All Set!

I just finished a confusing search through airline websites and managed to book our flights to Cairns from Bali. For some reason, I had to do a manual connection, booking to Darwin first and then to Cairns. I got the flights for $214 each, which is a bargain compared to the "official" options I was initially given.
I'm sitting in Nha Trang, we had 2 great dives yesterday with plenty of sea life I've never seen before. We were going to to go Hanoi from here, but it's a 2 day bus trip, so we've decided to go halfway, to Hoi An, for at least a day. Hopefully they havenight dives, 'cause they don't have them here. We found China Beach, as suggested by Jarryd's parents, and it's close to Hoi An, so we'll probably beheading there.
After Hoi An we need to get to Hanoi so we can be at Halong Bay, a must see of Vietnam. We fly back to BKK on the 15th, so we need to be hasty. We'll have 13 days in Thailand to revisit the temple and do dives off the islands before heading to Bali from Kuala Lampur for 7 days. Then we arrive in Darwin at 2am and fly to Cairns at 5am. It's a little rough, but I just want to get to australia so that we can enjoy it.
I am deeply sorry for not posting more, but I've been keeping up on my journal and will make it available as soon as I get back so everyone can read it. I posted pictures on Facebook, check them out if you haven't already.

I hope everyone is well and I am very glad to see that Pitt beat #1 UConn twice!

The end of Tigers

So we have left the Tiger Temple. It is quite sad, so I'm trying not to think about it. We have a boat party tonight with all the staff from the Temple, so it should be a blast! Jarryd and I leave for Cambodia at 5:15am, so that should be interesting. I'm sorry for not putting up any pictures yet, I promise I will, but I have several hundred to sort through first.
This is the beginning of the crazy leg of our trip, so we'll see how everything goes! All is well and Jarryd and I are excited to get traveling again.
Cheers, and enjoy your freezing weather, it's starting to get damn hot over here!

Tiger Temple

Sorry again for the blogging drought. We have been at the Tiger temple for a while and we are having a ball! The people are a lot of fun and it is much more lax than we expected. We get a day off every week and go out for drinks on Tuesdays for a "staff meeting."

A typical day is waking up at 7am and walking the 4 month old cubs (who can be very stubborn) to the temple. A few tourists arrive and feed the 4 months and then the 6 week old cubs show up and get fed as well. The monks say their prayer and then we have breakfast. It really is just early lunch w/ all kinds of different food. We walk the cubs back and then do whatever needs doing. I've done painting, burning hay, making toys, deboning chicken, taking out the trash, all kinds of stuff. Then we get a break from 11 to 12. The tourists start arriving and we are assigned to either the canyon, the 4 month cubs, or the baby cub feeding. Each has it's positives and negatives, but basically the hardest part is dealing with asshole tourists who can be dumb and won't listen. We keep our camera's on us at all times, just in case, and can be smothered in 4 baby tiger cubs whenever we want. At around 4:30 we close and the tourists leave. We feed the eagle and the leopard cat and then eat dinner from thai wisdom, which someone picks up. After that it's free time and we chat, watch movies, or do whatever we want.

We are thoroughly enjoying ourselves and I'm glad this internet is working for now. We even have a hot shower here, a rare luxury. I got a free mattress and fan as well, the lucky first volunteer. Tomorrow someone else gets the same.

Anyway, I will do my best to post some photos soon, it's getting late so I'm off to bed.

Calcutta

So we survived our 38 hr train ride. It really wasn't too bad, we arrived in Calcutta at 10:35pm. We took a taxi as were joined by Simon, a guy that was in our car. We decided to find a place to stay together, our first stop was Hotel Maria. As fate would have it, there were only 2 beds left. We flipped a coin and unfortunately Simon won. We left and were picked up by an older man. He took us to another guest house with a decent room for 450 a night. We watched bits of movies and went to sleep only to be woken by an orchestra of noise in the morning. There was construction going on and lots of people. We both cleaned up and are now out getting ready for the Tiger Temple. I will mkae a better effort to write a detailed entry about India when I'm not paying for the internet, which will be after we settle at the temple (there's a restaurant with free internet). I'll try to keep everyone in the know and hope everyone's well.

Goa Chillin

So I'm not even sure how long we've been in Goa, but it's been great. Yesterday we did nothing, and I read the entire book Q&A (basis for Slumdog Millionaire) by nightfall. Our 2 friends for England, Toby and Ewan, have gone back home. Hopefully Maria will meet us up before we leave on Tuesday morning for Calcutta.
We have our train ticket, got money drawn, and we're ready to go. But not before a few more days of this gorgeous beach. I apologize for the lack of pictures being posted (I have taken 574 so far), I will do my best to put some up before we leave for Thailand.

