Cambodia Bucket List

This week at work I've been working on the 3D Rhino model of Vann Molyvann's house. On Friday I checked some items off my Cambodia bucket list. I made the bucket list when I came back from Kep and it included:

1) Picking up custom-made shoes from Beautiful Shoes:
I ordered some custom-made shoes from a shoe place in Phnom Penh. They trace your foot and make some measurements and then make a leather shoe for you. All you have to do is bring them some pictures of the shoes you want and then they make pretty close to the same design.

2) Visiting the national museum:
Cambodia’s national museum in Phnom Penh focuses mainly on Angkorian and Pre-Angkorian art and artefacts housed in a well-designed and charming (yet small) museum near the Royal Palace. I went to the museum after having lunch with Ed and Nancy at Friends, an NGO-run restaurant that provides Cambodian street kids with training in the food service industry (partnered with Romdeng). The museum had a great little interior courtyard with fish ponds and a pavilion as well.

3) Visiting the national palace:
I enjoy visiting royal residences. When I went to the Cambodian Palace I was a little disappointed because you couldn't really go into parts of the royal residence, but could only see the royal pagodas and little temples on the grounds. There were also some exhibits of royal possessions such as the current king Sihamoni's collection of elephant bowls. There were also several monks on the palace grounds who seemed very eager to practice their english with passing tourists.

4) Going to Tol Sleng:
The Khmer Rouge torture camp in Phnom Penh was housed in a former secondary school. S-21, as it was referred to by the Khmer Rouge, is currently a genocide museum with frighteningly horrific photographs, paintings, testimonies, and an hour-long movie. I was especially shocked by the exhibition with photos from 1976 (I think) taken by a Swedish man traveling on a sort of cultural ambassadorship. He wrote that he was a Maoist at the time and believed that Democratic Kampuchea (what Cambodia was called during the Khmer Rouge) was an exemplary example of functioning Maoism. It was really creepy to walk in the torture chambers and holding cells that prisoners were kept in before being taken to Cheong Ek (?) or the Killing Fields.

5) See an Apsara Show:
Didn't actually work out because the Apsara (Khmer traditional dance) theater we were going to go to closed down the weekend we all went to Kep. They're supposedly opening again later this year.

6) Going to Louisiana Fried Chicken:
According to LP, before Cambodia joined the World Trade Organization it didn't have copyright laws and it apparently had a KFC, 7-11, and other popular establishments. Once it joined the WTO, these places changed and I think became Louisiana Fried Chicken (a.k.a. LFC) and 7-11 became "7 Elephants". I went to LFC with Nancy and Sokly before going to my last stop on my list, Wat Phnom.

7) Climb Wat Phnom to see the monkeys:
At lunch on my last day Sokly took Nancy and I on Chhoy's moto to Wat Phnom, one of the original Wats (or Buddhist Temples, NOT pagodas) in Phnom Penh. Phnom means "hill" in Khemai so the temple is set up on a little hill surrounded by a park. It's also home to several monkeys and we saw two of them. Nancy even got a great picture of a monkey mid-leap going from a lamp post to a tree.

So I finally finished writing this post after quite a long week of packing, trying to figure out my Rhino model, and working on the bucket list. It was a nice way to end my trip, but I really wasn't ready to leave yet.

On my last night, Darren was nice enough to drive Sokly, Nancy, and I to the airport. It was a dark and stormy night and the sky was crying because I was leaving. The streets of Phnom Penh flooded with water and traffic. Darren's Toyota Camry (pretty much the same model that I drove in high school, but nicer) was up to the doors at least in water while driving through the back streets of the city in an attempt to avoid the incredible traffic jam of cars, motos, and pedestrians in the now flooded city.


My friends at our last dinner together ;_;

After checking my luggage in at the airport and paying the $25 airport departure tax, I ate a quick dinner with Nancy, Chhoy, Sokly, and Darren. They all said goodbye and watched as I ascended the escalator up to the departure zone and onto the plane.

Modernism in Ruins

The Butterfly Villa

Monday was our last day in Kep as we caught the afternoon bus back to Phnom Penh. This morning I woke up early and ate a delicious breakfast at Veranda with Bill and Nancy before jumping on another tuk tuk to explore the French modernist villas that were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge. The villas lay scattered about Kep with some along the seashore, others more inland, and even the king's old palace up on the hill is in ruins. My favorite was the "butterfly" villa so named because of its butterfly roof that seems to be derived from much of the vernacular architecture around here. Next door to it was the best-restored villa with its bright yellow hand railing.


A Restored Villa

Exploring the villas was a great way to see the principles of modernism from the fifties, I think. On this trip I was also reading "The International Style" and with the ideas of modernism fresh in my mind, I had the chance to explore these buildings from that era that combined with some of the existing Khmer vernacular forms to create a somewhat regional modernism lost in the ravages of the Cambodian revolution. The ruins of these buildings reminded me of the impermanence of architecture and was strangely evocative of the ruins at Beng Mealea and Angkor that had been swallowed up by the forest. It's really sad to think of all the violence and trauma that happened in the walls of these villas, yet they remain beautiful reminders of Cambodia's architectural richness.


Great View from a Ruin

When the ruin romp was over and we checked out of the hotel, we waited for the bus at the bus stop and learned that it was going to be at least another half hour before the bus came. Bill and I took a quick trip to Knai Bang Chatt, the high end modernist resort in Kep. We spoke to the manager and he explained to us (in French) a bit about the buildings and told us about two of Vann Molyvann's buildings that he did in Kep. Bill didn't know about him, but the manager said that he learned about them when Vann Molyvann stayed with him about 3 months ago (I think). It could be really interesting to take another look into the history of these villas to learn more about their architectural value. It's really difficult because the land and the villas are increasingly getting sold to corrupt officials, destroyed, or encased behind high brick walls. I think the visits to these villas and the principles in "the International Style" really helped me to understand what the modern architecture movement was, something that I didn't get at Yale and that I wouldn't have gotten without this trip to Cambodia.


Another Villa

Kep Kaves and Kampot

On Sunday Steve, Yen, Ed, Nancy, and I took a tuk tuk to Kampong Trach about an hour and a half away to see some caves. The first cave we went to was in a large rock outcrop that jutted up from the rice field plains. Once the tuk tuk pulled up near the cave area and we each paid our $1 entry fee, two children with flashlights followed the tuk tuk until it stopped at the cave mouth. When we got off the tuk tuk they immediately guided us into the cave with their flashlights chattering off the names of various rock formations such as "the turtle", "head of the eel", "eagle", and perhaps the most easily identifiable formation, "policeman's foot". It was quite odd and I felt very hurried being herded along by the now 12 other children who had joined them. The cave opened up to a large central area or "open sky cave" where there was a small temple with a reclining Buddha statue (a garish replacement because the original was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge). There was also a narrow staircase leading up into an opening in the cave wall that we couldn't go into because it was according to our little guides "too sticky and too many mosquitoes".


