Introducing The Budget-Minded Traveler

I realize that most of you might be aware of it by now, but I want to officially announce the launch of my latest project: The Budget-Minded Traveler. It is an informational website and blog designed to inspire and equip others to travel abroad, on a budget. I was inspired to put it together after an exciting, brain-filling, 2-hour meeting with a recent acquaintance and fellow entrepreneur here in Bozeman. (Check out Think Entrepreneurship).

The day after that meeting I left for a week of travel in Nicaragua and then a week on the east coast which gave me nothing but time to research, brainstorm and bounce ideas off of people. While I was still in Vermont I bought the domain name, and I started creating the website right after we got home. That was three weeks ago. Obviously the site will be an ongoing project, and I will be happily adding content to it every week. There is so much information in my head that I will be writing about in the blog and other pages as the weeks go on, and I am hoping that one day it will become a source of income for me via affiliate marketing and also a home base to sell my BOOK! Yes, it is coming, hopefully this year. Whew!

Anyway I'd appreciate it if you guys would check out the website and perhaps subscribe (via RSS) to my blog and help me get the word out by recommending it to people you know who might be travelers, or aspiring travelers. I always appreciate feedback and would love to know what you think about it. So,  thanks in advance, here it is! The Budget-Minded Traveler

Vermont & Boston: Family!!!... (& some other awesome stuff)

A NOTE ABOUT FAMILY

Wow. I really had no idea how great our trip to Vermont and Boston would be. I guess there is something about my family that I should explain that might help you understand how amazing it was. Picture Daryl and I, growing up in Tahoe (California), with our entire extended family back east in Vermont. Our family has always just been the four of us. We have less than ten family members in Vermont, and we would see grandparents and cousins every couple of years growing up. There were no family reunions, no big family celebrations of any kind, and actually since my brother and I started traveling abroad, we haven't even made it out east to visit (I know, sad).

That being said, Gump (my grandfather on my dad's side (name coined by Daryl when he was probably two)) remarried several years ago to a quite amazing woman who decided to organize a "family get-together" while we were in VT. People literally came out of the woodworks for this! (Not everyone lives in VT). We actually met members of the Nourse family whom we had never met before, not to mention that we saw people we hadn't seen in over 10 years. My grandpa's brother and his kids and their kids were there, plus some of Pat's (step-grandma) kids, and the fact that Daryl and Nate and I, and even my mom had come from the West coast, made it a huge bummer that my dad hadn't also planned to come. But how were we to know we would be having the first family reunion to speak of on the Nourse side of the family? Even my grandparents on my mom's side were there. Everyone was there, in the same place.

I know a lot of you have big families and are used to tons of family members, but this is NOT the Nourse family. I feel like I'm struggling to describe feeling like I've discovered "long lost" family members at this point in my life. I only wish we had gotten to know them a long time ago. I have always longed to have more family members, I've even sought out "cousins" of my grandma in England. And I claim my German sister (Lydia) and her family as my German family, and my host family in Costa Rica as my Costa Rican family. That's all well and good, but there is definitely a difference when family's last name is also Nourse.

When I am with Nate and his family, it is so amazing to see how everyone loves to get together and they all get along so well and you can just feel how happy people are to be in the presence of family. I have loved becoming part of this, but I have always wondered what it would be like to have a whole bunch of people around me who are (in a way) just like me, we are all family, from the same place (to an extent). It was the first time I ever felt like I was in that position, with my family. Even with people I'd never met, I felt so comfortable with them; they are awesome people! There were a whopping 19 of us (that's inCREDible) in the same house, getting to know each other. Well, the West coasters were getting to know the East coasters at least.

What a treat that was. The whole point of this trip was to visit with family, and we definitely succeeded.  I can't wait to go back and visit them all again.

NOW ON TO EVERYTHING ELSE

Ten, the number of breweries we visited. Yeah, seriously. We went to the first one and a girl there told us about the Vermont Brewery Challenge, well, guess we had a plan for the trip now (we succeeded, we all get t-shirts). There were a couple of good ones (Otter Creek in Middlebury was by far my favorite, and it was the first one...), but overall I think we all agreed that the beers out West are oh so much tastier.

We also had to go to the Ben & Jerry's Factory, as Daryl and I hadn't been there since we were at least in high school. The free taste of the day was something like Triple Caramel Chunk, oh my goodness. If it ever comes out, I will be participating in the consumption. We spent some time walking around Burlington too, somewhere I've been many many times in my life, but never as an adult. What a fun and pretty town that is. The walking street reminded me of Europe, I loved it.

