It’s been exactly two weeks since my last blog post. When I read that out loud, I feel a mixture of gentle relief and slight nausea. This is the longest gap of time with no posts on this blog since I can remember (which really isn’t that far back – I blame the humidity). Two weeks. A part of me is tied up in hysterical, stressed out knots. The other part of me wants to award me a medal. Which would be a good thing except that the medal would be for “Most Neglected Blog in 2010.” Ho boy. Rewind…
I can’t believe we’re here. Honestly. Its such a reality check every time I look outside and see high rise apartments all around us. I can’t believe we’re in Singapore. I can’t believe we’ve been to Malaysia, Cambodia, and Vietnam. I can’t believe we’re about to go to Thailand. And I really can’t believe that we still have a month left. It’s been a surreal trip, dear bloggy blog. Jeff and I have been here in Southeast Asia for a month now, and we’ve done things I have never dreamed of doing and seen things that still fry my brain…
While sitting on top of one of the Angkor temples in Cambodia watching the sunset last week, Jeff and I chatted with a group of travelers that had just arrived from bike riding through Vietnam. They said the city streets in Saigon are filled with more scooters than you imagine. There are no street lines, there are no rules. The smaller and more agile you are within traffic, the better. So the roads are choaked with great masses of swift, honking, noisy scooters. You’ll be shocked, they said. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. Now I’m sitting in a two…
So this isn’t a typical post about kids in South East Asia. In a conversation I had with our guesthouse owner here in Cambodia yesterday, he mentioned that there are two “cliche traps” for traveling photographers: kids and monks. A monk in a temple is easy to find – especially in Siem Reap where Angkor Wat sits right down the street. Its like photographing a pig in a barn. Its gonna be there. Always. But find a monk with a laptop and an iPod – now that’s a photograph (thanks for the example Gordon). Its the same with kids here….
Its a little strange trying to tell a story when you don’t know what the story is. On our way to Tioman Island off of the coast of Malaysia just north of Singapore (more on that later – we can’t wait to share the images from this AMAZING place), we had to stop in a little fishing town called Mersing for the night. Although the gloomy evening sky and thick air threatened a sudden downpour, we grabbed our umbrellas from our hotel room and spent the last hour or so of workable daylight exploring the village with our cameras. We…
I rode my first subway system in Washington DC when I was eight years old, and I can only imagine what my mother went through as she pulled this wide-eyed Idaho farm child through the underground tunnels of a big city. I remember clutching my disposal camera and pulling on my fanny pack to keep it from falling off of my hips as I jogged along after my mom and siblings, looking in every direction but forward. I was so mesmerized by the whole thing – the trains, the people, the whooshing sounds, the smells. I loved putting my ticket…
If you ever come to Singapore, you have to see Chinatown. Its like The Great Gatsby – you’re forced to read it in high school and groan when the teacher mentions it, but you secretly love it and spend weeks upon weeks preparing your final project on the significance of the green light even though all of your friends are doing things like going to the movies and midnight bowling and not totally geeking out?? Or was that just me… Anyhoo, Chinatown is definitely a must-see here, so with the expert guidance of Jeff’s mom, Gina, through the MRT subway…
On our first official day after arriving here in Singapore, Jeff and I took a boat tour along one of the bays with a magnificent view of the city skyline. I know, a boat tour. Yes, we were tourists. Yes, we had cameras. And yes, we were definitely the only white folk on board. But if a boat tour is what it takes get panoramic views like this, sign me up. The Swissotel – one of the tallest buildings in Singapore that is apparently too cool to have an “H” in its name. The Singapore Flyer – the tallest ferris…
A few things you should know about Singapore: (1) Its shockingly modernized. And shockingly western. On the corner across from us, there is a Borders, Starbucks, McDonalds, Burger King, Dairy Queen, Marriott, and a full-on McCafe bistro, a separate outdoor coffee house that’s built on McDonald’s new line of coffee drinks, the McCafes. Its actually pretty good. (2) If you plan to start a business here, you should consider the escalator business. Which is my way of saying that there are a lot of escalators here. There is something like 600 shops in 30 different shopping malls crammed along Orchard…
