Wednesday, December 16, 2009
12/16/2009
So I am in Singapore and today we went with Nancy Crater to the Botanical Gardens and looked at their Orchid collection, which was amazing!! After that we ate a fabulous lunch which my uncle Teddy would have died over and then went down to little India. Little India was a fantastic it had colorful temples and a beautiful mosque. We walked for hours and hours and saw so much of Singapore it was amazing. So many cultures and so many colors. After little India we checked out this really interesting Feng Shui conundrum in down town Singapore. There was this architect I. M. Pei who made the pyramid in front of the Louvre and he made these office buildings in Singapore and they are shaped like Swords and they in a very specific direction. At first no one wanted to buy the lot that they pointed ta because it was bad Feng Shui and then finally this man bought the lot and build this huge building with the help of a Feng Shui and life has been good ever since. Anyway we went to see the building and it is huge and gorgeous they claim that it is the most beautiful building in Singapore and I believe. There we sculptures of famous philosophers. They also have the most AMAZING Christmas decorations! Anyway tomorrow we are spending the morning in Singapore and then off to Bali I have no idea if I will get to write again before then, but I love you all!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
12/10/2009
The holiday season is upon us. I know most of my friends are either finishing up school or already home. It feels weird to know that I am going home soon. I have 13 day left in Southeast Asia. I don't even remember what is feels like to be in America. We keep talking about what going home is going to be like and I am excited and terrified. I can't even judge how much I've changed, but I feel the same. All of you who know me will have to be the judges. I do make on request that you are all gentle with me the first few days re-assimilation can be harsh.
Anyway in 5 days I head to Singapore for some quality time with the Craters and then off to Bali for a few days of culture and a few days of beach lounging. Its like 90 degrees in Bali right now. Those of you in Colorado can't even imagine how odd it feels to be in shorts in December. It feels like late September here.
We had a good bye party last Tuesday with my Professors wife who is now gone and a few of our contacts in HCMC and Hanoi. Its odd to think that the trip is almost over. I feel like I could stay here for so much longer and still never experience everything. We went and sang karaoke. It was an experience. I am not the biggest karaoke fan, but it was fun and two of the guys on the trip put on a few amazing performances. I haven't laughed that hard in ages.
Today was also my last day of internship with the Vietnam Green Building Council. I rebuilt there entire website with the help of Lauren and Hoa (a Union student and an employee). There is now a fully functional English web site. If you saw if before you would be amazed. It was a lot of work, but I feel like I was able to contribute which was great. I am going to miss it.
On the other hand I am going HOME!!! People will be able to understand me and I will be able to listen to new music, and see my friends and my family and study engineering again. Holy crap I am so excited. Well that's all to report I will try to post from Singapore and Bali, but we'll see. I now have to go write a paper. Wish me luck!! XOXO
Anyway in 5 days I head to Singapore for some quality time with the Craters and then off to Bali for a few days of culture and a few days of beach lounging. Its like 90 degrees in Bali right now. Those of you in Colorado can't even imagine how odd it feels to be in shorts in December. It feels like late September here.
We had a good bye party last Tuesday with my Professors wife who is now gone and a few of our contacts in HCMC and Hanoi. Its odd to think that the trip is almost over. I feel like I could stay here for so much longer and still never experience everything. We went and sang karaoke. It was an experience. I am not the biggest karaoke fan, but it was fun and two of the guys on the trip put on a few amazing performances. I haven't laughed that hard in ages.
Today was also my last day of internship with the Vietnam Green Building Council. I rebuilt there entire website with the help of Lauren and Hoa (a Union student and an employee). There is now a fully functional English web site. If you saw if before you would be amazed. It was a lot of work, but I feel like I was able to contribute which was great. I am going to miss it.
