It's time for my favorite post of the year! You may have seen this TedTalk about the guy who compiled a 1 second video from every day of a year and made a video. We took that idea and made it our own. Using 2 second clips throughout each day of one "typical" week. This is our 3rd year doing this and it's not the exact same dates as the videos we did in 2016 and 2015. For those years, we used the 3rd week of January because there was nothing really going on and it seemed very "usual". In China, the 3rd week of January is kind of like the week leading up to Christmas-very festive in anticipation of the biggest holiday of the year. Then the following week was Lunar New Year. So we decided to push the project back to the first full week of February. You'll see that Lunar New Year goes on much longer than I was aware of. So when you see fireworks in the video, it's not that typical.
Here's what a typical week in Tianjin, China is like for us:
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Then we went to the beach: Tangalle, Sri Lanka
For the last part of our trip, we drove from Yala to Tangalle. Tangalle is in the south of Sri Lanka and is so beautiful. We checked into our hotel and went for a swim in the pool before going in to town for dinner. We went to a local restaurant and got spicy curries with rice and some roti (a bread with filling-they made us one with spice and one without).
The morning of our second day, we took a quick tuk tuk ride to the most beautiful beach. We swam in the waves, relaxed and ran into Grace's classmate and her family. The next few days were spent beaching, eating and napping-just as a beach vacation should be.
The hotel hosted a nice dinner on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning met up with Grace's classmate's family for whale watching. This was our first time whale watching. We took a boat off the coast for about 30 minutes and joined about 20 other boats waiting to see a whale. We saw our first whale off in the distance-so exciting. The boats all raced towards it. We saw 4 whales (or 1 whale 4 times?) and each time it would come up to the surface about 3 times and then we'd see it's tail and it would go back under. The boat operators said that they come up to breathe about every 15 minutes. After seeing three whales, the guide asked if we were happy and wanted to go back. Everyone said yes except for one guy. At his request, we stayed out to see one more. I'm glad we stayed because this last time the whale came up for air right next to our boat. It was really amazing to see.
For the last night we went back to the city of Colombo so we could make it out for our dreaded red eye flight Tuesday night. It turns out that Colombo is a really interesting city. We went out to the shore Monday night and it was crowded with families picnicking and flying kites. The staff at the hotel said it was so busy because it was the recognized holiday for Christmas and there was some kind of carnival there. We had some potato snacks and saw a snake charmer. What?! I was definitely the most excited of the family. We got home Wednesday and celebrated Christmas now we have a few days before heading back to school. Now smooth sailing until summer break!
Friday, December 30, 2016
Yala National Park safari
We took a van from Ella to Yala. It was an easy drive with a short detour to Buduruvagala, a giant Buddhist rock sculpture more than 1000 years old. We settled into our new hotel, hung out at the pool and went to bed early.
The next morning, we were out the door at 5am. There are 3 types of safaris options: early morning, afternoon or full day. The all day trip wasn't too much more than the others, so we went with that option. The schedule was loosely that we would look for animals early morning, then eat, rest and swim mid day followed by more looking.
Our tour included a driver and an animal tracker from the National Park Service. These two were a pretty amazing team. The animal tracker could spot things from the truck that I couldn't see when the truck was parked and he was giving me explicit instructions on where to look. Animals are so sneaky with their camouflage. In the morning we saw a lot of animals, water buffaloes, crocodiles, elephants, various birds (including an eagle and lots of peacocks), mongooses (or is it mongeese? mongi?) and iguanas.
We stopped for the morning break by the beach. We ate our snacks and got back out. We passed another safari group who had seen a leopard. By lunch, we had seen many more of the same animals, and they continued to be amazing, but some people in our family really wanted to see a leopard (it was Jim). Going in to this it is understood that this is not a zoo, and that there is no guarantee that you will see a leopard in the wild. No one was allowed out of the jeeps, the jeeps stayed on the roads, no one is riding or feeding or interacting with the animals at all. (We have done all of those things with elephants over the past few years and each time left feeling a little ethically compromised.) This setting was more natural, which is good, but it also means the animals have lots of room to hide if they want to.
