Family portrait!

Happy New Year! (Chinese that is)

A little late I know but heres a pic of my little cutie :D

The big 3-0.

Well, its my birthday. I have turned 30 years old today and.......don't really feel any different. My 20's were fab - especially my late 20's and I can only hope that my 30's are just as good. Wish me luck everyone!!!!

Merry Xmas everyone!

Where's the freakin' snow?!

There are certain things I expect in life; good manners from strangers, toast to land on my floor on the buttered side if it falls, and for snow in winter!

Living in Kansai is really pissing me off. I can't celebrate Christmas or Hogmanay without the white stuff on the ground; it's one of my must-haves. With this in mind, I'm heading north for a few days to hunt for the stuff. Wish me luck.

And the prize goes to...

Osaka Jock here.

There's a free monthly magazine in Kansai called Japanzine. Every year they have a photo competition to encourage amateur photographers to submit their works for all the world to see and judge. 

It seems that one of mine was chosen to be in the January issue. Yeah! I'm a little surprised by this, as everyone else's seem so beautiful and of a much higher quality than mine. I guess it just comes down to personal taste...

Here are a small selection of the pictures I submitted. Enjoy, and please leave a comment about them if you have time. 

The one with all the statues is my favourite. Someone spent hours knitting hundreds of hats and scarves for all them. When you consider that these statues are for the souls of dead children, it does seem a little creepy.

Thundercats hooooooo!

Plllllbt!

My little Boo

A Halloween Bear

What a cute little bear!

Noa in her Exersaucer!

She loves this crazy contraption. And I love it cause it keeps her busy!!

Sooooo, I had a baby!!

Here are some pictures of little Noa Quinn Tang. She was born on June 20th, 2008 at 6 lbs exactly. She was 3 1/2 weeks early so I can't imagine how big she would have been if she'd been on time.

Gion Matsuri

Summertime in Japan is full of festivals and celebrations designed to help you forget about the unbearable heat and humidity. One of the most famous in Kyoto is the Gion Matsuri. It consists of 2 dozen floats (or Yamaboko as they're know - 山鉾) being paraded through the heart of the Shijo area of Kyoto (which is odd when you consider that Gion is on the other side of the river next to Shijo). Each float represents a specific area in the city and people take great pride in decorating them and wearing amazing traditional costumes.　


I had some free time on Tuesday, so I decided to check it out and take a few photos and movies to show you.

I was on the train the other day...

I work out in the middle of the countryside in Nara prefecture. Sometimes I see really funny pictures beside the railway stations and tracks. This one is a prime example of why I don't trust doctors in Japan. Ouch!

I think I understand the kind of medicine this clinic specializes in.

Zombie

This blog is not dead. Some of us survived the great exodus from Osaka and remain, fighting the good fight against boredom and being sober. Osaka Daze lives again!!!!

Ko Pha Ngan

Ko Pha Ngan. What can I say about it? A beach paradise. We checked into our bungalow which was located on the slightly quieter west side of the island, and rented a motorbike to get around on. Our bungalow was right on the beach - literally you opened your door and there was sand outside. The beach had several hammocks and beach chairs available for anyone to use and we did! The food at the bungalow was awesome and cheap. We had a couple days to ourselves as Matt and Steph were still in Borneo, and Adair and Sarah hadn't come from Bangkok yet, so we just laid back and relaxed. The beach was gorgeous. The water, a clear clear blue. The weather was sunny and perfect for just laying around but not so hot as to burn.

Everyone managed to show up on the island at the same time on the same day! What a coincidence! So Rich and I headed to the pier to pick everyone up. The bungalows next to ours had an available spot so we were all right next to each other - how convenient! Rich and I decided to go fishing that day. Our bungalow manager found a local fisherman who was willing to take us out on his little longtail boat. We fished for a couple hours and I managed to catch 3 fish! Rich didn't catch any, but he was far more interested in trying to keep the contents of his stomach IN his stomach. He got quite seasick and we headed back with 6 fish (3 that the fisherman caught). The bungalow restaurant was more than happy to cook them up for us and we dined on our catch that evening. It was an early night for us.

The next day we went snorkelling in Ko Mah on the North West side of the island. Its famous for having lots of coral and cool fish. Its connected to the main island by a sand bar. We spent most of the day there, and Rich and I headed back because I had a massage booked for 5PM at my bungalow. Wow. It was awesome! Gao was my new best friend for the next 5 days as she came to my bungalow every evening to fix various problems with my back and shoulders.

The days kind of blur together here. Basically we biked around a bit on our motorbike, hung out on the beach and just relaxed and got massaged until the big night! New Years Eve!!! Ko Pha Ngan is famous for its full moon parties which draw as many as 30,000 people every month to the big beach extravaganza. There were 60,000 people at the New Years Eve one. It was crazy!!!!! DJ's playing various types of music, food stalls and paint tattoos were available all up and down the beach. Drunk (and high) people were dancing everywhere and preparing for the countdown. Fire Dancers and glow sticks lighted up the evening as the tide washed in. People lost their shoes, wallets, clothes and other belongings on the beach and to the ocean. It was a crazy, awesome, wonderful mess! Rich and I headed back around 3AM but the party was going long after dawn, we heard from our friends.

We woke up the next day to the cries of our friends swimming outside our bungalow. They had been dosed sometime during the night and were still going strong. They had swam all the way out to the rocks and had climbed up to the top and were shouting at the top of their lungs :D We took some pics and headed back to bed for a couple of hours. We just chilled the rest of the day (recovery) and prepared to head back to Bangkok the next day....