On the other hand I am going HOME!!! People will be able to understand me and I will be able to listen to new music, and see my friends and my family and study engineering again. Holy crap I am so excited. Well that's all to report I will try to post from Singapore and Bali, but we'll see. I now have to go write a paper. Wish me luck!! XOXO
Sunday, November 29, 2009
11/30/2009
Cambodia
I spent my Thanksgiving Holiday in Cambodia with three of my friends from my class (Maggie, Eliza and Alaina). It was an amazing four days. We flew out on Thursday and had a huge Khmer feast in honor of the holiday full of Amok, Khmer Curry and Luc Lac, three traditional Khmer dishes. It was amazing and then we went to bed and woke up the next morning at 4:30am to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was amazing. The colors were beautiful and I even made a stop motion picture movie of the sun rising, which I will share with all of you. We then went all over Ankor Thom and Angkor Wat. I have always wanted to see the temples and they were even more amazing it person. The detail of the carvings and the size of the structures is really truly amazing. I even went in search of the elusive 5 headed horse and found it carved into a hidden wall on the Elephant Terrace. One of the coolest parts of our day was that we got to see the Temple that they shot Laura Croft Tomb Raider at which, had all of these amazing trees growing all over the temple and the feeling of the place was as if it were still in the jungle or still wild and it was really different and amazing. The second day we went to the temples we got a chance to see Banteay Srei which had a different architecture than the other places we went to, but it also had the most ornate carvings of any of the temples we saw. Angkor had some huge beautiful cravings, but the ones at Banteay Srei were better preserved and unique. I feel like I always had all these expectations about what seeing famous ancient structures like these would feel like. I always assumed that just by seeing these places I would feel enlightened or experienced, but for the most part I feel the same maybe a little improved, but the same. I have a lot more patience here, which will hopefully transfer to the the states and maybe I will also have more appreciation for my amazing life.
Also while we were in Siem Reap we were able to see a few graduates students from Union. Two of which I had never met before and one guy I had known briefly at Union. All of them work at a school in Cambodia called the Global Child. The school has a relationship with Union and every year Union sponsors a few graduates to go over to Cambodia for a year and teach at this school and one of the people we hung out with Jon Hill spent one year after graduation there sponsored by Union, but now he has been hired on for three years to help with the school. The concept is to take kids who work with and for their families and give them an education. The problem is that these kids have to work to support their families so the school pays them a salary to attend school. It is a great program that has 20 something students, some of which who were street children some of which just come from poor families and it takes the children who want to learn and are smart enough to learn, but can no longer continue school because there families need them. It is an amazing idea and hearing the amazing success that the school has had with some of these students warms my heart and I was thrilled to get to see what they do. The program is really giving these kids a fighting chance and several of the original group of kids have even received scholarships and gone on to the best universities in Cambodia. It was all really impressive. If anyone wants to learn more check out the website or email me. Anyway I hope to post pictures soon.
So I have 16 days left in Vietnam and then I am headed to Singapore, Bali and then get to take the most ridiculous journey home. On the 22nd I am flying from Bali to Singapore, then Singapore to Hanoi, then I have a 16 hour lay over in Hanoi before I fly to Hong Kong, then Los Angeles, then Denver and then finally on the 23rd of December I should arrive in Aspen at like 10pm. I think I worked it out to be something like 48 hours of traveling or something crazy like that. It should be fun. Anyway I love you all and I will see most of you pretty soon!!
I spent my Thanksgiving Holiday in Cambodia with three of my friends from my class (Maggie, Eliza and Alaina). It was an amazing four days. We flew out on Thursday and had a huge Khmer feast in honor of the holiday full of Amok, Khmer Curry and Luc Lac, three traditional Khmer dishes. It was amazing and then we went to bed and woke up the next morning at 4:30am to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat. It was amazing. The colors were beautiful and I even made a stop motion picture movie of the sun rising, which I will share with all of you. We then went all over Ankor Thom and Angkor Wat. I have always wanted to see the temples and they were even more amazing it person. The detail of the carvings and the size of the structures is really truly amazing. I even went in search of the elusive 5 headed horse and found it carved into a hidden wall on the Elephant Terrace. One of the coolest parts of our day was that we got to see the Temple that they shot Laura Croft Tomb Raider at which, had all of these amazing trees growing all over the temple and the feeling of the place was as if it were still in the jungle or still wild and it was really different and amazing. The second day we went to the temples we got a chance to see Banteay Srei which had a different architecture than the other places we went to, but it also had the most ornate carvings of any of the temples we saw. Angkor had some huge beautiful cravings, but the ones at Banteay Srei were better preserved and unique. I feel like I always had all these expectations about what seeing famous ancient structures like these would feel like. I always assumed that just by seeing these places I would feel enlightened or experienced, but for the most part I feel the same maybe a little improved, but the same. I have a lot more patience here, which will hopefully transfer to the the states and maybe I will also have more appreciation for my amazing life.
