We traveled to Phi Phi Island for three nights for some more fun in the sun. The main village on Phi Phi Island sits in the middle of two headlands. If the village wasn't a maze of shops, you could walk from one beach to the other in less than 5 minutes. In 2004, the Tsunami came from one side and swept anything in it's path out the other side. The ocean and marine life are both slowing healing, there's now some coral coming back to life. People are rebuilding, mid priced hotels were rennovated to become high end hotels and more budget accommodation was built. This was done quickly to ensure the survival of pretty much the only industry on Phi Phi; tourism. There doesn't seem to be too much tsunami damage lfet but both Jen and I felt that neglect and laziness to properly dispose of rubbish is setting in. There is so much waste lying around, household garbage, food scraps from restaurants and construction materials. All just lying around. It's a shame.

We also saw the other side, the beautiful beaches, the great snorkeling, the colorful fish... It was just amazing.


the culture seems to be a lot more hippie-ish with lots of bob marley styled restaurants and even some fire twirling. We got into it by purchasing ourselves a paddle ball set. Groovy!


Check out more photos here.

We were having some fun with our underwater camera. We took this sequence of photos.






And these...

We eventually made it to Krabi where we lived it up like Royalty in a mediterranean styled hotel for three nights. Some pictures are below. It was the best hotel we've stayed at in my opinion. Tiled, elegant, a rustic feel.


Krabi was one of the better places on our trip. We went to the white sandy beaches of Railay by a longtail boat. It was the bluest water of all, the sun felt the strongest and it was the darn prettiest place we've seen.



We also went rock climbing on the limestone cliffs. It was a fun day but honestly, indoor rock climbing doesn't prepare your body for the strain, nor your hands for the course and sharp edges that you need to grip. There are no and I repeat NO smooth large hand grips to use here. The Thai organizer of the rock climbing adventure wasn't the most attentive; at times he would be talking on the phone or changing his music whilst he was meant to be watching us and belaying us. (Apparently that is the term to be at the bottom supporting and holding the rope just in case there's a fall.) I was watching Jen and she was half way up. I looked at the ant that was biting my foot and when I looked back up, Jen was upside down trying to get the right way up again. She had fallen, the guy wasn't paying attention, she had fallen a little too far and when he stopped the rope from feeding through, she twisted and bounced upside down. She was alright ten seconds later.

More photos to come...

Check out more photos here.

Hi all,
We were trying to catch up with our blogs but we posted them in the wrong order. So here is our brief itinerary:

Feb 20 @ 13.47 - Catch the train to Narita Airport.
Feb 20 @ 14.53 - Arrive Narita Airport.

... just kidding

Bangkok
Cambodia - Phnom Penh and Siem Reap
Bangkok
Koh Samui
Krabi
Phi Phi Islands
Malaysia - Penang
Bangkok

so... right now (March 5) we are in Koh Samui and it's raining...

We made it to Siem Reap today, thankfully we flew and it was only 50 minutes. We were going to do the whole backpacking style and take a boat, then a bus back to Bangkok from here, but we decided to splurge. We spent our first two nights in Bangkok and I got fitted for a custom tailored suit, dress, trousers and 3 business shirts for $270 US thought that was pretty good for custom made clothing. I will go to the place for a first fitting, they need three and then each time we are back in Bangkok until they are perfect.

There are tons of little stalls selling everything to eat and wear in Bangkok, markets galore, but we have actually found that Malaysia is cheaper and China even cheaper for this sort of stuff.

After 2 nights in Bangkok we flew to Phnom Penh on Saturday and what an eye opener, visiting one of the poorest countries in the world. Of course we spent a month in China, but there was mix between rich and poor. Here in Cambodia, it's tough not to want to give a dollar to all the kids on the street begging. Granted, they say that people stop working their own jobs because they can get paid more by begging and they recommend not giving them anything, but giving the local charities money for the youth programs, etc.

The traffic is quite crazy here, everyone rides motor bikes or tuk tuks. We hired a tuk tuk to drive us around all day for $12. On some of these small motorbikes you see 5 people on one bike! Crazy! You'll see a whole family mother, father and two children under the age of 5, very scary. They come from all over the place, drive onto oncoming traffic, etc. Thankfully our tuk tuk driver was very safe and wore his helmet.

