Bali… beautiful Bali.

Paul arrived earliest of all the travellers. He hiked his way past the touts trying to get him into their cars and cabs and flagged down a taxi just outside the airport gates. Eventually they made their way through the crazy traffic to Legian, one of the three towns in the Kuta/Legian/Seminyak tourist trap triumvirate. He got the keys to the rooms that they would be staying at their first night and then headed back out to the airport to pick up the stragglers. Unfortunately, Paul waited alone, as Kristen’s flight was delayed until just before the 2:30 am arrival of Tracey and Dale.

After some hugs, kisses and stunned conversation Paul led Kristen and the travel drunk Dale and Tracey to the hotel. Then, without giving them time to get their heads on straight, Paul and Kristen promptly hit D/T with the news that we were pregnant! Talk about timing! It was pretty awesome to see their faces as they took in the news, and wonderful that they were still excited and able to celebrate even after almost 24 hours without sleep.

One of the Billion Temples in Bali

Champion Parents, running on no sleep!

The next day we tooled around the beach in Kuta, wandered around the tourist shops and booked a tour to Komodo by boat. The day was spent acclimatizing to the heat, the food, the time difference and the feeling of being somewhere new. It was great for us to witness how exciting everything is for the first time traveller. I am pretty sure at one point Tracey even said “wow, look! A bridge.”

We travelled the next day up to Pemuteran on the North coast of Bali. To get there we crossed over the central ridge, and stopped at a coffee farm. It was super low pressure (which was great) and they let us try the coffee, tea, hot chocolate and other goodies that they produced at the farm. We got to see the famous Luwak (civet cat… actually a type of weasel and a close relative of the mongoose) that eats the ripe coffee berries and digests the bean, leaving behind the world’s most expensive coffee. If you are into the kind of thing.

Pemuteran was relaxed. So few tourists were there that we were practically the only people in our hotel for the first couple of nights. We had great service at a pretty snazzy price for a decent clean bungalow and access to a pool and internet but we did have to  put up with crowing roosters every morning which was a problem that followed us around for the next few weeks.

First Snorkel outting and Loving it!

This is Kristen`s Happy Snorkel Face

Paul`s art shot!

Pemuteran’s beach was just so so and the water was a little garbage-full. However the life underwater was spectacular. We took Dale and Tracey on their first snorkelling adventure to Palau Menjangan (one of the premier diving sites in Bali).  We got to see Lionfish, trevally, cowfish, aggressive triggerfish and an incredible variety of corals and brightly coloured reef fish. They were blown away by the colour and diversity, and we were pretty proud of their pluckiness. It’s not often someone gets into the water for only the first or second time and is so unperturbed by a steep drop off and the immensity of the dark ocean. They did great and we came away with huge smiles. And sunburns. Dale especially learned not to underestimate the power of the equatorial sun and was quick to slap on sunscreen after broiling the back of his legs.

Not our boat, but truthfully you wouldnt be able to say for sure it wasnt!

Civet Cat, looking shifty

Lake Toba

Lake Toba. Paul didn’t know much about it, but he had an extra day in Northern Sumatra and thought: “Hey it sounds cool… Danua Toba. Cool climate. Volcanic Caldera. Agricultural heartland of Northern Sumatra. Home of the Christian/Animist Batak people…. Let’s check it out.”

Infrastructure in Northern Sumatra being what you might expect, the highways are all one lane roads, potholed, twisty, dusty and packed with honking motorcycles, scooters, bikes, trucks, vans and buses. The buses and vans were all decorated which was pretty awesome. These old beat up Mitsubishis would have a full underkit, spoilers, and chrome rims. They were covered in neon orange paint, or decals of Mickey Mouse, giant-incredibly muscled bulls and Charelton Heston from the Ten Commandments. They were often packed to the roof with passengers. Literally. People would sit on the roof of a van ripping down a tiny road at 100 plus kms an hour. With their kids. And a picnic lunch. Crazy.

We (Paul chartered a mini van with two Danes) took the back road to Lake Toba because our driver had never been that way and wanted to take a picture at the border between North Sumatra Province and Lake Toba Province. It turned out to be a great idea, as it didn’t take much longer (what’s another hour on a 7 hour ride) and we passed through farmland and tiny villages. Betel nut chewing old women, and men on donkeys turned to wave and smile at us as we bounced our way through their hamlets.