Open Sky Cave

When we were finished at the Open Sky Cave, we hopped back in the tuk tuk and drove a little ways while three of our little guides followed us on their bicycles. We got off the tuk tuk and had to walk about 1 km to reach the next cave, the swimming cave. The tuk tuk couldn't get there because there were too many big holes in the dirt road and it was a bit too muddy for all 5 of us to fit in the tuk tuk. On the way to the swimming cave, we passed a pond at the foot of a large outcropping of rocks. I asked our guide, Dap (?), if we could go closer to that mountain and he said, "no. too many bombs." I suppose he meant land mines because this area was one of the last Khmer Rouge hideouts and is still riddled with landmines. The eight of us continued on past some goats, a quarry, and children shouting out enthusiastic "hello"s to us. The swimming cave was indeed a sort of subterranean lake filled with clear and clean water. There wasn't too much trash in the lake and there were even little fishes swimming about.


The Swimming Cave

At first I was a little apprehensive about jumping in to a random lake, but after Dap (?) leapt in and was splashing about, I was put at ease and Ed, Steve, Nancy, and I all jumped in in our swimming suits. The water was nice and cool, way cooler than the ocean had been the day before on Rabbit Island and it was also fairly shaded so it wasn't hot at all. Ed and I decided to explore the deeper parts of the cave and headed towards the back where we thought the lake might continue further, but it got too dark and it didn't look like it went much further. The water must have come from somewhere underneath and beyond the walls of the little cave. Apparently when Ed and I were heading towards the back of the cave, Dap told Nancy that there were ghosts back there and we shouldn't go there. I didn't hear him, but I didn't see any ghosts, only some garbage gathered near the back, probably where the current of the water drained into the other parts of the cave. Some swimming and splashing later, we walked back to the tuk tuk and our driver took us to the Kampot pepper plantations.


Our Cave Guides

The pepper plantations were a bit of a ways off the main road and quite unobtrusive. Our driver showed us how the pepper grows on a vine and explained how they pick the pepper when it's green and after they dry it it becomes black. The white peppercorns come from peeling the pepper berries before drying them, but I don't think their flavor was as intense. We met a nice family that runs the pepper plantation and practiced our Khmei language skills with them. The plantation also grows sapodilla, durian, mango, and papayas too, but they weren't in season yet as the mango season is in May.


Legendary Kampot Pepper Plants

By the time we were done with the pepper plantation, it was about time for lunch so we headed back to Vanna Bungalows in Kep and ate at the nearby Veranda Resort restaurant. The food was really good there but fairly expensive as the Veranda is a really nice resort with moderately priced rooms. They really get you on the food, but it's worth it in my opinion. We were going to stay at the Veranda, but they were all booked up and I will definitely have to stay there the next time. The view there is also really amazing and the bungalows themselves are up in the trees and connected with elevated walkways. I had a delicious chicken club sandwich with fries on freshly baked bread.

After lunch we all had a food coma and took naps in the hammocks on our bungalows' lanais. Dinner was down at the crab shacks again, but in a different place this time. We ate in the shack all the way down at the end and the crabs were bigger than the ones from the shack from before. The crab was also really good and soft and came right out of the shell. We ordered two plates of crab (grilled and with spices) and it came with the excellent Kampot pepper sauce too, yum! Steve, Ed, and I were still hungry after sharing the crabs with the whole group, so we went to the Lonely Planet-recommended restaurant for round two. We ordered deep fried and battered prawns and crab with spices and some morning glory veggies. I'm sorry to say that I was pretty disappointed with the restaurant that LP recommended. LP said they gave a free dessert, but they didn't. There were termites in the table, at least two rats running around the dining area, and the crab was kind of tough and tasted a little overcooked. It seems that the restaurant got Lonely Planet syndrome and has slacked off since they got into the book because they get so much business that they don't even need to be up to the same standard that they used to.


A Kep Crab Dinner

Crabs, Snakes, and Sunsets

I just got back from our extended weekend trip in Kep this evening. Kep is a small town in the Kampot province where the French built seaside villas during the mid 20th century. When the Khmer Rouge came along in the 1970s they destroyed the bourgeois villa town and today it's slowly recovering as a popular vacation destination once more. Everyone in the house came on the trip including Steve Chen and Ed's friend, Yen, and even Bill. We left on Friday around lunchtime and after an arduous 5 hour bus ride on a bus with broken AC, the bus stopped and a man got on saying this was the stop for Kep.

We hauled our luggage onto the dusty sidewalk and looked for the guy from our guesthouse, Vanna Bungalows, who was supposed to be picking us up. He was nowhere in sight and a couple of tuk tuk drivers tried to coax us into their waiting coaches. I called Vanna Bungalows and spoke with the guy only to find out that we had gotten off at the wrong bus stop and fell for a scam to get tourists off the bus and charge them more for a 5km ride to the guesthouse area. Luckily, the guy from Vanna Bungalows arranged for his own tuk tuk guy to come pick us up and hot, sweaty, and dusty we finally made it to our lodgings.


On the Way to the Islands

The bungalows were nice private rooms in private buildings each with their own bathrooms, beds, and AC or a fan. The next morning we woke up for an early breakfast and departure for Koh Pos, a small island off the shore for some snorkeling. Down by the pier we walked out to a little green boat belonging to a fisherman and his nets. Our tuk tuk driver, Ly, also came with us as a guide toting a plastic bag with masks and snorkels. The boat pushed off and puttered towards the many surrounding islands. Apparently some of them belong to Vietnam and the area is right on the border line. We passed Mango Island, Chili Island, Rabbit Island, and others before arriving in a shallow bay off Koh Pos (not quite clear what the translation is for "Pos", but "Koh" means "island" in Khmei). Jumping off the boat and into the shallow water, we waded to the shore evading starfishes and sea urchins before arriving at a very very small village. Ly walked us around pointing out baskets full of small crabs that were too small to sell, but enough for the villagers to eat and he led us to the neighboring village through the forest. There we saw more little huts and what looked like the school, even though there wasn't really a school there. Ly spoke with some of the people and they dragged out a large crab trap with a 3 meter long python inside. He didn't look too happy but the village children were fascinated with their captured snake. One woman even squeezed a little bit of bread into its cage, which it promptly ignored and instead eyed the baby in her other arm.


