Spring Break Skiing

A big thanks to Papa and Gaga for making our awesome Spring Break skiing trip possible, with an amazing cabin in the woods and free passes to Canyons. Isaac made great progress, but Georgie simply amazed us with going from being held between my legs on the bunny hill on Monday to skiing 95% of an intermediate blue run by herself on Thursday. I'm so glad that our kids love skiing, especially considering the horrible experience I had at age 5. I don't think that I went back to the mountain until I was 10. Thanks again, Nann and Craig, and enjoy the fruits of your beneficence:

Bangkok

The "Bryant Loves" Face

Bryant was missing some Western Food...

(actually, so was I;)

Not anymore...we downed it!

Golden Buddha at the Grand Palace

Street Food, Mango Sticky Rice, the only food that matters...

oh wait, I'm in Thailand, all Thai food matters!!!

Grand Palace

Solid Gold (I'm just saying that, I have no idea)

Do you like Bryant's pants?  You can't wear shorts here because it is a working temple.

The entire time I was there I kept thinking of Georgie.

She loves fancy, sparkly things.  She would have loved this.

Lotus Water...

I actually still have no idea what this is but it's something sacred that they do.  I need to look it up.  

I'm pretty sure it keeps me 29 for the rest of my life.

See there on my back...yea, that's poop;)  

Beautifully gawdy

I'm such a dork!

A sacred animal

These Murals were everywhere. 

 They all depict parts of the life of Buddha.

Eating my feet!

This is how I imagine Buddha might have actually looked in his old age.  

I love this sculpture.

A Giant Warrior guarding the palace.

Yet another golden Buddha for me to worship;)

Peek-a-boo

This is the gold Buddha that the King of Thailand meditates with.  

In the front there is a closet type thing where he goes to get some privacy with the Buddha.

Hall of Buddhas!   

But somehow, I think I'm wrong about this one because these look more like topless women.

Don't you just love Bryant's pants?

This golden Buddha is huge!

The huge feet tell Buddha's life story.

Removing the cool pants

Bestest, schmanciest brunch I've ever been to in my life...for half price.

AND I didnt' even pay for it.  Thanks Starwood employees!

I ate three different kinds of Caviar Bellinis, the best smoked salmon I've ever had in my life, tapas, Chinese Dumplings, Thai food and the hugest dessert bar I've ever seen in my life.  They had to roll us us out of there!!

Weekend market...awesome, cheap stuff

I♥Bangkok!

Cambodia and Angkor Wat

Southeast Asia:

Cambodia and Angkor Wat


From the airplane window I literally squealed!!  "I'm in Cambodia!!  It looks just like the movies!!" A local young man sat behind me and I saw him grin (laugh at me) from ear to ear.  I couldn't contain my camera in the taxi.  Here are my first few shots.

Monks clearing some land

And this is an average to small sized family on one scooter.  Women only sometimes straddle the scooter and usually sit with both legs to the side.  They hold on to tiny babies or only their husbands, simply squishing a baby between them....safe...But I did feel rather lame for being so anal about seat belts and car seats when at home considering how they live here.  Most taxis don't even have seat belts so you can imagine that car seats are not even a consideration.

Our first meal...hotel room service and absolutely DELICIOUS!  As you can see we went a bit overboard on the ordering.  3 desserts!  But we had to try everything!  AND it was so cheap!

Green Curry

Salad...wish I could replicate this.  It was amazing.  Most of their salads have little to no lettuce (if its there it's only a garnish)  They are purely shredded vegetables, fruit and herbs.  

A typical house

This girl walked right up to me and held out her hand.  Without a grin on her face she said, "candy".  Yes, I gave her some!  This was probably after her morning shift of peddling bracelets.

Rice paddies

I know I look like a rag-amuffin but this picture does show off my new lens that I bought for

  $100!!! in Singapore (probably the only cheap thing you'll find there).

In front of Bante Sreay, the only womens' temple in the area

Three local girls playing in their pajamas on the steps of Angkor Wat.  

Yes, I used it...

Xiao Cabbage

One of many beautiful Cambodian children.  

This one was about the size of Juliet and she was 18 mos.  

Eyeless, legless, fingerless, armless, these guys (and one female) 

were part of a "land mine victims band"

We saw 2 or 3 of these bands while we were there.

The landmine museum was quite tragic.  It doubles as an orphanage for children effected by mines.  Most of them lost one or both parents due to mines but some of them have been injured themselves.  I think the information there was legitimate and it said that most of the mines were dropped by the US.  We were trying to cut off Vietnams supply route by bombing the Ho Chi Minh trail which happens to cross both Cambodia and Thailand.  There are still thousands of bombs buried today.  

I have their address if you want a service project.  Here is a list of some things that they need.  Keep in mind that to send them a package costs a lot. 

These photos don't begin to do the market justice.  It was truly beautiful and disgusting all at the same time.  The vegetables and fruits were beautifully fresh and plentiful but so was the fish heads, blood and water trailing around on the ground...eeewww.

