A sunrise in Taiwan is pretty beautiful.

Today we visited the Neuschwanstein Castle where we got to go on extravagant hikes in the Alps. This castle was made by king Ludwig the second and was inspiration for Walt Disney when he made the princess castle. We had some marvelous views and loved the atmosphere.

Did an epic walking tour around Munich today. Overall it was a great experience and we even got to walk by a river in which people were surfing into the current. Really interesting and looked extremely fun! I’d love to give it a try… If I could surf…

First authentic German meal in Munich at a brewery I can’t pronounce. It was so dense and delicious. Now I’m going to nap until tomorrow.

Ash and I had a wonderful time in Paris, we saw many of museums, sights, and hiked the Eiffel Tower. We met some new friends, and met up with some old ones that flew into the city for a day or so. It was simply unreal.

Ashley and I are in St Pancras Station, leaving London, and heading to Paris! Thanks for a good time, London!

Great day to be a tourist! Went to the London Eye, Big Ben, Saint Paul’s Cathedral, National Portrait Gallery, and the Tate Modern Art Museum. Tons of fun on this full day.

Trying to get a good picture of Changing of the Guard proved rather difficult, needless to say, it was an absolutely enjoyable experience nonetheless!

Ash and I are just roaming around London, seeing several museums (Natural History, Science, and The British Museum) and getting cultured around Buckingham Palace. No need to be jealous, anyone…

Ash and I downing brews at the Guinness Storehouse. A dream of mine since I got here has finally come true. I could live in that place.

And we are off! Ashley and I are beginning our backpacking trip early this morning at 8am to Dublin! Wish her luck (she’s stuck with me)!

Trip in Review: Dublin (10/4/2013)

A few weeks after my classes started I was invited to partake on a weekend getaway to Dublin with some Med students. The moment I arrived I was able to witness the beautiful, lively streets of Dublin I had heard so much about. The weather was, for the most part, wonderful. I got to visit St. Stephen’s Green, Trinity College Dublin, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and many other little wonders Dublin has to offer. St. Patrick’s Cathedral had beautiful stained glass and, as you can see from the last picture, it casts quite the light to be seen from the inside.

Trip in review: Dingle (9/12/2013)

When I had first arrived in Ireland, just after I settled in, I had made a quick day trip out to Dingle to do some sightseeing before classes went into full swing. The day was quite foggy so I didn’t get to snap incredible pictures, but a few turned out alright.

Going around the peninsula we got to see some astonishing cliffs and beaches. Not like the beaches back in Jersey…

When we left Jameson, we quickly migrated towards Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone. Climbing up the Castle was tons of fun and mom admitted she loved tiny narrow spiral staircases in a very sarcastic way. I happened to get a shot of her smiling nonetheless.

After Blarney we headed to Killarney where we visited a national park and saw some stag. Overall, great last day.

Oh ho ho and a bottle of… whiskey. This morning, we started off right. We checked out of our room, grabbed a cup of coffee to go, and headed right to the Jameson Distillery. From there, we walked through the old distillery, learned how whiskey was made, compared it to other whiskeys, and eventually redeemed our free drinks.

This sounds like a grand time, except I had skipped breakfast and went straight to drinking. Needless to say the gift shop received an extra giggly/ranting American who debated purchasing everything in the shop.

All in all, I am down to go back… with breakfast…

As we left Kinsale, we continued to head south past numerous open fields, farms, ruins, and finally coastline. We had walked through a cemetery which had an old ruined church made from stone, since then, a plethora of plants had covered and held together the remaining stone work. My mother made me pose.

The coast line was by far the highlight of this day. Just some beautiful cliffs that had dropped into the water.

Sorry for my lack of uploading recently, we have been busy sorting things out for Grad School and touring late into the night!

Yesterday we had taken our first road trip out of Cork City into Kinsale. Kinsale is a smallish town on the southern border of Ireland and right on the water. The first thing we noticed was a severe lack of water, but apparently the tide was just out. When the tide comes back in, all the boats tend to just float again!

The architecture was quite simple. The houses and businesses were all brightly and diversely colored. Every aspect of this town just needed to be photographed. Did I mention all the doors were tiny? I had to duck to enter a store!

WHAT A DAY! After a good night’s rest and the help of a taxi driver, we finally made it to University College Cork (UCC)! The second we were left on campus by our cab, I was left speechless. The mixture of modern and classic architecture and presence of students outside simply enjoying the day made me excited to join the community.