For lunch we stopped by the beach and we ate at a place that looked like it used to be a house. All that was left was the tile floor. I pointed out that you could see where the toilet, shower and sink had been. The guide told me that it used to be a bungalow but that it was destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. Just off to the side of it was a memorial that the people of Japan had built for them (you can see it in the video).
Instead of resting and swimming after lunch, the guide and the driver were anxious to see a leopard, so they got us back in the jeep. We drove around for hours. At some point each of us fell asleep. We saw fewer animals, mid day is the time when all the animals are resting in the shade. We were wondering why we'd booked the full day at all. Then there was a large line of jeeps and using binoculars we did see a leopard up in a tree a few hundred meters away. This is how it goes: one jeep sees a leopard and radios to their friends and everyone races to the location to see it. We were one of the last ones to get there. So technically we saw one, but it was not entirely satisfying.
August had to go to the bathroom by then and we were almost out of time, just 90 minutes left and we said we should probably just head to the exit. The tracker, though said that we were near a watering hole and that a leopard might be coming out soon. So we kept driving around slowly. AND THEN! They spotted one, and we were driving by ourselves, the first ones to see it. He was around 100 feet off the road. At first we could just see his silhouette, and then his tail sticking out of the grass. Still, it was incredibly exciting.
As the leopard kept moving our driver raced about a quarter mile down the road to a clearing. We waited there as a few other jeeps arrived. We spoke with some of the other people there and then quickly we turned around and drove back toward where we had originally seen him. The jeep was turned off and we waited silently. Five minutes passed as we were staring into the brush desperately looking for any movement, then ten minutes, and we knew there was a chance he had gone in a different direction. Afraid to blink we just kept scanning back and forth. Then we saw him again, less than twenty feet from the jeep, walking parallel to the road, and then he turned and crossed the road directly in front of us. We have seen animals like this in the zoo, bigger animals, lions and tigers, but it was not at all the same, absolutely extraordinary, after a long day it was all worth it for this one minute. From there the leopard went back into the bushes and then came out climbing up steep rocks to a ridge line where we saw his silhouette again as the sun was going down.
The next morning, we were out the door at 5am. There are 3 types of safaris options: early morning, afternoon or full day. The all day trip wasn't too much more than the others, so we went with that option. The schedule was loosely that we would look for animals early morning, then eat, rest and swim mid day followed by more looking.
Our tour included a driver and an animal tracker from the National Park Service. These two were a pretty amazing team. The animal tracker could spot things from the truck that I couldn't see when the truck was parked and he was giving me explicit instructions on where to look. Animals are so sneaky with their camouflage. In the morning we saw a lot of animals, water buffaloes, crocodiles, elephants, various birds (including an eagle and lots of peacocks), mongooses (or is it mongeese? mongi?) and iguanas.
We stopped for the morning break by the beach. We ate our snacks and got back out. We passed another safari group who had seen a leopard. By lunch, we had seen many more of the same animals, and they continued to be amazing, but some people in our family really wanted to see a leopard (it was Jim). Going in to this it is understood that this is not a zoo, and that there is no guarantee that you will see a leopard in the wild. No one was allowed out of the jeeps, the jeeps stayed on the roads, no one is riding or feeding or interacting with the animals at all. (We have done all of those things with elephants over the past few years and each time left feeling a little ethically compromised.) This setting was more natural, which is good, but it also means the animals have lots of room to hide if they want to.
For lunch we stopped by the beach and we ate at a place that looked like it used to be a house. All that was left was the tile floor. I pointed out that you could see where the toilet, shower and sink had been. The guide told me that it used to be a bungalow but that it was destroyed by the 2004 tsunami. Just off to the side of it was a memorial that the people of Japan had built for them (you can see it in the video).
Instead of resting and swimming after lunch, the guide and the driver were anxious to see a leopard, so they got us back in the jeep. We drove around for hours. At some point each of us fell asleep. We saw fewer animals, mid day is the time when all the animals are resting in the shade. We were wondering why we'd booked the full day at all. Then there was a large line of jeeps and using binoculars we did see a leopard up in a tree a few hundred meters away. This is how it goes: one jeep sees a leopard and radios to their friends and everyone races to the location to see it. We were one of the last ones to get there. So technically we saw one, but it was not entirely satisfying.