Eventually we made it to Lake Toba and took a boat from the harbour to TukTuk a peninsula on an island in the middle of South East Asia’s biggest lake. Paul met a Russian fellow who had been on the trek into the jungle with him, and they ended up sharing a room at a resort on the peninsula that night. Cost us each $3 and there was air conditioning. J

The next day Paul had until 1:30pm to poke around the traditional villages and go for a swim in the refreshing waters. Then it was back on the boat and into a mini-van that would take him back to Medan.

This time the ride back was excruciating. The van was filled with locals, and Paul had to share a bench seat with two of the largest Indonesian men he had ever seen. Stocky, overweight and broad shouldered, they made for singularly poor traveling companions! They did help Paul identify some edible food at the bus station we stopped at for dinner so it wasn’t all bad.

We arrived late into Medan, and Paul found himself a nice squalid box of a hotel room to crash in before boarding his morning flight back to KL and on to Bali to meet up with his wife and the Rieus.

The Great Escape: Jan/Feb 2012

So, we are back in China after more than a month of gallivanting around South East Asia. And it’s about time we updated the blog.
We have a tonne of stories and pictures to share, so we will divide it up over several blog posts and string them out over the next week or so. Keep checking back for more updates!

Part One: Paul’s Primal Primate Encounter.

Because Paul’s school is so very different from the high school, they finished a full week earlier than the rest of the students. This meant Paul found himself with a week of vacation time without Kristen. Knowing that she –brave and adventurous as she is- would likely never wish to visit the Sumatran jungle with him, he decided that this was a good time to check that particular destination off his list.

Paul spent a full 24 hours travelling from Dalian to Sumatra. First a short puddle hop from Dalian to Tianjin, then a flight from Tianjin to Kuala Lumpur, a night spent trying to sleep on the hard, brightly lit budget carrier’s airport in KL and a final flight to Medan in Indonesia.

Medan is a bit of a cesspool. It sprawls, low and dirty, for many tens of kilometres. It’s hot and humid and the traffic is worse than anywhere else we have travelled so far. Other than that it is a delightful city. Paul found an old man who spoke a little English and who offered to take him to the bus station for a price significantly lower then what the taxis wanted to charge. They weaved their way through slums and shops, dodging brightly painted vans stuffed with people and crazy Grandmas on scooters to get to the staging point for all the local buses.

The best part of Medan were these sweet flower billboards advertising everything from engagemens to markets to Coca-cola. Awesome.

The bus took some six hours to get from Medan to Bukit Lawang. It probably should have been four, but the driver stopped often to have a drink and a chat with a friend, or cruise slowly down a street while trying to drum up some more customers. The ride was hot and bouncy, and the bus cruised through some beautiful and some very depressing scenery.

Most of Northern Sumatra used to be covered in some of the worlds thickest, most impenetrable rainforest. Only recently has that begun to change, but the rapid pace of the change is staggering. We drove through mile after mile of recently burned forest. Acres and acres of land cut, burned and replanted with oil palm. Thousands of acres. Oil palm is a monoculture that brings in a lot of money for communities that hover on and around the brink of poverty. It is one of the few crops that can grow in the depleted soil left when you cut down a rainforest and it provides a chance for communities to develop an economy based on something other than subsistence farming. However, the destruction of the biodiverse rainforests and the speed at which they are disappearing was really hard to look at.

After several hours of travelling through oil palm plantations, pockets of rainforest began to appear on the hilltops. Soon the entire road was being encroached upon by the massive hardwoods with their entourage of vines and ferns. Paul disembarked at Bukit Lawang station (basically the side of the road in the middle of a farmer’s field). He then followed a little local boy up a side track (rather then pay the tuk tuk drivers to take him into “town” along the road). After a few minutes of walking along, munching amiably on rose apples and “water fruit” with the local boy, Paul found himself crossing the river on a rather crude and derelict suspension bridge. He haggled with an inn owner on the far side, and because it was the low season, he managed to negotiate a clean (though bare and basic) room for just under 5 dollars. With breakfast included.

Bukit Lawang- a friendly place.

Bukit Lawang is an interesting place. It relies almost entirely on tourist dollars from people who come to see the apes. It was almost destroyed in 2003 by a flash flood that tore down the river and took a fair number of homes and people with it. Hot, dusty, rainy, the little town spreads up and down the banks of the river for about three kilometres before petering out into the jungle.