A typical fishy scene in the market.  I can just imagine her going home, taking off her shoes and going to sleep in those socks...fish juice and blood splattered all over them.  For some reason I kept thinking about things like that as I watched them go about their "meat butchering" routines.  Thank HEAVENS for US health codes....somehow all of this didn't stop me from eating fish there.  And it was DELICIOUS!!

Angkor Wat:

Angkor Wat is the most famous Hindu/Buddhist temple in southeast Asia.  It is also the largest religious building in the world.  It really is massive.  This photo is of the actual temple and the bridge that crosses over the 1/4 mile wide moat that surrounds it.  As you can see it was under renovation...bummer.

The Moat.  

The water is pretty much as it looks....murky.  There were lilly pads and lotus flowers dotting it but for some reason i didn't get that in the picture. 

This is the outer wall or pre temple.

Doing the Chinese Tourist pose!!

This is the most upper tower in the center of the whole compound.  Back in its hey day, only the most elite member of the Khmer kingdom were allowed up here.  On our visit it was also relatively slow paced and quiet.  It took a while to get to it, the stairs were really steep up to the top, and no tank tops are allowed so I think it discourages some people.  If you go, make sure you go to the top.  It was really peaceful up there.  For a short time I had a huge Buddha statue all to myself!

A HUGE statue of Vishnu.  

If you look closely you can see that he has 8 arms (which I think is a Buddhist thing because in Hindu tradition he seems to always have only 4 arms).  The hands were stolen a long time ago.  This statue was in one of the south facing buildings between the outer wall and the main temple entrance.  

Offerings

You can't see the strand of hair...but it's mine;)  Somewhere on a plaque at the front of the temple it mentioned that hair was a common offering because Buddha offered his as a semblance of his giving up the things of the world, hence the shaved heads of all monks today.  I figured, "do as the Romans do" and tried to think of some worldy things I would do well to sacrifice.  It didn't take me too long;)  I plucked out a few of my few remaining strands and offered them.  It felt pretty cool!:)

A typical statue of the Buddha

He's usually in a small corridor and wrapped in an orange shawl.

Caught thinking of stealing a rock

BUT... I CTR and left in it's rightful place;)

I couldn't have The God's frowning on me;)

The Jungle Temple:

I don't remember it's real name;)  

We all loved this one because of its lush setting and all the over growth.  

They are still renovating and rebuilding this temple.  Behind it there were mounds of dirt with rocks all underneath it, parts of the temple that have still not been dug up yet.  You could kind of see how the trees might have gone about growing on top of this temple.  I imagine that before it was rediscovered it was completely covered in dirt...trees planted themselves and grew and then someone came along and began uncovering and rebuilding it.  However it happened it made for an absolutely stunning day trip.

pooped

We found these local kids roaming the temple. 

 I love their mismatched clothes and how dirty they are.  Unsupervised children are everywhere.  

At 5 and 6 years old, big siblings are already babysitters.

These boys were singing along the road out of the Jungle Temple.  They had made their own hats and tip basket out of leaves and were singing for money.  How could you not reward this ingenuity...although I should have told them their ingenuity would have been better off being put to use at school.  That was a question that Bryant, Alex and I discussed a lot.  Should we buy from kids?  Their were a couple of schools in Siem Reap and but we still saw so many kids out working.   If tourists were advised not to buy from children (and didn't)  their parents might send them to school instead of to work, thereby improving the economy of Cambodia.

A Before and After shot.  

Like a giant puzzle, archaeologists pieced this temple back together.

Fish Spa...the thing I'm still bragging about ;)

This was our initial reaction.  Totally wigged out in a good way!

This is after all the fish realized what a feast I was

I don't think anyone else in that pool was getting any action after I climbed in.

What can I say??  I have runners feet;)

The theme of the trip;)

A Cambodian gas station

Crazy, huh

Bayon:

I loved the warriors that lined the streets leading up to this temple.  

I kept waiting for them to grunt at me.

It felt so "Indiana Jones"

On every side of the towers is a face.

Pucker up big boy;)

I felt a little connected to this monkey that we spotted on our way home from Bayon.  

She was nursing her baby while exploring Cambodia for food...kind of like me;)

But her baby can hold on all by herself, leaving her hands free.

I felt a little bit jealous;)

Cooking Class

at Le Tigre de Papier Restaurant

For $12 Alex and I took a cooking class that included all the food in the cost.  What a bargain!  

I learned to make Green Mango Salad

Chicken Curry

Fish Amok (DELICIOUS!)

and Sticky Mango Rice (also DELICIOUS!)

We shopped for our own ingredients at the local market:

Restaurant for the locals

The fruit to the upper right is called Dragon Fruit.  It actually wasn't that good but it is beautiful....bright pink and neon green and such great texture.  Inside, the flesh is white with black seeds speckled throughout.

mmmm....pig heads

Making my own Curry PASTE  

I didn't even know you could do that!!

A Rose made from a tomato....isn't that special!

I ♥ Cambodia!!