Back on Saturday Nov. 14th we sent a text message to our contact teacher, Wilson, requesting the school to purchase us a space heater. Not a crazy request since the temperature was 9 degrees Celsius (47 degrees Fahrenheit). Our program CTLC told us to ask the school to buy them but they could say no. Well last week we found out some schools told foreign teachers NO, gave them a winter coat or some actually bought them for their foreign teacher. SO NICE. Today, after waiting 10 DAYS to get a response from our school(THANKS for the PROMPT response China) we [View Full Entry]

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Since our last blog the sun has decided to return to Shenzhen after going into hiding for one week, but it still is cool and feels like Fall. This past weekend, Staci and Martin, our friends from Seattle who also teach Senior students in Bao'an visited us Friday and Saturday night. They rode back with us after Chinese class on Friday night in our free school sponsored van ride home. We started with a few beers and enjoyed chips/salsa that I bought from Ole earlier in the week. Except the salsa was from Australia and tasted more like a mixture of [View Full Entry]

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Since we returned from Cambodia the weather in Shenzhen has taken a drastic turn and is REALLY chilly. It has been cool, cloudy, windy and a little rainy since last Thursday. Today, when I checked the temperature online it felt like 9 degrees Celsius=47 degrees Fahrenheit. BRRRR. We are wimps though since we lived in San Diego for 6 and 7 years plus our apartment has tile floors, single pane windows, concrete exterior and no heat. Our classrooms at school have no heat and the hallways are all outdoors. Since returning we also decided we were going to make it a [View Full Entry]

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We were on the bus at 7am to take us to the bus terminal where the bus went to Phnom Penh at 7:45am. It was scheduled to be a 4 hour bus ride so Pete went to the corner market to get some coffee and breakfast, he came back with coffee, oj and 2 bags of M&Ms. In Cambodia they don't have muffins like they do in China so we ate M&Ms for breakfast-NOT GOOD. Actually we have been eating not so healthy since we have been in China and surprised my clothes still fit but they do. Little exercise due [View Full Entry]

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Shout out to my Aunt Paulette for it was her birthday on Sunday, Nov 8th when we arrived in Sihanoukville. We arrived in Sihanoukville on the overnight bus around 5:30am. The cost was $20 per person, not bad for 10 hour ride. We got off the bus and all 20-30 of us were swarmed by Tuk Tuk drivers wanting to take us to a hostel or hotel. We didn't have a reservation as it seemed most of the others on the bus didn't either. After getting our bags we negotiated the ride from $4 down to $2, sometimes Asia is tiring [View Full Entry]

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4:50am the alarm went off since Sak was picking us up at 5am so we could see the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Very early morning with a long day ahead of us. 1st Temple Sunrise at Angkor Wat built in 1113 and finished in 1150 with later additions. Angkor Wat is the World's Largest Religious monument. As we arrived at the temple is was still dark out and LOTS of people walking with us to enter the temple gates. Sak told us once inside to go to our left so we could see 5 of the towers, if you stand straight [View Full Entry]

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Here are some more videos from our trip including the elephant ride and Ta Prohm temple (where Tomb Raider was filmed with Angelina Jolie). We had such a great time in Siem Reap and if you ever get a chance to go you should. It is a life experience you will never forget. [View Full Entry]

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We started our day at 8am again and this was going to be a long day. We decided to go to 2 of the more remote temples that were 49km=30.5 miles and 37 km=almost 23 miles from Siem Reap, where we stayed. We got to see lots of countryside and many homes/shacks along the way. I took a video of the route for about 2 minutes but it is too large to post to the blog(sorry). 1st temple Pre Rup built in 961. 2nd temple Kbal Spean built possibly in 11th-12th century this different than any other temple for he had [View Full Entry]

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As requested from many of our friends and family you wanted more videos and on this trip we took lots so here are some from the floating village visit located along Tonle Sap Lake which is the largest lake in Southeast Asia and Preah Khan temple built in 1191. [View Full Entry]

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Sak, our tuk tuk driver, picked us up at 8am to head out for a day of touring the smaller temples. Since we were going to be touring for 3 days we started out with the smaller more remote temples and worked our way up to the grandest of them all, Angkor Wat. Our first stop was Lolei built in 893. Not many people there and we got to see the detail of work that we would experience over the next 3 days. 2nd stop was at Preah Ko and last temple of the day was Bakong. Bakong was huge compared [View Full Entry]

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