas that was painted to look like the real Cathedral underneath.
It wasn’t quite as impressive as seeing the real thing, but it was still pretty cool that they tried to give you the effect of what it would look like. There were tons of people milling around the Cathedral, and it was hard to tell if we could go inside with all of the construction. We saw some people going in and out of a construction entrance, so we decided to try and go in. We entered through the side only to realize that we were crashing a wedding. Jeff wanted me to take a picture, but I just felt a little awkward, so we booked it out of there. We came back on our last day and were able to get some pictures of the inside, which was gorgeous.

On the last day we also took some pictures of the statues outside since there weren’t too many people milling around outside. I especially loved the Grotto, which was a shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Something really distinctive about Seoul is all of the ancient sites scattered throughout this completely modern city. In addition to the Cathedral we visited Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was this huge ancient palace and we spent an entire afternoon walking through the grounds. The buildings were all so cool and different, but they all seemed to have these dragons built into the roof for protection.

There were also a bunch of statutes and carvings on all the stairways and scattered throughout the palace grounds.
Jeff loves this little guy and ended up buying a statute of him to take home with us!

Another really unique tourist attraction is the Cheonggyecheon Stream. which was recently reconstructed a few years ago. It is a site of an ancient stream that formed the class-boundary in the city. On one side was the Emperor and the upper class, and on the other side the peasants. Over time, the stream became dirty and a locale for the homeless and other "undesirables." The city then covered the river to eliminate the problem. In an effort to beautify the city and recover a piece of its past, Seoul invested a ton of time and money reconstructing it. They laid down stone and carefully controlled the flow, which starts with a big waterfall on the north side of town. Jeff actually saw an hour long show about the engineering of it on TV (Discovery Channel?) when he was in Saudi Arabia. The grand reopening was just about two years ago. The end result was really cool – basically a man made river through town that looks completely natural. We walked down different parts of it every day we were there and took a ton of pictures.
The final touristy thing we did was taking a tram ride up to Seoul Tower, the highest point in Seoul. It’s basically a spire located on top of a big hill.

We got some gorgeous views from the observation deck of the tower (it wasn't the clearest day, but oh well).
Instead of taking the tram back down the hill, we decided to walk down and got some more great pictures along the way.

I guess the walkway down the hill is quite famous for Koreans. They call it a lover’s trail and its said that any man who proposes along the walk will not be refused. Towards the bottom of the hill there was this bench that I couldn't help but take a picture of.

In case you can’t read the bench, it says “stand on this bench and sing a love song." In case you were wondering, no, Jeff was not singing (but it does look like he might be drawing a tear).

Wow, this has been one heck of a long blog! I guess we really packed a lot into those three short days!

Fun Observations

2007-02-28T06:34:00.001-06:00

My favorite thing about traveling is observing all of the little things that make the country we are in unique. We haven’t been here too long, but I thought since we have internet access for the next few days I would post a few of the observations we have made so far. I am sure we will post another blog with more later.

1. We are not sure if it is nation-wide or just in our hotel, but the elevators here are really tiny. The door is about as wide as our suitcase and no more than four people can fit in the car. Also, there’s not an up or a down button, but just one button to call the elevator. Thus when you get in you are taken directly to your floor without stopping (besides, there wouldn’t be room to stop and pick up people on other floors!). It definitely makes the ride a lot quicker!

2. Despite the fact that it’s winter and pretty cold here, people seem to walk a lot more than they drive. Now because it’s winter, there is a lot of snow and ice all over the sidewalks, which makes it really difficult for parents to push children in a stroller or pull a cart with groceries or other goods. The Russians have an awesome solution to this problem: sleds. When you walk down the street you see all kinds of sleds, from the commercially produced to the cleverly homemade. I don’t know why, but every time I see them it makes me smile, especially when there are children aboard because they just look so happy.

3. Whereas Americans line up behind the person in front of them, Jeff and I have noticed a lot of people here line up next to you instead of behind you.