August had to go to the bathroom by then and we were almost out of time, just 90 minutes left and we said we should probably just head to the exit. The tracker, though said that we were near a watering hole and that a leopard might be coming out soon. So we kept driving around slowly. AND THEN! They spotted one, and we were driving by ourselves, the first ones to see it. He was around 100 feet off the road. At first we could just see his silhouette, and then his tail sticking out of the grass. Still, it was incredibly exciting.
As the leopard kept moving our driver raced about a quarter mile down the road to a clearing. We waited there as a few other jeeps arrived. We spoke with some of the other people there and then quickly we turned around and drove back toward where we had originally seen him. The jeep was turned off and we waited silently. Five minutes passed as we were staring into the brush desperately looking for any movement, then ten minutes, and we knew there was a chance he had gone in a different direction. Afraid to blink we just kept scanning back and forth. Then we saw him again, less than twenty feet from the jeep, walking parallel to the road, and then he turned and crossed the road directly in front of us. We have seen animals like this in the zoo, bigger animals, lions and tigers, but it was not at all the same, absolutely extraordinary, after a long day it was all worth it for this one minute. From there the leopard went back into the bushes and then came out climbing up steep rocks to a ridge line where we saw his silhouette again as the sun was going down.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Farleys FARTHEST away-Sri Lanka! (Part 1)
Sri Lanka part one: Colombo-Kandy-Amba Estate
We flew from Beijing to
Chengdu in Sichuan province and from there 6 hours to Colombo. In all of our traveling we have become
spoiled by seat back entertainment and Air China really let us down on both
legs of the flight. Whole cabin shared movies in Chinese are not good enough to
entertain our children.
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| getting on the plane using the stairs always feels more adventurous |
In Colombo we were met by
Amal, a driver recommended by friends, who took us to the first place we
rented. We planned an itinerary based
on things we had read and recommendations, it turns out a lot of people follow
roughly the same route. On our first day we would drive to the city
of Kandy, the next day take the train from Kandy south toward the town of Ella
where we would spend a few days at a tea plantation. From there further south to Yala National Park
where would go on a safari, and then finally to the beach in Tangalle.
The ride from Colombo to
Kandy was slow, a lot of traffic going through a series of towns before opening
up into prettier scenery. We were
probably disproportionately excited to see monkeys running around on power lines
and on guard rails. We stopped at a spice garden along the way, a tourist trap
but still fun. The guide demonstrated the hair removing properties of some herb
by rubbing it on my leg, it worked and there is still a big bald patch on my
shin. They rubbed our heads and Irish bought some of their products before we
moved on.
When we got to Kandy we went
to the Temple of the Tooth where one of the Buddha’s teeth is kept as a
relic. It’s a pretty place, peaceful in
the middle of a loud city. We bought some flowers and placed them on different
altars while I kept reminding the kids that they were still Catholic, there is
no getting out of that.
After checking into our rooms
we went out to another tourist trap, a dancing performance that also turned out
to be fun. At the start of it some of the dancers seemed to be winging it,
bumping into each other and laughing, I was a little worried it was going to be
a disaster, but then they successfully did some hand springs and spun some
dishes and things got better. It ended with fire eating and them walking on hot
coals which made a big impression on August.
The next morning on our way to the train station we stopped at the Royal Botanical Gardens which had been highly recommended. This was the first of several places that exceeded our expectations. Parts of it were sculptured hedges and flowers, and then as we walked further in there towering trees, more monkeys, and then hundreds and hundreds of huge bats. The bats were amazing, at first we could not figure out what we were seeing in the trees, then they started flying in big circles.
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| bats flying in the day, surprisingly not creepy just awe inspiring. |
From the Gardens we went to a small train station south of Kandy where we had booked tickets in advance. I had heard a lot about this train ride, somewhere it was called one of the prettiest train routes in the world- which seems like a lot to live up to. The train car we were in had an open outdoor area on either end and we spent a large part of the 6 hour trip out there watching the scenery. The ride absolutely lived up to the high expectations, the views were overwhelming at times, I found myself standing by myself smiling like an idiot just stunned by how beautiful it all was. Often we were looking at terraced tea fields, then wide open valleys with water falls. As we passed through small farming villages children would smile and wave.