Tribute to our old Ben & Jerry's photos 

Our grandparents on my mom's side live in Bridport, on Lake Champlain, which is where we stayed. It is just 20 minutes from Middlebury, where my other grandparents live. We got to golf with Gump (well, I drove the cart while the guys golfed), and we got to have a couple of multi-grandparent meals together. We even took out my grandparents' canoe on Lake Champlain for a bit. Vermont is beautiful, the Green Mountain State, and smells of cows. Really badly in some places... It was so great to go back there and relive some memories and visit with family, we must not wait so long to get back next time...

Boston! We got to spend two days in Boston with a friend of mine and Daryl's from high school (shout out to Terry!) We ate overpriced (but delicious) Italian food, visited the Samuel Adams Brewery and Doyle's (fist pump), a famous old bar. We spent some time in Copley Square at the finish of the marathon. The memorial area was big, and growing by the day. After being in Boston and coming into contact with some locals, whoa, you messed with the wrong city. Have you ever met a Bostonian? Anyway, the highlight of our time in Boston was, of course, the RED SOX GAME! Or as Nate would say, the TWINS GAME! Yes, the Twins were in town, we got our tickets waaaay ahead of time and had awesome seats just behind the fence in right field. There was actually a Red Sox home run that was caught by a guy just in front of us. I even made it on TV :) The Red Sox beat the Twins 6-5 in the 10th, it was a very exciting game to attend in person, and so exciting to be at Fenway again.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Daryl way left, Terry, and... Nate was getting a beer ;)

Don't worry, they hadn't updated the score yet...

 It was a perfect grand finale to a wonderful trip!

Volcanoes and Cigars

Our group of six girls spent a total of four nights in San Juan del Sur, which is so far south that you can actually see Costa Rica from the beach. This was bittersweet for me, so close, yet still so far. After a few days of fun in the sun, we departed San Juan and made the trek over to Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua. Lake Nicaragua is huge and the only source in the world of freshwater (bull) sharks. We didn't encounter any, thank goodness. Instead of a nice smooth ferry ride out to Ometepe, we lucked out and got a tiny old passenger boat with crappy old bus seats on a lower deck just above the water line. The boat was just big enough to not capsize in the huge lake waves, but just small enough to never quite be sure that we wouldn't. That hour-long boat ride was an experience in itself. Unfortunately Jolee and Sabrina did not make it to Ometepe with one piece of dry clothing, luckily the rest of us sat on the other side. Right next to me a guy was pumping (we think) water from an even lower deck (or somewhere) up to our deck, and then promptly dumping the buckets of water all over the floor at our feet. This still doesn't make sense to me, but at least we had been smart enough to pick our bags up off the floor first.

Anyway, we made it to Ometepe, woozy and in need of something to calm our seasick stomachs, why not a Toña? (The local beer). We could hardly make it up the street amongst the taxistas demanding that we choose one of them to take us to our destination. While all we wanted to do was eat and have a beer in peace, no fewer than 4 taxistas accompanied us to our restaurant of choice and hounded us even while we ate. I think I felt this more than the other girls, as they had figured out that I speak Spanish. Sometimes I just want to be left alone! That's when I taught all the girls how to say "Leave me alone" in Spanish, "Déjeme en paz!" 

Xalli is a new hotel along the beach of Santo Domingo on Ometepe, and I think we lucked out being able to book them just the day before, because my guess is this place won't be unknown for long. It was a beautiful location, nice, separated rooms right up from the beach, and the volcano we planned to hike the next day was right down the road. We had a lovely stay there, although we did have a (rather large) spider incident which resulted in a room change and two girls heading back to Granada first thing in the morning. Phobias are very real, people. 

The remaining four of us hiked Volcán Maderas the next day as planned, what an amazing day that was. It was steep and technical, in some places very muddy and slippery, and somehow we did the entire thing in just over 6 hours, when they say to plan 6-9 hours for the whole hike. A total of 8,000 ft elevation gain and loss in 6 hours. We may be some hike-loving girls from Montana, but coming off of lazy season we certainly felt a little out of shape for this hike (some of us more than others ;) The majority of the hike was through thick cloud forest, complete with howler monkeys, lots of them. When we were talking about the highlights of the hike at the end of the day, we noted the sounds of the jungle (the howler monkeys and the locusts which were in full electronic-sounding effect), and we also agreed that the conversation amongst all of us was a highlight. Maybe this is just typical of girls, but we chatted the whole way up and down and really just enjoyed each others' company, as simple as that sounds, it was really nice. The lowlights would be the "high point" which was no more than a small clearing in the path at the top, with no view, and the oranges that the hotel had prepared for us, having cut off almost all of the rind and making them nearly impossible to peel apart (seriously, Jolin had to help me get mine open and she was struggling, and she is a cross-fit girl!) Anyway, the day was a complete success, we got to eat our lunches at the lake near the top which was gorgeous and the air was even chilly (no we did not go in, they said it has quicksand-like mud, yikes!) And we all had a great sense of accomplishment (and exhaustion) while we toasted our Flor de Caña (rum) back at the hotel.