I hope this finds all of you well and I will keep you posted.

Goa

So we've been in Goa for a while and we'll be staying here as long as possible. The beach is gorgeous, we watch dolphins come out of the water from the shore, and we meet new people everyday. The hut we're staying in is 300R's a night, quite a steal.
Anyway, we are currently booking our tickets to Calcutta and then flying to Bangkok. Just got our info for the Tiger Temple, should be interesting. I'm pissed that the Eagles lost, but oh well.
I learned how to ride a scooter today, initially they wouldn't give me one because I didn't know what I was doing. Everything's fine now, just going to relax like crazy for another week and then off to the temple!

One more thing

In addition to the previous post, I forget to mention that one of the pictures of us landed on the inside cover of "The Times of India," a national newspaper! I tried to find the link, but I guess the picture is only in the paper copy. We both have one, so you can see it when we come back.
We also just booked our ticket to Bangkok. Unfortunately, the cheapest airline's website didn't work, so we had to get the next best, which was $172 each, ouch. At least it's done now though.

Playing Catchup

I apologize for the lack of posts, we rarely seem to have a decent amount of time for me to write anything.
Anyway, the Taj Mahal was incredible (and expensive, $15 each), plenty of pictures were taken. After that we were off to Jaipur, I did book a hostel, but our driver put us up in a really nice hotel for the same price. The next day he dove us around Jaipur. We saw an outdoor observatory, a massive fort (one of our favorites so far), got an elephant ride, and had south Indian Dosa (delicious). Our train was later in the evening and we slept like babies on it.
We arrived at Udaipur in the morning and walked around the city. It's really less of a city than it is a collection of palaces along a beautiful lake. After Udaipur we were off to Ahmedabad.
We met up with some friends and went to a massive international summit. We had our pictures taken several times because our friend Maria and I were the only blondes there. After that we went to Ghandi's home and then to a gorgeous temple that was very far out of the city. Jarryd and I got to meet the saint in charge of the entire temple, and he gave us his blessing, a huge honor.
The next day was the kite festival and it was a ball. We went to our host Julian's family's house and flew kites for several hours. I managed to cut 2 kites, lots of fun. Later on we walked around Ahmedabad taking pictures and meeting people. When it got dark there were fireworks everywhere! We caught our train to Mumbai and now here we are. We are spending the night at the Salvation Army Hostel and have a train to Goa tomorrow. We will be booking our flight out of India as soon as I get off this computer.
I hope this finds everyone well (and don't worry, I am keeping a much more detailed daily journal that will be available once we get back) !

Delhi Madness!

So we got in early from our long flight and just managed to find our driver before we were going to get our own taxi. Driving in Delhi is a mixture of Frogger and Operation, it is insane! NYC doesn't even come close. We hit a big traffic jam and sat with our engine off for 20 min, eventually getting to the Hostel. Jarryd passed out as soon as he hit the bed and I went out with some of the guys that took us to the hostel. We had a few drinks and then some amazing curry on the street. We followed that with Chai and gulab jamun, all so very good, I had a fantastic time.
This morning we went out to meet up with friends from NC. I man told us where to go, turns out he was on his way to open his bookstore. It is very hard to tell the difference between genuinely nice ppl and ppl trying to con you or get you into their store. The nice ones are very helpful, and he led us to the government tourist office. We only wanted some maps, but walked out with all our transportation booked for the next week! It was a good deal, $267 for everything, including a personal driver for Delhi, Agra, and to Jaipur (with free elephant ride! haha).
We found our driver and went to find our NC friends, but they had gone somewhere else, oh well. We did the mosque, red fort, tombs, government buildings, gardens, and an amazing indian temple that was maroon, yellow, marble and incredibly clean and beautiful. All in all, a very busy day.
We leave for Agra tomorrow morning at 6:30am, stopping at the Lotus Temple on the way. We will also be visiting the birthplace of Krishna, a Ghost town, and a Bird sanctuary. I just booked our hostel in Jaipur, and after that it's trains to Udiapur and then Admedabad.
Everything is going well, but we are looking forward to being in less predatory places where we can go more than 20ft without being haggled, etc.
Time to eat and get to bed, ttfn

Here we go again!

