Eric and Jamie's International Teaching Blog

St. Lucia Babymoon 2011 - Touring

2011-08-21T13:27:00.000-04:00

Day 4 and 5

We rented a car for Thursday and Friday to drive around and see the sites of the island. We also rented some snorkel gear in hopes of seeing some reefs, coral, and fish along the beaches. With our map, we headed south the first day to Soufriere, most known for the two large pitons that are the symbols of the island.

It was the first time I had driven on the left hand side of the road, and the roads themselves were very curvy up and down the hills. I managed just fine for the two days of driving and actually liked it after a while. The route to Soufriere is especially winding and takes an hour and a half to drive there. Once we arrived, we saw the botanical gardens and the Diamond waterfall.

One of the nicest and most known resorts on the island is the Jalousie Plantation, centered between the two pitons. We ate lunch there on their private beach, then headed back toward Marigot Bay. On the way back, we stopped at Ti Kaye Village and Anse Cochon beach for some snorkeling on their black sand beach. It was nice but not spectacular. Since we are driving, we aren’t privy to the nicer snorkeling locations on the island that the boat tours have.

We stopped a local grocery store on the way home to buy some food to cook for dinner. Our villa has a full kitchen, but we did not want to buy a bunch of ingredients, so we opted for pork chops, broccoli, and a baked potato. It worked out nicely.

Day 5

We headed out mid morning to the northern part of the island, known mainly for its nicer resorts and more upscale shopping. The town of Castries is the capital and we quickly drove through it and made our way to Pigeon Island National Park, where we spent the day on the beach there relaxing, snorkeling, and just enjoying the park. A Sandals resort is right next to the park, so it is a nice location, albeit hard to find due to the lack of signs that appears to be a problem on the island.

After a dessert at Marble Slab, we made our way down to Anse La Raye, a small fishing village where every Friday night, they have a seafood street festival complete with music, dancing, and a wonderful seafood variety of just about anything you can think of. We had plates of crab cakes, shrimp, conch soup (a local dish), as well as several side items. Great great food and a nice atmosphere that shouldn’t be missed by anyone on the island on a Friday night.

Great two days of traveling at our pace. Had we gone on a sailing tour, it would have been more scenic, but we would have had to be on their schedule. With Jamie 30 weeks pregnant, we decided this was the best way to see the sites. The next few days will be spent enjoying our villa and hanging around Marigot Bay.

St. Lucia Babymoon 2011

2011-08-21T13:25:00.000-04:00

From St. Lucia

Day 1

Jamie and I used our skymiles to book a week in

St. Lucia

. This will be our final vacation before the baby arrives. We had wanted to go there for our honeymoon four years ago, but the price didn’t fit the budget at the time. With the skymiles, we were able to book our flight then we found a villa to rent for the week at Marigot Bay.

Marigot Bay is the location for the 1960s movie Dr. Doolittle. It is a beautiful sea green and blue bay on the western side of the island.

The direct flight from Atlanta took us to the main airport on the southern side of the island. For a steep government regulated taxi fee of $75, e can get to your resort or villa. Only an hour ride, but the whole island is only 27 miles long and 14 miles wide. Rough terrain and windy roads make driving a bit difficult, but natives navigate them with ease.

We were dropped off at the porter station and ferried across the small bay to our side. We rode a little lift to the top of a small hill where our villa at the Oasis Marigot Ocean Cottage #3 waited us about 50 steps from the lift.

The villa is complete with a king size bedroom, full size bath (shower a little finicky because it is operated through rain water), dining room, living room, and kitchen. A huge balcony overlooks a plunge pool and the entire bay. Wonderful tropical setting. There are actually 4 rooms to this villa, but no one else is here this week, so we have all of the public places to ourselves.

We ate a Doolittle’s restaurant just at the bottom of the lift the first night. Good food, but a bit overpriced in our opinion.

No air conditioning in the villa which we thought would be a problem. We requested an extra fan, so we had them set up in either the living room or the bedroom depending on where we were hanging out.

Our taxi driver stopped at a grocery store for us before dropping us off, so we picked up some breakfast groceries for the week. Day 2 and 3 were spent mainly hanging around our villa or going over across the bay by the ferry to look around the small village. We ate lunch in the villa and once ate at a place in the village. Dinner was at a place called JD’s, only reachable by ferry.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 20 and Reflections

2011-07-26T22:47:00.001-04:00

From Yellowstone National Park

Ft. Smith, AK to Calhoun, TN

We left early in the morning after a wonderful breakfast at the hotel. Guesthouse Inn is quite nice despite it being probably 2nd least expensive hotel of the trip.

We changed drivers several times, at lunch at a Zaxby's, dropped by and picked up Papa John's for dinner, and made it back to Calhoun right at 12 hours. Long day of driving but it really wasn't that bad.

We cleaned out the van and then reflected on the trip. There were 19 major locations we saw during the trip. In order of appearance, they are...

St. Louis Arch
Corn/Wheat Fields of Midwest
1880's Western Town
Badlands National Park
Mt. Rushmore
Black Hills National Forest
Devil's Tower
Bighorn National Forest
Yellowstone National Park
Grand Tetons National Park
Crater Lake National Park
Oregon Coastal Road
Redwood National Park
Napa Valley
San Francisco
Sequoia National Park
Las Vegas
Grand Canyon National Park
Petrified Forest National Park/Painted Desert

I asked my family to rank their top 5 locations. The following lists the top 5. The top 3 really aren't that much of a surprise, but the last 2 might be considering that we didn't know we were going through them. The remaining of them were not even close. A couple of surprises in here I thought, but overall a solid list for anyone wishing to travel. Keep in mind of the diversity of ages and experiences where the votes came from...

#1
Grand Canyon National Park - No surprise here as 3 people listed it as their number 1 choice; however, 3 people didn't rank it all. Nonetheless, the Grand Canyon is probably a highlight of any trip out west.

#2
Yellowstone National Park - 6 of 7 people ranked the park in their top 5, which some could make it a case at being #1 on this list. We'll stick with it at #2 in accordance with total points though. Again, no surprise considering all that we saw there, including a bear.

#3
Redwood National Park - 5 of 7 people ranked this in their top 5, and one of the people who didn't had already been there before. One person ranked it #1. The redwoods are majestic, and the highlight was the short 1.5 mile walk through these towering trees.

#4
Crater Lake National Park - 5 out of 7 people ranked this one. We made a last minute decision to go here and diverted from our plan. Lucky that we did because it outranked some other popular spots and one person ranked it #1.

#5
Big Horn National Park - The largest surprise on the list, but the drive through here it quite impressive. Only 3 people ranked this but one ranked it first and two ranked it 2nd, so the points added up quickly. Surprising still because we re-routed to drive through here not knowing how rewarding it was going to be. The winding road through the mountains were worth the extra time which also got us to Cody, WY and closer to Yellowstone.

There it is. The top 5 locations as voted on by the Brown family. Feel free to agree or disagree if you have been to these locations. Anyone wanting advise if you are traveling through these areas, feel free to email me. Also, don't forget to see all of the locations and photos on our PICASA PHOTO ALBUM.

Dad just said that it wasn't fair to rank these and that the best thing about the whole trip was us all being together for it. I couldn't have said it better....

Brown Family Vacation - Day 18 and 19

2011-07-26T22:12:00.000-04:00

From Petrified ForestPainted Desert

Day 18

Holbrook, AZ to Amarillo, TX

A nice little breakfast started out our day and we made our way first to this large store outside of Petrified Forest National Park called Jim Gray’s Petrified Wood Co. Great store that gave you a ½ pound of free petrified wood. I bought a couple of samples to show my students but the store had a wonderful variety of wood and gemstones to see.

We mainly just drove through the Petrified Forest and also made our way through the Painted Desert which you really have to in order to get back onto the Interstate. It was all interesting enough with some crazy landscapes. I would have like to get out and walk around a little, but it was just a drive through sort of thing.

From here on out, it will be driving time. We probably won’t stop to see too much. We have to be back by the 27^th so we can clean up the van and get it back by the 28^th.

We ate lunch in Sky City, NM at a McDonald’s. Sky City has a city on top of a mesa that is the oldest continuously occupied city in North America, or so they say. We didn’t stop to see it though and moved on to Amarillo, TX for the night where we stayed at a Day’s Inn. We ate dinner at Outback Steakhouse to celebrate Samantha’s 15^th birthday.

Day 19

Amarillo, TX to Ft. Smith, AK

Driving day again today. We left Amarillo and drove through the panhandle of Texas and into Oklahoma. We were around Oklahoma City for lunch and drove past the bomb site memorial. It was threatening rain and parking and driving downtown was a disaster, so we didn’t stop and fully explore.

We ate lunch out of the box and moved down the road finally stopping at Ft. Smith, Arkansas. We stayed a wonderful hotel called the Guesthouse Inn and ate a mediocre dinner at TGIFridays.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 17

2011-07-26T22:06:00.000-04:00

From Grand Canyon

Flagstaff, AZ to Holbrook, AZ

Grand Canyon Day! Staying at Flagstaff is a good location because it is only about 80 minutes to the South Rim of the Canyon. We had breakfast in the room and headed north toward the canyon. The Grand Canyon has a ton of things to do, but we knew going in that the only part of this trip was to view it from the rim, enjoy it magnificence of it, and move on. I will no doubt be back to the Grand Canyon one day to do helicopter, mule to the bottom, rafting, or other things when you have more time.

There is literally no way for someone to describe the feeling you get when you first see the Grand Canyon. I won’t bother to do it here because I am neither poetic nor capable of doing so. I will say that it is a site that everyone must see in their lifetime whether it is to just stop and see it from the rim or fully explore.

They are doing some wonderful work there, so the new visitor’s center isn’t quite finished, but people do not go to see the visitor’s center.

Lunch today was at a Wendy’s outside the park and we drove on down to Holbrook, AZ, a place chosen because it was just outside the Petrified Forest. We drove by Meteor Crater but was unable to see it because it was closed for the day. It would have been spectacular because it is the best preserved crate in the world almost a mile across and over 3 miles in circumference. Maybe one day.

We stayed at a nice little Travelodge in Holbrook, ate out of our lunch box, and Mom, Jamie and I took a long walk that night while seeing a pretty sunset.

Tomorrow, we begin our drive home. We have broken it up into 7 hour driving days, but we’ll see how that goes.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 16

2011-07-26T22:04:00.000-04:00

Las Vegas, NV to Flagstaff, AZ

Shorter day today. We left Vegas later in the morning. Amy and Samantha had heard about a replica Simpson’s house outside of Vegas in Henderson. After a great, late breakfast at Dunkin Donuts, we went found the Simpson’s house only to be disappointed to find out that it had been sold, repainted, and turned into just another regular house in that neighborhood. Too bad really because it would have been a great stop especially considering the Simpson’s fans in our bunch.

We then made our way to Hoover Dam, only to be disappointed again for 2 reasons: 1) There way no way for mamaw to get to the visitor’s center via escalator or elevator due to her pacemaker. 2) It cost $8 per person just to get into the visitor’s center, but that does include the tour. Dad’s legs were killing him from our walk in Vegas, so we decided to bypass the tour and visitor’s center and drive across the dam instead. Again, no pictures today because we didn't really get out plus I already have pictures of Hoover Dam.

We drove on to Flagstaff where we stayed at this nice little Budget Inn for the night and ate at Cracker Barrel with dessert at Dairy Queen. Jamie and Amy were gracious enough to go do our laundry.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 15

2011-07-26T22:03:00.002-04:00

Bakersfield, CA to Las Vegas

We left somewhat early and after a quick wrong turn made our way with a 5 hour drive to Las Vegas. We stayed at the Imperial Palace, which I like because of its decent price and central location on the strip. Nice places were available for the price but would have put us further down the Strip. IP is also located across from Caesar’s Palace and on the monorail line.

After lunch at Cheesecake Factory at Caesar’s Palace, we rested up for a little while and some hit the pool. We then headed out to see some of the casinos and some that the Vegas strip has to offer. It had been about 5 years since I had been there with Jamie, and they have actually built a couple of new casinos on the strip.

We took the monorail down to MGM but the lions had already been put up for the night. We saw M&M World and all of the street performers dressed up in characters. We got a quick snack while walking around New York, New York, then made our way up the strip by walking to see the fountains of the Bellagio.

Everyone was pretty tired from the walking, so most made their way back to the rooms. Amy and I headed out to play some blackjack until late in the evening.

Too little time in Vegas, but it was enough to see it at night and experience some of the larger casinos. Always more to see in Vegas, but I know we’ll be back. No pictures because I had already been there and had some pictures from before. Tomorrow, we’ll make our way to Flagstaff, AZ to prepare for the next day at the Grand Canyon.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 14

2011-07-21T03:44:00.000-04:00

From Sequoia NP

Fresno, CA to Bakersfield, CA

We got a late start but headed out toward Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park today. We had no idea how large the park was and what we were going to be able to see and decided our plan once we got there.

After talking to a ranger, we decided to forego the Kings Canyon part of the park. This is unfortunate, but I'm sure we'll be back to see it some other time.

We first went to see General Grant, a massive tree that is near the visitor's center. We then took the winding road down toward the main part of the Sequoia NP to see General Sherman, the world's largest tree by volume. It isn't the tallest nor the oldest, but one statistic said that if you filled it up with water, you would have enough water to take a bath every day for 27 years. We ate lunch near there at a very peaceful picnic site.

One the way out of the park, they were doing road construction on the curviest road I have even been on. They only let cars through the area at the top of the hour, so cars were backed up for quite a ways and it took them a long time to get through the one lane construction. It took us nearly an hour and a half to get down off of the mountain.

We finally arrived at Day's Inn in Bakersfield and found a Chik-Fil-A to eat at. Sweet!

Tomorrow, we'll take the 5 hour drive to Las Vegas and see some of sin city, with or without the sinning.

Check out our pictures of the Sequoias!

Brown Family Vacation - Day 13

2011-07-21T03:27:00.000-04:00

From San Francisco

Vallejo, CA to Fresno, CA

It wasn’t on the schedule, but we were able to swing by San Francisco today. You could easily spend a week here, but we only had a few hours. We decided to take a small quick driving tour to see the sites and ended up eating right next to the Golden Gate Bridge. We drove the steep streets, saw Lombard Streets, Chinatown and some of the Victorian Houses. Hard to take pictures because we didn’t actually stop, but I have a feeling Jamie and I will back to San Francisco very soon to fully explore.

Lunch was amazing as we ate at a park in San Fran but watching this giant fog cloud roll in and completely cover the GGB. It was only at the very top of the bridge when we sat down to eat, but it slowly covered the entire bridge including when we crossed it to leave.

A somewhat quick and easy 3 hour drive took us to Fresno, CA where we booked a place at the Comfort Inn. Dinner was Olive Garden that night and it was quite yummy. Fresno puts us only an hour away from Kings Canyon and Sequoia NP, so we’ll be seeing it tomorrow. Not many pictures today, but I’m sure I’ll have plenty of the sequoia tomorrow.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 12

2011-07-21T03:25:00.000-04:00

From Napa Valley

Eureka, CA to Vallajo, CA

We left Eureka and headed south down US101 toward Napa Valley. Along the way, we were able to see some more redwoods and even stopped in one of those places where you can drive through one of them. These are privately owned places, and our van was too large to drive through, but we stopped and got some pictures of others driving through and us walking through it.

We arrived in Napa Valley and had some time to kill before our guided tour we had set up. We ate lunch at a little picnic area outside of a petrified forest. Not THE petrified forest, but this place claimed to have the largest petrified trees in the world. Privately owned, but we didn’t tour.

We drove around to and through some of the vineyards seeing the architecture and views of Napa Valley. We arrived at our tour of Castella di Amorousa, an Italian castle built in 1972 but not opened until 2006. The tour was very informative and I think we picked a winner of vineyards to tour. The wine tasting at the end was excellent and mom and dad even had some shipped back home. Check out the pictures to see what we saw.

Our stay that night was just south of Napa Valley in Vallejo, CA at a little Regency Inn which put us pretty close to San Francisco for tomorrow’s adventure.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 11

2011-07-18T01:43:00.000-04:00

From Redwood National Forest

Coos Bay, OR to Eureka, CA

We woke up this morning and headed out immediately south on US101 down the Oregon Coastal Road. Again, we stopped a few times, but this morning it was raining and very misty and foggy, so visibility was not very good. Once we arrived in California, it had cleared up, which was fortunate because our next stop was to see the Redwoods at Jebediah Smith Park.

We stopped by the visitor's center and received some information before heading off on this gravel road. 2 miles into the road, we stopped and took a 1.5 mile hike into the depths of the forest to see the trees. I really can't describe the beauty of these tree and how large they are. You can see some pictures in our PHOTO ALBUM, but I'm not sure it'll do them justice.

We left our hike, ate lunch at Crescent City Beach, and moved down the coast again. We had a tip from the ranger that there was a gray whale upriver in Klamuth and that we could stop and see it. We found the spot and was able to catch some great glimpses of a gray whale and her baby calf. Very beautiful. We were able even to see some friendly otters that swam next to the whales. A bear and a whale in the wild in the same trip!

We stopped for the night at Eureka and stayed in the Town House Motel and ate at Long Coast Brewery, which turned out to be excellent food. Tomorrow, we'll hit up wine country in Napa Valley.

Check out the Redwoods pictures and check back for more of this already amazing trip.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 10

2011-07-18T01:35:00.000-04:00

From Oregon Coastal Road

Roseburg, OR to Coos Bay, OR

We drove up I5 until we reached US20 (which is the longest road in America stretching from Boston to Newport. I was wanting to drive by the University of Oregon, but it was raining and it was a little off the road, so we opted out. We were able to see Oregon State, which is in a neat little town.

We arrived at Newport and finally saw the Pacific coast. Newport is a fishing village and the downtown area reminded me of Gatlinburg as a fishing village. We ate lunch at Mo's which was some great seafood right on the water.

We then headed down the Oregon Coastal Road US101 stopping every so often for some pictures. It is a wonderful drive that I highly recommend. Great for outdoorsy types who want to get out and hike and see some wildlife and foliage.

We winded our way down the coast until we arrived at Coos Bay and stayed at a little place called the Southside Hotel just off 101.

We ate Taco Bell because it was right across the street. In Taco Bell, there was a strange drifter in there who tried to start something with me. Jamie and my mom were with me, and I basically ignored him and walked on. Once I saw him walk by the hotel and see where we were staying, I called the police. Not sure what happened to the guy but he seemed a bit addled. The hotel owner said he had problems with him before and he was in and out of prison. Interesting...

Tomorrow, we'll make our way down the coast again and into California where our big stop for the day will be to see the Redwoods. Check out pictures!

Brown Family Vacation - Day 9

2011-07-15T23:35:00.000-04:00

From Crater Lake NP

Burns, OR to Roseburg, OR

We left Burns, OR early to head out to Crater Lake National Park. It took us almost 5 hours to get there, but it was definitely worth the derivation from our route. Crater Lake is one of the most beautiful places I have seen. It rivals the Philippines Islands and even Yellowstone. Today was especially nice because even though it is July 15, there was still snow everywhere and it was a sunny day. This caused the lake to be especially blue and clear and you had the green of the trees and the white of the snow. Pictures turned out great!

We ate lunch along the rim at the visitor’s center and just enjoyed the views. Crater Lake was formed from a volcano that erupted 7700 years ago. The mountain basically collapsed onto itself leaving a 5 mile wide crater. Eventually, rain and snow filled the crater to form a freshwater lake. Crater Lake is the deepest lake in the US and the 7^th deepest in the world. Stunning views which you only have to see to appreciate and understand.

From Crater Lake, we drove about 2.5 hours to Roseburg and stayed a great little Howard Johnson. We arrived early, so everyone was able to rest then headed out for some BBQ at a local place called Charley's. Make sure you check out the pictures of Crater Lake in our PICASA PHOTO ALBUM.

Tomorrow, we'll head north toward Newport, before heading south on the Oregon Coastal Road.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 8

2011-07-15T23:30:00.002-04:00

Idaho Falls, ID to Burn, Oregon

Driving day today. We were all pretty tired after a hard 3 days of touring and traveling, so today was a day to take it a little easier. We are a couple of days ahead of schedule, but we needed to keep moving a little west. We are very unsure of how our California touring will take place, so we want to make sure we keep up the pace without exhausting everyone. We drove through the morning and had a great lunch at Cracker Barrel in Boise, ID. Our stop for the night was 4 hours west into Oregon at a town called Burns at a Days Inn. I was able go to a local gym and even get some work done on my Chapter 5. Dinner was from our lunch box that has come in quite handy.

We are changing our plan of driving to Newport, Oregon tomorrow and opting to go to Crater Lake National Park instead. It probably will add about a half day to our schedule, but we think it is worth it.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 7

2011-07-14T02:32:00.000-04:00

From Yellowstone National Park

West Yellowstone, MT to Idaho Falls, Idaho

We slept in a little bit before heading out into the west entrance of Yellowstone to see Old Faithful. Jamie and I had been talking for 2 days about wanting to see a bear. As we were driving to entrance to Old Faithful, we got our wish and dozens of cars had pulled over and stopped traffic. We knew it had to be something cool, but we inched forward before seeing a cinnamon black bear across the river. I quickly pulled the van over to the side with everyone else and we were able to get some great views and photos of the bear. Mission accomplished!

Old Faithful had just gone off when we got there, so we had to wait the 92 minutes before seeing it again. Still pretty amazing. We loaded up and headed south toward Grand Tetons National Park. We ate lunch while overlooking Lake Jackson and the Grand Tetons. Jamie drove us the rest of the way through the park, Jackson, and into Idaho, where we stopped a little early for the night staying at West Motel in Idaho Falls, Id. We ordered some pizza from dominoes, did some laundry and tried to plan our next few days.

Excellent first week and especially a jam packed last few days. The trip continues as we travel across Oregon, hit the Pacific Coast, and head south toward California and the Redwoods among other things.

If you have seen the PHOTO ALBUM for the trip, please feel free. I have divided everything into different albums by the places we've been.

https://picasaweb.google.com/ebrown2324

Brown Family Vacation - Day 6

2011-07-14T02:24:00.001-04:00

From Yellowstone National Park

Cody, Wy to West Yellowstone, Montana (Yellowstone NP)

Another simply amazing day! I woke up for a quick run early and saw 3 deer walking the streets of Cody and saw the sun come up over the mountains. After planning the day, we got up and headed out for the hour drive to the eastern entrance of Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone is the 1st national park in the world and covers over 2.2 million acres. To see everything in 1 day is almost impossible, but we were going to try and do as much as possible.

Our first site was the massive Yellowstone Lake, which we just drove by but it gave us a sense of the beauty we'd see the rest of the day. After stopping at the visitor's center and planning with a ranger, we stopped at Mud Volcano. The entire area of Yellowstone has constant geothermal activity, and this gave us our first glimpse at what it could do to the area.

We then headed toward the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, but before seeing the upper level and lower level at Artist's Point, we had to stop several times for bison crossings. Worth the delay as we saw dozens of them. The canyon was excellent with a variety of colors.

It started raining a little bit which almost put a damper on our picnic, but we stopped at Tower Falls for lunch and waited out the rain while driving to our next stop at Mammoth Hot Springs, a place that I personally wanted to see the most. The water wasn't flowing as much here, but it was still pretty impressive walking the ramps. There was a lower terrace you could walk and an upper terrace you could drive.

It was getting late, so we decided to see the Norris Geyser Basin before heading out for the day. Again, we were able to see small geysers and pools of geothermal water of different colors along with thermophiles, little bacteria that live in the geysers.

We had to settle for a rather expensive but nice cabin room at Hibernation Station at West Yellowstone where we ate dinner at a place called Geyser Gusher before crashing for the night after a spectacular day.

Tomorrow, we'll head back into Yellowstone to see Old Faithful before heading to see the Grand Tetons and driving into Idaho.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 5

2011-07-14T02:07:00.001-04:00

From Mt. Rushmore

Rapid City, SD to Cody, Wyoming

Amazing Day! The best yet, but there is still so much more to see that it is hard to believe that we can beat today.

Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore, where we spent some time seeing this national landmark. They have an excellent trail and plenty of viewpoints that you can clearly see the four presidents. We highly recommend it. And to think, we almost skipped this area to go straight to Yellowstone.

