Between Christmas and New Year's

So...once again I've fallen behind, so here's another picture blog to catch up on what's we've been doing since Christmas! (actually this is just from Christmas to New Years...)

Bangkok river taxis run every 15 minutes on weekdays. It's a good thing they don't only run in the morning 'cause Milo doesn't wake up until afternoon! (Or maybe he was just trying to get close to the money.) Hmm...

Mmmm...coconut milk is lovely after a wander through the temples of Bangkok.

We headed out of town to Kanchanaburi for a few days at the end of December. We stayed in a raft house hostel. It was cute and quiet and served great food! It also offered rather brilliant views of the sunset over the River Kwai.

During WWII, the Japanese used prisoners of war and local labour to build a railway through to Burma as a secure supply route. So many of the POW's and labours died because of harsh treatment by the Japanese, that it became known as the Death Railway.

This part of WWII history was made famous, of course, by the book and movie Bridge Over the River Kwai. We visited the bridge (not the one made famous by the movie—that one was destroyed by the allies only a few months after being built). It was rebuilt in the same place as the old one and, as you can see, is still used today.

Other sections of the railroad are still original though...

This was a particularly brutal section for the labourers to build as they had to cut straight through soil and solid rock with minimal equipment. It was nicknamed Hellfire Pass by the POWs because of how it looked at night by torchlight. The work teams were required to work 12-18 hour shifts in orer to finish it in 12 weeks! By the time it was finished, 70% of the POW crew (and probably equal or greater numbers of local conscripts) had died.

Bamboo rafting on the River Kwai!

If being a soil scientist doesn't work out, Amanda can always consider a career as an elephant trainer.

Okay, that's all for 2008--the first 2009 post will be arriving soon! :)

Sanda and Moe-moe

Amanda and Leona went to Burma for a week in mid-December and quickly morphed into Sanda and Moo-moo (you can see them in the picture to the left). Amanda and I had originally thought to travel through the country a bit, but Sanda and Moe-moe decided to spend their time in Yangon instead. And we're glad they did! Our short time in Burma was wonderful--especially because of all the very wonderful people we were able to meet.

Interesting place, Yangon—once considered the Golden City—the jewel of the Orient, but now it's fallen on hard times. The colonial buildings are stained and crumbling, the streets are paved with dirt and refuse, and the wind often carries the faint smell of garbage or sewage. The current government (which gained power through a military coup in 1962) has done very little for the people it claims to represent. Any attempts at protests tend to be brutally and violently suppressed. Despite this, everyone we met—from the kids working at the teashop to the director of one of the orphanages we visited—was amazing: hospitable, friendly, interesting, and helpful.

We tried to minimize the amount of our money that went to the government by staying at smaller family-run guesthouses, eating at small local restaurants, and avoiding some of the larger tourist attractions with higher entrance fees. We also tried to spread out our money by patronizing different restaurants and stores during our week in Yangon. Perhaps the overall amount of cash we had to spend wasn't that much (and of course some of it did end up in government coffers), but we were happier knowing that as much as possible the money we spent there was helping the locals and not supporting an inhumane and undemocratic regime.

At the first guesthouse we stayed in, we met Jacqueline, an amazing woman from Switzerland who was volunteering with an NGO in Yangon. She was an inspiration to us! She is retired and decided that she could afford to live a quiet life at home, or work as a volunteer overseas....so, she sold her house and her belongings and is now volunteering in SE Asia for several months before moving to Africa. Amazing! We tagged along with her on Saturday. She was going to a picnic with the three different orphanages she was working with (each one had about 25 kids). We were so thankful we were allowed to tag along! We sang songs, played games, did Bible skits, and had a really blessed time. It was interesting to see that several park visitors stop to listen to our singing or to watch the Bible skits—we even had one Buddhist monk and two young Buddhist nuns stop for awhile.

Much of our time in Myanmar was actually spent just on the outskirts of Yangon. There we visited a Bible College and another children's home. We helped out there by teaching English at the college for a few days. The students were great: very hard-working and attentive. They're also amazing singers! On the last day we taught, we asked them to teach us a song in Burmese. It was fun to be able to sing along with them—and I think they enjoyed turning the tables on us and correcting our pronunciation instead of the other way around!

