CD1 - Lunch

I will be labeling each post as C (for Cambodia) D (Day) # (For what day I am talking about) - Topic (what I am blogging about in this post). It will be too confusing if I label each as Cambodia---blah, blah so that is why I will be doing CD# -

We had assumed at the beginning that our group was going to be pretty big, because when we think tour groups we think lots of people with awesome clothes, big sunglasses, and huge old fashioned cameras. But we kept looking around the whole gate and couldn't find anyone with the same tag as us. Finally when we got off the airplane in Cambodia we stood to the side hoping that someone would come up to us, finally someone did, she introduced herself as Sophia and told us that there were only 5 of us in the group. We quickly found the other two girls and went inside to find our group leader. For some reason the other 3 seemed to have a lot of other paperwork that we had never been given, but it didn't seem to be too much of a concern of the group leader (oh something that we quickly discovered---he knew pretty much NO ENGLISH!!! They assumed that since we were coming from Taiwan that we must be Taiwanese and as such speak Chinese...WRONG! Luckily the 3 girls in the group knew enough English that we were comfortable for the trip).

After going through customs our first stop was lunch!

When we first sat down at the table this guy came around and put ice cubes in our cups for us if we wanted them...look at the size of the cubes! Then came the delicious food! They kept putting plate after plate of food onto the lazy Susan and boy were none of us complaining :D

Andrea after finishing (we didn't even eat a portion of the food!)

Look at that yumminess--you should be proud to know that I even ate fish at this lunch.

After lunch we all had to use the little girls room. I thought these signs were really cool and my Mom always likes to take the pictures of bathroom signs, so I took these for her :D

The sitting area in the hotel where we ate lunch. We were hoping that we were staying here but we ended up somewhere else that was just as nice.

They had these really pretty things all around the lobby and in the bathroom.

As there was only two stalls in the bathroom we had to take turns going to the bathroom, so what did we do while we waited our turn? Took pictures of course :D

Cambodia--the Adventure!

Can you believe it's been almost two months since I went to Cambodia? And I haven't even begun to cover it (and believe me there is a lot of covering to do!)...ahhh!! But it starts now, I accidentally left my book with all of my journal notes at my Mom's house, so for now I'm just going to start adding pictures and then when I get the book I will add the journaling.

Do you see that TV? Do you see what the destination is? Yep, it's Ankor...as in CAMBODIA!! Like I totally went there :D

Look how happy we are despite having already been up for several hours and being a little nervous about finding our group.

Yeah we had already been awake for several hours by this time. I think we had to be at the airport by 6:30ish and had to leave an hour before that from the apartment where we were staying.

Our first glance at the airport! Isn't is beautiful?

Our airplane that we walked from...isn't that crazy that we had to walk inside from the airplane? There were only 3 gates in the airport.

So beautiful!

I so want to ride one of those! (and I do later :D)

Siem Reap International Airport! Welcome to CAMBODIA!

Really cool statue leaving the airport.

Andrea modeling the cool hat and scarfs that we got.

The strings on my hat were a little short so I didn't end up wearing it very often.

Really interesting detail though.

$10 Challenge

I stumbled upon a CNN article tonight for a $10 challenge, to see what you could buy. You can see the article here. I was really impressed with how far some people could make their money go. I think that it will be something that I will do when I get home, I really liked how some people were able to do their meals for a week on it...but one that I was really impressed with was this guy, how he was able to have a full days worth of adventures on so little money...

A Mart: An Extreme Adventure

Two field trips in two days! How crazy is that? It was so much fun though, well as fun as it can be going shopping with 50 kids :D We had our regular morning classes and then the craziness started. There were at least 10 cars lined up out front of the school and that many or more parents wandering around, talking with each other and the kids. You know how when you are getting ready to go somewhere you go through in your head like a million times what you need to take with you/do well multiply that several times and you can begin to understand what it was. Finally we would be ready and then a 3 year old was missing, or someone needed to change clothes/shoes, go to the bathroom, basically anything that you can think of.

Finally we started to get in the cars, I was in the first one to leave. I got to ride with Elaine's Mom and 6 bouncy 3 year olds :D

It's amazing how much faster you can get somewhere when going in a car. We were all dropped off at the curb and then the parents went and all parked their cars.