Snake in a Cage

After the snake spectacle we walked around and Ed and I played a bit of volleyball with the locals. There are volleyball nets EVERYWHERE here built out of fishing net or loose weave or whatever they can find. Walking around on the island we didn't find any nice beaches to snorkel on so we waded back out to the boat and departed for our next destination, Rabbit Island.

According to Lonely Planet, Rabbit Island is so named because the locals think it looks like a rabbit, but I couldn't find the rabbit from any angle. The boat parked in another shallow bay, this time near some seaweed farms and we hopped out following Ly to a beach a short walk away. The beach is supposed to be one of Cambodia's best, but it was hardly anything worthy of note. The only good thing about it was that it was pretty sparsely populated because it's quite remote. There were also chairs and hammocks provided and mats from the locals who ran a little bungalow guesthouse and restaurant. It was very relaxing to just chill on the beach, read, and suntan with the occasional dip in the warm water every once in a while. We tried to go snorkeling, but the masks we borrowed from our guide were so old and scratched that you really couldn't see anything at all through them. We all ate lunch on the island and had our first experience with Kep's prime seafood. Nancy and I ordered a fried rice with fish and a squid with black pepper and it was very tasty considering that they prepared it right on the beach. The water started to get choppy around 3 so we trekked back to the boat through a little bit of forest and cow pies and left back to Kep.


Beach at Rabbit Island

Finally making it back to Vanna Bungalows, everyone freshened up with a shower and changed clothes for dinner down at the crab shacks. The crab shacks are a series of shacks on the water full of seafood restaurants. With all the choices we settled on the shack with the longest lanai over the water. I can't remember what the name of the place we went to was, but we ordered fried crab, "gary crab", fried prawns, and "crab in the hot oil". Watching the sunset from the lanai I could see a woman wade out into the tide and retrieve a crab cage from the water. I'm couldn't see because of the glare, but I'm pretty sure she grabbed the crabs that we were going to eat straight from the ocean. The sunset in Kep was one of the most beautiful sunset's I've ever seen (and that's saying something coming from Hawaii). The colors and clouds were totally surreal looking more like a photoshopped portrait background than an actual place. That dinner was the best crab that I've ever had and one of the messiest dinners ever because of all the sauce and work involved in cracking the crab. One of the dishes was prepared with legendary green Kampot peppers. Kampot is known around the world for its potent black pepper plantations and rightly so as it is the best pepper I've ever had and I'm not sure if I can go back to normal pepper. There's a lime-sugar-salt-pepper sauce that is served with pretty much every seafood dish here and it makes everything taste infinitely better. I'll have to make some when I start cooking.


The Sunset View at Dinner

Culinary Capers

So today was the grad students' last day with us. Kurt left early in the morning and Terri, Kevin, and Juenan left after lunch. We had a farewell lunch for them at Romdeng (all thanks to Bill!) and didn't hold back on ordering every delicious dish they had. One of the highlights was the fried tarantulas. I had a leg and then sampled the head, fangs and all. It tasted fine, more texture than taste with the same texture as soft-shell crab, which is pretty much what it is. I also had a set meal for $6.50, a lot of food for such a great deal, including soup, a main dish, and a dessert (banana crepes with coconut gelato!).


Tarantulas, yummmm!

After lunch we all went back home for a final farewell to the grad students. Once they and Toon (?), our driver, left the compound everyone headed back inside and we spent the next hour and a half or so rearranging the office. The current arrangement is much less cluttered and more organized. In the afternoon Nancy and I went to Beautiful Shoes to get some custom shoes made. They only cost $30 for custom-made leather shoes in any design and color/pattern you want. All you have to do is take a picture of the shoes to them and they'll be ready in a week or so.


The VM Project Team minus Kurt, Yaro, and Yasemin

Sokly took Nancy, Steve, Ed, and I to the National Stadium where we took a brief tour of the complex in the fading twilight. Rows of Cambodians lined the top area of around the stadium track doing various forms of aerobic exercises. It was amazing to see the stadium and the huge concrete cantilevers that Vann Molyvann employed in the prodigiously throughout the complex. After watching the National Swimming Team practice in the Olympic pool, we watched the national basketball team scrimmage in the almost abandoned stadium and walked around to some fruit stands on the street. We stopped at one because Sokly said it had the best fruit and bought dragonfruit, longan, and oranges. The longan are from Takaman (?) where Leakhena's (finally learned how to spell her name) house is and they are some of the best longan I've had, despite their extremely large seeds. If it weren't for the size of the seed, the longan might be comparable to a lychee.


Fruit stall streetside

For dinner, Sokly and Darren (Sokly's best friend) took us to a Chinese place for some local Chinese food. I already wrote about the large population of Chinese here, so this was some pretty authentic stuff. I ordered "Black Chicken Soup" while the others had bitter-melon soup and duck soup. I figured the black chicken soup would be basic broth with pieces of chicken and veggies in it, or perhaps like congee porridge with chicken in it. When the food arrived to my great surprise I found a bowl of black soup with an ENTIRE CHICKEN in it. All they did was strip its feathers and plop it into a bowl of soup seasoned with various strange ingredients such as ginseng, longan, some fungus, roots, black lumpy things, livers, and pig intestines among other unidentifiable things. Luckily Ed ordered the same thing as I did, so we shared the experience of "Black Chicken Soup" together. Also, the chicken was ACTUALLY BLACK. Darren explained that the chicken is a particular type that is black, even the meat was black in some places.


Black Chicken Soup

As of now, we're planning the trip to Kep this weekend and I'm really excited!

The model's done!

Here's a picture of the finished model

The director of the FCC (French Cultural Center) came today to check out our operation before locking in a deal for an exhibition in their main gallery. I'm not quite sure when the show is going to be, but I'm pretty sure I won't be here for it. Tonight is Bill's talk at Meta House, one of the local art galleries here, so we're all going to that. It's also the grad students' last night as they depart tomorrow to get ready to start school again.

