Last Day in Bangkok :(

"Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore." -Andre Gide    

    It's hard to believe I'm actually writing this right now.....but today is my last day in Bangkok. Well, considering it's 2 am, my last full day in Bangkok is already over. I'm up late with most of my floor trying to finish our last minute packing before leaving in the morning. We are heading out at 8:30 am for a flight at noon and right now, it feels pretty surreal. 
     For the past six months, Hua Mak has not only been the place I've lived in temporarily, but it's become my home. It is my sanctuary among a sometimes very foreign and overwhelming part of the world. Traveling to all these different countries, I've gotten to see a ton of cool things- but coming back to Bangkok (especially Hua Mak) always felt like coming home. 

     This trip truly has changed me. I have learned so much about myself here, and are more comfortable in my own skin than ever before. I think it will take time to notice all the changes I've made by living here, but I know without a doubt I can say that studying abroad in Thailand is one of the best decisions I have ever made for myself. I'm sad to see it end, but I can't wait to discover how the changes I've made and what I've learned takes root in my life back in America.

     I know my travels are not yet over, and I have Hong Kong to look forward to. I hope to never stop traveling and seeing new parts of the world whenever I can! I hope you all have enjoyed reading my blog posts to see what I've been up to and I cannot wait to see each of you in person back in the good ol' US of A!

Love always, 
Emily

Malaysia and Bali!!

Hello everyone!

    I only have a few days left in Bangkok, but before I leave for Hong Kong I wanted to write a post about my last ten day that took place from October 19th-29th. I went to Malaysia for four days, then Bali for six days and I have to say this was one of my favorite trips I've been on! I really had an awesome time traveling with five other friends and seeing these beautiful countries. 

   On our first day in Malaysia, we flew in Kuala Lumpur. We found a place to stay at the Birdnest Guest House in Chinatown, which ended up being really cool. It was decorated with birds and trees to go with the theme and we really, really enjoyed staying there. The next morning, we walked around Kuala Lumpur a bit and found the botanical gardens, as well as the National Mosque. Malaysia is a very Muslim country, so it was really interesting to see the different between that and the other Buddhist and Hindu countries I have visited previously. After our day of exploring the city with only a map, we hopped on a bus and drove up to the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia (about 4-5 hours away). I could compare the highlands to Sapa in Vietnam. There were countless green, rolling hills everywhere I looked and it was so incredibly beautiful! Instead of rice paddies like in Sapa, however, these hills were filled with tea plants and strawberries! We ended up taking a guided tour through the tea and strawberry farms, as well as a mossy forest that is up past the cloud line in the highlands! It was so awesome to see all these different parts of the highlands, and we had a great time. It doesn't hurt that I am OBSESSED with tea so the tea plantation was obviously the highlight for me :) We basically spent our nights hanging out in our guest house because the town shut down pretty early, but I got to eat some delicious Indian food three nights in a row!!

    After two or three days in the highlands, we came back to Kuala Lumpur for another day of exploring. This time, we went to the center of the city and saw the world-famous Petronas Towers. We spent the night walking around the plaza surrounding the towers, and then heading over to the observation tower to see the city from above! It was definitely a great way to end our time in Malaysia. 

National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur 

View of the Petronas Towers and the 

Observation Tower in Kuala Lumpur! 

Tea plantation in the Cameron Highlands 

Strawberry farm in Cameron Highlands 

The mossy forest!

Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur 

:) 

Petronas Towers 

View from the Observation Tower 

 The next day we went to the airport to move onto our next adventure- Bali. Bali is one of my absolutely favorite places I have visited in Southeast Asia. I completely fell in love with this island! The first place we stayed in was Ubud, made famous Elizabeth Gilbert in her book Eat, Pray, Love. Ubud was one of the coolest towns I have ever seen. Everything is so ornate and elaborate, and the Balinese culture is everywhere you look (which makes sense, because Ubud is considered the cultural capital of the island). Every home is a compound of about 4 or 5 families, and their compound is surrounded by decorative walls and stone structures that are breathtaking. 