At the high point

Last day with the group, exploring Granada

It was a quick trip out to Ometepe, the sole purpose being to climb the volcano, so we rejoined the other girls in Granada the next day, which was some of the girls' last day, so we all went out to a delicious dinner together and said our goodbyes. I'll tell you two things here: 

1) There is something indescribable about traveling with friends, even if it is just for a week. Memories made in a foreign place just seem extra special to me, and I think all of us felt like if we tried to stay for another week, it just wouldn't compare to the week we just had, so it was even more special to end it on a high note, after a just-about-perfect week of vacation.

2) There is nothing like going home to Bozeman, Montana. 

Before I went home though, I had a matter of business to do in Nicaragua. During the same week that Jolee approached me with the opportunity of joining the girls for this trip, a translation client of mine in Bozeman also contacted me with some new projects for translation. His client lives in Nicaragua and manufactures cigars. Do you see where this is going? :) Sabrina got to join me for a day trip up to Estelí, Nicaragua where we met with this client, toured his cigar factory, and brought home literally more cigars than I really know what to do with (If you are in Bozeman and want one, let me know). I think the best part about it was that I had spoken with this man on the phone, written many emails, even translated a few documents into Spanish for him, and when we met him in Estelí the first thing he said to me was, "You're not Nicaraguan? I thought you were Nicaraguan!" Being mistaken for native, as I have said many times before, is simply the greatest compliment I can ever receive as a student of language. It definitely made my day and encouraged me all over again in my language endeavors. The ironic thing is, I mistakenly took him for Nicaraguan too, as he is, in fact, Costa Rican :) 

Our day trip to Estelí was one of many highlights of this trip, and I'm so grateful to have been able to travel with 5 amazing girlfriends to my favorite corner of the world. The fact that Bozeman produces such people is just one more amazing thing that blows me away about where I live. 

As I write this, I am yet again on a plane, to the east coast of the USA this time to visit my extended family; I haven't been out this way in over 10 years. (Basically since I started traveling abroad). I'm traveling with my two favorite travel buddies, my husband and my brother, and because of that, I know there will be fun stories to share in the upcoming week. On our list of people to visit is Ben & Jerry, Samuel Adams, and Jacoby Ellsbury (and the rest of the Red Sox… oh and the MN Twins I suppose ;) Cheers!

Bienvenidas a Nicaragua!

I am having the privilege of traveling to one of my favorite corners of the world with not one, not two, not even three, but 5 amazing girlfriends from Bozeman. My friends Jolee and JoLin decided to make a trip to Nicaragua, and we kept adding on until there was a total of 6 girls going.

So now we are here, down in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua enjoying the 90 degree weather while its freezing back home. Yesterday was one of the most perfect days, we all went sailing to an isolated beach on a catamaran. Rum drinks and beer were unlimited, fresh fruit was passed around, and we even had several dolphins come swim with boat, right in front of us. Not to mention the ceviche, guacamole and salsa, free time to swim or hang on the boat, and smooth sailing back to port during sunset. It was incredible, and that's an understatement.

Today we visited a nearby beach- Playa Hermosa where some of the girls had a go at surfing and the rest of us held down the beach. A little ceviche, a few monkeys later, and a ride home, we are enjoying the sunset from our balcony. You could say we are completely enjoying ourselves and the company of our friends. La vida es buena..

Indonesia!

"What about Indonesia!!??" Yes, we spent nearly half of our honeymoon in Indonesia, so I'm finally answering that question. Indonesia, a far, far away land, approximately 8,700 miles from Montana, is the farthest we've ever been from home. The fact that it took us about 50 hours to get home from the far reaches of Indonesia is proof enough.

For those of you who aren't quite sure what or where Indonesia is, it's a country made up of an archipelago (a chain of islands) in Southeast Asia/Oceania. Surprisingly, it has over 17,000 islands and is the 4th most populous country in the world. It's capital is Jakarta. We were nowhere near there. We went first to the island of Bali, which I think would be considered a province. You may know Bali if you have read Eat, Pray, Love, it's the love section. Appropriate for a honeymoon, no? Before we went, when I thought of Bali, I imagined palm trees, rice paddies, beautiful beaches, really good coffee, and perhaps a lot of tourists. I wasn't so far off with how my mind made up Bali, however I left out a lot of what does make up Bali: third world impoverished, underdeveloped land, oh, and the coffee is terr- ahem, mostly instant.