Working through the Weekend

The Facade of IFL Building E including the area that we're making a detail model of

So this weekend wasn't too exciting because we had to work on Saturday and Sunday to make up for the long weekend we took when we went to Siem Reap last week. I was working on the south elevations of the VM house but am waiting for the plans to finish them. We've also started work on a small detailed section model of the IFL (Institute for Foreign Languages) Building E. We're making it out of basswood and it's pretty challenging to cut everything by hand (oh laser cutter how I miss thee!) and I had to remake a piece like 4 times. It's good for my craft skills and nice to be able to concentrate on producing a well-crafted model without feeling a lot of pressure to finish like I did back in studio at school.


Another shot of IFL Building E with the pond to collect runoff rainwater and to help keep the area cooler

On Saturday Nancy and I went with Sokly to two of his friends' birthday parties. While waiting for him to get ready at his house, his mom showed us the photo album from Sokly's sister's wedding. It was really thick and kind of funny to look at all the pictures of the bride and groom in at least 5 different outfits. The groom never smiled in any of the pictures, but the bride always did. There were also pictures of some kind of ritual involving passing fruit between the two families. Another popular memento seemed to be portraits of the bride and groom in prom-like poses in front of various backgrounds including in front of a Little Mermaid-esque underwater castle, in an ideal home complete with a portrait of another of their wedding pictures on the shelf with a portrait of the bride in the background of that portrait, and in many of the shots the happy couple was standing on a 101 Dalmatians rug. The wedding was right when the grad students arrived earlier in July so they had the chance to experience that cultural extravaganza complete with Cambodian party dancing.

I also met Sokly's little nephew who is adorable and about 2 years old, I think. He was studying Chinese for his Chinese school, which is apparently very popular for the large population of Chinese living in Phnom Penh. We even drove through the area of town where the Chinese live (a kind of China Town) complete with a Chinese temple. I'm not sure, but it seems like there is some tension between the ethnic Chinese and Khmer but it isn't really something that is talked about much. The Chinese were apparently harshly oppressed under the Khmer Rouge and Vietnamese rule. According to Wikipedia, Chinese New Year was only celebrated again for the first time in 1991 since before the Khmer Rouge in 1975.

Last night after work in the office, Lekina and her brother took Nancy and I to a "Suki Soup" place. Suki Soup is basically the Cambodian version of Hot Pot and derives apparently from the Japanese "sukiyaki". The place we went to was called City Suki Soup and it was really really delicious. Unlike traditional sukiyaki, a common suki soup ingredient are various types of meatballs with fish, shellfish, chicken, and combination. They even had a special type called "millionaire balls" with mushroom, shrimp, and either chicken or fish. They also cook the beef slices by placing them in a ladle with holes in it and letting it boil in the water. I guess it's to stop the meat from getting lost and over cooked in the hot pot. Hopefully we'll get to go there again because it was a really nice place and the whole meal was only $22 to feed 4 people a huge and filling meal!

Nancy's Birthday and Yaro's BBQ

Nancy's Birthday Rice Cake

So yesterday was Yaroslevna's (?) last day before she went back to Russia. She's one of the two Russian students working on the project along with four grad students, four Cambodians, Nancy, and myself. Lekina (?) is the other Russian working with us and she had a BBQ at her house as a farewell party for Yaroslevna that also doubled as Nancy's birthday party. Lekina's family barbequed beef, fish, chicken wings, served a some veggies, and ended the evening with palm fruit rice cakes. After dinner we engaged in various games of badminton, frisbee, and basketball all at the same time.
Lekina's family also has a plantation where they grow lots of bananas. Her family gave us two big bushels of bananas to take back to our house so we have lots and lots of bananas to snack on. The bananas here are more like apple bananas: small, short, and sweet. According to Sokly (one of the Cambodians who works with us) there are four different types of bananas in Cambodia.


Sokly, Palm Fruit Rice Cakes, and Cambodia's Favorite Beer

Our next stop for the evening after freshening up at home was the launch party for Cambodia's first fashion magazine, "F". It was held at Club White, a new establishment across from the Intercontinental Hotel. The streetside was crowded with loads of cars (mainly Lexuses or Toyotas) while inside it was probably the loudest club I've ever been to. After the mandatory pat down and passing the weapons check, the club was so loud that the bartenders couldn't hear what I or Nancy were ordering and resorted to handing us a pen and paper to write down our orders. The music at the club was fine and everyone had a great time dancing despite the unbearable heat and insufficient air conditioning. Everyone from the VM Project who went left around midnight because many people were tired and had a long work day.

Life in the House

Vann Molyvann's house from across Mao Tse Tung (?) Blvd

I've been so busy catching up on the Angkor excursion that I haven't had time to write about the past few days. We've been really busy at work surveying Vann Molyvann's house for the past four days because he and his family are leaving PP for Siem Reap this weekend. Today was our last day to survey the house and I mainly worked on the south elevation, north east elevation and site plan. Vann Molyvann (the architect whose works we're working to preserve) built his house with a hyperbolic roof inspired by vernacular Brazilian roofs. It's built on a square grid with the second and third levels pivoted 45 degrees so as to take advantage of the view outside from all four facades. His style of brickwork and exposed corners with horizontal lines reminds me of Frank Llyod Wright with a bit of Corbusier thrown in with the brise soleil that surround all four sides. Vann Molyvann still lives there with his wife, Trudy, and an army of Khmer helpers (a driver, cook, door man, and maybe more). We sat down and listened to Bill read an article about the house and VM's life. It's really amazing how he managed to escape from Cambodia with his whole family at the beginning of the Khmer Rouge.


The southern facade of VM's house

Life in the house at Street 228 has been fairly quiet. We got two new housemates after Yasemin left on Saturday: Kyle Brooks, a photographer from the states, and Stephen Chen, a Princeton-graduated film maker. Stephen is now my room mate and he has a lot of serious looking camera equipment. For the past two weeks we've also had a cook in the house named Rett. She comes on an irregular schedule that I haven't quite figured out yet and cooks meals that are consistently good, but tonight's was particularly exceptional. It consisted of sauteed green veggies, fried fish, some kind of chicken curry, and watermelon for dessert. All for the low price of $4/person/meal! As a side note, the fish I've had here has been pretty fresh and delicious because it mainly comes from the Tonle Sap lake or from the Mekong river. I'm not sure exactly what it looks like, but it tastes pretty good.



Rett at the stove!


Our delicious meal

Weekend Recap 3: The Big Loop

A common sign around Angkor

Day three in Siem Reap started off much the same as the others with an early start and french bread, scrambled egg, and banana breakfast. Noi was our driver again and we set off first and foremost for Preah Khan with a short stop at Baksei Chamkrong, a seemingly unfinished brick temple outside the main gates of Angkor Thom. With its austere and undecorated facade, it looked almost like one of the Mayan temples from Tikal. The climb up the steep staircase was perhaps the steepest one so far.