Also while we were in Siem Reap we were able to see a few graduates students from Union. Two of which I had never met before and one guy I had known briefly at Union. All of them work at a school in Cambodia called the Global Child. The school has a relationship with Union and every year Union sponsors a few graduates to go over to Cambodia for a year and teach at this school and one of the people we hung out with Jon Hill spent one year after graduation there sponsored by Union, but now he has been hired on for three years to help with the school. The concept is to take kids who work with and for their families and give them an education. The problem is that these kids have to work to support their families so the school pays them a salary to attend school. It is a great program that has 20 something students, some of which who were street children some of which just come from poor families and it takes the children who want to learn and are smart enough to learn, but can no longer continue school because there families need them. It is an amazing idea and hearing the amazing success that the school has had with some of these students warms my heart and I was thrilled to get to see what they do. The program is really giving these kids a fighting chance and several of the original group of kids have even received scholarships and gone on to the best universities in Cambodia. It was all really impressive. If anyone wants to learn more check out the website or email me. Anyway I hope to post pictures soon.
So I have 16 days left in Vietnam and then I am headed to Singapore, Bali and then get to take the most ridiculous journey home. On the 22nd I am flying from Bali to Singapore, then Singapore to Hanoi, then I have a 16 hour lay over in Hanoi before I fly to Hong Kong, then Los Angeles, then Denver and then finally on the 23rd of December I should arrive in Aspen at like 10pm. I think I worked it out to be something like 48 hours of traveling or something crazy like that. It should be fun. Anyway I love you all and I will see most of you pretty soon!!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
11/19/2009
Sorry I haven't written in forever. I have been a very busy bee here in Vietnam.
First there was the whole love with a Vietnamese boyfriend debacle, which for the record was a joke. Please my dear friends and family do not take facebook too seriously. It is the internet not real life and although it is a great means of communication it also requires no truth. If I wanted to I could change my facebook name to Bob and become a man, while in real life that we be a bit complicated. Sorry if I shocked any of you.
On a different note I have made a lot of new friends in Hanoi and have been going out on the town regularly. I had a great friend take me all around Hanoi on his motorbike and he showed me all of these amazing pagodas that people who don't live here rarely get to see because they are very difficult to find or to locate. I also got the opportunity to try a hot pot, which is this big pot of boiling soup that you share with friends. It is a really interesting tradition when people want to get together and share a meal with friends they usually suggest a hot pot because it is delicious and communal. The coolest part of a hot pot is that the meat and noodles and vegetables are all raw and you have to cook them in the boiling soup yourself. At first I thought that the experience would be weird, but it was actually a ton of fun and it helped break the ice with my new Vietnamese friends. I have to say that when embracing the culture my age is my biggest asset, I feel like I can try anything and that because I am so young people react to me with a lot of genuine interest and this amazing desire to share their culture. Since the hot pot I have hung out with a bunch of other people and everyone has different stories and experiences I seriously spend hours every day just sitting down and talking to people about their lives. It has to be one of the most liberating feelings to know that I have all the time in the world to just delve into someone elses life for a few hours. I love the freedom of this experience.
