TravelStream™ news feed for member llsadventures on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/llsadventures en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:30:53 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1193907360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1193907360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1193907360/tpod.html Sun, 18 Nov 2007 16:30:53 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Cooking Class
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195170540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195170540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195170540/tpod.html Thu, 15 Nov 2007 19:11:46 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Taichung, Taiwan

Hello,
Today we went for tea.. Taichung is said to be known for its teahouses.....and famous for their pearl tea and bubble tea.....We went to a lovely teahouse....near the flower market... Amy, who is a friend of Amy's met us there. luckily she could order for us.....Amy(USA) had bubbly lemon jello tea, Amy(Taiwan) had bubbly jamine tea and I had bubbly carmel milk tea. delicious... It is cold and foamy ... the girl next to us had a mixture of jellos tea.
very unusual... beautiful gardens and a fish pond filled with very large fish .....
Karly , Amy's niece and her friend Eva stopped by while we were at tea for a short visit...
Then on to Amy, Steve and Karly's favorite Thai restaurant ..... Amy(Taiwan) and Eva also joined us... We had morning glory greens among several other dishes that we Thai eaters are familiar with .. they served a delicous lemon water with dinner and a small dish of green papaya sherbert for dessert ....
After dinner steve excused himself for a quiet evening at home and the five ladies visited the night market... there I completed my list of things to try ... I had pearl tea with small and large pearls(tapioca)in it ... unusal .glad I tried it .. but the bubbly tea was better to me...
Then I had stinky tofu.... from what I can figure a square of tufu is soaked in vinegar and then deep fried and served with some grilled vegetables on the side... the smell of it cooking will make you want to throw up(you can always figure out where they are selling it ) but the finished product is not too bad .. I might try it again...
there were some bricks of rice soaked with boars blood but I managed to resist that...
A very fun evening with Amy. Karly and their friends.
Tomorrow , Friday Amy and I are going to the morning market and the jade market.... then home so I can finish packing up.... and then a car and driver is picking me up at 5 pm to drive me to Taipei so I can catch my flight to LAX and try to make a quick call to Elaine 's former college roommate Iris.
This is has been a fun, informative , eye opening vacation . I have met great people from all over the world and Amy, Steve and Karly have been great hosts...
Will be great to get home but this was something I should have done years sooner..
I will give you all a final update when I am home ..
Thank you all for traveling with me
Linda
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195089600/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195089600/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195089600/tpod.html Wed, 14 Nov 2007 20:38:54 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Taichung, Taiwan

Hi all,
Today Amy and I watched the movie The Killing Fields which won a best actor oscar, which is based on a true story from that time period. After being in Cambodia and seeing one of the over 360 burial sites and the actual torture prison , we decided the movie was "killing Fields lite"..... but no one would ever be able to watch the true stories...
Then to a baseball game Taiwanese style.....woow!! Alot of pictures did not come out ..may be cause I dropped the camera??? but at any rate it was a wild ride.... Taichung has a beautiful new stadium... The game was sold out ,we had great seats along the first base line....it was a World Cup 2007 playoff game between USA and Taiwan....
Beautiful night under the lights....
TAiwan people bring NOISE to the game , banging sticks, horns, whistles, megaphones.. everyone has something.. I can not describe the sound but it does make the game a lot of fun I banged along with the rest of the group and really had a great time. It was an exciting game too.
USA won but it was a struggle... It was all tied 6-6 in the 7th inning , they had matched us score for score.....then USA went ahead by 4 and it was 10 -6 in the 9th .. bottom of the 9th Taiwan was at bat and they loaded the bases .... managed to bring 1 run in but easily could have won... WOW
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195001880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195001880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1195001880/tpod.html Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:14:48 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Taichung, Taiwan