We then drove by the unfinished monument of Crazy Horse. When finished, whenever that will be, it will be the largest sculpture in the world. It was a pretty insane amount to enter, so we just decided to snap a couple of pictures and move on.

We then drove north through the Black Hills, a beautiful large park in and of itself. Our next destination was Devil’s Tower, which has a pretty cool Native American story behind it but geologically is the core of a volcano. Look it up and read the statistics on this geological wonder, but it was the inspiration of Spielberg’s film Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We had a wonderful lunch at the base of the tower before moving on for a long long drive across Wyoming.

We had originally planned to drive across Montana the whole way on I90, but took a planned detour to go through Big Horn National Park. Great idea! Took a while and just about burned the brakes on the van, but it was well worth it. The scenery is unbelievable. Again, it is hard to believe we aren’t even to the Rockies yet and the scenes we’ll see there, not to mention Yellowstone and all that Oregon, California, Arizona, and Colorado have to offer.

We stayed at Big Bear Hotel in a townhouse. We crashed that night due to the long drive after a late dinner at a family restaurant called Granny's Kitchen. Tomorrow, we see Yellowstone National Park, a site that I’ve been wanting to see for a long time. I have see it during the winter, but the summer I’m sure will be spectacular.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 4

2011-07-13T21:35:00.000-04:00

From Badlands

Sioux Falls, SD to Rapid City, SD

We left Sioux Falls, SD and drove on I90 west toward Rapid City. Along the way, we decided to stop at this little place called 1880 Western Town. It was along the interstate, so it was convenient. Great little stop as they had an entire 1880 old west town set up with thousands of original artifacts. Their big draw was original movie props from Dances with Wolves. We spent some time walking through the town and headed back on toward the Badlands.

The Badlands are pretty spectacular. Amy said that they “look like God’s sand castles.” After driving in nothing but flat grasslands and corn fields for hundreds of miles, you come up on this barren land that was once the bottom of the ocean that has carved out a unique landscape for the area. We stopped for lunch here and drove the 35 mile loop around it before heading to our hotel in Rapid City, the Foothills Inn.

5 of us went to the Firehouse Brewery for dinner, and Jamie and I went to Target to register for our baby. Another long day, but it was nice to start seeing some big sites. Tomorrow, we’ll have another huge day with Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse Monument, Black Hills, Devil’s Tower, and on toward somewhere in Wyoming.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 3

2011-07-13T21:33:00.000-04:00

Independence, Missouri to Sioux Falls, SD

We left early in the morning and dad made a blistering pace north toward Iowa. When most of us woke, we were stopped at an exit where they had diverted traffic off of I29. The entire area was still flooded from the May floods that wiped out Joplin. Joplin was further down river, but the effects of the flood could be clearly seen here. We were forced to take a route on US Hwy 59 all the way into Minnesota to I90. It was a bumpy and difficult drive of corn, corn, and more corn. Lots of corn. Did I say corn. We ate at Pizza Hut, go figure…

Nice little town of Ida Grove, where an independently wealthy guy had built several castles in the town. Literally in the middle of nowhere, but a nice little quaint town of castles. Go figure.

We arrived quite late to Sioux Falls to hotel at nice little Days Inn. where we ate at a local Perkins which actually hit the spot. We retired pretty early because we had quite a drive across SD the next day.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 2

2011-07-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

From St. Louis

Paducah, KY to Kansas City, MO

We woke up this morning and headed straight out to St. Louis to see the arch. We were going to ride to the top, but it was a 3 hour wait. We opted instead to just enjoy it from the bottom on a beautiful day in St. Louis. Lunch was at Joey B’s, a nice little American food joint right along the river downtown next to the arch.

We have added Mt. Rushmore to the itinerary after originally leaving it off. We’ll travel there via Missouri, Iowa, and South Dakota before trekking further west.

Our stop tonight was in Independence, just outside Kansas City, Missouri/Kansas at a Super 8. The family stayed in and ate and relaxed while Jamie and I took in a Kansas City Royals game vs. the Tiger. Buck night, so I was able to get dollar coke, dogs, and peanuts. Stadium is pretty new and nice with a great atmosphere. It was a near sellout. Royals lost.

Tomorrow, we have a long ride up to South Dakota where we hope we’ll be able to get past Sioux Falls and toward Rapid City.

Brown Family Vacation - Day 1

2011-07-07T23:14:00.000-04:00

Me, Jamie, my dad (Charlie), my mom (Jewel), my sister (Amy), niece (Samantha), and my grandmother (Jean), started our 3 week trip out west today to see some good ol American highlights. Our itinerary includes St. Louis, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, Oregon pacific coast, the Redwoods, Yosemite, Las Vegas, and the Grand Canyon.

This morning, Jamie and I picked up our 9 passenger luxury passenger van. My dad had booked this van several months ago. It has 6 leather captain's chairs and a bench seat in the back that coverts to a bed if needed. Decent storage space and a rather large TV/DVD. After the first day of travel, we all feel that it'll be a great way to go across the country. We'll let you know as we go. Ironically, dad found the van in Cartersville, so Jamie and I picked it up and headed up to pick up the rest of my family in Calhoun. We then headed to Niota to drop off my mamaw's car that we had borrowed and then headed out.

Our route took us north on 75 to Niota, then we cut across Watts Bar Dam before hitting Hwy 27 to I40. I40 took us to Nashville where we hit I24 through Crossville and into Kentucky where we have stopped for the night at the Paducah Days Inn. We ate at a local BBQ place called Backwood BBQ.

Tomorrow, we'll head to St. Louis to see the arch before heading across Missouri where we'll stop somewhere close to Kansas City.

Not really any pictures today, but check back tomorrow for some from St. Louise if you wish.

Summer Schedule 2011

2011-06-21T23:20:00.000-04:00

For those wanting to know where we'll be this summer. If you can, find us sometime and we can have some lunch or dinner and catch up...

June 17 - arrive in Atlanta
June 18 - Cartersville (shopping for Jamie's maternity and golfing with dad)
June 19 - July 3 - Panama City Beach with Jamie's family
July 3 - July 6 - South Georgia visiting Jamie's dad
July 7 - July 28 - Trip out West with Eric's family
July 29 - July 31 - Cartersville
July 31 - August 4 - Denver for Jamie's AP training
August 5 - August 12 - Cartersville
August 12 - August 14 - Minneapolis for Eric's graduation
August 15 - August 22 - St. Lucia!!!
August 23 - 28 - Cartersville
August 28 - fly back to Saudi

Top 10 Worst Things About Living in Saudi Arabia

2011-06-21T23:15:00.001-04:00

If you read the Top 10 Best Things, Saudi may seem like a great place. Here are 10 (11) things that might deter you. Again, we narrowed it to 11...

11) Driving -

Driving is pretty hectic. With 4 lanes at a red light, you can easily expect the car in the far right lane to make a left hand turn cutting off 3 other lanes. You have to be pretty passive aggressive about driving. You can't just be defensive because you'll either get run over or never get anywhere. You also can't be too aggressive or you'll have an accident every day. Knocking on wood, I haven't been in an accident yet, but once you see the driving, you'll know it is just a matter of time.

Secondly on the topic is the "law" that women cannot driving in the Kingdom. This is more of a nuisance than anything. Many women take taxis or the compound bus to get around. Jamie doesn't care to drive anyway, but it would be nice for her to be able to go out somewhere if she wanted.

10) Family Sections -

Again, more of a nuisance, but seating in restaurants and public places are divided to segregate the sexes. Males who are alone cannot sit with women who are not their relatives, so there are "single male" sections and "family sections." Jamie has more of a problem with this than I do, but we've been asked to leave a certain area that isn't clearly labeled and move to a "family section."

9) No Alcohol! -

The fact that I have this one at #9 might be surprising. Neither Jamie and I are big drinkers, but it would be nice to have a drink at a restaurant every now and then. Many people on compounds all over the kingdom brew, still, or make their own spirits, so you can get a drink if you want. There is always going over to Bahrain, but that is an hour or more away. Either way, it is annoying.

8) No Pork! -

This is one that does get to you after a while. Bacon, porkchops, pull pork sandwiches are all out of the question while living in KSA. I have resorted to turkey bacon, which actually isn't that bad and is even better for you, but we sure have missed our pig eating when we are home or in other countries. Some people smuggle pork into Saudi from Bahrain, but we do not or haven't yet.

7) No Cultural Interactions -

Saudis stay to themselves and rarely talk to you. With the boom of western restaurants and stores in Khobar, living there isn't that much different that suburbia US. Dress codes are different and it is more "brown," but you can forget you live in a different nation if you really want to think about it. While living in China, there was never a doubt you were living in China. Every day, you could go outside and experience China for what it was, both good and bad. Living in Khobar isn't that cultural experience, and it is something we sorely miss about living in China. Perhaps if we make friends with some Saudis, things will change, but for not, we miss the feeling of living abroad.

6) More Expensive -

Electronics are the most noticeable. A TV can be hundreds of dollars higher. A PS3 maybe only 100 dollars more. Our grocery costs are about 25% higher than what they were in the US, but this could be for a couple of different reasons: 1) overall inflation after 3 years due to the economy and 2) we buy more imported westerner products. If we purchase more local stuff, our bill might be lower. Our car was about the same if not a little cheaper. Our main comparison though is the overall cost of living difference than what we came to expect in China, which as very inexpensive to live. Of course, we do save in gas. Flight out of Dammam or Bahrain can be quite pricey, so you have to book way in advance and even look for deals. People who have lived in Saudi Arabia for a while and made their money believe that living there is cheap. I guess if you have lived there a while and banked some money, it does appear that way. In reality, I disagree, but we'll see in a few years.

5) Pull Tabs -

You know.. the tabs on coke cans that you used to have to pull completely off when you were a kid. Yeah, Saudi hasn't advanced to the tabs remaining on the can after opening, so what you are left with is a dangerous, sharp metal tab that you have to throw away separately. I hate it and thought about putting this #1.

4) Customer Service -

Or lack thereof. Unless it is a foreign worker, customer service in the Kingdom is practically non-existent. Calling an Internet service provider can literally make you throw the phone across the room and swear profusely (not that I would know), and the bank is nothing short of a ridiculous experience. A better example comes when you go to purchase a car. Saudis who work at the car dealer literally could care less if you purchase a car and will only help you if you go up to them personally and ask as many questions as possible. Again, if it is a Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi, or other foreign worker, things are much better and they will go out of their way to help you. Saudis, however, has the worse customer service you will ever see. Now, it isn't that big of a deal, but when you first arrive and have no car, no phone, and no clue of what you are doing, it is frustrating have no help.

3) Prayer Times -

Muslims are required to pray 5 times per day beginning with the sunrise and ending with the sunset. The entire country of Saudi Arabia shuts down during prayer times. Businesses are forced to close their doors, so if you have business to conduct, groceries to buy, or places to go, you'll have to work around the prayer schedule, especially in the afternoons. Most places of business are fully open after 4:00 pm. Some stores do not open at all until then, but most are also open for a brief time in the mornings. We keep a prayer schedule on the refrigerator and in the car console and constantly have to refer to it every time we go out. The worst thing is to have your groceries in your cart and not make it to check out before prayer. We have gotten used to going in right before prayer and doing our shopping during prayer, which most grocery stores will allow. Overall, the prayer times take some time to get used to and impede our day to day life.

2) Boring -

No alcohol, no movie theaters, no cultural functions, no bowling, skating rinks, nothing... There are some decent parks, but it is just too dang hot many days to enjoy them, plus the women have to wear abayas (see #1). We have compound activities that we do (poker, Settlers, pool, work out, walk the dog). I have been going to Aramco for ultimate frisbee, basketball, and softball. Some people go to beaches on the weekend or in the desert for camping or digging. We watch a ton of TV and movies and have caught up on many fantastic shows that we had never watched before. The only reprieve are the people who become your friends and the ability to go to Bahrain, although it was shut down for some this year due to protesting. Saudi is a boring, hot place, so you have to find ways to entertain yourself and your family.

1) Abayas -

This one certainly Jamie's #1, but it is something I loathe about the country. I call them "oppression shrouds," but women are required to wear them when going out in public. It is like a long muumu dress that is long sleeved and black (always black). Some women have abayas that cost thousands of dollars. Western women are not required to cover their head, but many Saudi women are covered head to toe in black. Of the Saudi women, 1/2 cover everything but their eyes, and the other half cover their entire face. Abayas must be loose fitting as to not show the figure of the woman. They are loose fitting but still hot for the women. The thing that infuriates me the most is the concept behind it all. Women in Saudi are not be seen or heard and are regulated to staying at home. You see women everywhere, but they are always covered, a constant reminder of their 2nd class status. If I have a daughter, I we will certainly move before she comes of age enough to know what is going on concerning the abaya. That is how strongly we feel about it and why it is our #1. Nonetheless, it is what it is and Jamie carries on with it. Her only positive thing is that she doesn't have to worry about what she wears to town. She just throws it on before going out.

There you have it. The top 10 (11) worst things about living in Saudi Arabia. Feel free to let me know what you think.

Top 10 Best Things About Living in Saudi Arabia

2011-06-21T22:13:00.001-04:00

Well, we actually narrowed it down to the top 11. Nonetheless, here goes...

11) Labor Costs -

Neither Jamie and I are really used to this, but it is a nice lifestyle. In the US and most other western nations, having a housekeeper, car washer, and gardener would be too much of a cost on the budget. A couple of families on the compound have a live in maid, which we don't think we'll ever get, but certainly seems appealing if you have a few kids. The men who work on the compound (mainly from Pakistan and India) have regular hours where the take care of maintenance on the compound itself; however, before and after work, they wash cars and do other personal maintenance request you may have. Just recently, we had a guy build a fence and put in a doggie door for us. We don't mind helping these guys out because their service for us pretty much double or triple their monthly salary.

10) Location for Traveling -

This year wasn't nearly as busy for our traveling as our 2 years in China, but the area where we are is a great location to see 3 continents. The only drawback is that the cost of flights are more expensive than they are in southeast Asia, but pretty much everything is more expensive than it is is SE Asia. This year, we went to Bahrain, Sri Lanka, and Turkey, while I was able to go to Nepal and Jamie to Kenya. With the birth of our child, it might slow us down a little bit, but we hope that in the years to come, we can take advantage of our location to 3 continents, mainly Europe.

9) Bahrain -

Bahrain has pork, alcohol, a nightlife, movie theaters, and goods you can't find in Saudi. You can't bring the pork and alcohol back into Saudi, but it has been nice to go over there on the weekends and enjoy these things. Women can drive and Jamie doesn't have to wear her abaya. At a minimum, it takes about 45 minutes to get there if you can get through customs quickly; however, it can take nearly 2 hours if the causeway is busy. Many people go on early Friday morning to avoid the traffic. Ric's Kountry Kitchen has a great breakfast and City Center Mall has been our favorite place to see a movie. Overall, it is a nice getaway from the bore of Saudi Arabia.

8) Shawarmas -

According to wikipedia, a shawarma is

"an Arab^[1]^[2] sandwich-like wrap of shaved lamb, goat, chicken, turkey, beef, or a mixture thereof. The meat is placed on a spit, and may be grilled for as long as a day. Shawarma is a fast-food staple across the Middle East, Europe and the Caucasus.

Shawarma is eaten with pita bread, Lavash bread, tabbouleh salad, fattoush salad, taboon bread, tomato and cucumber. Toppings include tahini, hummus, pickled turnips and amba.

Shawarma has many variants and names in preparation, serving style, and name. The word shawarma(pronounced /ʃəˈvɑːrmə/) comes from the Turkish word çevirme [tʃeviɾˈme] 'turning', though the dish is usually called döner kebab 'turning kebab' in Turkish. In Greek, it was formerly called ντονέρ /doner/, and now called gyros 'turned'; in Armenian, it is "tarna", literally meaning "to turn"."

You can get shawarmas just about anywhere, but we have our favorite place downtown at this little hole in the wall. It seems like every family has their favorite place to get their shawarmas, so it is nice to hear of other places. We ate the doners in Turkey, but we seems to like the ones on Saudi better.

7) Availability of Food -

In comparison to China, we can get just about anything we want in Khobar. Obviously, pork and alcohol are out, but many items are available somewhere. Tamimi's (formerly Safeway) is our favorite place to shop due to availability of goods and location. The prices are at most 15% more than US prices, although some items are the same or even cheaper. Turkey bacon can be found sporadically. Tostidos are also a hot item with westerners, so we always stock up if we can. Cheerios are in and out, so if they are in, I usually buy 3 boxes or so. Cheese is not as expensive, but fruits, fish, and nuts are very expensive. Along with groceries, there are a wider variety of western restaurants, although they can be pricey too. My favorite is Chili's, although I'm glad there is Burger King and Hardee's. We have been to the Macaroni Grille with gift certificates and it is quite good too.

6) Coworkers and Our Jobs -

Jamie is happy at the high school, and finding her a high school social studies position was one of our main objectives in moving schools. I have settled in teaching 7th grade math/science at the middle school. We are both pretty satisfied with our jobs. We have the opportunity for some professional development opportunities as well as leadership opportunities that we wouldn't have had in our last school. ISG is a solid system to work for as a not for profit organization. We are located right next to the US Consulate, so security is as good as it gets. Our students for the most part are hardworking, although they have quite a bit of support from home. The high school where Jamie teaches has 100% of its graduating students go to a university. We have great and supportive coworkers, many of whom are also our neighbors and friends. They have made the transition to Saudi Arabia easier. We hope that we have these friendships for many years to come.

5) Gas!!!

Not much I can say here other than... 40 cents a gallon, $9 to fill up my Chevy Trailblazer, and just as important, you don't have to pump your own gas. Many gas stations additionally give you a couple of tissue boxes if you fill up.

4) Weather -

This one may shock some people, but the weather where we live is actually pretty amazing 8 months of the year. During the summer, we aren't there anyway, so we have to endure the heat during June and September, but the other months are pretty amazing. Rainfall is less than inch per year and the winter is very mild. During the winter, you thrown a light jacket in the morning and evening, but wear short sleeves during the day. The heat is pretty unbearable beginning in May, but the humidity isn't near where it is other places, so it is actually pretty bearable. Overall, we've enjoyed the weather, despite the heat index in August reaching 146 on some days.

3) Housing -

Westerners are required to live in a secure, walled compound. Compounds vary in size and amenities. Our compound is An Nassim, and overall we have enjoyed our stay there. This year, we lived on the 2nd and 3rd floor of a 3 story villa. There was a single lady who lived underneath us. This next year, however, we have a full 3 story villa, which doubles our living space from last year. We have a front patio, back patio, and even a grassy fenced back yard. Many families have decorated their villas so well, it is hard to believe you live in Saudi Arabia. The villas come furnished. Some families replace all of the furniture and some keep it the same. Jamie and I will do our best to make it look and feel like home as much as possible. Home is where you make it.

Compound life for the most part is quite dull, however, there is a weekly poker night. Some women get together for yoga, and we play Settlers of Catan every Friday. About once per month, most people on the compound get together for some sort of pot luck dinner or celebration and Thanksgiving dinner is always prepared. If you are lucky, you can also go to the Canadian thanksgiving. If you've seen our compound video, you'll see that we have tennis courts, a pool, and a pretty nice rec center and library. My largest problem is that there is not a field where kids can play. We plan on making villa 104 our home for a while, and I can think of worse places to live.

2) Money -

No one, and I mean no one, moves to Saudi Arabia for the culture, scenery, or weather. The lifestyle I have described above is what it is for one reason... money. While we don't make quite as much as we would in the states, our money is tax free, our housing is paid for, our health care taken care of, and insurance is pretty inexpensive. Moving to Saudi has pretty much doubled our salary from China if you count the tutoring money. Tutoring students has been a positive experience overall for us, and it can be quite lucrative. My tutoring money alone takes care of our living expenses, so it allows for us to send most, if not all, of our money home to the states. Our school's package isn't the best in the Middle East, but it is pretty good overall.

1) Leaving Saudi Arabia -

Overall, the best thing about living in Saudi Arabia is when you get to leave Saudi Arabia. See our Top 10 Worst Things About Living in Saudi Arabia to see why this is #1. Whether it is coming home for winter break, going on vacation in Turkey, or going to Bahrain for the day, leaving Saudi Arabia is what everyone eventually wants to do. While it is a fine place to live for now and even start a family, we'll be just fine whenever we do leave the country for good. We'll probably never look back despite all of these wonderful things I have listed above.

1 Year in the Kingdom

2011-06-18T20:47:00.001-04:00

Jamie and I just finished our 1st year living in Saudi Arabia. For the most part, it was as we expected.

Our first few weeks and months were quite frustrating at time adjusting to prayer schedules, random store hours, no vehicle, inconsistent Internet, and being stuck in Saudi. The 2nd half of the year was more routine when we bought our vehicle, had a decent Internet connection, and were able to go to Bahrain when we wanted.

We had our trips, but they were not as numerous as our trips when we were in China. I was able to go to a leadership conference in Kathmandu, Nepal, Jamie went to Istanbul, Turkey for a MUN conference, as well as Kenya for a Habitat for Humanity trip. We went to Sri Lanka as well as Turkey for our two trips and enjoyed both.

Overall, Saudi living isn't that much different than living in the US. Exchange churches for mosques, add in prayer times and store closings, get rid of the alcohol, force the women to wear black robes, have very few traffic laws, increase the heat, lower your customer service expectations, add in foreign laborers, and up the security for all housing, and you'd have Saudi Arabia. Similarities include the restaurants (minus pork and alcohol) and overall the general stuff you can buy. There is much more you can purchase in Saudi than in China. Price of gas is about 40 cents a gallon, which is nice, but other products more than make up for it. Electronics are very expensive and random food items can be double the price.

Our next blog post will be the top 10 best things about living in Saudi Arabia as well as the top 10 worst things about living there. It will give you more insight into what we think of living there.

Again, overall, a great experience so far. We have another year on our contract, and we'll see what we want to do after that. We moved into a new villa that has 3 floors, so Griffey is happy because he has more room as well as a fenced in back yard complete with a doggie door.

Check our next posts for those top 10s.

Day 8 - Cappadocia to Istanbul to Bahrain to KSA

2011-04-07T20:52:00.000-04:00

The title says it all. We were picked up at 6:00 am and taken to the Kayseri airport and caught a quick flight back to Istanbul. It took us the the Asian side airport, so we had to catch a bus back to the European side of Istanbul. We finally arrived back at our hostel at 12:00, dropped off our luggage, and headed out to do some souvenir shopping. We picked up some items for family members at the Grand Bizarre and a few items for ourselves.

After going back and picking up our luggage, we headed to Cembalitas, an old Turkish bath house. I was hesitant about going in, but Jamie really wanted to go and I tagged along. I'll cut it short and just say it wasn't my thing, but Jamie seemed to enjoy her body scrub and hot oil massage.

After our Turkish bath, it was a taxi/Metro ride to the airport, a 4 hour flight back to Bahrain, and an hour drive back to our villa arriving at 3:30 am. Luckily, we caught a couple of hours of sleep on the plane because we were able to stretch out.

I always total up our expenditures to almost the very penny in a little notebook I carry around. Jamie and I budget so much for certain trips throughout the year and had a very good idea of what we could do in Southeast Asia. After going to Turkey, all I can say as far as the budget is concerned is... "This ain't Southeast Asia."

Overall a great trip. We have 1 day to rest before heading back to school. If you haven't already, check out our Picasa Photo Album for all of our pictures in Turkey.

Day 7 - Turkey - Cappadocia

2011-04-06T13:22:00.002-04:00

From Cappadocai

Jamie and I woke early this morning and were picked up and taken on a hot air balloon ride over the area surrounding Goreme. We had taken a hot air balloon ride in China over Yangshou, so we thought this would also be a great experience. It didn't disappoint, but it was quite cold, there were 20 people in the basket, and it was partly cloudy. Overall, a great experience, the landscape was beautiful, but it was very pricey.

We then were picked up for a day long tour of the Cappadocia region. We made several stops and you can see all of them in the pictures.

Our first stop was a panoramic view of Goreme and the famous fairly chimneys. People do live in those coned shaped "chimneys" and when light shines through them, it apparently looks magical, thus the fairy name. Nonetheless, they are all over the place and have become quite the tourist attraction.

