somelife

I've never been to a city as relaxed as Luang Prabang. As mentioned in the previous blog entry, it was immediately clear that the contrast with Vietnam was going to be felt immediately. I'm now in Thailand and the 5 nights I spent there are already a blur. I did very little during my time there. I'd wake up around 5:30 AM each day, when the monks in the local Wat started banging their huge drum. This announced the beginning of the daily procession through the centre of town. The faithful line up each morning to donate sticky rice to the monks each morning. It is a simply amazing sight to see literally hundreds of monks and novices in their bright orange and yellow robes each day - and the many people who donate food to ... read more

As a kid, if I ever thought of Cambodia, it was probably in reference to either the Dead Kennedy's song or the Vietnam war. Like many American's, the idea of actually going to visit a place as dark and mysterious as Cambodia always sounded mysterious and down-right dangerous. How times change...travelling to Siem Reap last weekend to visit the temples around Angkor Wat was nearly magical. Just a day before our flight, I was still thinking we might not make it. Hundreds of people had died in the Phillipines and dozens in Vietnam as a result of a seemingly unstoppable typhoon. However the flight did land and the rain had stopped - and since the typhoon had produced the worst flooding that anyone in Siem Reap seemed to be able to remember, we were able to ... read more

Its been a long break between entries again - but no excuses...Mike was here the other week and I wasted no time getting him out to the pub quiz where I was sure he could help improve our team's dismal record. We came in dead last the day he arrived...but Mike redeemed himself the following week when our second to last place finish got us a free pitcher of Stella - compliments of the first place team (who felt sorry for us - naturally). I managed to take 1 day off work while he was here, so we headed for Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (Borneo, Sawah...so many names I just can't make heads or tails of it). I had the idea that we could go check out the orangutan's at long last but once again my planning ... read more

If you are in the US, on Friday the 3rd of July, you were probably having a BBQ and enjoying a cool Miller High Life or a PBR while shooting off fireworks. If you are in the UK, unless you are as lucky as Debs and got to go to centre court at Wimbledon, you were probably watching Andy Murray battle it out on TV when you were supposed to be working. But if you were in Kuching, Malaysia, you spent the afternoon at poolside working on your tan. You had a beer or two, read a book, listened to the iPod and occasionally had a little swim. In the evening, you had dinner in front of a big screen TV that was showing the tennis live and played a game or two of darts - ... read more

Hi all, Since I'm not likely to be able to keep up with everyone properly (over the phone) the next 4 months and have grown tired of posting photos on facebook, I've decided to try out this new-fangled 'Blogging' thing that I heard about on that BBC news show, Click! By the way, I feel like its been about a month since I left London. It was a bit of a whirlwind towards the end with work (and a cold) in Chicago, an amazing weekend in New York, some great rocking out to rock band in Shepherds Bush and several nights of pretending to clean and pack up the house while drinking far too much red wine! After nealy a week here in Singapore I am finally starting to settle in a bit. I only got ... read more