When we arrived from Singapore the sun had just gone down, which meant we couldn't see much of anything on the way to our hotel. Our driver's name was Wayan, which I thought really funny since in Eat, Pray, Love she said it seemed everyone's name in Bali was Wayan, both male and female. Turns out it has something to do with which class you are in, and there are a few other names that are also quite popular, as in, almost every other person is named one of these names. Anyway, we made our way to Balangan Beach (southern Bali). Our first hotel was quite nice, a beautiful little enclosed garden with villas and a cute little pool. The place itself was amazing, but when we woke up in the morning we found we couldn't see the ocean, and there was pretty much nothing around us. We did venture out to the beach nearby, but it had really rough waves, which I guess was appropriate because the only thing there was a surf school, and a restaurant where we had lunch over the water. Outside of our little paradise, I was wondering where the rest of the paradise of Bali was. During our stay in Balangan we had an amazing seafood BBQ, and began to test the Balinese cuisine. We tried to venture out on a moto but knew almost immediately that we would get lost in the winding, unmarked streets. Fail. We decided to only stay there a couple nights before we headed out.

Nona's Bali, Balangan Beach

Our next destination would prove to be very entertaining: Ubud, the rice paddy center of Bali. The ride to Ubud was so interesting in itself. We hired a driver to take us there, and either he was out to impress or just felt like talking, because we got an entire history lesson on the development, religion, culture, and trades of Bali. It was fascinating, and since we weren't about to spend any time in museums, it was great to learn something about where we were. Bali is somewhat of a sad case. The tourism industry is quite a catch 22. Bali is severely underdeveloped in most of the country and cannot keep up with how their tourism industry is booming in recent years. Prices for the locals are sky high, there is horrible traffic, construction, etc. The workers have to pay about 75% of their income in taxes to the government. I immediately felt like part of the problem, however the locals insist that they are thankful for tourists, because that's how they are making money. This economic phenomenon is only happening on Bali, apparently the rest of Indonesia hasn't caught on to this extent of tourism.

Coffee tasting on the way to Ubud, here we tried Luwak Coffee, which is super expensive- guess how it's made? A mongoose eats the coffee beans and poops them out, then they use those beans to make coffee. Yep.

Back to Ubud. I liked this town a lot. It was bustling, full of tourists, shopping, restaurants from all over the world, and, of course, rice paddies. After spending some isolated days down south, it was nice to be back in civilization where we could shop and eat! We stayed in an awesome place right in the middle, yet still quiet and set back from everything, situated around a rice paddy. We had our own little villa, a nice big pool, and breakfast by a creek every day. We ended up staying 3 nights in Ubud. We exercised our bargaining skills at the markets, went to the spa twice for massages, ate some really good food, and explored the Monkey Forest, those little guys are such scavengers! We spent an afternoon exploring the rice paddies,  which are seemingly endless, and eventually got caught in a rain storm out there. We warmed up with some real coffee at Starbucks, I love Starbucks abroad, it's true. We were so disappointed with the coffee in Indonesia it was sad. Here we were thinking, the land of Sumatra! (It literally is). We were so wrong. Instant, instant, instant. Asians love instant coffee. So sad.

Nick's Pension, our home for three days

Rice paddies for days

Entering the Sacred Monkey Forest!

After Ubud, we decided to head to Lombok (the next island/province east from Bali). We got there by "fast" boat, which broke down for about 30-40 minutes. There goes our 1-hour trip, good thing we paid for the "fast" boat. If there weren't a big black storm coming and had we not been stuck out in rather big waves on the ocean, fearing a whale tipping us over (we saw one a ways off), I might not have minded so much, but that was not the case. I think that helped our decision to stay in the NICEST place on Gili Trawangan once we got there. Gili T is one of three small islands just off the western coast of Lombok. Our place was called Vila Ombak. It had multiple pools with swim up bars, and ours (the one closest to our room) had a little waterfall too. We were just across the street from the beach, lined with chairs and umbrellas, with a view of Lombok. It was a beautiful place to spend three days. Nate went diving twice, saw sea turtles, sharks, you know, the usual (eeek!), and I happily lounged by the pool and read two books. It was the most relaxing time of our honeymoon and I loved every minute of it. We ate lots of fresh seafood, and even got to have beer other than Bintang (Indonesian beer- tastes like Heineken- yuck!) The weirdest thing about the island was the salt water, everywhere. There were no fresh water taps. Even our bathroom sink was salt water (quite a surprise on our toothbrushes the first time). The shower was an outdoor shower, but you just can't really feel clean with salt water, so we took advantage of the afternoon rainstorms ;)

Swim up bar fun

Yes, this really exists.

