Emily's Escapades

We were surprised at the amount of Scandinavian food! One night we even had meatballs with lingonberry jam. Apparently a LOT of people retire in Thailand, from all over the world. We only heard American English a couple times. The only other Americans we met lived in Hong Kong and were vacationing over Chinese New Year, just like us.

The first few days were spent just lounging on the beach or out by the pool just a couple meters from our villa.

Jon attempted a huge splash via “the cannonball” manuver. I think he succeeded. We hear that they are going to make this an Olympic event soon.

A new favorite beer – it costs less than $1 when purchased on the beach.

IOn Thursday, Jon and I booked a trip to Phuket, Thailand. We left Saturday. (It was a bit last-minute.) Because it was so last-minute, we just got a package flight/hotel deal, which we’d never done before. We’re usually the cheap back-packer type. It turned out well. The hotel was very nice and we had our own little villa, with a porch that opened up to one of the pools. We were right on Karon Beach, which is the 2nd busiest beach but considered the quieter, more family-oriented beach.

I wasn’t so impressed with the Dak Shack – beds like plywood and no hot water! Adam lives a couple blocks away so we showered there. Hot water is a luxury you take for granted. Also, none of the apartments here have heat. It’s only about 60 degrees F but it’s damp, so it feels pretty chilly.

Having a Bloody Mary at the Old Taipa Tavern. It was warm in the sun… perfect for a Saturday afternoon.

A shrine by Adam’s apartment.

A cute little cupcake shop – with yummy cupcakes. We’re wondering how such a specialty shop can stay in business.

Jon doing fancy fingerwork playing Liar’s Dice.

Adam & Angela at the Irish Bar

The View is the VIP lounge at the Sands Casino. Adam got a VIP card from a client, so we went there to hang out one night.

I had a strawberry margarita with chocolate. Yum.

We played Liar’s Dice most of the night.

Adam’s girlfriend and our friend Angela is in Macau for a few weeks. We all decided to spend NYE and the weekend together.

I’d been helping the Grand Lisboa get the content ready for their big countdown party. I actually came down a day earlier than Jon to help Anthony program everything. Luckily, everything worked out great.

Fireworks over the harbor.

We decided to take Flat Stanley out for sushi. There aren’t many places in South Dakota where he can have Japanese food.

He thought it was cool how a conveyor belt brought many kinds of sushi around in front of the customers.

Stanley also visited Jing’An Temple.

Some streets in San Fransisco are really crazy steep!

It would be pretty cool to live on a boathouse.

Dave used to live on this island so showed us around it. The island was created for an exhibition and then used as a naval base. Now everything is basically falling apart, but the views are really great!

Alcatraz is in the background.

On Saturday Jon and I took Dave’s car and drove to the Golden Gate Bridge, then all around that area. It was nice to just drive again!

San Francisco is a very healthy town – we constantly saw people running and biking everywhere. At the park by the bridge, youth soccer tournaments were going on. It was pretty heavenly – perfect blue skies, sunny, green grass and a laid-back atmosphere.

The bridge usually has clouds over it, even if the rest of the weather is totally clear.

I read that this is the most popular place in the world to commit suicide.

Alcatraz Island – we tried to go see it Sunday but the tour was sold out until Monday. Next time we’ll book in advance.

The Peak is pretty famous in Hong Kong. Click on the photo to view it larger – it looks much better that way! I used PhotoShop’s photomerge feature to create this from 3 photos I took. It about a 180 degree view.

Jon and Adam – what a clear day. (not. as usual.)

Saturday night we went to a “Fire Dragon Dance.” We stood and got pushed for about 3 hours and really didn’t see much, even though we were up front.

Dragon running through the streets without fire.

There was drumming for over an hour at the beginning.

This girl was good – her belt says “Sexy Bull”! (random?)

The dragon was this thing that had a ton of incense sticks in it. After the drumming, they lit the incense and ran it through the streets.

We had a day off on the 11th, and Jon and I were in Macau and Hong Kong for business, so we decided to stay down there for the weekend. Adam lives in Macau, which is about an hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong.

Friday night we ate at a Greek restaurant, found a new t-shirt for me (from France, I was told), went to a bar called Carnegie’s, and then finished the evening at the sports bar in our hotel. The restaurant was great. Jon found a little piece of plastic in his food, but told the waiter not to worry about it. Of course the waiter was worried about it, so gave us all free dessert. I was too full for dessert and I think he felt bad because I didn’t get anything, because then he showed up at the table with shots of ouzo. And he ensured we drank them.

Hong Kong has double-decker busses and trams. The streets and sidewalks are very narrow too.

I thought this was interesting…

This is a display at the Sands Casino that is being replaced by a Daktronics HD 16 mm LED display. Right now they are removing the old one.

Bamboo scaffolding is used in all of the construction projects. Bamboo is extremely strong, but it is pretty unnerving to walk on it for the first few minutes because it gives. I didn’t have the best shoes on to be climbing the ladders with uneven steps, so I just went up a little bit. I understand now why all of the construction workers wear crocs or canvas shoes – they would grab the ladder better than the hard-soled steel toed boots I think they wear in the US.

Carefully lowering the old display piece by piece.

Now that I’m in Beijing I wish I would have tried to get tickets for something. Actually, I probably only would be super interested in the opening ceremony. I’m not so big into sports.

But, being here 1 day before 08/08/08, my co-worker Yvonne and I had to check out the most famous things – the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. Hundreds of other people also had this idea!

The Bird’s Nest. The whole Olympic village was blocked off (obviously) so all photos are taken through the fence.

The Water Cube. LED lights behind the bubble-surface make it change colors.

I totally don’t get this sign. No exploding cars from 6 AM to midnight? The taxi driver said it was to warning drivers not to bump into other cars, but I’m not buying that. Any other ideas?

I’ve blogged about this guy before – now he is in the New York Times. I bet I have watched his new video 10 times already. Be sure to click on his other videos and watch them as well.

Everyone who watches them has a different reaction. Matt purposefully doesn’t say what message he is trying to convey. Watch them yourself and leave a comment!

2008

2006

2005

Before Minna’s wedding, Mr. Huang took Ning, Jon and I to see a temple in Changzhou.

This is now thought to be the tallest pagoda in the world.

The character for “happiness”