Baksei Chamkrong in the early morning

Preah Khan, the largest ruin of the day was uncrowded as it was still fairly early in the morning. The low sprawling temple complex is unique among the Angkor ruins for one of the only two-story buildings still surviving. There were also some large trees ripping apart the ruins with the most distinctive feature of Preah Khan (meaning Sacred Sword) was its wide causeways leading to each of the smaller buildings. Another prominent element is the extremely long central axis along the East and West entrances passing straight through the central sanctuary.



Two-story building at Preah Khan

Up next was Preah Neak Pean, a prime example of Khmer engineering, and according to LP the inspiration for the pool at the next big Las Vegas resort, Encore Angkor *barf*. In plan it's a central square pool surrounded by four identical square pools oriented along the cardinal directions. The central square pool has a round island temple in the center and would have been surrounded by the water kept in the reservoir pools. The staircase along the central pool has an opening that leads down a pipe exiting from the mouth of a statue in a recessed opening in each of the four surrounding pools. Anyways, I thought the waterworks was an interesting feature that was readily transparent in this example of Khmer architecture.



Drainage from the main pond into the secondary ponds

Following a little sketch at Preah Neak Pean and a fuchsia dragonfruit snack, Nancy and I made brief stops at Ta Som, the Eastern Mebon, and Pre Rup. Pre Rup is similar to Ta Keo with its high staircase and central symbolic tower of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. The staircase was quite a hike before reaching some well preserved plasterwork and a nice view.


Almost to the top of the Pre Rup stairs

Up next was Banteay Kdei, interesting because of its state of prolonged decay and location across from Sra Srang, a sacred ablutions pool.

Banteay Kdei and its crumbling walls.
Prasat Kravan, a temple built not by a king, but by a noble person was one of Nancy's favorites. The brick construction is also a little unusual and well-preserved. Our last stop on the Big Loop was Phnom Bakheng, a popular spot for sunset viewing because it's up on a hill after a little hike up from the road. You can also go up the hill via elephant, but Nancy and I chose to walk and enjoy the woods. We left before the sunset because it was really overcast and you couldn't even see the sun through the clouds. There was a great view of the Western Baray or man-made reservoir over 7 km long.


The view from the top of Phnom Bakheng

Returning to Bun Kao Guesthouse and a shower later, Nancy and I ate dinner at a little restaurant where I ate a scrumptious pumpkin casserole and Nancy, in a fit of longing for Western food, had pancakes. That night we explored the area around Pub Street, but didn't have a drink and wandered into a photo gallery with some excellent pieces by a famous photographer who I can't quite remember now.

Weekly Engrish 1: Dr. Fish

Here's a little segment I hope to make a weekly thing with this blog called Engrish. Once a week I'll try to post an example of amusing Engrish (Poorly translated English).

I saw this sign in the Night Market while browsing around:

Weekend Recap 2: The Little Loop

So our second day in Siem Reap was a bit more hectic. Yasemine left early in the morning back to Phnom Penh as she flew out on Saturday. Nancy and I went with Narat in a tuk tuk to begin the little loop of Angkor. The little loop is one of two well-traveled routes to see the temples of Angkor. As I learned upon my arrival, there is waayy more than just Angkor Wat at the site. In fact, the biggest complex there is Angkor Thom, the great city built by king Jayavarman VII (1181 - 1219) or "the Donald Trump of Angkor" as Lonely Planet likes to call him. Nancy and I made our first stop Bayon temple, a Buddhist temple glorifying the bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, and adorned with many multi-directional faces. It was a nice place to start the day as it is one of the most popular temples and the crowds had not yet arrived at 7:00.


The faces at Bayon

Next up was the rest of Angkor Thom including Baphuon with its enormous reclining Buddha relief built into the back of it, the royal palace and Phimeanakas and its high staircase. One of my favorites was Preah Palilay, a temple a little distant from the center of Angkor Thom but not crowded and with a magical atmosphere. Tep Pranam, Preah Pithu, the Terraces of the Leper King and Elephants were all very nice too. It was a big complex and took a long time to explore. We also spent a lot of our time evading the persistent sales children prowling around the complex trying to sell their wares. It was my first experience with children selling things on this trip and I unknowingly refused a very good deal on 3 magnets for $1.


Preah Palilay

Before leaving Angkor Thom, we changed drivers because Narat had to go back to the hostel to help another customer or something (didn't quite understand his explanation). I was worried about him because of his harsh fall yesterday, but our new driver, Noi was just as nice as Narat. We went to Ta Prohm next to see the temple being devoured by trees. Unfortunately the trees at Ta Prohm are trimmed and manicured so unlike the wilderness at Beng Mealea. It is also the site of the now-iconic (thanks to Lonely Planet) "Tomb Raider Tree" where Angelina Jolie posed in her movie. The layout of this temple was nice and fairly easy to navigate. Somewhere between Angkor Thom and Lunch we went to Chau Say Tevoda and Thommanon, two relatively minor temples near Angkor Thom. A short stop at Ta Keo afforded a magnificent view from the unfinished temple.



The Tree and I

By that time it was getting late and Nancy and I wanted to see sunset at Angkor Wat (it faces West unlike most other Angkor temples), so Noi convinced us to skip Banteay Kdei and Sra Srang (the last few stops on the Little Loop) and go straight to Angkor Wat. Once I stepped through the main gate and beheld the glory of Angkor Wat, I understood why it is hailed as a world wonder. The perfect symmetry and calculated approach down the central causeway make for an experience that builds up suspense before reaching the 3-leveled central sanctuary itself. In order to avoid the crowds, Nancy and I decided to tour the long gallery carvings around the perimeter of the first level. After dodging Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Italian, Spanish, and French tour groups, we deciphered the history carved in the walls. Like a graphic novel it described myths and the reign of Suryavarman II, the builder of Angkor. About halfway around the perimeter, the clouds opened up and let down the most intense torrent of rain that I've seen here so far. Thunder boomed through the sky and crowds touring the grounds of the temple rushed to get inside. Even the tour groups in the outer galleries with us retreated into the innards of the temple. Nancy and I had the entire place to ourselves. It was a creepy feeling looking down the great hallway and seeing no hoards clambering to see the bas-reliefs.




