Sawadee Thailand (and Cambodia)!!

We have had quite a buildup for Thailand! It started when Evan and I hosted an exchange student from Thailand, “Jane” Panadda Khamsri, when we lived in Alaska. Second, a good friend of mine from grade school, Leslie Duran May, and her family moved to Thailand last year, and thirdly, Brendan did a presentation on Thailand in 3rd grade (and researched this trip non-stop). Let me tell you, Thailand did NOT disappoint!



After arriving in Bangkok mid-day, Jane and her friend, Earth (actually a tour guide), took us in hand. They helped us navigate Bangkok’s transportation----sky train, car taxis, river taxis, and tuk tuks----which was no easy feat. I still have some wobbly legs from the memory of my last tuk tuk ride!





Over two days, we were awed by many Wats (Thai Buddhist Temples). We visited Wat Phra Kaew (home of the Emerald Buddha), Wat Pho, Wat Arun, & the Golden Mount. The magnificence of the carvings, the gold, and the glitter was overwhelming! The kids liked the temples with the bells and gongs!






Continuing with the sight-seeing, we visited the National Palace, the National Museum, and the Museum of Siam. The Museum of Siam just happened to have a “loo” exhibit which became a quick favorite of the kids. Will the toilet and fart jokes never end?







We absolutely love Thai cuisine. Jane and Earth made sure we had a broad variety, ordering for us and having “family style” meals for the most part. We even had a dinner cruise along the Chao Praya, which was lovely at night.







The most memorable snacks, however, were found at the Khao San Market where Evan, Heath, Brendan, and Amarra tried scorpions and grubworms---ugh! I chose not to partake. I thought that if even our Thai friends would not eat them, that should tell me something!





It was so wonderful to get together with the new grown up Jane. She and Earth made our time in Bangkok very personal and special. I know we wouldn’t have seen as many sights or learned as much without them! We don’t want to wait another 11 years before we see Jane again!



From Bangkok, we travelled to Pattaya where Leslie May lives with her family, Bob, Smyth, Chloe, and Lilli. How cool is it that they sent their driver, Kun Nick, to pick us up?? Leslie and I have known each other since the 4th grade at Forest Heights Elementary in Harrison, Arkansas. (We did perform a rousing rendition of the school song together, but my family was not that impressed!)



The Mays welcomed us with wonderful hospitality. It was so nice to be in a real “home” again and have American home cooking. While Leslie’s maid, Kun Daoin, made some yummy Thai dishes, Leslie spoiled us with foods we have been craving---buffalo wings, sloppy joes, hamburger stew, homemade bread, and the piece de resistance, Johnsonville breakfast sausages!!!! In fact, we had sausages twice at her house---ah, nirvana!
Evan and I grabbed the chance for an adults’ night out at a traditional Thai Restaurant, Sugar Hut, with Bob and Leslie, followed by a Thai foot massage. Evan thought his massage was a little painful, but I had no trouble dozing off during mine! The kids stayed home watching movies and playing Wii. Thanks, Chloe, for supervising!



As hard as it was to tear ourselves away from the Mays’ home, we did get a chance to see more of Pattaya. Hiring a daily driver (the only way to get around in Thailand since driving can be considered a competitive sport there), we visited the beautiful Sanctuary of Truth, which is a Temple constructed all of wood (no nails, etc.) that demonstrates the mixing of Animism, Hinduism, and Buddhism that makes up the Thai version of Thervada Buddhism.



Pattaya’s floating market was colorful and full of vendors. The kids tried the zip lining and zorb at the market, and the whole family enjoyed the fish spas (submersing the feet and lower legs into a tank with tiny fish that eat dead skin cells), although it was quite tickly. Heath thinks that he would like to have some of these fish at home.









The highlight of Pattaya for the kids was a 1 ½ hour elephant jungle trek at the Pattaya Elephant Sanctuary. We bought bananas to feed our elephants, and, of course, had to feed some to the mother of the cute baby elephant on display at the Sanctuary!





While in Thailand, we made a brief 2 night side trip to Cambodia. How could we get this close and not see Angkor Wat?



