Small Laguna Beach, Mindoro Nov. 29 - Dec. 5 Upon arrival to the Philippines, we headed straight away to Mindoro, a large island south of Manila. In the lagunas, we found a small area but nicely built up with mostly dive shops, bars and restaurants. We stayed with this nice Filipino family with 2 small children for Zachary to play with right down from the beach. The island is quite beautiful though the beach itself wasn't great. For my birthday on the 30th, we had a delicious steak and shrimp dinner in front of the sea which comes right up [View Full Entry]

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Macau, China: Nov. 27-29 We travelled overnight on a bus full of beds (In all my travels, I had never encountered such a bus before). It was much more bearable than the 10 hour torment I had envisioned. We arrived at 5 am in Shenzhen and took the next couple hours to figure out how to get to the Port as we had no guide book and it is near impossible to get around China otherwise as next to no one speaks english and everything is written in Chinese but we persevered, got on a bus and hoped that at [View Full Entry]

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Nov. 24 - 27: Xiamen, China Upon arrival in China, we were very impressed. Everything was super efficient, even more so than Singapore. We were in and out of customs in under a minute and our baggage was sitting waiting for us as soon as we got there. Xiamen is a very clean, modern city and not how I had pictured China to be at all. Xmas commercialism was booming ( I didn't even think that would exist in communist China), nowhere was crowded, there are beautiful parks and gardens everyone, a lovely island across the port where old colonies [View Full Entry]

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Nov. 12 - 24 : Pattaya and Bangkok, Thailand We thankfully left the smog of Bangkok after an hour and a half taxi ride that did not get us to the bus station. 2 taxis and much time later we arrived to a waiting Clela and Dan and bus tickets to Pattaya. A beach resort 2 hours from Bangkok. We were quite surprised when we arrived as Pattaya is a huge city and was frankly much nicer than we thought it would be. It has quite the seedy reputation as a sex tourism area and though there is that, there is [View Full Entry]

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Bangkok, Thailand: Nov. 3 - 11 We're in the midst of Chinatown, Bangkok. It took us 4 hours to get from the airport to the City due to heavy traffic, traffic lights that don't change for 10 minutes and much confusion on how to get out of the airport ( 1 hour spent looking for the skytrain... there is no skytrain in the airport). We decided to take a local bus to save ourselves $5- it was not worth it, especially with a screaming baby in tow for 2 hot, sweaty hours in deadlock traffic. But now we're here, cosily [View Full Entry]

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Phuket, Thailand Oct. 25 - Nov. 3 We flew into Phuket, which still looks beautiful despite the tsunami, though they say it will take 30 years before the waters will return to the clarity they once were, they are still beautiful and clear though, a bit wavier than i thought but they are coming out of the rainy season. We stayed in Patong Beach for a week which is the biggest and most touristed beach in Phuket, I would have preferred somewhere quieter but that's where our hotel was booked. There are a lot of tourist and tourism in the [View Full Entry]

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Kamaman Oct. 14 - 21 Kuala Lumpur Oct. 21 - 25 We spent the week relaxing in one of Malaysia nicest beach and golf resorts. Our good friends Clela and Dan travelled 40 gruelling hours straight from Bangkok to join us but we're well rewarded by with air conditioning, hot water, comfortable beds not to mention the often deserted beach, huge pool and wonderful hot tubs where much time was spent. They have now returned to the busy life to begin new one year teaching contracts but we will see them in a few weeks up in their neck of [View Full Entry]

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Palau Tioman, Malaysia – Oct 8 - 12 After 2 days of travelling, we have arrived at the beautiful island of Tioman off the Eastern coast of Malaysia. We are staying at a small beach with wooden bungalows on the beach, a couple dive shops and a few restaurants. That’s about it – we were told it is very congested here??? The beach is set in front of never-ending palm trees that rise up and up, the small turquoise bay encircled by huge rocks teeming with marine life all around. I am saving my chance to go diving for Thailand [View Full Entry]

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Palau Batam, Indonesia: Sept 30 – Oct 7 We took a fast ferry 45 min. from Singapore to a little island resort where we are spending the week. We were upgraded to a one bedroom suite which gives us a lot more room and our own kitchen… even his and hers bathrooms. The resort is quite nice with a huge pool and a lot of amenities though it is a bit run down. Indonesia’s tourism industry has taken a blow over the years with the Asian economic crisis, terrorist bombings, and environmental disasters like the recent tsunami. Indonesians are very [View Full Entry]

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Singapore: Sept. 24-30 Singapore is a beautiful city with state-of-the-art architecture, the best of the Western world and Eastern world and a wonderful multicultural mix. Due to the diversity of the people, English is the language chosen to communicate among themselves making it incredibly easy to travel in. The city is incredibly clean due to strict littering laws and you’ve never wanted to chew gum more than where they cane you for doing so. Between getting over jet lag which hits you harder than you would think, especially Zachary who doesn’t quite grasp the concept of [View Full Entry]

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