http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Stephandel/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Stephandel en-us Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:44:04 UTC Tue, 02 Dec 2008 10:44:04 UTC Finally home in NYC and settling in to classes. Student life is hectic but good. Steph found a great job in the Fine Jewelery buying office at Macyrsquos. Really canrsquot complain about anything. In case any of you are interested in seeing the complete set of pictures from our PanAsian adventure you can visit online at httppicasaweb.google.comredmocha. There are nearly 3000 pictures a http://www.travelblog.org//North-America/United-States/New-York/New-York/Manhattan/blog-91172.html After a whirlwind trip spanning two months and eight countries our journey is finally coming to an end. Fortunately the past week on the beach in Bali has been a perfect way to finish. We'll be arriving at our new studenthousing home in NYC around midday today 813 after spending about 25 hours in the air since we'll gain a full day due to the International Date Line changeover. We'll off http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Indonesia/Bali/blog-80456.html Five nights in Bangkok. The world was our oyster. The bars were temples but the pearls weren't free. We found a God in every golden cloister although we often couldn't tell whether the God was a 'he' or 'she'....Apologies to Murry Head for mucking up the lyrics to 'One Night in Bangkok'This blog is going to be infinitely short. We had a great time in Bangkok and on our trek among the hill trib http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/Thailand/Central/Bangkok/blog-79848.html Sadly our time in China is coming to an end. The past three weeks have been an amazing blend of urbanrural Chinese life and from what we've seen and heard from others China wouldn't be a bad place to live. At the very least we've got a list of cities to visit the next time we're in the area.A Different Type of GovernmentThe last posting seemed to come across a bit tooharshly on the China's p http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Guangxi/Yangshuo/blog-77106.html Ah.... China. If we hadn't read over and over again about the horrors that the colonial period and the early years of communist rule had wrought on China's historical artifacts we might have thought that some of the amazing treasures we've been seeing over the past couple of weeks were actually somewhat original. Unfortunately though centuries of wars edicts from emperors and most destructi http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-73474.html We've finally arrived in Beijing after a TransSiberian train journey spanning 5936 miles fifteen distinct ecosystems eight nights four segments three countries and two excruciating customsvisa checkpoints. Although we missed the fireworks in the states we did spend the 4th of July with an American family that has been visiting Mongolia for the past three weeks. We can't fault their choice http://www.travelblog.org//Asia/China/Beijing/blog-71719.html MoscowThe first two legs of our journey have been fantastic. To prepare you for a longish entry we've assembled some key Russian words to help you if you're ever in Moscow. Try to sound out the proper pronunciation for each of the following words using the link we sent in the previous postRussian spelling1 1056108611031083 2 1057109010861087 http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Russia/Northwest/Moscow/blog-69113.html Although the sights sounds and smells in St. Petersburg have been fantastic we've found the most pleasure in the mundane transliterations of Russian wordssigns. For example take a look at the word 'pectopah'. In Russian this is pronounced almost exactly as it is in English as 'restauran' since the 'p' is pronounced as an 'r' the 'c' is pronounced as an 's' and the 'h' is an 'n'. It's just http://www.travelblog.org//Europe/Russia/Northwest/Saint-Petersburg/blog-67060.html Welcome.If you're here it probably means that we've said goodbye to you in person. Months from now you will be missed. But not just yet. Right now we're too excited to sleep. As you probably know Stephanie and Del are headed on a full roundtheworld adventure over the next twoplus months spanning three continents and five countries San Francisco USA St. PetersburgMoscowIrkutsk Russia http://www.travelblog.org//North-America/United-States/California/San-Francisco/blog-64918.html