Paul booked himself onto a two day trek almost immediately after arriving. There were other tourists along for the trek, most of whom were not nearly as prepared to hike in the Sumatran jungle. Paul showed up in hiking boots with his belongings nicely sealed in waterproof stuff sacks and extra pairs of socks, a t-shirt and three litres of water ready for his arrival at camp. Two of the other trekkers were wearing cotton loafers. One girl didn’t have anything with her but the clothes on her back.

The guides were great. Tiny (less than five feet), surefooted local men who were licensed by the village coop to take people like my companions into the jungle and make sure they came out smiling and safe, these men were extremely competent. They would disappear for a few minutes into the bush beside a trail, then reappear 100 meters down the path silently. Almost always they would lead us to a perfect spot to see this Thomas Leaf Monkey, or that White Handed Gibbon, or a particularly loud Hornbill.

Rocking the leaf hat during a rainstorm... so 2011.

We saw our first orang-utan four hours into the trek. Three apes- mom and two daughters- were slowly meandering their way through the upper canopy. The mom and baby stayed there, but the older daughter was curious and made her way down the vines and trunks of trees to see what these hairless apes staring up at her were all about. It was a pretty magical experience to have her so close, and so interested in us. She bounced around in the trees right above us for almost fifteen minutes before returning to her mom.

This is about the moment Paul started hyperventilating with excitement.

Surreal? Yes.

We saw several other orang-utan, all female, in the next few hours. We also got to see long tailed macaques, Thomas leaf monkeys, white handed Gibbon (another ape species), monitor lizards, and a variety of other extremely cool flora and fauna.

That punky monkey is a Thomas Leaf monkey. He is rocking an elegant hair style and a long (but not prehensile) tail.

About an hour after lunch the rain started to come down hard. It was impossible to stay dry, and pretty soon we were soaked through to the skin. We waded through muddy paths, over streams and up and down hills until we made it down into a little valley. There across the river was the camp. We loaded ourselves into inner tubes and the guides pushed us across the rather swollen river. We stripped down to our skivvies and washed the mud sweat and leeches (yes leeches) off of ourselves by the side of the river.

Camp was an open bivouac. Poles had been pounded into the ground, and a tarps carefully fastened over top. It was dry under the tarp, but one side of the tent was completely open to the jungle and provided no shelter from mosquitoes, leeches or monitor lizards. In the middle of the night this fact was driven home by the fact that Paul woke up with something warm burrowing into his armpit. He freaked out a bit when it suddenly jumped onto his face and then scampered off because of his thrashing and screaming. Naturally this woke the rest of the trekkers, who, not knowing what was going on, also freaked out. The bush rat/monkey/monster bumped into several other people on its way out, which amplified their screaming and made Paul feel a little better. He had one small scratch down his cheek which he washed and covered in antibiotic cream, but other than that escaped pretty much unscathed! However he didn’t get a lot more sleep after that.

The "tent" where we spent the night. Notice the lack of a final side.

The next day the trekkers hung around the camp area, hiking to a nearby waterfall, before we rafted our way down the swollen river and back to Bukit Lawang. The experience was pretty special, and left Paul wishing he had more time and money to spend towards a longer Sumatran jungle excursion. Definitely something to save his pennies for!

Rafts made of inner tubes lashed together with twine. Scary but effective.

Happy New Year!

Finally a three day weekend! After months of cruising along the monotonous five-day-work-week trail, we got a chance to take an extra day to ourselves over the New Years break. To treat ourselves during this unaccustomed break we decided to head up to Harbin, a city of three million people near the Russian border.

Harbin is known for a bunch of things. It used to be controlled by the Russians in the early 1900’s so it has a rich architectural heritage unique to northern China. It also held the largest population of Jewish people in China around the same time, and has the largest Orthodox Christian cathedral in China. It is home to the Harbin Hongchang (Harbin red sausage- a garlic filled treat) as well as Harbin beer, spicy hotpot and candied haw fruit. It has the largest concentration of Siberian or DongBei tigers in the world (well over 100 reside at the breeding center and there are only approximately 400 everywhere else in the world) and is home to the world’s largest ice festival… think Carnival d’hiver on steroids.

