Bizarro Bangkok

Our plane touched down the next day in the humid and heady city of Bangkok. Once more we found ourselves blessed with a good hostel. We took a long walk and found that Thailand has lots of 7-Elevens. On the way to take the taxi boat, we met a man on the street who advised us to take an open air taxi or a tuk tuk to the Buddhist temple we wanted to see. Later we learned that the man was helping his friend, the tuk tuk driver across the street.. 

We loaded the tuk tuk and headed for the temple. Almost immediately upon arriving, we met a man who worked for the president’s security force. The president was going to visit that temple later in the day and he was making sure it was secure. In addition, the temple was being cleaned with scrub brush and hose and various Buddha’s were being scrubbed off.

Our new acquaintance gave us a full history of the different buddhas and where they came from. They were gifts from various countries at different times and each had different symbolism. He explained feng shui as a belief system that was more like a talisman of good luck for people. He told us we needed to buy a certain stone in order to help us become more wealthy. How cool it was to get a full history of the temple from a Thai person for free! His English was fantastic because he spent 7 years in the navy in America and attended the Naval academy. This is required for those who want to serve in the Thai security force for the president.

After our tour of the small temple, we climbed back into our waiting tuk tuk and asked him to help us find a place to eat. We soon learned that he spoke very little English as he took us to a fancy gem shop where one could watch jewellery being made while being watched by uppity thai people. Instead we walked around behind the building and found a small ‘restaurant’ on the street. The lady warmed up some chicken for us, gave us each plates of rice and some spicy thai papaya salad. We ordered all this with the help of a man sitting at the table next to us. In the end we paid $4.50 for our meal, which seemed like an extraordinary amount in thai baht =130.

Our tuk tuk driver was hanging around waiting for us, even though we really didn’t want him because we were afraid of being taken to a place completely different from where we asked. And there was a man hanging around trying to talk to us and give us directions. He was a little creepy so we made a quick exit.

        We took off walking and our tuk tuk driver followed us! Honking at us from the road, he couldn’t understand why we didn’t want his services… We were tired of being harped on and it was only the first day. Eventually we found ourselves walking through a neighborhood and then down the railroad tracks between two neighborhoods. It was interesting observing the little houses on each side and the people’s faces as they watched three white girls walk down the tracks. We walked to a small open air market on the street. There was seafood, fruit and veggies galore. I found myself being offered a fried locust by one of the shopkeepers so, not wanting to be rude, I ate it.. Not bad, crispy, salty..

Eventually we got a tuk tuk to take us to the water boats and we found our way back to our hostel. It was an adventure of a first day and we had almost a month to go!

R&R in Kunming

On the 22^nd of January, my lovely teammate and I boarded a plane for Kunming and met our third teammate there. She had been traveling with another team and we had a joy filled reunion in our hostel. We were fortunate to be staying downtown, right near a lovely walking street. We were so blessed to meet another teacher from our organization who spoke fantastic Chinese and was a great help to us. We took a long walk and found some donuts for breakfast. After finding some children skating in a park and some older people enjoying the sun under the shadow of a pagoda, we went to the store and made peanut butter and banana sandwiches at our hostel for lunch.

The weather being absolutely perfect, we sat outside and soaked up the sun all afternoon. My teammates got a sunburn on one side of their face and we met a sweet Chinese boy who played ping pong with us and who allowed our friend to christen him with his English name: Toby. Ten years old, he was fantastic with a yoyo and with the ping pong paddle. Kunming was restful and beautiful and we were excited for the next leg of our journey.

The Chronicles of the Sunseeking Sisters Pt.1

       Well, my travels with Tannah and Ashley are drawing to a close as we prepare to board a plane for China on the 21st. We have had some incredible adventures, some heartstopping scares, some awe-inspiring Papa moments and overall- we have just learned a lot about eachother!

       Thus begins the adventures of the Sunseeking Sisters as we forsook our home in the nether regions of China for the warmer paradises of That country and Balmy Thailand.

Tuesday, January 5th.

Team HuaQiao boards train to Harbin to go to famous Ice Festival. Papa provided mightily in train tickets and a friend through our organization. This friend spoke great CHinese and set up a driver to take us out to the Ice Festival and back (saving us lots of money), set up a hotel room for us on her campus, and helped us with the language when we were in need.

