Where in the World are Rach & Steph?

2006-06-05T23:10:00.000-07:00

Well hello!
Wanted to let you know that new pics are up and actually labeled too! Too tired to stay here and write though. Hope to update in the next day or so.

Dad & Tracy, I created a folder with all of the Australia Wildlife pics I promised the kids I'd take. Can you show them?

Mica just went home Sunday and Steph's still gone so I'm on my own though. Have some good friends here in Sydney though who've taken me in! I'll be here until this Thursday and then I'm off to Thailand again. I'm meeting a friend I met in South Africa. We are going to spend 2 days in Kuala Lumpur on the way, check out a few new islands and of course, see the kids! I'll be there for 3 weeks and then back to Sydney. It's from there that I have no idea :)

Miss and love you all.
xoxo,
Rach

2006-05-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

Hello Hello!
Rach here! Things have changed a bit since I last wrote! Steph is gone (sniff sniff) and Mica is now here. I'm going to keep this really short because it's boiling in here :)

We just spent the last 5 days about 10 hrs. south of Cairns in the Whit Sundays. We met Mica on Hamilton Island and we all took the ferry over the mainland to Airlie Beach where we had to pick up our boat. We took at 2 day sailing tour around the Whit Sunday Islands. The weather didn't cooperate with us, but the islands were beautiful, we still had some fabulous girl time and I got to dive. I'm loving diving... I've been on 11 dives and received my advanced certification! Diving on the reef is spectacular. Ton of different types of coral, huge fish, turtles, sharks, sting rays, and more!

The 3 of us lived it up Steph's last 24 hours with us. Her last night we chilled by the sea, went for a run along the marina at sunset, had a great dinner and some really good wine. Then, in the morning we took a ferry out to Daydream Island and treated ourselves to massages! Was really sad to put Steph on the ferry to the airport, but we've had an amazing trip and I'm secretly hoping she'll decide to come back.

Mica and I submerced ourselves into the outback of Australia and went on a croc tour yesterday. Not only did we see a ton of crocs (even babies) but we got to have Bushman Billy Tea, Damper, and a Barbie! Pics are up so check them out!

We flew to Cairns this morning and have lots of fun things planned. We'll spend a day on the reef, go whitewater rafting in grade 4 rapids, and visit Cape Tribulation, Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge!

Miss you and love you tons!
xoxoxo
Rach

2006-05-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

How ya goin'?
Things here are still going absolutely fantastic! We are up in Cairns now and I had the 1st day of my dive certification today. One more day in the pool and I'm off to dive the Great Barrier Reef... I've waited for this my entire trip and am so excited!

I know we've been bad about the blog lately....sorry. Steph goes home for good on May 24th so we've packed these last months full of adventures! The last weekend was spent in Melbourne partying it up for my bday! Was really strange to be away from my friends and family, but Steph made it a really special bday weekend! On top of some great girl time, we also went to a formal event at the races and the Collingwood vs. Carlton AFL game. The races are a huge deal in Melbourne... I've never seen anything like it. The footie game was really fun too because the teams are huge rivals. The game was at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) and was packed with screaming, chanting fans!

Before Melbourne we spent a couple of weeks in Thailand. We went back to check on the house we built and spend time with friends at the orphanage! I don't even think I can put it into words what it was like to be back. The welcome alone made us cry!!

Steph and I raised (including our contribution) over $10,000 to help Tsunami victims in Khao Lak. Not only were we able to buy land & build Bai, the most amazing woman, a house, but we were also able to sponsor 9 kids for 18 months each. We seriously can't thank all of you enough. I'm hoping to continue the fund raising when I get home so we can extend these kids' sponsorships and hopefully even sponsor more! We love that we were able to get to know each and every one and can go back to visit them any time we want!

Bai's house was almost complete when we arrived, but they ran out of money for tile, paint and a toilet. They were too ashamed or shy to ask us for the money so the woman who runs the orphanage (Ratjana) asked the foundation she works for if they would give her a loan and then deduct monthly from her paycheck! We couldn't believe it! They only needed less than $1000, but that would have taken Rotjana atleast 5 years to pay off. We slapped their hands (smile) and hired people to do the work. In just a few days they almost had it the house finished and Bai should be moving in by this weekend!

I just put up the pictures so you can see some of the kids and Bai's house! In front of the house you'll see Bai's family, Ratjana, us, and some of the kids!

Ok, better run! They are picking me up early to throw me in a pool and teach me to breathe under water :) Thank you thank you thank you again to all who donated! Miss, love and think of you so much.

xoxoxo,
Rach (and Steph of course!)

2006-04-23T07:46:00.000-07:00

Sawasdee Ka!
Yes, we are back in Thailand! This is Rach writing! Steph is out to dinner with some friends and I stayed behind because I managed to pick up a little stomach bug! I don't feel too bad.. just can't be too far from home if you know what I mean :) Right now I'm taking advantage of using a friend's computer from my hotel room.. it's such a treat not to have to sit at an internet cafe!

We spent the last 10 days in Fiji and just arrived into Koh Samui last night. We were supposed to hit Thailand before Fiji, but on our last trip to Sydney we were having so much fun that we decided to stay a few more days. We were glad we did, but we ended up having some trouble with flights and had to switch everything around. Actually, pretty much all of our plans since I got back from home have been changed around.

We spent a week in Sydney when I first got back and it was great! We were going to head out sooner, but some friends invited us to go wine tasting in Hunter Valley with them so we stuck around. We are lucky we did because if we hadn't, we would have been in Cairnes during the huge Cyclone. Funny story actually! Steph and I got back from Hunter Valley late on Sunday, packed up, and headed to the airport 1st thing Monday morning. It wasn't until we arrived, checked in, were sitting at the gate, and started calling hotels in Cairnes that we heard about the Cyclone. The woman at the hotel advised us not to come because the place was flooded and had no electricity. We also found out later that our flight was the 1st to fly up there since the Cylone hit.. all others had been cancelled. Can you believe the airline didn't say anything when we checked in???? Anyway, we were able to talk our way into changing our ticket and flying somewhere else... the only problem was where? The woman working for the airline told us that Perth had good weather and she could get us on a flight an hour later so off we went!

We arrived in Perth that night and were pretty bummed out. Both of us were really excited to go to Cairnes and then all the sudden we are in a terrible hotel about as far away as you can get from Cairnes! That feeling only lasted one night though and we ended up really enjoying Western Australia. We only spent 3 nights in Perth and the rest of our time down south a little further in the wine region called Margaret River. We lucked out and scored a really nice apartment for cheap ... it was so nice it felt like home. Margaret River was gorgeous!! We didn't do a ton of wine tasting because we just came from Hunter Valley, but we did try a few we loved. Vasse Felix and Cullen were 2 of our favorite buttery Chardonnays! We spent a few days just relaxing and watching movies because it was dumping rain. The rest of the time we spent exploring the coast! WA is a huge surf spot so we went for some long walks on the beach and watched the surfers. There was a surf competition in town so the surfers were much better than the ones we saw up north further. We drove down a bit further to Hamlin Bay where you can get in the water with Sting Rays.. very cool! We had one big night that started by going to a concert at local winery. Ever heard of Alex Lloyd? He's Australian and actually really really good! His music is much like Dave Matthews and was perfect for the venue! It was held at Leeuwin Estate on a huge green lawn surrouned by really tall trees. Everyone was just camped out on the lawn with their blankets and wine.. it was great! We had a bottle of wine at the concert and then headed out in town after. It's a tiny town and everyone you meet is either a surfer or works at/owns a winery or both! We ended up hanging out with some locals and getting to taste some good wine! One we really liked was the Brown Brothers Shiraz. The winery is actually in Victoria, but their son (Nick Brown) lived over in Marg River so he had it for us to drink! The next morning we went for brunch at a great cafe down on the coast where we kept the party going. We were craving a bloody mary! The rest. was BYO, but there just happened to be a liquor store next door.. trouble! Steph went over to see if they had bloody mary mix, but came back with champaign and oj instead! Next thing you know we were sitting on the beach, babysitting some surfer's puppy, & drinking our 2nd bottle of bubbly! After the beach we headed back to town to have a late lunch and another glass of wine! By about 5pm we were both so exhausted that we went home, put in a movie, and fell asleep! Just can't day drink like we used to be able to :(

Because we were supposed to be in Cairnes, but we couldn't go yet we didn't know where to go after Margaret River. You really need a ton of time to see Western Australia because everything to see if SO spread out! We didn't want to spend the rest of our time in WA so we went to a travel agent in Marg River to try and figure something out. Working with this travel agent turned out to be really complicated and somewhat of a nightmare. We knew we wanted to come back to Thailand to finish volunteering and that we wanted to hit Fiji, but then he talked us into Bali too! We spent hours figuring it all out with him just to later realize how dangerous Bali was for Americans right now. Long story short, we ended up having to change our tickets and it was a huge hassle! Oh how I miss Phil!

On our drive back to Perth from Margaret River we took the coastal route and stopped to explore several little towns along the way. We were actually really impressed at how beautiful the coastline was there and how much character the towns had.

Our last day in Perth was a big one! We got up really early and caught a ferry to Rottnest Island. We rented bikes and snorkel gear and set off to explore the island! We were really impressed with Rottnest. You are just a short distance out of Perth, but you feel like you're on a remote tropical island! There are no cars on on the island other than a few busses that take you to the most popular beaches. There are Quokkas (look like huge rats) and Peacocks running wild all over. The water is so clear and turquoise that you just can't wait to get in it! See the pics! We got back to Perth in time to head into town for dinner. We went to a hip area called Subiaca and ate at a restaurant across the street from their AFL stadium. The 1st game of the season was that night so there were tons of people out! We couldn't get tickets to that game, but we are hoping to catch one in Melbourne!

After Perth we headed back to Sydney. We stayed with some friends in the city for a few nights and then spent a few days exploring the coast down South. We spent most of our time in Wollongong and Kiama. We found a great beach just s. of Kiama called ____! It had a natural salt water pool built out over the rocks.... so cool!

Our last weekend in Sydney was a big one! We spent all day Saturday at a boat party in Sydney Harbour! It was wild. It's a huge boat with tons of people decked to the 9's dancing to the different live DJ's (one on each floor) as we sailed around all the harbours in Sydney. Sunday we went and saw Snoop in concert! It was a little ghetto, but SO much fun. We bought tickets in the Dogg Pound (the floor) and made our way right up front. He sang all the oldie but goodies.. we sang and danced our little hearts out :)

We loved Fiji! Showed up there with no plan, walked into a travel agent at the airport and that day were on our Treasure Island. He coordinated for a few guys (Ozzie & Charley) who worked on the island to pick us up since we had missed the last ferry of the day. They showed up over an hour late.. Fiji time :) Treasure Island was only 15 acres (you could walk around it in less than 15 mins) so we didn't do much beside relax in the sun, swim, and snorkel. It was really nice. The staff at the hotel were SO friendly. A few of them invited us to their staff quarters to drink their local drink... Kava! Steph was tired so I went with Sefa, Kelesi, Lepani and a few others to drink some Kava! It was a great night. I got to watch them mix it up from scratch and then we all sat around in our sarongs (sulas as they all them) and drank kava. I slept well that night. Our next stop was Beachcomber Island. It was supposed to be the party island. Our plan was a few days on a chill island, or as the fijian's call it "newly-wed or almost dead" islands, hit the party island for 2 nights, and then relax again for our last few! Well... Beachcomber was a bust. The island was nice, but everyone on it was 1/2 our age and we aren't that old yet :) We still enjoyed our days though. I think the favorite was kayaking out to a tiny sand island that's surrounded by a reef and snorkeling. Our last stop was at Malolo! It was a really nice place to end up! On our last day we hired a boat to go explore the islands. Our favorite part of the day was seeing a huge packs of dolphins (is that what you call them.. packs?). We also loved snorkeling on Sunflower reef. The water is so clear, the coral so colorful and there are tons of fish! Steph and our driver, Miti, fed the fish while I was still in the water .. there were hundreds of them all around me. Loved it! We also stopped at Musket Cove and had a fruity cocktail at the $3 bar. It's a grass roof open bar sitting on a small sand island just off of Musket Cove! We liked the bar so much and the fact that there were some other single people there so had a boat take us back later for a few sun downers! The resorts don't like you to leave the island at night because they want you to eat their dinner, but we had made friends with a guy who arranged for one of the staff to take us in the staff boat. Classic! Of course our sundowners turned into a few more. We made friends with a bunch of kiwis and next thing you know it was almost midnight. Funny story... Saula and Len (the ones who drove us over) needed to get back because they had take some staff back to their villages at midnight. The friends we met wanted to come back with us so they hopped in the boat. Once they found out that they'd have to pay to have the hotel take them back later one of them literally jumped out of the boat. All the sudden we just heard this huge splash! Why they didn't just ask us to turn around is beyond me, but it was hysterical. We then stopped at another island to pick up some more beer on the way back and our driver, Saula, fell into the water when he was trying to step off the jetty onto the boat. We knew he had some beer with us, but think he had a few too many. They aren't allowed any alcholol on the islands.. only kava.. so I don't think they drink that often. Was really funny at the time, but we were glad we had Len there too to drive the boat!

Ok, I think it's time for me to sign off! Getting late and need to sleep. We'll be back soon to let you know how Koh Samui goes and give you an update on the volunteering!

Love and miss you heaps!
xoxoxo,
Rach & Steph

2006-04-17T02:53:00.000-07:00

Bula from Fiji!
We are currently island hopping in Fiji and still having the time of our lives. So much fun that we have been completely useless in updating the blog. We finally got pictures up yesterday and will be starting to label them and put up all the good stories very soon!

Miss and love you all,
Rach & Steph :)

2006-02-27T23:55:00.000-08:00

Hello again friends and family. It is Steph writing again....two days in a row - it's a new record!

So, we left off with magical Bryon Bay. Our next big adventures were to Noosa and then Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. Fraser Island is 120k's long at it's longest point and 53 k's wide at it's widest. That's a huge sand island! It was formed many many years ago by the tides pushing billions of tons of sand up against the Great Barrier Reef. The island is unique, not only b/c it's the biggest in the world, but also b/c there is a rain forest growing in the middle of it (in the sand!) and the purest breed of wild dingos still roam the island. Before I get too far ahead with telling you about Fraser, I need to tell you about Noosa, where we stayed for 4 nights before heading to Fraser.