I think Gili T was my favorite stop on our honeymoon, because of where we stayed and how relaxing it was. We were ready to leave after three days though. So we took another "fast" boat (these are supposed to be one-hour trips) that pulled into Lombok for almost an hour and then broke down for about 15 minutes in the middle of the ocean again. I really don't want to know what the slow boat is like. We headed back to Bali and made our way down to Jimbaran Bay. I have already mentioned that there is a lot of poverty and underdevelopment in Bali, and I learned something else in Jimbaran Bay. This place is famous for dinner, because its huge bay faces the sunset and is lined with restaurants right on the water. What we didn't know is that you're not supposed to stay in Jimbaran Bay, you just go there for dinner from whatever beach you are staying at nearby. Jimbaran Bay was a great example of what is so weird about Bali. Bali has pockets of tourism, and outside of those pockets, you are smack in the middle of 3rd world Indonesia. It is so strange. It seems there are only a few places you should go as a tourist (and apparently, some of them have a time of day). Jimbaran Bay during the day was definitely NOT where we wanted to be. We made the most of our one night there and had an amazing dinner on the beach, complete with choosing our fresh seafood, watching the amazing sunset, and enjoying a Balinese dance. Then it was time to get out of there. Everyone had warned us against staying in Kuta, because it is a "super touristy trashy place." However, that's exactly where we decided to go after Jimbaran and it was exactly what we wanted. It was our last night in Bali, so we stayed at a nice place with a nice pool, right next to some great shopping (we still had souvenir shopping to do), and there was a really cool boardwalk along the ocean where we had dinner. We started calling Kuta "Balifornia" which should give you an idea of what it was like, while just down the street it felt like 3rd world Latin America. Strange. Obviously I have nothing against 3rd world Latin America, but there was just something weird about Bali, and since we were on our honeymoon, we wanted to spoil ourselves!

Amazing Jimbaran Bay sunset dinner on the beach!

Drinks on the boardwalk in Kuta, in a pool! 

We were able to to that in Kuta, and we enjoyed one last good sleep in a bed before making the long trip back to the US. We started at 9:30am on Jan 24th with a flight from Bali to Bangkok. One more night in Bangkok, well not quite. We had about 10 hours. This was actually a really fun layover. We went straight to Rambuttri Village and Khao San Road, left our backpacks at a hostel we had visited previously (when you walk in like you own the place, no one questions you, they didn't even charge us ;) We strolled the streets of Bangkok again, enjoying a couple more Thai dishes, foot massages, and the best people watching possibly anywhere in the world- Khao San Road. We posted up at two street bars to pass the time, which works wonderfully. The second bar was actually a converted VW bus, with psychedelic paint and a soccer game on TV. Oh Bangkok.

We flew out of Bangkok at about 1am and by this time it was Friday, January 25th, to Seoul, South Korea for another 10 hour layover. Unfortunately, there is no sleeping involved in overnight flights for this girl, however, we pulled it together and jumped on a city tour of Seoul within an hour of arriving. Before I say anything else, I must say, we failed to check the weather in Seoul before leaving the US. We had no idea that it would be normal winter weather there, normal as in Montana normal, as in it was 10 degrees outside (Fahrenheit) and there was still snow to be seen. We had just been at the beach for 3 weeks! We were not prepared, and that is an understatement. Luckily the tour company provided us with big thick jackets to borrow. A bus took us from the airport to a few points of interest around the city. One was the Tower of Seoul. It sorta looks like a mini Eiffel Tower with some sort of antenna purpose. In my flip flops, I could only manage to stay outside for a few minutes at a time, and we kept having to go in and literally hold my poor feet to warm them up, no I didn't have any sort of close-toed shoe. Nate did, and he gave me his socks, which I rocked with my flippys. I was already wearing two scarves I had purchased for friends in Bali, and leggings, a skirt, and both long sleeved layers that I had. It wasn't nearly enough for 10 degrees. The view was gorgeous, Seoul is a HUGE city, but there are snowy mountains and trees, skiing must be near, it was really pretty. Our next stop was more in the center, a shopping street where I bought a hat, another scarf and some awesome ear muffs (which Nate wore). We almost bought shoes and gloves, but instead went to Starbucks to warm up. We tried some fried dough sugary peanuty thing too which was really yummy. The little stand on the street had a bit of a line, that's when you know something is good! That's really all we saw in town, and when we returned to the airport we were more than excited to find an area of "rest and relax" with lazy boys and some Bruce Willis movie on. HORIZONTAL!!!! We got to lay down, but of course I couldn't sleep. It was a nice relax though.