4. When exchanging dollars into rubles, Russian banks will not take dollars unless they are perfectly crisp and free of any defects. This makes perfect sense, because if you don’t deal in the currency often, you might not know the difference between real and counterfeit, so to avoid problems, you just take ones you know are perfect. Jeff and I learned this when several of our dollar bills were rejected at the bank for defects. We then decided to look at every bill we had and realized how many of them had writing or other ink blotches on them! It’s really funny, because it’s something that you rarely recognize when you’re in America, but I guess we have dirty money! Seriously, look in your wallet and compare the number of perfect bills to the number of bills with writing or ink or tears, etc. I think you’ll be surprised. In conclusion . . . stop writing on your money!

5. At the hotel here there is no such thing as a room tab. You pay for your room in advance, so every couple of days you go downstairs and pay for a few more days. Also, when you go to the café you can’t just charge something to your room. That’s definitely one way to make sure people don’t run off without paying their bill!

6. Before we left everyone asked us to see if the “traditional Russian hats” (you know, the big furry ones with the earflaps that tie on top of your head) are actually worn in Russia. Now it has been relatively warm here (nothing close to below zero Fahrenheit), so we can’t say for sure, but walking around I would say that about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people we saw were wearing the hats. They are so fun and Jeff and I definitely want to try and pick some up before we leave!

Musical Rooms

2007-02-28T06:33:00.001-06:00

When we switched rooms last week the hotel forgot to note that the larger rooms were all booked this week for a children’s musical festival. What did that mean for Jeff and I? That we got to switch rooms again . . . back to the smaller room we started in. We are only here for two nights, so it’s totally not that big of a deal. Plus, this room is actually a little better than the first room we were in because it has two twin beds, so we can store our luggage on one bed during the day and it does not seem quite as cramped. However, the best thing about this room is that we are just below the café and we can get wireless internet access in our room (though the signal strength isn’t the best)!!! It is still really expensive, but at least I can spend a little time over the next two days keeping in touch with people back home and posting new blogs (I have been writing them offline so I can just copy and paste as soon as I get online). After that we are back to a larger room (probably without internet access) hopefully for the rest of our stay here. With all of this moving Jeff and I were really happy that we were able to cut out one suitcase from our last trip!

We're Here!

2007-02-27T03:00:00.000-06:00

Greetings from Ryazan, Russia! We left on Thursday afternoon Chicago time, and after a 8 hour flight to Frankfurt, Germany, a three hour flight to Moscow, and a three hour car ride to Ryazan we arrived late Friday night Russian time. We had initially thought that we would be able to spend a few days in Moscow on our way in, but as things tend to go with Jeff’s job we had to skip Moscow and head straight here. I guess we’ll just have to try and check out Moscow on our way out instead!

The hotel we are staying at is nice, though not quite as luxurious as the Lotte in Korea. It has a security guard (which is nice), a little breakfast restaurant, a small bar, and a café/bar on the top floor. When we first checked in, they gave us a room that was, well . . . tiny - there’s really no other way to say it! It had no closet or dresser, and barely enough room to fit all of our luggage on the floor (not to mention that we couldn’t walk since our luggage took up all the floor space). I snapped a few pictures, but they aren't loading for some reason here, so I will try to post them later.

Jeff had to go to work first thing Saturday morning, but when he got back around noon he talked to the front desk and they had a much nicer room available for us (and the price is really not all that much more), so we moved right away. Our room now is perfect! We have a huge closet with plenty of room for all of our stuff, a big desk for the computer (and for scrapbooking!), a refrigerator, and a luggage bench. We also get cable TV, but the only all English channel we get is CNN World. There are a few movie channels that play American movies, but unlike in Korea where we were spoiled by subtitles, the movies here are all dubbed in Russian.

Since we arrived on the weekend, Jeff worked only half a day, so we spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons exploring Ryazan. We don’t have a car here, so we made sure to bundle up for our walking. The weather here isn’t as bad as I had expected (thought I heard they are having a warm streak right now, so that may change), but it was certainly cold! There was an employee from the office in Moscow here for the first three days we were here and he told us where we could find the Kremlin here in Ryazan. We walked over there on Sunday afternoon, and it was really cool. It was made up of about 8 different buildings, all of which were really different and unique. Again, I will try to post pictures when the upload feature is back and working.

Finally, internet is only available in the lobby and the café at the hotel (and is really expensive), so we definitely won’t be online nearly as often as we were in Korea. We will try to post as much as possible, but don’t be worried if you don’t hear from us!