Noosa was one of a few places we could get to Fraser on the ferry from. We'd heard mixed reviews about Noosa - that it's a bit pretentious and that generally people who like Byron don't like Noosa and vice versa. As we pulled in to town, we understood why...Noosa is the antithesis of Bryon. It is kind of like the Miami Beach of Australia. There are tons of expensive gorgeous homes, Mercedes and BMWs everywhere, chic and expensive restaurants, and the people to go with all of it. Rach and I love nice places and things, but even Noosa was a little too much for us.

As soon as we arrived we went straight to the information booth to see when we could get out of Noosa and over to Fraser. We thought we knew how we wanted to explore Fraser, but quickly found out we didn't want to do it the way we originally thought. Our options were 1) we hire a 4x4 and go on our own, 2) we go thru a company who pairs you together with 8 other people and then all 10 of us go out in an unsupervised group, or 3) we go with a guided tour. We thought we were set on option 2 - getting paired up with other travelers who also wanted to explore Fraser. It wasn't until we spoke with the woman at the tourist information booth, however, that that idea started to not sound so good. She advised us not to go that route, as oftentimes that type ends in disaster. Because you get paired up with inexperienced drivers, the likelihood of them getting the 4x4 stuck or even worse crashing is high. She said that people get hurt all the time - and some even die. Hmmmm. We hadn't really thought about the fact that an inexperienced driver would have our lives in their hands. So, we rethought things and decided either going on our own (just Rach and Steph in a 4x4 w/ camping equipment) or going on a guided tour. The woman talked us out of going on our own since niether of us were experienced 4x4 drivers and could run in to issues that way too. So, finally we decided the guided group tour was proably the smartest. Which guided tour however was our next hurdle.

For the next day and a half we asked just about everyone in the sun about which tour was best. We finally settled on a 3 day, 2 night tour thru a company who was supposedly fun, who took travelers about our age, and catered to smaller groups. We were skeptical of the group option b/c of the same reasons all of us are skeptical of group tours....you're on someone elses agenda and you can't be sure what your group is going to be like - if it's great, the trip is super fun, if it's now, the trip could totally stink. Tours only left every other day and the one the following day was booked, so we were hangin' in Noosa for a few. At first we were a little bummed - we would have rather stayed up in Byron Bay - but, we made the best of it and ended up having a really nice time :)

Our first night in Noosa we stayed at a little apartment right outside of town. It was nice, but secluded and we were up for meeting some people. So, we checked out the hostel right in town and ended up loving it. It was by far the coolest and nicest hostel we'd ever seen. It was perched up on a big hill right at the start of town. The building itself was and old white Victorian style house old. There was a neat little bar downstairs, a great outdoor patio with tables and chairs, and a huge veranda upstairs with comfy couches. Our room was cute, small, clean and best of all private and quiet. Our 3 days passed quickly....we went to the beach, Rach took another surf lesson, we explored Noosa National Park, and took more beach walks. We went out on the town one night and met some really nice folks from Brisbane. The morning we were supposed to leave to Fraser came quicker than we expected....

Ok, I have to sign off now - it's getting dark out and I want to walk home while it's still light out. I'll be back soon to tell you all about cool Fraser Island!

Bye for now! :)

xoxo,
Steph

2006-02-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

Hello family and friends!

It's Steph writing this time :) As Rach mentioned in her last entry, she is home in Seattle for her sister's wedding and I am hangin' here solo in beautiful Sydney. It's been a gorgeous day here (again!) and I've been out and about most of the day. Right now I am sitting in an internet cafe not too far from the apartment I've sublet in Potts Point, a little area about 15 minutes walking distance from downtown Sydney. I am settling in just fine here on my own and keeping quite busy. I've already found a gym to join, gotten to know the local coffee barista and a few of the store owners, and have done some exploring and shopping. Over the next couple of weeks I'll continue to get aquainted with wonderful Sydney, hang out with some of the local friends we've made here, and enjoy some down time...hopefully at the beach. Fun! I can't wait for Rach to get back though so that we can continue our adventures. We have tons more in Australia to do and see! Plus, I miss her :) After she returns we will head back up the east coast to continue where we left off....good segment for me to start filling you all in on what we did after flying in to Brisbane....

So, we flew in to Brisbane from Sydney and picked up our rental car, which Rach deserves some kudos for.... We rented a Toyota Corolla and expected an upgrade b/c she is a Hertz Gold member....we just didn't expect the upgrade we ended up getting! As we wheeled our cart of luggage over to spot 27 on the Hertz lot, we noticed that our car was the most ugly "I'm a tourist" blue we'd ever seen. Clearly this was not going to be acceptable b/c we were going to have the car for so long. So, Rach went in and jokingly said to the girl (who she'd befriended while signing paperwork, etc.) that we just can't drive around in the tourist-mobile for 2 weeks and asked if they had anything else. They didn't. However, since the girl liked Rach so much, she upgraded us to a totally phat Nissan Maxima with leather seats and all the bells and whistles (many steps up from the Corolla!!). Huge score! Guess how hot we looked rolling around? Pretty good if I do say so myself :) Anyway, so after we picked up the car we had to decide where we wanted to go.....yes, we were winging it again! We decided to head south b/c we knew Byron Bay was one stop we definitely wanted to make, as it had been highly recommended many times. We thought we'd check out one or two places on the way just to see if anything else tickled our fancy. We passed by Surfers Paradise, as we'd heard from quite a few people that it probably wouldn't really be our scene (a bit young and roudy) and ended up stopping by Palm Beach, another beach town along the way. It was quite a let down - strip malls, no personality, and a little dub-T. So we continued on to Byron Bay. Boy oh boy are we glad we did and didn't waste any time anywhere else.

Byron Bay is an amazing place!!!! As soon as we pulled in to town we knew were going to like it and that we wanted to stay a while. There was this awesome energy pouring out from everywhere. There were tons of young people (but not too young!) and the town itself was adorable too. Both of us looked at each other and said, yep, this is it! So, we went to the tourist agency to find accomodation and settled on a little apartment just outside of town. The rest is history after that.

We ended up spending the next 6 nights in Byron Bay at "Laila's Apartment". Laila, the woman who owns the house where the apartment is, was wonderful to us. The apartment itself was simple yet adorable, decorated with lots of bright colors and cool paintings. Laila is a painter and all of the work in the apartment is hers. Very cool! We even had our own outdoor shower (and an indoor one too) and a nice little back yard all to ourselves. The location couldn't have been better either - we were right on the beach (literally 50 yards away) and only a 20 minute walk in to town. Does it get any better??...yes...Bryon has the most stunning beaches we've ever seen! Aside from Croatia, we agreed that we haven't seen prettier water. It's crystal clear, really clean and, depending on the tide and time of day, has varying colors of blue and turquoise. The beaches are amazing too - they're longer, cleaner, and whiter than any we've seen. And at low tide the beach totally changes - it gets much longer and the b/c the water goes waaay out, little pools, which get really warm in the sun, get created. One afternoon we took a long walk and ended up sitting down for a few minutes in the shallow water. We just sat there and took it all in. It was awesome. Both of us said again to each other how lucky we were to be in Byron and on this trip. We both used the term "magical" to describe Byron quite a few times. It truly is.

Over the next seven days and six nights we explored, shopped, layed on the beach, met some new friends, and just had a blast. I ran on the beach in the mornings, Rach ran some evenings. We took long beach walks every day and Rach took a surf lesson (the pics are up). We cooked in for a lot of our meals (a nice change from eating out so much!), managed to have sushi about 5 times, and went out to a few fun dinners in town too.

All in all it was an awesome 6 days and both of us would highly recommend Byron to anyone! It's truly a magical place!!

Ok, time for me to sign off. I'll be back soon to write about our next adventures in Noosa and Fraser Island!

Until next time :)

xoxo,
Steph

2006-02-22T22:27:00.000-08:00

So I was talking to a friend the other day and a few stories came up that we haven't put on the blog yet. It really made me realize that when we let so much time pass in between entries we end up just giving you the highlights on what we've been up to and leave out some of the good stuff.

We promised you a while back that we'd tell you the story of Rach's pillow and pj's traveling over 200k to find her after she'd left it in a hotel so here it is! :)

We were in a small town called BlackBall on the S. Island of New Zealand. The charm of this town is all built around the 1 B&B called the BlackBall Hilton and the fact that less than 20 people live there year round. Because of this, we decided to park the campervan for a night and stay at The Hilton. Well, for those of you that don't know, Rach hurt her back years ago and still suffers from it. She started sleeping with a special neck pillow a while back and it's really helped so she brought a mini one with her on this trip! This is one special pillow :) The pillow has a cover on it with a pocket that she tucks her pj's into. Well, we left the BlackBall Hilton, went for a hike, and then drove over 200km south to a town called Franz Joseph. It was only when we were going to sleep that night that she realized her pillow was gone.. she'd left it on the bed at The Hilton.

The next morning she immediately called the hotel to see if they had it. They did, but the woman was working alone for the next 3 days and wouldn't even be able to take it to the post office to send it. We are on the go so much that in 3 days we would have no idea where to tell her to send it. Rach tried asking if there was anyone in the town that she could pay to bring it to her and there was litterally no one around in this small town. We thought about going back, but really didn't want to have to drive back up there because 200k of coastal roads in a campervan takes a looong time. Rach really wanted her pillow though so she went to work.

First, she talked to the Top 10 Holiday Park where we were staying and found out that there was a bus that came from a nearby town that might stop and drop it off if she could find a way to get it from the hotel to this bus station in Greymouth (about 30km's from the hotel). She then called the hotel to see if there was a way that they could get her pillow there, but there was no way she could leave and no one else to take it. Rach then called the Top 10 Holiday Park in Greymouth to see if they had anyone she could pay to drive up to BlackBall to get it.. they didn't. After a long conversation with them and Rach trying to pull strings by being a "Top 10 Member" (you should be laughing now because that's totally ridiculous) the woman finally gave her a number of a local taxi company that she could try. She called the taxi company and explained the situation to the dispatcher (and we think owner) named Scott. Scott sympathized with Rach, but told her he just couldn't do it because there was no way for her to pay him (they only take cash) and he had been burned by this situation before. Don't ask me how she did it, but this hard no soon turned into him going to get the pillow personally and trusting her to mail a check to him for his services. Of course, Rach mailed it immediately, but we still can't believe he did this.

So long story short, that night around 6pm the pillow was delivered to our campervan safe and sound. It had traveled over 200km's from The Hilton to the Greymouth information center and then placed onto a public bus and delivered to the holiday park who then hand delivered it to us. Crazy huh? Rach, her pillow and her pj's lived happily ever after :)

So we'll try and be better about sharing good stories like this one.. we have a ton! We still owe you an entry on our time up the coast and will have that up soon.

Miss and love you,
Rach and Steph

2006-02-19T23:26:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello!
Wow.. has it ever been a long time since we've last updated our blog! Sorry! We've had so many people emailing us to see if we are home yet, but if you haven't guessed by now, plans have changed slightly! Normally Steph and I write this together, but I am in Seattle now and Steph is waiting for me in Sydney. After I help my little sister get married, I'll fly back to meet her so we can continue to see Australia :) Our original plan was to come home on January 16th from New Zealand, but because we stayed so long in Thailand we haven't seen anything of Australia yet. Also, we want to go back to Thailand to see Bai's house and do a little more volunteering. So when does this put us home??? Good question and one that we'll answer as soon as we know ;)

We've done so much since we last wrote so I'm not even sure where to start... guess I'll just give you some of the highlights!

Our last few days in New Zealand:
The weather on the S. Island of New Zealand got better and we finally did get to go skydiving. It was amazing, but quite the eventful day. We thought we'd get cancelled again because of high winds so we had a few extra glasses of wine at our friend Tom's bday celebration..oops! Needless to say, we started the day with a bit of hangover and getting Stephanie to actually dive was a challenge :)

Skydiving itself was amazing. I don't think we could have chosen a better place than Lake Wanaka to jump out of a plane. We got incredibly perfect weather and a really fun crew to jump with! We all did a 45 second free fall from 12,000 feet! Craig had jumped before, but it was our first time. We thought we'd be more scared, but it actually wasn't bad. I think the scariest part is right when you jump out because you fall backwards first and then flip around before you're face down. The actual free fall goes by really quickly and you don't realize just how fast you're falling until you pull the chute and see the others shoot past you.. it's nutz! Once we got down, Craig and Steph were all excited and I was so sick I could barely stand up. I don't know why it never occured to me that jumping out of a plane might make me sick... I get sick on basically anything that moves :(

The rest of the day was pretty tough for me and of course, it's the one day that we had something planned. Well, not just something, but ANOTHER scenic flight into the Milford Sounds. After getting sick and not being able to get verticle for several hours I had to get back on a 6 person prop plane and fly for 2 hours over the mountains, take a boat for 2 hours around the Sounds, and then get back on the plane to fly back to Wanaka! Lets just say that everyone on the plane was thankful they had those little white bags in the seatback pockets. After I became friends with the white bag... I felt so much better and was fine the rest of the trip. Steph, all the sudden after having to watch me, started not feeling so good and had to run to the bathroom as soon as the plane landed. I think it was a sympathy puke :) The most embarassing part of it all was that we had 3 of our new friends on the plane with us: Craig, Tom & Max. Tom and Max were the Germans we mentioned earlier that we met on the Glacier. They joined us for the Milford Sounds trip and then we ended up traveling with them through Queenstown!

We left Wanaka the next day and went to Queenstown. On the way we all stopped to get some sun and have a picnic in the mountains overlooking Queenstown.. it was stunning! Steph and I realized that day that we don't stop and just chill out very often. That day we all brought a bunch of food and the boys have speakers for their ipods so we just sat and relaxed in the grass for hours.

We stayed in Queenstown for a few nights and really enjoyed it. It's known for having every adrenaline rush known to man, but we actually found some beautiful hikes to do too! The boys were adrenaline junkies and went and did some things like bungie jumping, canyon swinging, white water rafting, etc., but Steph and I just weren't that into it. We had both really wanted to skydive and since we had done that we didn't feel like we needed to do anything else. One afternoon Max, Tom, Jenz, and us went up the Gondala to the top of Queenstown. The boys decided to race eachother on the Luge and asked us to take pictures of them. This sounds simple, but they took so long and we were SO cold that we quickly ran inside to get some tea. As we were coming out they came RACING around the corner so fast that we could barely get a picture of their back..oops! We felt really bad, but the tea tasted really good :)

We left all the boys in Queenstown because we had to drive 8 hours to Christchurch and return the campervan. Boy was this ever a long, long day. So long that we ended up pulling over on the side of the road and taking an hour nap.. the benefits of a campervan! That night ended up being a late one because we had to empty out the van, fill (and empty.. yuck) all the tanks, pack for our early flight the next morning, and return our campervan named Stella. We had a very sad goodbye. We didn't think we'd love the campervan as much as we did, but it's definitely something we'd do again.

