sondre's sea safari

sondre has been hanging with the fishies...

summer love

after finally receiving an update on my parents extremely busy lives, i realized that i had forgotten that it is summer for all of you too - - - which means that we're all on holiday! happy summer!

we just spent the day biking around the rice paddies of ubud, an inland town in bali. afterwards we sat on the egde of the local soccer field and watched the bali finals. only a couple fights broke out - nothing too serious.

we're a bit unsure what to do with our last few weeks - there are so many islands (17,500 of them!), so little time!

here's a few images to whet your interest . . .



the carving below we saw at the famous borobudur temple on java, just outside of yogyakarta. the temple is from the year 800. it's the oldest structure i've climbed on.


here's a close up of shadow puppets - sondre and i saw a performance in yogyakarta. one man controls all the puppets, backed by a gamelan orchestra.


gamelan is traditional indonesian music, but it is still alive and well and you hear it everywhere. it's my new favorite sound.

this website has some gamelan music for your ipod: http://www.gamelan.org

and this one lets you play: http://www.monkeyc.org/play.html

okay . . . enough schooling for one day. bye for now!

Jakarta

Since last time we've been waiting in airports and gone to another wedding.

From Cambodia we had booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur with a connecting flight to Jakarta. The first of the two was over 4 hours late, so we had to wait until the next morning to get to Jakarta. The good thing was that we got to see Kuala Lumpur, which was great, but it came at the cost of getting city-tired and airport-grumpy.

But then we got here! Hana and Jake, whose wedding we went to in New Zealand, had a second wedding party here in Indonesia, because Hana's mother is Indonesian. It's been wonderful to hang out with friends again. We are staying at Hana's parents house, which was the scene of the big traditional wedding party yesterday. The costumes and decorations were beyond this world! Actually, they looked a bit Star Wars... Hope to post some pictures soon.

Tomorrow we are taking a train to Yogyakarta, and then we're going to Bali.

By the way, this is a commual Flicker account where people have been posting their pictures from H&J's wedding in Piha. Lots of fun for the whole family!

a little vietnam, a little cambodia, and whoa, tons of fun!
we are in siem reap now, staying in cambodia until the 28th, when we catch a plane for jakarta, indonesia. yay!

beep beep!

honking horns, engines whirring, shouts, barks, roars, screeching, and hollering - - - we are in HCMC - ho chi minh city - otherwise known as Saigon. it's CRAZY here! the traffic is no joke and motorbikes rule the roads. fresh baguettes on the street are so so yummy, especially when filled with soft cheese and tomatos. and the coffee? probably the best we've had since we left new zealand. you can get it right on the street, as you kick back on your plastic stool and watch the city zoom zoom around.

needless to say, we're having a grand old time in Vietnam. we crossed the border from Laos and headed to the town of Hue. we got on bikes there and toured the city for the day, realizing that our minimal vietnamese phrases were in vain - everyone speaks english here. we headed south to Hoi An where sondre upped his swank and bought a suit, made-to-order. it's really the only way to buy a suit. it fits PERFECT and he looks very smart in his new suit, shirts, jeans, and shoes (leather of course). i didn't have such good luck with all my buys, but i did walk away with some perfect jeans and sassy shoes.

from there we beached it out in Nha Trang, a place that reminded us very much of Thailand, even though we've never been. we played the part and swam in the pool of the foreigner club, drank micro brews, and sailed a catamaran in the bay surrounded by islands and mountains. !!!!

what else to say about vietnam? the only complaint is that it is too easy to travel here! don't know how to explain that really, but there is really no miscommunication, no late buses or delays, and no real need to plan. where's the fun in that?

sabaidee! (hello!)

since we can't show ya'll our own photos (misplaced cord, of course), i found some nice ones on the web that other travellers have posted. just a few shots of buildings here in savannakhet and luang prahbang, rice paddies in luang namtha, and fairly typical rural houses. plus a map courtesy of the u.s. embassy, of our very dear laos, which we plan to leave tomorrow, for the much busier and wilder vietnam.

we've really fallen for laos. it's easy and friendly and there isn't much to do, something we like very much. the population is small - comparable to norway - and the people are so relaxed and willing to talk. just today a man gave us some chewy candy after we asked him for directions and the woman in the tourist office sat us down for a free on-the-spot lesson in lao. how nice is that? also, if you see it, you should treat yourself to a beerlao, the only beer made here and made pretty well.

much love!

We're OK!

We have not at all been affected by the earth quake in southern Laos. Didn't even hear about it until I checked my email... Thanks for thinking about us though!