The kids from the Children's Home were so much fun—as kids are everywhere. We had such a great time fellowshipping with them and with their director and Sunday School teacher on Sunday. As a special treat they all came to the Bible College for Sunday service (they don't usually because of the distances involved). We shared a short message aimed at the kids and also taught them the song “Down in My Heart,” which they loved! They were also amazing singers and sang several songs in Burmese as well. Then, just before leaving they came to the door of the pastor's house and sang Christmas carols for us. It was such a poignant moment and I think it is one of the highlights of our short visit to Myanmar.

The government is especially unfriendly to its citizens who aren't Buddhist as well as to anyone who has contact with outsiders (which is one reason the government infinitely worsened the effects of the cyclone by refusing foreign aid), but this isn't the front shown to visitors and we didn't directly witness or experience anything untoward. To the contrary our visit was very pleasant and enjoyable. We did, however, hear several firsthand reports from our Burmese brothers and sisters. Keep them in your prayers!

From hotel to house

The first Sunday we were in Bangkok, way back in November, we found an English church and attended service. After the service we went to the welcome table, explained we were looking for volunteer opportunities and...we've been here ever since! (Here being Christ Church--the English church we found.) We started volunteering at Christ Church the next week--mostly helping them out with the lead up to Christmas. So...we got to organize and set up Christmas crafts for the kids, fold service schedules, make mince pies, help decorate, sing in the choir, etc. It's been quite fun! It was fabulous to have a "home" for Advent and Christmas--it made Christmas more real somehow.

We also started volunteering at World Concern (website: www.worldconcern.org). Like in Beijing, we were helping out with writing/organizing-type things. It's been very interesting to work there and find out more about the work going on by Christian NGO's in Thailand. Saranya, Fon, and Carmen have been really great. They all work with the Child Protection Program, which is the branch we've been volunteering with.

Since we figured we'd be in Thailand for a few weeks, we thought we'd go to one of the Christ Church Bible studies as well. That has been a blessing in many ways. One such way was a rather unexpected material benefit--we ended up with a house to live in instead of our hotel! Gary and Claudia (and their daughter Caitlin) are from the USA and are in Bangkok with Bible Study Fellowship. We were very blessed to stay with them for ten days at the beginning of the month before we headed off to Myanmar. Then, when we got back to Thailand from Myanmar, we housesat for a British couple, Jane and Mike. Both homes have been awesome! It's been so great to have a house after living out of a hotel room for over a month. Thanks to all of you guys!

The days right around Christmas were some of the best times we spent in Bangkok! The carol and candlelight service on the last Sunday of Advent. The kids Christingle service on Christmas Eve. The midnight service Christmas Eve. The Christmas morning service. They were all lovely and even more so since we got to be quite involved.

Anyone know what a Christingle service is? We had never heard of it, but it was lots of fun. It's basically a kid's Christmas service. It varies in format but the two standard parts are the telling of the Christmas story during which the kids all get to dress up and act it out (so there are usually 20 or so shepherds, angels, and wisemen so that everyone can participate), and then the Christingle procession. Each child is given an orange representing the world with a red ribbon around it representing Christ's blood shed for the world, four sticks with dried fruit representing God's goodness going out to the four corners of the world, and a candle representing Jesus the light of the world. After the explanation, the candles are lit and there's a procession around the church representing our task as Christians to take the light of the gospel to the whole earth. It was a really neat service!

Christmas Day was doubly nice too 'cause it was the day we went from the dangerous duo to the terrible trio! Milo arrived at 1:00 am on Christmas Day. So...we sent him to bed for a few hours...and then dragged him to the Christmas party at the vicarage. :) Good company and good food: what more can you ask for!

Hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Advent and Christmas as well. All the best for the New Year!

Back to warmer climates...

