Christmas Trip Plans

Tomorrow I am heading to Bangkok, Thailand for another adventure... last one for 2011!  I am going a day earlier than the tour to meet up with a former student I taught in Athens - he should be in 7th grade now!

The tour is a 10 day trip to the hitting the highlights of Northern Thailand - beginning in Bangkok, train to Chiang Mai - a Thai cooking class, some biking and seeing some temples;  H'mong Hilltribe - ehtnic minority people; Sukhothai Historical Park; Elephant Conservation Center; Kanchanaburi; River Kwai and back to Bangkok.

So stay tuned for my next blog in 2012.  For now Merry Christmas to you all and to all a good night!

Christmas Vacation Week 1

Christmas vacation began at 3:30pm on December 16!  I have 3 weeks off.  I am happy with my decision not to take off right away.  I have had time to relax (update this), spend time with friends and tour a little more of Singapore.

This week a colleague of mine and I ventured down near the Sultan Mosque and Arab Street and found the neatest boutiques which I know Mom and Dad will like too.  Then we went into the building some people call Batam's gothic building - it has a famous bar called Divine's.  If someone orders a wine which is on the top shelves, a "fairy" - a waitress is hooked on a cable and "flies" up to retrieve it.  Unfortunately, we didn't see any flying while I was there but they had a beautiful real Christmas tree!

I spent an afternoon at the Brownes making my annual butter cookies with royal icing - this making, cutting, cooking, decorating takes on average 3-4 hours!  But completely worth it!

Making traditional Xmas cookies

Xmas tree in a mall

me and my Xmas tree!

Today I had a great Christmas brunch with my friends and their families who are here for the holidays.  I have been hearing about these "kids" (there are in their 20s) for the past 5 months and now I can put a face to a name.  As I love to entertain, I had everyone to my house.  There were 16 of us!  I made deviled eggs for the first time - I didn't get a chance to try one so I am thinking they were good! It was finally a sunny day and I think everyone had a good time!

Eric and Janice

Dorthe and her kids

Emma and Isabel

Out and About in Singapore November

Wow!  It's been a long time since I last blogged.  I have been busy... let's see..

Andrea and Jill

After my friends Dorthe and Bruce and I went and saw The Lion King at Marina Bays Sands Theater - which was as good as the first time I saw it in London, my friend Andrea and I went to the top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel for a great view and a few cocktails!

top of the MBS hotel - Singapore

The Brownes and I rented bikes and rode quite a way in East Coast Park one Sunday afternoon. Then we stopped by Long Beach Seafood Restaurant on the water and had a HUGE Alaskan king crab - it was yummy!

I have seen some monkeys and tropical birds from the Monkey Sanctuary which I view from my apartment.

Elton John

Debra and me

Debra and I went to see Elton John at the middle of November.  What a fantastic concert.  The venue for it wasn't too large and we had great seats.  Kevin Spacey was also there as he was in town for his play King Richard III.

CIS - where I work had their Christmas party at the end of November so it was still MOvember as that was the theme of our party.

Jill and Andrea - MOvember time!

Day 8 – New Hope Village for Cambodia Children

We spent an unexpected yet delightful full day with the children and people of New Hope.  John and Kathy are from Texas and began this unbelievable establishment which houses, educates, loves, cares for, feeds and transports Cambodian children with AIDS/HIV.  There are 240 children at New Hope and about 235 of them all have HIV/AIDS.  New Hope for Cambodian Children (NHCC) works with the government.  Most of the children have lost both their parents to AIDS and who are abandoned. 

The children go to a local school in the morning and then the village provides additional schooling in the afternoon.  In the afternoon, the children have classes in computers, dance, music, math, English, etc. 

John - founder

We were amazed about the self-sufficiency of this establishment.  It is well organized, kid-friendly, and environmentally friendly.  New Hope breeds their own pigs as part of their income generation project – I have never seen such large pigs in my life!  They have over 10, 000 chickens which also is a part of the income generation project.  The older children have a garden project.  They grow their crops and NHCC buys the vegetables from the children, so they have some spending money.    There is a quilt making project for the widows that have HIV, so they can support themselves.

President Clinton’s foundation funds all the medication for every child in Cambodia! 

After first, I was a little apprehensive to what I would see and how the children would be, but it didn’t take long to “forget” they were infected with HIV/AIDS – they are kids!  They were happy and energetic and healthy.  They were running around, climbing trees, and tricking the dogs, having fun!

We had a huge dance party on the basketball court with all the kids at the end of the day (in the extreme heat – as one little girl said I better get out of the sun as my face was red!)

Dance Party!