Our second stop was to an underground city called Derinkuyu. Dating back to the Hittites on 1500 bc, we visited one that could potentially hold up to 15,000 people. We only saw 10% of the "city" but it was complete with churches, schools, living quarters, a winery, meeting places, roll away stones that could block tunnels from invaders, and ventilation shafts. It goes down 55 meters and has 8 stories.

We then drove to the deepest and largest canyon in Cappadocia, Ihlara. We saw a small church that had been built during the iconographic era of Turkey (where it was illegal to paint Christian frescos, so they ran to the hills and caves and painted them there). We then hiked 3km along the bottom of the ravine where lunch was waiting on us at the end.

Our next stop was perhaps the coolest part of the day. We visited a cave monastery very similar to the monastery and nunnery that we visited yesterday. Only this time, the rooms were larger and we were able to climb all over the place. Some sections were closed off and we were asked to not go some places just because it was too dangerous. This monastery and nunnery was built during the 4th century and stayed active until the 11th century. Pics and videos of this place are cool, so check them out.

Our last stop was the obligatory jewel "factory" that every tour in Asia forces you to go on. Before that, however, we stopped briefly at Pigeon Valley to see the pigeon houses there. Again, the people have lived in the fairy chimneys for hundreds of years. They began building little holes and placing food for the pigeons. The pigeons would then leave their droppings, and the people would collect the droppings and sell them to the local farmers as fertilizer. Thus, "pigeon hole." You can see them all over the place here and the peoples still apparently use them, although I haven't seen any pigeons.

They dropped us back at our hostel, we had a short break, then headed to a very tasty local restaurant for Turkish food. I ordered the yogurt ravioli and Jamie had what was similar to Brunswick stew.

Long Long day tomorrow as we travel back to Istanbul for some souvenir shopping and then head back to Bahrain and home late late tomorrow night.

Turkey - Day 6 - Goreme

2011-04-05T13:41:00.000-04:00

From Cappadocai

Jamie and I do almost all of the planning for traveling by ourselves. We stay in hostels, ride public transportation, do very little tours, and eat in local places. There have been very few times where we have been lost or completely clueless as to what to do next. Many people pay extra for someone else to book everything for them, but that is just not our style. It’ll obviously change when we have kids, but for now, we enjoy the way we travel.

With that said, we struggled today. After catching a ride to the train station, catching a 50 minute train to the Izmir airport, a 70 minute flight to Kayseri, we found ourselves with no idea as to how to get to Goreme, our next destination. We asked for the bus station only to be pointed to a bus stop. We headed over there and attempted to ask a few people for the bus to Goreme, but with no luck. Istanbul and Selchuk had many people who spoke English, but this town did not. We finally found a young college student who spoke English and he directed us on 2 busses that led us through the city of Kayseri. We departed from him with the instructions to stay on the bus til the end, then find the bus to Goreme.

We only found 3 nice men who eagerly wanted to help us but spoke almost no English. The invited us in for tea, asked if we wanted food, and tried very desperately to tell us how to get to Goreme. We think they wanted us to wait until the bus at 5:00. Since it was already 2:00 and we had wasted half of the day riding the bus around the city, we really didn’t want to spend another 3 hours waiting. We finally suggested a taxi, but they really didn’t want us to do that. I believe they knew our frustration, so they led us to a bus, who after 5 minutes, told us to get off and pointed to some taxis.

Relieved, we climbed in. Unfortunately, the taxi fare was astronomical. In fact, the taxi ride from Kayseri to Goreme was more than our flight half way across the country. This was one of those times where we truly didn’t know what to do and our lack of planning really costs us.

We made it to our hostel, which is called the Nomad Cave Hotel. The Cappadochia region of Turkey is famous for its odd landscape. Our hotel is literally carved into the side of a rock face. Our room is dug out of a cave. See the pictures.

Since we arrived late and it was raining, all we had time for today was for the Open Air Museum, which used to be a monastery and nunnery. Like other structures around here, it too is a series of houses, chapels, and churches that have been carved out of the mountain. Again, check out the pictures because it is difficult for me to describe the landscape.

Tomorrow, we will arise early for a hot air balloon over the area. Very pricey but it is apparently the “thing” to do here. We’ll then take a tour of some of the surrounding areas including an underground city. Check back tomorrow for an update and I’m sure what will be TONS of pictures.

Turkey - Day 5 - Selcuk

2011-04-05T13:35:00.000-04:00

From Selcuk (Ephesus)

We fiddled with our itinerary and decided to catch a flight the next day instead of today. We spent the morning in Selcuk again seeing the museum there. I was able to get a haircut and shave and massage. They did a fabulous job. It was the first time I had ever had a shave with my haircut, and I really enjoyed it.

After some lunch, we caught a dolmus to a small little mountain village 10 km away called Sirinci. Best known for their wine, the streets are lined with small cafes and shops. We bounced around from shop to shop taste testing some wine and enjoying the afternoon.

We caught a shuttle back to the hostel, got some rest, ate dinner, watched more Dexter, and headed to bed.

Very relaxing day. We probably didn’t need to stay there another day, but it was OK with us. We saved some money on the flight to Kayseri and Atilla’s Getaway Hostel was a great place.

Turkey - Day 4 - Selcuk (Ephesus)

2011-04-05T13:32:00.000-04:00

From Selcuk (Ephesus)

After breakfast, we were dropped off at the bus station and caught a quick dolmus (small bus) to Ephesus. Ephesus is today considered to be best preserved remains of the Roman Empire in Turkey. As you can see from the pictures, much of it has either been preserved over the last 1800 years or has been renovated. As with any of these sites, there will always be more to do, but they have reconstructed enough to give you an idea of how the Romans lived so long ago.

Of importance at Ephesus includes the ruins of the theater, mini theater, library, and villas. We really enjoyed seeing the villas, which they had completely covered to protect against the elements. Inside were amazing floor mosaics and wall paintings that were still intact. There were 7 villas and they were quite large.

We spent nearly 3 hours touring Ephesus, including St. Mary’s church which is also on the grounds but built after the original buildings. It is said that the virgin Mary fled to Ephesus after the death of Jesus and spent her final days there. The church was built to honor her and became somewhat of a pilgrimage site for Christians during the middle ages. Outside of town, there was a house that was supposedly the virgin Mary’s house, but I’m not sure that is real or not.

Just outside the city of Selcuk is one of the 7 ancient wonders of the world, The Temple of Artemis. It was once a magnificent building honoring the goddess Artemis, but it was destroyed by a mad man who wanted the glory. It is said that Artemis was not present to protect her temple because she was the birth of Alexander the Great. Cool story, but all that remains of the temple today is a few cornerstones and one of the columns. It is still cool to have been there though.

Selcuk is a quaint little town that relies on the tourism of Ephesus. The streets are very nice and there are tons of cafes and shops that line the streets. On the hill overlooking the city is the ruins of St. John’s cathedral. Jesus’ most loved apostle apparently came to Ephesus in his final days and wrote some of the New Testament here. Like St. Mary’s temple, the ruins of St. John’s became a pilgrimage site for many Christians.

We headed back to the hostel after seeing these sites, caught a nap, dinner, watched some downloaded videos of Dexter, and slept like logs for the night.

A great day overall with Ephesus as the highlight. To be walking where the Greeks and Romans used to walk is pretty special.

Turkey - Day 3

2011-04-05T13:30:00.000-04:00

From Istanbul

Jamie and I were flying out this evening, so we had another day to kill in Istanbul. We had seen and done pretty much everything that we really wanted to and it was raining, so we decided to find a movie theater and catch a flick. Remember, there are no movie theaters in Saudi, so seeing a movie is a treat.

We made our way across town using the fabulous public transportation system (we really do miss that) and found a great mall. We had hoped to see the new Lincoln Lawyer movie but we missed it by 10 minutes and opted for Little Red Riding Hood instead. It was decent enough. Great theater though.

We caught a shuttle to the airport when we got back to our hostel, flew a quick 55 minute flight Izmir, but were stumped about how to get to our hostel in Selcuk. We knew it was about an hour drive, but we really didn’t know how to get there. We found some wonderful information about public busses that go to Selcuk, but we couldn’t find the actual bus. Instead, I stumbled on a private but operated by our airline, Atlasjet, and they offered a FREE shuttle to Selcuk. It is now my favorite airline.

The bus dropped us off in the middle of the city. We must have looked confused because a nice guy offered to help us find our way. He took us to his friends restaurant until we called our hostel and they picked us up. Very good luck and very nice people.

We arrived at Atilla’s Getaway Hostel a little after 9:30 at night and tucked in for the night. Long day tomorrow touring Ephesus.

Istanbul - Day 2

2011-04-01T16:08:00.000-04:00

Jamie and I started our day today after breakfast walking past the remains (very very little) of the old hippodrome. There is an ancient Egyptian obelisk there and they are restoring it as well as making a replica. All of this is next to the Blue Mosque, so it is nice that you walk by it every time as well as the Hagia Sophia.

Our next stop was to the Topkapi Palace, the sultan's palace of the Ottoman Empire. It was a typical palace complete with all of the fine architecture, furnishings, tile work, mother of pearl, and gold. Of particular interest was an area where they supposedly had all the spoils of war, notably Moses's staff, King David's sword, Abraham's saucepan, and Joseph's turbin. A harem was a completely different section, but we decided not to go in there, especially after I figured out that there were not any women in there any more.

It was colder today and overcast all day, so our next stop was the Istanbul Archeological Museum. Artifacts from 5000 years ago have been restored and placed in the museum. Artifacts from all of the empires, plus Troy and thousands of Roman artifacts are there. It was pretty overwhelming and we ended up staying almost 2 hours just trying to wind our way through.

We ate a kebab plate outside the palace for lunch and decided to relax for the afternoon. We booked an evening show of the Whirling Dervishes and napped most of the afternoon.

Our Whirling Dervishes show was interesting. You have probably seen the pictures of them and we were able to see a performance. It is a very spiritual performance, complete silence is observed with the exception of the instrumental accompaniment, and photographs are forbidden. This performance was performed by men who practice Sufi Islam. I'll let you look up Whirling Dervishes, Sufi Islam, and Mevlevi Sema if you so choose. It was interesting, but not what we expected.

We found a nice little Irish pub for dinner and ordered some fried stuff while I was able to watch the Phillies and Astros play. We headed back for the night after stopping to take some night pictures of the Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. Our hostel had a belly dance performing when we got there, so that was a nice treat (for me).

All for now. We haven't decided our itinerary for tomorrow, but we do fly to Izmir tomorrow night.

Istanbul, Turkey Spring 2011

2011-03-31T15:58:00.000-04:00

Jamie and I left the compound following some co-workers to the Bahrain airport at 10:00 pm for a 2:30 am flight from Bahrain to Istanbul. We had planned a trip to Turkey and plan to see Istanbul, Ephesus, and Cappadocia in 7 days. The drive to the airport was pretty easy despite going through various barricades with armored vehicles and tons of guys with Kevlar vests and machine guns. The protests in Bahrain are still going on, and they are taking their protection seriously.

A 4 hour flight dropped us in Istanbul at 6:30 am. We took the Metro to the center of the city near the Blue Mosque and then found our hostel by 9:00 am. We dropped our stuff off and headed out immediately to begin touring this amazing historical city.

Some has asked, “What is so special about Istanbul?” This question can take several books to answer, but here is Jamie’s short answer, “Istanbul is the cultural crossroads between the East and the West. It has been the capital of several major world empires which means that the city has seen a great mix of different cultures, food, architecture, and religion.”

Among the empires that have controlled the city include: Romans, Byzantines, and then the Ottomans before the current Republic. If you want, you can read the entire history in any site by Googling it; but for any historian, it is the place you want to go to see history come alive.

Today was such a day that I’ll remember forever. Reading and teaching about the city, the empires, the religious significance, and the cultures is one thing, but actually touching, walking, and sitting in the midst of the history of Istanbul is really indescribable. Nonetheless, I’ll tell you what we saw, post the pictures, and try my best to narrate this day. I am amazed this is the first day in such an amazing country.

Our first stop was the Blue Mosque. The mosque was built during the early 1600s in the reign of the Ottoman Empire. It is also known for its blue tiles in the interior and its 6 minarets. Traditionally, Muslim mosques have 4 minarets. The sultan at the time ordered for 6 to be built to mimic Mecca, but then ordered one more to built in Mecca. It took several pictures outside and inside. The thing that bothered me the most were the wires that were all over the place inside supporting the lighting. It really distracts from a beautiful structure.

Across the street from the Blue Mosque is perhaps the most famous landmark in Turkey. The Hagia Sophia was first built in the early 300s by the famous Roman Emperor Constantinople. It was a fairly modest structure then, but has since then been destroyed and rebuilt by three different groups. It was first controlled the Christian Roman Empire, then when the Ottomans overthrew the last of the Byzantine Empire, they converted it into a mosque, plastering over the mosaics, restructuring it, and adding minarets. When the Ottoman Empire ended, Turkey secularized the Hagia Sophia and turned it into a museum. As a result, they have begun to uncover the plastering of the mosaics. This is a difficult process and only some of the mosaics remain. Nonetheless, what remains is an absolute fusion of a Christian temple and a Muslim mosque, symbolizing the battle that was waged and continues to be waged in this region.

Perhaps what struck me the most was the beautiful mosaic of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus (which looks a little scary) that would be right over the alter of a regular church. Below it, the Muslims had plastered over this mosaic and built an area recognizing where the prayers should face toward Mecca. When it was restored, what now remains is both: the direction of where the Muslims pray toward Mecca but right above, the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus looking down.

To the southwest of the Hagia Sophia is a mile marker of the Roman Road. You can still see some of the bricks used for the road under some of the sediment, but a tower still remains. The Romans were famous for their road building and aqueduct building, so our next stop was next door to the Roman Basilica Cistern, an enormous underwater cistern that was built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 527. While not used for water anymore, you can tell how it was a water source for the people. The most interesting part were the Greek Medusa heads carved into the bottom of two of the columns. The exact origin of the heads is unknown, but they are amazing to see.

We then strolled down the road to eat a Turkish “shwarma” before going to the Grand Bizaar, the largest underground shopping center in the world. We didn’t buy anything yet. We brought an extra suitcase just for souvenirs from this place.

We napped for a while since all of this was on about 2 hours of sleep, then headed out with some friends to a local restaurant around the corner. What was special about this place was that as they were expanding their store a few years ago, they found the remains of the old Byzantine Palace first built in 372. You can now go underneath the restaurant and see the original walls of the palace. Crazy!

Be sure to check out our pictures in the photo album and check back for more on our trip to Turkey.

First Trip to Bahrain

2011-03-02T23:19:00.001-05:00

Jamie had been across the causeway to Bahrain to go to the airport, but it was my first time going over to this small island nation. You can Google Bahrain if you wish, but it has recently gotten more press than ever due to the recent protests on the heels of the Egyptian and Libyan protests. We had been wanting to go to Bahrain for a few weeks, but life gets in the way, the week catches up with you, and hundreds of protestors were blocking our way.

The U.S. Consulate over here had given expats the go ahead on traveling to Bahrain. The protestors have now centralized themselves in the Pearl roundabout (the city center) and have done so rather peacefully the last few days. So, Jamie and I decided to go ahead and head over to Bahrain for the day, Saturday, February 26, 2011.

We usually work on a Saturday, but I had a scheduled day off and one of the Princes cancelled all schools and government offices because the King was coming in from his successful heart surgery from the USA. Interestingly, the cancelled all schools in the Kingdom, which meant a day off for Jamie too.

Bahrain only takes about 45 minutes to get to from our villa. Most of this time is spent driving on the causeway, the bridge they have built from KSA to Bahrain. It is a nice 4 lane highway, but you obviously have to stop several times for customs to get out of Saudi, customs to get into Bahrain, and insurance to get into Bahrain for your vehicle. Many expats and Saudis go to Bahrain for the shopping, pork products, and alcohol. There is actually a nightlife there, and their weekends are the same as the rest of the world (Saturday and Sunday).

We know of some people who "pork smuggle." The grocery stores and butchers there will simply label your pork product as "beef" if you tell them it is for the "bridge." Jamie and I didn't chance this. A very select few people will also bring in alcohol and even Christmas trees (which they have to tell the border people are "patio trees").

We had wanted to go to this restaurant at a place called The Country Club, but we could not find it on our GPS. Instead, we followed directions for a place called Ric's Kountry Kitchen, a pretty well known restaurant that caters to expats. We got there early enough for breakfast and has some delicious pig (sausage and bacon) to go along with some biscuits and gravy.

It was still early, but we thought we'd hit up City Center, a rather nice mall closer to downtown. It is complete with a very nice movie theater serving "pizza cones" (yes, literally a pizza inside of a cone) and even a water park. We shopped around for a little while and finally decided to watch "The Tourist." It was decent. Angelina Jolie was nice to watch although for some reason, so just doesn't do it for me.

After the movie, we hit up this steak house at the mall, then headed back across the causeway to KSA.

Overall, a great little day getaway that we'll definitely need to start doing more often. Many people even go over there for evenings.

Jamie's Trip to Kenya

2011-02-17T06:52:00.001-05:00

Well, lots of people are wondering about my trip to Kenya so I'm making a very rare (I think this is only my second) contribution to the blog. You can check out the pictures at Kenya HfH 2011.

We began with a late night bus trip to Bahrain Airport which involved crossing the border with 41 people (5 chaperones and 36 high school students). We had two groups going to Nairobi so we shared bus and plane rides in and out of the country. The trip started out well, no hiccups at immigration and all five chaperones got bumped up to business class! It was great, I can't wait to be able to fly business and first class on a regular basis. Too bad that's light years away. We had a brief layover in Addis Abba, Ethiopia and landed in Nairobi mid-day on Thursday.

There are pictures of our first hotel in Nairobi as well as our hotel in the ravine (complete with mosquito nets for all the beds). Both of the hotels we stayed at were really nice, with great outdoor garden areas to relax in during the afternoon. The food was good in both hotel locations. Kenyan food is very heavy on starches and carbohydrates so pretty much every meal had potatoes, rice, and fried bread as well as a meat dish (usually a stew of some sort). We also had some very good fish dishes while we were there and a slaw dish that I didn't eat (it had mayonnaise of course, I can't escape that condiment anywhere in the world).

Nairobi was pretty warm during the day but really comfy at night. In the ravine the temperature didn't get quite as hot during the day. When we were working there was usually a breeze although it got quite cool in the evenings until mid morning the next day. I had exactly one pair of pants for traveling and no long sleeves so I was chilly.

The first evening in Nairobi we had our Habitat for Humanity orientation with Festus who would be our HfH contact for the trip. We learned about some of the traditional Kenyan housing (mud walls that have to be reworked after the rainy season every year) and the fact that boys in the rural areas move out of their families homes when they are 15. They live in a very small house (called a boy's house) on their parents' property until they can afford to build a larger home which often doesn't happen until after they are married with a few children.

During this meeting, we were also reminded of the violence that had broken out during the last presidential election. The race was very close between two popular candidates (who are now the re-elected president and the new prime minister). Because of the tensions, some groups who were considered outsiders in their villages were attacked and fled. The new government has given stipends to the displaced families who are currently living in tents donated by the UN. With this money, families could rebuild their homes that were destroyed. One group decided to buy the land of their refugee camp and set up a permanent settlement so they pooled all of their stipends. This gave them a safe place to live and work but it left them with no money for actual housing. Habitat and the UN are working together to help this community build brick wall homes for everyone in their group. They have completed about half of the homes so far and our group got to stop and visit the settlement on our way to our actual build site.

We stopped a few times along the way to see a couple of look out points, shop for souvenirs, and take a few pictures. Most of our second day was spent on the road although we did get to visit the two families that we would be working with to get their homes started.

We had a total of two and a half building days. During the first day we dug the foundation of one home and began laying the foundation for another. Part of Habitat is that the families do have to pay off the loan of the building materials and contribute to the building through what is called "sweat equity." We had locals and the family helping us lay bricks. Ultimately, we built both the foundation and most of the walls for one home. It was an amazing experience that I recommend to everyone. While we weren't being tourists, and I can't wait to go back to visit Kenya and do all the touristy things, we really got a great experience because we were working with a family of people. Most people had rudimentary English and of the places I've traveled, more people spoke basic English in Kenya than anywhere else. I'm guessing because of imperialism (and they drive on the left side of the road thanks to the Brits).

We did spend one day out on safari in one of the national reserve parks. It was amazing. We got to see lions, rhinos, giraffes, tons of zebra, antelope and deer, and a couple varieties of buffalo. Plus lots of birds. We didn't see a leopard or an elephant but overall the day was pretty great. There was also a lodge hotel in the reserve itself which is where we ate lunch that day.

Our last day was a travel day as well and we made it from the ravine back to Nairobi. We thought for a while that the other Kenya group wasn't going to make the flight but they did and we all headed home together.

Our kids had a great time. They were mostly juniors and seniors who were trying to beef up their college applications but I think by the end of our trip that wasn't their focus anymore. We got to visit two schools and an orphanage which made a huge impact on all of us. We all brought items to donate (clothes, books, and toys) which were gratefully accepted. We also donated some food to the families that we worked with since they had fed all 19 of us everyday. We learned a few Kiswahili words (fundi means expert, and one of our kids got nicknamed junior fundi because he mastered the building process so well) and got to hang out with the family members during morning and afternoon tea. A baby goat was born while we were there (I've got some fuzzy pictures as I chased him around the living room) and a few of the young children saw white people for the first time (and were scared to death of us the first couple of days). We also got the chance to go up against a local school in a soccer game (well I took pictures from the sidelines).

Overall it was a trip that I will never forget. The people were great, the scenery was great, and I felt like I really contributed to the effort to give these people a good, sturdy home. Our students were wonderful, hardworking and cheerful, and so generous of themselves the whole week. I can't wait to take kids on another WOW week trip. There is a lot to be said for the learning experiences that happen through giving beyond the confines of your small school community.

Random Life in Khobar

2011-02-07T06:53:00.000-05:00

Life catches up to everyone. We all get into the same monotonous pattern day after day. It seems that life here in Saudi can become even more monotonous than even in the U.S.

I have been driving now for over a month. Driving is not as bad as what people make it out to be. Sure, the drivers here are more careless than in the rule filled US, but as long as you balance your defensive/offensive driving, you'll be fine.

There are roundabouts here, which I though I would hate. Actually, I am not sure why more US cities do not have roundabouts. They keep the flow of traffic moving rather nicely. I guess it is our rebellion from England despite the fact that we had been an independent nation for over 100 years after cars were invented.

I have been playing in a basketball league at Aramco. Aramco is the company that controls the oil here in Saudi Arabia. Way back when the first dug here, they brought in US and other western engineers to run their oil business. They built this enormous compound (about 12,000 people) that is heavily guarded. They have actual grass, even a very nice grass golf course on their compound. There are schools, grocery stores, government building, office building, parks, softball fields, gymnasiums, and plenty of swimming pools there.

You have to know someone to get onto Aramco. You drive to the gate, tell them why you are there, then go to another parking lot and gate and check in with your drivers license, Iqama (green card), and car registration card. People riding with you only have to present their Iqama or passport. The guard then calls the number of the person who you know at Aramco. This person has to be at their home number (no cell phones). The guy lets then prints up all names of people wanting in ALWAYS misspelling the names. It is actually quite funny.

You pass through the gate and drive where you need to go. I have been going for a basketball league and once per week for Ultimate Frisbee. I will also go in the Spring for softball. It keeps my week pretty busy.

Jamie is in Kenya for the week. I am hoping that she will blog about it when she returns.

We are still playing Settlers of Catan every Friday and sometimes through the week. A new game introduced by a friend was Dominion, a strategy card game which has caught on. Darts has also been a hot game to play.

This week, I was finally able to put up some picture frames around the house. What is funny about that is that there are not any actual pictures in them. We'll get to that later when I have time to go print some. We have a color printer, but I worry about the quality when I print them.

I have been pulling some long days by going in early and then tutoring right after school. Tutoring is something that many people do here. It is usually for just 1 hour for how many ever days you want. I do 4 days per week, which is quite a bit, but the money is outstanding. Jamie and live off my tutoring money alone. It was a pleasant surprise that we were able to do that.