After enough quietude (despite the rolling thunder), we ascended to the second level and found the huddled masses. It was an amazing sight to see the drainage engineering of the ancient Khmer in action with water pouring off the eaves and into strategically placed basins that acted as ponds for water retention and drainage into the large pond outside the temple and further into the surrounding moat. At the third level of Angkor Wat, the central sanctuary was quickly flooding with pouring rain. Luckily, Nancy and I both have waterproof Gortex North Face shoes and had no qualms about jumping into the watery courtyard. Along with us were three crazy Koreans who frolicked about in the rain and under the waterfall-like runoff coming from the upper sanctuary.

Exploring around to the back, we found ourselves alone with a guard and asked him if we could go up into the barricaded upper sanctuary. He chortled and proposed "I take you? How much?" Nancy and I agreed to two people for $15 after bargaining down from $10/person. We scrambled over the little fence and ambled up the restoration wooden stairs. Nobody was there and scaffolding clad some parts of the central tower, a symbolic representation of Mount Meru, home of the Hindu gods. The guard guided us around, always being sure that nobody else was around the next corner. In the central tower was an altar to four Buddha statues. Nancy gave a donation, which the guard I think ripped and tossed up to the altar. Coming down was a bit more of a challenge as the rain had stopped and people were beginning to filter back into the lower courtyard. The guard told us to hide behind some walls while he looked for a clearing in the crowds. After waiting about 7 minutes in the unflattering odor of bat guano, the guard pulled out his cellphone and texted (presumably his other guard friends). Five minutes later after a surreptitious descent we were in an empty section of the courtyard cordoned off by other security guards. After paying our guide, we melted back into the crowd retreating from shepherding security guards claiming "closing time to leave". Nancy and I celebrated our little victory with Cambodian corruption when we crossed the causeway and found Noi patiently waiting in his tuk tuk.



That night after a Thai dinner, we explored the Night Market for a nice foot massage ($4 for 15 min). I bought a couple of t-shirts and souvenirs and we went back to Bun Cao guesthouse for a sound night's sleep.

Weekend Recap 1: Siem Reap, Beng Mealea, Kampong Phuluk, Roluos Group

So I just got back to PP from Siem Reap this afternoon. Nancy and I took a 12:30 bus and arrived home around 6:30. This morning we ate breakfast in our fantastic hostel (more about it later) and then went shopping in town for souvenirs before heading to the Butterfly Garden Restaurant for a light lunch. The garden was enclosed with hundreds of butterflies http://www.butterfliesofangkor.com/enter_garden.html check it out.


Nancy and the Butterflies

So here's a review of what happened over the weekend. Nancy, Yasemin, and I left on WEdnesday morning for Siem Reap and saw the Museum when we arrived there in the afternoon. Our lodging was at the Bun Kao Guesthouse, the kindest hostel in the area. Our 3-bed room was well-equipped with a fan and a/c and a private bathroom. Each morning was a free breakfast of eggs, bread, and a banana served by one of Mr. Bun Kao's daughters (grand-daughters? great grand daughters?). The place was definitely family-run and everytime we came back to we were greeted by a child sitting on the couch watching an amusing-looking television show and Mr. Bun Kao behind the main desk. The place was quiet, albeit a bit out of the center of town but this was not a problem as everything in Siem Reap is very walkable.

The next morning we woke up for an early start at 6:30 to go to Beng Mealea, a far temple about 70 km from Siem Reap. We hired a tuk tuk driver through our hostel named Narat (?) who was very nice. The ride out there was a refreshing opportunity to see the Cambodian countryside firsthand. Villagers live in thatched roof houses and food vendors parked their carts along the busy main road. It wasn't quite a highway as there were only two lanes, but drivers here don't pay attention to lines anyway. Beng Mealea was an exciting first ruin to see as it is pretty much untouched and unrestored. Roots and vines have clearly ripped apart the temple as piles of rubble lay strewn about the interior walls. Yasemin, Nancy, and I clambered around over the rubble led by a local guide who sort of trapped us into a tour. He knew where he was going and gave a great description of everything we were seeing. He led us to the old libraries and pointed out places and ponds of interest, as the Khmer were very fond of surrounding their buildings with water. We paid him $4 at the end (quite a good pay for a great tour) as we wouldn't have been able to find our own way around the ruins. As we were leaving we spotted a fashion photoshoot for some Japanese magazine, which presented an odd contrast of ancient ruin and modern glamour.


Beng Mealea ruins

Next up was lunch at a nice restaurant placed near a river before charging towards Kampong Phuluk. Kampong Phuluk is one of the so called "floating villages" on the Tonle Sap lake, the primary water source and natural miracle of Cambodia. The drive was pretty long down there, about 1 hour or so before we hit the end of the road and a detour. The road ended where the water level had previously risen and they had not yet had a chance to repair it. August is the rainy season in Cambodia and the Tonle Sap floods to expand from 2500 sq km to more than 13,000 sq km with its maximum depth increasing about 8 m. The water was quite high when we arrived, so we had to transfer (and pay $15!) to a moto (moped) and then to a boat. Sitting on the back of a moto with Yasemin was a bumpy and exciting ride. The road was in pretty bad condition and should have more accurately been called a sandy trail with large puddles. Suddenly, the large clouds looming overhead let loose and we were caught in a torrent of pounding rain riding on a moto. We pulled over on the side and hid under (literally, they raise their houses above the ground to avoid the flood) a local woman's house. She was hiding along with us and between the cracks in the bamboo floor of the house above was her curious toddler peering down at the three foreigners who appeared below her feet.

The rain stopped and we continued by moto to a river bank lined with boats. We boarded a long, low boat with 10 chairs on its covered deck and puttered down the narrow estuary. The sides of the boat were assaulted with the branches of sunken trees as we squeezed our way to the main river and on to Kampong Phuluk. All the houses were raised very high off the ground and people carried out their daily routines on the various levels between the water and the main house. Children swam, splashed, and bathed in the muddy river water. Our boat continued through the village into the sunken mangrove forest. None of the mangrove's trademark gnarled roots were visible, only strange canopies peeking out from below the water. The mangrove forest floods in the wet season and is a normal forest in the dry season. Many fisher people were setting up nets and traps in the area before resting in hammocks they tied between the uprooted canopies. The main lake was a vast sea of fresh water muddled with the runoff from recent rains. Deforestation is a huge problem here and causes lots of runoff into the Tonle Sap, potentially endangering the lake itself as the silt buildup makes the lake shallower and shallower each year. The lake is so enormous that there is a distinct horizon line and the boat rocked from the sway of choppy waves once we left the protection of the flooded forest.