We visited the sites in Phnom Penh, the Royal Palace was very beautiful with lots of gold and intricate details all around. We went to a school the was turned into a prison during the Cambodian Genocide era which was a bit disturbing, after we took our tuk tuk to the killing fields where many of those who opposed the Khemer regime were killed...again disturbing.

Nick presented at his conference on Saturday and had a great turn out of both Cambodian and foreigners.

While he was at the conference, Tara and I went to a market and I got 2 dresses made, I picked them up today and they're great! She offered to make me some dresses as I browsed through the stalls and had them ready 48 hours later for about $15/each.

Tomorrow we're off to see the sites of Angkor. We've already booked our tuk tuk and will probably get templed out by the end of the day. Siem Reap has a street (just like Phnom Penh) with lots of restaurants that cater to foreigners for meals ranging about $3, drinks from $1...all pretty cheap.

We're almost two weeks into our month long vacation and time is flying by way too quickly. We arrived in Koh Samui, Thailand 2 days ago and unfortunately the weather hasn't been the sunny and clear blue skies that we had immagined. Today we were caught in a full out storm riding our scooter back to our Hotel from lunch.



It's been great, but the water just doesn't shine like it should with cloudy skies. We're here for another 2 days and moving to the other side of the island where we'll do a day tour snorkelling and kayaking some of the outer islands and then just hanging out at the popular Chaweng Beach. The sun is really strong here in Thailand, even with the clouds and sunscreen we're getting pretty red...eventually it will turn nice and tan :)

We have been definitely putting our tastebuds to the test with Thai food! Thai food is really spicy and can be a little to much if you decide that we're going to eat like locals and eat dinner at a market where there is soups, curries already made...those are way too hot! We've enjoyed the yellow...green...red curries as long as they are mild, pad thai, spring rolls, pancakes...all of which has been eaten for less than $2 from small street shops or carts, really it's not as daring as it sounds, many people do it. Cross our fingers, neither of us have gotten sick yet. We're looking into splurge a bit for a couple meals in the next few days, there are some beautiful restaurants/resorts on this island and we found a seafood one on the beach (describes most of them though) that is highly recommended.




We arrived here in Samui via Bangkok, where we spent another two nights. We checked out the Royal Palace which was beutiful, covered in Gold, quite amazing. Then visited a few other temples. One had something like a 30 meter long lying Buddah, absolutely massive.

I also had my first and second fitting for my custom tailored suit/pants/dress/shirts. They measured me then when I showed up they had the suit jacket with no arms, pants and rough shirt to try on. They pinned me all over to get a good fit. You don't have too many chances to get things tailored for you at a price that your willing to pay, so this has been a pretty neat experience. Unfortunately with the 2nd fitting I have learned that my entire left leg is quite larger than my right leg. So much so that the pants they have made fit my right leg, but can barely make it past my left thigh....how sad. Anyways, they have made marks and will make my left leg bigger. We'll be back in Bangkok at the end of the month to get the last fitting and make any final adjustments. I am pretty sure that they'll get it all right and it will hopefully look great!

Nick wrote this... (not that it is hard to tell who writes what on our blog)
So the reason why we chose to include Cambodia was for me to present two presentations at CamTESOl 2008, an English language teaching conference held at the National Institute of Education. I presented on one misleading topic "Developing Effective Global Communication" where about 70 people showed up to hear me speak about a speaking technique that could develop students' proficiency in order to communicate in a future global context (hence why it was a mismatched title and abstract) AND I also presented on "Interaction in a writing classroom through peer response' where only 20 teachers showed up. I geared my presentations towards native Cambodian teachers of English and thus didn't put a great deal of academia in the presenations. the first presentation was packed full of Cambodians who probably wanted to silver bullet to learn how to develop GLOBAL communication... but learnt only how to unclip the gun in the holster. the second presentation was mainly attended by foreign nationals teaching overseas. I felt some were bored which I gathered from one guy staring out the window during my presentation and the ultimate humiliation; one love sick couple was writing notes on a pad for each other and were putting their arms around each other during my presentation... young people have no respect for their elders these days.
~ nick

We're off to Bangkok in just a few minutes. We'll be traveling throughout Thailand and Cambodia with a visit soon to be parents Clive and Angel in Malaysia. We'll keep you updated on our travels ahead. Jen's headed back to America via the Bahamas on April 1st, her time in Japan is almost over.