Finally received a bank account and my ATM card. I now have my check direct deposited so I do not have to go sit at that evil Saudi Hollandi bank any more. I now sit at a probably just as evil Sabb bank for any banking needs. Banks usually on have about 2 tellers and only one of them will actually do any work. You have to get a number and wait for the 1 teller to go through all of the people. I have not been in a bank for less than 45 minutes. This is just to cash a check. Crazy.

School here is as busy as anywhere. The school offers a ton of things for the kids to do. This week, it was Book Fair. Nice selection as the student order the books, then they bring them in from Bahrain. Only takes about 2 weeks from what they tell me. I ordered a Dr. Seuss book I had never heard of called Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? I also ordered those Brain Quest trivia questions and an Italian cookbook.

All for now. I'll try and talk Jamie into posting sometime about her Habitat for Humanity Kenya trip. Interestingly, she is sleeping in the Southern Hemisphere and working in the Northern Hemisphere. I think yesterday she went on a Safari - cool!

I'll try and take pictures in the next couple of weeks. It won't be much to look at, but it might give you an idea of where we live.

Winter Break 2010

2011-01-24T05:23:00.000-05:00

Just now posting this, but I wanted a record of what we did on our winter break for 2010.

It had been 3 years since Jamie and I had been home for Christmas and the first time since we moved overseas. We had spent the last 2 winter breaks in Thailand (Christmas day on Koh Chang island in 2008) and Southwest China and Laos (Christmas day in Dali, China in 2009).

Back in September, I found a pretty good flight home, so we jumped on the opportunity and decided to go home instead of going on another trip somewhere in Europe or the Middle East.

We had a wonderful time and really enjoyed spending the time with our families. We apologize to any of our friends for not being able to see you. With limited time over the break, we spent the vast majority of it with our families.

We landed safely in Atlanta and had brought back plenty of bags so we could bring some items back with us. One of the bags was lost by the airline; and unfortunately, it was Jamie's bag with clothing in it. I had also placed my hard drive in that bag, so I was very anxious to get it back. After a couple of nail biting days, it arrived at Jamie's parent's house intact with everything in it.

The day after landing, I went to oral surgeon to have my wisdom teeth removed. Lucky me. The next day, we drove to down south Georgia to visit Jamie's father and had a wonderful fried fish dinner with his family. We spent a couple of full days down there, but then drove back to north Georgia and Cartersville for the next couple of days.

On Christmas day, we spent the morning with Jamie's family in Cartersville, then drove to Tennessee to spend the week with my family.

It was during that week that we readied Griffey to be sent to Saudi Arabia (please see that blog post HERE).

Part of going home was for Jamie and I to retrieve our Settlers of Catan game. We have been playing it on the compound with several people and have really enjoyed learning how to play. We taught my family how to play and my dad ordered a wooden box so all of the Settlers game and expansion packs would fit in nicely. My grandmother even wood burned the top of the box with the image of the original Settlers box cover. Looks great!

On December 30, me and my parents and Jamie and her parents drove to Nashville, TN so dad and I could go to Music City Bowl (Tennessee vs. North Carolina). The game was a blast and the 1st game I had been able to see in 3 seasons. We then drove to Memphis so Jamie and her parents could go watch the Liberty Bowl between Georgia and Central Florida. They had a good time there, and my parents and I stayed on Beale Street to watch the game and listen to some good old blues music at a great little Irish pub.

New Year's Day unfortunately was spent driving back to Georgia after swinging by Calhoun to pick up Griffey. The next couple of days were a blur as we were busy packing and shopping for some needed supplies.

Overall, a great trip home for the holidays. Our original goal was to go home every other year, but the cost of a 2 plane tickets home is quite pricey. Not sure what will happen next year (perhaps Germany), but we certainly did enjoy our trip home for the holidays in 2010. I'll get some pictures posted later...

Getting Griffey into the Kingdom

2011-01-06T15:09:00.001-05:00

Getting Griffey into Saudi Arabia took the customs official here about 15 seconds to look at the paperwork. That was the easy part. The hard part came the previous 12 days. So, how do you get a dog into the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from the United States in 12 days? Here is how I did it...

I first had to obtain an import permit from the Saudi end of things allowing Griffey into the country. To do this, I went to a local vet here, who I paid to get this permit for me. I'm not sure it can even be done without the services of a vet.

Secondly, I had to get my school government relations department to write a letter stating that it was OK for the vet to pick up the import permit for me. This had to be done on the school letterhead and signed by the head of the GR department. I also had to sign the letter.

Third, Griffey went to the vet to get a clean bill of health and obtain a vaccination record as well as a international health certificate. I also needed a regular health certificate to send back to the vet in Saudi Arabia so he could finalize the health certificate. The vet also ended up writing a "Guard Dog Letter" stating that he was in fact used for personal protection purposes. This is funny for anyone who has ever met Griffey. Saudi Arabia will only allow certain dogs into the country, and even then they have to be for guard dog, hunting, or seeing eye purposes.

Fourth, after obtaining the international health certificate, it needs to be signed and stamped by the following agencies: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), United States State Department, and finally the Saudi Arabian consulate in Washington DC.

Here is the hard part. Airlines only honor an international health certificate for 10 days while countries and other agencies will honor it for 30. If you can get it stamped by all those agencies in 10 days before your flight date, you are good to go. Unfortunately, Tennessee does not have all of those agencies in their backyard, so it took me getting creative on how to get them all signed within 10 days.

The USDA stamp can be done in 3 business days counting mailing it up to Nashville and back. The US State Department takes up to 15 business days while the Saudi consulate... well, that is a whole other story as the "sometimes close down for someone's birthday" as was told to me.

Here is how I did it. Dad and I drove to Nashville on the same day when Griffey went to the vet and got his international health certificate by the vet. We took it to the USDA and got it stamped and FedEx it overnight to the Shady Springs Animal Kennel in Baltimore, Maryland, where we had paid a guy to serve as a courier for us. The next 3 days, he took it to the State Department and the Saudi consulate and had it mailed back to me overnight.

It all came back on the morning of our flight in time. Griffey was then checked into live cargo on our plane and rode the whole way. I next saw him on the side of the baggage claim in the Dammam airport nearly 17 hours later.

If you want the costs for such a process, I can get it for you. I can also give you the names and numbers and addresses of the specific people who helped me out. It did cost considerably less than getting him in and out of China, so that is a plus.

Griffey is safe and sound here and enjoying the compound life.

Buying a Car

2010-12-16T09:10:00.000-05:00

Jamie and I found a decent deal on a brand new 2009 Chevrolet Trailblazer that we liked. You are not allowed to test drive a vehicle, so you simply rely on the warranty they give you. Nonetheless, this one is fully loaded and we liked it. On December 5, we put down a small deposit on the car. We received the paperwork from the dealership to take back to the finance department of our school for the loan.

On December 6, I dropped off the paperwork at the school and amazingly received a check the next day. I also received the paperwork to fill out regarding the insurance and dropped by the government relations office to receive what they call a "good boy" letter basically stating that I am employed by them and a good person in Saudi Arabia.

The good boy letter was going to take 6 days to receive, so I had to wait that long. In the meantime, I dropped off the loan check and the remainder of the car's balance in cash to the dealership on December 6 and simply waited until I received my good boy letter and official copy of the insurance form.

I received my good boy letter the next day without a stamp from the Chamber of Commerce. I tried going to the dealership to see if they would allow it but they did not. They told me the letter was wrong anyway, so it worked out well that I went over there without the stamp. I went back to GR and told them to revise the letter, which they did, but could not give it to me for 6 days. So we waited...

Finally, on December 12, I picked up my official good boy letter (the correct one) and my official insurance documents and went to the dealership to drop them off. They assured me that it would only take a couple of days to received the registration and license plate.

It did, and on December 15, we went again to the dealership, signed a couple of papers, received the registration card, a receipt for a free tank of gas and a free car cleaning, and drove away very happy in our new car.

Upon entering the vehicle, Jamie noticed the there was a fire extinguisher underneath the floor mat on the passenger's side. it was literally bolted to the floor with the floor mat placed on top of it. Her feet were sitting higher than usual. Single handedly, the worst engineering design I have ever seen on any object in my life. See the picture above. We were told that we could remove it later; and luckily, I was able to just unscrew it and throw it in the back compartment with the tire changing tools. Crazy!

Overall, we are very happy with it. It drives great, but most importantly, it gives us the freedom to go wherever we want to go in town without using a taxi, a neighbor, or the compound bus.

Sri Lanka - Inland

2010-11-19T13:29:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday of our vacation, we checked out of our resort and met our guide and driver at 5:00 am for a 4 hour drive inland into the mountains of Sri Lanka. Jamie and I usually take a dramamine of some sort before we take bus or van rides, especially through mountains, but we didn't have any for this trip. Luckily, we were able to stretch out and lie down in the van seats as we swerved, bumped, and jerked throughout the countryside. We arrived at our first stop 4 hours later green faced and ready for some solid land.

Our first stop was the St. Clair Tea Castle, so named because of the British family who owned the tea plantations in the area and built a castle to commemorate it. We sipped on some tea and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and waterfalls below. Our next stop took us by more waterfalls and tea plantations through what is called Little England, before we picked up some dramamine at a local pharmacy, and finally jumped onto a train that had been booked by our guide.

As our guide said... "Sri Lanka is friends to all religions, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Buddhist." For the Muslims, this week was an espcially busy time for them, the the trains were packed with all sorts of people. Our guide bribed his way into getting us into the first class train car and where we had nice cushioned seats for the 3 hour train ride. The train only went about 20 mph and wound its way through the countryside through the various tea, rubber, cinnamon, and herbal plantations of Sri Lanka. We finally arrived at a train station in Kandy, a large city in the center of Sri Lanka and its cultural hub.

We ate a quick lunch at yet another buffet before checking into our hotel, the Thilanka Hotel, which had a wonderful view overlooking the city. We took a quick nap before meeting our guide once again and going to a gem factory and store. Jamie was able to buy some nice emerald and sapphire earrings and a ring. That evening, we enjoyed some Kandy cultural dancing. Be sure to check out clips of the video on our Picasa Photo Albums. I'll upload it soon, but it'll take some time. We absolutely crashed after the performance and dinner after a long long day of traveling.

The next morning was early yet again as we first visited the Buddha Tooth Temple, a Buddhist temple in Kandy that claims to house the actual tooth from the remains of Siddhārtha Gautama, or Buddha. There had been some bombings there in previous years, so security was tight and there were hundreds of people there early in the morning to catch a sight of the tooth. Because of the long lines, we didn't get a chance to see the tooth, but I don't think it would have meant that much to us anyway.

We ate some breakfast and checked out of the hotel before departing to the Peradeniya Royal Botanical Gardens. It was a perfect day, and we caught the gardens at a good time where it wasn't too crowded and the flowers had not died because of bad weather. The highlight of the gardens is a 100 year old tree that covers 2500 square feet. Be sure to find the picture in the photo album. Pretty amazing.

We then went to a tea factory where they showed us how they process all of the tea we saw at the tea plantations. We picked up some tea to take home with us and will enjoy it in the months to come.

Our last stop was the herbal gardens, where a guide showed us all sorts of herbs and spices they use for a variety of home remedies. Of course, we picked up some to take home with us as they were unique and apparently pretty costly in the western world.

A 2 hour drive to the airport, a 3 hours wait there, and a 5 hour flight back home followed by a 45 minute taxi ride had us back in our villa at 11:30 that night. A long end to the holiday, but we enjoyed our stay in Sri Lanka. We hope to return in the future if our travel plans allow for it.

Sri Lanka 2010

2010-11-19T06:35:00.001-05:00

On November 11, Jamie and I caught a late overnight flight to Columbo, Sri Lanka to begin our next vacation. We had originally thought of going to Athens, Greece or Jordan for this holiday, but decided on a beach vacation instead. We had heard nothing but great things about Sri Lanka, so we finally decided to make it our destination for this Eid break. The reason for the break in November is for the Islam hajj, or the annual pilgrimage that many Muslims make to Mecca, one of the holiest cities of Islam.

The flight on Sri Lankan Airlines took us non stop from Dammam to Columbo, where we arrived at 6:00 am. We had pre-arranged a pickup at the airport via our hotel and he met us promptly. 3 hours later, we arrived at our resort and home for the next 5 days, the Mermaid Hotel and Club in Kalatura (on the western side of the island below Columbo). We had arranged a delux room with an all inclusive package, so we didn't have to worry about spending any money out of pocket for meals and drinks.

Each day was pretty much the same for Friday through Tuesday at the resort. We woke up, ate, relaxed by the pool or or villa with drinks, played some beach volleyball, water volleyball, ping pong, croquet, napped, and read in our Kindles. Everything a vacation should be. Jamie treated herself to a 70 minute massage and pedicure, and I worked out as best I could until my cracked rib got the better of me.

The only blemish was the constant harrisment you would recieve from the beach boys who would try and sell you packages to go somewhere on the island. We were going to do something, but it was annoying being asked all day long about it.

Each meal was a buffet which had a variety of Eastern and Western choices. Overall, it was great food for the money.

We then booked a 2 day/1 night tour of inland Sri Lanka through one a tour guide by the name of Anura (anuratours@yahoo.com). He arranged everything for us for the next 2 days, which I'll let you read about in the next post.

Be sure to check out the pictures on our Picasa Photo Album.

Happy Birthday Present

2010-11-08T15:28:00.001-05:00

A productive afternoon of wiring money back to the USA brought me downtown Khobar with a friend who introduced me to a shop where I could buy my very first Saudi clothing. I was very excited and it was a marvelous purchase and birthday present for myself.

As you can see from the picture above, this is what you will see most Saudi men wear in town. Taken from a website on Saudi culture, the following explains the clothing:

"Today, as in antiquity, men wear a thawb, a simple, ankle-length shirt of wool or cotton. Traditional headwear includes a ghutra, a large diagonally-folded cotton square worn over a kufiyyah (skull cap) and held in place by an igaal, a double-coiled cord circlet." (LINK)

Great day overall as I had a record number of students wish me happy birthday and even received 3 free cinnamon rolls from Joffrey's, the coffee shop located on our school campus.

After ordering a decent hamburger from Shane's Rib Shack (yeah I know), we were invited over for a birthday celebration complete with a box full of goodies from a new friend and to play Settlers of Catan, which has quickly become our favorite game to play. Another teacher also has a birthday today and a friend of ours hosted and invited other players over for 2 games. I amazingly won the game I played (after blowing the lead 3 times), but I pulled it out for a great birthday victory.

Furthermore, my Ken Burns Baseball DVD is almost downloaded, so I hoping to start that series soon.

Thanks for all of the birthday wishes via email and Facebook. Jamie's birthday is in a couple of weeks, so don't forget about her. We are off to Sri Lanka in 3 days, so we'll be celebrating both our birthdays there too.

NESA Leadership Conference in Kathmandu, Nepal

2010-10-25T21:14:00.000-04:00

From Kathmandu Nepal 2010

By default, I was able to take a trip to Kathmandu for a leadership conference. Middle school teachers were asked if anyone wanted to go to the conference. No one responded, so we were asked again. Finally, after a 3rd attempt by administration, I submitted a slight interest in attending. I knew I would be busy, but thought it would be a good experience.

The school provides some money for professional development funds, but Jamie and I had hoped to use that money on tuition. However, trip to Nepal sounds pretty appealing at this point, and I think it’ll be a good experience for me.

A van picked us up from our villa at 3:00 am and we took a 35 minute flight to Doha, Qatar. After a 2 hour layover, we were on our way to Kathmandu, Nepal. Upon landing, it was a pretty quick line through customs, the hassle of dealing with dozens of guys asking you if you need a taxi, and then a ride through the crazy streets of Kathmandu to our hotel, Radisson, near the center of the city.

We dropped our bags off and headed out immediately downtown to meet our superintendent at a nice little restaurant called Fire and Ice, complete with cold beverages and a great pizza. A fairly long day, but we walked back to our hotel where I completely crashed.

Today was the first full day of sessions for the conference, but our hotel was about a 20 minute ride to the Hyatt, which was a bit of a hassle, but something we dealt with.

Each day of the conference, we basically had a morning speaker followed by 2 – 2 hour sessions. The first and second day of the conference dealt with grading and grade reporting, while the last 2 days focused on instruction. They served us a marvelous buffet lunch each day with some Nepalese and Indian dishes. NESA brought in some pretty big names in the educational research community with Jay McTighe, Charlotte Danielson, Thomas Guskey, and Art Costa all leading sessions and making keynote addresses.

After the conference each day, we usually went out to see some of the sites of Kathmandu. We didn’t have a ton of daylight hours, but enough to go to a few places.

The first day, we walked from the Hyatt to the Baudu Stupa, a Buddhist stupa, and quite extraordinary. There were locals and tourist walking around clockwise and spinning the prayer wheels. Around the stupa was a variety of shops where you could buy all sorts of souvenirs if you so desired.

Dinner that night was catered by our conference at the Hyatt with a variety of finger foods and free drinks. Great conversation and times were held by all.

One the 2nd day after the conference, a colleague and I went to Pasupati, a Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. We were not allowed to go into the temple, but were able to visit and witness the live cremation of bodies. Funeral pyres were built of wood and the bodies were wrapped in white cloth and burned in 7 different pyres, historically representing the 7 levels of the caste system. The ashes and any remaining body parts were then thrown into the river along with flowers and other items the family offered. The river, the Bagmati, flows into the sacred Ganges River, so it is considered sacred in Nepal.

We went back to Thamel to do some shopping along with dinner at a place called Roadhouse, which had some pretty tasty pork. My shopping included Northface coats, singing bowls – READ HERE, prayer wheels – READ HERE, baby yak shawls, and pashmina scarves.

After the conference on the 3rd day, NESA took us to Bakhtapur, a town about a 45 minute bus ride from Kathmandu. The city greeted us as we participated in pretty much a “parade.” I called it the “parade of white people” as the locals lined the streets and watched us walk by. We wound through the old streets of the city before finally ending in a city square where a dinner was prepared for us as we watch some local costumed dancing. We were also able to see a “living goddess” take her reign. This young girl is raised from birth to become a living goddess when she reaches a certain age and serves until she reaches puberty.

On our 4th and last night after the conference, a few of the guys ended up in Thamel once again and hung out downtown, walked the streets, and shopped for our wives before finally meeting up with the whole school to eat at Everest Steakhouse, where they prepared some delicious filet mignon for us all. I turned in early that night and packed up because we were leaving early then next morning.

Kathmandu and Nepal is definitely a place I’ll go back, especially with Jamie or even other family members. Next time, I would like to do some sort of flyover of Mt. Everest or particularly a hiking trek into the countryside toward Everest.

Nice people despite such a poor, hectic, and quite dirty town. A huge contrast from Saudi Arabia, and as I type this, I am making my descent on the plane back into Saudi. Be sure to check out the pictures in our PICASA PHOTO ALBUM.

Internet Hook Up

2010-10-25T21:03:00.001-04:00

There are basically 2 main services you can purchase to have Internet in your villa. STC, Saudi Telecom, which is a DSL line that runs through a phone line in your villa, and ITC, Integrated Telecom, which uses a satellite Internet feed.

STC offers 4mb speed, which the US offered a billion years ago but is pretty fast for Saudi standards, but STC is hassle to deal with and the connection can be less reliable. It is also more expensive running almost $100/month for just Internet, ouch.

ITC has only a 2mb speed, is a little cheaper, and more reliable. I had really wanted to use the higher speed Internet, but after speaking STC on the phone a few times and really getting nowhere, I resigned to using ITC.

I had a taxi driver take me to where everyone else signed up for ITC. It was in a Novotel Business Center near the next city about a 15 minute taxi ride away. I waited until after the afternoon prayer and figured the door would open. I called the number on the door and they said they would open at 4:30. After 4:45, I called again and was told I was actually at the wrong location, so in the taxi I go back to Khobar where the location was actually only about 2 miles from the villa.

I paid cash for 6 months of 2mb speed and was told that they would be there the next day to hook it up. I was excited because I thought we might have Internet in our villa for the UT/UGA game. My TV was ready to go!

They did not come on Saturday and was told they would come on Sunday. They did come on Sunday… at 9:30 pm and proceeded to drill into the concrete walls on the roof to install the satellite. They finally stopped drilling at 10:10 pm and left at 10:40 promising the technician would come in the next day. General labor contracting and technician contracting.

Our 2mb runs just fine and is somewhat reliable. Slingbox doesn’t work that well, but we are hoping that ITC bumps up to 4 or more mbs soon so we can have a stronger signal and faster downloads.

Overall, another frustrating experience dealing with hooking up Internet. We’ll stick with ITC in hopes that they can increase their speed.

Car Shopping in the Kingdom

2010-10-25T21:01:00.002-04:00

I obtained my Saudi Arabia drivers license the other day. The school arranged all of the paper work, but I had to go to the hospital to obtain a blood type test and an eye test. It was simple enough, but all of the things at the hospital are sort of ala carte. You pay for each procedure at different desks. Somewhat frustrating but I’ll look by it.

Later, a friend took me to some dealerships to start my search for a new car. Since I’ll be the only one driving it, Jamie has pretty much left it to me. I think we’ll go for a small SUV and probably buy new. Our school gives us a 2 year no interest loan and simply deducts the amount from our account each month. Nice and most everyone takes advantage of that deal.

We go into a few new car showrooms, Hyundia, Jeep, Chevy, and walked around looking for my perfect car. Unfortunately, like everything else in Saudi, the workers could care less if you ever purchase a car from them and didn’t even stand up or look our way when we entered. Imagine going into any dealership in the US and being ignored. Strange…

My car search continues, and I’ll be in full purchase mode when I return from Nepal. I’m sure the paperwork, bureaucracy, and overall frustration continues when it comes to purchasing a car in The Kingdom.

Getting a Bank Account - Not Really

2010-10-25T11:16:00.001-04:00

We were told that getting a bank account would be a breeze. We knew we had to wait for our Iqamas to come through before obtaining a bank account, but the frustration came afterward.

Why do you need a bank account in Saudi? You don’t really. Our school pays us in Saudi Riyal, and you can go to the bank and simply cash your check. Since we are sending most of our money back to our US bank account, we’ll need to set up an easy way to transfer money bank home. The banks here allow for online banking and we could easily have our check direct deposited and then transfer the funds home online.

Jamie and I both went to the bank one day after school by taxi. We met with the Saudi manager and filled out the necessary paperwork. We gave them our Iqamas and the letter from school stating our salary. If you make so much, you are considered “VIP;” and after this story, you’ll see why that is funny in and of itself. We were told that we needed our marriage certificate to open up a joint account and that we would have to return. We said that was fine and made plans to return the next day.

Jamie went to the bank the next day to drop off our marriage certificate and was told that it could not be a copy that it had to be an original. This might or might not be true, but she told them we’d try and obtain one. Since we’ve learned from previous experiences to try and always have originals, we actually do have a our original marriage license with us, so I was able to go back the next day.

I was told that they would not accept one form that had been written in red. Granted, you probably shouldn’t use red to fill out a form, but it was the pen that the bank manager handed us. I explained that it was fine in red 3 days ago and it should be fine now. I told them they needed to accept the red ink and work it out. I was sent to another manager who told me that the red was fine… but… Jamie’s signature was wrong. Now, I knew they were just screwing with whitey westerner. I told them they could either accept the forms the way they were or I could find another bank.

Since my salary is probably beans compared to all the other salaries they see at that bank on a daily basis, they didn’t seem to concerned about me not opening up an account. I guess I showed them.

A friend helped us transfer money to home using another wiring only bank, so I think we’ll go that route for a while. It is easy, perhaps takes a bit longer, but our first wire went through without a problem.

Such is the life here in Saudi. Generally speaking, it is not a customer service oriented culture. The foreign workers who work here are very helpful, but any Saudi could really care less if you do business with them or not.

First Holiday in Saudi Arabia

2010-09-16T23:35:00.002-04:00

Since we couldn’t go anywhere, it wasn’t much of a holiday, but we still enjoyed ourselves nonetheless. Jamie and I took this week to buy some things needed for our villa including some much needed kitchen items as well as a not so much needed rather than wanted new TV and surround sound system. I’m happy with both the kitchen items and the audio/video equipment.