After a 24 hour train ride from Beijing to Hong Kong, a quick transfer to the airport, and then a 4 hour flight south, we arrived in Bangkok in the wee hours of November 20th. The bus ride downtown was relatively quick and easy, as was finding a place to stay at 2 am! We had considered booking something, but since no one offered a decently priced airport pick-up, we figured we'd just wing it. So, welcome to Bangkok, or, to be completely accurate, welcome to Krung-dēvamahānagara amararatanakosindra mahindrayudhyā mahātilakabhava navaratanarājadhānī purīramya utamarājanivēsana mahāsthāna amaravimāna avatārasthitya shakrasdattiya vishnukarmaprasiddhi. That's it's official name (really!) and it means "The city of angels, the great city, the eternal jewel city, the impregnable city of God Indra, the grand capital of the world endowed with nine precious gems, the happy city, abounding in an enormous Royal Palace that resembles the heavenly abode where reigns the reincarnated god, a city given by Indra and built by Vishnukam." :)

The warm weather was probably the first thing we notice upon arrival. It was lovely to arrive in the middle of the night and still be able to walk around without a coat. The weather continued to be nice—warm and sunny without being too hot. It was wonderful to rediscover a whole new wardrobe in our bags. Okay, so this consisted of maybe five pieces of clothing, but when you only have about a dozen pieces, rediscovering five is a big thing! The warm weather also made Amanda happy for another reason: it's ice cream weather again...and while we haven't eaten MacDonald's food over here, we will admit to eating their ice cream. Why? Only 9 baht for a cone (or 12 baht for a dipped one.) That's about 30 cents or so, not bad!

For about the first week in Bangkok, we were staying in the Khaosan Road area, the main backpackers hub. It's a fun area! There are lots of guesthouses, little shops, restaurants, and loads of roadside stands selling everything from pad thai to fresh orange juice to fried grasshoppers (no, we haven't tried them yet). :) We ate most of our meals from these stands and, in general, the food was really good. And cheap! Fresh prawn pad thai for 25 baht (about a dollar), mango smoothies for 20 baht, or vegetarian green curry for 30 baht. Mmmm...I just ate dinner, but I'm getting hungry just writing this!

However, the two main downsides to the Khaosan area (in our humble opinions) are the constant 24/7 activity and the huge number of travellers! Okay, so the 24/7 activity is nice when you arrive at 2 am without booking a hostel, but other than that it gets old fast—especially since our room overlooked the street. It was never really loud, but, still, there was always noise, no matter what time it was—it was crazy! Also, it's lots of fun to hook-up with other travellers and exchange tips and stories, but there comes a point that you think you could be at home (albeit home with tropical weather and everyone wearing hippie clothes) and you begin to think it might be nice to meet some Thai people, since you are, after all, in Thailand! :)

Of course there are Thai people in Khaosan road. The tuk-tuk drivers for instance. I hope they aren't representative of the Thai people though! They're all very friendly, but perhaps not too honest. They'll all tell you that the site you want to visit is closed, but they'd love to take you to see the Big Buddha. And the Sitting Buddha. And the Golden Mountain. All for only 10 baht! We finally agreed to this because we figured riding in a tuk-tuk was one thing you should do while in Thailand anyways, and then we found out why the ride was so cheap. It turned out that while they did take you to all the above mentioned sites, they also took you to several stores along the way. “Please just look—just for five minutes! If you look I will get a coupon for my petrol. Just five minutes—if you don't like it don't buy—just look!” We went and looked. But we didn't buy. I guess the set-up must work often enough, though, because every tuk-tuk driver in the area is offering the same deal.

We've actually sampled quite a bit of the transportation here. Besides the tuk-tuks, we've ridden river taxis, regular taxis, buses, vans, the subway, and the skytrain. We enjoyed the buses primarily because we enjoy most things that don't involve too many other foreigners (it's more fun to “go local”). Also because of the price. It was always a surprise actually, half of the time we'd get on a bus and pay 7.5 baht each, and the rest of the time we'd get on a bus and it would be free! It turns out that the government decided to make half of the buses in Bangkok free to help out those who were struggling because of the economic crisis.