I don’t have words to describe Angkor Wat, but let me try---magnificent, huge, awe inspiring, vast, intricate, powerful, and any other accolades you want to throw in! We would need at least 3-4 days to see all of Angkor Wat. Our guide to the temple complex was great. He even shared his experiences with the children about losing > 40 family members in Pol Pot’s regime and being conscripted into the Cambodian Army at age 14. Talk about eye opening! Evan was, again, in photographer's heaven—this is a place most amateur photographers dream about shooting—it was a shame that he had so little time.







Cambodia seems to be about 50 years behind Thailand developmentally, but we thoroughly enjoyed our visit. The Khmer people were warm and friendly and the food was excellent. Look up “Green Star” Restaurant on trip advisor to find out more about the delicious food at this not for profit restaurant where proceeds support the Green Gecko organization that helps get Cambodian children off the streets. It will now be one of our favorite charities.



To sum it up, we love Thailand and Cambodia, and I have a feeling that we will be back!
Cheers, Tamara

*Don't forget, you can click on any photo to see it larger and there are over 1300 more photos posted at the flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/efusco/sets/72157626224015938/

One night in Bangkok and the world was my oyster

In case you didn't know I have been studying Thailand for the last 12 months. When our plane landed in Bangkok I told my Mom,”We're finally here! My excitement was not drained when we started exploring the Wats!

Now that we're here it hits me- this place is pretty remote! There are parts of Bangkok that range from modern skyscrapers to ancient Buddhist temples to 3^rd world huts. They were so many big and colorful and amazing, but so overwhelming!

You could've spent a whole day at the Grand palace and not seen it all! We ended this amazing day with a night cruise on the Chao Praya river which was a great way to see the temples at night, and get unlimited Coke refills!

The next day, was absolutely competing with the first couldn't have been any better. We started out with two museums- UGH MOM! One being artwork the other being interactive and including a whole floor on poo! The Thai art was actually fabulous -nice work mom! -consisting of so many colors and gold that makes you think..... Why is american modern artwork so boring and dull! Next, at the Siam museum- yes this is the poo one...... was very interactive and fun! The battle games caught Dad's attention! Now for the Poo floor! We discovered luxury toilets and different techniques for wiping the buttocks-- everything you need to refresh your day.

Then we headed to a Monk's bowl village the way they make them seems complicated and exhausting! My dad bought a neat black bowl there.

Last and a definite least was trying the scorpion and grubworms. These won't be the next pregame snack!

Tales of a White Boy in Asia

I think I know what a vampire feels like. People look at me like I'm an alien, slowly approach, and then all do odd things. The combination of being white and a kid makes Asian people come up and tickle me under the chin,pinch my cheeks,put their arms around me when I look at them,spank me on the butt,( I'm not kidding, it happened!) and those are the worst (thank goodness)! I suppose you want to know the lesser ones, so I’ll tell you the rest, (there are a lot). I find it hard to pose with the Chinese tourists when you don't want your picture taken and sometimes one of them hugs you and smiles with their teeth,(which may not be at their best hygienic level) . I know I'm starting to sound like Sue Sylvester from Glee, though there is no other way to express my true feelings. The lesser ''reactions'' are things like people touching me and then saying something in foreign. Maybe I should get a shirt that says ''Please Do NOT Touch Me!'' or a spray tan. Oh and I forgot to mention that this does NOT happen to Brendan because of his slight tan, though Amarra gets as much or more attention than I do.

Your ghostly friend,

Heath

Hong Kong Hurrah

Chinese, Japanese...it's all the same, right? Au contraire, mon frere! We are now “in the know” of Hong Kong and have learned quite a bit!

We arrived in Hong Kong early Friday afternoon. Unlike Tokyo, the airport was just a hop, skip, and a jump from our hotel, and a taxi fit nicely in the budget. (We love the exchange rate here!)

We're staying at the Disney Hollywood Hotel, and the kids could not be more excited. Now, for all at home who wonder about the cultural significance of visiting Disney, let me just tell you that it is still quite a cultural experience!

We checked in with the usual wonderful signature Disney customer service, and headed to the park immediately. We knew things were going to be a little different when our bus broadcast announcements first in Mandarin, then Cantonese, and then finally English.

The restaurants and cafes serve primarily Asian cuisine (sushi, stir fry, curries, etc) complete with chopsticks—if you need a fork you'll have to ask for one.. How about snack foods? One of the most popular we saw was the sauteed squid with soy sauce---now try getting that at your Florida Magic Kingdom! How about separate lines for the Jungle Safari ride depending on the language the ride guide spoke?