Also last Wednesday I went with my group to Sapa, which is in Northwestern part Vietnam right on the border with China. Sapa is the mountainous region of Vietnam and it is where a lot of ethnic groups live, specifially the Dao or Yao (pronounced Zao) and the Hmong (pronounced Mung). We took a night train to Lao Cai first class, it was pretty sweet (I love whoever invented sleeping pills). We arrived in Lao Cai Thursday morning and then drove 1 hour to Sapa. In Sapa we hiked to a small ethnic village called Cat Cat which had beautiful mountain views and a nice waterfall. Friday morning is when the real fun began. Being the great mountain woman that I am I, and the 15 other people in my group, decided to climb Mt. Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam. Mt Fansipan is 3,143m (10,309 ft) high. So Friday morning we began out accent of the mountain and climbed two thirds of the way up to the base camp where we spent the night. Two important things to note about climbing Mt. Fansipan the first third of the mountain is pretty flat, but the second third of the mountain is REALLY steep. There are sections with ladder, and parts where you are literally climbing the mountain on all fours. The place where we spent the night was very high up and very cold and we were not well equipped (ie bad sleeping bags and sleeping in a small open hut on bamboo planks) so, we were all pretty cold and uncomfortable all night. Saturday morning we awoke to a cold wet day and most of the 15 people that had started up the mountain decided to go down instead of summiting. In the end only 6 of us made it to the top and we were the first people on top of Fansipan that day and we drank champagne and huddled together in the cold until we would take the cloudy top no longer and we headed down. Now I know that anyone who has read this far into my terrible story is either really bored of really loves me but HERE is where it gets good. Now from the top of mount Fansipan we couldn't see anything. It was cloudy and gross, but as we began out decent at some point a little more than a third of the way down we got out of the clouds and the world opened up. It was this moment that made the entire hike completely worth while. From where my good friend Maggie and I stood you could see the entire Sapa Valley, as well as the valleys on both sides of us and begin up you could see the cloud that was covering the top of Mt. Fansipan. If you have ever seen pictures or movies of Vietnam they could never in a million years do this scene justice. You could see these steep beautiful mountains covered in green foliage and at the top of each mountain clouds raced from peak to peak. In the distance you would see for miles these mountains, valleys and clouds, and they were the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. I could literally ramble on forever trying to describe this moment out there on that ridge staring into what had to be the most beautiful view I could ever imagine. In the end for as hard and cold and terrible the hike to the top was I would do it again for another moment like that. I have always loved the great outdoors and this was just one more wonderful day in the mountains where I was reminded just how beautiful the natural world is. That's all I have to write today. I love you all and I hope you all are doing well.
First there was the whole love with a Vietnamese boyfriend debacle, which for the record was a joke. Please my dear friends and family do not take facebook too seriously. It is the internet not real life and although it is a great means of communication it also requires no truth. If I wanted to I could change my facebook name to Bob and become a man, while in real life that we be a bit complicated. Sorry if I shocked any of you.
On a different note I have made a lot of new friends in Hanoi and have been going out on the town regularly. I had a great friend take me all around Hanoi on his motorbike and he showed me all of these amazing pagodas that people who don't live here rarely get to see because they are very difficult to find or to locate. I also got the opportunity to try a hot pot, which is this big pot of boiling soup that you share with friends. It is a really interesting tradition when people want to get together and share a meal with friends they usually suggest a hot pot because it is delicious and communal. The coolest part of a hot pot is that the meat and noodles and vegetables are all raw and you have to cook them in the boiling soup yourself. At first I thought that the experience would be weird, but it was actually a ton of fun and it helped break the ice with my new Vietnamese friends. I have to say that when embracing the culture my age is my biggest asset, I feel like I can try anything and that because I am so young people react to me with a lot of genuine interest and this amazing desire to share their culture. Since the hot pot I have hung out with a bunch of other people and everyone has different stories and experiences I seriously spend hours every day just sitting down and talking to people about their lives. It has to be one of the most liberating feelings to know that I have all the time in the world to just delve into someone elses life for a few hours. I love the freedom of this experience.