Laos

It's been so long since we updated this blog, so I'll quickly explain what we've done since then. After some days in Beijing we got on a 42 hour (!) train to Kunming in south west China. Then we did a 3-day hike in Tiger Leaping Gorge and went back to Kunming for a few more days. Danielle contacted some distant relatives and we meet up with them, which turned out to be really wonderful! We were expecting one distant relative and got about 20 not-so-distant relatives, including Danielle's grandma's sister, many of her dads cusins and two really cute baby twins. This was a truly wonderful experience and anyone reading this who have relatives in China should book their tickets right now.

Then we headed soutwards for Laos, which is where we are now.

Right now we're in Luang Namtha, but we're heading south to Luang Prabang tomorrow. Hana and Jake are getting married in Indonesia June 30th, and we are planning to be there then. All is very well with us. Internet cafes are expensive.

Beijing: Nine million bicycles and three English speakers

A boat and a bus later, and we're in Beijing! We made sure to see the biggest sights first, so we could feel free move on quite quickly. The Forbidden City and The Great wall were just as fabulous and touristy as one would imagine. Also, the whole city is getting a major facelift in the preparation for the 2008 Olympics, hence the "spitting is gross"-posters and late night construction noise. Now we're ready to move on but very uncertain about where to go.

We are trying to decide on a place to go in the south west, ideally someplace not very noisy and dusty.

"Hey you! Where from?"

click for photos from korea!

Korea

c'mon korea!

one boat ride later and we made it! we've already eaten feasts for kings and sipped the soju, the drink of choice here. taylor and travis have the cutest little apartment in daejeon, and we're making friends with schoolkids every other block.
if you want to know what it's like to be an english teacher in korea, check out travis' blog: www.gonzobonsai.blogspot.com
he's also written some nice new zealand stories from our time there together.

we hi o! as they say.

...more pictures from Japan

so many photos! so little time! japan has been super special and kind to us. i don't think we've ever ate so well.

we're off again, taking the Pan-Star Cruise Ferry all the way to Busan, Korea. fun and friends await us there, so always looking forward.

hello korea, arigato gozaimashta japan!

Japanorama!

Click for more pictures....

japan

pictures all around

get ready . . .

from new zealand to . . .

nara nara nara!

this is where we are now - - - shrines galore, deer so tame they lick your hands, gigantic buddahs, crazy birds, loads of nice cafes, and lots of bowing. wowo.

Melbourne je t'aime

It's our third day in Melbourne and it's absolutely wonderful here. For a big city, it seems to have everything: a river to bike along where families from different corners of the world having different kinds of picnics, good inexpensive Italian food and vibrant neighborhoods with sassy stores. And an old amusement park. Tonight we're meeting up with my old friend Bente from Norway and her very own Australian named Tom.

On Thursday we'll get on a bus and cry all the way to Sydney. Oo-sole-mio!

Does anyone know..?

...anything about a ferrey from Osaka in Japan to Seoul in Korea? Is there is one, we'll probably take it. All is well -- we're preparing for the next moves.

...and finally some pictures!

Here are pictures from the wedding and the beach of Piha outside of Auckland, one of Danielle in front of some very dirty vulcanic water outside the town of Roterua, and one of our friends Hana and Jake from when we walked the Milford track. After about six weeks in New Zealand we're flying to Melbourne April 8th and then to Japan on the 15th. All is well, except for a very annoying mosquito bite on my index finger.

hello, an apology and updates

All is well, except that we haven't gotten this blog going yet. Stay posted though, our digicams are so full they have pictures coming out of the little cracks around their bottons. If it is true that one thing leads to another, this blog will be bursting of pictures and snappy comments before too long.

As for now, we've been in New Zealand for a couple of days. Flew in to Queenstown and did the four-day Milford Track hike, staying in cabins along the way. From there we drove north on the east cost, stopping by Dunedin, Christchurch and Golden Bay.

South Island Highlights:
1. Milford Track
2. Being done with the Milford Track
3. Staying inn the house of the guy working at the corner store in Dunedin. (All other options were closed at 10 PM! The house, by the way, was the worst piece of crap I've ever seen.)
4. Quite possibly the greatest bar we've ever been to.

Now we've been in Auckland for a bit more than a week, staying at our friend Mayana's house. She went to Lewis & Clark with us, came here to visit Hana (whose wedding we're here for), and *BAM!* got pregnant and as of today also married. That's right, she got married to native New Zealander and woodsman Keirin today, this morning. Pictures coming soon...

Danielle's parents get here tomorrow, and then we'll be hanging out with them for the next ten days. That means North Island sight-seeing, wine-tasting, and a much much higher level of comfort than we've had until now. Grown ups sure are great!

theres a big party on the other side of the lake and we can't wait to be there! we've got our gear and are ready ready ready. well almost.