We quickly learned that other things would be different, too, when people tried to push past us in the queue for the Pooh ride. Whereas in Japan, people are extremely polite and respectful, bowing and gesturing for someone else to go before them, in China, people have far fewer issues about invading personal space. It was a grandmotherly woman with a 3-4 year old grandson in tow who pushed past me to try to get one space closer to the ride! I would have just written this off except that we experienced this multiple times---at Disney, at the metro, on the ferry, and even in line for customs when we were returning from Macau!

Fortunately, this was the only downside we experienced, and it was minor in comparison to the other many lovely things about Hong Kong. A subsequent Facebook discussion taught us that the differences may stem from the demands that Communism forced upon people to get what they could for themselves. What's certain is that the British love of orderly queuing did not translate to this culture.

Hong Kong is very easy to get around thanks, in part, to a simple and well laid out metro.

A lot of people speak English, and most signs are subtitled in English, as well. The cost of living here is very inexpensive, so eating out and shopping are delightful. I only wish we'd have had a way to take more things home. Having one rolling backpack crimps any chance I have to do significant shopping---perhaps Evan planned it like that? But Temple Street was quite an experience—the kids found digital watches for $2-3, I got a pair of shoes for a few dollars, and food products were a steal.

We were able to pull the kids away from Disneyland to explore Hong Kong and its environs a bit during our 4 days here. One day, we roamed the promenade along Victoria Harbor, giving our respects to Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan before taking the famous Star Ferry across to Hong Kong Island and grabbing the tram to Victoria Peak.

I'm sure the view is usually breath taking, but unfortunately, we had a hazy day with limited visibility, so our experience was merely beautiful, not spectacular!

Hats off to the extremely well done (and affordable) Hong Kong Museum of Art, and Museum of History. I wish we'd had more time to linger.

Macau is only 40 miles by sea from Hong Kong, so how could we not visit? It worked out that our friends (and former neighbors from New Orleans) who have just moved to China, could meet us in Macau to explore the former Portuguese colony.

We traveled by TurboJet hydrofoil to Macau. (Although it sounds a bit James Bondish, it wasn't as glamorous) and hopped a taxi to Largo do Senado, the square at the center of downtown. We enjoyed seeing the remains of St. Paul's Church and the fortress, but the highlight of the day was lunch.

Boa Mesa served delicious Portuguese food, so we tried everything from Portuguese sausage to bacalao to beef strips in cream and mushrooms. The perfect ending was buying delicious, but ridiculously inexpensive Portuguese wine at the duty free shop before returning to Hong Kong. Cheers!

A final sightseeing trip was on our home island, Lantau Island. We took a 25 minute cable car ride over ocean and mountains to the picturesque village of Ngong Ping. From there, it was a short hike to the “Big Buddha” (one of the largest seated Buddha statues in the world) and the Po Lin Monastery.

The kids were quite thrilled with this outing as they remembered the site from an “Amazing Race” episode. Fortunately, we only had to climb the stairs once, not 4 times carrying incense! We wrapped up the day with an extended afternoon at the Disneyland Parks hitting all the shows an rides we'd missed on the previous visits. The kids had needed a break from all the “culture” we've been forcing on them.

Tomorrow we bid Hong Kong farewell and head to Thailand. Although not the “true China”, this was a nice foray into Chinese culture as well as a fun respite at Disneyland! Stay tuned for further adventures and misadventures!

Tamara & Gang

Tokyo—Fish out of Water and on our Plates

Tokyo—Fish out of Water and on our Plates

Yes, we know it's a foreign country, and they speak and write a different language. But it's modern, it's international, lots of people speak English there—right? Well, yes and no.

Tokyo was our family's first ever foray into the Far East and despite all of us, Tamara and I in particular, being experienced world travelers, Tokyo was a challenging place to visit. We flew in on the wonderful JAL airlines from Sydney on an almost 10 hour flight. We were happy to find that we could take a slightly slower train to our hotel than we'd planned to, but it saves us $120 over the Express train.