Sydney:
We only intended to connect through Sydney, but ended up spending a few days there. We both love that city, have made some good friends and feel pretty much at home there. This particular trip we got really lucky. We happened to hit Australia Day and get invited by our friends Chris and Declin to go see Vivaldi's Four Seasons at the Sydney Opera House. I discovered my favorite running path that goes through the Botanical Gardens and has views of the bridge and Opera House and Steph found a great gym. We also found a cheap internet cafe and a great sushi-train restaurant. The fact that I used my Marriott points to put us up in a 5 star hotel just next to Hyde Park might of had something to do with it too, but I'm not totally sure ;) Needless to say, we were a bit spoiled for these few days and always look forward to going back to Sydney!

Our night out at the Opera House was really wonderful. Chris and Declin picked us up in the city and brought us back to their place for a BBQ! They had a really nice apartment with gorgeous views of the Harbour. The others cooked dinner while I added music to my new ipod. I don't know if I told you, but the last few weeks have been torture. I accidentally left my ipod on the overnight plane from Thailand and have been running without music ever since. I bought a new one and Declin was nice enough to let me use his music. We had dinner on the deck and while we were eating a cockatiel flew up and just sat there while we ate (see pic). I don't know about you, but I've never seen one in the wild. They are usually in a cage and repeating every word you say. After dinner we took a ferry into Sydney. The ferry ride had perfect views of the city, the Opera House, the Sydney Harbor Bridge and just happened to be at sunset. The ferry dropped us off right at the base of the Opera House just in time to see Vivaldi. We both understand now why it's such a big deal to go to the Sydney Opera House... it's stunning inside.

After Sydney we flew to Brisbane and spent time in Byron Bay, Noosa and on Frasier Island. All were so incredible that they deserve their own entry. Ok, the truth is that it's bed time and I'm falling asleep at the computer. Pictures are up though and I'll try and get them labeled and write again in the next few days! Things are really busy with my sis's wedding though so don't get upset if it doesn't happen.. I promise to get it done soon!

Miss and love you heaps,
Rach and Steph

2006-01-17T16:44:00.000-08:00

Hello again from NZ!!

We are now in a small town called Wanaka... about 1.5 hours N. of Queenstown! Things here are still going fabulously and we are loving New Zealand.

We've done a ton since we last wrote.. surprised? :) We spent the last few nights making our way down the West Coast (of the S. Island). We spent one night in this TINY little town called Blackball.. it's about 20 kms from Greymouth. This town has a population less than 50, 3 pubs, one place to stay called Formerly the Blackball Hilton (guess they got busted by Hilton so they had to add a "formerly"), a corner store and that's about it! We were told by a bunch of locals here that we HAD to go there because it's like no other place you'll ever go....so we gave it a shot and absolutely loved the town and the Formerly Blackball Hilton. The woman who runs the hotel, Sue, was so friendly and helpful. She cooked us a homemade meal while we sat and read a paper from 1964...yes I said 1964. Crazy huh? After dinner we ventured out in town to hang with the locals... it was pretty interesting. Most of them grew up there and had never left. They were completely baffled by us, some didn't even know where the US was, but they were the nicest people! They live very simple lives.. work during the day (most cutting pine trees) and then play pool (snooker, as they call it here) and gamble/raffle at night. They had us draw numbers for their raffle and asked if we wanted to play... they gamble for chickens and/or chocolate.. too funny!

The next day we did a gorgeous hike on the Croesus Track. You hike along a raging river and through a rain forest most of the way. The whole track takes 8-9 hrs, but we didn't have time to do the whole thing, as we needed to move on that night, so we hiked for about 5 hours. It was stunning - and we agreed that it was our prettiest hike yet. Check out the pics of the Indiana Jones-like bridges we had to cross one at a time. They were a little bit scary because they were over huge rivers and they swung from side to side as you walked across, but quite cool :)

Our next stop was a town called Franz Joseph... great small town with a fun hip vibe! We stopped at the Wanganui river and to look for some hotpools that apparently only locals know about, but we couldn't find them. We had a blast anyway though and quite the adventure looking for the pools...we climbed fences, slid down steep embankments, and waded thru many parts of the river in search of them. The river sat in between a few different mountains and the sun was going down while we were out there, so it was really beautiful. When we arrived in Franz Joseph we signed up to do an all day Glacier Hike the next day. When we woke up for it that next morning it was raining and we realized that it was January 15th...the day before our return home...YIKES - we still have tickets taking us home on the 16th, which is so not happening! So, we decided to cancel the glacier hike that day, get our stuff organized, and stay a few more days in NZ. We did the glacier hike the next day and got SOOOO lucky with the weather! We had beautiful blue sky the whole day and not a drop of rain.. that's unusual for the West Coast of NZ given that it consists of mostly rain forests!

The Glacier Hike was absolutely amazing. Franz Joseph is a really unusual glacier because it goes all the way down to 200 meters above sea level and it runs into a rain forest. It's crazy.... you are standing at the bottom in the middle of a rain forest with the greenest of green trees and gorgeous waterfalls and just above is this massive glacier. Both are stunning, but it just doesn't seem possible that both can coexist with in the same valley. We ended up with a really cool group of about 10 people (all Germans and one girl from Korea) and our super star guide Ryan. Ryan's a local from the area and only 20 years old, but a stud on the ice! The climbing experience was really fun too.... you get to wear "clamp ons" and climb up carved out ice steps and go through tight crevices & ice caves. Ryan carried a huge ice pick/axe and cut our path the whole way. What a work out he gets every day! The glacier is tucked between the Southern Alps with several waterfalls and ends in a valley of rain forest so your view no matter which way you turned was incredible. Again, we don't really know how to explain this experience other than to show you the pictures... check them out, they're up! We'd def. recommend doing a glacier hike if you ever have the chance... it sounded scary at first, but you'd be amazed at how well you can scale ice with the cramp ons :)

After the hike we started making our way further south towards Wanaka - about a 7 hour drive from Franz Joseph. We planned to sky dive in Wanaka b/c the views are spectacular and it's not as touristy as Queenstown, where most people skydive from. The weather forecast was calling for rain again a few days out so we really hauled in efforts to get there in time to dive before the storm came through. We pulled into town about 1pm the next day and were booked to dive that afternoon. The morning divers were able to go, but the wind picked up too much in the afternoon, so they pushed our reservation to the next day... BIG BUMMER! So the next day we were all ready and psyched up, but again TOO much wind. We are going to hang here for one more day and try again tomorrow morning.. all the weather maps looks like it'll be clear so we are keeping our fingers crossed. The anticipation is killing us though.... Rach threw up last night but she isn't sick. We aren't sure if it's nerves or maybe we ate too many gummies :) Both of us have always wanted to skydive, but now that we are only hours away from doing it we are getting pretty nervous... excited nerves though! We've decided to do a 12,000 ft., 45 second free fall dive. They take you out over Lake Wanaka which is SOOOO beautiful. We can't wait! After skydiving we are planning to head to Queenstown to hopefully Jetboat and take a scenic flight into the Milford Sounds! We have an exciting couple of days ahead of us! Once we are done with that we have to drive the camper van another 7 hours and return it in Christchurch. Normally you'd be really bummed about all this driving, but NZ is so beautiful and there are so many things to stop and see along the way (blowholes, hotpools, waterfalls, etc) that we actually really enjoy it!

So people keep asking us.. if the weather isn't that great there than why do you love New Zealand? Doesn't it look a lot like areas of the States.. especially Washington State where you grew up? The answer that question is yes.. much of it looks like Washington, but a lot of it looks very different too! The beauty of NZ is one thing we love, but what has really made it for us has been the people...they go WAY out of their way to make sure you have a good trip! Here's a few stories that will help you understand what we mean:

1. When we did the Tongariro Crossing the conditions turned for the worse and we didn't have enough warm clothing with us. A guy up on the mountain saw that Rach was really really cold and gave her his jacket and just asked that we drop it by his hotel to return it when we were done. We didn't end up needing to do that because we saw him on the way down ... we returned his jacket and chatted with him for a bit. As we were leaving he gave us his number and offered to have us join him and his wife at their cabin up in the North. He not only offered to take us fishing and on a boat tour of the Bay of Islands, but also to teach us how to dive. He's been diving for 20 years and also has done a bunch of traveling and just wanted to make sure we had a good experience here in NZ. His direct quote... "I have the cabin and all the gear so why go and pay for it some where else? I'll teach you how and you can dive for free so you can save your money to travel longer!" How nice is that? And I know it sounds like it could be a bit creepy, but I promise it's not.. he was just a really nice guy. He was offering his food and everything he had to everyone on the mountain.

2. We walked into a spa in Wellington our first night there to look into massages. This particular spa couldn't take us so the girl at the front (Jill) called several other spas to find one that could. Not only this, but she hooked us up with gym passes so we could work out and shower at the gym and got us a dinner reservation at the best restaurant in town... all just to be nice and helpful. She told us to not bother going to the nearest campsite because it was about 40 minutes out of town and that we should just park along the waterfront called Oriental Parade and shower at the gym! We took her advice and had the BEST time in Wellington. Oriental Parade was beautiful and it was so nice not to have to spend 40 minutes commuting in and out of the city! Funny story, we had the massages that Jill booked for us the next afternoon and then had just planned to shower at the spa before going to dinner with Rach's friend Rob's parents that night. Well... we were able to shower at the spa, but they had no place for us to blowdry our hair.. YIKES! We were going to a nice restaurant and wanted to look somewhat presentable. We only had 30 mins before dinner so we couldn't drive over to the gym we had passes for so we tried every gym and public bathroom nearby we could find.. NOTHING! Gym's bathroom was under renovation and the public bathrooms had no plugins. We continued looking and eventually found a hair salon that was nice enough to let us dry our hair.. OH.. the experiences of traveling :) We barely made it to dinner on time, but we did make it.. pheeeew!

There are more stories like these and a really good one about Rach managing to get something brought to her in Franz Joseph that she accidentally left in Blackball over 200 kms back... It's a crazy story! We'll put that up soon because we have to go now... we are going to go and see if we can skydive now!!

Miss and love you tons!
Rach and Steph

2006-01-12T18:07:00.000-08:00

Hello from Nelson Lakes New Zealand!!

Things here are still going really well! We have been traveling around New Zealand in a campervan and staying in National Parks, Mountain Lakes, etc... all have been extremely beautiful, but don't offer much connectivity ... feel lucky to get a hot shower :) We are in route now to the West Coast of the South Island and found an internet cafe in a small town called Westport. It's been a while again since we've updated and there's so much to tell so we'll just give you some highlights for now and continue working on the pictures to give you more detailed descriptions... cool?

Thailand:

We ended up extending our time in Khao Lak so we could spend Christmas there, attend the Tsunami Memorial and attend the New Year's party at the Orphanage. Our last few days there were really special! Christmas didn't feel like Christmas at all, but it was a ton of fun. We had gotten the girls from the Orphanage a gig to perform their Thai Dancing at the Le Meridian during Christmas Brunch, but when we showed up there was barely anyone there so they went and danced at at Memorial celebration instead ...because they are Budhist they celebrate the death/new life of their loved ones. We took 3 of the girls back to our hotel, fed them lunch and took them swimming. We had sooo much fun and such a treat for the girls... they never get to go swimming so they were pretty excited. After they left we took a walk on the beach to see sunset... was beautiful, but we ended up walking too long and got stuck on the beach in the dark. It's completely safe except for the attacking mosquitos and the rocks that break Rachel's toe... yes I said broke Rach's toe! It was really dark and we were hauling you know what to get back to the hotel when there was a big rock that jumped up and picked a fight with Rach's right foot.. unfortunately the rock won and Rach was left with a broken toe :( That night we met up with a bunch of friends we made in Khao Lak and had a huge Christmas dinner consisting of Spicy Thai Salad, Lab Kai (spicy chicken), and some cheap wine (it's all you can find in Thailand). It was a really good night and a great distraction from missing our families during the holidays.

The next day was the Tsunami Memorial... we knew this was going to be a tough day. We spent most of the day at the orphanage helping the girls get ready for some more Thai Dancing and then watching them dance at another Memorial. We then sat in a HUGE line of traffic (and there's never traffic in Khao Lak) trying to get to the big Memorial at the beach. We were so worried we weren't going to make it, but we got lucky and ended up being able to follow some crazy locals that drove down the other lane and then ended up behind the Princess so they moved us even further along. We got close enough where Steph could walk and Rach could hobble along side her :) On our way down we ran into a girl who works at the Le Meridian and that we'd gotten to know from our visits there. She used to work at a hotel that was completely destroyed so she lost a lot of her friends. She was there on her own so we stayed with her through the ceremony. The Memorial itself was really spectacular. The princess gave a nice speech and then they let off 5000 huge lanterns that float up into the sky... was really the most beautiful thing we've ever seen and it was like you were sending people off into Heaven. After the ceremony we headed down to the beach to find all of our friends! There was a lot of crying, but overall it was a really positive time and people were really happy to be there remembering their loved ones.

The New Years Party was at the orphanage was the next day.. it was a huge success. Over 200 kids came and you could just tell they were having the best time. Each kid got a New Years Present and we had wrapped them ahead of time to make it more fun for the kids... many of them had never opened a gift before. It's very different than at home...they were just cheap toys and many kids got something that wasn't even for their age or their gender, but they were still really excited. We also did a big shop down in Phuket to buy a bunch of clothes (many of them even needed underwear) and handed those out. We've never seen people so greatful just to get a new t-shirt! That night after everyone left, Rotjana, several of the kids, and her entire staff gave us a send off we'd never forget. Rotjana started crying as did several of the kids as they were hugging us goodbye. Steph held it together pretty well because she knew we were going back, but Rach completely lost it. We all basically cried, thanked eachother, and promised we'd meet up again in March or April. It was so hard to leave even knowing we are going back.. we can't imagine how it's going to feel leaving next time.

On a positive note, we have some GREAT news on the volunteering! We raised enough to build the house, buy Christmas (really NewYear's presents) for all the kids, and sponsor atleast 9 kids for a year!