So I'll be picked up by Jarryd and his Dad tomorrow morning at 9:30am. We'll drive to JFK and the flight leaves for Delhi at 4pm. I already lost a little sleep last night thinking about the trip, who knows what will happen tonight!

So far we're meeting up with people from North Carolina, experiencing a massive Kite Festival (real life Kite Runner, for those of you who read the book/saw the movie), and enjoying a 10 course meal with 500 other indians! Then a few free days and off to the Tiger Temple! I'm not sure what to expect, but after getting a super short haircut today, I don't think I wold mind being bald for a little while.

I'm confident that things will go well and hopefully I will keep up my written daily journal for the duration of the trip (book prospect?).

Regardless, I hope plenty of people follow our travels and enjoy the stories that will unfold on this simple webpage.

Day 12

I was supposed to do more surveying today, but I decided not to bother. I woke up around 10:30am instead. Really didn't do too much, I tried to make lunch around 1pm only to find that we had no gas (that would explain my incredibly cold shower).
I went to the meeting point at 2:30pm to go to the gymnastics event. After taking the subway we got there pretty early and found our seats. I was in the second to last row, but it was a small venue and I couldn't complain after yesterday.
Every event was a medal final, Rings, Uneven bars, and men's Vault. China won the first two and didn't compete in the last event. It was weird because in the bars and the vault the top score was tied, but they somehow worked it out into first and second without OT (or w/e it would be in gymnastics). Another thing that I never realized was that you only get one shot in most gymnastics events, so if you screw up or someone after you does better, there's nothing you can do. At the end, there was an extra event, women's Trampoline final! This wasn't part of the program, but we got to see it anyway. It was really fun and China won that too. Last time I checked they had 39 Golds!
After the event we walked around and saw them filming for the Today show. We went home and got ready to go out. I brought some new people with me and we had a really big group. I don't know why, but there were tons of athletes out last night. I even got to see a gold medalist w/ his gold around his neck! There were rumors that there were swimmers in China Doll, but we didn't check it out. At Kokomo they started doing the limbo and I managed to break my flip flop in the process. We stayed out until 4:30am and got home in one piece (minus the flip flop).

Day 11

So the Dumpling dinner was amazing, regardless of the fact that they didn't have fried dumplings.
I woke up early to get to the meeting point for volunteering at 8am. I was hoping to get a ticket to something or get out of doing surveys, no such luck. We went to Casa America to try and get some people to fill out surveys. After giving up on that, we had some food and then hung around for a while.
I went to the Silk Market and shopped around for a few things. I also decided that it was worth the effort to get a suit made. I got the best quality they had in a really nice light grey for 1200 RMB, or about $170.
At 3:30 I met up with people to go to the Athletics event. When we finally got there it was incredible. The buildings are beyond imagination and we had FIRST row tickets. The only people in front of us were the press photographers. We witnessed a world record, the 100m medal ceremony, and tons of other incredible feats. I got home around 12:45am, which was weird because the subways were supposed to be closed since 11pm.
I took over 200 pictures and ran out of space on my memory card, thank god I brought my laptop with me.

Day 10

Finally, a current post.
I've been lying here pumping all these posts out and now we're in the present. We got up around 11 this morning and skipped the Summer Palace. It's an all day thing and we are still sore from yesterday. We went to Wan Fu Jing street to buy stuff and bargain.
We went to the Olympic Flagship store, which was a mad house, and then the night street, where I ate scorpion (yes, you read right) and got a few key gifts. I think I'm set for gifts except for 1 or 2 things.
We have a dumpling dinner tonight, someone needs to warn the restaurant that I'm coming.

P.S. I got an email confirming and detailing my job offer for Freddie Mac!

Day 9

Two temples in one day, lots of walking.
We did the Temple of heaven first. The temple itself wasn't fantastic, but there were hundreds of people doing tai chi, singing, dancing, playing cards, it was one of my favorite parts of the trip! It was awesome to see the culture at such a ground level.
We went to the pearl market after, but nothing really relevant for me (you could pay $20 to open a mussel and keep the pearls inside, if there were any).
After that it was the Lama temple, lot of incense and the world's largest buddha, 18m. We even had a leader of Taiwan there, who was visiting the temple with about 20 of his entourage. I took a nap after in anticipation of a big party night and I guessed right, I came home at 6am.