And, fortunately again, our written directions were fantastic and we emerged from the train tunnel practically in the doorway of our hotel. Check in was fine and we were all excited to stay in a “real hotel” instead of a youth hostel for a change. But that excitement was pretty short lived as we found our rooms to be very small typical Asian businessman's style rooms. Tiny little bathrooms, a bed closer to the size of a double bed than a queen and with a 10' long and 3' wide stripe of carpeting that was the “open” area of our rooms. All 3 kids wedged into one room meant for 2, Tamara and I in another. There was a TV, but none of the channels were in English..and neither was the remote control. There was free internet—and that was very much appreciated. In any case, we were tired and all managed to sleep just fine despite the “cozy” accomodations. On the plus side, each toilet had a built in bidet and 'cleansing' feature!

The next day we arose bright and early partly because of the time change and in part to get a jump on the day to explore the Ueno (way no) Park and Asakusa (Saa coo sa) areas. Ultimately our efforts were pretty much wasted as nothing at all was open when we arrived. We'd hoped to find an easy breakfast, but ultimately had to find our way back to the more urban area and...wait for it....McDonalds! Apparently most Tokyoans eat breakfast at home, or if they find one of the few restaurants that are open for breakfast they tend to eat pretty much the same things they would eat for lunch or dinner—noodles in broth with a piece of meat. Finding a “Western” breakfast is quite difficult and even those places who do have something familiar don't quite get it right. We've managed to stay away from McDonalds and other Western food places this trip, for the most part, but none of us had eaten for the past 15 hours and were starving so we gave in.

Once we finished all the various museums and other sites were opened up. We explored the small but very nice Shitamachi (sheet uh ma chee) museum and had a guided tour to see what the traditional Japanese home and merchant's shop would be like. We all got our fortune from the oracle and really learned quite a lot in this small but very nicely done museum. We then headed to the enormous and overwhelming National Museum. The did a good job with displays here as well.

We saw only a fraction of their total holdings, but saw some amazing things. Some of their writings are 600+ years old, but look like they could have been written yesterday. It was really amazing considering how faded our own US constitution and Declaration of Independence are—and they're less than 250 years old. Other painted scrolls and fans were so richly colored as to look like they could have just been painted as well.

We found a nice little place for a bento box lunch, Heath had the barbequed eel, Tamara and I sushi and Brendan and Amarra some tempura and sushi.

We'd anticipated prices to be really high, but this was actually quite reasonable (compared to Australia anyway) and quite tasty. After that we met up with my 2^nd Cousin, Henry Ahlgrim—my dad's cousin who's lived in Tokyo for almost 15 years with is Japanese wife. He showed us around the Asakusa area and it's shrine.

He then helped us find really nice place for dinner where, again, we spent far less than we'd expected for a meal that more than filled our guts and where we had a wonderful traditional Japanese dinning experience. He took us all the way 'home' to our hotel and didn't even expect a good night kiss for his efforts! It was great to meat a local and family member who I'd never met before.

The next day took us to the East Sumida area where we had another, free, guided tour of the absolutely amazing Edo-Tokyo Museum. Our guide was a retired McDonald Douglas engineer who'd lived in California for 4 years and absolutely brought the history of Tokyo to life for us. Most of the displays there were not in English and we would have missed so much if not for his enthusiasm and English skills. Still, this place is must see even without a guide—just exquisitely done in a modern building and amazing dioramas of the various stages of the city of Edo as it evolved into what is now known as Tokyo.

We had another very cool lunch at a Sumo themed restaurant, as we were right next to the main Tokyo Sumo arena and hall of fame.

No English menus, but the waitress walked us out to the realistic plastic display outside and we just pointed at we wanted.

After the meal Brendan purchased some Sumo trading cards and they gave us a free lithograph to take home. Again, a great sushi and soba noodle meal, Brendan enjoyed the traditional Sumo Stew (apparently a high calorie meal the sumo wrestlers consume in huge quantities) all at a cost far below what we'd budgeted...a very good thing.

After lunch we took a quick tour of the Sumo Hall of Fame, then through a cute Japanese garden to the Tokyo Earthquake Shrine and Museum. There was a terrible earthquake in 1923 that killed a handful of people in the initial quake, but that triggered a massive fire (the bane of Edo and Tokyo over their history is fires wiping out much of the town and it's people) that ultimately killed some 60-100,000 citizens. Amarra honored them with a small wish and a donation in the shrine.

We headed home, had a decent dinner at the hotel restaurant complete with dried smelt, more soba noodles, sashimi and other Japanese treats—and some sake, of course.

The next morning was very early for our 1 ½ hour train to the airport and we were off to Hong Kong!