Approaching the floating village

Turning back, we landed in Kampong Phuluk village and walked around down the main street, presumably the highest point of ground in the area as it was the only bit of actual land. All the houses are lined on this strip of dirt with their high supports and rear ends (of front doors?) sticking out over the water. We met some young kids who wanted to practice their English with us and we chatted with them before getting back on the boat and returning to shore and back on the motos. Once again, a deluge poured down on us right before we reached the shelter of the moto-tuk tuk transfer stop. Before the rain was up, our driver, Narat, went over to the tuk tuk carriage and lifted it to reattach it to his moto when he suddenly slipped in the mud and the tuk tuk carriage fell on him! I was so shocked because he just lay there for a second not moving. I ran out there to help him with a few of the other Khmer with us and he got up alright and we helped him reattach the tuk tuk to his moto. He was unfortunately covered with mud on his backside but appeared to be alright. When the rain stopped and after Narat had a rest, we all got back in the tuk tuk to head to the Roulus Group temples.


Yasemin and a resident of Kampong PHuluk

On the way to the temples we were caught in a cow traffic jam! The cows were moving somewhere but Narat successfully navigated between and around to get past them. The Roluos Group temples are older than the main ones at Angkor Wat, but were equally interesting and uncrowded. We viewed some of them in the rain and ended up visiting three temples: Preah Ko, Bakong, and Lolei before returning back to Siem Reap.


Nancy up top at Preah Ko


We freshened up at our hostel room before grabbing dinner with Bill in downtown Siem Reap near Pub Street. It was an early night that night because we were exhausted from our day of adventuring.

TWITTER >:o and Yoga :D

The afternoon consisted of working on stuff in Illustrator and setting up my very own Twitter account. You can follow my feed here http://twitter.com/Retto22. I finally gave in to the social networking site, but I promise it'll be my last one.

Went to yoga this afternoon instead of aerobics at the Nat'l Stadium. It was an unusual style of yoga, one that I've never done before. Here's the website for it:http://www.kundaliniyogacambodia.org/The people there were adorable and invited Yasemin and I for tea after the session. There were two people from Australia and one mystery woman who didn't stick around for conversation. The instructor was a petit Khmer woman with a fairly thick accent and the class was held on the roof terrace of this nice building about a 10 minute walk away from our house.

After tea, we walked home in the rain and were late to another scrumdiddlydumptious dinner from our cook. We had guests over for dinner and I felt kind of bad about being late, but they were just other student-types from PP. Natalie and Sylvia, I believe who were very nice. Post-dinner I had a conversation with Yas and Nancy about our expedition to Siem Reap tomorrow. Things will all work out, and I'm really excited about seeing the temples!

A Day at the Office

So I'm at work now, but I don't have anything to do at the moment because my computer is being fixed and until I get it back and set up AutoCAD, I can't really do much in the office. This morning I went back to the IFL (Institute for Foreign Languages) and went on the roof to take some measurements with the Cambodians in our group (Soklay, Chhoy, Pagna #1 and Pagna #3 [so called because of their year in school]). Vann Molyvann (the architect whose buildings we're documenting) did three buildings at the IFL, but we only worked on the biggest one today. It's three or four stories tall with a large inner atrium and fairly good ventilation. I wish I could post some pictures of it, but they'll have to come later. The people here are fairly friendly and sometimes speak passable English, but the Cambodians we're working with are very well educated and their English is very proficient.

Cambodia appears to have pleasant relations with many other nations as there are monuments to friends such as Vietnam, Thailand, a center for Korean Friendship, and a Cambodia-Japan Connection Center or something like that (they call it the CJCC) on the campus of the IFL. It was done by a Japanese architect and is a typical Japanese building with fine proportions and made with that grey stone ubiquitous to the Tokyo scene.

One important fact to know about Cambodia is that the wattage is 220V (I think. Whatever's the higher one than in the States) and since I'm currently using Nancy's computer with the charger that's used to US voltage, her computer is supercharged and prone to shocking me if I touch any part other than the keys. It's actually a bit unpleasant.

My other impressions of this developing nation include the following:
It's really frightening to cross the street
Riding motos is nerve-racking even if I know the driver, even more so if I don't
They really like crispy money here
The "new rich" as they locals call them love to drive Lexuses and Land Rovers and plaster huge stickers on the side of their cars with the logo and name
The fruit is exotic and okay, even though I've had some of it before at home. It all seems to be less sweet than what we have at home, but perhaps that's because I don't know where to buy the good stuff. One of my new favorites is dragonfruit.

I guess that's it for now. Nancy, Yasemin, and I are leavin for Siem Reap tomorrow morning to see the ruins of Angkor Wat and other stuff too. I booked a hostel last night on hostelworld for $7.50/night because the place that Nancy and the grad students previously stayed, the Golden Banana, was all full.

It's almost time for lunch here, so I think I'm going to go on a lunch break and then I get to go to the National Stadium in the afternoon for the first time! Apparently I have to measure some dimensions for the pool building.

First Few Days in Phnom Penh!

The flight was a long one from Maui to Oahu, then from Oahu to Kansai where I had a 5 hour layover. Then from Kansai to Bangkok where I had another 5 hour layover because my flight got pushed back a couple of hours later. The flight from Bangkok to Phnom Penh was nice and I sat next to a Khmer man and his daughter who live both in Switzerland and Phnom Penh. Nancy and Yasemin met me at the airport and we traveled by tuk tuk back to the house where I unpacked and unwound.

A nice 2 or 3 hour nap later, we went out to dinner at Romday (?), a restaurant/NGO that trains waiters in a nice villa that serves delicious Khmer cuisine. I had Tonle Sap fish Amok, the national dish here, which was yummy! Then we went out for a night on the town to some bars where sleezy old foreigners were taking advantage of poor Cambodian prostitutes. We didn't like the vibe there and went to a different fancy bar and then to a nighclub called Heart of Darkness. It was a hip scene with bumpin' music and good times. After a bit ó drama outside the club, we went home to sleep.

The next day, we just slept in and hung out. Nancy took me to the market and we bought some food and I purchased a new wallet because I don't want to carry around the fancy Coach wallet that Aunty Tina gave me for graduation because nobody accepts credit cards here anyways. It baffles me how they use both dollars and Khmer real for all transactions here even at the grocery stores and stuff. The price comes up in both dollars and real and they give you change in a combination of the two currencies, which can get confusing sometimes >.< Yasemin, Nancy, and I went for a promenade around the park to see the Independence Monument and saw children flying kites and playing ball on the grassy sward. We also went to two Buddhist Temples, or Wats and poked around. Dinner was at a nice little restaurant that had two cute puppies, but during the course of our meal there was a power outage and the whole city went black. We ended up finishing our food by candle light and enjoyed some fresh fruits afterwards. The DVD store across the street was where we purchased the new Harry Potter movie for $2 and we watched it when we got back to the house that evening.