We bought Bai's land and managed to get it filled before we left and now have some good friends that are going to make sure it gets built. Our last update told us the concrete was poured yesterday. We had wanted to have it happen before we had to leave, but with theTsunami Anniversary.. it just couldn't happen.

While we were there we also spent a lot of time helping Rotjana with the business side of things. The orphanage really needs money to build a real orphanage (it's currently a tent) and for basic necessities so Steph and I put our business skills to work. We created flyers and donation boxes and then pitched every hotel, grocery store, internet cafe, etc. and convinced them to help us by putting our donation boxes and flyers on their counters. It ended up being a huge success. Not only did we raise money for building the orphanage, but people also took our flyers and brought food, toys, washing machines, fans, and more directly to the orphanage. Was really an amazing experience to be able to see the direct effects of our efforts. Every day Rotjana had a new story about something that happened as a result of the advertising :)

We ended up staying in Khao Lak for over 3 weeks and it felt like we had a full time job the entire time, but we loved every minute of it. Leaving Khao Lak was sooo hard (we shed many tears), but we can't wait to go back to volunteer a little more, see our friends, and of course.. see the finished house for Bai. We are sooo excited!

Australia :
There's not a whole lot to say about Australia just yet because we were only there for a few days over New Years, but we can tell we are going to ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT! It was gorgeous and sunny the whole time, the people are really friendly and there's lots to do :) We will be going back to do more, but in the short time we were there we went down to Sydney Harbour for a good dinner with a view of the bridge and drink with a view of the Opera House. We then spent New Years at Darling Harbour and had a blast. We hadn't been out partying in a while so we did it pretty big. Steph's brother has a few friends there that hooked us up with tickets to a hot spot on Darling Harbour. We first went to a house party with some friends we met a few nights prior (they are also now currently in NZ so we've been able to have some locals show us around here too!) and then met up with Steph's brother's friends and danced the night away. Steph even made a guest appearance on stage with the DJ.. it was hysterical! We were then at the airport a day later and were stopped by a few people who said "Were you at Cargo on New Years? You were the one dancing all night on stage weren't you?" And she was famous :) We didn't get to see the fireworks at Sydney Harbour, but there was also a show in Darling Harbour that we watched from the deck of the bar. We were going to go and watch the big fireworks, but fighting a million people wasn't so appealing.

New Zealand:
We are in NZ now and have been for a few days. It's absolutely GORGEOUS here, but the weather isn't so great. It's been sunny somedays, but still cold and windy. We rented a campervan which has been really cool, but haven't been finding many people our age... we are hoping now that we are on the S. Island we'll find more. We started up North and hit some really cool little beach towns, but it wasn't beach weather. We then headed to Rotorua to sit in some natural hot mineral pools and see the huge steaming geysers. We then headed to a town called Ohakune to do an 8 hr. hike on the Tongariro volcano with the friends we met in Sydney... it was an amazing experience. We've never gone across so many different types of terrain and through so many weather conditions in one day.. it felt like we did 3 separate hikes. Wait until we get the pics up and you'll see what we mean. It was blue sky and sunny when we started and then FREEZING cold, super foggy, and blowing harder than we've ever felt towards the top. We were walking in a volcano though so it was still really cool.. just felt pretty dangerous because the wind was litterally blowing you over and it was sooo cold you couldn't feel your fingers. Once we started down it all changed though.. turned into more of a national park type scenery.... views of lakes, lots of mountains, trees, etc. It was still windy, but warmed up quite a bit.You ended on a path that felt like you were in the jungle walking next to a river. It was crazy.

We just spent a few days in Wellington and absolutely loved it! Between Rach's friend Rob's parents, our new friend Shane (who we met in Sydney) and Jill (a new girl we just met when we pulled into town) we were completely hooked up! We didn't even need to go to the campsite to hook up because we had a place to camp along the beach, gym passes so we could work out and shower, and tourguides to show us the city.. it was a blast! We've been hiking almost every day, but having a gym for a few days was really nice!

We took the boat the the South Island two days ago and are now headed to the West Coast. We stayed one night in Blenheim. It just happens to be the main town in New Zealand's biggest wine region, Marlborough, so we, of course, did some wine tasting! Our new friend Craig (another one we met in Sydney, but is from NZ) met up with us yesterday to show us the good vinyards and now is making the trek with us to the West Coast. Went to about 4 vinyards and bought a bottle to have a picnic.. the picnic ended up being in the van though because it was raining.. wine was still yummy :) We spent last night at the Nelson Lakes at a campsite that had a view of the Alps... stunning! We were going to hike the alps today, but the weather isn't cooperating... rainy, cold and windy :(

So we have to sign off because we have a long drive ahead of us. Sorry we didn't get the pics of New Zealand up yet... we'll do so soon.

Miss and love you all.
Rach and Steph

2005-12-23T01:43:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays from Khao Lak!

We can't believe it's only 2 days from Christmas. It doesn't feel like the Holidays at all here. It's been cloudy, but very hot and humid. You also don't see many Christmas decorations because the majority of people here are Buddhist.

We are still having the most amazing experience here though! Our last week has been very busy because there was a rush to get everything done before all of the tourists arrived for the Tsunami Anniversary. We are feeling good about what we've accomplished, but there's still soooo much to do! The last few days we've played with the kids some, but our time has mostly been spent helping the orphanage fund raise. The poor woman who runs the orphanage has a ton of training in helping children, but no business training at all. she's been thrown into a huge job that requires here not only to care for these children, but also to raise funds to feed them, build them a real home (they live in a tent now), etc. Because we both have business backgrounds we figured out that while teaching the kids English is much more fun we could be of much more value by helping Rotjana with the fundraising. We took her around to all of the big hotels and pitched them on the idea of letting us put a donation box in the lobby of their hotel and saw a huge success! That was great news, but caused a bit of a panic because we had no boxes and NO literature to put with them so it all had to be created from scratch. Guess who had to do it? :) It was a little stressful, but we turned around 20 boxes with signs and a color handout to go with in under 24 hours! Those boxes are all now sitting on either on the reception or concierge desks of hotels as big as the Le Meridian. We are already seeing huge success from them too.. people have not only been donating, but have also been bringing food and clothes to the orphanage.

We also have some more good news!!! Bai (the woman we are building a house for) found property and the deal closed on Wednesday. We went to see it yesterday and it's great! It's tucked back in a small village not too far from the orpahange and in a village where she knows a few people. Bai was soooo happy and we can't thank all of you who helped out enough. We are bummed we have to leave before the house will be completed, but have people here we trust to get it done. We are also already planning our trip back so we can see the house and throw her a small house warming party. There's a picture up of the property if you want to check it out!

We can't believe we are leaving for Australia in only 5 days from now... our time here has flown by so fast and we are really going to miss these people. The next few days are going to be really busy and emotional. The Tsunami Anniversary is on the 26th so tons of people who lost loved ones are coming for the memorial. We've met a bunch of incredible people in the last week and all of them have really really sad stories of losing someone close to them. We've adopted 3 Canadian brothers who lost their parents and have been taking them to the orphange and introducing them to all of the good people we've met here. The more we are here the more we know how lucky we are to have met the people we have and to have gotten involved in the orphanage. Many people are just building houses which is a huge help, but they haven't had the opportunity to get to know the locals. These people have incredible stories and are so strong..helping them rebuild their lives has been amazing.

We some how got roped into being in a tv show tomorrow. We aren't sure exactly yet, but we think the donation boxes has gotten them a spot on a morning tv show. Rotjana has asked that we be in it and speak about what she's doing and what people like us have also been doing to help. We don't have all of the details yet, but we'll find out tomorrow at 7am... yes I said 7am on Christmas Eve. After, we are going to take our new friends up to the orphanage to meet all the kids! We are going to stop and get them fresh food and some new toys and then go play with them for a while! We haven't gotten to play with them much this week so we are very excited!!!

Tonight we've been invited to have dinner with the manager from the LeMeridian, Daniel, at their new restaurant which has sushi and Korean BBQ. We LOVE all the Thai food we've been having, but are kind of excited for something new. We've invited our new friend Yui to join us and we're excited to give her a girls night. She has the biggest heart of anyone we've ever met! She's spent her entire year helping other Thai people who need help and barely helps herself. She barely survived the tsunami and lost her house, job and all of her friends. She's only 23, has a 2 year old and a 41 year old husband (this is very common in Thailand) so she can use a night out :)

We aren't sure what we'll be doing on Christmas Eve yet, but we've got a great day for Christmas planned! The older girls at the orphange have been learning Thai Dancing and we were able to get them a gig to dance at Le Meridian's Christmas Brunch. We promised Rotjana we'd go and watch, but we have a feeling we're going to get talked into doing the introduction and getting donations from people ;) Somehow we just keep getting new jobs, but we love it! After the show we are going to dinner with a big group and then we're all going build a bonfire on the beach and hang out. Not exactly like Christmas with the fam (and we'll miss the fam alot) but it should be a good day. The 26th is the memorial and we aren't sure what we are doing for that yet... it's going to be a really sad day no matter what we do. Then, the 27th is the big party and we've got lots of friends coming now too. Even our new friends from Khao Sok (Nic from the Morning Mist Lodge and my magical masseuse, Fun) are coming down. We really have been so lucky with the people we've met.

Ok, we have to go get ready for dinner. Thank you again for all of your kind emails and support. We miss you all tons and wish you the BEST Christmas!
Love you,
Rach and Steph

2005-12-13T06:14:00.000-08:00

Hello Hello!

Hope you're having as great of a day as we are!

So we know we owe you entries still on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Phuket, but we've had such an amazing time here in Khao Lak the last couple of days so we're going to boast about that first :)

As most of you know, we've decided to change our travels a bit so we can stay in Khao Lak (town completely destroyed by the Tsunami) for a few weeks and volunteer. Other places we've been in Thailand have been almost completely restored, but Khao Lak (even though it had the largest number of deaths in Thailand) has somehow has been neglected. Their orphanages are full and there are still several people without homes :(

We have decided to stay here for a few weeks and help some of the people we've met! Over the next few weeks we will be spending a few hours each day teaching the orphanage kids English and the rest of our time overseeing the building of a house for a single mother who lost not only her home, but one of her daughters in the Tsunami.

Yesterday had to be one of the best days yet! We spent almost all day at the orphanage with the kids .. it was a Thai Holiday (Constitution Day they call it) so the all the kids were off school. We are helping with a project here to create profiles of all the orphanage children so that sponsors can be found to provide them with money to pay for their school uniforms, lunch money, supplies, activities, etc. Because of this, we had to identify each kid and get information such as their age, birthday, mother/father's name, hometown and their biography. This sounds simple I know, but try getting this from little kids with no attention span and speak only Thai ... it was trying, but a fun challenge. The hardest part was having to hear these kids' sad stories. We met kids who lost family in the Tsunami and now have one alcoholic parent that beats them, kids who have never known their father and their mother can't afford to support them, and kids who live at home, but have such a broken or poor family life that they spend most of their time at the orphanage. Thai culture is very different from ours in that they don't talk about their family problems publicly. Because of this, there are many kids that don't know all the reasons they are there or may have just blocked it out.

Last night, the woman we are building the house for (Bai) and the woman who runs the orphanage (Ratjana) invited us to stay at the orphanage and have dinner. We had a long day and asked if we could come tonight, but they insisted we have dinner with them last night because they had caught fresh fish that day and it wouldn't be any good tonight. How cute is that?! Of course, we changed our plans so that we could stay and have dinner with them. It was the best decision! We not only had the most amazing meal, but a really meaningful time with the people there. The kids eat first and then all of the staff eats together.. we ate with them. Before the Tsunami, Bai cooked for a hotel that was destroyed. As you can imagine, she cooked us the best Thai food - the best we've had yet. We had fresh local fish ( 2 different kinds), pork curry, fish cakes, tom yum gung soup with shrimp, snails, steamed white rice, singha beer, and tons of fruit ... some that they didn't know the names for in English! All of them were so gracious to us and thanked us so many times for what we are doing... really makes you feel good to be able to spend time with the people you're trying to help!

We had a great time at dinner, but heard some heart wrenching stories about things that go on here. There are women there that are working around the clock to pay for themselves, their children, and their husbands. Why doesn't the husband help?... we asked the same thing? Well, things just work differently here. For example, this woman's husband sits on his butt all day and yet she still gives him money because if she doesn't he'll steal her daughter and run away with her. It happened before to her and she says she's not going to let it happen again, so she's in the situation she's in. Thais don't have a good system like we do to find missing children and police just don't get involved. On top of this, this woman says she would never leave her daughter alone with him because she doesn't trust him. How horrible is that? She basically lives in fear every day of losing her daughter and has nowhere she can turn to get help. So, as she told us, she just stays strong and gives him in order to secure her daughters safety.

We also learned that rape and abuse are very common here. Many times a child will have to go live with an aunt and her husband or another family member because the parents can't afford to keep them, die, or just leave and start new families. Because it's not ok to share your problems in their culture everyone tries to deal with these problems behind closed doors and the children get punished if they go for help. Ratjana has gotten a room donated that she can use to have private conversations with these children and has asked us to help her paint it, so that's what we're doing tomorrow.

Today, we went out to an island called Koh Kho Khao to help build a playground at a school in the town of Ban Nok Na. The playground project is almost complete, so we helped with some of the finishing touches in the garden (planting flowers, palm trees, etc) and raking, shoveling, and sweeping sand. The kids at the school were so gracious. And...you would never believe it, but we most of them gave up their recess to help us! They found brooms to help us sweep, they were tearing up grass from an area along the road to use to fill in parts of the garden, and they even cut up fresh fruit to offer us as snacks. So cool! Oh, and one child's dad, after dropping him off, stayed for the rest of the day to help us with the work. These people are some of the nicest, most giving, hardworking people we've ever met.

We thought we'd seen a lot of damage here in Khao Lak, but what we saw today on Koh Kho Khao blew our minds. Apparently this island is filled with a lot of Burmese people who didn't want to report any one missing because they were scared they'd be deported back to Burma, but it's rumored that more were lost here than anywhere else in the area. The wave came up over the entire island and wiped out almost everything. They've started rebuilding houses, hotels, schools, etc., but there are still a lot of destroyed homes, buildings, boats and land. There are 2 HUGE ships that were carried several blocks from the ocean and are still there (see pics.) Standing next to them boggled our minds... they were so far from the ocean that we couldn't even begin to fathom how they got there.

