well i know it's been a couple weeks since my trip, but by popular demand i've decided to get down to posting a few pictures! it's hard to narrow down all the events and pictures down so much, because so much happened! it was really an amazing experience. i got to travel with 44 kids in my class for 10 days and see some awesome sights all over vietnam and cambodia. i really bonded with people in my grade and had a whole new cultural perspective. in our first city, saigon, i learned a lot about the impact the US had on vietnam during the war. there was a lot of gruesome information that was interesting, if disheartening to learn. in our next cities, danang and hoi an, helping the kids at the orphanage was definitely one of the highlights. it was eye opening and so fun to play with them. it was also pretty sad, and i felt even more guilty considering the amazing hotels and resorts we got to stay in. i didn't have too much time to dwell on it though since we moved so fast along to our next destination! we went to hanoi, a northern vietnam city, and went on a cruise in the famous ha long bay, where they have tons of beautiful cliffs rising out of the water. we got to visit a working floating village where people actually live. we even saw some kids rowing home from school. next we moved on to cambodia. seeing angkor wat, the temple ruins in siem reap was another of my favorite experiences. the construction and designs were so intricate and detailed, it was really cool! we were blessed by buddhist monks and saw the sunset from the top of one of the temples. our last stop was the capital, phnom penh, were we saw the killing fields, a remnant of the khmer rouge regime. in one monument, there were piles of human skulls belonging to thousands of executed political prisoners. it was sobering to get a visual image of such a terrible atrocity, but i was glad i could learn about this event that i really hadn't heard of before. that night we had a nice dinner at a delicious restaurant (the food was really delicious for almost the entire trip) and prepared to say goodbye to asia for the time being. i definitely plan on going back to some more countries here, there's so much to see! and the shopping really is amazing :)
Last week Nana flew in to give us a hand. I was able to get in a much needed trip to IKEA to help us get settled into our new place and she filled in for Isabel who took a couple days off. We went to a fun park with Lindsay to watch some ducks and play in the creek, and we also got in a trip to Disneyland where we sent off a postcard to Uncle David. The boys loved playing with Nana and have been asking for days afterwards where she is (we'll have to make sure you say good-bye to them next time so they believe me when I say you went back to your house!!). She really helped out during the potty phase they've been going through and was an all-round hero. Thanks again mom!