Also last Wednesday I went with my group to Sapa, which is in Northwestern part Vietnam right on the border with China. Sapa is the mountainous region of Vietnam and it is where a lot of ethnic groups live, specifially the Dao or Yao (pronounced Zao) and the Hmong (pronounced Mung). We took a night train to Lao Cai first class, it was pretty sweet (I love whoever invented sleeping pills). We arrived in Lao Cai Thursday morning and then drove 1 hour to Sapa. In Sapa we hiked to a small ethnic village called Cat Cat which had beautiful mountain views and a nice waterfall. Friday morning is when the real fun began. Being the great mountain woman that I am I, and the 15 other people in my group, decided to climb Mt. Fansipan, the highest mountain in Vietnam. Mt Fansipan is 3,143m (10,309 ft) high. So Friday morning we began out accent of the mountain and climbed two thirds of the way up to the base camp where we spent the night. Two important things to note about climbing Mt. Fansipan the first third of the mountain is pretty flat, but the second third of the mountain is REALLY steep. There are sections with ladder, and parts where you are literally climbing the mountain on all fours. The place where we spent the night was very high up and very cold and we were not well equipped (ie bad sleeping bags and sleeping in a small open hut on bamboo planks) so, we were all pretty cold and uncomfortable all night. Saturday morning we awoke to a cold wet day and most of the 15 people that had started up the mountain decided to go down instead of summiting. In the end only 6 of us made it to the top and we were the first people on top of Fansipan that day and we drank champagne and huddled together in the cold until we would take the cloudy top no longer and we headed down. Now I know that anyone who has read this far into my terrible story is either really bored of really loves me but HERE is where it gets good. Now from the top of mount Fansipan we couldn't see anything. It was cloudy and gross, but as we began out decent at some point a little more than a third of the way down we got out of the clouds and the world opened up. It was this moment that made the entire hike completely worth while. From where my good friend Maggie and I stood you could see the entire Sapa Valley, as well as the valleys on both sides of us and begin up you could see the cloud that was covering the top of Mt. Fansipan. If you have ever seen pictures or movies of Vietnam they could never in a million years do this scene justice. You could see these steep beautiful mountains covered in green foliage and at the top of each mountain clouds raced from peak to peak. In the distance you would see for miles these mountains, valleys and clouds, and they were the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen. I could literally ramble on forever trying to describe this moment out there on that ridge staring into what had to be the most beautiful view I could ever imagine. In the end for as hard and cold and terrible the hike to the top was I would do it again for another moment like that. I have always loved the great outdoors and this was just one more wonderful day in the mountains where I was reminded just how beautiful the natural world is. That's all I have to write today. I love you all and I hope you all are doing well.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
11/2/2009
This is my second post of the day and tonight was so amazing I truly feel it warrants the second post. Tonight I went to dinner with our RA Ruby and a few of her friends it was amazing. She took us to get hot pots in down town and we talked and hung out and for the first time I felt so fully immersed in the culture. We talked about movies and we shared traditions and superstitions and beliefs. In Vietnam they have all these odd things that they believe are lucky and unlucky. Like pregnant woman are bad luck for business men and using chopsticks that are uneven lengths is bad luck and if you write down the numbers of a crashed car and use them to get a lotto ticket you will win the lotto. They also put different animal body parts in wine for your health and they eat live squids. We just ate and talked and ate more. We ate with successful Vietnamese people that were our age and eager to talk about everything from movies to parental expectations. The two guys we were with were both engineers (which makes them cooler) and they had traveled all over Asia. One of the guys had even been to Russia and they told the best stories and I can't even get over how much fun we had. We went to west lake and had ice cream and I saw parts of the city I had never seen before. It was just the most amazing feeling just being young and exploring Hanoi, the world was our oyster and you better believe that we were living in the now and living well. I just wanted to share that with all of you.
PS sorry I never post pictures...
PS sorry I never post pictures...
11/2/2009
The 3rd Asian Indoor Games is currently being held in Vietnam. Most of the events are in HCMC, but they had the official opening ceremony in Hanoi and we got tickets and went and sat in the second row. If you got a chance to watch them on TV we were on TV several times in our red Vietnam t-shirts. This event was a life experience I will never forget. We watched as the athletes entered the stadium. Even better we watched all the opening dances. There were so many colors and so much movement and Vietnamese pride. The coolest part for me was the fact that there were several dances on Vietnamese culture and I was able to pick out each individual dance and I knew what region it was from and I had been there. There was a dance with spears that represented the elephant cultures in the middle of Vietnam and a dance from the imperial city. There was even a water puppet dance, which a Vietnamese cultural nuance. Where they have these puppets that tell famous Vietnamese stories with puppets and music. Being there was so cool. It was a great mixture of culture and fun.
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