After we finished at the playground we went back to the orphanage for a few hours to see the kids and are now at the internet cafe sharing our stories with you :)

We've gotten a huge response to our email about donations and we can't even begin to thank you enough. We come across opportunities to help every day and are having a hard time not biting off more than we can chew! For now, our focus is still teaching the children and building Bai a house. We are also taking Ratjana down to Phuket this weekend to shop for Christmas gifts for the kids! We are then going to help her wrap them in preparation for the big party on Dec. 27th. Each kid gets a gift worth 100 Bhat (that's $2.50) and a special meal of fried chicken and vegetables. We thought we were leaving that day, but have now decided to stay for the party... how could we miss that? 150 kids opening presents and performing special talents for us like Thai dancing and playing instruments. We can't wait!

Sorry for the long entry, but had so much we wanted to share! We are truly having the most amazing time here. Luckily they don't let foreigners (farangs, as they call us) adopt kids or we might come home with a housefull ;)

Ok, it's time for us to go to bed now. We have to be up early to paint and teach!

Miss and love you all so much!

xoxo,
Rach and Steph

2005-12-09T15:04:00.000-08:00

Hello again from Thailand!

We are now in Khao Lak, a very small town on the western coast of Thailand (north of Phuket). We spent the last few days visiting the Khao Sok National Park where we slept in tree house bungalows, hiked thru the jungle, and rode elephants. It was awesome! And so so beautiful! We have lots of pictures up, so take a look at the new postings. A few highlights are sleeping in mosquito netted beds, Rachel getting her blood sucked by a leech that crawled in to her shoe while hiking, making friends with a great kid (Sunthi) who we met at the Morning Mist Lodge, and Rachel jumping in to a waterfall in her underwear. Comments under the pictures with more detail about each one will be added shortly, so stay tuned!

Most of the resort areas in Thailand, which is where we've been up until now, are on their way to being completely restored, so until we drove thru Khao Lak on our way to the National Park we hadn't seen much of the devastation. Something about Khao Lak really struck us as we passed thru, so we are back and getting ready to volunteer. More people died here than anywhere else in Thailand and this little town is still suffering greatly from last year's disaster. They've received little to no funding from the government to rebuild and help the people who survived here. We aren't sure what kind of work we'll be doing, but we have met some really nice people who are working on projects re-building playgrounds, schools, and homes. All sound like great ways to help to us!

We know we still owe you stories from Bangkok, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Phuket. We've included highlights of our last day in Bangkok below and are working on the rest so keep an eye out for our next entry.

**Remember...You can drill in to the pictures for more details too!

Our last day in Bangkok:
Steph #2 came to join us on our last day in Bangkok. We all thought 3 traveling together would surely be better than 2.....well...not so much. For the first time in our travels we got scammed! Luckily it was a minor scam and we didn't lose anything or get hurt in any way, but we still fell for it and couldn't believe it! So, here's what happened....We took a water taxi up to see the Grand Palace. Upon entering - or trying to - we were stopped at the gate by a man who was nicely dressed in slacks and a button down. He told us that the palace was closed for a few hours due to the Buddhist holiday and no visitors were allowed in to see it until 3:00 (it was 1:30 when we showed up). We were a little hesitant to listen to him, but there were monks walking around everywhere and it didn't look like other visitors were being allowed in at other entrances either, so we believed him. He offered to map out some other temples, shops, etc. that we could go to while we waited for the Palace to re-open. He was even so nice, or so we thought, to help us negotiate the "locals" price for a tuk tuk to take us around to the sights he recommended and wait with us at each one (Giant Golden Buddha, Ruby Market, and another small temple.) We thought how nice, finally someone who is not trying to sell us something or harass us! Um, yeah right! We thought was a really nice afternoon and met some really helpful people, but later realized that every "nice" person we met was in some way part of the scam. Luckily we didn't buy anything, but unluckily we missed our chance to visit the Golden Palace - it was closing as we got back. The guards chuckled when we asked them about the Buddhist holiday and closure of the palace. They said...sorry, but you were scammed - the Palace is never closed for religious holidays. We should have known better! We laughed it off and headed back to the hotel to get ready for dinner and Muay Thai Boxing.

Muay Thai Boxing is a big deal in Thailand and we were told you MUST go if you want to really experience a big part of the Thai culture... so we did :) The only tickets left through our hotel were ringside so we sat right in front and watched these little guys kick the "you know what" out of each other. Thai Boxing is much different than American boxing! It's much more of an art, it's more intense, it's focused on kicking more than punching, and there seem to be no rules! The boxers extremely small and most seem very young because they are trained from the first day they can walk. The matches are religious and begin with a ritual specific to the school where each boxer was trained. Each boxer begins wearing a lei made of the same flowers that are traditionally used for religious offerings and the winner boxer takes both leis at the end. The experience is heightened by the hundreds of Thai men yelling and screaming not only to cheer on the boxers, but also to place their bets. Being women, we were definitely the minority in the place, but still very glad we went!

Ok, this is a long enough entry and our fingers are cramping from typing! We are coming back tomorrow to finish the rest so you should too :)

Miss and love you,
Rach and Steph

2005-12-07T07:07:00.000-08:00

As promised we worked on the blog again today! We added titles and descriptions to the pictures from Bangkok, Hanoi, Ha Long Bay and part of Sapa! More to come over the next few days! Enjoy!
xoxo,
Rach and Steph

2005-12-06T09:09:00.000-08:00

Sawasdeeka from Phuket!

We are thinking of you and missing you from Thailand. We have been in Phuket for a few days, but are leaving tomorrow for Khao Sok National Park and should be in Krabi by this weekend. We were able to get the pictures up tonight of both Cambodia and Phuket, but again (sorry!) ran out of time for labeling and writing about our experiences. We are so excited to share our stories from Vietnam and Cambodia... cross your fingers we can find internet again soon!

Hope you are all doing great!
xoxo,
Rach and Steph

2005-11-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

Hello from Vietnam!
It's very late here so we aren't going to say much, but hi, we miss you, and we just put up a ton of pictures from Bangkok, Hanoi, Sapa Hilltop Villages, Ha Long Bay Limestone Islands and where we are now... Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam.

It took us so long to do the pics that we ran out of time add detail behind the pics and stories on the blog! We'll continue to update over the next few days so stay tuned :)

Since we won't be with our families on Thanksgiving we decided to stay another 2 days on this island and treat ourselves to some good sun time, long walks on the beach, and of course.. $3 massages! If you want to see where we are... check out http://www.vietnamphuquoc.com/. We leave for Cambodia on Saturday to see the temples at Anchorwat. Not sure exactly where from there, but are pretty sure we're headed back to Thailand to explore the South.

We are still having a blast and are being really safe!
Happy Thanksgiving :)
Miss and love you all.
Rach and Steph

2005-11-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

Our trip inspiring you to go travel?

We keep getting emails on how much our trip is making you all want to go and do some traveling... well.. we thought this was the perfect opportunity to tell you about someone who has made our trip so much better (and easier) on us than we could have ever done on our own! We have the BEST Travel Agent who specializes in Australia and New Zealand. If you're even thinking about planning a trip there.. you MUST contact Phil at Aspiredownunder.com. Phil and his wife (owners of Aprire Down Under) have spent a ton of time and are experts in these areas. They have helped us with recommendations on what to do, where to stay, how to get around (we are taking a camper van through NZ and everyone we've met and told that too.. say we are so lucky and that's the BEST way to do it!) and much more. They even helped us get our visas! I don't know if we'll ever be able to show them our thanks and appreciation, but this is one way we thought we'd start! You all know us and we wouldn't back someone (and promote them) if they weren't truly amazing!

Contact information for Aprire Down Under is:
phil@aspiredownunder.com or sales@aspiredownunder.com
www.aspiredownunder.com

Trust us when we say.. if you're thinking about going.. do it right and contact Phil! We did and it has made all the difference in our trip so far!
Have a great day,
Rach and Steph

2005-11-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

Hello again from Bangkok!

So, we have been here in Bangkok for a few days now and had to write a little about our experience thus far b/c we've had some crazy ones. Bangkok is truly another world! And not much is shocking at this point.....read on to see why :)

This city has great energy! It is crazy busy at all times of the day and night. There are cars, motorcycles, buses, bikes, and/or people, in the streets and on the sidewalks at every second. It's very chaotic, but it all seems to work somehow. And it's ridiculously cheap here. I think it's common knowledge that we both love to spend money, so we are loving it for that alone! We get 40 Thai Bhat to every $1 USD. To give you an idea how cheap it is, large bottled waters are about 20 cents, large tubes of toothpaste are 50 cents, hour long massages are $11, and pediucres are $2.50.

So, since the massages are sooo cheap, we've treated ourselves to one just about every day so far. Shocking, right? :) We started out getting foot massages and then Rach ventured out last time and got a hot oil Thai massage to try to help her back - it's giving her problems again. The massage was great, and did help Rach's back, but the experience itself was a little more interesting than anticipated. Nothing embarrassing or inappropriate happened, but Thai massages are not for the modest. We found out that it's totally normal to shower off while the masseuse is in the room, to be completely naked in front of her, and for her to rub down your entire chest. At home this wouldn't fly, but here it's normal. When in Rome....., right?

On Friday, we encountered the biggest downpour we've ever seen. It rained for about an hour and by the time it was done the streets were full of water (at least a foot, if not more). We were at the gym, luckily, when it happened so we didn't get wet, but when we went out afterwards for lunch... the entire road was flooded. Everyone kept on going as if it were no biggie - even the guys on motorcycles drove thru the water without giving it a second thought. It was madness to us, but apparently normal for everyone else. At lunch we tried to sit outside....we quickly had to move inside though b/c there were cockroaches EVERYWHERE. The rain brought them out and they were literally running across the sidewalks and thru all of the puddles. YUCK! I think we counted 20 HUGE ones all at one time. We even saw one crawling on a guy...eeeewww... We HATE cockroaches!!

Yesterday was quite interesting as well. We recounted our day last night and couldn't stop laughing b/c it was so random. We started out our morning by buying fake Cartier watches in a back room in the middle of a Thai market. We were in a 6 x 6 room with a glass sliding door covered by a dark shower curtain (for privacy) and the watches were pulled out in metal brief cases that were kept in a locked cabinet. Think it's illegal for them to be selling them?We then rode in a Tuk Tuk, a motorized three-wheeled covered wagon that they use for taxis - there are as many Tuk Tuk's as there are normal taxies... they're everywhere! For dinner we ate tuna that we still aren't sure was tuna amd after dinner, on our way to try and find a bar that was recommended to us, we passed thru hookerville (literally there were women in evening gowns everywhere, some even wearing numbers). After Hookerville, we passed through the night market and got yelled at by a Thai woman selling pashminas because we offered too low of a price and then ended up at a bar watcheing an all male gay cabaret show. Oh yeah, and we got flowers bought for us by a random French guy.

Forgot to mention that our first day here, while sitting at dinner talking about what we wrote on the blog that day, we saw a full grown elephant and baby elephant being led down the sidewalk for tourists to take pictures of (in the middle of the city!!). Please note that this was AS Steph was saying what she wrote about the Elephants that day. Strange huh?

Have a feeling these will only be the first of many stories like this! Bangkok, ya gotta love it! We do so far!!

Ok, we're off to start another day, another adventure. Will write more again soon :)

xoxo,
Steph and Rach

2005-11-12T19:13:00.000-08:00

Looking for a way to give back ... we met someone who could REALLY use your help!!

On the township tour we told you about, we met someone who really struck a heart cord. Her name is Gloria and she runs a small school in one of the largest, but poorest townships. She has 3 kids of her own, but invites 17 others into her home every day from 8am to 5pm to teach them English, Math and Reading. Their native language is Xhosa. The other schools in the area are too expensive for these families to afford so she does this for only 50 Rand (that's $8) per month. This amount barely covers the cost for her to feed these children during the day and she provides all of their food.

Gloria is really making a difference in these children and making sure they are going to have bright futures. Her 3 year old son sang (in English) for us the ABC's, counted to 20 and named all of the months in a year!

Gloria could use your money, but she could really use children's clothing (any ages from new born on up) and school supplies (paper, pens, crayons, english children's books, etc) even more.

We've included a couple of pictures of Gloria, her home she uses as a classroom, and some of the kids she teaches. We've also included her mailing address if you'd like to help her out.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Please don't feel pressured to help.. we just wanted to share this opportunity because I know many people are always looking for a good way to give back.

2005-11-12T18:32:00.000-08:00

The kids! Love the kids :)

They were SO excited about the sweets!

______________________________________

Address to send clothing or supplies:

Masakheni Educare

N. Gloria

Box 40022

Elonwabeni 7791

South Africa

2005-11-11T18:32:00.000-08:00

More of what we've been learning....Xhosa Traditions!

There are many traditions still in place within the Xhosa community. We were educated on some of them at the wedding and wanted to share them with you all b/c we found them so fascinating.

Before a couple can get engaged, the groom goes to the bride's family and negotiates how much labola he will pay for her hand in marriage. Labola is the amount of money (or in the old days, number of cows or sheep) the bride's family and groom agree that the she is worth. The amount agreed upon is based on the bride's education, family status, beauty, etc. Nelson Mandela, who is also Xhosa, paid something like 250,000 Rand ($41,650 USD) for his last bride - she was the king of Mozambique's daughter and very well educated, so worth a hefty labola. At the wedding we went to, the labola was 40,000 Rand (about $6,650 USD). The bride was well educated and practiced law in Johannesburg. 40,000 Rand is a lot of money to South Africans. Once the labola is paid and the wedding is complete, the bride now belongs to the husband's family. If at any point, however, that the marriage goes askew - i.e. they have a big fight or he's treating her badly, and the woman goes back to her family - even if only for one night - the man may have to pay her family the labola again.

More interesting traditions are carried on during the traditional wedding ceremony. The traditional ceremony takes place after the white wedding. Xhosa people perform two ceremonies nowadays - a white wedding, which is similar to weddings we attend back home and a traditional wedding, which is similar to the weddings performed back in tribal days. The white wedding of the couple who's wedding we attended was held in Stellenbosch, South Africa's beautiful wine country (the equivalent to our Napa :)) The traditional wedding was held back in the township, where the bride and groom grew up at the home of the groom or his family. The entire community is invited to the traditional wedding (friends, neighbors, and even strangers), the bride changes outfits two, three or four times, and, probably most important, the the bride is taught respect by the groom's family.