As we got close to our
destination near Ella it had gotten dark and started to rain. We were staying
at a tea plantation called Amba Estates and we had made arrangements with them
to send a driver to the small local train station. The train only stopped for a
minute and we were the only ones to get off, but the driver was there and he
quickly got us to his van. The drive was a little unnerving, we drove quickly
through the rain up into the hills on a small one lane road, then turned onto
an even smaller road, and then eventually turned onto something that seemed
more like a trail than a road.
Finally we pulled up to the farmhouse we had rented and it was fantastic. Getting out of the van we were met by several people who worked there. We were shown to our rooms, the kids would have the upstairs to themselves and Irish and I had a big room downstairs. In the kitchen dinner was waiting for us. We all went to bed comfortable and well fed.
 |
| the driver laughed at me when I tried to get the broken seatbelt to work |
Finally we pulled up to the farmhouse we had rented and it was fantastic. Getting out of the van we were met by several people who worked there. We were shown to our rooms, the kids would have the upstairs to themselves and Irish and I had a big room downstairs. In the kitchen dinner was waiting for us. We all went to bed comfortable and well fed.
I don’t think I can overstate
how happy we were with our stay at Amba Estates. In the morning we woke up to a
stunning view from our balcony across a valley with tea bushes and cows
walking through. The cook and her helper were back and breakfast was
extraordinary. Every morning we had a fresh loaf of bread, jams and raw honey
that had been made there, coffee and tea that had been grown there, and then a
variety of other things. We ate until it hurt. For the next several days every
meal was an absolute pleasure. Curries and soups and vegetables, all grown
there. By the third day Irish mentioned that it had been almost entirely
vegetarian, just one dish with fish, but I had not noticed. Each meal felt like
Thanksgiving.
Between great meals we kept moderately busy, hiking up a nearby hill, swimming at the river at the bottom of the valley. We went on a short trip by tuk tuk to a popular set of waterfalls and went swimming there. On the way back an overloaded dump truck full of bricks got stuck completely blocking the road in front of us. We waited until a group came in a smaller pickup and unloaded a lot of the bricks allowing the big truck to move again. The whole thing seemed like a bad plan, and a bit risky, like there was a reasonable chance the truck comes barreling down the hill , but in the end they got it sorted out and moved the truck without killing anyone.
On our last day there we took a tour of the plantation, learned a lot about tea, very interesting for Irish and I, less so for the kids. While we walked through the fields there were mounds that looked like the things termites build. One of the workers had said they were snake holes, but I thought maybe it was a misunderstanding. I asked the tour guide about them, he said I was right, that they were termite mounds, and then after a pause said “but snakes like to live in them”. He told us the difference between cobra bites and viper bites. If you are lucky a cobra might just bite but not release its venom. If it does release the venom though you are in a lot of danger. With a viper bite if you can stay calm then you might have time to get to a hospital, but with a cobra it affects your nervous system and it hurts a lot more so it is much harder to stay calm and then you are more likely to die. What we took from it was that we should avoid getting bit by snakes at all costs because there is no chance we would remain calm.
On our last day there we took a tour of the plantation, learned a lot about tea, very interesting for Irish and I, less so for the kids. While we walked through the fields there were mounds that looked like the things termites build. One of the workers had said they were snake holes, but I thought maybe it was a misunderstanding. I asked the tour guide about them, he said I was right, that they were termite mounds, and then after a pause said “but snakes like to live in them”. He told us the difference between cobra bites and viper bites. If you are lucky a cobra might just bite but not release its venom. If it does release the venom though you are in a lot of danger. With a viper bite if you can stay calm then you might have time to get to a hospital, but with a cobra it affects your nervous system and it hurts a lot more so it is much harder to stay calm and then you are more likely to die. What we took from it was that we should avoid getting bit by snakes at all costs because there is no chance we would remain calm.
Finally after three great
nights it was time to go. Sad to leave Amba Estate, but excited for the other
things still to come.
Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Surprise! Irish goes to San Francisco for the weekend
video first! Story second!