Seoul (well, part of it)

Inside Starbucks warming up in our awesome outfits!

 Our flight didn't leave Seoul until about 7pm or so (on the 25th), and by this time we could hardly keep ourselves functioning. I think I watched 4 movies on the 10 hr flight back to Seattle. Somehow when we arrived, it was like 11am on Friday the 25th. How does that even happen? We were about to live the same day over again. We had yet another 10 hour layover in Seattle. At least we got to see Amanda and Kevin and hang out with them for the afternoon/evening. When we finally made it home to Bozeman at 11pm, it was still Friday the 25th. It had been about 50 hours since we left Bali, and we could not WAIT to sleep, I think we slept until noon the next day, with our puppy in our arms. Nothing beats your own comfy bed with a cuddly 100 lb puppy.

I know this is long already, but I still have some thoughts to share. I loved our honeymoon, the travel was easy, we didn't have any major problems, hardly even any minor ones, it was hot and beautiful and new, but in the end, I definitely didn't get the "Southeast Asia Bug" that I'd been warned about. I think I'm too in love with Latin America to let somewhere else take its place. Southeast Asia is very similar to the tropics of Latin America, but with different food and culture of course. I much prefer Latin America. And it's much more accessible for us in the US. I'm glad we experienced Southeast Asia (finally), but we probably won't go back for a while.

Okay, one more thing I have to add for fellow football fans. Remember the Green Bay cab in Bangkok? Well, when we landed in Bangkok again on the way home, we decided to let the color of our cab once again determine the ending of a football game, this time the Superbowl. I was thrilled to pieces when it came and low and behold, it was RED. I just knew the 49ers would win! (By the way this was a week before the Superbowl). Well, as you can imagine, I was SuperBummed when the Ravens pulled off the win. Then I thought back to the cab, and realized I had read it all wrong. You see, the bottom half of the cab was red, the top half was blue. When you put them together...

Alright, signing off for now, but as you may remember, I vowed to make up for lost travel of 2012 in 2013, so I'll be back in just over a month to tell you about NICARAGUA! That's right :)

Honeymoon Part II: Singapore

Or Singapoh, as the locals call it. Okay, two things. One, I've never heard of anyone visiting Singapore while on their honeymoon. Two, I've never heard of anyone staying with friends while on their honeymoon. We did both, and I think it was possibly the best opportunity we'll ever have to visit this country, and we are both glad we did. Thanks to the Timms (Jesse, Jessi, and Olive), we had a nice place to stay and even a great tour guide (thanks brother Joe!).

Singapore is a city-state (which means it's an independent country). First impressions, it was big and clean, the landscaping was perfectly manicured along the freeways, and it didn't smell bad (remember we had just come from Thailand). It had skyscrapers in every direction and looked liked a big city you'd find in the States. When we walked around from the Timm residence, we meandered through the streets with little Olive (their 18-month old little girl), barefoot and keeping up with us. It seemed really relaxed, and obviously clean enough to let your 18-month old just go barefoot. When I asked Jesse if he ever felt unsafe, he laughed at me and said the locals are probably more scared of him than anything else. When the height of the average male is 5'7", I understood what he meant.

When you want to try real Singaporean food, you find yourself a hawker center. It's set up like a mini state fair (under a covered structure), actually now that I think about it, sort of like a crowded food court. You go from vendor to vendor, ordering all kinds of food that you can't pronounce, and telling them your table number. Then you go sit and wait for it all to be delivered. We let Jesse do the ordering which was fantastic, I felt like Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods) with a local guide, otherwise we would have been clueless as to what to order. The spread was quite delicious, including grilled stingray, meat sticks, spicy meat stuffed pastry things (if I just said the name you'd have no idea what I was talking about, and I can't remember any of the names anyway), spinach stir fry, some noodle dish with egg and meat, chicken wings, and probably more. Nate tried sugar cane drink, I had beer. We shared this meal with the Timms and yet another friend from Waconia, Minnesota, Simon, who is also living in Singapore these days. The odds of 4 Waconia High School grads in Singapore all at the same time is basically non-existent, so we took pictures to prove it happened.

Left to right- Derek (a friend of the Timms), Simon, Jesse, me, Nate, Jessi, Olive,  Emily (Joe's gf), and Joe

This hawker center meal was the cheapest thing we did, because Singapore is EXPENSIVE. Let me give you an idea of just how expensive it is: a pint of Ben & Jerry's? $15! A 24-pack of beer? Upwards of $60 (and that's the cheap stuff). This is why we took up our friends' offer of staying with them!