Before going inside, each teacher took a group of 10 kids (except me, I was the lucky one with a microphone and got to be the "tour guide"). We walked in and everyone quickly started grabbing carts, I got the microphone out but wasn't really sure what Yuling wanted me to do with it, after a few minutes we quickly decided that it would be easier just for each teacher to be a tour guide for their groups. We started out all together but that quickly changed and were soon spread out through the store.

We had two hours to explore the store with our groups (I used it as a chance to buy some of the more heavier stuff that we needed but didn't really want to bike back with. AKA- Rice). The kids had tons of fun looking at things and picking out what they were going to buy (each one had been sent with $50-$150 or so). Minds were changed many times, especially on making sure that they had enough money.

I went on several runs with kids to find stickers or tattoos that they saw someone else have and they wanted.

When it came time to check-out they opened two check stands just for us, so we wouldn't block other customers and hopefully not frustrate everyone in the store.

When going shopping with 50 kids you would expect to have someone wander off on their own, that happened but it wasn't one of the kids. Yuling disappeared with her group and we didn't see them until the very end when we were getting in line to check out.
It was a long day and everyone was very tired when we were heading home, the kids had fun and loved buying lots and lots of candy (of course that is what most of them bought :D).
Elaine's Mom was nice and bought snacks for everyone in our car to eat on the way back and some how our 6 3 year olds had become 9, all sitting in the back together- with no seat belts :(

Hello....Paul?

Since we were gone for 4 days on our adventures to Taipei I am going to break it down into at least 3 different posts so that you (and I) are not completely bogged down with things to read. This is part 1 of our adventures, or Monday.

Our train was supposed to leave at 1pm and we had arranged that if Yuling was available they would pick us up and take us to the train station. She wasn't 100% certain if she would be available so I wanted to be ready to leave earlier in case we needed to. I woke up around 8 and took a shower and did some cleaning of my room and finalized my packing. At 10 was my family phone call that we have every week, it was fun to be able to get on and not have to rush to class after 30 minutes, I ended up staying on for almost 2 hours and was able to talk to 3 of my brothers.

To be sure that we would have enough time to walk if we needed to I called Yuling's house at about 11:15, their cleaner/helper answered the phone and said that they would be able to take us, Joseph (Yuling's husband) would come around 12:30 to get us and if we hadn't seen him by 13:35 to call. Since I wasn't concerned about time I was able to talk some more with my family. I finished my phone call and asked Andrea if she wanted to try calling her family, by the time we were able to get her family on skype and get it all figured out she was only able to talk for 5 minutes but I think that she appreciated being able to hear their voices.

12:30 came and we still hadn't seen Joseph, I tried calling there house but the phone was busy, I tried calling the cell phones- one was turned off and the other no one answered. I was starting to get really frustrated and anxious, I knew that there was no way that we would make it if we had to walk. I kept trying to call the house and finally at about 20 till I got through, I was told that Joseph had been on the phone with his Mom and had lost track of time but that he was on his way now. We were outside waiting for him when he pulled up, he apologized and explained that he had been on the phone, he then proceeded to rush to the train, he was going really fast honking at people and zooming around them. It was quite entertaining to watch as just on Friday night Yuling was telling us how Joseph is not a angry driver, he always lets people go before him and takes his time while driving.

We got there and we still had about 10 minutes before our train was supposed to leave but they were already lining up and getting on, so we quickly got into line and found our seat on the train. Andrea and I talked for probably the first hour or so, it was really nice to just have some sit down time and to talk with each other, the last several weeks we have had some tension building between us, I am not very good at expressing things because I don't want to hurt the other person or to make things awkward between us, but I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings even though I wasn't expressing them, so we were able to talk about it and other stuff and just make things a lot better and smoother.

After talking we both fell asleep for awhile until right before we pulled into Taipei. We got off the train and headed towards the other part of the Main Station where the MRT (Taipei Metro System or underground trains)) was, we first need to purchase our MRT cards (electronic cards where you put money on them and just scan to pay for your ride), I needed to pull money out of the ATM before I could get my card but I couldn't get the ATM to work finally I tried doing something different and I was able to get it to work.

I had written down the instructions on how to get to the hostel, they were a little confusing but we were able to figure it out and got there safely and with no real problems. We came to the door and buzzed up that we were there. We went to the 8th floor where the hostel was and walked in, I had made the reservation in my name so I was asked to fill out a little sheet with some information about myself, 1st problem…I didn't have my passport with me ("where did you come from?" oh we are working down in Hualien…oh ok--I think that I freaked her out for a 2nd saying that I didn't have my passport with me), it was ok I could just put my e-mail instead.