The river taxis are the most fun—and the ride up or down the river gives just a taste of what life might have been like a hundred years ago. And, I must confess that even though I am the historian and even though I bugged my sister about doing the movies tour of Europe (Me: I can't wait to visit the Sistine Chapel! Michelangelo painting on the ceiling are... Her: Michelangelo...ceiling...oh right! “Trapped under ceiling in Rome”, that was in Ever After! Me: *sigh*), despite all that, I admit that I based my historical perspective of Thailand on the movies The King and I and Anna and the King. For all fellow fans, you'll remember King MongKut of course. His statue stands in a park close to where we are currently living (how we ended up moving will be covered in the next post).

King MongKut also, interestingly enough, donated the land for the English Church in 1861. His son donated a different plot of land and some extra funds to the Anglicans when they wanted to build a bigger church in a more accessible location in 1905. His only stipulation was that the church must be open to all protestant denominations and not restricted to just one. Therefore, we are currently attending (and volunteering at incidentally) a non-denominational Anglican church. A bit of an anomaly, no?

Living in Beijing?

When we were first planning this trip, we wanted to make it a volunteer-based trip. We didn't want to just travel as tourists; we wanted to help out. With that in mind, we'd planned to join a mission trip in Beijing. Unfortunately, that fell through and we were at loose ends for a bit—but God does provide!

We googled English churches when we first came to town and ended up at Beijing International Christian Fellowship (BICF). We were hesitant to attend at first—the website said you had to have a foreign passport and we wanted a church that was active in their community. However, we decided to go and see,and when we did, we were excited to find out about all the outreach activities they participated in. We were also excited to see the “volunteers needed” section of their church bulletin! After the service we went to the Welcome Corner, introduced ourselves, and offered our assistance.

It's funny. Before I left I didn't think my writing would be of use in the mission field. But then I arrived in China and was told that while there were no short-term mission trips in the field during the time we were there, what they could really use help with was writing some articles for their newsletter. This included learning and writing about an awesome mission trip the BICF Impact ministry arranged to a small village school in rural China, as well as interviewing a woman running an amazing ministry in another area of China that provides for AIDS orphans.

While I was writing or editing, Amanda was using her equally well-matched skills to create and organize some financial information for the ministry in Excel documents that amazed all the staff! :)

In addition to office work, we also had the chance to help teach English to former street kids, volunteer with orphans from the Sizhaun earthquakes, and learn about a ministry to migrant children. It was a busy month!

One of the other fun parts of staying in Beijing for almost a month was that we were starting to develop a sense of community. We had “our” restaurant in a non-tourist area of town, where the staff knew us and what we always ordered. We had “our” street fruit stand where the young sales girl recognized us and laughed with us at our frequent purchase of mandarin oranges. We also had our roadside bun stand close to “work” where we could buy these great green onion or red bean filled buns for only 1 RMB (20 cents or so)! It's always amazed me how quickly community can form, even in a country where you don't speak the language.

Ohh...right, I almost forgot to mention “our” coffee shop! Jungle Java—bottomless cups of real coffee and the most amazing desserts in the world!!! I think we ate our way through most of the cakes and things shown here. If anyone is in Beijing and craving North American desserts or sandwiches, this is most definitely the place to go! (We recommend the cinnamon buns—they are to die for.)

We were also beginning to get to know little bits of the city. We figured out the metro (okay, that's not too hard...) and started to figure out the buses too (more difficult as things aren't listed in English). In fact, we were quite proud of ourselves when we went out to an unfamiliar area of town for lunch after church on the last Sunday we were in Beijing and were able to get on a different bus than we arrived on and find our way home with no assistance at all.

By the time it was time to leave, (Hmm...that's an interesting phrase “time it was time”) we didn't want to go. We had such a great time in Beijing and met some really great people and there's really only one reason we left at all: it was really, really cold! :) Okay, so the fact that the Chinese refused to give us visas for more than a month might have had something to do with it too, but, seriously, it was cold! (Okay, not that cold really—it was maybe 7° C or so, but that feels cold when you're not dressed for it—and when you are thinking tropical thoughts... )

Remembering

Two and a half years ago I lived in China. When I left, I promised I'd return to visit. Finally, at the end of our China visit, I kept that promise and travelled to Shijiazhuang. The short trip was a trip about remembering: remembering people, places, food, and language! The language bit was funny actually...I think I remembered more Mandarin in the 2 ½ days we were in Shijiazhuang than in the 2 ½ weeks previous. It's amazing how having all your senses engaged can help your memory recall.