As someone who lives far away from almost everyone I love, whenever there's a long weekend or scheduled holiday, I'm always checking prices of flights. Each time I do this, I have a number in my head and if I find a ticket for under that price I will seriously consider going. For our winter holiday, we have 3 weeks off. We are scheduled to travel to Sri Lanka right in the middle of the break, which gave me a few days at the very beginning. Coincidentally, my friend Bonny had emailed me about throwing a baby shower for Katie. Also coincidentally, when I contacted one of Katie's friends in San Francisco, Naomi, she mentioned that she wanted to do a baby shower this weekend.
Initially I was going to skype in for the baby shower but then I found a flight under that number in my head. It landed at 10:00am Saturday and left at noon Monday. First I checked with Jim. He's the real hero of this story. If it were just me to consider, I'd be in the USA all the time, but I had to clear it with the one who will be in charge of the children.
Jim was onboard from the start! Hooray for Jim!
My flight was scheduled to leave Beijing on Saturday at 7:15am so I took the train up Friday night and stayed at a hotel with an extreme mosquito infestation. After telling the front desk staff at 1:00am, they sent an old woman to my room to spray the bugs. I showed her my bites and she came back a few minutes later with some medicine and put it on my bites as I laid in bed. She basically tucked me in. I slept with the sheets pulled all the way up and a pillow over my head until the wake up call at 3:30. In the morning I had a quick flight to Qingdau followed by the long flight to San Francisco. The flight was somewhat empty and I was able to move to two empty seats together and I slept 5 hours! When I landed (an hour early!) at 9:00am Saturday in California, I put on my makeup, took a sink shower, put on clean clothes and I was fresh as a daisy! It was a Christmas miracle!
My good friend from Seoul, Chrisitan, recently moved back to San Jose and he picked me up at the airport. It was a delightful reunion. We drove straight to Muttville where Katie was leading orientation for volunteers. Surprise! It was perfect. She was completely surprised! What fun. Katie finished leading orientation, Christian and I mingled with the dogs and then we were off to just hang out for the rest of the day before getting her to her surprise baby shower. We had lunch, took her dog to the park, chatted, got quick bang trims and walked to Naomi's apartment.
Naomi was a key player in the surprise. She set up the video messages for Katie and the hangouts call. There were friends from all over the world on the call. (How can we set that up where we can do that while watching the Bachelor? Let's work on that). Not to overshadow the baby shower, but after that we went to Target!
On Sunday, after taking Katie's dog to the park, we went to the ONE place that has my favorite Chinese breakfast, jianbing guo zi. They really nailed it. We paid $10 for one! (Here the going rate is about 75 cents. But let's not talk about the exchange rate right now, ok?) They also had some gourmet varieties and we had the pulled pork with red cabbage. It was very good.
When we finished we drove to Palo Alto for shopping and pizza with Christian. After dinner, we said goodbye to Christian and headed back to the city to wrap the Christmas gifts I bought at Target and pack for the flight the next day. I flew out of SFO at noon Monday. The flight was very long and my connection was delayed but I had arranged for Mr. Lee to pick me up from the Beijing airport. I arrived home around 3:30am. I was very, very tired but very very happy.
You know how when you plan things and you plan it with a best case scenario in mind? That's exactly how this weekend went. I can't believe it was completely perfect, but it was.
As someone who lives far away from almost everyone I love, whenever there's a long weekend or scheduled holiday, I'm always checking prices of flights. Each time I do this, I have a number in my head and if I find a ticket for under that price I will seriously consider going. For our winter holiday, we have 3 weeks off. We are scheduled to travel to Sri Lanka right in the middle of the break, which gave me a few days at the very beginning. Coincidentally, my friend Bonny had emailed me about throwing a baby shower for Katie. Also coincidentally, when I contacted one of Katie's friends in San Francisco, Naomi, she mentioned that she wanted to do a baby shower this weekend.
Initially I was going to skype in for the baby shower but then I found a flight under that number in my head. It landed at 10:00am Saturday and left at noon Monday. First I checked with Jim. He's the real hero of this story. If it were just me to consider, I'd be in the USA all the time, but I had to clear it with the one who will be in charge of the children.
Jim was onboard from the start! Hooray for Jim!