Not many people on the compound left for this break since it was so close to the beginning of the year, so there were lots of compound activities. At times, it seemed as though we were bombarded with requests of things to do, place to go, etc. The compound next door to us is an old BAE compound complete with its own restaurant and beverage facility. We are invited over there occasionally to partake in the fish and chips and frosty beverages, which is a nice outing because it is not like you can go “out” here in Saudi.

Other activities this week have included rides to town and stores. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you do not have a car, you have to rely on either a) the compound bus which only goes at certain times during the week b) a taxi which is fine but can get pricey or c) a neighbor who offers or you simply ask. Fortunately, we have been paired with a buddy couple who have been very generous, but everyone has been very nice to give us lifts when needed. With the end of Ramadan a few days ago, the stores are now on regular schedule. By regular schedule, I mean they open at what we would call normal hours, but remember, they still close for prayer times, which are becoming closer and closer together as the days become shorter. This can be hectic when scheduling your shopping times.

There of course have been a couple of poker nights and yoga classes and I went to the driving range in the desert again, but Jamie and I have both enjoyed learning how to play Settlers of Catan, a simulation board game which can be very addicting. It is a big hit here on the compound and a few people even have the expansion packs. A bit nerdy, but very fun.

The weather has been cooling down, especially in the morning. This morning was the first one where I actually ran outside. A loop in our compound is .23 miles, so a little over 4 times around becomes a mile. It gets a bit monotonous running around, but not as bad as running on a treadmill, plus I can vary my speeds easier. A few people play tennis and basketball and we have some decent courts here, so I’m looking forward to playing soon as the temperature cools even more.

Jamie and I have worked on our dissertations a little bit this week, although not as much as what we should have. I am right in the middle of Chapter 4 (of 5), while Jamie is rewriting her Chapters 1 – 3.

Our big news this week was the great flight deal we received for Christmas break, so we’ll be coming home. We haven’t made it home for Christmas since moving overseas, so we are excited and I believe our families are too.

Have a great weekend, but it’ll be the start of the week for us!

1 Month in the Kingdom

2010-09-09T12:35:00.000-04:00

Jamie and I have been in Saudi Arabia right at 1 month. Here are some things that we have learned...

1) It is hot, although people keep claiming that it will cool down and 9 months of the year it will be very pleasant. We are still waiting for those days.

2) It is a sexist, chauvinistic culture. This is evident by the fact that women can't drive, men have more freedoms with what they can do and where they can go, and the overall general attitude of male Saudis. We don't experience it on a day to day basis, but when you are out and about, you certainly do get that feel. Some women cover from head to toe with only their eyes showing. It all depends on what their husbands require of them. This is something I'm not sure I will ever really be comfortable with, and Jamie tolerates, although she does like the fact that she doesn't really have to worry about what she wears to town.

3) Shawarmas are delicious. So is hummus, tabouli, flat bread, and tea that really isn't tea, but just spiced water.

4) The food isn't too different from Chinese food, but it does have a different flavor with some different spices.

5) Not have pork and alcohol isn't that big of a deal because people still get it. Not so much pork, but alcohol is readily available to the point where they sell shot glasses, beer mugs, and wine glasses in kitchen stores.

6) Prayer times in Saudi cramp your shopping experience. You have to constantly check the prayer schedule before going out. If you show up to a store 5 minutes before prayer time, you better run around and grab as many things as possible. Otherwise, you'll be waiting for prayer to be over.

7) Beef bacon really isn't that bad. In fact, it is really good, but doesn't have the same bacon smell.

8) The best part of wherever you are is alway the people. Our co-workers have been very gracious. We miss our friends from the US and China but are quickly making new friends.

9) Compound life can become dull, but with a variety of activities, you can keep yourself busy just about every night (poker night, Sultans of Catan, bocce, tennis, swimming, working out, movies, eating out, ordering in)

10) Swimming pools in Saudi Arabia feel like bath water.

11) Air conditioning is a gift from God. I would like to personally thank Mr. Michael Faraday for inventing the air conditioner and Mr. Willis Haviland Carrier for making it commercial. I'm not sure how people lived prior to it.

12) Driving in Saudi Arabia can be quite hectic, but not nearly as bad as China and other southeastern Asian cities. Nonetheless, you better be careful.

13) Things here are expensive. There is probably about a 25% price markup on most items, although you can find just about anything here to purchase as you would in the States. We even found a cast iron skillet today, and there is a shot downtown that sells very old Barbie dolls for very cheap. I'm thinking of buying them, taking them back to the States, selling them on Ebay to all the crazies who collect them, and paying off our student loans.

14) You can get just about anywhere from here, and we are very excited about all of our travel opportunities. You basically have 3 entire continents you can travel, and we fully plan to hit up all 3 of them.

15) Ramadan is a very exciting time to be in the Middle East. While it can be a pain working around the crazy shopping hours, it is all part of the experience. Today is the last day of Ramadan, so things after this weekend should be pretty much back to "normal," whatever that is.

All for now. Decent list and I want to share some thoughts. Not really any pictures yet, although I've got some great ideas for when we purchase a car and I can drive out and about. Just taking pictures in a store of all of the women blacked out is enough to fill an album.

Let me know if you have any questions!

TAIW - Thank Allah It's Wednesday

2010-09-02T04:54:00.000-04:00

Ironically, the have the restaurant here... T.G.I.F, but it doesn't really true here as you have your first workday on Saturday. We've changed it around as TAIW.

We've had a busy week here with school in full blown session, lots of compound activities, and trying to rest in the process.

Let me first say that we are still really enjoying living here. The temperature, or at least the humidity, has dropped off a little bit and going outside at least becomes bearable. Our villa is coming together nicely as we purchase small items to fill it out. We purchased a new printer that can print some photos, so we'll be adding some photos and frames around the villa to make it look a little homier.

Last weekend, we were hosted by our friends next door to a delicious pancake breakfast. We then had some brunch of scones and other Kiwi snacks with some other friends a few villas down. This seems to be the thing to do with the newbies here, and Jamie and I have already discussed having a good southern meal for our compound friends some day.

Our kitchen is coming together nicely as we purchase small items to help us in there. We still haven't purchase dishes. We received 4 plates, forks, spoons, etc when we arrived, but it is getting old washing the same 4 things over and over again. Our trip to IKEA last weekend came up empty on something we liked, so we'll try another home store somewhere. There are only a dozen in the city, so it shouldn't be too hard.

Tamimi's, which is like Safeway back home, drives to our compound to take us to the store. Jamie and I have used this before and it might be something we do often from now on. It is very convenient. There is also a compound bus that leaves 3 days per week and takes us pretty much wherever we need to go. This is also a great option to get us out of the compound so we can shop. Of course, all of these procedures will change once we get a vehicle, but it is nice to know we have the option.

On Monday night, we went to the compound next door for "night out." The compound next to us is the BAE (British Aerospace) compound. BAE is HUGE around here and employs probably hundreds of people. They are actually building a super compound outside the city, so Las Dunas will be vacant. We are hoping we can move in there as the facilities are nicer. They have a "pub" inside their compound, so we were able to go over there for some drinks as well as take home some. Good food of fish and chips were delivered and we overall had a wonderful time with our co-workers and new friends. Since Saudi has really no nightlife, this is just another example of the type of activities one can do here. It isn't much, but it is fun.

Tuesday nights are poker nights here on the compound and apparently have been for years. I participate and really enjoy it. When the weather cools, people also play bocche, tennis, and of course more of the pool. I have done OK at poker, but there is always room for improvement. A group of ladies went for yoga on another compound, but Jamie didn't participate.

Wednesday night, we had a pot luck meal for the newbies on the compound. There is actually a small compound committee that organizes these events and I believe they organized Thanksgiving meals, Christmas dinners, and other holiday festivities for those who want to participate. It was a good showing last night and we enjoyed it. Great food. Props to the single male who made the pizza spaghetti!

Since everything comes to life during Ramadan at night, I was driven around by a nice family to purchase some necessary items like a vacuum cleaner, surge protectors, and other things necessary for our villa. We have a shipment still coming in from China that will round out our belongings, but so far so good here.

Thanks for some of the questions I have received. I believe I have answered all of them personally. I'll answer some on sometimes, so continue to shoot them my way. I was approached by an international teaching organization to write for their blog. I think I might and just post everything on there and a shortened version for them. They have some rules of things I can't put on there. I'll provide a link when I get it up and running.

Hope everyone enjoys there weekend.

Tuesdays are poker nights here on the compound.

Golfing in Saudi Arabia

2010-08-26T12:06:00.000-04:00

From Golfing in Saudi Arabia

A new colleague and neighbor of mine found a driving range and desert golf course about 30 minute drive outside the city. He had been previously and was telling me about it, so I just had to go.

As you will see from the pictures, it really does seem as though it is out in the middle of the desert. Well... it is. There are some sort of warehouses around where we were and plenty of electrical lines, but for the most part, it was all sand, sand, sand.

My first impression was of the quite funny sign that told all ladies to make sure they had "male protection." Women can play out there with no problem and even do not have to wear an abaya, but do have to wear long sleeves and pants. No one was playing today, but my friend tells me that women do play out there. The South Koreans who live in Saudi love to play golf.

We arrived and as you can see from the pictures, it is a small 2 shack operation, but with a solid cover for driving range balls, a small putting "brown," and even some mats thrown down so you can hit on the range. The yardage is marked accordingly. There is actually 18 holes on that course complete with rules and everything. Apparently, you purchase your own little square piece of artificial turf, drive the ball down the lightly packed fairway, and then try and your ball on the finely packed "brown" (green). Walking only.

We only hit about 50 balls each, but we will definitely go back when the weather cools down. Not a bad rate to play either, and it will certainly be an experience. Check out the pictures closely in the PICASA Photo Album of Golfing in Saudi Arabia Album and follow my little experience in pictures.

Welcome the Kingdom!

Back in the USA

2010-08-21T05:38:00.001-04:00

I had a full workday on Thursday (remember, this is like my Saturday), and Jamie also went in to get some things done in her classroom. I was able to pretty much get everything ready, but still had to work on Friday to finalize some documents.

Thursday night, we were invited to the U.S. Consulate for a party. This was a cool experience and needless to say, security was very tight getting into the U.S. Consulate in Saudi Arabia. Several little checkpoints. I guess since it is technically US soil, they were allowed to serve alcohol, but Jamie and I wondered how they even got it into the country unless they have their own landing strip. We mingled for a few hours and met some new people and headed home. It was a nice outing, and they said they have those gatherings about 1 time per month, but you have to be invited.

Friday was an off day for us and we were able to catch a ride to the Hyper Panda (like WalMart) for some household items. The store was closing for the midday prayer and wouldn't open again until later in the afternoon, so we just headed home, where I worked on some school stuff. That evening, we ordered out to Baba Habbas, a "fast food" type restaurant probably similar to KFC, except it has Arabic food. We were introduced to Shawarma (Read about them here). Theyare delicious and pretty inexpensive, so they might become a stable in our diet. It came with some hummus, so that made it even better.

Today was our first day of school with the kids, so since I have some Internet here at school, I thought I'd post this quickly. Still no Internet at home. Successful day with the students so far, and I'm sure I will be putting more up about the school in later posts.

Still no questions from anyone, so I guess I am doing a bang up job with the posts.

Back to School

2010-08-17T11:35:00.000-04:00

On Saturday, Jamie and I went back to school. Our work week actually runs from Saturday to Wednesday, so our weekends are Thursday and Friday, and this was our first week at our new jobs. Jamie and I have been getting up early at 5:00 and go down to our gym to workout/run. We have breakfast and then hop on the bus which picks us up right at our doorstep.

Since it is Ramadan and practically no one is on the roads, it only takes us about 15 minutes to get to the school. Before going into the school, the bus has to go through the U.S. Consulate security gate. This was an interesting process the first time we went through, but no it is just part of the whole ordeal. We just have to stay on the bus and show our school ID.

Our school is rather large and has a perimeter of about 1 mile around. It sits directly next to the U.S. Consulate and the land is actually leased from King Faud University of Petroleum and Minerals. The lease expires soon, so we don't know what will happen then. Our campus actually contains 3 schools, the Dhahran Elementary and Middle School, Dhahran High School, and Dhahran British School, all operated by a non-profit organization called International Schools Group (ISG).

Jamie has a classroom in a normal high school type building while I actually have more of what looks like a mobile room, only perhaps a bit nicer than what you see in the States. The students will have to walk from building to building for their classes and lunch, which makes it a bit different than most set ups back home.

Our schedule is pretty similar and we teach an American curriculum. School ends at 3:30, and we really can't work past 5:00 because they close the gates to the school, and you have to go through the U.S. Consulate to get out. Jamie and I hop back on a bus at either 3:30 or 5:00 and head back to our compound.

Lately, we've been pretty much crashing and napping or going shopping in the evenings. We still do not have a vehicle and have to rely on others to take us around.

I received my schedule today and I will be teaching 7th grade math and science as well as one "elective." I do not know yet, but I believe I will do either Journalism or Model United Nations as my elective. Jamie is teaching 10th grade Modern World History and 11th grade U.S. History at the high school.

So far so good at the school, but our school implements several new software programs that takes getting used to. These include Moodle, Skyward, Atlas Rubicon, and First Class. All have the strengths and weaknesses is appears, but it is good to know the school pays for quality programs to help teachers with record keeping.

I haven't received any questions, so if you have any, email them my way!

Shopping Day

2010-08-14T13:56:00.004-04:00

We didn’t really get out and about until we were picked up by a coworker and whisked around town in his car. Remember, we can’t drive yet, so we are at the mercy of others. He gave us a quick tour of the surroundings before we settled on a store called the Hyper Panda. It is very similar to a WalMart. Jamie and I had a list of household supplies that we needed to round out our settling in as well as get some groceries for the week. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality of the goods offered and even some name brands that we recognized.

This was our first time in “public,” so we experienced firsthand the women wearing their abayas and hijab. The abaya is the long sleeve black robe that women must wear whereas the hijab is the headscarf. Some women were dressed head to toe and veiled, some had an opening for their eyes, and some their head uncovered. Jamie had borrowed an abaya so she was wearing it. I’m not sure I will ever feel comfortable with this scenario, but we’ll see. More on this later I’m sure.

As we were leaving, it was time for the call to prayer. All of the stores in Saudi Arabia shut down for the call to prayer. If you are in the store at the time, they will allow you to stay and wander around, but you won’t be able to purchase anything because no one will be there to help you. We left just at the 3:15 call to prayer was beginning. The Muslims pray 5 times per day beginning just before sunrise and ending after sunset. The prayer times change constantly, so we’ll receive a schedule so we’ll know when the prayer times are. If you are outside, you know because you can hear the mosques’ loudspeakers throughout the city.

Our next stop was a hardware store similar to ACE hardware, not quite Home Depot, followed by a trip to Tamimi’s, which is the new name for a Safeway. Here, you can purchase many Western products, so we stocked up on groceries for the week. As a reminder, there are NO pork or alcohol products in Saudi Arabia AT ALL. They are illegal, and they take it seriously. There are some families that make their own beer, wine, and liquor inside the compound, and we can do whatever we want inside the walls.

What fascinated me with the grocery store was all of the men shopping. Because women can’t drive, they really do not go out as much to shop. Men conduct the business for the most part, so the stores are full of men. You do see plenty of women, but it just seemed to me the checkout lines were full of men, particularly on Friday, their holy day.

We dropped our stuff off and then rested for a few minutes before being hosted by our buddy couple that evening. We had some of their home made spirits and some traditional Ramadan snacks, fried cheese and a delicious minced chick pea and meatball. We then headed to a more traditional style Arabac restaurant where our meal consisted of flat bread served with dipping sauces of hummus, baba ganoush, tabouleh, and one other I can’t remember. Served with 2 large servings of rice as well as a family platter of various grilled vegetables, meats, and potatoes. It was very good and we’ll definitely like going back.

Stores are open during Ramadan at night, sometimes as late as 3 or 4 in the morning, so we then went to “Ladies Street” to purchase Jamie an abaya. There are several stores pretty much identical that sell abayas anywhere from $25 to $100. I’m sure the wealthier Saudi families have fancier ones though. Jamie settled on one for about $30 and received a good deal.
Not many pictures yet because I haven’t been really taking any. We also aren’t really quite sure about the customs of taking pictures in public and it might be hit or miss. We are going to try though. We have the 2 videos of the compound if you haven’t seen those, but we have been so busy with actually buying things that we haven’t really taken any pictures. We also won’t have Internet in our villa for probably more than a month, so I’ll be posting either at school or borrowing Internet at someone else’s villa.

Tomorrow, we start school and we are very excited. I’m actually typing this at 4:00 am because I can’ t really sleep. You all will read this several days after it all happened, but I am trying to go ahead and write so it will be fresh in my mind.

First Day of School

2010-08-14T13:56:00.003-04:00

Our work week actually begins on Saturdays, so while most of the world is taking a weekend those days, we will be going to work. Our work week goes from Saturday through Wednesday, so the Muslims have Thursday and Friday (holy day) as their “weekend.”

We woke up early and worked out and caught the bus to school. The drive takes about 20 minutes, but then you have to go through the security at the U.S. Consulate. Our school is actually right next to the U.S. Consulate, so security is tight with what we were told were brand new, more powerful machine guns.

After meeting administration, we were taken to the local hospital to receive our medical exams necessary for our all important Iqamas (green card). It was easy enough and the school was excited we were able to complete it so early in the process. We still won’t receive our Iqamas until after Ramadan anyway, but it was nice to get it out of the way.

Jamie and I then split up into our respective schools and had the typical first day of school stuff to do. We saw our classrooms and toured around the school a bit. It is an older school built in the 1960s, so the most of the buildings have that style, but are well kept and clean.
We left promptly at 3:30. We have to vacate the school at 5:00 anyway, so there won’t be any late nights working at the school. We then immediately fell asleep because of sheer exhaustion, but as I type this, Jamie is preparing a wonderful meal of grouper, rice, and steamed veggies. We’ll relax tonight and hit the grind again tomorrow.

Yes, It is HOT!

2010-08-14T13:55:00.001-04:00

Jamie and I actually woke early and then proceeded out for a quick tour of the compound. See our COMPOUND TOUR Video for all of the details. I haven’t seen the weather the last few days for here, but it is as hot as they say it is. You can walk about 20 steps and already be sweating.

After returning, we went straight to unpacking and settling all of our belongings. We then made a list of the necessary items we’ll need to completely settle in and really just relaxed the remainder of the day.

Jamie and I, more so me, will have to wait for our residency visas to process before we can pretty much do anything. We can’t set up our Internet, purchase a car, drive a car, set up our bank account, or leave and re-enter the country until we receive our Iqama. The Iqama is pretty much like a “green card” and allows us to fully work in the Kingdom. Until then, we have a letter that serves this purpose, but you still can’t do any of the above without it.
This can be a bit frustrating because we are at the mercy of others for rides to the store, but everyone has been very helpful at offering their services, so we feel that we’ll be just fine for the month. A bus will take us back and forth to work until we can finally purchase a car. For Jamie, it is illegal for her to drive, so that won’t be an issue for her anyway.
We enjoyed the rest of the day and ordered some lamb and chicken curry for delivery for dinner. We were able visit another villa and Skype with our parents to fill them in on most of these details.

Tomorrow, Friday, is a very slow day in the Kingdom as it is their holy day, similar to Sunday for most of the Western world. However, there are a few larger stores that are open, so we’ll venture out with our buddy couple to buy some much needed supplies for our villa.
Shoot me some questions via email or comments. I’ll try and get them onto the blog at some point in time. I think it would be a good way to answer some questions if I in fact have the answers.

Welcome to the Kingdom!

2010-08-14T13:54:00.003-04:00

Jamie and I finalized our packing today and crammed everything into 13 bags. My parents drove down; and along with Jamie’s parents, we headed down the airport. We had hoped for a discount on our excess baggage, but we didn’t receive it. That took some time as we had to wait for supervisors, but we finally checked out bags and only had 2 overweight. The cost was more than what I had wanted, but we had budgeted correctly for it. Our school provides a shipping allowance anyway, so it is all good.

We had dinner at Houlihans before saying our difficult goodbyes to our family. Our KLM flight took us through Amsterdam where we had a 2 hour layover. There, we actually met some families with whom we will be working. The Schiphol airport in Amsterdam is different because you actually go through security at the gate. That and all of the women are much taller.
Our two flights were good and we arrived at 9:00 pm in Saudi Arabia. Customs was a breeze and we worried about all of our stuff for no reason. We did have 1 bag that didn’t make, but hopefully we’ll receive it in a few days.

We were met by our superintendent, high school principal, middle school principal, and others as they helped us load our bags into a bus before we loaded onto another bus. The drive to our compound was about 45 minutes and we were showed some of the sites around the area despite it being dark. Al Khobar, the name of the city in which we will live, is actually very modern with many western restaurants and stores. More on this I’m sure in later blog posts.

Today is the first day of Ramadan, the holiest holiday for Islam. Muslims fast from dawn to dusk and it is actually illegal for anyone to be caught eating or drinking in public. Most stores do not open until after sunset, so the whole country somewhat shuts down. Jamie was wearing long sleeves and pants when she arrived, but will purchase an abaya in a few days.

We arrived at our compound and were pleasantly surprised at the surroundings. We enter through a large electronic gate, but the inside of the compound looks somewhat like a nice retirement community you might see in Florida. The huge difference is that our gate is guarded by Saudi National Guard reserves with machine guns ready at a moment’s notice as well as a large concrete wall with barbed wire surrounding the compound. Makes me feel safe. I don’t want this to sound bad, because the villas are VERY nice.

On our compound, we have a pool, tennis courts, basketball courts, a recreational center with ping pong, pool, foosball, air hockey, a small library, a TV room, and a nice little gym.
Our villa is 3 stories, but Jamie and I will occupy the 2nd and 3rd stories as well as the rooftop. There is a single female that lives in the 1st floor. Please see the VIDEO of our villa tour for detailed information as I believe it will be better than me typing everything out.

Our school provides all of this as part of our package; so needless to say, we were shocked at the size of the place as well as what was furnished for us. We didn’t really unpack this night, but were visited by several families offering help over the next few days. I will speak more of this tomorrow, but I hope this first blog post lets you know of our tiring yet exciting first evening in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Packing for Saudi Arabia

2010-08-08T21:52:00.000-04:00

The sign above was in my hometown of Calhoun, Tennessee. A nice gesture to wish us luck on our next adventure.

Jamie and I have spent the last 2 days packing. As of now, we'll have about 11 bags total that we'll take the airport for our trip. We had decided not to ship anything and just simply pay for the excess baggage fee at the airport. We hope this will be a good strategy, but I think if we had to do it over again, we'd have shipped these bags ahead of time. Oh well...

We have been saying our goodbyes to family and friends, which is always hard to do. Most of them are excited for us on this new journey, but I feel that some just can't quite understand why we'd want to move to Saudi Arabia of all places.

I'll remind my readers that Jamie and I attended a job fair in Bangkok, Thailand last January where we interviewed for seveal jobs in several countries, including China. ISG in Saudi Arabia offered us a job, we felt very comfortable with them and the package they were offering, so we decided to getive it a shot.

I do hope that everyone will keep checkig the blog for updates especially when we do arrive in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, our new home.

1 Week Remaining!

2010-08-03T22:58:00.005-04:00

Jamie and I have had a great summer, but our next adventure is just around the corner as we move to Saudi Arabia in just one week. This summer has been busy as we have bounced around from Cartersville, Myrtle Beach, Tennessee, South Georgia, and St. George's Island visiting family and friends. We now have just one week to finalize appointments and finish packing before we fly out on evening of August 10th.

The visa process for going to Saudi Arabia was tedious as the medical forms took over one month to complete. The Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington DC was very particular with our documents and everything had to be just right. It took us a couple of mailings, but we are now approved with a 90 day work visa. Once we arrive in Dhahran, our school will help secure us a full one year work visa. Unfortunately, this process runs into our 1st vacation, so we'll have to stay in Saudi Arabia for the duration of our first school break. Can you say, "Desert Vacation!"

To refresh everyone's memory, Jamie will be teaching high school social studies, specifically Modern European History and AP United States Government. She is very excited about the latter as it is a subject that we both enjoy teaching. I will be teaching 7th grade Math and Science.