Really leaving on a jet plane

Well I have been forced to face reality (as there are suitcases stacked up in my living room) and I get on a plane today :O Oh my god!!! I can't believe we're actually doing it! I will be over the Pacific Ocean in about 8 hours! *hyperventilating* OK I'm OK now. Alright, well I'll be blogging from the other side soon - so see you then......

Phuket

So we made our flight into Phuket - which was a bit ghetto (we flew Asian Airlines) as they forgot to give us our immigration forms on the plane. We landed and were trying to go through and the immigration guys were clearly irritated with our whole flight. They kept telling us we should have gotten then on the flight - to which we replied that we knew that but they didn't give them to us. Please give us one now. Eventually everything was sorted, but we were on a tight schedule. Our hostel was only going to hold our room for us until 11ish and we were rapidly approaching the critical hour. We managed to get a cab into the city and made it to the 7/11 to make our call to them and *PHEW* we made it! Our room was really nice and clean and had a big balcony to chill out on. We decided to go to the beach the next day and just chill. We saw there was a Thai Boxing match that night (which was Christmas Day - Merry Xmas!) and bought tickets for that evening as well. We watched some great matches and went to bed - preparing for our snorkelling trip the next day.

We were picked up super early the next morning and taxied to a boat that took us out to Ko Phi Phi - an island famous for being beautiful and having great snorkelling. It was a little touristy, but the trip was great. Rich chickened out a little and couldn't go snorkelling - he tried!!! But he couldn't stay in the water for very long. After some lunch and chilling on the other side of the island, we met an Indian couple that were very nice. We ended up taking a video for them and exchanging emails! After that, we took our boat back to Phuket and just relaxed for the night. The next day we had an early start - we were taking a bus/boat ride in to Ko Pha Ngan......

Malaysia continued...

SO the next morning, we got picked up at our hotel by our personal tour guide! We got into a small car - not what we were expecting, and our guide told us all kinds stuff as we drove the couple of hours out to the elephant rehibilitation centre. We stopped a few places along the way. First stop, the famous Batu Caves. The caves are famous for 2 reasons: the first being that they are thousands of years old and made of limestone. The second being that the Hindu's build a temple in the caves feeling the holiness from them. Every year in January they hold a huge ceremony there where they poke spears through their skin and pull various things up the mountain to the top as penance (sadly we were not there to see this). We didn't climb up to the top, but we did get to see the temple grounds on the ground level which was really awesome and even got blessed by the Hindu priests there. Next stop was a small Batik shop - Batik is a type of cloth decoration that uses silk, wax and dying. We saw some hand made Batik being made and bought a few souvenirs there. Then onto the Centre. When we arrived, we walked down to the bottom area where you could see 5 elephants wandering about and looking back at us on the other side of the fence. We got to see them being washed, then we got to feed them, ride them, and pet the baby elephants. The river was too high to ride them in the water :( but otherwise it was really awesome! There was a small museum inside the centre that talked about Asian elephants and the centre. They also played a short video for us detailing the mission behind the centre. It was a really great time and I would recommend it to anyone going to KL!At this point KL starts to kinda blur together. We had to change hotels the next morning as the one we were in was full. So we moved to a place in China town! Oh the craziness! Our hotel was not nearly as nice as the one we wer e in before AND in was located right on one of the main noisy streets. However, there was alot of atmosphere everytime we walked outside. Street hawkers trying to sell all kinds of stuff and various Chinese style street foods. We did some shopping (which is crazy cheap in SE Asia) and got ready for our return to Thailand. I bought some cheap shoes for the beach and a really pretty beaded shirt. We managed to book a flight to our next destination AND our accomodations and then just kicked back for a day. We spent 2 nights at the hotel there and then headed out on a flight to Phuket. Back in Thailand...

On to Malaysia!

So we took a train from Bangkok to a small place called Alor Setar which is just across the border of Malaysia. The train was awesome and there was much tomfoolery. It was like a transformers train - this can only be described in pictures which will be posted later. So we arrived in the middle of nowhere after our overnight ride and were pleasantly surprised at so many things. People were super friendly, they spoke awesome English, and the mosque was gorgeous!! Before we hit the mosque we stopped at this little noodle shop and ate lunch. It cost us a whole $4 for all of us to eat and have a nice drink of coffee or cola. I mean $4 all together. And it was delicious. After lunch we felt rejuvenated and started walking around looking for the mosque. Some friendly locals sent us in the right direction and WOW! After going in, an Indian Malay guy chatted with us for awhile. Our mission accomplished, we were off to our next destination!

2 buses later (and gypped of about 8 ringgits each) we made it to KL! We decided to live it up a little and find a nice hotel for the night (since most of the cheaper ones were all booked anyways). We tossed our stuff in our room, had a shower and headed out to the city. We found some good food and some live music and passed some time there. Then after spending waaaay too much time in an internet cafe, we hit the hay. Steph and Matt hit the bar.

The next day, we wanted to go see some cool caves, but our hotel booked the wrong tour for us, so we decided to hit little India instead as well as finish off some booking errands at the train/bus stations. Little India rocked!!!! Again, we ate for about a dollar each and were stuffed when we left. Our two groups split up and we met up again a few hours later at the famous KL Tower. Its the tallest radio tower in SE Asia - 4th in the world. The view from the top was amazing! You could see the whole city including the twin petronas towers which are the tallest twin towers in the world. We split up again, Matt and Steph to do some more bookings and Rich and I hit a small restaurant for a couple of hours. After checking some mail online, we hit the hay excited about the next morning.......