Anyways we organized a group of eleven people who all wanted to head north to play in the cold, and Paul worked with Mody (a tour guide who helped us get tickets on our Gansu trip) to round up train tickets. We took an overnight train up to Harbin and enjoyed a few bubbly beverages as we rode north. As we pulled into Harbin in the morning it was apparent that we were entering an extremely cold environment as there was an inch thick layer of ice on the windows. Longjohns, ski jackets and a Russian style hat for Paul and we were ready to brave the -28 degree weather.

We were in Harbin for three days and had some awesome adventures, misadventures and undertook plenty of touristic ventures. Because we are busy with exams and really don’t have time to write up a play by play of the entire trip, here are some of the highlights:

-Skating on the frozen river: Ice four feet thick below us, hundreds of silly Chinese ice games (from sledge chairs to a spinning top that you whip with a piece of rope), the cold wind on our faces, dog sleds, old Chinese men playing hockey with Canada jerseys on and a smile on Kristen’s face that would have split her open if those big cheeks of hers hadn’t reigned it in.

Ice dancing, Paul's new hobby.

Kristen is working on a new martial art form... ice kwan do.

-New Years Eve: Individual hotpot at the fanciest restaurant I have been to in a long, long time; cold Harbin beers; carved ice sculptures; a walk down the cobblestoned pedestrian streets in the old Russian quarter and watching a paper lantern that we had lit sail off above the frozen river we were standing on.

Personal hot pot... best hotpot ever. (Kudos to Hayley for the pic)

-Tigers: Seeing 9 foot long Siberian tigers, watching one of the “ligers” (unfortunately not bred for their skills in magic…) scent mark one of our companions, having a leopard jump ten feet while taking a video, and feeding a live chicken to a hungry tiger at the DongBei Hu breeding center (“North East Tiger” breeding center).

Nine feet of agressive fury... and fuzz. Hope no one else wanted a piece of that drumstick.

"No Kristen, they would need more than just a litterbox and a scratching post in the spare bedroom."

The Great White Liger

Paul contemplating the circle of life. Notice how he is carefully cradling the chicken's lower limbs before callously throwing the fowl to its doom...

-The Ice Festival: Towers of ice bricks fourteen stories tall, hundreds of buildings and ice and snow sculptures, lights embedded in the ice glowing crazy neon colours, gliding around on ice bikes, sliding down ice slides and huddling together for warmth.

We took the overnight train back home to Dalian. We were supposed to arrive back at around 6:30 and a bus was waiting to take us straight to school. It takes about an hour to get back from Dalian, so as long as everything worked out perfectly we should have been there right on time. Unfortunately it started to snow that night. This meant the train had to slow down so we didn’t get in until almost 7:00. Then the bus had to take its time because Chinese snow removal crews consist of five guys shovelling salt out of the back of a moving pickup (not joking… we saw them on the way back in working their magic). We ended up rolling in a little late (8:30ish) but luckily we were just 11 of 23 people late or missing because of the snow!

It was a great weekend, and one that we would definitely recommend to anyone travelling in Northern China in January with snow gear, a little bit of Mandarin and some time to kill.

Other notable memories:

-Paul’s Mandarin improving exponentially as he was forced to use it all the time. His Mandarin was the best in the group and by the end of the weekend he was holding conversations with cab drivers and waiters… although the Harbin accent was so thick and different then the Dalian one that understanding each other was always a little tough. Case in point: Paul trying to order grilled mushrooms and instead getting stewed tripe…mmmm yum!

-St. Sophia’s Cathedral after dark was pretty damn cool!

-Borscht at a Russian café.

-Sausage that, unlike most Chinese sausage, didn’t smell/taste like wet socks.

(Sorry, we would love to put up more pictures, but the internet is fighting us... its been six hours and we have only managed to get up these pictures so far. You will just have to use your imagination for the rest! We might try to throw a couple more up later in the week if we have time... keep checking in!)

A Very Merry Jinshitan Christmas

So Christmas was quiet around here (to say the least). We missed being home to celebrate and the things that was missing the most- besides all our family and friends - was... Christmas Music! I have never realized how ubiquitous Christmas music actually is. EVERYWHERE you go at home there are holiday sounds to be heard. Heck, even the hard core rock stations in Vancouver give up once an hour and play a holiday song.

This year a lot of our traditions were not possible (where do you think we can buy GOOD scotch in China... and really candle light fajitas aren’t the same when you don’t have a Christmas tree to decorate after). So because of this we decided to implement a few Jinshitan Christmas traditions of our own.