Our group of 5 (Tannah, Ashley, Jordan, Abram and I) dressed in our warmest clothes and headed out to the Ice Festival. I was wearing 3 pairs of socks and feet warmers in my -40 boots, 2 pairs of long underwear and jeans under ski bibs, a pair of long underwear and 2 sweaters under a down jacket, 2 pairs of gloves and a hat and scarf. I stayed pretty warm except when I took my hands out of gloves to take pictures.

Several of the Ice Sculptures were carved with slides so we could 'interact' with the art by climbing up their two or three stories and sliding down the icy slides. Often we raced to see who could go down fastest. The frost from our breaths quickly turned into ice on eyelashes, beards and scarves. In amazement, we took in the red lantern walk to the ice castle, the ski run and the snow sculpture. It was all beautiful, and became impressive and near frightening when one realized it was all made of ICE!

         After 3 hours, we decided we were near frozen and it was time to head home. A dinner of ramen was just right to warm the belly before we climbed into cozy beds and were off to dreamland.

January 6: Harbin Scandal erupts

   Harbin, during the early part of the 19th century, was occupied by Russia and thus has some architecture from that period that the Chinese are mystified and very proud of. The most famous of these is the Sophia Church. It is an old Eastern Orthodox style church in the center of Harbin that now acts as a museum about that time period of Russian occupancy. (Forgive any errors in the exact history of the city, the museum was primarily in Chinese)
My friends and I travelled to the museum on bus, providentially meeting a sweet woman who guided us right to the place. We bought our tickets for the museum, took some lovely pictures, fed the pigeons, and then went in to see the building.

The walls were lined with pictures of Harbin and its development over the last two centuries. It was interesting to see pictures of China full of Europeans strolling around with umbrellas and having tea. We stayed in the museum over an hour- taking artistic pictures of the arches and chandeliers with their chipped paint, bricks showing through and their metal slowly turning colors with age.
When we finally decided to leave, I went to pull out my phone only to discover my wallet was missing. No phone, no passport, no money, no apartment key… NOTHING. After a minor freak out moment, my team spread out and scoured the place for my passport. We asked the few employees if they had seen it and they confirmed my fears. “If you cannot find it, I am afraid it is lost.” In other words, it was stolen and you ain’t getting it back.

         After searching in all the trashcans and praying multiple times for a miracle, we decided to look outside. My teammates looked again in all trashcans, hoping someone may have left a bit of evidence –perhaps emptied the wallet and thrown it away.. but it was a pretty cute wallet.


Though I was desperate, I could see we were not going to find it there and I knew it was time to stop looking. I called my team leader who then called her leader for advice. As I stood on the corner of the street crying and trying to hide it, I realized that my plans to travel china starting the next week were going to have to be foregone. What I didn’t know then was that Papa had way better things in store.

The next day, back in Changchun, Super Leader and I went with our Foreign Affairs Officer and filled out the report in the police station. Papa provided so much favor through our F.A.O. as he knew the process already and expertly guided us. We had to make a report in the newspaper that the number was no longer valid (oh China) and then the next day, Friday, Papa did a huge miracle. At 8:30 am we went to the Newspaper office to pick up the clipping. We needed that and the police report in order to apply for a visa and in order to get a passport I had to have police report to get another report from the Public Security Bureau in downtown Changchun. We took the newspaper clipping to the PSB where we met our FAO. Though the PSB was packed, we were taken upstairs and helped by a lady who is friends who our FAO (FAVOR!). In less than 2 hours we were on a fast train to Shenyang, China to the US embassy with the report we needed in order to apply for a passport.


By five o’clock we were enjoying caramel macchiatos in Starbucks . By 11pm we were in a taxi cab singing Christmas songs to our driver so he wouldn’t smoke the cigarette tucked behind his ear. You have never heard such wonderful renditions of “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” or ‘Silent Night.”
Another provision that Papa made was that I had only booked one train ticket, one plane ticket and no hostels. My teammates were able to return our train tickets, and I was able to change the date on my plane ticket with no fee! When my passport finally did arrive, it was one day before my rescheduled plane trip to