Today was the first official day of work and I took my computer to the repair store where they said it would take two to three days to fix. I came back on a tuk tuk and haggled with the driver for a good five minutes after I got home. From then, I went on a site visit with Sookly and Pagna #1, two of the Cambodians who are working on the project with us. The site was neat at the university and we hung around there taking pictures and failing to get on the roof to take some measurements, but it was okay. It rained a little and when it stopped we came back to the office to have some lunch while Nancy and I ran a couple of errands getting her phone minutes and some new soymilk because the stuff we bought yesterday was pretty gross. In the afternoon I did some CADding until Chidimma from Yale came knocking on our door around 6:30. It was great to see a friend from Yale and I really missed her for the time we've been apart. It's just so strange not to have all our friends so close to us anymore. Chidimma was traveling with two of her Yalie friends from China, Alex and Eric and they were in Phnom Penh just for tonight. They stayed for dinner and we caught up with a nice visit afterwards. Dinner tonight was fantastic as we had the cook come tonight and for $4 per person she cooked up a storm of fabulous dishes including some of the best Amok I've had so far! Now it should be off to bedtime because Yasemin and I are going to try to go to a soup place for breakfast tomorrow morning which means waking up at 6:45!

Filling in the Gaps

So I know I haven't written on this for a longg time since I first started it, but here's the next entry. Just to give an update to any followers out there, after graduating from Yale, I spent a week in New York with my family seeing the sights, etc. then I went to Europe on a 10-day cruise with my mom. The cruise was great and I had a fantastic time seeing the Greek Isles and the Aegean Sea.

Here's a quick rundown of the itinerary:
Began in Rome from Civitavvechia,
Sorrento/Naples where Mom and I explored Herculanaeum (?) a.k.a. a much smaller and less crowded (and less hot) version of Pompeii
Back to Santorini where we went to the archaeological museum
Mykonos and the ruins of Delos
Volos and the Meteora monasteries
Istanbul for two nights where I visited the lovely Yasemin
Craggy Chios to see the Nea Moni and sample mastic soda, dessert, and soap
Ephasus and Kusadasi for a visit to St. John's Basilica and the obligatory carpet co-op
Finally ending in Athens with an overnight stay and double visit to the archaeological museum

After that, Mom flew home to Maui and I flew to Madrid to see Breanna and Jenta (friends from High School). Madrid was a blast and I really liked the people there the best because of their welcoming and friendly spirit. There's a unique vibe to the people there that makes them all seem approachable. Jerry (former roommate from Yale) met me in Madrid and we took off from there on another action-packed adventure:
Madrid for a visit with Bre and Jenta
Then Jerry and I headed south to Cordoba to see the magnificent mosque
We met up with Breanna, Jenta, and Niwat (?sorry!) in Granada some highlights of which were the Alhambra palace and the Arab Baths
After realizing that Cordoba was too hot (42 Celsius! yikes!), Jerry and I decided to head north to Bilbao where we visited Gehry's titanium-clad museum
San Sebastian was our next stop, a touristy and hip beach town where we met Emma from England and stayed in a strict hostel
It was still too hot, so we headed up to Normandy to see Mont St. Michel and a walk in the mud and stayed in a little cabin village
Next up was Bayeux to see the world-famous tapestry and a nice cathedral where we stayed in a super budget hostel
From there we took a bus trip to visit Omaha Beach and the American Cemetery and Pont Orson (?) where the battles of D-Day took place
Catching a train to Tours was the start of our next adventure where we rented bikes and caught the train (ironically) to some of the chateaux of the Loire Valley.
We also biked aimlessly around the area and stayed overnight in Blois before biking to more Chateaux and taking another bus tour to maximize our chateaux-ing. This was also where we got the brilliant idea to enter the Amazing Race television show and we started our video at one of the Chateaux.
After managing to make it back to Tours, Jerry and I took an overnight train to Marseilles where we stayed in Le Corbusier's Unite d'Habitation
After one night in mild luxury, it was off to Nice to stay with Uncle Daniel and Aunty Nadia in a little hotel near their house. Aunty Nadia's scrumptious meals were the first homecooked food I had eaten in 6 months!
Uncle Daniel took us to Monaco where we visited the aquarium and the Grimaldi Palace.
Finally after that, I flew to San Francisco and Jerry to Tehran for some work.

San Fransisco was the site of the biannual Wong Family reunion where over 150 Wongs gather to catch up and see our vast and distant relatives. I stayed there for a week with Tricia and spent time with Grandma, Grandpa, the Boys, Uncle Rick, and even Aunty Deets and Uncle George came to this one. Tricia and I went to the William Stout Bookstore where I found some cool books and I also went to a Giant's game with the family and Aunty Jaylene and Uncle Brian for a blast!

Leaving San Francisco, I returned home for the first time in over 6 months (the longest I've EVER been away from home!). It was nice to be back in my own bed and I had forgotten how plush it is. There was no respite at home, however as I began immediately studying for the GRE once some of the books and flashcards Scott sent me had arrived. I studied for several hours a day and went to the usual doctor's appointments, etc. I took the test on Oahu on July 22 at the UH Manoa campus. Luckily my scores turned out to be way better than I ever scored on the practice tests, even though I didn't finish the math section completely. I think I scored well enough that I'm not going to take it again (depending on what my writing score was, which I'll find out later). I also had a chance to go out to dinner with Aunty Dorine and Aunty Joy and Cousin Sherie to celebrate their birthdays. The last day I was there, I ate lunch with Aunty Kaki at Ala Moana and she gave me a bunch of great tips about traveling in Southeast Asia.

Returning home after passing the GREs, I immediately had to start unpacking all my stuff from college. All my clothes, books, art, etc. was sitting in eight boxes in the garage because I hadn't had a chance to unpack. Dad and I went to Home Depot to buy two extra bookshelves to fit all my stuff and I also started to pack for Cambodia and Japan. I had to prepare all the stuff that I am taking to Japan as I am flying straight from Phnom Penh (I can finally spell it!) to Kyoto on August 31. We celebrated Mom's birthday on the 29th and I left for Cambodia the next morning on the 30th.