Yes thats right meine Damen und Herren (ladies and gents) we got a brand new computer yesterday!!!!!!! Wed been looking at buying a new iBook G4 but then we thought, since were spending this much money we might as well get something more powerful and that will last longer etc, so we decided on getting the Powerbook G4 15 inch screen! It can burn CDs and DVDs and so all sorts of other nifty tricks!! Im sooooooo excited!! And it just looks so cool! I think im gonna take a picture of it and post it here since im so proud! This not only is the biggest investment weve ever made, but it has to be the coolest too! Also, if you take your old computer to the Mac store along with your new one, they can transfer all your old photos and information onto the new one. Unfortunately for me (not Adam) I have Windows 98 which is waaaaay too old and they said it wouldnt work. so Im now stuck with emailing allllll my photos and other stuff to 3 different accounts and then ill have to upload them onto the new computer. Its going to be really tedious!! But, oh well! Such is life!
Anyway, so that was on Sunday, yesterday. On Saturday Aaron came over and we had a good time hangin out. Other than that, nothing too exciting has been happening. Our good friend Liv went back to Aussieland and were missing her a lot. Things just arent the same without her around! Although i do envy the fact that its sunny and warm there and she can go out and get a tan....sigh.....
Teaching has been ok. Some classes are wonderful and the students are excited and they participate, and then other classes are a bore and they just dont give a donkeys behind about English.... those classes are the most frustrating and seem to put me in a rotten mood. Theres also that one Japanese teacher im having to work with who is the laziest person I think ive ever met. grrrrrrrrr..... he makes my job way harder than it needs to be at times! The other 2 teachers i work with feel the same way i do and i guess my predecessor had so many problems with him that she actually wrote a letter to the principal about it. It didnt help though, so i guess im stuck with him. Oh well.
Ok well, hope people are still reading this. I never really know unless I get some comments (hint..hint...)
Monday, January 30, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
This is a Vietnamese fishing village we visited while on a boat tour off the coast of Nha Trang, Vietnam. Yes, I am aware that it looks like Im lactating. We went swimming earlier.
This is probably my favorite picture of all (on the left). For some reason I found those boats fascinating. They paddled them with amazing efficiency, skill and speed. It was really fun to watch.
This is a lagoon we canoed into. We took a tour around some of the islands in the bay between Phuket and the mainland (Thailand). This lagoon was simply beyond words -- incredible!That's a mangrove tree.
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And thats a wide view of the inner lagoon. Curiously enough, the walls were that white... And on the other side (to the right of the white wall and over a rock barrier) in another lagoon, there were a few monkeys chattering and checking us out!
Links added!
I finally added my favorite links to the page! Much thanks to Katy, who showed me how to do it! Theyre over there -------> on the right side. The first is an easy and quick link to my Shutterfly page so y'all can just click it and off you go! then there are the links to Aaron's, Katy's and Sam's pages who write (most of the time) about their very interesting lives in Japan and Argentina! Most of the time, they dont ramble nearly as much as I do and are much more humorous! Ill post a couple pics here to entice everyone to look at the site, the rest is up to you!
Friday, January 13, 2006
Pics of our SE Asia Adventures
I put our pics on my Shutterfly account and dont worry you dont have to become a member to see them!! http://angieinjapan.shutterfly.com
I'll put some pics on my blog when i get around to it, but to see all of them, go to the site! I still have the pics to upload from Adam's camera so when i get those done, ill add them!
I'll put some pics on my blog when i get around to it, but to see all of them, go to the site! I still have the pics to upload from Adam's camera so when i get those done, ill add them!
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Vacation Ramblings
So I havent written in awhile, sorry about that! Id rather write about my vacation for free here at work instead of paying for it elsewhere.
Our trip was definitely interesting! First we stayed in Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a couple days and met up with my friend Yin Yee a few times. It was great seeing her again and seeing where she lived and such. She took us at one point to eat traditional indian food.. well we didnt realize HOW traditional it was! You sit down and they give you a giant banana leaf for your plate. Then they slop on some rice, various veggies and various curries. Then you eat it all up using your hands! (your right hand of course, you left is for other less pleasant activities...). Anyway, the food was great, and it was a worthwhile experience. In fact, we liked it so much we went back a couple more times!