It was truly a fantastic day!

a little boy who just needed to be held

(www.newhopeforcambodianchildren.com)  

Day 7 - Phnom Penh Sightseeing

On Sunday, October 23 we had a free day to sightsee Phnom Penh.  We took a tuk-tuk about an hour outside of Phnom Penh to the “mountain”.  Oudong was the original site for the capital city of Cambodia from 17^th century until 1866.  There were many temples, stupas and other buildings on the tree hills.  Once on the top the view of the countryside was beautiful.  Stupas have the remains of important people in them – the ones on these hills have several Cambodian kings:  King Monivong (1927-1941) and King Ang Duong (1845-1859),

unidentifiable food

As Eric, Janice, Dorthe and I got out of our tuk-tuk we were swarmed by many Cambodian children attempting to use their English with us and trying to be our tour guides.  Being a Sunday we tried to lose the children by walking through the street market first, however, we did need their help to figure out all the “strange” interesting foods we were viewing.  And in the end each one of us had our own tour – 4 boys all friends! 

We actually walked up the back stairs only 136 stairs (versus the front stairs 563) and then walked the remaining stairs in increments!  At the top of the first set of stairs was a large temple with a giant golden Buddha in it.  We also saw many smaller temples with Buddhas, some stupas, some animal temples and 3 huge stupas made for Cambodia’s kings.   The views from this height were breath-taking.  In one direction were just beautiful green fields (though the boys informed us that those were killing fields) and there was a large factory owned by the Chinese.  In the other direction you could see Phnom Penh and the flood waters.

Royal Palace

We also went to the Royal Palace for a quick tour.  The highlights were the Royal Palace and the Silver Pagoda.  The Royal Palace is used for the residence for the king, a venue for court ceremonies and as a symbol for the Kingdom.  The Silver Pagoda is different than most pagodas (where monks live) as its entire floor is made of silver, there are many precious Buddhist and historical objects there including an Emerald Buddha.  But unlike most pagodas no monks live in this one.

I ended my day with a mojito at the Elephant Bar in the Raffles Hotel (Le Royal) and dinner at an Italian restaurant called Pop Café de Geogio. – Both recommendations from Andrea!

Jenny, Jill, Dorthe at Elephant Bar

House Building with Tabitha

Janne - founder of Tabitha

 Morning of Day 4: We went to Tabitha and met the founder of Tabitha Janne Ritskes who started Tabitha in 1994. She gave us a good overview of Cambodia’s history.  She also told us the do’s and don’ts in the village where we were going to build on Saturday.  Things such as, not to touch the children younger than 2 and now to pick them up or tell them they were cute.  As these would put an omen upon the family and they would have to give their child to us to take home.  She also warned us about the flood waters and viper snakes.

Tabitha Cambodia is a non-profit organization.  All funds are used to help the very poor in Cambodia through programs that focus on personal and financial development.  It was started in 1994 and has now reached over 500,000 people.  Tabitha has many programs such as, the Savings Program, Family Partnerships, Water Wells, Piglets, Cottage Industry, Patchwork Quilts and Housebuilding.

House #1

Day 6:  House Building – We all got up and had a simple breakfast.  It was about an hour bus ride to the village where we were building.  It was a beautiful day!  Everyone was healthy and ready to finally do the build.  There were 25 of us so 5 teams of 5.  Each team had one of the 5 guys on it and one of the 5 teachers who had done a Tabitha build before.  My team consisted of Carl, Abby, Kristy and Jasmine.  We were a great team and had a lot of fun building.  There was a nice breeze for most of them time.  Each of us bearing the white Cambodia build t-shirts and the Tabitha checked scarf, we had our hammers and work gloves in hand, we balanced our steps on some floating boards until we safely reached our first house.

My job nail nails into the floor boards.  Our first set of nails we almost impossible to get in straight but then we got longer nails and I was feeling a little more successful!

Despite the 1 foot of water which you could not see through each group built 2 houses in about 5 hours.  We had no injuries and everyone was able to do what they could.  10 families were extremely happy on this day.  The family has to save / give $30 towards the house; which takes them about 2 years to save.  2 years!  We (Tabitha/the house builders) raise the rest of the money.  Each house costs about $1000.

Family of house#1

Thought of the Day: 

~ Hard labor is not my forte!  ~

Day 5 – PIO (People Improvement Organization) School

This morning we took about 9 tuk-tuks to the PIO main office to drop off our CIS (Canadian International School) uniforms -20 (10 kg) bags of clothes.  Then we continued to the school on the dump.  Yes this school is next to the city garbage dump and serves 315 children and their families who are forced to scavenge on the dump.  There is also an orphanage of 55 children ages 3-18.  CIS has been involved helping this school for about 7 years. 

Phymean Noun was a former United Nations worker and she started this PIO.  She was honored CNN’s Heroes Award in 2008 - http://articles.cnn.com/2008-05-29/world/heroes.noun_1_trash-dump-trash-heap-poorest-children?_s=PM:WORLD  She told us about the NGO and we had a tour of the orphanage.  Then we all had brought things from Singapore to do an activity with the children.  Dorthe and I had straws, pipe cleaners and clay for the children to explore and create with.  Others did face painting, water colors, cards, making masks.  Afterwards the children of the orphanage performed some traditional Cambodian dances for us.

After lunch, we all boarded 4 buses for our 4 hour caravan ride to the province of Pursat.  We stayed in a sketchy hotel in the middle of nowhere before going to the village to do our house building the next day.