My flight was scheduled to leave Beijing on Saturday at 7:15am so I took the train up Friday night and stayed at a hotel with an extreme mosquito infestation. After telling the front desk staff at 1:00am, they sent an old woman to my room to spray the bugs. I showed her my bites and she came back a few minutes later with some medicine and put it on my bites as I laid in bed. She basically tucked me in. I slept with the sheets pulled all the way up and a pillow over my head until the wake up call at 3:30. In the morning I had a quick flight to Qingdau followed by the long flight to San Francisco. The flight was somewhat empty and I was able to move to two empty seats together and I slept 5 hours! When I landed (an hour early!) at 9:00am Saturday in California, I put on my makeup, took a sink shower, put on clean clothes and I was fresh as a daisy! It was a Christmas miracle!
My good friend from Seoul, Chrisitan, recently moved back to San Jose and he picked me up at the airport. It was a delightful reunion. We drove straight to Muttville where Katie was leading orientation for volunteers. Surprise! It was perfect. She was completely surprised! What fun. Katie finished leading orientation, Christian and I mingled with the dogs and then we were off to just hang out for the rest of the day before getting her to her surprise baby shower. We had lunch, took her dog to the park, chatted, got quick bang trims and walked to Naomi's apartment.
Naomi was a key player in the surprise. She set up the video messages for Katie and the hangouts call. There were friends from all over the world on the call. (How can we set that up where we can do that while watching the Bachelor? Let's work on that). Not to overshadow the baby shower, but after that we went to Target!
On Sunday, after taking Katie's dog to the park, we went to the ONE place that has my favorite Chinese breakfast, jianbing guo zi. They really nailed it. We paid $10 for one! (Here the going rate is about 75 cents. But let's not talk about the exchange rate right now, ok?) They also had some gourmet varieties and we had the pulled pork with red cabbage. It was very good.
When we finished we drove to Palo Alto for shopping and pizza with Christian. After dinner, we said goodbye to Christian and headed back to the city to wrap the Christmas gifts I bought at Target and pack for the flight the next day. I flew out of SFO at noon Monday. The flight was very long and my connection was delayed but I had arranged for Mr. Lee to pick me up from the Beijing airport. I arrived home around 3:30am. I was very, very tired but very very happy.
You know how when you plan things and you plan it with a best case scenario in mind? That's exactly how this weekend went. I can't believe it was completely perfect, but it was.
Friday, October 16, 2015
Perhentian Islands, Malaysia
A few weeks ago was Cheusok. Cheusok is very similar to Thanksgiving, but no turkey or pie. And as you know, we don't participate in holidays if there's no pie.
We traveled to Malaysia! After talking with Jeff about Cheusok during the first month of school, we decided we'd all go somewhere together. Jim and I wanted to go to Bali, Jeff and Anna wanted to go someplace they hadn't been before. The problems we have! Jeff found cheap flights, and that was enough to persuade us.
As we were leaving for the airport, Jeff casually said, "nothing could possibly go wrong on this trip". Jim and I scolded him for jinxing/ruining everything. (Spoiler alert-the trip was great anyway). To get to our resort we needed to take a 6 hour flight from Seoul to Kualal Lumpur, Malaysia, then a short 45 minute flight to a coastal town, then take the ferry to the island the following morning. I hate trips like this, but this one was surprisingly painless.
As we ate dinner in the airport (at Wendy's!), Jeff was walking around with his baby and said he ran into the Jenkins, a family who worked at KIS last year who now live in China and that they were on their way to the same island. We all told Jeff he was full of it (he is almost always full of it).
We spent our first night in Kota Bharu. It's a small coastal town. We got food at a market in the morning. Breakfast was chicken and rice with coffee and then we found the good stuff: donuts. I can't remember the name but $1 worth was a huge bag with fried dough with a peach jam in it. The vacation eating had begun!
We took a taxi to the pier and got on our boat-and among the 10 people on the boat other than us, there were the Jenkins. It was crazy and so perfect. They have 3 kids and our kids already all know each other and played together the whole week. It couldn't have been better.