We then headed to the island of Penang which was a pretty quiet and family oriented place. Although, Christmas morning we were awoken at 6am by the Muslim call to prayer blasting outside our window.... unbeknownst to us, wed booked a place next to the town mosque... no wonder it was so cheap!! Anyway, Chistmas was a little odd because of that and the fact that it was hot, sunny, and everyone was wearing santa hats and playing xmas music, even though they were muslim...hmmm.....We spent our nights shopping at the night market where we bought 30 DVDs for about $30....not bad! then wed head to a friendly bar, have a couple drinks, smoke a hooka, and chat with the bar owner. A really BIG guy named Ben. He told us that because of the fickle weather, we should head to Phuket, Thailand, where wed have a lot more fun and better luck with the weather. So we did that!
We took a minibus (a van) for 12 hours through north malaysia and into thailand.. that was hard on the backside! Phuket is an island and we were on Patong Beach which is a huge party town and tourist trap. Full of prostitutes, lady-boys, bars and Thai boxing tournaments it proved to be a very interesting place! during the day most people were either sleeping, taking tours, or tanning on the gorgeous beach (most of the people there were definite skin cancer candidates.... and mostly european, meaning topless, old and young and not always a pretty sight!). We took a tour where we rode and elephant named Mr. Moo through a rubber plantation! I loved that! my favorite part by far! And then the next day we took a canoeing tour out to the bay between Phuket and the mainalnd. It was the most gorgeous place Ive ever seen. We would get off the main boat and canoe into these caves where it was pitch black and you could hear (and sometimes feel) the bats that lived there. Using just a flashlight we wound through the caves and out into a lagoon where there were monkeys sitting on rocks and chatting to each other. it was better than national geographic!
After Thailand we went back to KL for New Years which we spent with Yin Yee and her friends. at the stroke of midnight we we stuck on an overpass. Everyone got out of their cars, and went to the edge to watch the fireworks show, which was definitely worth it!! very cool! then we went and hung out with her friends.
Vietnam was definitely interesting. A very watered-down communist country though. We spent the first couple days in Ho Chi Minh City (known to most as Saigon) where we had dinner, roamed around and bought presents. We also took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and a Cao Dai temple. The Cu Chi Tunnels were built during the vietnam war. Most of the town moved down underground into these tunnels where they would love out their lives sabotaging and killing american soldiers who were trying to ruin their town. Anyway, we got to see booby traps, crawl through some of the tunnels, and realize the ingenuity of the vietnamese during that time. it was very interesting and amazing even though the tour was kinda made into a theme park and the tour guide was smiling the whole time while talking about killing the enemy. It was so one-sided and hard to see it that way when many people Adam and I know (ergo, his dad, and others) had been there and suffered. We then went to the War Remnants Museum which had formerly been called the War Crimes Museum, dedicated to making the americans look like baby-killing barbarians. There was a huge section on the after effects of Agent Orange, which was really sad and hard to take.... anyway, kind of a bummer of a day.
The Cao Dai temple though was really interesting. Cao Dai is a hodgepodge of many different religions put into one and its big claim to fame was that Victor Hugo was a member..hmm... we got to see one of their ceremonies, which was interesting for about 10 mins, then got boring like any other normal church service. But all in all, very cool to see.
Then we headed up to a beach town called Nha Trang where we decided to relax and enjoy the last leg of our trip. We took a boat tour, enjoyed a floating bar and TERRIBLE vietnamese wine (vinegar with a dash of sugar) that got nicely flavored with salt water as waves would come by...... it was a riot though, loads of fun. We met some really cool people, 2 English and 1 Aussie. We spent our days on the beach and reading, collecting shells etc. Anyway, Adam and I each got some kind of food poisening at different times, his the night before we were to come back! It was really worrisome for awhile, but we made it back in one piece and with no bird flu to speak of, although that last night we were wondering a bit!
It was a great trip with highs and lows. definitely eye-opening! i cant write about all the details here as it would take way too long, so if anyone is interested they can just comment, or ask me and i can fill you in!
As for today... back to work as usual... woohoo!
By the way, I'll put up pics soon. No worries, be patient!
Our trip was definitely interesting! First we stayed in Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a couple days and met up with my friend Yin Yee a few times. It was great seeing her again and seeing where she lived and such. She took us at one point to eat traditional indian food.. well we didnt realize HOW traditional it was! You sit down and they give you a giant banana leaf for your plate. Then they slop on some rice, various veggies and various curries. Then you eat it all up using your hands! (your right hand of course, you left is for other less pleasant activities...). Anyway, the food was great, and it was a worthwhile experience. In fact, we liked it so much we went back a couple more times!
