Lions, tigers, and TARANTULAS! Oh my!

This weekend we took an excursion to Siem Reap. On our way we stopped at spider village. I ate a grasshopper and a tarantula! #whatagreatsourceofprotein

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving! My school hosted a dinner complete with turkey, cranberries, corn, potatoes, stuffing, green beans, black olives and pumpkin pie! Tasted almost like home :) miss you all!

B-E-A-U-TIFUL

Check out the view from my room. I love watching the sun come up over the city. I sat on a bench outside our hotel to watch the other morning. I had 3 Khmer boys pacing near me. After talking broken English with the manager of the hotel I realized I was sitting in the space reserved for tuk tuk drivers. Oops. So I did what I had to- I drove the tuk tuk! Just kidding! But I'm ready next time. Hand over those keys, boys!

Is this for real?!

Today after class we went to the central market. It was about 15 mins in a tuk tuk. The central market was interesting because it's where locals shop; you don't see many tourists at all. The shopping where I live is "westernized" (I use this term loosely). Although I still have to be careful where I shop and eat, at the central market, I had to worry about cats peeing in the fruit and about live fish getting hacked and then thawing on ice in the heat. Check out the pics and vids below.

Rice, rice, rice, PIZZA!

In Cambodia rice is served for every meal, even breakfast. Today we went to the local mall and found a restaurant that served western food, kind of. I got cheese pizza. There's no sauce on it, so instead they bring you a bowl of ketchup on the side. It wasn't half bad. I also started my scuba cert class tonight. 3 more classes and then I'll be heading to Sihanoukville to do 4 dives in the ocean!!

First day of classes

Today is our first day of instruction. Classes go from 8am to 430 pm M-F.

Acting like a tourist

Today our organization went on a tour of the king's palace- king's football field sized property with multiple palaces and stupas is a more accurate description. While touring we learned about a special tree (sala) that grows fruit and flowers all year long. Pregnant women drink tea made from this tree during their 8th month to protect their unborn child. We also saw a banana tree. Banana trees grow out like a fan. They produce one crop of fruit and then need to be cut down and replanted. This banana tree is just for show. They also have trees with fruit bats. We learned about the buddhas, the colors that are to be worn on different days of the week at the palace, and the special white elephant that used to transport the king until the Kmir (sp?) killed it in the 1970s.
We also toured Watt Phnom, which is a beautiful garden and Buddhist sanctuary with actual greenery (the cambodia city centre has almost no green but instead is roads and dirt) Cambodians pray to the buddhas and bring them gifts of food and money. You must take your shoes off when entering the Buddhist temple.

Tropical paradise

Embracing the Cambodian cuisine. Fruit juices and drinks are very popular here. They aren't made with extra sugars or syrups-- they are literally fresh squeezed fruits in glasses. They're amazing!

my new pad

Photos of my new pad below. They have what I like to call "open concept" bathrooms here.

#foundthevan

For those of you who don't know me very well, a little background: I was scarred for life in 4th grade while trying to learn directions. I have yet to recover. Fast forward to how this little tidbit applies to my trip: I assured my family that all I had to do once leaving the airport was find the LanguageCorps van and they would handle the rest of the directions from there. My family's hashtag for me became "find that damn van!" I found it alright. Check out the video below to see what "vans" aka tuk tuks look like in Cambodia.

Airline itineraries subject to change

My original flight in Chicago was delayed so I wasn't going to make my connecting flight to Taiwan- I took a chance and got on another flight standby, raced through LAX and boarded my flight to Taiwan with minutes to spare. 25 hours later, I'm in Taiwan! Woo!
For those of you wondering, they do have starbucks in Taiwan (in the airport at least!)

One suitcase.
One backpack.
One big adventure.

I found this article about 51 amazing Thai foods. Let's see how many I can cross off my list while I'm there!

http://www.eatingthaifood.com/2012/04/51-explicit-thai-food-pictures/

My First Adventure Post

First night on my new blog. Thanks for setting it up for me, Aunt Pat! I leave Wednesday for Cambodia. Check back for more trip details!