When we got to the resort, we took off our shoes and didn't put them on again until we left. We stayed at the Tuna Bay resort and the coral in front of the resort was amazing. We got snorkel masks and spent the rest of the week exploring the ocean. We saw parrot fish, eels (yikes!), and octopus (it inked when Jim swam closer to it, how embarrassing), and we swam with turtles. We relaxed, we napped, we swam, we ate. Every day. It was actually the perfect vacation. Here's a video summary:
We traveled to Malaysia! After talking with Jeff about Cheusok during the first month of school, we decided we'd all go somewhere together. Jim and I wanted to go to Bali, Jeff and Anna wanted to go someplace they hadn't been before. The problems we have! Jeff found cheap flights, and that was enough to persuade us.
As we were leaving for the airport, Jeff casually said, "nothing could possibly go wrong on this trip". Jim and I scolded him for jinxing/ruining everything. (Spoiler alert-the trip was great anyway). To get to our resort we needed to take a 6 hour flight from Seoul to Kualal Lumpur, Malaysia, then a short 45 minute flight to a coastal town, then take the ferry to the island the following morning. I hate trips like this, but this one was surprisingly painless.
As we ate dinner in the airport (at Wendy's!), Jeff was walking around with his baby and said he ran into the Jenkins, a family who worked at KIS last year who now live in China and that they were on their way to the same island. We all told Jeff he was full of it (he is almost always full of it).
We spent our first night in Kota Bharu. It's a small coastal town. We got food at a market in the morning. Breakfast was chicken and rice with coffee and then we found the good stuff: donuts. I can't remember the name but $1 worth was a huge bag with fried dough with a peach jam in it. The vacation eating had begun!
We took a taxi to the pier and got on our boat-and among the 10 people on the boat other than us, there were the Jenkins. It was crazy and so perfect. They have 3 kids and our kids already all know each other and played together the whole week. It couldn't have been better.
When we got to the resort, we took off our shoes and didn't put them on again until we left. We stayed at the Tuna Bay resort and the coral in front of the resort was amazing. We got snorkel masks and spent the rest of the week exploring the ocean. We saw parrot fish, eels (yikes!), and octopus (it inked when Jim swam closer to it, how embarrassing), and we swam with turtles. We relaxed, we napped, we swam, we ate. Every day. It was actually the perfect vacation. Here's a video summary:
Saturday, January 31, 2015
A video week in review
We've been working on a video project all week. Many people have asked me if it was inspired by Adam Hobbs; it was not. I wouldn't dream of pretending that this is a documentary, because it's not. It's a video mashup. I took the idea from a teacher at KIS who took the idea from this TED talk. All great things start with a TED talk, isn't that what they say? The TED talk was from a guy who put together a video made up of 1 second video clips of every day for a year. We can't make that kind of commitment to anything without a hefty signing bonus, so we did 2 second clips throughout each day for one week.
As I was doing this, I have to admit, it felt very narcissistic. So let me tell you this-it is a little narcissistic on the surface. And I am posting it to the blog which makes me feel even more narcissistic, but in a way, it's more for me than for you. Our blog serves a few purposes: it started out as a way for friends and family to keep up with us and see what we're doing while living far away (finally-the name of the blog has been revealed to you!) but it has really become a kind of modern day scrapbook for me.
With all this in mind, I have a few disclaimers about the video:
1. Your life looks AWESOME when you set it to music
2. These are not necessarily highlights, they are just things that happened during the week, but don't think everything is perfect-believe me the kids complain and cry as much (more than?) kids in any other family; but I don't need to watch that any more than I already do in real life.
3. I love this video. I want to do one for every week for the rest of my life.
4. You should do this in your own life.
5. Jim chose the music (the perfect music)
As I was doing this, I have to admit, it felt very narcissistic. So let me tell you this-it is a little narcissistic on the surface. And I am posting it to the blog which makes me feel even more narcissistic, but in a way, it's more for me than for you. Our blog serves a few purposes: it started out as a way for friends and family to keep up with us and see what we're doing while living far away (finally-the name of the blog has been revealed to you!) but it has really become a kind of modern day scrapbook for me.
With all this in mind, I have a few disclaimers about the video:
1. Your life looks AWESOME when you set it to music
2. These are not necessarily highlights, they are just things that happened during the week, but don't think everything is perfect-believe me the kids complain and cry as much (more than?) kids in any other family; but I don't need to watch that any more than I already do in real life.
3. I love this video. I want to do one for every week for the rest of my life.
4. You should do this in your own life.
5. Jim chose the music (the perfect music)
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