I finished filling out the paper and paid her, she said let me show you your room, She walked to this room that 2 sets of bunk beds, and told us that we would be using the top and bottom of that bunk. And then she said the worse words that I could hear "and this is your roommate…Paul" my first thoughts going through my head…please let Paul be a girl who had real mean parents. That thought was quickly dashed as Paul (very much male) got off his bed to say hi. I felt bad but I quickly asked "umm…do you have anything without…boys?" She told us that she was full but that the other dorm room had been reserved by two people and they had reserved the whole room, they were supposed to have already been there, she normally gives them an hour to call but that we could wait and see if they came if not we could have the room.

We both sat down on the couch, probably both silently praying for a solution, something that would not be against our morals and what we believe. After we had been sitting for a few minutes she said "you know Beth I do have one room that is available, why don't you come and look at it" she showed us a very small room with one double bed, we would have to share the bed, we didn't care we both very quickly said "we'll take it!"----Isn't it funny though? When I had first been looking at hostel's this room had been available but then when I went back to reserve like 20 minutes later it wasn't available and now it was again! (but we weren't going to complain, we weren't having to share a room with a guy possibly even two!)

Man after that story the rest of our week is going to look pretty tame :D The rest of the evening we went out and had dinner at the Taipei Main Station, a yummy Indian pita place and then went to watch a movie at the Breeze Center, we watched Valentines Day, we were lucky that it ended up not being R (they didn't have any ratings anywhere so we went in with faith that it wouldn't be rated R or be really bad), it had a lot of big name people and had a cute story line but there were several parts that I could have done without.

After the movie we quickly ran back to the MRT (we weren't sure what time it shut down) to get back to the hostel, we stopped at Family Life to pick up some snacks and something to eat for breakfast and then went home. We played cards on our bed for an hour or so and then went to bed.

Not bad for our first day!

AB Taipei Trip: The Hostel

Food Adventures

Last week sometime Andrea and I decided to be adventurous and try something new at the night market...first when we went to get our fruit drinks Donald suggested that we try what he called House of Leek, he said that it was really good for when our bodies were hot and that it would cool it down, we both got one (I have labeled it as Green Slime :D). It actually turned out to be pretty good and the last several times that I have gone to get juice that is what I have ended up getting.
Next we had to try something different for our main entree...we decided to try one of stands where you take a bowl and pick what you want and they will cook it for you, well we discovered that there are several different types of those and we went to one that did just deep fat frying. We both got some chicken and potatoes, Andrea got what ended up being fish and I got for us to split some sweet (wasn't very sweet but a little weird being deep fat fried). It was all really yummy but way too much fatty foods to eat together, when we were done Andrea and I both felt a little sick- we rushed to get some fruit and vegetables to help us feel a little healthier :D
It wasn't a bad adventure but we will be a little more prepared next time to try a different kind of booth or to just pick one item that we want to try.

The pictures are...my dinner-potatoes and fried chicken, the green slime (yummy house of leek with pineapple I believe), and the sweet fried stuff (the lady kept on trying to tell us that it was good but we weren't going to jump at something that we couldn't even begin to identify, so finally she called a friend and told us that it was "sweet" and that was all that she told us, but we were brave and went for it :D)
I was adventurous and tried something else this past week, while Andrea was tutoring Vanessa's sister I was going to run down to the night market and get us dinner, Vanessa's Mom offered to drive me over, it was fun to have her walk around with me and explain what things were--- I tried what she called a spring roll, it was more like a soft burrito, it wasn't my favorite and it probably wont be something that I will try again, but hey I tried it once!

Sorry Baby!

Andrea’s sweet new bike has a baby car seat attached on the back (I guess that bikes with car seats are designed different and supposed to be a little more balanced than others, Yuling said that it is supposed to be a little like training wheels—we are hoping that they will help Andrea). Because of all the stuff that we had bought we had “buckled” one of my bags into her car seat thing. I was riding her bike after mine when “kaplunk” when I hit a pothole, I could hear the bag in the car seat rattle and move a little bit so I said “sorry baby.” So after that every time I hit a ditch (I may or may not have purposely searched for potholes after this :D) I would apologize to the baby.