We have found out quite a bit of information about our compound and the city in which we will live, but I'll save those details for when we actually arrive in Saudi. There is no shortage of Internet, so I should be up and running with Internet immediately, and I'll do my best to post regularly and often. I am betting that many people will be wondering what it is like to live in The Kingdom.

As you can see, I have revamped the blog site with an all new look and name change. This officially closes the book on the China blog. I just used a template design and then fiddled a little with the html code. I hope you like it and hope you can give me some feedback.

Where Have We Been?

2010-07-06T03:41:00.000-04:00

From CNY 2010

Jamie and I left our lives in Cartersville, Georgia, USA, for Shekou, Shenzhen, China on July 31, 2008. Since then, we have been working at Quality Schools International of Shekou as middle school teachers. These last 2 years have been amazing as we have had our first overseas living experience. It has been nothing short of spectacular as we have had the opportunity to work with amazing students, teachers, and administrators, see the world, and experience various cultures. I believe we have both grown as people, and it has also brought us closer together as husband and wife.

While working and traveling, we have been both been writing our dissertations for our PhD's in Curriculum and Instruction. Our host country of China and city of Shenzhen was a perfect match for us for our first international teaching experience. We lived in Shekou, China, a city within the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. It was also the first time we lived in a large city, so we lived in a high rise apartment, walked everywhere, and took public transportation. We didn't own a car and didn't ever need one. Living in Shekou was a great lifestyle as we were able to afford a housekeeper (AYI) and live comfortably on just a small amount each month. This way, we were also able to save some money and traveled extensively in southeast Asia. While the teaching at QSI and living in Shekou was a wonderful experience, we decided to seek other opportunities abroad. We went to a job fair in January 2010 in Bangkok, Thainland and interviewed with 7 schools.

We have accepted new jobs are moving to Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, in August to take new international teaching positions at International Schools Group. We are both very excited for this opportunity and the many new adventures that we will no doubt experience while living in the Middle East, but also we are also sad to be leaving China, a country that in itself has been a wonderful and enriching experience all to its own.

We have had the opportunity to travel China and southeast Asia with both of our parents, my niece, and even brought my wonderful dog Griffey over here to live with us. Griffey was sent back to the USA in May 2010 and has not circumnavigated the earth.

If this is your first time visiting the blog or if you haven't visited in a while, I've compiled a list of all of the places we have been and briefly things we have seen in our 2 years of living in China. We left China for good on June 20, 2010, but will forever have the memories of that wonderful country in our hearts and minds.

Enjoy the list below and be sure to check out our 11168 photos that have been taken on our journeys. If you wish, you can search the blog site for the details of what happened at each place.

China

Shekou - our home for 2 years
Shenzhen - "The largest city you've never heard of"
Hong Kong - one of our favorite places (too many sites here to list)
Beijing - Great Wall, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Hutongs, Summer Palace, Acrobat Show,
Macau - Portuguese influence, Coloanne, Lord Stowe's Bakery (egg tarts), Venetian, ZAIA
Xian - Terracotta Warriors, Cycling on top of the city walls
Guilin - Longji Rice Terraces
Yangshuo - Karst landscape, Light Show, Caving, Hot Air Balloon Ride
Lijiang - Old city, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Snow Dragon Mountain
Dali - Marble, Cangshan Mountain, Celebrating Xmas with Food Poisoning
Kunming - Stone Forest
Chengdu - one word - Pandas!
Chongqing - Beginning of our Yangtze River Cruise, genuine Hot Pot
Yichang - Three Gorges Dam and End of the Yangtze River Cruise
Shanghai - The Bund, History Museum, Nanjing Road, 2010 World EXPO
Suzhou - canaled city, Venice of China

Cambodia

Phnom Penh - National Palace, Killing Fields, S21 Prison Camp
Siem Reap - Angkor Archeological Site (Angkor Wat), Water Village

Thailand

Bangkok - once for vacation (too many sites to list), once for hospital (kidney stone surgery), several times through the airport, once for the job fair
Chiang Mai - great little city in Northern Thailand
Chiang Rai - starting point to see the Golden Triangle
Golden Triangle - border between Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar (Burma)
Koh Chang Island - island vacation

Indonesia

Bali - Jimbaran, Kuta Beach, Scuba Diving, Kopi Luwak

Philippines

Manila - Intramuros, Jeepneys
Coron Island - beautiful islands, lagoons, and teal/turquoise water
Cebu - Site of Magellan's Cross
Panglao Island - Bohol, Tarsier Monkeys, Chocolate Mounds, World's Largest captive Snake
Boracay Island - beautiful beach and vacation spot

Vietnam

Hanoi - "Hilton", Water Puppet Show, Ho Chi Minh Museum
Sapa - Hill Tribes, Rice Fields/Terraces, Place of Kidney Stone Attack
Halong Bay - Junk Boat Cruise along beautiful water and karst landscape
Ho Chi Minh City - War Museums, Tet Holiday celebrations
Hoi An - charming city with beach and shops
Danang - Marble Mountains, My Son Sanctuary (Vietnam's Angkor)
Hue - Citadel, Emperor's Tombs, Thien Mu Pagoda

Laos

Luang Prabang - laid back city we liked so much we stayed an extra 4 days
Vientiane - capital city of Laos

United States of America

Cartersville, Georgia - our permanent residence
Calhoun, Tennessee - hometown for Eric
Panama City Beach, Florida - vacation spot 2009
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - vacation spot 2010

I have calculated that we have been in a place other than Shekou or the USA once out of every 9 days for the past 21 months.

In 21 months, we have taken 47 flights as best I can count. This may sound expensive, but flying in Asia can be amazingly cheap. Some of our flight in the Philippines were only $9 per one way ticket.

We have traveled every mode of transportation that you can possibly think of with the exception of a helicopter. This includes a private leer jet that was arranged for me to fly from Hanoi, Vietnam to Bangkok, Thailand for my kidney stone surgery.

We aren't sure what adventures we'll have in Saudi Arabia, but we can only hope that those experiences can compare to what we have been able to see and do the last 2 years while living in China.

As always, I appreciate comments you may have. This should be posted on Facebook in the next couple of days and you can always email me at ebrown2324@gmail.com

Also, be sure to check out our online Picasa Album for over 11,000 pictures taken in these marvelous places.

Enjoy!

Summer Schedule

2010-07-05T19:12:00.003-04:00

It is great to be back in the US again, even though it will only be for the summer. Here is our schedule for the rest of the summer if anyone is wondering. Please feel free to find us during those times, and we can catch up with lunch or something. We'll be jumping around a lot it seems:

July 5 - 8 = Cartersville, GA
July 8 - 17 = Tennessee
July 17 - July 18 = Cartersville
July 19 - July 23 = South Georgia
July 24 - July 25 = Cartersville
July 26 - August 4 = Tennessee
August 4 - August 10 = Cartersville
August 9/10 = Leave for Saudi Arabia

Myrtle Beach was great as Jamie rested, I played golf, and we both enjoyed time with our families on the beach. I was able to purchase and entire new wardrobe of school/work clothing as all of my previous clothes were too large for me.

Some things that we miss so far about China (in no particular order):

1) Not needing a car and the ability to walk everywhere
2) Cheap stuff
3) Our friends
4) Our AYI

Some things we are enjoying in the USA:

1) Seeing family
2) The FOOD
3) Clean air and no city sounds
4) The temperature
5) Cheap golf

I think this would different if we were coming back to stay, but this is a decent list that will let you all know a little bit of what we miss and enjoy.

Be on the lookout for a rather lengthy post outlining what Jamie and I have see the last 2 years. I will also be updating the blog site with a new look and of course changing the name as we transition to Saudi Arabia.

Back Home in the USA

2010-06-28T14:25:00.002-04:00

Jamie and I had a very smooth flight back to the United States on June 20. We had left the previous night from Shekou and taken a van to a hotel near the Hong Kong airport. We had a total of 6 bags and 2 backpacks, and the doormen were very helpful at the hotel helping us with all of them. We actually had to switch some of the weight around because we thought the weight of some of the luggage was too heavy.

We woke early the next morning and made our way to the airport for our 9:15 flight. We were surprised that none of the bags were overweight and they did not charge us. Our flight took us 14.5 hours to Detroit where we had a 3 hour layover. We had to go through customs in Detroit where we were almost fined for my fake golf clubs. Luckily, the guy at customs was cool enough. We then had to made the connection to Atlanta arriving at 5:30 pm on June 20. Our families were waiting for us at the airport, and we headed straight back to Jamie's parents house for some dinner and a good night's sleep.

The next 2 days were a blitz as we had to purchase items needed for the summer as well as take care of a ton of paperwork that was necessary for us to complete our work visas for Saudi Arabia. This included a medical exam and a trip to the police station for a background check and letter. The evenings were spent hanging out and trying to relax, although we had some crazy jet lag.

On Wednesday, we headed toward Myrtle Beach. We had to cancel our annual trip to Panama City Beach due to the oil spill conditions; but so far, Myrtle Beach has been great. My parents and family arrived on Saturday, so we have 2 families of 14 people at the beach in 2 condos.

When we return on July 3, we have to finalize some of the visa process paperwork. We'll then head to south Georgia for a while before heading to Tennessee for a couple of weeks and then Georgia for the final 2 weeks. It is expected that we'll leave for Saudi Arabia on August 10.

We have a new cell phone if anyone wants to call and chat while we are in... 404-693-7439.

I'll keep up with the events of our summer on here as we prepare for Saudi.

Guest at Shenzhen University

2010-06-16T03:41:00.002-04:00

I had contacted some professors at Shenzhen University to see if they could help me locate some high school teachers in Shenzhen who might be willing to participate in my research interviews. One professor invited me to his educational research class at the university to participate in a round table discussion with his first year post-graduate students. They were all mastering in education.

So, on Sunday afternoon June 13, I decided to join his class for the day. I had been to Shenzhen University the previous week to meet with another professor, so I thought I knew my way around. I had told my research assistant/translator that I did not need her to go with me because the students and professor both spoke English (or at least enough to understand me). My assistant nonetheless gave me detailed directions and seemed worried. Little did I know that she would be correct.

I took the 30 minute bus ride and arrived on campus 20 minutes early. I actually walked in to a different gate from when I had gone previously, so I was immediately lost. I asked about 10 different people and they each gave me about 10 different answers as to the location of the teacher college. I fast-walked for 30 minutes before finally finding the correct gate and knowing my bearings.

Let me pause a minute here to discuss the humidity in Shenzhen. When you walk outside, it is as though you as going to drown because you might suck in water. A simple stroll a block away will leave you sweating profusely. Needless to say, when I arrived at the professors room, I was a soaking wet sweaty horrible looking American disaster. I had even gone to the restroom to wash up a little bit, but of course this being China, there were no paper towels.

I eventually caught my breath, joined the class, and had a valuable experience. I'm sure I looked like a complete idiot arriving 20 minutes late and soaking wet, but I believe I did well in leading the discussion on education research. They seemed pleased enough and really wanted to know the differences in the American and Chinese educational systems. I am becoming somewhat of an expert at this.

Decent story that I'll never forget for joining in a Chinese university class and showing up a sweaty mess.

Just thought I'd share.

"The Bubble" Show - City of Dreams - Macau

2010-06-08T09:19:00.007-04:00

Saturday and Sunday, Jamie and I went to Macau for the last time. For those that have never heard of it (I haven't until I moved over here), Macau is a special administrative zone much like Hong Kong is. It was a Portuguese colony (the first and only European colony in China) for a while and there is still an influence there, although only 1% of the population speak Portuguese. Macau is now a sprawling tourist town known for its casinos. The Venetian, the world's largest hotel, is there, as is the Wynn, Rio, Hard Rock, Lisboa, among others.

Jamie and I headed there Saturday afternoon, checked in to our favorite hotel there, the Hotel Royal, and then went to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. We thought there would be a cafe there, but it is not built yet. We bought some shirts anyway and headed to the Blue Frog, a great bar/restaurant in the Venetia with good food. Our next stop was the newly built City of Dreams. It is a shopping complex, but has a show called The Bubble, a 4D experience (see video above for a scene from it as well as our Picasa Photo Album for more videos). It is a dome similar to a planetarium that shows a 15 minute 4D show. They change the showing every now and then, but this one was about a dragon who goes through several geographical scenes. It was really cool. I'll upload some videos of it so you can check it out.

We checked in for the night, slept in for the morning, and headed out to the old part of the city for one last look at the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral. We tried to go to the dog tracks, but it did not open until 5pm, so we headed back to the hotel so we could check out before heading to the horse tracks. I bet on a couple of races, although they were not racing in Macau that day, only in Malaysia and Hong Kong. I lost both unfortunately. I accept the fact that the horses I bet on were just not as fast as those that won.

We then took the bus down to Coloanne for one last look at one of our favorite villages and the world famous Lord Stowe's Bakery Portuguese Egg Tarts. We bought 3 to eat there and 6 for take away (to go). We walked the village one last time, headed back to the Venetian to eat at Fatburger, then it was time to go.

Macau is a wonderful place for a weekend getaway, and we'll miss going there. They are building new casinos and resorts, so the next time we go to Macau, it will be very different.

We have just 11 days remaining until we head back to the US. There is a ton to do before then: final grades, literacy folders, pass on folders, clean up our classrooms, check out procedures, packing up our apartment, Chinese teachers to interview for my dissertation, and goodbyes to say.

I'll keep you posted on how our last few days in China are, but it is fast approaching and will be gone soon.

Hong Kong - One Last Time

2010-06-02T09:47:00.001-04:00

From Hong Kong May 2010

Jamie and I spent Saturday and Sunday afternoon in what will be our last time visiting Hong Kong. I have really fallen in love with that city and would move there in a heartbeat. It wasn’t in the cards this time, but perhaps down the road, we’ll find our way back there.

Saturday afternoon we took the ferry across to Central, had lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Tequila, and checked into our hotel, Bishop Lei International Hotel. It is a great place that is half a block from the mid-level escalators in Central with a usually great price for being in the center of the city.

We had wanted to catch the nightly 8:00 pm light show that projects across Victoria Harbor onto the city skyline, so we took the Star Ferry across to Kowloon and checked out the Hong Kong Science Museum. Great museum that we wish we could take our students to, but several of our students have only Chinese visas and can’t enter Hong Kong and re-enter China, so field trips to Hong Kong are sometimes pretty iffy. After the science museum, it was pouring down rain, so we didn’t catch the light show. Instead, we headed toward Lan Kwai Fong, the famous bar street in Hong Kong, and ate at a great place called Bulldogs.

We slept in because our bed was very comfortable, but after lunch at Just Salad (wonderful salad only restaurant) headed out to see an art exhibition called Hope and Glory by Simon Birch. It was a multi-media abstract art exhibition that was really way over our heads. We both agreed that we weren’t artsy or art intelligent enough to understand or appreciate it that much. Nonetheless, it was free and only cost us the metro ride over there. We then headed to the horse tracks where I bet on 2 races and won 1 of them. Sweet! I paid or my lunch with that one. Our next stop was a place I had been wanting to go every since I saw the map of Hong Kong, the cemetery.
I have been amazed by cemeteries ever since a project I had to do in an undergraduate Tennessee history class in college. The Hong Kong Cemetery is right in the middle of the city and sits on the side of a mountain, so the graves are terraced, very old, and has sections for the different religions, mainly Jews, Muslims, and Christians. We found some cool headstones and some that I need to research further to understand their meaning.

We headed on the trolley (still the best way to get around Hong Kong Island), and headed back to Soho and the mid level escalators and found lunch/dinner at Build a Burger (wonderful hamburgers), picked up our stuff at the hotel, bought our ferry tickets, dropped by IFC Mall for some dessert, stopped by Dymocks one last time to purchase more magazines (entirely too expensive), and waved farewell to Hong Kong for what could be the last time on the last ferry back to Shekou for the night.
Be sure to check out a few of our pictures. Some cool ones of Hope and Glory, the cemetery, and just us having a blast in Hong Kong.

Griffey's Adventure Back to the USA

2010-05-21T19:06:00.001-04:00

From Shekou March 2009

Griffey was picked up at our apartment at 2:30 on May 21 and taken across the border of China and into Hong Kong. He left Hong Kong airport on a KLM flight to Amsterdam and arrived there later the next day. He stayed overnight in an Animal Hotel at the Amsterdam airport before flying to Atlanta in the morning.

My parents have agreed to take care of him until we can get home, so they met Griffey in Atlanta on Friday afternoon, but the animal customs had closed at 5:00 and Griffey's plane arrived at 5:15. My parents had to stay in Atlanta for the night and Griffey was boarded at the airport.

I just got off the phone with my parents, and they finally received Griffey on Saturday morning about 9:30. So, Griffey left me at 2:30 pm China time on Thursday and arrived at 9:30 am Saturday Atlanta time, a total of 55 hours, including 2 plane rides across Asia and Europe and the Atlantic Ocean and kennels stays in Amsterdam and Atlanta.

Not bad for a beagle! Griffey has now traveled completely around the world!

I miss him already, but it'll be a month or so, and I'll get to see him again.

May Holiday - Day 10 - Shanghai EXPO

2010-05-02T09:59:00.000-04:00

Another early morning as we wanted to try and be at the gates of the EXPO just as they opened at 9:00. We arrived at the Metro Station that leads directly to the center of the EXPO at 8:50, plenty of time. Apparently, the entire city had the same idea as thousands of people waited at the metro station gate that also served as an entrance into the EXPO.

We had planned to try and see as many of the country pavilions as possible in two ways: just seeing the outside and the ones we really liked, go inside and view. We first went to the center of the EXPO and the China pavilion, an enormous upside down pyramid. We didn’t go into this one because we figured that half of the Chinese visitors would be there. So we headed to the Asia area and toward the pavilion of our future home, Saudi Arabia.

IT WAS PACKED. Probably the longest line of the entire EXPO, and we have no idea why. Perhaps they were giving away free gasoline, but we found out later that it was the 2nd largest pavilion behind China, had a desert and sea in it, and the largest cinema screen (1600 square feet) in the world. Hundreds of people had lined up there and we were told it would be more than 2 hours. Instead of waiting (we only had 6 hours total), we decided to walk around the other pavilions and try to find shorter lines. There weren’t any. All of the lines were at least a 45 minute wait. We finally made our way to the Africa combined pavilion where you could just walk in without a line. It was pretty cool and brought about some interesting discussion about certain countries and continents’ wealth.

We walked around Europe and the Americas. We were very unimpressed at the US pavilion. As you can tell from the pictures, some countries went all out on the outside of their pavilions to make them look appealing. The most boring person in the world must have designed the US pavilion. Again, the lines for these amazing country pavilions were so long that we didn’t take the time to go in them. We didn’t want to waste time in lines. We did hungry, so the first place we thought of to go eat (except the US) was… you guessed it – MEXICO. Apparently, many of the Chinese had the same idea the Mexico pavilion was also pretty crowded. We waited in line mainly just to get in to the restaurant inside. We were vastly disappointed and they must have been taking tips from Disney World on what to charge for crappy food.

We then walked to a close up view of the China pavilion and around some of the others, tried again at Saudi Arabia, and decided to try one of the theme pavilions across the river. The EXPO was divided into 5 zones: A, B, C, D, and E. We ended up going through all of them in a whirl, but we figured it would take someone 3 straight weeks going 8 hours per day actually see all of the pavilions. Our last stop was the “Future” pavilion, which was very cool as it discussed the various new technologies that were going into future city planning.

We are very glad that we went to the EXPO even though we didn’t really get to see much of it. Just being there was a great experience and something we won’t forget. We only wish we had more time to spend there in order to truly enjoy it. We envy our friends who live in Shanghai as they will have 185 more days to experience it.

As this vacation comes to close, it will be our last one of our adventures in China. Our plan is to visit Hong Kong at least one more time and Macau again. We might make a trip to Guangzhou too. We are running out of time. I have written a list of all of the places we have visited and seen in the last 2 years. I’ll be posting it along with some cool statistics in a few weeks. We actually get a lot of people who read this blog who are searching QSI and Shekou. Nice to know someone reads it.

Be sure to check out the pictures of the EXPO and remember that this was only a small fraction of it.

May Holiday - Day 9 - Suzhou

2010-05-01T10:44:00.000-04:00

We woke early so we could catch an early train to Suzhou, a city only 40 minutes south of Shanghai via the bullet train. Great train and seats on the short 40 minute ride. We immediately visited the North Tower Pagoda and had a great view of the city from 9 stories up in this giant pagoda.

We had read that getting a taxi in the city was very easy, so our goal was to simply take a taxi around the city of the various gardens. No problem. Well, it was difficult all day to find a taxi where sometimes it would take us 20 minutes of waiting trying to hail a cab. We walked all the way next to the Suzhuo Museum which was designed by I.M. Pei. Unfortunately, the line was way too long as it was wrapped through the walkway for more than 100 meters. We decided to move on down to the Humble Administrator's Garden, but again, the line was long and the price was a bit too steep. We hated to miss this one, but there are literally dozens of gardens all over the city, so we figured we'd be able to see others.

We did find a cab to take us to the central part of the city where the famous canals are. They were nice enough, but we weren't blown away by them. I guess we had in our minds an ancient area like all others in China except on water, but it just wasn't that impressive. We walked down a little more and finally found the Lingering Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. These gardens were beautiful and I strongly recommend you check out the pictures we took around these. We had fun posing with the flowers, bonzai trees, and rock formations.

It took us forever to find a taxi to take us to our lunch destination. When we finally did find one, the restaurant we wanted to go to was closed. We opted for a nice Italian restaurant instead. It was about time to go, we headed toward the train station where we finally found a bus to take us. We stopped by the Suzhou Silk Museum, an excellent museum that took us through the history of silk in China, including the Silk Road. The highlight was seeing actually silk worms - see video.

A 40 minute train ride back to Shanghai, a quick shower, and we headed out again to the Yu Gardens for dinner. Took some cool pictures of this place at night and we ate some great and cheap sushi. We ended our great but tiring day by checking out the Shanghai skyline once again along the Bund.

As I type this, I am planning our day tomorrow at the EXPO. Check back for I'm sure some outstanding pictures of the pavilions and the 2010 EXPO.

May Holiday 2010 - Day 8

2010-04-30T10:25:00.002-04:00

From May Holiday - Day 8 - Shanghai

We awoke this morning, but had to wait around on our laundry to finish. For some reason, our hostel took 2 and a half days to do our laundry. We had pre-purchased tickets for Alice and Wonderland in 3D at Xin Tian Di Cineplex, so we took a quick cab over there to see the movie. Great film if you haven’t seen it. I downloaded the book and plan on reading it after I finish my current book. I have started downloading some of the classics on my Kindle, so I’m reading Gulliver’s Travels right now and plan to read Alice afterward. As a kid, I didn’t quite have the love for reading as I do as an adult.

Our next adventure was to find the Hard Rock Café Shop and try and find a t-shirt. The HRC of Shanghai closed in February, but there was a store that still sold the merchandise. After roaming around for 45 minutes trying to find it, we discovered that it had already been converted into another store. What was fascinating was that they had closed down the entire street around the Shanghai Center. I believe some high ranking officials or someone obviously more important that us were exiting the center and probably on the way to the EXPO.

If you haven’t checked the 2010 Shanghai EXPO online, please do. We bought tickets today for only Sunday. We will only have about 6 hours to walk around the EXPO, but I believe it will be well worth the cost of the tickets. The Chinese government has pumped in around 40 billion dollars into the EXPO, more than what they spent for the Olympics. 194 countries have built pavilions, some amazing beautiful, artsy, or architecturally unique. Our goal on Sunday is to see as many as possible, but the EXPO covers a rather large area, so I doubt we’ll be able to see even half of them.

We are sitting here watching the opening ceremonies on TV as I type this. They are showing the flyover of the pavilions and they are enormous. These are pavilions, these are large scale buildings. The US’s pavilion costs 61 millions dollars and they were late getting in the game. They weren’t even coming to this EXPO until Hillary Clinton encouraged some people to donate for the pavilion.

Back to our day, after our failed attempt to buy our t-shirts, we checked out of our hostel and into a much better one that is right next to the Bund. Great location. We dropped our stuff off and headed out toward the Yu Yuan (Yu Gardens). This area of town does have some beautiful gardens historically, but it has now been really converted into a shopping and restaurant district but decorated with traditional architecture. I took some good pictures of some of the buildings including Dairy Queen, KFC, and Starbucks all keeping with the style.