    On our first full day in Bali, we went on a bike tour through the Bali Breeze tour company. We got to bike outside of Ubud and see the incredibly beautiful countryside. We even got to ride our bikes through rice paddies- or into rice paddies, if you're me and Justin.....luckily neither of us got hurt! This bike tour showed us some of the most beautiful countryside ever, and it was so peaceful! On our bike tour, we got to sample luwak coffee, which is the world's most expensive coffee! Animals that most closely resemble a mongoose eat only the best of a particular kind of coffee bean. Once it is processed through their body and they poop it out, the beans are still whole and are used to make this coffee! It's a very bizarre concept, but the coffee was pretty good and goes for hundreds of dollars a pound! 

     Another favorite part of our trip to Bali was a hike we did up Mount Batur, a still-active volcano on the island. We woke up at 1:30am to get breakfast and head up to the volcano to do a two hike up to the top. We got up there just in time to watch the sunrise, which was just unreal. The view was spectacular and you could see for miles! After our hike, we came back and headed down to Kuta, a touristy beach area in the south of Bali. We stayed there for a few days before heading back to Bangkok!

    I don't think this quick blog post can do my 10 day trip justice, but it really was one of my favorite trips I've taken in my time in Southeast Asia. Bali is definitely a place I would like to go back to for an extended amount of time, and I hope one day I will get the chance to!

Right outside of Ubud in Bali! 

Coffee and tea sampling in Ubud 

View on our bike tour!

Beautiful architecture in Ubud 

 More pictures of a home

Climbing Mt. Batur at sunrise! 

Amazing. 

Our permanent square on our street in Ubud 

 Chicken Bike!

Beaches of Kuta, Bali 

View of the water from the airport 

Hurricane Sandy

   This post won't be very long, but I just wanted to write this to send out my love to all of you who have been affected by Hurricane Sandy. I have been watching this storm since Saturday or Sunday, and have just helplessly watched as it moved over our little state. I knew the storm would hit home hard, but last night when I began to see photos of all the damage, particularly to the Jersey Shore, I just lost it. 
    I grew up going to the shore every summer, and spending time at our house in Seacrest or family members' cottages in Ocean Beach. Seeing these places that are so close to my heart being destroyed is so, so heartbreaking. I know it is most important that everyone is okay, but I can't help but mourn the losses the shore community is facing right now.

This is a link showing the damage in Ocean Beach. The video ends just a few houses down from where my old shore house is. Hopefully the damage won't be too bad, but you can see that some houses were just completely wiped out....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRAdgh9VH0o&feature=youtu.be

Trip to Chiang Mai!

Hello everyone!
     Time to write another quick blog post before heading out to a new trip! I just got into Bangkok this morning from an overnight bus back from Chiang Mai (located in Northern Thailand). My entire study abroad group (all 40 of us) piled into a bus on October 9th to begin our Chiang Mai trip. Our first stop was in Sukhothai, a former capital and kingdom of Thailand. We stayed there overnight and toured the ruins before heading out the next morning to finish the drive up to Chiang Mai. One of our first stops in Chiang Mai was at the Doi Suthep temple, which sits on top of a mountain and has a great overlook of the city. 

Sukhothai 

Sukhothai

 Steps up to Doi Suthep

Steps down from Doi Suthep 

Outside of the temple 

Doi Suthep 

At the Chiang Mai umbrella factory!

     The second part of our trip involved a four day trek through the mountains of Chiang Mai. Our group of 40 was broken up into three smaller groups. My group consisted of me, 14 other students, one adult leader and two Thai guides. Each group took different routes to visit and stay with three different hilltribes in the mountains. Our group was called Karen because the Karen tribe was the first place we visited. The trek was pretty intense, but it ended up being one of my favorite trips so far and I had an amazing time!!

    One of the best parts of the trip was that I GOT TO RIDE AN ELEPHANT!!! For those of you who don't know, elephants are absolutely 100% my favorite animals of all time and I've been waiting for the opportunity to ride one. We got to take the elephants into the second village we stayed in, and it was absolutely incredible (although a little scary since I rode on the neck)!

     This trip to Chiang Mai really signifies the beginning of the end of my study abroad experience. As hard as it is to believe, I only have about three and a half weeks left in Southeast Asia. I will be spending the next ten days in Malaysia and Indonesia, then I will have one last week in Bangkok before moving onto Hong Kong for a week prior to going back to America! I have very mixed feelings about this right now. I'm very excited to come home and see everyone and everything I've missed so much for the past six months, but at the same time I know that I am going to miss Thailand!! It's a very strange feeling. For now, I'm just enjoying what I'm experiencing and I'll deal with what's ahead when it comes!