The first was a relaxation policy. We lounged in our jammies for hours and watched some Christmas movies that one or both of us had never seen before. There are some real gems from the early 60’s claymation era, Including Kristen's new favourite "The Little Drummer Boy". Before we started watching Paul told Kristen that near the beginning the parents get stabbed and burned. Kristen responded by tersely replying, “this is a Christmas film those things can’t happen”.

Paul did a very quiet I told you so dance about ten minutes in!

The second new tradition was a very nice 2 hour walk along the coastline. As usual we took our camera and were not disappointed. We found a trove of statues. For no apparent reason there are a bunch of life sized animal statues next to a minor attraction here in Jinjy!

HI HO Silver, away!

Paul joins Siegfried and Roy

This is yet another one of the beautiful abandoned buildings in our town, and yet they keep building new ones....?

So cold the sea water is frozen

 We also were fortunate enough to have friends who decided to host a Christmas dinner. So on Christmas night, off we went to a very good approximation of Christmas dinner. Will made an EXCELLENT turkey, Trevor sat on his veggies on the way over  and the mulled wine was quickly drained by one and all. Over all it was great!

On Boxing day we got up and went off to work. Kristen had extra TOC blocks because there were others who decided they were going to have a boxing day... thanks guys!

So, our first Christmas abroad was... interesting. Not nearly as "christmassy" as being home with friends and family, but we definitely managed to make it fun and special.

It's Beginning to look a LOT like Christmas

Well, its December which means 2 really good things have happened here lately!

1) PAUL SHAVED HIS HORRIBLE MOUSTACHE OFF!!
2) Kristen was FINALLY given permission to decorate the house!

This is our INCREDIBLE advent caladar from IKEA. I hope you all have one. There are little boxes which you hide goddies in, so it could be lame chocolate or it could be ferrero rochers!!!!!

This is our tiny tree and stockings!

This is how excited Kristen gets when she is allowed to put up Christmas stuff!

Perfect for our Chinese Christmas Tree, Rice Lights, no joke they came with the tree!

There have been some negitive things as well, mostly weather related. We keep being mocked by the chinese staff who think being born and bred Canadians, we should not bock at the DongBei wind that rips through our part of china.As you all know that is SOOOOO not the case!

This is lake Clear water which is the "lake" part of our Lake-View aprtment. It has been there since the category 4 storm last year. It is so cold most of the water has evaporated. But what was left froze and then was smashed by the middle school kids since they are not supervised during PE class. THe little monkeys tore up the brick from the sidewalk to do it.

And this is Kristen's new work attire. You will notice, Hot for this season, thick tights, under a pair of insulated ski socks, all neatly hidden under dress pants. YEA, IT'S COLD!

Aint no rest for the wicked

This past weekend was full of sporting events for us. Kristen went off to Beijing with her Volleyball team to play in a tournament. They were supposed to fly out Friday night at 10pm but true to its reputation Dalian airport muck-ed it up and they didn’t leave until 4am. 9 hours of trying to rest in a freezing cold airport on chairs or floors or wherever. When they finally arrived in Beijing it was to late to go to the Hostel before the first game so instead they went looking for breakfast. They found Michael a stout German man how owned a brand new bakery. He served up fresh and free treats for the whole team basically saving us from killing each other.

The first day was long and tiresome but each game the team got better and better. We finally won our last game on Saturday.

Jumping like our life depends on it.......lol

Finally heading to the hostel around 6pm we checked in showered and took off for a dinner with some of the other teams at a Japanese restaurant. Kristen had never drank Saki before and having been awake for almost 40 hours, and only eating sushi for dinner it did a serious number on her. She almost passed out at the dinner table along with a couple of her teammates. So instead of hitting the clubs they went back to the hostel for some much needed sleep.

Kristen is on the left hand side WAY WAY at the back

On Sunday the team was up and back on the court at 11am “rested” and and playing much better as a team. Kristen got her first block and first real kill and a nice head cold/sore thorat just to round out the morning. After 2 games the team thought they were finsished and headed off to the showers, only to find out they had to play for 3^rd and 4^th place. The final game was the best yet, and the girls came of so close to taking it but ended up fouth. By that time there was only enough time to shower eat and rush off to the airport to literally run to our gate and catch the plane home.

Posing like we are 12....

 All in all a lot of fun. There were some bruises, skin burns, and many hours missed sleep but everyone had a great time!