The city itself is pretty cool. The mix of people was so interesting. It wasn't abnormal at all to see business men speaking perfect American English on their cell phones. It's a very international place, in fact, 42% of Singapore's residents are foreigners, including all of our friends. There seems to be a bit of animosity between the locals and foreigners because of this (awkward). We visited China Town, Little India (where I had my first Indian food ever and LOVED it), the downtown area along the river with boats and brightly colored buildings (kinda reminded me of Disneyland, a deserted Disneyland). Along the river walk we stopped for a Singapore Sling (had to), and wow that drink is dangerously delicious!

Singapore Sling on the river walk with Marina Bay Sands in background.

A visit to Singapore isn't complete without visiting the Merlion at the river. Yes, mer-lion, as in mer (meaning the sea) and lion. The Merlion definitely did not disappoint, we had a little too much fun with the photos.

This group of Malaysian men all photo bombed us at once!

Finally, we had to visit the Marina Bay Sands. You may have heard of this building, it looks like three big towers with a thin boat sitting across the top of it. It sits at the end of Singapore, so you can look out onto the sea where all the big cargo ships are hanging out, or you can turn around and see basically to Malaysia, all of Singapore spread out before you. There is a bar up top and also an infinity pool, for the craziest of the crazies. I don't think I would keep my lunch if I actually sat in it. Maybe this will give you an idea- it is 57 floors up (which feels more like 100), set on the world's largest public cantilevered platform, which OVERHANGS the north tower by 220 feet! As in, infinity pool, if you fell off the edge you'd fall into Singapore (not really, it's very safe, but that doesn't make me feel better). Needless to say, Nate took all the photos from up here :)

The Marina Bay Sands was actually an exhilarating end to our 3-day visit to Singapore, and the last thing we did before heading to the airport... for BALI!

To be continued...

Chasing the Sun- Thailand

I will never again have to say that I've never been to Asia! Our honeymoon journey to Southeast Asia began January 4th. We spent a night in Seattle with our dear friends Amanda and Kevin, then followed the daylight for an unusually long time to Korea and finally arrived in Bangkok, the night of the 6th. One thing I have to add here: for our fellow NFL fans, we had no knowledge of how the playoff games had gone that day, so we decided to let the color of our taxi determine whether the Packers or the Vikings had won their game. There are many colors of taxis in Bangkok, and, low and behold, our taxi was literally yellow and green. No joke. We found out the next day that indeed, the Packers had prevailed. Sad day for Minnesotans, but, back to Thailand.

Until now, Asia was a land I had never experienced. My first impression of Bangkok was that it reminded me a lot of Latin America, and I suppose that comes from the similarities of third world "architecture," bustling big cities, and the occasional smell of sewer. Although I must say, Thailand takes the cake for worst rancid smells I've ever experienced (and all too often) walking down the street. Bangkok is a huge, sprawling city. Honestly, we came for the beaches and only spent a day in Bangkok to recover from our flight, so we went straight to Kao San Road (a popular tourist area), also proving to be a most interesting place to be introduced to Thailand. We got amazing foot massages, and then survived a fish spa (tiny sucker fish "cleaning" your feet, it was almost more than I could handle!) We would return here for a half day layover at the end of our trip, and I personally think that was enough time in Bangkok.

We have officially graduated from overnight buses, so we hopped a short flight to Krabi to stay a few days in Ao Nang. This was a fun little beach town just a long-tail boat ride away from Railay Beach, one of the most renowned beaches in Thailand, and quite beautiful with its white sand and crazy cliffs surrounding. We actually saw some slack-liners just having a ball up in those crazy cliffs, apparently this area is world-renowned for crazy climbers too! We happily enjoyed the area from the ground, indulging in foot massages, fresh fruit juices, and dinner on the beach of course.

One of the highlights of our week in Thailand was the kayaking tour we took the next day. I used to think mangroves were slightly boring. But THIS mangrove forest that we kayaked through was incredible. Actually we started kayaking through some beautiful ocean canyons that led into a mangrove forest. It was so narrow that we had to go single file, making tight turns. Much to our surprise, part of this forest was inhabited by monkeys, one of which actually jumped on the kayak in front of us. They were close enough to touch! This made for a much more exciting and unique experience than we had expected. To top off the day, we rode an elephant named Khamun, our elephant driver's name was Khamun too, so I'm not sure the poor animal had a name of its own. After the quite amazing morning we had kayaking, the elephants turned out to be the boring part. They are big, slow, and do what they want, regardless of where you might want to go. We meandered through a river and foraged around a rubber tree forest for a bit, and that was pretty much it. It was exciting, but only good for about half an hour or so. We can now say we've ridden an elephant in Thailand, check!