Hello,
I slept til 10am how am I going to start getting up at 5am again?
Amy and I did errands... parking is an art.. I can see why Amy would rather zip around on her scooter then try to find parking places .... we were going to have Thai but a parking encounter made us lose our appetite for thai and so we went for lunch at a dumpling restaurant... Are there good Chinese dumpling restaurants in NC??? These were awesome and I am getting pretty darn good with chopsticks..
We had a tray of vegetables dumplings, then a tray of meat and shrimp dumplings and a plate of grilled cabbage and vegetables...
home for a shower and nap...
Then we went for cocktails at the Evergreen hotel for a meeting of the Xpat group of which Amy is a board member.... I met a lot of interesting folks.. The game seems to be how many business cards can you get... I am dismayed that I left my cards home .. I think a Duke card would have been a real prize. Xpats are a group of people who have lived elsewhere and are currently inTaiwan...It is a nice way to make friends and contacts... A lot of the young people I met had gone to college or got their masters in the US....Boston, Kansas.and come back to Taiwan to live.....
Home for a quick sandwich and a few Skip-bo games with Amy and her niece Karly who is living with Amy and Steve and teaching English at a Jr high here in Taiwan...
It is interesting to experience the daily life here and to see the adaptations one has to make to get through the normal routine.....
like moving to a city for us but a lot harder
no pics today but Wed night we are going to a Worldcup baseball game USA vs Taiwan... sold out and I guess baseball games here are a real experience....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194934800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194934800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194934800/tpod.html Tue, 13 Nov 2007 09:45:41 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Taichung, Taiwan

Hi all..
For the past couple years Amy has had to drive to Taipei for Costco shopping or otherwise shop in multiple grocery stores for the supplies she needs...
Well this weekend Costco opened... so we went to check it out...
We filled the cart with meats, cheeses breads, coffee, peanut butter, The Taiwanese shoppers kept peering in our cart .. The cart.was very full.. They were really interested in what Americans buy and since their cooking and refrigeration space is really limited I fear they will never be able to take advantage of those huge Costco carts
.....We checked out and it was $600 US but since Amy has not done heavy duty shopping for 5 or 6 weeks.. I don't think that is too unreasonable...
We wheeled the cart out to the street and I waited with the cart while Amy went and got the car..
As I was waiting ..., 2 young girls brought their cart to the curb to load on the motor scooter... They looked at the scooter and then at their items.... The one girl went off somewhere leaving the other there to puzzle this out...
She had a 5 gal jug of cooking oil, a jar of Prego pasta sauce,a huge box of Pepperidge farm cookies, a bed pillow, a 16" hot pizza, paper plates, and plastic utensils and a couple other items... She seemed determined to carry it all on the scooter, so I started taking pictures
The pillow went on the platform for your feet where her legs would be, the oils and pasta sauce went into the seat compartment.Her friend brought back a box and they loaded the rest of the items into that ... during all this she was puzzling it out... Now she got on the scooter as the driver and her friend handed her the box, which she put between her arms, probably on her knees above the pillow
the friend climbed on the back and held the pizza box out to her left side and off they went.. Amazing......
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194849960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194849960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194849960/tpod.html Mon, 12 Nov 2007 01:50:58 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Taichung, Taiwan

Sunday we went to the 921 Earthquake Museum .. It turns out Taiwan has a major fault line lengthwise In 1999 sept 21 an earthquake swept the country with its center right outside of Taichung....It happened at night so fortunately school was closed but they built this museum aroun the collapsed school and give very comprehensive lessons in the destruction it caused ..and how you can minimize the losses.
Very interesting afternoon
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194748620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194748620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194748620/tpod.html Sun, 11 Nov 2007 21:59:44 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Phomh penh, Cambodia

