Christmas Break

I wrote this last night but the internet was moving too slow to post it in any reasonable amount of time...


This is how we spend all of our plane rides. It is like playing catch.

As I sit here listening to the fireworks exploding, 32 minutes away from bringing in the New Year, I am wondering why I am still awake staring at my computer. Leah has long been in bed and I have very little desire to pull a Party Popper or swing one of those annoying cranks, (although I did just purchase a back scratcher that makes a funny sound). As much as I would like to say it is because I am really devoted to blogging and posting quality pictures for family and friends to see, it is sadly due to my neurotic impulses to organize and re-organize the photos on my computer.

Here are some pictures from our most recent adventures. For our Christmas break we went to Bangkok, Macau and Hong Kong. This was not actually any sort of adventure at all. In fact, it was possibly the worst vacation we have ever had. Nothing in particular made it bad and there were no terrible incidents, it was just the general boredoms and irritations of being in one large Asian city after another. Basically going to Bangkok from Jakarta is a step up, but only a step made for a leprechaun. We ate delicious food there and got around the city. We were there a little too long though. We have already been there a few times and it just isn’t as fun as it used to be. Plus Judah was sick and we basically couldn’t do anything with him.


Leah and Judah on a Tuk-tuk in Bangkok.



Looking out the window of the train in Thailand.





At the Buddhist temples in the old capital city of Thailand.




Judah meeting friends at a playground in Bangkok.





After Bangkok, we went to an island called Macau just a short ferry ride away from Hong Kong. Don’t jump to any conclusions. Island in this case does not mean sand and sun. Unless you are talking about The Sands Hotel. Casinos are the main attraction of this place. Macau is not the type of place that I would ever go to but it was cheaper to fly there than to fly directly into Hong Kong. However, had we known it was so expensive to take the ferry, we would have just flown straight to Hong Kong. The temperature in Macau was nice and it felt great to actually want to wear a sweatshirt. The city itself is pretty messy except for the nice touristy areas and the giant Wal-mart like structures that are the casinos. Another cool thing about Macau was that it was highly influenced by the Portuguese, so some parts of the city had an almost European flavor to them. The architecture in some areas was a welcome change of pace from the usual Asian concrete and shack cities.

The ruins of San Paolo Cathedral in Macau.



Christmas lights in the city center of Macau.






Judah checking out the fish.




We ended up taking the ferry into Hong Kong a few times instead of wasting our days in Macau. Basically, if you ever go to Macau you only need to be there for about 3 hours at the most. You can walk from one side of the island to the other in about 15 minutes.

Hong Kong is a great city. Super clean, super sheik, great parks, not too much traffic, excellent public transport, and most importantly, clean air. You could actually walk around downtown and not feel the pressure of exhaust and congestion in your lungs. There is lots of shopping and great food in this city. On the last night we were in Hong Kong we found the So-Ho district. This is an awesome area full of boutique shops and little diner cafes. For the little time we were in HK it actually felt a bit like being in any city in the States.

Hong Kong Park



Victoria's Peak in Hong Kong.


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Sadly for our wallets, we decided to cut our trip short and changed our tickets to come home the next day. This was a good decision on our part. We got back home and Judah could feel comfortable and get healthy. We spent Christmas at home and just relaxed.

Again sadly for our wallets, we are now bored with Jakarta and home again so we booked tickets to go to Bali. A few days on the beach is what we need to make it feel like we actually had a vacation and didn’t just sit around in giant cities the whole time. We leave tomorrow morning. I will fill you in on that trip when we get back on Saturday.

Well it is now midnight. Happy New Year! I am going to wrap this up and hopefully get to bed soon. I pray uploading these pictures won’t take too long.

I resolve nothing…