After a few days in Ao Nang we hopped a ferry to Kho Phi Phi Don, one of Thailand's many many islands along its west coast. Kho Phi Phi (pee-pee) is sort of a crazy place. Upon arrival, we were swarmed with companies wanting to help us find accommodations. Each company has walls and walls of photos of all the different places to stay, and the entire place was buzzing like the stock market floor. You want bungalow? A/C or fan? This beach or that beach? Cheap or no cheap? Ok I call, no not available you take this place? This one! Is room with view. No, is room with no view, no view available. So we ended up on the other beach in a room with "no view." Whew. We ended up thankful to be on the opposite end of the other beach because it turns out this island likes to party, and since it's so small you can hear the bass everywhere. You have to see a picture of this island to understand how small and awesome it is.

We arrived by ferry on the left side, and our hotel was at the end of the beach, just out of view, on the right side. You walk everywhere, there are no cars on this island. Apparently it was devastated during the 2004 tsunami, but you wouldn't know it today, beautiful and bustling as ever. Our little beach at the end of the bay was so beautiful and calm, like a pool, but waaaaay better. We really just relaxed here, ate on the beach (it's kinda hard not to), and arranged for a snorkeling tour the next day.

It turned out to be more of a boat tour to Kho Phi Phi Leh (the smaller of the two islands) and also home to the famous beach from "The Beach," the Leonardo DiCaprio movie. We made a few stops to swim and snorkel, although after being stung several times by nearly invisible jellyfish, I was done. I still thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and long-tail boat ride though. I'm glad someone told us to watch "The Beach" before we went, because we were at least able to understand why we had to pay an extra $3 just to be on that beach, which is now a national park. As Nate said, "Only in Hollywood can they create a national park in Thailand.." The unreal (as in, I really thought they did some photoshopping in the movie) beach is in fact called Maya Bay, and it is very real. It was quite unbelievable. Save for the hundreds of people on shore of this rather small bay, it was one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever seen. I loved the row of long-tail boats that lined the shore as well, it made for such a beautiful and colorful scene. We spent about an hour on shore, and I loved every minute of it. Leonardo DiCaprio himself would have made it better but... I mean I was with my amazingly handsome husband so it was perfect ;)

After Phi Phi, we ferried to Phuket, just for a night, in order to get our flight out to Singapore in the morning. During our quick stay we happened upon a bustling weekend market in Nai Yang Beach, what a treat for the senses! Nate had one last pad thai, whipped up in under a minute from a man with a cart and a wok, they seem to abound in Thailand. Gangnam Style blared from some speakers somewhere, and there seemed to be everything you could need at this market from household goods to DVDs to spices to dinner. We stopped for a beer at what you could hardly call a "corner store," basically a concrete stall with a fridge, and met a man named Lui. He was overly excited to practice English, and taught us about the Thai motto of "nai nai" (no idea if I spelled that right) anyway it means "take it easy." You have a wife and 4 children at home? Nai nai! You have to put the chickens to bed? Nai nai! Have another beer, you see something you like, you take, nai nai! For him it was all nai nai. Needless to say it was an exciting and unexpected end to our week in Thailand. And in the morning, we were on our way to Singapore!

Wanderlust Strikes Again

There's just no holding it at bay, no conforming to a "normal" life (what is normal anyway?), and no guilt when it takes over my life time and time again. In fact, the word that best describes what I'm feeling at the moment is "freedom." Such is the life of a person who will forever be happily infected by the travel bug (among other things).

I can explain. I have decided to end my employment at the law office. It's a decision fitting for me, as the legal field is simply not where my passions live or thrive. It was a great learning experience, a wonderful step away from the service industry, and it opened several doors of opportunity through which I have entered and am still working on entering.

So. I'm celebrating by heading to southeast Asia with my hubby for our long-overdue honeymoon in just 3 days! 2012 has been a very different year for me, it was incredibly busy and most of all lacked any international travel, something that I have not lacked since... ... the year 2000. Seriously. January 4th of 2012 I started my job at the law firm. January 4th of 2013 I will be getting on a plane with my favorite travel buddy, Asia-bound and not looking back for 3 weeks. Now THAT is starting the year out on the right foot.

I have a couple of opportunities work-wise that I'm excited to begin exploring when I get back, and I will be starting up my Spanish classes again in February. I am looking forward to discovering what this change will bring, and I think a new year is the perfect time to make it happen.

I am definitely ready for the new year. Don't get me wrong, there were some great things that came out of spending an entire year stateside (I try my hardest to stay positive). I checked several things off my bucket list in 2012: I got married! I started a business! I ran a marathon! At least I had a productive year stateside. I mentioned my lack of international travel in 2012, but not to worry, as I plan to heartily make up for it in 2013 ;)

Lucky 13, bring it on.