Day 8

WATER POLO!!!!
We left at 10:30am and after lots of walking got to the Natatorium (across the street from the Bird's Nest). We couldn't go in for a few hours, so we took advantage of the 5 RMB beers. It started to rain just as we were going into the event.
Being a player, was explaining what was going on to everyone and they thoroughly enjoyed how rough water polo is. China played last and even though they lost by 10, it was the most exciting because of the crowd (and we were pretty drunk).
We came home just in time for Hot Pot dinner, which is like a fondue, but with a stew. There were all kinds of interesting things to eat (I only ate from the spicy pot), many of which they had a hard time explaining.

Day 7

I had nothing scheduled until the evening, so I was volunteering at 1pm. Our leader, Tom, went to a meeting and told me that I had to go early, i.e. right away. I went to the meeting point and then we were off to the airport to help pick people up for a travel company.
We were in the new, massive terminal and got some coffee and something to eat. We had spicy Thai food with mushrooms in it, which I ate, and the chili's were so hot that I was crying. I felt really good after though. We stood around and luckily there were huge screens with the gymnastics on, so the time went by a little quicker. We were there until 3pm, taking the taxi back.
At 5pm we had a special dinner with performances and activities. Some of the volunteers showed their musical talents, one being a fantastic opera singer.
I was with a new group and we decided to go out to the Holland House! I went home (after almost peeing my pants I had to go so badly) and took a taxi, with much difficulty, to the House. It was a fantastic experience and the house was enormous. I met some people from the program there and chatted w/ new zealanders and tried my dutch out w/ a few people. We went out afterwards, but apparently the 2 girls I was with had no sleep the past few days and we were home by 4am

Day 6

We had to get up extra early for the Great Wall because it took about 3 hours to get there (my roommates had a little too much fun the night before and couldn't get up). We took the subway to the bus and eventually got to the wall around 11:30am. There was a big market before you got to the wall and I was starving so I searched for food. I found a chinese pancake (like a crepe and an omelet together) place and overpaid because everything is expensive and I feel weird bargaining for food.
We took a cable car up to the wall and the girls I was with kept freaking out when the car shook. We got to the wall and the view was incredible! We decided to meet back at 1pm, giving us 1 hr to look around. I proceeded to get as far away from people as possible and make it as far down the wall as I could, taking pictures along the way. I managed to find a section with no one on it, it was slippery with moss and I almost ate it a few times. I made my way back and was sweating profusely, along with everyone else.
It took a while to get off the wall because the entrance is very small and people keep pouring in. There were a lot of school kids, one group of girls were wearing pink and throwing their hats in the air, luckily they did it again and I managed to snag a National Geographic-like photo. We came back and were exhausted, sleeping nice and early.

Day 5

We had the Forbidden City at 8:30, so it was off to the meeting point. We took the subway out to Tienanmen Square and started taking pictures of everything.
This place was huge! It just kept going and going. People used to spend their entire lives within the walls of this place. The Forbidden City was at the back of the square.
There were so many interesting things to take pictures of and the angles of all the buildings, etc. gave me plenty to keep me busy.
The last section was a garden and it was gorgeous. I could've spent hours taking photos, but we were all pretty hungry and tired, so we decided to find somewhere to eat.
We found a bustling dumpling restaurant and had to fight to get a table. We had a wide variety to choose from and even got some other dishes, including tofu. Now I'm not the biggest fan of tofu, but I had to try it. I was really surprised at how smooth and soft it was and am now quite the fan!
After lunch, we went to a park with a huge lake and went out on paddle boats for an hour.
We made it home around 4pm and lazed for a while. At 7pm we had our Duck dinner which was within walking distance. The table was round and had a huge lazy susan that took up most of it. We had a lot of different dishes including sole, black chicken soup (which I asked for), duck, etc. The weirdest thing was that you eat the duck in a tortilla with sauce, cucumber, and shallots, kind of like a taco. We rolled home after eating way too much food and went to sleep.

Day 4

I got up early to get to the meeting point for my volunteering assignment. The meeting point is for everything, so if they you for something else, you might end up doing something different. Anyway, I wasn't looking forward to it because one of the main volunteering assignments was doing surveys.
I got to the meeting point and Steve, the director of the program, was there. He was talking to two of my friends about the blog and said to spend the day getting it up and running. I was stand close by and was hoping I could do the same. Luckily, she mentioned my name and we spent the rest of the day blogging and watching events, instead of giving surveys. I also created a facebook group so that people could upload pictures, etc.

Catch Up

I am aware that I have fallen behind on my blog for the past couple days. I they have been keeping me nice and busy lately, but I promise I will put up details for each past day as soon as possible.

P.S. Water Polo was awesome!!!