We couldn't figure out why the bride didn't seem very happy during the ceremony until the teaching of respect was further explained to us. You will notice she's not smiling much in any of the pictures. Teaching of respect is dreaded by all Xhosa brides. The groom and his family (mostly the elders - grandparents, parents, or his oldest siblings if they're no longer around) sit the bride down and teach her how to respect him and his family. She is not allowed to speak during this teaching and must just sit there, listen, and take it all in. Teaching her respect includes laying down ground rules, showing her how to dress when in family members' presence, and giving her a new name.

We posted a picture of the outfit they picked for her to wear in their presence - it's the photo labeled "3rd outfit". The bride must wear this while in their presence until her first child is born. It's pretty bad! Only after her first child can she choose what she wears when around them.

The new names she is given stick forever. She is given three new names in total. Just like we do, she takes her husband's last name. She is also given two new first names which describe how the family feels about her. The names can be good or bad depending on whether or not they like her. And, again, the names given that day are used then for the rest of her life!

After understanding the teaching of respect, we understood why the bride wasn't all smiles on her traditional wedding day. Not only is she taking on a new husband and all that goes with marriage, she's taking on the family and their rules as well. Wow!

Hope you all found this as interesting as we did!

Rach and Steph :)

2005-11-10T18:38:00.000-08:00

So not only have we had a lot of fun, but we've actually been learning a lot along the way too! We took a private tour to the Ming Tombs and the Great Wall in Beijing... here's some of the interesting facts we learned:

Ming Tombs -

Most of the Emperors of the Ming Dynasty are buried there. Their tombs have both an above ground and under ground palace because they believe emperors go on to another life. Their above ground palaces are rectangle because the Chinese believe that the Earth is a rectangle. The below ground palaces are round because they believe Heaven is round.
The bury all of the Emperors treasures in the underground palaces. They have only excavated one of them and found over 13,000 treasures... each made of gold, silver, jade, silk or some other expensive jewel/fabric. The Emperors currency and belongings were all gold and the Empress had only silver. All of the treasures were in perfect condition except the silk outfits.
In addition to the Empress, the Emperors had MANY concubines that all lived in the Forbidden Palace. One Emperor had over 3,000 Concubines. It's tradition that the Emperor's favorite Concubine be buried with the Emperor... ALIVE!
Forbidden Palace - Had 9,999 rooms because the number 9 stands for longevity. All of the Emperor's Concubines, children, workers (Females and Unix) lived in this palace.
You ask.. what is a UNIX?? I asked the same thing. Because the Forbidden Placed housed all of the Concubines, the Emperor was the only man allowed to be in the Palace. Therefore, if you were a man and wanted to work there... you had to be castrated and were then became a Unix.
3000 Concubines??? Each Emperor must have had a TON of children right?? Wrong.. some did have as many as 100, but the Emperor had final say. As soon as the Emperor would have sex with a Concubine, a Unix would ask him "if she's pregnant, do you want her baby??" If the answer was no, the Unix would force this Concubine to drink a tea that had the same effect as the "morning after pill".
The Ming Dynasty was the 2nd to last Dynasty in China and built the longest Great Wall. The last Dynasty was the Ching.

Great Wall

Did you know there were several Great Walls? Each time the Northern Border of China changed... the Dynasty at the time would build a new Great Wall. The one that people are allowed to visit was built by the Ming Dynasty and over 4000 miles long... that's longer than the entire width of the US... CRAZY!
The Northern side of the Great Wall is much taller than the South side because that's where the intruders would approach. It's amazing the system they have set up there! They have a tower called the "Beacon Tower" that keeps watch and lights up to signal everyone else if danger is approaching. There were several holes built into the wall that were used for viewing, shooting, or pouring hot oil on anyone trying to climb up.
You can tell the Great Wall is built by hand... each stone is completely different and the steps are drastically different in size. There are portions of it that are flat and steep... these were used for quickly transporting needed items in times of crisis!
The portion of the Great Wall you are allowed to walk on has been restored. The original Great Wall that hasn't been touched is falling apart and is completely over grown by vegetation. You can see bits of the old wall along the drive up to the touristy section :)
We were told this was a true story ... "One of the Emperor's favorite Concubines would never smile. He tried EVERYTHING to make her smile and NOTHING worked. He knew how much she hated the General so one day he sounded the alarm at the GREAT Wall by lighting the Beacon Tower. He and his Concubine watched everyone RUN to protect the wall and when they realized that it was a prank... the General was FUMING! The Concubine finally smiled :) A few months later, the Wall was really under attack. The Emperor sounded the alarm and NO ONE came... they all thought it was another prank. The Emperor was unfortunately killed and the Concubine smiled again."

About Jane (our tour guide) and the Chinese culture:

Jane is 25 and still living at home. Apparently, most people live at home until they are married. She has a boyfriend, but never gets to stay with him because her parents (like most others) are very strict and enforce a 10pm curfew.. EVERY NIGHT!
Jane is an only child because there is a one child law in China that's used to control population. This is sad, but it's common that families would want a boy so they can carry on their name and have someone to take over their businesses so they would give birth at home and leave their newborn girls on the steps of orphanages. Their orphanages are flooded with little girls :( Today they won't let doctors tell you the sex of the child... this has helped control this problem a little, but it's still exists today.
Once a woman has a baby, she's immediately encouraged by the doctor to have an operation to ensure she won't have another. Most women choose to do this...even today.
What happens if you have a second child? It's frowned down upon in society, both children lose their health benefits (1st child gets them free), they must stay in a house/apt built for a 1 child family, and school is no longer subsidized by the government.

That's all we can remember right now. A little history lesson for ya :)

Love and miss ya,

Rach and Steph

2005-11-10T02:26:00.000-08:00

Hello from Bangkok! We can't believe we are already here in Thailand!! Time is flying by. We apologize that it's been so long since our last posting. Internet cafes were sparse and/or very expensive in both South Africa and China. Today is our first day in Bangkok and we've already found an affordable cafe close to our hotel....so here we go!

Since our last entry we have done so much. Instead of going in to all the juicy details right here like we've been doing, we thought this time we'd give you the high level tidbits and add the details under each picture in the viewing section so you can pick and choose what you want to know more about. We also have arranged the pictures in to sets so it's easier to tell where we are and during what time frame. Let us know if you like this new way of doing things :)

So, we left off in Cape Town just before we headed to the Pilanesburg National Park for our Safari. Wow, what a great time the safari was! We flew to Johannesburg from Cape Town and then drove 2 hours northwest to the Bakubung Lodge, which is located within the park. The Bakubung was great! It had a rustic feel, but was upscale at the same time - definitely a splurge for us :)....and we enjoyed every second! Upon arrival - literally driving thru the gates of the Bakubung - we came across a huge male elephant - he was about 20 feet from us. We sat in the car for about 10 minutes and watched in awe - we couldn't believe we were watching a 3 ton mammal feed right outside of our hotel. Pretty cool. We saw a ton more animals over the next 4 days - white rhinos, black rhinos, hippos, giraffes, cape buffalo, zebra, and many more. We went on two 3 hour game drives early in the morning (5 AM - sooo early!) and two 3 hour game drives in the evening. We also went on a game walk, where we got within 100 yards of a Black Rhino (they are very rare!) and about 30 yards of a heard of mom and baby elephants. The only animals we didn't see were the cats (lions, cheetahs, and leopards) - such a bummer, but reason enough to go back someday :) We've uploaded a ton of pick of the lodge, animals, bush bbq, etc., so take a look!

After the safari we headed back to Cape Town to attend a traditional Xhosa African wedding. Xhosa is the name of their tribe and also the name of the language they speak. Xhosa is one of South Africa's 11 recognized languages. It is pronounced "Chosa" and said with a click (the "ch" sound is simultaneously said with a clicking sound) It sounds so cool when they say it - we can't do it to save our lives though - ha! Zanele, the young woman we befriended who invited us to the wedding, was so excited that we were coming back. We knew attending the wedding was a once in a lifetime opportunity, but we had no idea how welcomed we'd be or how much we'd learn from the wonderful people we were surrounded with that day. The wedding took place in one of the townships just outside of Cape Town. Townships were started about 50 years ago when the apartheid began. The white people basically pushed all of Cape Town's black and colored people out of the city. They had nowhere to go, so many squatted wherever they found open space. Many of the townships are now government subsidized and have power and sanitation (some still don't though), but all are still very run down and poor. In total, there are over 1.2 million residents in the townships - about 40% of whom are unemployed. The sense of community, however, is as rich as it gets and the people don't let the fact that they don't have much get them down. We agreed that we've never encountered a more hospitable, kind, fun, and generous bunch of people. We were taken care of at the wedding like we were one of their own and are so so glad that we changed our plans to attend. Take a look at the pictures and our descriptions. I don't think either do justice in portraying the experience, but they'll have have to do until we can tell you more in person :)

We spent a few extra days in Cape Town after the wedding. Cape Town really turned out to be a magical place for us. It was funny how much it felt like home upon our return from the safari - we were so sad to have to move on. But we had to....so off to Hong Kong and China we went.

Hong Kong....Neither of us were too excited to see Hong Kong, but by the end of our few days there, we bummed we didn't have more time. It's a great city. It has the hustle bustle and liveliness of NYC, but the cleanliness and beauty of San Francisco. It's surrounded by beautiful mountains and is tropical - who knew HK was tropical?! :) Our time there flew by...we did some Christmas shopping at the Jade Market, went to lunch with a friend of a friend, Abby, an American living in Hong Kong, went up to The Peak (for panoramic views of the city - see pictures!) and to hit the town one night in Lan Kwai Fong (a very hip and trendy area to go out in.)

After HK we flew to Beijing. What a different world Hong Kong and mainland China are!!! HK is expensive, clean and very sophisticated....China is not so much of any of those things....it's very inexpensive (we ate lunch for a total of $4 USD twice nice!), dirty (people spit and go to the bathroom pretty much wherever they want, including the street), and very old world (see the pics!) We enjoyed Beijing, but were, in a way, happy to move on. We found ourselves pressed for time to squeeze it all in again, but think we hit most of the "must do's". We went to the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, famous Silk Market (more Xmas shopping!), Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and met out with a few friends for a real Sezchwan dinner on our last night.

We are now in Bangkok and are so excited to be here! We can't wait to see some of the amazing and beautiful places we've heard so much about. We are planning on exploring the southern islands and beaches of Thailand as well as Cambodia and Vietnam during our 6 weeks here. Steph's friend, Steph Palmer, from San Francisco will be meeting up with us in a few days. Three girls on the loose in Thailand - look out! We should have some good stories and pictures for our next entry.

Ok, bye for now! :) Miss you all!
Rach & Steph

2005-10-24T08:17:00.000-07:00

Hello again from Cape Town! This place is amazing!! We've been here now for almost 2 weeks and are trying to change our ticket so we can come back and spend some more time after our safari!

We took an over night flight from London and arrived into CT around 9am on Oct. 12th. We were so happy when pulled up to our flat... we totally lucked out and found a loft apt. for rent right on the Buitengracht St. (the main st. in town). The apt. was huge, in a completely secure building, and had floor to ceiling windows that overlooked downtown and Table Mountain. We were off to a good start. We didn't do much the 1st day because we were pretty tired from the flight and we happened to ask a woman where we could get our hair cut and she got us in that afternoon. After a bit of pampering we just went to the grocery store, stumbled upon the best coffee shop and chilled out at home. The coffee shop, Sundance, had really yummy blended iced coffees we became regulars here... We've become friends with the people who work there (Seandor and Alice) and were even asked if we'd like stock in the company :)

The next morning we went over to visit Acceleration (Stephan, Jacques, and Filip), got the skinny on what to do in Cape Town, and got on our way. We've now done just about all they recommended...thanks guys.. you totally set us up to have the best time here. We also joined a gym and rented a car. Toni from Europe Car also became our friend and told us to go to a place called Five Flies for dinner that night.. we went and had one our best dinners. Highlight of that dinner was trying their local Fairview Brie cheese... get some!

Friday we drove over Table Mountain to Camps Bay beach.. it had been way too long since we had seen sun so we needed some quality beach time. We loved Camps Bay so much that when we had to move out of our loft.. we moved to a cottage a block from Camps Bay beach. The water is cold, but the sand is white & soft and the views from that beach are stunning... you have the ocean with huge rocks and crashing waves on one side and huge beautiful homes with both Table Mountain and Lions Head in the background. We are not usually huge rock fans, but their mountains are really unique and incredibly beautiful. Check out the pics!! That night we went out to a great sushi restaurant in the Cape Quarter (very trendy district) and then out to what everyone said was their hottest club.. Opium. We showed up in the knee high boots we picked up in Germany and Dublin (not exactly back packing :)) and Rach managed to make friends with the bouncer (David) and get us in free! He gave us a tour of the whole club and hooked us up with VIP access to the best part of the club. Didn't make it too late of a night, but managed to get some good dancing in and make a few friends that we would later hang out with. David was the 1st and we also met Jason and Greg (another Jason who works on a yacht in the Southern Coast of France.. strange!).

Saturday morning we went for a run on the board walk. Started in Mouille Point and ran through SeaPoint... such a beautiful run... you're along the ocean the whole way. Later we checked out what's supposed to be the hottest beach, Clifton No. #4. Chilled out for a while and then walked (along with everyone else) to a bar on the beach called La Med. Cool bar with stunning views... had a couple glasses of South African Chardonnay and then went to the gym and then home to get ready for dinner. We tried to make it a mellow night, but while having a cocktail waiting for our dinner reservations that night, we managed to get ourselves invited to a Camel promotional party... free drinks and food all night.... we had to go :) The event was fun and Grant (works for Camel) & Kat (his girlfriend.. goes to school in Stellenbosch ... wine region) were really cool! We hung with them, had a few cocktails, and some how ended up at Opium again to test out our dancing shoes.. yep.. they worked The next morning came REALLY early. We had to be out in Durbanville (about 30 mins away) to meet Filip and his wife. Filip works for Acceleration, an old client of mine, and has become a friend. Him and his wife Esther offered to take us out for the day and show us Franschhoek wine region and a town called Hermanas where you can watch the whales. We had the BEST day with them. They were the greatest tour guides and such gracious hosts.. thanks guys! Franschhoek was breath taking as was the drive through the mountains to Hermanas. We didn't taste any wine in Franschhoek because it was Sunday and the wineries were closed, but had coffee and cake at a great cafe outside. Don't worry though.. we did get to taste some more local wine at lunch in Hermanas. We sat at a small cafe tucked in the rocks! It's right on the ocean so you can see the whales while you're eating.. amazing. We got lucky and happened to be here during whale season. They swim right along the coast so you get great views of them... they are HUGE! Didn't get to see any of them breaching or doing other things whales do, but did get to watch several of them. Apparently they come here to have babies before heading back to the pole. Filip and Esther drove us back along the coast and through some beautiful passes and beach towns. We then went back to their place, had a glass of wine, some coffee and their favorite dessert...can't remember the name right now, but super yummy... kind of like a creme brulee but with crust and without the burnt top. Oh yeah, Filip also talked us in to tasting some local liquor that tasted like rocket fuel... again can't remember the name, but will add it later.