We then headed to the island of Penang which was a pretty quiet and family oriented place. Although, Christmas morning we were awoken at 6am by the Muslim call to prayer blasting outside our window.... unbeknownst to us, wed booked a place next to the town mosque... no wonder it was so cheap!! Anyway, Chistmas was a little odd because of that and the fact that it was hot, sunny, and everyone was wearing santa hats and playing xmas music, even though they were muslim...hmmm.....We spent our nights shopping at the night market where we bought 30 DVDs for about $30....not bad! then wed head to a friendly bar, have a couple drinks, smoke a hooka, and chat with the bar owner. A really BIG guy named Ben. He told us that because of the fickle weather, we should head to Phuket, Thailand, where wed have a lot more fun and better luck with the weather. So we did that!
We took a minibus (a van) for 12 hours through north malaysia and into thailand.. that was hard on the backside! Phuket is an island and we were on Patong Beach which is a huge party town and tourist trap. Full of prostitutes, lady-boys, bars and Thai boxing tournaments it proved to be a very interesting place! during the day most people were either sleeping, taking tours, or tanning on the gorgeous beach (most of the people there were definite skin cancer candidates.... and mostly european, meaning topless, old and young and not always a pretty sight!). We took a tour where we rode and elephant named Mr. Moo through a rubber plantation! I loved that! my favorite part by far! And then the next day we took a canoeing tour out to the bay between Phuket and the mainalnd. It was the most gorgeous place Ive ever seen. We would get off the main boat and canoe into these caves where it was pitch black and you could hear (and sometimes feel) the bats that lived there. Using just a flashlight we wound through the caves and out into a lagoon where there were monkeys sitting on rocks and chatting to each other. it was better than national geographic!
After Thailand we went back to KL for New Years which we spent with Yin Yee and her friends. at the stroke of midnight we we stuck on an overpass. Everyone got out of their cars, and went to the edge to watch the fireworks show, which was definitely worth it!! very cool! then we went and hung out with her friends.
Vietnam was definitely interesting. A very watered-down communist country though. We spent the first couple days in Ho Chi Minh City (known to most as Saigon) where we had dinner, roamed around and bought presents. We also took a tour to the Cu Chi tunnels and a Cao Dai temple. The Cu Chi Tunnels were built during the vietnam war. Most of the town moved down underground into these tunnels where they would love out their lives sabotaging and killing american soldiers who were trying to ruin their town. Anyway, we got to see booby traps, crawl through some of the tunnels, and realize the ingenuity of the vietnamese during that time. it was very interesting and amazing even though the tour was kinda made into a theme park and the tour guide was smiling the whole time while talking about killing the enemy. It was so one-sided and hard to see it that way when many people Adam and I know (ergo, his dad, and others) had been there and suffered. We then went to the War Remnants Museum which had formerly been called the War Crimes Museum, dedicated to making the americans look like baby-killing barbarians. There was a huge section on the after effects of Agent Orange, which was really sad and hard to take.... anyway, kind of a bummer of a day.
The Cao Dai temple though was really interesting. Cao Dai is a hodgepodge of many different religions put into one and its big claim to fame was that Victor Hugo was a member..hmm... we got to see one of their ceremonies, which was interesting for about 10 mins, then got boring like any other normal church service. But all in all, very cool to see.
Then we headed up to a beach town called Nha Trang where we decided to relax and enjoy the last leg of our trip. We took a boat tour, enjoyed a floating bar and TERRIBLE vietnamese wine (vinegar with a dash of sugar) that got nicely flavored with salt water as waves would come by...... it was a riot though, loads of fun. We met some really cool people, 2 English and 1 Aussie. We spent our days on the beach and reading, collecting shells etc. Anyway, Adam and I each got some kind of food poisening at different times, his the night before we were to come back! It was really worrisome for awhile, but we made it back in one piece and with no bird flu to speak of, although that last night we were wondering a bit!
It was a great trip with highs and lows. definitely eye-opening! i cant write about all the details here as it would take way too long, so if anyone is interested they can just comment, or ask me and i can fill you in!
As for today... back to work as usual... woohoo!
By the way, I'll put up pics soon. No worries, be patient!
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