We stayed with my Chinese family while in Shijiazhuang. It was so great to see them all again! My “brother” and “sister-in-law,” Jack and Anny, now have the cutest daughter named Rachel. She is adorable! She took a little while to warm up to us, but once she did, she was sure we were there for her own private amusement. She had us read books to her, play catch, sing songs (we taught her Head and Shoulders, Ring Around the Rosie, and the Chicken Dance), and just generally play! She called us Ai-ee (“aunt” in Mandarin).






Besides playing with Rachel, we also hung out with the whole family, played badminton with my “sister” Tina, and made dumplings with Mrs Wang. The dumpling-making was lots of fun. However, it's a lot more difficult than it looks. And, when I say we made dumplings, I mean the whole shebang!




We started with a trip to the market to buy supplies...















then mixed the filling...
















made the dough...












put the dumplings together...












and then cooked and ate some for lunch...and dinner...and breakfast! They were fabulous! I'm now expected to make them when I return to Canada—we'll see if I still remember how to make them when we get back home in a year or so. :)






Visiting my family again was awesome; equally awesome was seeing some of my friends. We met Linda at the park in Shijiazhuang for a short time (too short!) and caught up on what was happening. Then, when we got back to Beijing, we met my friend Li, her mother, and her boyfriend. They are from Shijiazhuang but live in Beijing now.

I wish I'd had more time to spend with everyone—but I guess that gives me yet another reason to visit China again!

The Wall

In terms of tourist destinations, the Great Wall was, by far, the highlight of our trip. After much deliberation, we decided to hike from Jingsanling to Simatai, spend the night in a hostel there, and then watch the sunrise over the Great Wall the next morning (that's what I did when I visited the Wall two years ago). The difference between this trip and the last though, was our decision not to book a tour, but to get there on local transportation instead.

That was fun.

Really. 

The adventure started upon arrival at the bus station in Beijing where several people approached us and insisted that the bus we wanted didn't exist. The signs weren't in English, though, so it was hard to verify that. We'd have been happier trusting them if they hadn't tried to split the two of us up, keep us away from the other backpackers we met, and stop us from asking the other locals. However, after wasting almost an hour, we finally took the bus they recommended along with another couple of backpackers. 

We arrived in Miyun, a town close to the Wall, an hour later only to find that another bus had supposedly vanished! Everyone gave us blank stares when we explained what we wanted and again all the signs were only in Chinese characters. We never found that bus either. Finally six of us (four other backpackers were also headed to the Wall) negotiated a price of 20 RB each with one of the minibuses and headed to the Wall. 

The ten kilometre hike itself was brilliant! The weather was actually warm and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! The trees around the Wall were just beginning to change colour and, most importantly, there were very few other tourists about. We decided to stay and watch the sunset on the Wall and then hiked down to our hostel. The next morning we woke up at five am, sneaked out of our hostel by jumping the gate and then headed back up to the Wall. The night was cold, but the stars were absolutely breathtaking! Funnily enough, even though we thought we were the only people around, we got to wall, turned a corner and almost gave another girl a heart attack! We hadn't thought to bring a flashlight so we were hiking in the dark and she didn't hear us coming. It was quite funny—and she even agreed with us after we peeled her off the ceiling of the watch tower. :)

The sunrise was well worth the cold weather and the early rising hour (hopefully the girl we met thought it was also worth having five years scared off her life). Once the sun was up we hiked to—and past—the end of the tourist section of the Wall. We toasted the day with our last ginger beer and then headed back down to play the transportation game once more.

This time things were going our way. Despite the assurances of the taxi driver that it didn't exist, we finally found the local bus! It cost only 4 RMB.