Monday we drove out to Simons Town and went to Boulder Beach. This is the beach where all of the Penguins live... very cool... you can lay on the rocks and swim with them and they let you get very close to them. Loved it! We met the nicest woman who lives and works there.. Jean. She told us all about how Penguins feel the hot and cold like humans so they go through a molting process (shed their feathers and get a new coat) after they have babies and before they head back out to sea to get back their strength. You'll see some penguins in the pics that are either in the bushes (where they molt and have their babies) and others that have come out of the bushes but still look pretty shabby because they haven't fully gotten their new coat yet. We also learned that they haven't always lived at Boulder Beach.. they used to live on Seal Island (off of Hout Bay) but that since they've stopped clubbing seals.. there are too many seals there now and the penguins were pushed out. On our way home we took the coastal route... really is amazing. Chapmans Peak drive absolutely blows your mind.. wish we could really capture it in the pics. We stopped and had the famous Calamari at the Chapman Peak hotel, then hit the gym, and headed out to meet some friends.

Tuesday we got in another run along the boardwalk and then drove out to the Stellenbosch wine region. We went to a place called Delair that EVERYONE said we had to go to, but weren't that impressed. Wine was ok and views were great, but felt very touristy. After there we decided to just pick a small one out of our book and we got so lucky. Found an absolute gem!! Showed up at Sylvendale, sat in huge comfy leather chairs, met T.S who managed the place, got served and educated on several of their wines (yummy sauvignon blanc and DV red). T.S. even let us try one of his personal bottles of wine.. his favorite chardonnay. After here we headed to our favorite dinner yet.. Moyo!

Have to run now if we want to get a work out in before the gym closes. Come back soon for the details on Moyo (traditional African Buffet, dancing, etc!) and the rest of our Cape Town experiences! We've been to the townships, up Table Mountain, hooked up with the best tables for sunset, met lots of locals, been invited to a traditional Xhosa tribe wedding and more! We leave tomorrow morning to fly to Joberg and start our Safari in the Pilanesberg National Park! So excited.

Love and miss you all.
Rach and Steph

2005-10-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! We are writing from Cape Town. So, lots to catch you up on since our last proper entry in Germany. From Germany we went to Ireland for 4 nights, then to London for 4 nights, and then flew to South Africa.

We arrived in to Dublin late in the afternoon on October 3rd. As you can imagine, we were all a little beat up and tired from Oktoberfest....that weisen really got the best of us! Jules was still traveling with us (she stayed thru Ireland and our first night in London.) We decided to power through our tiredness and get out and see some of the city. Since we'd been so unhealthy at Oktoberfest, we all were craving something nutritious and managed to find a sushi restaurant in one of the hipper parts of Dublin. Dinner was great and we turned it in early - we were in serious need of a good night of sleep. The next few days we spent our time walking around and exploring the city. Dublin is old, but beautiful, and quite trendy. We found the best shopping street ever (shocking!), visited Trinity College, St. Patrick's cathedral, Christ Church, and, of course, the Guinness Brewery. Our favorites were the shopping and brewery tour! :) Our evenings were all very fun, but we kept it somewhat mellow the entire time. We visited a cool restaurant/bar we were told to go to, Cafe en Seine, twice, and of course, tried out a few of the local Irish pubs. On our last full day in Ireland, we took the train out to Dalkey and Killiney, two gorgeous towns on the sea just outside of Dublin. Bono (of U2) owns a home nearby (we walked right past it!) We walked from Killiney to Dalkey, where we had a great lunch at the famous Queens restaurant. We then strolled thru Dalkey and explored the town a bit. It was so cute and quaint! We took the train back to Dublin after our afternoon up the coast, got in a work out, and then headed back out on the train to Howth, a small fishing village about a 1/2 hour outside of Dublin (the opposite way of Dalkey) for the evening. We had the freshest and most amazing seafood dinner at a restaurant called Aqua and discovered what is now our favorite dessert, toffee pudding. It's heaven!!! The next morning we had an early flight to catch to London, so we called it a night after dinner and got some rest.

We arrived in London on October 7th and took the train from Heathrow all the way to the other side of the city to where we were staying. London is very spread out and it takes forever to get anywhere! Two of Rach's dear friends, Diane and Rob, took us in for our 4 nights in town. We had the best time with them - they're great hosts! Steph decided to stay in our first night there to chill out and do some laundry. Rob, Rach, and Jules went in to the city to meet Di for her "leaving do" - a last day of work party - Di got a new job! The party was a good time and Steph had a nice alone night at home. On Saturday we got up early to watch Rob's favorite team play rugby. We then had to say farewell to Jules :( She had to head back home to CA and reality - yuk! ;) Later that afternoon Di and Rob took us down to the coolest local farmers market right along the Thames. We all had yummy lunches at the market and bought some fresh fruit, veggies, and pies for lunch the next day. We walked all along the Thames, over some of the famous bridges, and experienced Saturday as local Londoners. We all really enjoyed ourselves. Later that night Rob, Rach and Steph met up with Caroline, another dear friend of Rach's, in town for dinner. We ate at a fantastic restaurant, had lots of wine, and then went out with some of Rach's DoubleClick London co-workers to a trendy club. On Sunday we were all pretty tired from the night before so we were mellow in the morning/early afternoon. We cooked our veggies and pies (they were to die for!) from the farmers market and then mustered up the energy to walk over to Greenwich. Rach and I loved Greenwich! The town is full of cute restaurants & shops and tons of good people watching. That night Rob and Di took us to their favorite local Italian restaurant for some serious Italian food. The waiters were authentic, the food was fantastic, the portions were huge, and the dessert was to die for. We could see why it was their favorite! Monday ended up being a "research" day for us...not super exciting, but necessary. We headed back to Greenwich to the internet cafe and researched what we wanted to do while in Cape town and where to stay. After numerous hours, we finally found something and booked it. Di and Rob were awaiting us when we got home that night with a fully prepared Indian curry dinner and a yummy bottle of wine. We all chatted and had a great dinner together. I'm telling you, Rob and Di were the absolute best to us!! On Tuesday, our departure day, we got up early, worked out, went to the store to replace a few things for Rob and Di and then headed off to the airport. We had a looong flight ahead of us to South Africa - 11 hours to be exact....wow. So, off we went! Goodbye Europe.....SA here we come!

2005-10-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! We are writing from Cape Town. So, lots to catch you up on since our last proper entry in Germany. From Germany we went to Ireland for 4 nights, then to London for 4 nights, and then flew to South Africa.

We arrived in to Dublin late in the afternoon on October 3rd. As you can imagine, we were all a little beat up and tired from Oktoberfest....that weisen really got the best of us! Jules was still traveling with us (she stayed thru Ireland and our first night in London.) We decided to power through our tiredness and get out and see some of the city. Since we'd been so unhealthy at Oktoberfest, we all were craving something nutritious and managed to find a sushi restaurant in one of the hipper parts of Dublin. Dinner was great and we turned it in early - we were in serious need of a good night of sleep. The next few days we spent our time walking around and exploring the city. Dublin is old, but beautiful, and quite trendy. We found the best shopping street ever (shocking!), visited Trinity College, St. Patrick's cathedral, Christ Church, and, of course, the Guinness Brewery. Our favorites were the shopping and brewery tour! :) Our evenings were all very fun, but we kept it somewhat mellow the entire time. We visited a cool restaurant/bar we were told to go to, Cafe en Seine, twice, and of course, tried out a few of the local Irish pubs. On our last full day in Ireland, we took the train out to Dalkey and Killiney, two gorgeous towns on the sea just outside of Dublin. Bono (of U2) owns a home nearby (we walked right past it!) We walked from Killiney to Dalkey, where we had a great lunch at the famous Queens restaurant. We then strolled thru Dalkey and explored the town a bit. It was so cute and quaint! We took the train back to Dublin after our afternoon up the coast, got in a work out, and then headed back out on the train to Howth, a small fishing village about a 1/2 hour outside of Dublin (the opposite way of Dalkey) for the evening. We had the freshest and most amazing seafood dinner at a restaurant called Aqua and discovered what is now our favorite dessert, toffee pudding. It's heaven!!! The next morning we had an early flight to catch to London, so we called it a night after dinner and got some rest.
We arrived in London on October 7th and took the train from Heathrow all the way to the other side of the city to where we were staying. London is very spread out and it takes forever to get anywhere! Two of Rach's dear friends, Diane and Rob, took us in for our 4 nights in town. We had the best time with them - they're great hosts! Steph decided to stay in our first night there to chill out and do some laundry. Rob, Rach, and Jules went in to the city to meet Di for her "leaving do" - a last day of work party - Di got a new job! The party was a good time and Steph had a nice alone night at home. On Saturday we got up early to watch Rob's favorite team play rugby. We then had to say farewell to Jules :( She had to head back home to CA and reality - yuk! ;) Later that afternoon Di and Rob took us down to the coolest local farmers market right along the Thames. We all had yummy lunches at the market and bought some fresh fruit, veggies, and pies for lunch the next day. We walked all along the Thames, over some of the famous bridges, and experienced Saturday as local Londoners. We all really enjoyed ourselves. Later that night Rob, Rach and Steph met up with Caroline, another dear friend of Rach's, in town for dinner. We ate at a fantastic restaurant, had lots of wine, and then went out with some of Rach's DoubleClick London co-workers to a trendy club. On Sunday we were all pretty tired from the night before so we were mellow in the morning/early afternoon. We cooked our veggies and pies (they were to die for!) from the farmers market and then mustered up the energy to walk over to Greenwich. Rach and I loved Greenwich! The town is full of cute restaurants & shops and tons of good people watching. That night Rob and Di took us to their favorite local Italian restaurant for some serious Italian food. The waiters were authentic, the food was fantastic, the portions were huge, and the dessert was to die for. We could see why it was their favorite! Monday ended up being a "research" day for us...not super exciting, but necessary. We headed back to Greenwich to the internet cafe and researched what we wanted to do while in Cape town and where to stay. After numerous hours, we finally found something and booked it. Di and Rob were awaiting us when we got home that night with a fully prepared Indian curry dinner and a yummy bottle of wine. We all chatted and had a great dinner together. I'm telling you, Rob and Di were the absolute best to us!! On Tuesday, our departure day, we got up early, worked out, went to the store to replace a few things for Rob and Di and then headed off to the airport. We had a looong flight ahead of us to South Africa - 11 hours to be exact....wow. So, off we went! Goodbye Europe.....SA here we come!!

2005-10-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

Sawubona from Cape Town (that's hello in Xhosa- one of the 11 languages spoke in South Africa)
We are still having a blast.. surprised? :)

We are at one of Rach's friends houses (Filip, formerly a client and his lovely wife Esther) in Durbanville, right outside of Cape Town. They took us all over today and showed us how the locals spend their weekends. We first went to the wine region and had coffee in a beautiful town called Franschhoek, then headed to watch HUGE whales in Hermanus and had lunch at a cafe in the rocks (they come to the warmer waters to have babies before heading back to the Pole), and then drove back along the beautiful coast and stopped in another wine town called Stellenbosch. We wish we could capture the beauty in a picture.. rolling hills of vinyards, wild animals along the roads (baboons, zebras, ostriches, antelope, meerkats, pelicans, spring bucks and more), humongous unique rock mountains that surround the whole area, and local african restaurants ... we're going back to have our faces painted and dance with the locals after dinner!

We know we still owe you info from our last few countries and our first few days here... promise that will come soon so keep coming back :)

Miss and love you,
Rach and Steph

2005-10-10T10:06:00.000-07:00

Hello from London!!
We've now been in an English speaking country for the last 8 days... feels strange :) There is even Starbucks here in London... hate to admit it, but we've had one every day. We couldn't find to go coffee any where through out Europe and boy did we miss it!

Tonight is our last night in London and tomorrow we fly to Cape Town, South Africa! Again, we have so much to write about between our last night in Munich, Dublin, and now London. They don't have the ability for us to upload pics here at this cafe so please check back in the next few days to see pics and here all the latest stories!

Jules, sorry you had to go home. We are missing ya heaps!
We love and miss you all. Hope you're doing great.
Rach and Steph

2005-10-02T09:09:00.000-07:00

Hello from Munchen!!
We are here at Oktoberfest and can´t believe its here already. Sorry for the delay in updating our blog...finding internet has been more difficult than you´d think!

Since we last wrote we have been to several islands in Croatia, all through Italy and have now had 3 successful days at the Weisn (festival).

After Dubrovnik, we headed to the island of Korcula. The woman we rented our apartment from in DBV (Nicole) coordinated a ride for us to the ferry a few hours away in a town called Orobich. We had the best ride to the ferry... we sat up front and chatted with our driver, Ante, for about 2 hours. He gave us a full history lesson on what life was like in Croatia during their homeland war.. just 10 years ago. For the almost 5 years when Croatia was under attack from Slovania the people lived in their basements to try and hide from the bombs... we can´t even imagine what it must have been like to live through that. He said the whole reason for the war was because Slovania was upset that Croatia wanted to be its own country and profit from it´s own tourism dollars. We arrived in Korcula and Ante was nice enough to drive us to town and help us find an apartment... we scored and got one right in town. It didn´t end up mattering though because the weather was bad so we took a 6am ferry the next day to the island of Hvar!