Today we leave Cambodia and we will both be glad ... there is an atmosphere of "caution" here ..you just arent sure .. Like when we were on our journey on the road... in the beginning the cab driver pulled over and gave this guy some money.... Amy and I didnt think too much of it ... but on reflection it seemed to be a "payoff" of some kind. for driving on the road??? dont know
Before our flight there was pne last site I wanted to see ...Amy was "all pagoded out" so I took a buggy drawn by a motorcycle instead of a bicycle and went tot see the Silver Pagoda, Jade budda and presidential palace.. The floor of the pagoda is made entirely of silver tiles and the budda is entirely made of jade ..all the statues had gems encrusted in them .. it was rather spectacular....the ground were beustiful.. there were a number buildings to explore but I had accomplished my goal.. We arrive back in Taichung in the late evening and slept in very nice soft beds that night ....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194605640/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194605640/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194605640/tpod.html Fri, 09 Nov 2007 06:49:04 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Hello everyone
Tomorrow we are traveling from Pnomh Phen to Ho Chi Minh City to Taipei to Taichung.... So there will be no entry until Sunday night ... There are pictures at the end of this series that deal with the horrendous destruction of the Cambodian people and I am not going to talk about that until Sunday...
This story is our journey from Siem Reap to Phomh Phen
I want you to imagine a trip you normally make of about 200 miles.... For me it will be the road from Raleigh to Charlotte .... Now make the whole trip happen on a 2 lane highway with no shoulders.
We left our hotel at 6am this morning. We had hired a car and driver for the trip ($50.00)
The trip can sometimes take 4 to 6 hours depending on the skill of your driver.
His speed was 60 to 70 mph. Please remember what kind of road you are driving on... Now add some large buses, large vans, motorcycles, bicycles, water buffalo with carts and horses,.. throw in a crash, and a break down on a 2 lane bridge. On the vans place loads of supplies and 12 people in the van .. one sitting between the driver and the window, and on top once we actually saw 7 people.
One of the cars had 7 people and a full trunk with the trunk lip open and lots of supplies and a 11 or 12 year old boy riding in the trunk!!!!! The motorcycles were close enough to touch and the kids riding bicycles were on their way to school ... white shirts, blue skirts ..as you whizzed by and practically blew them off the road.. no one lost their composure just kept riding. you play chicken with the cars ,buses and vans coming toward you and you pass if there is any room at all .. you do not wait till it is safe. to pass ... oh you also can't buckle your seat belt because you cant find the shorter pieces to do it with ....
There aren't a lot of pictures for this storybut it was an interesting journey.... We were there at 10:30 amd in our hotel ...
There are 2 toilet pictures... one a raised squatter .. and on the picture of our bathroom in this hotell .. I am going up now to try all those water jets...
Love to everyone and thank you all for your help with my kitties plants and ect . ..
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194523620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194523620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194523620/tpod.html Thu, 08 Nov 2007 07:41:46 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

Hello all
Another day of temples..... Saw the most famous and the one reknown for tree roots...
It is hard to imagine the civilization that built these temples over 600 years just disappeared and the temples remained unknown until the late 1800 when there were accidently dscovered....
Cambodia.. has been through a lot but they seem to have jumped from no tourism into the worst of it ... I mean that everything has a fee. and the people's property is being confiscated by the government to built the huge western style hotels....

Tomorrow were have hired a taxi to take us to Pnomph Phen $70. and 4 to 5 hrs)and we are are going to see the killing fields of the Pol Pot regime.... And the school that was turned into a detention center for torture .. The Kymer Rouge under Pol Pot ordered all the citizens of pnomp Phen to leave the city and 600,00 people were forced into the country side within 2 days. the city was virtually empty ... all citizens had to write a biography and if you were a nurse , doctor, teacher or any other kind of professional you were immediately executed.. This killing only stopped when Viet Nam invaded Cambodia and displaced the Kymer Rouge. Other countries did not help and in fact America contributed to the Pol Pot regime....
Gruesome but I think we need to see it
Nice huh?
Sat we return to Tai Chung and the pace will slow a bit.... I hopefully will have time to do some editing and more explanation of what I have seen
I hope everyone is enjoying this... The sucess I have keeping this going depends on the speed of the internet whereever I am
Linda
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194432300/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194432300/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/llsadventures/taiwan_and_more/1194432300/tpod.html Wed, 07 Nov 2007 06:48:05 -0500 To Taiwan, Viet Nam and Cambodia, Linda and Amy's Big Adventure

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Siem Reap, Cambodia

Hello
All Half day at the temple visiting a silk farm
a foot massage and then dinner by the pool
with an Aspera dance and shadow puppets
I want you all to notice the stairs ... for those who know me .. you know I don't too well on them or even on level pavement
There are a lot of textures here for you Elaine

These temples are amazing ... built since the 10th century ..... more temples tomorrow and another foot massage????

Amy is creating an indulgent monster!!!
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