Jamie decided to stay in for the night, but I headed out to the Bund to try and take some pictures of the Shanghai skyline at night. If there are 20 million people in this city, I bet 18 million were out on the Bund along the riverfront. I had previously read that you probably wouldn’t be able to see any of the fireworks from the opening ceremony along the Bund, so I wasn’t planning on staying out there for that. I guess the zillion people thought otherwise because it was packed with people hoping to see them.

I don’t know if they could or not because I decided to come in and watch it on TV. As I sit here and type this, the fireworks and laser show is going on live on TV, but we can actually hear the fireworks 5 km away from our hostel. Amazing show along the riverfront where they have used the 2 bridges as launching pads for some of the fireworks as well as for a laser show. The centerpiece of the ceremony is the LCD screen that aligns the waterfront that they are claiming is the largest LCD screen in the world. I haven’t heard the dimensions. The ceremony is a mixture of laser lights, water show, LCD television, and fireworks. They just got through have little small boats float up and down the river carrying the flag of every nation.

Enough about the ceremony. I only wish we could have gone, but it is more of a VIP thing. It is a shame that most of the people in the US have not even heard about the EXPO much less have the ability to tune in to see this ceremony. I think it is just as good if not better than the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing. China should be proud.

Tomorrow we’ll take a 40 minute train ride to Suzhou to tour that city for the day before heading back to Shanghai tomorrow evening. Sunday will be a jam packed day of EXPO where I will take a zillion pictures before sadly flying back to Shenzhen that evening.

I’ll get the pictures from today uploaded although there aren’t many.

May Holiday 2010 - Day 7

2010-04-29T10:49:00.004-04:00

We slept in before heading out to the Shanghai Museum, a fabulous museum that also free, a rarity in China. The only problem was that we were pushed through some of the rooms as there were apparently more important people who wished to view the exhibitions privately. One of the highlights for me was viewing a piece of Neolithic pottery that dated back 8000 years. Oldest artifact I have ever seen, pretty amazing.

We then took a long long trip north of city central to purchase train tickets for our trip to Suzhou in a couple of days. We finally found the ticket office and it was pretty easy, but the signs pointed us in the wrong direction at first.

Lunch was very tasty at a chicken curry restaurant on Nanjing Road. We then headed out to try and find 2 things: Expo tickets and an agency selling night river cruises. We went 0 for 2 in our search, so decided to get some rest. Walking around the entire morning had exhausted us and I believe our trip has worn on us some.

After some rest, we headed toward Xin Tian Di street, a renovated street of ritzy restaurants that was also the site of when Mao Zedong first began meeting with his friends discussing the soon to be created communist state of China. Dinner was Italian before heading back. We'll be back at Xin Tian Di tomorrow to see a matinee of Alice and Wonderland in 3D.

Tiring day without getting really anything accomplished. That's OK, because Shanghai is rapidly becoming one of our favorite cities. The city is a buzz because of the EXPO which starts on May 1 and will run for 187 days. We'll try and get some tickets to it for May 2, but if not, we still plan to walk around seeing the country's pavilions.

Not many pictures today, but keep reading...

May Holiday 2010 - Day 6

2010-04-29T10:43:00.004-04:00

From May Holiday - Day 6 - Shanghai

Today, we set out for a nice full day in Shanghai. We first walked through the People’s Square, similar to Central Park in New York, but smaller. It is nice because you have the tower skyscrapers all around and some marvelous architecture mixed with a lovely park.

We found our way to the famous Nanjing Road, a pedestrian street that has shops all around it for miles. We found a place for lunch and then headed down toward The Bund. The Bund is an area of Shanghai on the riverfront with spectacular views of the Pudong district of Shanghai, its newer section with tall amazing skyscrapers and the skyline that most people would recognize or think about when they think of the city. The Bund also has 54 large buildings aligning the road of various architectural designs in Romanesque, Classicism, Baroque, among others.

Jamie went back to the hostel and rested for a little while I decided to check out the Urban Planning Museum. It was a pretty cool museum that told the history and future of urban planning of Shanghai. The highlight was the large scale model of the city on the 3rd floor.

I napped a bit before heading out to check out the night skyline. Our destination was the Jin Mao Tower, the tallest building in Shanghai, where we would take the elevator to the 88th floor and check out the town. Unfortunately, we arrived too late, so we had to settle for the restaurant/bar called Cloud 9 which was on the 87th floor. Still a great view, but we had to buy 120 RMB per person minimum to stay in the place. Needless to say, we can now say we’ve had a drink at the world’s highest bar, which is cool to say.

Great day checking out the city. Be sure to check out the pictures. I am having some trouble uploading them all here, but I'll be sure to get them all on there when we return on Sunday night.

May Holiday 2010 - Day 5

2010-04-27T20:19:00.001-04:00

We stayed up last night for a while to watch our cruise ship go through the lock system at the Three Gorges Dam along the Yangtze River. We started going though at 11:15 pm and finished up sometime after 2:15. We were going down the lock system which is actually a 5 lock system. They have one for upstream and one for downstream, so boats do not have to wait. The locks were enormous and we had 4 ships end to end and side by side in our lock going down. Jamie stayed up for the 1st lock and I stayed up through the 2nd. Very impressive feat of ingenuity. They are currently building a ship “lift” or elevator that will only take 40 minutes to fill up the 125 meter single lock that will lift or lower the boats. It is supposed to be finished in 2015.

After breakfast, we went on an outside tour of the Three Gorges Dam. I’ll let you read all about its specifics by googling, but it is the largest hydroelectric power dam in the world. Construction started in 1993 and the last phase of the original design will not finish until 2015; however, this 22 year project benefits China is some amazing ways for flood control, energy, and transportation. As I mentioned earlier, the dam flooding displaced 1.3 million people, but the government provided them with money and low interest loans to start a new life. The younger generations especially seem more hopeful.

The tour was decent enough, but we didn’t really get to see too much except for one view from the side. I enjoyed it though, especially the lock system and being able to experience it.

After our tour, we wound our way through the last of the Three Gorges, Xinling Gorge. This gorge is probably the most beautiful due to the more karst-like landscape that towers over the river. We didn’t take too many pictures, but did get a great one of us from the back of the boat.

After lunch, it was time to say goodbye to the Victoria Rose and her crew, so we headed to the airport, waited 4 hours, then boarded a flight to Shanghai.

While I type this on our first night in Shanghai, I can already tell we are going to like this place. This city is huge and VERY modern. Lights and tall skyscrapers everywhere and that was just the drive though the city. Tomorrow, we’ll get a first hand view as we set off to explore this city of 20 million people.

May Holiday 2010 - Day 4

2010-04-27T20:04:00.003-04:00

We woke early, ate breakfast, and disembarked for Baidicheng or the White Emperor City. There is quite long long history to this place and one in which would take several books to write. I can summarize by saying that since the Three Gorges Dam has been built, it is an island which is inhabited by an ancient Chinese gated city dating back to the Han Dynasty a couple of thousand years ago. It is now mainly a tourist site where travels of cruises like ours visit on excursions from the ship. Jamie and I were the only English speaking tourists who decided to make this excursion.

Our guide, Apple, showed us the city and explained its history after we climbed the 300 steps to the top. We could have paid 2 guys to carry us to the top in these chairs, but we politely declined. These men are displaced farmers who now make a living carry tourists to the top of the White Emperor City. Among the sites we saw in this area were the poems carved by Du Fu and Li Bai, two of China’s greatest poets who spent some time there during their lives and were inspired. The White Emperor City is at the entrance to the 1st Gorge along the Yangtze River, the Qutang Gorge. The gorge is especially interesting because it is featured on the back of the 10 RMB note where you can pose for the picture inside the White Emperor City. Another interesting site inside the city was small room that showed the Hanging Coffins of the Ba ancient civilization. The Ba civilization of cultural ethnic group of China dates back 5000 years and lived along the Gorges of the Yangtze River. One of their customs was to bury their wealthy in caskets and literally place them or “hang” them in small caves or crevices along the gorge walls. Some of the coffins are as high as 900 feet from the water today, 1100 feet from the water prior to flooding. We were able to see these coffins up close and our guide explained how they were able to place these coffins in such precarious positions. According to archeologists, there are three explanations: using scaffolds, using a raised platform, or scaling the gorge from the top. As you can see from the pictures, all three methods would be difficult.

We walked back down our 300 steps and heard went exited though a very typical Chinese tourist “factory.” Every city in China is famous for something: Dali has marble, Beijing has pearls and jade, etc. This city was famous for its oranges for some reason and its wooden combs. Hundreds of women were selling these small wooden combs. Our guide told us that these combs were fake, of course, but the real combs were the government certified combs sold in the store. Go figure. These combs apparently are made from a special tree called the Rong Shu and sell anywhere from $5 to $125 US depending on what part of the tree it is made from, the root, trunk, or branch.

We boarded our ship afterwards and rested a short bit before lunch. After lunch, we disembarked again for 2 smaller cruises to see the lesser gorge and the lesser lesser gorges of the Yangtze River. I will have to go through my pictures to find the names of these gorges, but the highlight was being able to see 3 hanging coffins still in the cliffs. Be sure to check out the pictures of these in our photo album. These smaller cruises were very relaxing and the scenery was spectacular. After a rainy, misty first day, we were thankful to have some sun. Unfortunately, this is still China so there is a constant haze, even out in the middle of nowhere.

After returning, we learned to play Mahjong, an ancient Chinese game similar to gin rummy except with cards and different characters. It is a fun game and actually pretty easy to learn. Jamie and I plan on buying a set before we leave China.

Dinner was delicious tonight and we ended the evening watching a cabaret performance with more Chinese staff and some tourists who could play some instruments and sing.

Tonight (I’ll put it on the blog tomorrow), we will travel through the Three Gorges Dam. It will take us 3-4 hours to go through their 5 lock system. It will be in the middle of the night, but well worth staying up at least a little bit for. Check back for pictures and a description of what I’m sure will be an amazing adventure.

May Holiday 2010 – Day 3

2010-04-27T19:59:00.000-04:00

After a buffet breakfast on the ship, we enjoyed a couple of presentations by the Chinese staff on board. The first presentation was a Powerpoint and video of the history of the Yangtze River and the Three Gorges Dam. It was very informative.

Just to let you know, the Yangtze River is the 3rd longest river in the world and the longest in Asia. The Three Gorges Dam, when flooded on June 1, 2003, displaced between 1.3 and 2 million people. Some of these people had family who had lived in the same village for 35 generations. While they were compensated for their displacement by the government (very little), the lives of the older generation are still torn. We have noticed that the younger generations sees this displacement as an opportunity for additional types of work along the river. The Yangtze River history is truly fascinating, and I’ll try and give you a little insight to what we’ve learned as we go.

After the presentation, another followed by the doctor on board. He discussed the eastern practice of acupuncture and accupressue. Jamie even volunteered for the demonstration and still has the mark on her neck to prove it. See picture and video!

The ship is so relaxing. You can rest in your room and watch river go by out your window you can relax on the decks. We spend most of the time in the room napping and reading or watching a movie.

After lunch, we headed out to Fengdu, most known as the Ghost City of China. You can clearly see the remains of the city that was once here but is now flooded by the Yangtze after the dam’s completion. The villagers were moved across the river to what is now a city of 100,000 people. The Ghost City still remains and has been restored as a temple complex for Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. It is said that the Chinese, even those living abroad, will come back to this ghost city and be judged prior to moving on to the afterlife. It looked very similar to all of the other temple complexes Jamie and I have seen in our travels of China, but the “ghost” section of the “underworld” was pretty cool as they had sculptures of all of these ghosts depicting various character traits. Our local guide, Jimmy, led us through in typical tour guide fashion and had us do the all of the typical tourist things along the way to keep us entertained. At one point, I bunny hopped up 25 steps because I turned 33 this year. All of these little activities are supposed to be for good luck or good fortune, or for a long life. China is littered with stories like that. I guess if your country had a history of 5000 years of civilization, you’d have stories too.

Prior to dinner, we had a captain’s meet and greet with appetizers and free Champaign. Dinner was typical Chinese style and was delicious enough. Jamie and I then waited around in the multipurpose area for the traditional Chinese performance, our entertainment for the evening. The performance was very cute as it was performed by the Chinese staff on board, cleaning crew, bartenders, and dinner staff. They performed some dances and dressed in traditional dynasty era dress. Somewhat hokey, but we were pleased and entertained.

Tomorrow is an absolutely jam packed day as we leave early at 7:00 am to see the White Emperor City. More details to come, so check out all of the pictures and videos.

May Holiday 2010 – Day 2

2010-04-27T19:55:00.000-04:00

Chongqing

We actually slept in a little and had a plan for the day. We took a 40 minute bus from our hostel to the ancient city of Chongqing. This area reminded us of many of the ancient cities of China we have visited. The gridded design of the city, slanted Asian style shingled roofs and thousands of shops selling just about handicraft and snack you could imagine. We spent a couple of hours wandering through the streets, enjoying some snacks, and even purchased some framed Chinese artwork at a local store.

A quick taxi across the city brought us to the People’s Square, which is surrounded by the Three Gorges Dam Museum as well as the People’s Hall, the symbol of Chongqing and quite an impressive building. We walked around trying to find a good restaurant for the famous Hot Pot meal. We have described hot pot before, but it is basically a fondue style chicken broth that is set before you. You then add some veggies and a variety of meats to the pot, wait a few minutes for it to cook, and dive in. Chongqing is considered the birthplace of hot pot, so we definitely wanted to partake in some while we were here. Most westerners will opt for the regular broth with NO spicy sauces. We like the yin and yang pot that is half spicy and half regular. The Chinese will usually opt for all spicy. Our hot pot restaurant in Shekou serves up a delicious yin and yang that really isn’t that spicy. We’ve learned that we can eat mainly from the spicy side. The Chongqing spicy recipe will set your mouth on fire. While we dipped into the spicy side, we actually had to dip our servings into the regular side to wash off some of the spicy. Yes, it was that hot. Being the only westerners in the restaurant, we enjoyed many stares, but also some great service from the staff, who were probably curious as to why we were there.

Our next stop was the Three Gorges Dam Museum. We opted to not to go the People’s Hall. The museum was wonderful and led you through 4 stories of the dam’s history as well as other exhibitions on the history of Chongqing, Chinese currency, and Chinese calligraphy. A Chinese art gallery at the top caught our eye as we purchased three unique framed paintings. You’ll have to see our home some day, but these paintings were done on very thin and transparent leaves with beautiful scenery of the three gorges we’ll pass through tomorrow.

Our next stop took us wandering around the city trying to find the cable car ride across the river. We took some pretty good video shots here that you’ll be able to see the city skyline pretty well despite its haziness.

We then headed back to our hostel to wait for driver to pick us up and take us to our cruise ship. We arrived on the boat at about 7:00. Interestingly, the cruise ship had their staff line up and greet each passenger while a small band played as you boarded the ship. We chose to book the Victoria Rose cruise ship. This is a ship in a fleet under the Victoria line. They cater to international travelers, and we felt right at home once we entered. Our cabin is a decent size and the facilities on the ship are very nice.

This ship will take us down the Yangtze River through the Three Gorges before finally arriving at the Three Gorges Dam, the largest dam in the world.

I don’t believe we’ll have a decent Internet connection on board, so almost all of this will probably be posted after the fact and once we are in Shanghai.

May Holiday 2010 – Day 1

2010-04-27T19:51:00.000-04:00

Shenzhen to Chongqing

After a long day at work, Jamie and I caught a 2 hour flight to Chongqing to begin our vacation for the May holiday. We arrived late, checked in to the Yangtze Riverside International Hostel. Didn’t get to do anything but plan for the next day, then absolutely crashed.

Chongqing is China’s largest city in land area and has a population of nearly 20 million people. It is an interesting designed city and was the capital of China during WWII when the Japanese invaded. Like most Chinese cities, it has an ancient town and a sprawling urban area with tall apartments and skyscrapers. It is now most noted for being the port for the beginning of the Three Gorges Dam Yangtze River Cruise, a cruise which we will take tomorrow for 4 days.

Middle School MUN Conference

2010-04-11T21:44:00.004-04:00

My wonderful wife volunteered last spring for us to organize the middle school MUN conference this year. While we have had all year to plan this event, we had zero, zilch, nada idea about how to actually organize a MUN conference. Slowly, we began finding some information and organizing the conference. In short 5 schools from Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hong Kong, and Shenzhen represented 9 model nations and came to the conference hosted by QSI Shekou. Jamie and I were responsible for arranging everything but we had some help from the visiting teachers, our own students, the QSI staff, and the QSI students. We made the registration packets, found hosts for 8 students and 2 adults, ordered all of the food, made sure the building was set up, designed the t-shirts, certificates, and made a 25 page full color program. We also set up and orchestrated the opening and closing ceremonies which included flags from all participating nations and their national anthems.

It was a ton of work and overall a huge success and opportunity for the students involved. It makes me look back to my middle and high schools days and wish that I had those opportunities. There are always some pros and cons of living in a small town and going to a small school.

We have some final touches to do for the post conference; but it is downhill from here for Jamie and I. We have a trip scheduled to Chongqing to begin the Yangtze River Cruise and ending in Shanghai, but that trip is at the end of the month. We'll go to Macau one more time and perhaps a trip to Guangzhou. Of course, we'll hit up Hong Kong a couple more times prior to leaving China for good on June 20.

My dissertation research is just around the corner, and I'll be putting in some major hours interviewing Chinese teachers and writing Chapters 4 and 5 of my dissertation. Ultimate goals is to finish by the end of the summer, but that might be too optimistic.

Griffey is doing great and we'll be shipping him home within a month. More information to come about that, and I'll keep you posted. People who move to Shekou like to read our blog and it might be helpful for them if they want to move a pet. I'll be posting more over the next several months as we begin our preparation to move out of China, back to the U.S. for a month, then to Saudi Arabia in August.

Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Lecture at the Chinese School

2010-03-31T18:36:00.002-04:00

A teacher at the local senior high school here in Shekou had asked me to come in one day and give a lesson to his economics class. I thought it would be interesting to teach these students, so I eagerly agreed. All sorts of thought ran through my head about what type of economics lesson I could prepare for these students. They mainly have lecture based classes, so I wanted them to experience a different way of teaching.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to offer this. The teacher invited a few classes to join his and they filled up a small auditorium of about 75 students just to hear me speak. My name was placed on the marquis outside the school and there were several people in and out with cameras and videos. Yes, I'm quite the celebrity.

He had asked me to talk about the Sino-US trade relations as well as the appreciation of the RMB and the US arms deals with Taiwan. I thought the last one was a loaded question, so I decided to tip toe around it. I decided instead to introduce the students to the history of the diplomatic and trade relations between the US and China. I prepared a quick pre-test for the students and a quick 20 slide Powerpoint.

Did they understand me? Apparently, most of them did, but my translator and another helpful student said the students aren't used to speaking in class, so they were just very quiet and didn't respond much to my questions. I did have a couple of questions thrown my way by some more eager students. My presentation ran about 40 minutes and they actually extended the classtime so students could ask questions.

I think overall, it went pretty well and the Chinese teacher was pleased. Apparently, it is a big deal for them to have a westerner come in and talk to their class, so I guess it gave him some teacher points for the year. Most importantly, it put me on his side for my research. He was now more inclined to help me with my research by finding additional teachers and getting some important signatures for me.

Interesting experience and there was some talk of me giving another lecture to another school. I'm not sure I have time for it, but I would be up for it.

Chengdu - Sunday - Day 3

2010-03-31T18:33:00.002-04:00

From Chengdu March 2010 Jamie

We woke up early again to catch a city bus that took us 2 hours to Leshan City, the site of the famous Giant Buddha. Another quick 30 minute bus ride took us to the entrance to the park where we climbed the steps to the top of the Giant Buddha.

The Leshan Giant Buddha was carved during the Tang dynasty beginning in 713 and ending in 803. It is carved from the mountain and sits facing the river and Mt. Emei. At 233 feet tall, it is the world's largest buddha statue. Jamie and I have seen several of the world's largest buddhas, but they are all made from different material, largest bronze, sitting, standing, etc.

You climb to the top of his head, look around at teh various monasteries that are at the top. One little site is a cave where it is said that the original carver stayed while working. You then work your way down a steep, narrow, and crowded path all the way down to the feet of the Buddha. You get to see up close his head, shoulders, hands, and legs. The Chinese government is apparently in the works of repairing this landmark, because as you can tell, it is quite dirty and has suffered from pollution and erosion.

To get out, we had to climb back up the stairs, then back down them and exit the park. A quick 15 minute cab ride dropped us off at the bus station where we took the 2 hour bus back to Chengdu, grabbed a quick lunch, and headed to the airport for our flight back to Shenzhen. We were back in our apartment by 9:00, pretty early for us after a trip.

Overall, this was a great weekend getaway. Chengdu is a very pleasant town. Very modern, yet does have this old city feel to it. We really enjoyed the panda reserve and highly recommend it to anyone who might be going to the area.

Be sure to check out our pictures of the Giant Buddha online in our photo gallery.

Chengdu - Saturday - Day 2

2010-03-29T18:50:00.004-04:00

From Chengdu March 2010 Jamie

Jamie and I started out early and had booked a tour (we were the only ones) with the hostel for the Chengdu Panda Research Base. China has a few of these research bases for panda bears, but this is probably the most easily accessible one for most tourists. It isn't the largest, but certainly has plenty of panda bears for you to see. We arrived early, before feeding time, and our guide explained all there was to know about the panda bears. Literally, just ask one of us about a panda bear next time and we'll tell you some obscure facts about them. You can do your own research if you are interested, but these bears are fascinating creatures that have been on the earth for about 8 million years.

We arrived just in time to see them walk out from their cages (GREAT VIDEO of this on our Chengdu 2010 Video album). They were fed a couple of slices of an apple and then promptly plopped down to start eating their bamboo. A panda will eat approximately 33 pounds of bamboo per day and spends 55% of their time eating, 43% sleeping, and only about 2% actually doing something. We saw 4 of the 5 stages of panda development and lots of pandas. They were more active in the morning, which was good, but by the time we were leaving about midday, they were starting to settle down for their one of many naps. The "kindergarten" pandas are probably the cutest because they are small, furry, and cuddly, but we enjoyed seeing the "adolescent" pandas that were just grouped together and eating their bamboo.

The park also has 20 red, or lesser, pandas that are also truly amazing creatures. These are a cross between a raccoon, a cat, and a panda bear. They are more active and and lively and Jamie took a great video of one climbing all the way up a tree.

We are panda fans now as this was a great adventure and the highlight of the trip. It costs a ton of money to pet a panda and even more to hug a panda, but we decided against that. Seeing and learning about them was good enough for us.

After our panda visit, we ate at one of the famous Sichuan hot pot restaurants. This restaurant is similar to the one in which we go to here in Shekou, but it has more Sichuan spices and flavor. It is most famous for being VERY spicy. Jamie and I ordered the wrong thing (of course), so we didn't get to taste the very spicy stuff. It was good though.

After lunch was a 3 hour nap prior to heading out to see the Sichuan opera. The Sichuan opera is a little different that the Peking opera and much more enjoyable. The simply have dancing shows and a stage, hand puppets, and of course, the world famous face changing performance. We were able to get some pretty decent video of these performances. The face changing guy even came out to my seat and shook hands with me as he changed one of his faces. Pretty cool!

We had read about a pretty cool nightlife spot in Chengdu called Bookworm, so we journeyed after the opera to see find it for a quick bite to eat. We began walking, took a 4 block bus ride, got off too early on the bus, and had to then walk another 4 blocks before finding it. Such is the way we travel. The Bookworm didn't disappoint and had good western food and shelves full of books you could read and exchange. Even the menus were cleverly designed in the form of a book with all of the menu items named after famous authors.

Tomorrow is the Leshan Giant Buddha, the world's largest buddha...

TONS of pictures in our Chengdu Albums, so be sure to check them out.

Chengdu - Friday - Day 1

2010-03-29T06:29:00.002-04:00

From Chengdu March 2010 Jamie

Jamie and I left early this morning on a 7:30 flight to Chengdu, the capital of the Sichuan province in China. This province was in the news a couple of years ago because of the terrible 8.0 earthquake that claimed the lives of about 68,000 people. It is also known for its beautiful national parks and varied landscapes. Another reason for our journey is for their world renowned panda bears.