So this post should have gone before our week snowboard trip up to Hokkaido, but I'm just getting around to it today. There were no tears at school my final day, I guess I didn't expect any though. It was funny as I had actually 6 hours of classes on my final day compared to my usual 3 or 4. Guess they tried to make me work extra hard on the last one. I was told that after lunch they would have a little meeting to say goodbye and that I should prepare a speech (in Japanese). Well I wasn't hoping for anything big and it definitely wasn't. There was 3 minutes left as the teachers finally started coming to the staff room before the next period bell rang. Quickly the English teacher said a few thing and then I stood up and gave my last speech in Japanese, probably forever. I said all nice things, even if I didn't want to and then the bell rang...class time! The teachers clapped and then quickly moved out of the room. As I said before I wasn't expecting much, but a 3 minute meeting was a little less then I expected, seriously! I had been there for year and half and all they could give me was a 3 minute going away party. I'm not bitter, but thankful that teaching there is OVER! Granted, I have no idea what's next on the agenda. Here are a few pictures of my school and the English teachers I taught with. Actually at the end of the day the English teachers gave me a few present which was nice. I got some new chopsticks, slippers, a door curtain all of Japanese prints. Though, I will miss teaching at the elementary schools as those were the most fun and kept me busy all day. The kids were great and I probably learned most of my Japanese with the 1-6 graders. In the last week they all made little origami animals and wrote notes to me. I guess it was okay they all thought my name was Ms. Jan or Ms. Jane and wrote it on every letter :)

I worked out in the rice fields


Sakae Jr. High School


Second year students on my last day


The English teachers I worked with (the guy in the black coat was always scared to talk to me that he would just cancel my classes so I wouldn't have to teach with him)

We started out our ten day trip with two nights in Sapporo where we visited the famous annual Sapporo Ice Festival. Some of the sculptures were really amazing; intricate and very detailed. Check out more photos on our Flickr site.
We also sampled some of the local delicacies.

We had a Gengis Khan BBQ, a hit plate with lamb, vegies and a special sauce.


We ate sushi with a view overlooking Otaru. People say that really fresh sushi melts in your mouth, well this didn't melt as such but it was damn gooooooood.


We also had Sapporo Ramen, a flavor that is distinct to up here. This one was butter corn Ramen.


Something that I found out last year when I was in Niseko was the Niseko Komekichi Rice Ball Family Restaurant, tucked under the Gondola lift. They are by far the cheapest and best restaurant on the mountain. What else do you need when snowboarding in Japan?


We went to one good restaurant which had an indoor rock climbing wall in it! The food was awesome too... the hamburger i had literally melted in my mouth...


Here's one neat bar. You enter through a fridge door...


And finally, I'll finish this post with a photo of Jen's new haircut, the Snowfro.

That is the question that faced Jen, not me. Jen skiied for the first two days but found the light at the end of the tunnel, yes she has turned. I turned her, my powers are developing and are becoming stronger. After she switched to a snowboard, she said that her ski career is over.

At this junction, I would like to applaud Jen on her illustrious skiing career which included the 1987 Michigan Hill title as well as the 1993 Lake Sheboygan Tobaggon On-One-Ski Runner-Up prize.

Now she is one of the priveledged few...

We just got back from snowboardings in Niseko, Hokkaido, Japan which has become an almost annual pilgrammage for all Aussies. Fantastic snow on the first day we arrived, we snuck in a sneaky arvo and night boarding session. We thought the runs were good with a decent cover on the groomed runs and some light fluffy stuff in amongst the trees. But on Tuesday night, it started to snow and by Wednesday night, it was puking. Great powder. Thursday, most of the runs were closed due to high winds but that didn't stop us joining forces with some lads we met in the hostel and together we built a little ramp and kicker. It was decent fun but at night, we both trekked up to the mountain as they opened more lifts. the powder was excellent! We were eagerly anticipating Friday, a day when the winds had eased but the snow hadn't. We'd do a run in the morning and two hours later, the run appeared as if it was fresh again.






And if this doesn't turn the ladies on...

Check out more great photos in our Flickr account...