Siem Reap, Cambodia - Day 2

We woke up Friday morning and found Tuna- the hotel dog- outside our door. Jae was thrilled!

Our friends the Heinrichs spent this trip with us. This is our guide "Ra" drawing a map of Ta Prohm, the first temple we saw.

Ta Prohm was incredible. Huge trees have started growing over the tops of the temple. Some scenes from  Lara Croft Tomb Raider were filmed here.

The girls enjoyed being able to climb up, in, and around the temple structures. This is my favorite photo of them from the day.

With the Heinrichs at Ta Prohm.

Tomb Raider spot.

The second temple we saw was Angkor Wat. It was nice to have Ra with us to teach us all about the Khmer people and the significance of the carvings. This is the largest Hindu temple in the world, built in the 1100s. 

A monk in prayer on top of one of the Angkor Wat temples.

Jones on level 2 of Angkor Wat. The climb to level 3 was steep, so children were not allowed.

The view looking out from the top of Angkor Wat.

The last temple we visited is called Bayon. These huge structures with faces carved into them were filled with bats. Noisy bats!

Bayon family picture

A bridge we drove over on the way home.  If we wanted to, and if we didn't have hot/tired children, we could have visited temples all week. So many to see!

After cooling off in the pool, we headed out in tuk tuks for another yummy dinner. Chicken Amok- again!

Siem Reap, Cambodia - Day 1

We arrived at Journeys Within (our fantastic little boutique hotel) and fell in love immediately.  The afternoon was spent by the pool. The girls made friends with an employee's daughter. Leeka was shy and there was a language barrier, but they had fun playing.  Took a tuk-tuk to dinner and had our first taste of Chicken Amok. Absolutely the best thing I've eaten since being in Singapore!

Our First Visitors

In February we had our first visitors! Grandma Lu and Aunt Helen came to stay with us for 10 days.  We had so much fun showing them around Singapore.  We stayed really busy and had lots of fun. Here are some of the highlights:

 Fish Spa- these four really enjoyed it.

 Getting on the Singapore Flyer. The world's largest observation wheel!

 Visiting Chinatown. We spent a little time in the temple and a lot of time shopping the stalls.

 A tour of Gardens by the Bay.

 The Singapore Zoo

 Fun on Sentosa Island. CNY drums, riding the gondola up for the luge, and checking out the Southern most point of continental Asia.

 It was such a fun time for all of us. We're excited for our next visitors. Come see us in Singapore!

Thanksgiving in Bali

We had an amazing Thanksgiving holiday in Nusa Dua,-Bali, Indonesia. We spent our first day at the beach and fun resort pool.  Thanksgiving dinner was an Indonesian buffet with Balinese Legong dancing for entertainment. On the second day we took a road trip to Ubud. Our first stop was Monkey Forest, a forest with several temples and hundreds of wild monkeys. We were told there were over 600 living there and we think we saw at least half of them. The next stop was the rice paddy terraces. We ate our lunch at a small local restaurant with an amazing view.  The last day of our trip was spent back at our resort.  The girls didn't want to leave, they loved Bali, and so did we!

KUSU ISLAND (turtle island)

This was a trip we took back in November. We rode a ferry over to Singapore's Kusu Island and spent the day exploring with our friends.