Look for another update around Halloween! :)

Youtube Channel!

Hi everyone!
    I was talking to a friend of mine recently about our blogs, and she told me about a great idea that I thought I'd try. In order to keep all the videos I've taken on this trip in one place and accessible for my friends and family to watch, I've made a Youtube account! I'm in the process of adding all the videos I've taken, so click on the link below to watch some!

Here is a link to my youtube account:
http://www.youtube.com/user/emkayylove?feature=mhee 

Thanks, Andrea, for the great idea! :)

Good Moooooorning Vietnam!

Hello everyone! Unfortunately this has to be a quick post because I just got back from Vietnam this morning and am heading down south to the islands tonight!

So Vietnam was AMAZING. 

A lot happened in the week Lauren and I were there. We started off in Hanoi on Tuesday, our first day, and we just walked around all day seeing museums and looking at the sights. We saw such a large part of the city that day, and it was especially nice because all we needed was a map and our sense of direction!

That first night, we hopped on a sleeper train to head up to Sapa (near the Chinese border). We arrived early in the morning on Wednesday, and got in a van to head up to Sapa form the train station. Unfortunately, it had been monsooning really badly there for awhile, and before we reached the top of the mountain, there were several landslides and we were stuck. Lauren and I decided to take matters into our own hands and climbed over the landslide to then get a ride up to the main town at the top of the mountain. 

After climbing through the landslide 

     So once we got to Sapa, we arranged our trekking tour through the mountains. This trek involved two days of hiking through the mountains of Sapa and Lao Chai, with a one night homestay in a local village. Our tour guide was a 22 year old H'mong woman named Ker (pronounced Kuh). She helped guide us through treacherous mud puddles and saved us from falling off hills of rice paddies more than a few times. While on the trek, I saw some of the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my whole life, and the pictures just cannot do it justice.

Ker, the H'mong woman who 

was our tour guide through the mountains 

Other H'mong women who helped us on the trail

View while trekking 

 View from our homestay

     Once we returned to Hanoi from Sapa, we did a day trip to Halong Bay, which is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. We got to go out on boats and check out the rock formations of the bay up close, which was just amazing.

Here are some pictures:

 Halong Bay

In Hanoi 

Sorry this was such a rushed post! I hope I'll have more time to post more pictures when I come back from the islands :)

The Kanes take BKK Part 2!

     First of all, I would like to apologize for my lack of blog posts in the past month or so. My last two weeks of classes followed by a week and a half of finals has been crazy!! Luckily, today is my LAST FINAL and then I am done with school until January. I can't wait to be done- three semesters in a row was kind of rough....Now I just get to travel all over for the next six weeks until my return to America!!

     Anyway, I wanted to write a bit about the second half of my visit with my parents. After their trip to Phuket and Chiang Mai, my parents came back to Bangkok for a second weekend of adventures. I brought them to Wat Arun, or the Temple of the Dawn. From there, we went on a khlong boat tour (although this khlong was much better than the smelly khlong I talked about in one of my early posts). The tour took us around the back canals off the Chao Phraya River and gave Mom and Dad a very different view of Bangkok! Later that day, we all went to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel for dinner. It was one of the most beautiful hotels I've seen in Bangkok, and we had a delicious dinner while looking out over the Chao Phraya river and seeing the Bangkok skyline. The following day, we spent more time touring around Bangkok and seeing sights like Khao San Road. We ended the day eating some of the best Thai food ever at a restaurant called The Spice Market in the Four Season Hotel. Following dinner, we went to the Skybar and even though it was raining a bit, we got an incredible view of Bangkok- one I've never seen before! 
     I had a great time showing my parents a glimpse of my life in Bangkok. It was sad to say goodbye to my parents, but knowing I'll see them in a matter of a few weeks made it much better! They seemed to really, really love their time spent in Thailand- if you see them soon, ask them about it! I'm sure they'd love to tell you :)

On the ferry boat to Wat Arun 

Wat Arun (Temple of the Dawn) 

We wrote our names on a cloth surrounding Wat Arun 

 Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel!

Khlong boat tour on the Chao Phraya River 

Mom and I at Skybar

 Skybar hanging over the edge of the Lebua Hotel! Yikes!

Dad enjoyed looking at the countless street markets

Here are some pictures from Mom and Dad's trip to China on the way back to America:

On the Great Wall of China!