We checked in to our hostel, Chengdu Traffic Inn, around 11:30 and then hit the town to see some of the sites. We had seen a Tex-Mex restaurant on the map, so we headed toward it first to see if it was any good. Chengdu is sort of in the middle of the country, so we didn't think that their tex-mex would be that good. We were surprised when it was actually quite tasty. We walked to Tianfu Square and then bussed around the city and toured through the Qingyang Taoist Temple. This was the first Taoist temple Jamie and I have been through. This one was nice enough, although it looked somewhat cheap and touristy. I'll let you do your own research into the Taoist belief system, but I will tell you that it is most famous for the belief and symbol the yin and the yang.

We simply could not find a bus or a taxi that took us back to our hotel, so we just walked the whole way back, probably about 3 miles across the city. No big deal; but since I had been sick, we were exhausted. I went straight to bed without dinner and slept for 13 hours straight. Certainly needed due to our last few days. Plus we wanted to be rested for the pandas the next day.

Parent-Teacher Conference

2010-03-29T06:27:00.001-04:00

On Wednesday afternoon and Thursday all day, we had student led parent-teacher conferences. The students are responsible for coming with their parents and leading them in the successes and improvements of their work throughout the year.

Our students did a great job and it was actually really nice to hear them explain to their parents the work they do in our classes.

It was exhausting because I had 32 conferences and Jamie almost as many. Most were only about 15 minutes, but we both had 10 - 12 in a row sometimes. Not much time to catch your breath.

A lot of hard work and we are off to Chengdu for a much needed and deserved vacation for the weekend.

5K in the Books!

2010-03-18T18:27:00.001-04:00

After 10 weeks, Jamie and I completed our first 5K. We have been waking up at 5:00 am 3 days a week and using this training program entitled Personal Running Trainer. It is an audio program that provides music and has steps for running by telling you when to walk and when to run. You progress through weeks until you are finally running about a 5K. Jamie and I started back in January and due to illness, travel, and alarms, we have taken 10 weeks instead of the recommended 8 weeks. That was fine with us considering we both definitely aren't runners, usually hate to do it, and didn't want to burn out.

We are just proud of ourselves for sticking to it. Our next goal is to continue running and increase our speed with the 5K and perhaps move on to a 10K.

Chinese New Year 2010

2010-02-28T08:19:00.002-05:00

From CNY 2010

This is the year of the Tiger. The last couple of weeks, the Chinese have been celebrating their largest holiday of the year. Tonight, there have been fireworks all night all over the city. We could see several of them just outside on our balcony. I was able to take some pretty cool shots like the one above. See the rest of them HERE.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!

HCMC Tet Eve

2010-02-26T09:27:00.002-05:00

From Kathy

Here is a video taken by Kathy of a short parade and performance on the streets of HCMC on the night of Tet Eve. High energy and a ton of people. Click on the video to see the whole thing. Great stuff and a lot of fun!

Wonderfish!

2010-02-25T08:50:00.002-05:00

From Kathy

Here is a short video of when Jamie and Kathy put their feet into the pool at Wonderfish. You'll need to click the picture to get the video to play. Wonderfish is a spa where the small fish eat away the dead skin on your body. They have one in Hong Kong now, but Singapore, Turkey, Bangkok, and Japan have had them for some time. Japan apparently has a full body tank. Gary and I wouldn't do it; of course, I don't even like going for a foot massage, much less having a bunch of small fish nibble on my feet. They seemed to enjoy it though. Video is above and a picture of the crowded fish is below. Enjoy!

From Kathy

Chinese New Year - Auld Lang Syne

2010-02-25T04:00:00.004-05:00

Prior to our trip to Vietnam, all students participated in the Chinese New Year performance here at QSI Shekou. Jamie was involved this year as her IE students sang the Chinese version of Auld Lang Syne. I don't have a video of it, but here is the audio from which they sang and practiced. Just click on the play button to play. Great new tool I'm using to upload songs onto blogger that is super easy called DivShare.

While it wasn't a solo, Jamie was up on stage and singing along with the students during the performance. Way to go Jamie!

HCMC to Hong Kong to Shekou - Day 9

2010-02-21T18:39:00.002-05:00

We had an early flight, so we were out of the hotel at 4:15 am and at the airport by 4:45. Our flight to HK was only 2 hours, so we landed and got through customs and back to Gary and Kathy’s hotel by 11:00 am.

Jamie and I had been craving some Mexican, so we decided to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant in the city – Tequila. It was yummy as usual. We went up to the Peak to check out the scenery, and while up there, Jamie and Kathy stopped in at Wonderfish! If you don’t know about Wonderfish!, it is a company which provides its patrons with a unique spa service (see video above).

According to their brochure, the Garra Rufa fish was found in Turkey 1000s of year ago; and since then, people have allowed these little fish to eat the dead skin off of their feet and bodies. Supposedly, Japan had full body tanks. Jamie and Kathy enjoyed it, and it was a unique experience. We had seen these in Bangkok, but I believe this is the only one in HK. I can see them catching on. I’m not sure if the US has one. The lady seemed to think that US law didn’t allow them. I’ll have to research why. Someone do that for me if you have the time (Uncle David???).

After that nibbling experience, we headed back to hotel to transfer some photos before heading out on the mid-level escalators again and settling in to a nice Italian restaurant to order a light dinner.

We said our goodbyes to Gary and Kathy, jumped on ferry back to Shekou, and met a very happy dog waiting for us at the apartment.

We would like to thank Gary and Kathy for coming to see us. We can only hope they enjoyed the trip to Hong Kong and Vietnam (minus the excruciating bus ride experience). We certainly enjoyed their company and always love having visitors.

Back to the grind tomorrow at work. Our next trip will be at the end of April for spring break where we believe we will go to Shanghai and the Yangtze River Cruise.

Hue to HCMCDay - 7 and 8

2010-02-21T18:38:00.002-05:00

This was the part of the journey we had been dreading for the past month. Jamie and I woke at 5:00 am to go running near the Perfume River in Hue, packed up our things, met Gary and Kathy down stairs for breakfast, and met the bus at the travel agency in town at 8:30 for the start of our LONG journey south back to HCMC.

The bus took us 3 hours back to Hoi An, where we had 6 hours to kill before leaving at 7:45 on the sleeper bus to Nha Trang. During those 6 hours, we walked the streets of Hoi An some more, did some shopping (Gary and I had 2 shirts made for us), tried to purchase airline tickets (unsuccessfully), and dined in a few restaurants for either drinks, lunch, or dessert. We found an amazing ice cream place along the river called Casa Verda, so if anyone reading this (all 4 people) ever end up in Hoi An, you can check it out.

Our sleeper bus was nice enough. Jamie, Gary, and Kathy were all on the back row of the bus. I was by myself a few rows up. We went to sleep almost immediately and dozed on and off for the duration of the trip. At 6:00 the next morning, we arrived in Nha Trang, where we had to wait about an hour and half before the next leg of our journey to HCMC. This bus wasn’t a sleeper bus, but we napped, read, snacked, and chatted through this LONG 12 hour bus ride back to HCMC where we finally arrived at 7:30 pm, nearly 36 hours after we first left Hue.

Gary and I picked up some linen pants that we had ordered last week, and Jamie and Kathy checked into the same hotel we had before. After getting settled and cleaning up, we headed out to a BBQ restaurant we had read about and noticed the other day. It was delicious and one of the best and most fun meals we had had on the trip. They had a small grill on your table, so we cooked our own meat, shrimp, and veggies.

We were just about spent after this and crashed into bed some around 11:00 pm.

Busy 2 days but definitely memorable. Gary even said that he was glad he got the opportunity to take the sleeper bus. While I’m not sure about that, it was definitely 2 days for the books in our travels.

Hue - Day 6

2010-02-18T10:46:00.002-05:00

We had a full day planned today, but we headed out at a reasonable time of 9:00. We rented a car and driver for the day, which took us about 15km outside the city to the three old emperor's tombs we'd see for the day: Khai Dinh, Minh Mang, and Tu Duc. Each were similar in appearance and lay out, but each one had its own unique quality to it. The architecture was both Chinese and Vietnamese, and the overall temple layouts were definitely Buddhist.

Our next stop was the "official" symbol of Hue, the Thien Mu Pagoda, which overlooks the Perfume River to the west of the city. It had beautiful grounds around the pagoda, which would be beautiful in the spring and summer when all flora would be in bloom.

Lunch was at a very Vietnamese restaurant in the center of the city with nice traditional architecture. We ordered 5 dishes, and we have all decided that we enjoy the spring rolls wherever we go in Vietnam.

After lunch, we quickly toured the Imperial Palace, or the Citadel. This rather large palace grounds. The citadel was bombarded by the French and Viet Minh in the 1800's and by the Viet Cong and the Americans in the Vietnam War. Much of it was destroyed, but some buildings are amazingly still intact and others are going through a multi-million dollar renovation.

We went back to the hotel and rested for a couple of hours before taking a taxi to a restaurant that we had intended to go the previous night. It was a bit outside the city and was not what we thought it was, but it turned out to be a very elegant restaurant - Ancient Hue House Cuisine and Gallery. The food was decent, but the presentation of the food was amazing. They made flowers, animals, and designs all from food that they placed on your plate.

We have a long day tomorrow as we hop on a sleeper bus at 9:00 am for a 23 hour bus ride back to Ho Chi Minh City.

Be sure to check out the new albums online, including the new albums of Kathy and Jamie.

Hoi An to Hue - Day 5

2010-02-17T09:06:00.002-05:00

Very relaxing day as we woke up, Jamie and I ran our 5k, had breakfast, checked of the hotel, and headed out for one more stroll around Hoi An before departing to Hue in the afternoon. We walked around the old town for a while. The girls bought some silk robes, and we walked through a very interesting central food market. Lunch was sub par at a backpacker joint.

We rested by the pool lounges at the hotel before hopping on a bus to Hue. We were supposed to have a regular bus; but due to a travel agency error, they overbooked our bus, so we had to take a sleeper bus. This was good since Kathy's back is still hurting.

3 hours later, we arrived in a rainy Hue, checked into our hotel, the Holiday Hotel, and went searching for a restaurant we had read about. We couldn't find it, so we settled on a place with more sub par food.

Tomorrow, we'll be touring the old imperial palace of Hue as well as some emperor tombs around the city.

Check back from pictures and updates of tomorrow.

Hoi An – Day 5

2010-02-16T22:16:00.001-05:00

We checked out of the Danang Riverside Hotel in the morning after breakfast and took a cab to Hoi An and checked into our hotel here, the Vinh Hung 2. We walked around the old town before settling on a nice little restaurant called Citronella along the river. We walked around a bit more, but decided to head back to the hotel for some rest. Jamie wasn’t feeling well, so she decided to take a nap, while Gary, Kathy, and I rented some bikes and took off toward the beach. The ride was through the city about 5 km away and we arrived at the beach. It was a great looking beach with a ton of locals and westerners there enjoying the last day of Tet. Afterward, Gary and Kathy went back to the hotel, but I decided to ride around the town more to take some pictures around the river.

We rested up a bit before heading out for our cooking class at, ironically, the Citronella. It was more watching than doing, but it was good as we made spring rolls, fried calamari, chicken soup, and mackerel wrapped in a banana leaf. Afterward, we walked the streets enjoying the festivities before finding some dessert at a coffee shop and heading to bed exhausted.

A great overall relaxing day, and I believe Gary and Kathy’s favorite town so far in Vietnam. It is quaint, touristy, and walking distance to everything. Check out the new photo album online.

Danang - Day 4

2010-02-16T04:36:00.002-05:00

We woke up early and headed out for a full day or touring around Danang. We had hired a guy to take us around the city for the day, so we were picked up about 9:00 am and taken to the Cham Museum. The Cham were an empire in Vietnam that built similar style temples like Angkor in Cambodia and Ayutthaya in Thailand. All are of Hindu influence which is evident in the carvings. This museum was built to house the sculptures of My Son, the site of ruins of the Cham Empire. The sculptures were impressive and reminded us of Angkor. They removed the sculptures from the remains of the temples because robbers would take them, and already had.

After the museum, we were taken to an upscale marble store where the girls working hoped we would buy a table, sculpture, or anything. They did have this solid marble decoratively carved table and chairs for only $1400, which included shipping to Atlanta. Pretty impressive and it was beautiful. I guess our driver didn’t think we’d be actually interested in the Marble Mountains, so he was going to skip them. We told him that we’ actually like to see the Mountains, and not just some store ran by his cousin. Such is the way you have to travel in southeast Asia.

Marble Mountain was impressive. We climbed the steps to the temples, pagodas and grottoes that were built into the side of the mountain. There are actually 5 mountains surrounding the areas, each with folklore names representing Air, Water, Earth, Fire, and Metal. The top offered wonderful views of all Danang farmland, the city, the beach, and the numerous resorts which will one day dominate the coastline.

From Marble Mountain, it was an hour drive to My Son to see the ruins of the temples. They were impressive enough, and it was clear that restoration was truly a work in progress. We did get an idea of how the temples once were and stood, but it takes somewhat of an imagination to do so because of the state they were in.

We decided to head back to the hotel where Jamie, Gary, and Kathy enjoyed a head, shoulder, and back massage. Gary didn’t enjoy his, and I’ll let him explain why.

Dinner was an interesting experience because our first choice was closed due to Tet. We settled on and quite enjoyed a grilled fresh fish experience on the beach at night. Several families had strewn up tarps, small grills, plastic table and chairs, and charged enormous prices for you to dine on the beach with fresh fish. It was tasty enough though and we felt good going back to the hotel afterward.

HCMC to Danang - Day 3

2010-02-14T11:19:00.003-05:00

Jamie and I got up and ran our 5k in HCMC this morning, but then went back to bed. We all finally got out of the hotel and on to some destinations by 10:00. Our first stop was to cruise through "flower street," the same site that we were on last night for the Tet New Year's Eve celebrations. This time, we all took some pretty cool pictures in front of tigers and flowers. Our next stop was the famous Ben Thanh Market, although most of the stalls were closed. We'll come back here next Saturday though. We found a refreshing BBQ Garden restaurant that we had drinks only in, and walked our way through the city to the People's Committee Hall, or City Hall, of HCMC. The building is nice and it the dead end of the flower street festivities. We took our picture next to a nice statue of Ho Chi Minh, or Uncle Ho as the Vietnamese call him.

We then went to one of the main pagodas in HCMC. It was very crowded because of the new year holiday, and we got a sense of the importance of the day to many Vietnamese. Our next stop was a restaurant which is actually in the book, 1000 Places to See Before You Die. It is called Pho Hua, or Pho Hoa, and it serves the basic Vietnamese dish of noodles, beef, sprouts, greens, and peppers if you wish. It was quite tasty and we ate with the locals.

This is where I royally screwed up. I had been thinking that we had another night in HCMC and we'd fly to Danang the next day. Actually, our flight was for 3:30 this afternoon. It wasn't until 3:00 that I realized that we had to fly today. Frantically, I called our travel agent and asked if we could get on another flight. She was able to get us on a 7:10 flight tonight. We arrived at our hotel in Danang, the Danang Riverside Hotel, around 9:00 pm after only an hour flight.

We were very lucky to have the flight on the same day. We had already booked the hotel in Danang, so it was fortunate that our travel plans for the week were not blown up right then.

Tomorrow, we are going to see the famous Marble Mountains, My Son Archeological Site, and the Cham Museum.

Be sure to check back for more photos. I have added Kathy's photos into an album. In her album there is also a couple of videos of the Tet parade we witnessed on New Year's Eve. Worth check out.

Tet New Year's Eve

2010-02-13T10:34:00.004-05:00

Day 2

After a much needed night's rest, we got up, ate breakfast, and headed out into the city to do the touristy things in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) or Saigon. We first took a cab to the Independence Palace. This was the presidential palace of South Vietnam but is probably best known in the world for the videos and pictures of the tanks crashing through the gates of the palace after the fall of Saigon to the North Vietnamese on April 30, 1975. The palace was somewhat impressive, and supposedly, they had tried to leave it in similar condition to what it was during the time. Nice building with beautiful grounds and architecture.

We had some time to kill before heading over to the War Remnants Museum, so we decided to go ahead and eat at the Hard Rock Cafe HCMC. Food was great as always and we picked up one of the cooler HRC t shirts we have.

A quick stop for pictures at the Vietnamese version of the Notre Dame Cathedral, and it was off to the War Remnants Museum. I would like to have had an opinion of a Vietnam War veteran of this museum, because it mainly showed and explained the American atrocities toward the Vietnamese during the "American War." The effects of some of the massacres and the effects of agent orange were graphically portrayed. Apparently, the museum opened just 5 months after the Fall of Saigon, so it is no wonder why there is such a biased slant on the war and these war time atrocities.

I had planned on purchasing some linen pants while I was back in Vietnam, and we wanted to purchase Gary some too. We shopped around before settling on a place where we bought 5 pair of linen pants at what we thought was a very reasonable price. I am delighted, and we'll pick them up next Saturday when we get back from Hue.

We were all pretty exhausted, so we decided to head back to the hotel for a quick afternoon nap. After resting for a couple of hours, Jamie, Kathy, and I headed back out into the city to check out the festivities for the New Year's Eve. Gary is catching a cold, so he stayed in.

We first ate dinner at a delicious Vietnamese restaurant call Pho Bu Vien Quoc Ky. They only served 2 things: white noodles and yellow noodles with some greens and beef in a broth soup. It was delicious, and we were helped by an Australian/Vietnamese college student who was helping out his family for the holiday.

We then lucked out, because as were walking through the throngs of people celebrating, we happened upon a small parade. This was the type of parade we were looking for last year in Hong Kong with the dragon dancers, big lion heads, and high energy. It lasted for about 10 or 15 minutes before moving on. 1000s of people were in the streets just walking around the loop of the pedestrian only zone. I guess you could call it the Times Square of Veitnam. It was quite a site and one I'm glad we were able to see. We then became too tired to wait for the fireworks and true New Year's Eve countdown, so we decided to head back and get some more rest.

Great day overall. We aren't sure what to do tomorrow because many of the stores and businesses will be closed. I'm sure we'll find something to do.

Be sure to check out the HCMC folder on Picasa for the pictures!

We are going to Vietnam - Its this whole other country

2010-02-13T05:21:00.001-05:00

Day 1

Jamie and I awoke at 5:00 to do our 5K run. We are now running all but 3 minutes of the 5k. We are proud of ourselves. We finished packing and took all 6 of our bags to work: 2 backpacks, 1 small carry on for Vietnam, and 3 medium size bags that Jamie's parents are taking back with them after our trip. We went throughout our day at school finishing up our narratives and watching the clock. At 4:00, we hit the door and drug our bags to the ferry terminal. I had gone that morning to purchase the tickets, and I am glad I did. It seemed like everyone in Shekou was leaving on the ferry. Despite being crowded, we left for Hong Kong central only 15 minutes late and arrived right on time at 5:30. We quickly got through immigration and hopped in a cab with all of our luggage and headed for Jamie's parents hotel in HK. They had arrived the previous day and had toured the city. We met them at 6:00, told the cab driver to wait, dropped our luggage off at the hotel, and then loaded up Jamie's parents and their and whisked away to the airport.

At this time, we had plenty of time. However, we had forgot to print our Vietnam visa permission letter, so we had to frantically run around the airport trying to find a printer. At the nice price of 50 HKD, we printed the 5 pages we needed, went through security, was at the gate for 2 minutes before we loaded the plane.

The flight was only 2 hours, which was long enough for us to rest. The border entry into Vietnam was very busy and we waited over an hour trying to get our visa stamped. We finally made it to our hotel, Tan Hai Long 3, around midnight.

Quite a busy day, but Jamie's parent made it OK, we had a whirlwind of a day, and we are now in Viet-nam - "It's this whole other coun-try" - (Forrest Gump)

Check back for more about our first day adventures in Ho Chi Minh City.

Winding Up or Down?

2010-02-06T18:36:00.003-05:00

Jamie and I have been in the daily life grind since our return from Bangkok and winter holiday at the beginning of January. We have been working on the middle school Model United Nations conference that our school is hosting. We are responsible for the conference. That was thrown onto our laps last year. So far, there about 5 schools and 11 teams participating in the conference. We consider this a success since there were zero schools last year.

We are trying to learn more information about Saudi Arabia and our new school. We are still very excited about the opportunity and are pretty much counting the days. That is not to say that things here have wound down. A friend of mine just told me that it was only February. With that said, we still have quite a bit to do.

#1 - Teaching the remaining of the year. Some teachers would probably just let their teaching slide the last few months remaining on a contract where they knew they were leaving. Both Jamie and I have too much pride and consideration for that. So, we are planning our lessons just as we did last year and hope our students benefit from our maintained if not increased devotion

#2 - Vietnam for the Tet Holiday - We'll be meeting Jamie's parents at the Hong Kong airport and flying to Ho Chi Minh City for a few days, then Danang, then Hoi An, the Hue. Interestingly, we aren't exactly sure how we'll be getting from Hue back to HCMC. It is about a: 1 hour flight (sold out), a 24 hour train ride (might be sold out), or a "sleeper car" (which we have no idea what it is but apparently might be taking). Nonetheless, we are excited about going back to Vietnam. The people are nice, the food is delicious, and we'll be able to see some sites of the Vietnam War.

#3 - Packing and planning for Saudi Arabia - while it doesn't have our full attention yet, we'll have to start going through our belongings here and planning for our trip to the U.S. this summer and subsequent move to The Kingdom. Planning for Griffey will be a full time job also, but it seems pretty straightforward. As of now, we plan on leaving either the 19th or 20th of June. We aren't sure yet when we'll need to be in Saudi. We have decided to NOT ship anything. We are paying for extra baggage fee on the plane and still hoping to pack as light as possible. Apparently, you can purchase anything you need in Saudi or Bahrain, so we'll do that instead of hauling our stuff 1000s of miles.

#4 - Getting Fit - Jamie and I have started this 5K training program through Personal Running Trainer, an mp3 download training music and program. It is an 8 week training that will get your running a 5K in a safe way. As of today, we are finishing week 3, which involves us running a cycle of 6 minute runs and 1 minute walks 5 times. It hasn't been too bad, but we've both been sick a couple of weeks which has slowed us somewhat. However, we have only missed 1 running day each, so that is not too bad for us. I have also continued to play basketball once per week and have taken up tennis again. Jamie gets our her yoga video some.

#5 - Gearing up for our Spring Break Trip - I think we have decided to go see Shanghai and do the Yangtze River Cruise for our last trip living in China. China visas are expensive, so we figure we'd save some money by staying in the country. More on this later, but something to keep in mind.

#6 - Finishing our Dissertations - I have put this so far down the list it is not even funny. I think we are both over this. The time it takes to complete this is insane. We just hope to finish sometime before we retire. I don't even have the heart to type what all is going on with this subject. I think I'll post again on it when we actually receive word from the school that we'll graduate. By that time, I'm sure that laptops will be obsolete and I'll be able to teleport tell everyone one of you in person.

#7 - Reflecting on China - I have been doing this for some time. People ask what it is like to live here, and I hope through this blog, I have provided people with some sort of glimpse. Unfortunately, it is difficult to write in just a few paragraphs. It is different too for each individual, couple, or family. China isn't the easiest place to live, but certainly isn't the hardest. In many ways, it is much easier than living in the U.S. Jamie and I love walking to just about anywhere or hopping on a bus. However, you sacrifice some comforts of home. If it wasn't for this new job and financial opportunity, we would gladly stay here in Shekou.

#8 - Preparing for MUN conference - As previously stated, Jamie and I are responsible for this. It is not until April, but still something to stay on top of.

That is a decent list. I'm sure I have forgotten something. It just seems like every day is both the same, yet different. The routine is the same, but little things you have do creep in and don't go away.

I'll try and continue to keep posting. I just checked into making a blog book, and it will cost around $75 US to make a 440 page book. Pretty neat. Might considering doing it when we close this chapter of our lives.

Be sure to check back next week when we go to Vietnam. I'll upload all the pictures we'll be taking and posting about what we do each day.