Our 3 days in Hvar were amazing. We got off the ferry completely exhausted and hauled our backpacks to 3 different apartments before finding one that we could sleep in. Lets just say we got our exercise for that day :) The best part of that story is that the 2nd apt. we looked at was 20 mins from town... we couldnt bear the thought of carrying our bags all the way back to town so we rented a car for the day, moved our bags, and then set out to explore Hvar. This was one of our favorite days... the island is beautiful and its known for its wine so we just had to go wine tasting. We didnt think much of the regular reds & whites, but we loved their apertif wine called Prosek. Its a sweet dessert wine. We actually bought a few bottles to send home to friends and family, but they got too heavy so they were left in Split only 2 days later. Its the thought that counts right? :) That afternoon, just before heading back to our apartment, we stumbled upon a great restaurant through the longest tunnel we have ever seen (it was pitch black, one lane, literally a mile long and it looked like they just carved out it right out of the rock. It was nuts!!) The restaurant is at an exclusive yacht club, which is apparently a pretty hip spot for the Croatian government and other big wigs with yachts. We had a good time conversing with the staff and watching one guy gut a huge tuna. After we got back to town, we went for a run along the boardwalk and saw the most beautiful sunset. We then went to a yummy fish dinner and then out to Carpe Diem, a really fun bar we visited that night and the night after. We met some great Ausie friends that night at the bar, Jon and Grant, who we ended up traveling with and hanging out with for the next few days. Our time in Hvar was great and we were sad to leave, but we needed to move on....Italy here we come!

We took a ferry to Split from Hvar, where we needed to catch our next ferry to get to Italy. Originally we were going to spend one night in Split and then catch an overnight ferry to Venice. When we arrived in Split, however, we found out that that only ferry line that goes to Venice just went out of business. Sweet. Neither of us were stoked about taking an overnight ferry, so since we couldn´t get to Venice anyhow, we looked in to flights, found one that wasn´t too expensive, and were off to Venice later that afternoon.

Venice was beautiful! We stayed in Maestra, a little suburb that is much more affordable than Venice. We were only there for one day, but we managed to pack a bunch in and have a great time. We walked around the better half of the afternoon and saw all the sights. St. Mark´s Piazza is beautiful, but there were so many pigeons in the square that we couln´t stick around for too long. We both hate pigeons because they are basically flying rats. We were quite grossed out that some of the kids were feeding them and purposely letting them fly up land on their heads and bodies (see pics) YUK! That night we met some locals (the Italian coast guard and a gondola guide) and some fun Brits. Together we experienced some true Venitian osterias (little bars with great appetizers and wine). We were out a little later than we wanted and managed to visit the only dance club in Venice with our new friends.....it was a great time.

The next morning we rented a car and drove down the coast to Rimini - it is a very popular place for Italians to vacation during the summer. By the time we got there not much was going on, as the tourist rush was over. We met another American, Chris, who lives in Munich and is in the army. We all went to dinner together at the most amazing Italian fish restaurant. The dining experience was awesome - our waiter, Luca, was super sweet and spoke wonderful english and the food was excellent (we experienced our first true Italian 5 course meal)!

We got out of Rimini the next day after a few hours on the beach and headed to Tuscany. Our poor friend Chris followed us to the freeway and managed to get rear ended by a motorcycle. Luckily the two Italians on the bike were not hurt, but Chris´ bumper and that guys bike had seen better days. WOW, Tuscany is gorgeous!! We now understand why everyone raves about it. We visited some of the little towns - San Gimignano, Ceraldo, Greve (Chianti region). Many of the towns are enclosed in walls, similar to some of the Croatian towns we were in. We wine tasted two of the days and met some of the nicest winemakers. Unlike Napa, everything in Tuscany is done by hand and by the family members who own the vineyards. We lucked out and were there at harvest time, so we got to see people out in the vineyards picking the fruit and drove behind farmers with tractors full of freshly picked grapes. It was pretty cool :) We visited Sienna one of the days too and actually were tourists for a few minutes...we made it to the Duomo. Rach didn´t have her shoulders covered so she had to wear a blue plastic bag-like garmet - she looked quite hot!

We drove to Milan to catch our flight to Germany. We stayed at a nice hotel in a very sketchy neighborhood. We tried to update our blog, but didnt want to stay at the internet cafe because we were surrounded by transvestites surfing porn....yes it´s true. We are still here at Oktoberfest now and are having the best time ever. This place is nuts!! Rach has a few friends that live here in Munich (Tyler and Becca) and a bunch others came to meet us here. Aaron, his bro Josh, Julie, Reeve and several others flew all the way out to hang with us. Love you guys! We all met up on Thursday and have been playing ever since. We´ve basically tasted the beer at most of the tents (Hoffbrauhause, Paulaner, Hippodrom, Lowenbrau and more)! We have been so lucky... people have had lots of table reservations so we never had to stand in line and we were always at a table. You can only order beer in most tents if you´re sitting. Aaron some how managed to score a reservation at the Hippdrom... the hottest tent. We had 2 hours to go through $300 worth of strong German beer and traditional German food (Pretzels, radishes, sausages, and more!) If you haven´t experienced the Weisn atleast once in your life... you are totally missing out. There are people from all around the world coming together to celebrate. Everyone is chanting, singing, and dancing on every surface they can find. Its a riot. We have lots of good stories, but you´ll have to hear them in person if you know what I mean ;)

From here us girls (Julie too) are headed to taste more beer in Dublin. Ay ya ya!!

Stay tuned for our next adventures... we will try and update the blog again before this weekend!

We love and miss you all.
Rach and Steph

2005-09-15T11:17:00.000-07:00

Dobra Dan (Good day) from Dubrovnik, Croatia!
So you might not have guessed, but Steph and I are still having the time of our lives! The adventure has taken us from the French Rivierra to the Southern Dalmation Coast of Croatia. Every place we go we swear it's going to be the most beautiful, but it just keeps getting better!

Our last few days in France were spent exploring the all the small towns on the coast. A friend we met in Spain flew up to hang out with us for a few days. The 3 of us rented a convertible Mini Cooper and drove from Cannes to Monaco and stopped in every town along the way. We had lunch in Antibes, got some rays in Nice (we had to do it French style;)), had coffee in Ville Franche, hiked to an ancient castle in the town of Eze, and enjoyed some yummy French wine while we watched all types of people outside the Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco (now that was interesting)! Check out the pics to see each of these brilliant towns and us having some fun in the mini! (Mica, now we see why you love yours so much!)

On one of our last nights in Cannes, we sat down at a local pub to have a cocktail and of course Rach started talking to some of the locals! Next thing you know we found ourselves out a dance club in Nice until 6 am... the French really know how to party! Needless to say.. we needed some downtime after that so coming to Croatia worked out perfectly.

We expected Dubrovnik to be a cool old ancient city, but we could have never imagined it to be what it is! This is no third world country. Dubrovnik is a charming, clean, upbeat city with part of it (the old town) set within a huge fortress on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Steph and I both agree that we've never been anywhere as stunningly beautiful as here.

We arrived on Tuesday night and took a bus to the center of town where the locals greet you and show you pictures of apartments for rent near town. I know this sounds scary, but we were told by several travelers that this is the best way to find accomodations here. Hotels are few and far between and very expensive. We are staying at an apartment just a few steps above the old city and we love it. We have a kitchen, washing maching (no dryers here), and a private entrance. We've already met our neighbor Marco and he's the nicest kid.

The night we arrived we were pretty tired so we just walked around the old city and had dinner on the pier... steph had "peel if you dare shrimp" and I had seafood risotto... both were very yummy. The next day we had breakfast and laid by the pool at the nicest hotel in Dubrovnik. The restaurant was outdoors with a view of old town and the pool. The pool (see pic) sat right on the water... our chairs were so close that we could stand up and jump right in the sea. It was really hot so this was a huge treat and the water was the clearest, bluest water you could imagine. Later that day we rented scooters and went to explore around Dubrovnik and neighboring towns. During one of our stops, we met some locals who directed us to a neighborhood dinner spot for that evening. This restaurant was unbelievable. You had to walk down a ton of stairs past people's houses to find it. The place sat out over the sea and had a view of the Dubrovnik and the Elfitti Islands. The food was really good, but there was a bit of language barier so we ended up with a HUGE platter of food.. oops! We had everything from hard to peel shrimp, to steak, to rocket & mozerella salad and french fries. This all arrived after we had our started salads and the house treat.. bread with fish pate. It's amazing our scooters could hold us after dinner. It's also amazing we even had scooters after dinner... Steph accidentally left her key in the bike and was very relieved to find it still there hours later :) It was dark by the time we were headed back and we were a little unclear on how to get home... we quickly figured it out when the cop stopped us for going the wrong way down a one way street! YIKES. If we could only read the street signs ;)

Today we were going to take a ferry out to the islands, but the wind was blowing pretty hard so we decided to chill here in the city. We walked the wall of the old town and discovered an incredible bar hidden outside the wall of city along the sea called "Cold Drinks with the Most Beautiful View in the World". You have to check out the pics of this place. Locals were jumping from the high cliffs bordering the bar ... it was like nothing we've ever seen. We didn't jump in today, but we did enjoy a glass of wine and watched the sunset. I really wish we could find the words to describe this place... it really is one of a kind.

Right now we are here writing to you... after this we are headed to dinner and to an outdoor jazz cafe within the fortress walls. Tomorrow morning we are taking our scooters over to an island called Mljet where there is supposed to be great sandy beaches and a beautiful national park. We are planning to head out of Dubrovnik on Saturday for the islands of Korcula and Hvar. Wé'll spend one or two nights on each and then head for Split. This is where we'll catch a ferry back to Italy.

Hvala (thank you) all for checking our blog... we look forward to sharing our stories with you and will update again as soon as we can.
xoxoxo
Rach and Steph

2005-09-07T03:53:00.000-07:00

Bon Jour from Cannes!!!
We have done so much in the last week...
We flew from Malaga into Nice last Friday to meet up with Rach's Dad and crew! Our last night in Spain proved to be very authentic. After a day at the beach we stumbled across the locals getting ready for that evening's bull fight parade. They were overwhelming friendly and invited us to the bull fight... we had to check it out! Check out the pics... the bull fight was quite an experience... Steph cried because the poor bulls have NO chance of surviving and are completely ganged up on.
After the fight we had dinner at the local spot we were invited back to from the night before. The food and people were so great and they sat us in a prime seat for the infamous pizza tossing show. They played club music and danced as they twirled and tossed pizza dough; sounds corny, but was pretty cool.
The next morning came very early because we managed to have a little fun the night before :) Most of our day was spent traveling... to be able to afford to fly to Nice we had to deal with a long lay over in Brussels. Surprisingly it went by pretty fast... the local Belgium beer, chocolates, and good airport shops helped ;)
We made our way to Cannes, met up with Rach's Dad and crew, and headed out to the swankiest dinner spot/club in all of Cannes... Baoli. See pics to find out which star was our dance partner for the evening. We also saw the prince of Monaco (Andréa) who was all of 19, but had a herem of gorgeous women around him at all times... it was quite the experience.
The next morning we got up early (again!) and took a bike tour of Nice and Ville Franche... both were stunningly beautiful... see pics for views of both cities and Steph falling off her bike before the ride even started... love ya Steph ;)
After the bike tour we were picked up in a tender and taken aboard the Cavu... the boat where we would stay and sail the French Rivierra for the next 3 days. All we can say is WOW... we feel really lucky! We relaxed, swung from the rope swing on the boat, chilled with Rach's fam and their friends, and Rach learned to wake board... now that was comedy :) One night we sailed to Monaco and had another amazing night club experience at the famous Jimmy Z's! We danced until dawn....what a night!!
We are back in Cannes now. Unfortunately the weather has taken a turn for the worst...crazy thunder and lightening storms, but we are keeping plenty busy and, of course, are still having fun. Yesterday we had an awesome French lunch at a little outdoor cafe and then shopped most of the afternoon. Today we are catching up on emails and the blog, researching where we want to venture to next, and will soon head out for the evening for dinner and to admire all of the beautiful Frenchies (both the men and women are absolutely gorgeous here...no joke, we've never seen anything like it!)
Aurevoir for now! XOXO -- Rach and Steph

2005-08-30T03:22:00.000-07:00

Hola from Espana!
We figured out very quickly that we are more beach girls than city dwellers! We drove to Seville for a night and it´s a very charming city, but with no room in our packs to shop...there are only so many sites you can see ;) And it was REALLY hot! So we are now back on the Costa Del Sol and loving it! The night before we left we had dinner in the most amazing town called Puerto Marino, Benalmadena. This is the same place we danced the night before, but we discovered a whole new part of the town. Check out the pics to see the view of the marina from our dinner... this place was like the Venetian in Vegas, but real (wink!)
We will continue to explore the Costa Del Sol until we leave for Nice, France on Friday.
Stay tuned for more..
Miss and love you,
Las chicas de Espana

2005-08-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

We are in Torremelinos, Spain (just south of Malaga on the Costa Del Sol)
We are having so much fun and can´t believe it´s only day 2! We arrived in Torremelinos late on Wed. night and headed to straight out to make sure the wine was drinkable ;) Yesterday we relaxed on the beach, actually went for a run on the boardwalk, and then headed out to Gueros for an amazing Tapas dinner. At dinner we made friends with 2 adorable spanish girls.. Maria and Marta (ages 4 and 3) and of course with the waiter, Sergio! After dinner we headed to Puerto Marina, Benalmadena ... this is the next town down and where all the night life is. We first got recruited to a horrible club called Mana... we had our free drink, watched some interesting people, and decided to move on. We ended up at the local hot spot called Maracos where we danced the night away. See attached pics!
We are at the internet cafe now figuring out where to go next... we are thinking of Sardina, Seville or Portugal. Check back to find out where we ended up!
Miss and love you,
The girls

2005-08-24T06:07:00.000-07:00

We've arrived in London safely and are already feeling pretty lucky! We found showers, food, and free internet access.. whoo hoo :) We're off for Malaga in a few hours and can't wait to set foot on the beach tomorrow! Our goal is to upload pictures from each place (see the link on the nav bar) so you can see what trouble we are getting in to!
Until later,
Steph & Rach

2005-08-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

Today is the day .... soooo exciting and stressful all at the same time! We can't wait for the unlimited wine on the plane :)
Talk to ya soon from Spain.
xoxox
us

2005-08-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow's the big day and we are getting sooooo excited!! Thank you so much to our friends and family for your help in getting ready to go.
Love ya,
us :)

2005-08-21T23:50:00.000-07:00

I can't believe it, but Steph and I are only days away from taking off on the trip of our lifetime. We've posted our itinerary on the right of all the fabulous places we are going so you can follow us along!

Our goal is to update this blog at least once a week so you can share in our experiences and be even more tempted to come play with us ;) We love visitors!

Please keep checking back to see "Where in the World are Rach & Steph?" and email us often so we can hear about you too.

Love and miss you all,

Rach & Steph
PS: Happy Birthday Dad!