As we approached the Student Centre, we saw lots of bizarre costumes and students all gathering around speakers. At first I was extremely confused, up until the “Harlem Shake” came on and a video camera came out. I had aimlessly walked into UCC’s organized Harlem Shake video. If you are unfamiliar with the Harlem Shake, just know it is a viral video sensation. If I find the video recorded, I will be sure to post it up.

(I thought I had dodged that nonsense when I flew out of Newark… Oh the power of the Internet)

Welcome to Cork City in Ireland! Yesterday, my mother and I had gotten off of a plane, gotten into our rental car, and learned how to drive on the left side of the road all before 8am Ireland time (or as our bodies refused to forget, 3am Eastern time…). When we were finally in Cork (1.5 hour drive), jet-lagged and delirious, we decided to walk around the Cork City and fight the jet-lag and become familiar with the city. A poorly constructed idea that had us both back at the hotel and unconscious by 1pm.

But while we were out, I was able to snap some pretty cool photos of River Lee and the surrounding Cork City! Hopefully, this time next year, I’ll have a better idea on what I have taken pictures of!

The Killing Fields - Incredibly heartbreaking and gruesome, please read at your own discretion

The Killing Fields is just outside of Phnom Penh and it is where hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were killed by the Khmer Rouge during the 1970’s. On the last day of our travels we were given the day to see what we wished and a small group of us decided to go to these fields to learn about the events and pay our respects. I was not ready for what I was about to learn.

When we arrived there was a large stupa (a place of worship with contents of usually friends, family, or religious persons). When I got closer, I saw the many human skulls that were inside glass cages inside of this stupa. These bones were excavated in the 1980’s and remain available for people to view and pay their respects. There were many tiers in the stupa; the first had the victim’s clothes, the second through the ninth contained skulls, and the 10th through 17th (maybe 19?… details seemed irrelevant) contained other bones, all organized. These were all real bones, not cast molds.

When we arrived at the first mass grave, the tour guide informed us that the victims were forced to dig this mass grave, then the Khmer Rouge would line up the victims on the outside, place them on their knees, blindfolded, then have them lean over the grave. When the victim was over the grave properly, they were killed (more details were given but I will spare you).

The next grave we arrived at had women and children in the grave. This by far, was the saddest grave to visit. Again, please read at your own discretion. Women were forced to watch as Khmer Rouge soldiers held their children by the feet and beat them against the “Killing Tree” until the infant’s were dead. This was done all around Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge to stop future generations of Cambodians seeking revenge. Our previous tour guide recalled as a child walking through the woods and seeing trees covered in blood and brain matter. After the mother had been forced to watch her child be murdered, she was immediately executed as well.

This grave was covered by many bracelets of blessings and other forms of bracelets to show respect. I had attached my blessing string (red bracelet that was given to me by a monk to insure a healthy and blessed life) to the killing tree in hopes that the murdered children will at least be able to live a blessed and peaceful reincarnated life somewhere.

By last site was visited by choice, I was absolutely disturbed and sickened by the actions of the Khmer Rouge, but was able to appreciate the country we live in and how our freedom protects us all. We are truly blessed to never have to go through an experience like that.

On Saturday, we had our last official touring day. We started a day with a boat ride to a small village with two small mountains that had the oldest temples in Cambodia. When we arrived, we were greeted by local children who held our hands as we climbed up the mountains to take pictures. As cute as they were, we realized they were looking for money by the end of our journey when we approached our boats and they kept repeating money. Sneaky kids at least knew the right tactics.

After our boat ride, we went to visit a yet another temple. This temple was about a 30 minute walk up a whole ton of stairs. At the top, we had a spectacular view of Cambodia and got to visit a very old temple with lots of grass and vines. It was quite a nice way to end the “official” trip.

So today started off quite interesting. We were doing our sight seeing thing in Phnom Penh when we saw a campaigning political party playing music and dancing on the side walk. It seemed like a lot of fun so we got closer to see the fun. There were news cameras, music, and dancing. The members of the crowd waved to our group motioning to us to join in. A select group of us did (I was not included in that select group). After the fun, we learned that we were dancing with the Cambodian’s Communist party. I am anticipating a group of our students to be detained at JFK when we arrive back in the states…

After the political mix up, we went to a monastery to see a healer monk. On the way there, we ran into a monk (first monk picture) whose family had grown up in Cambodia, but moved to the United States, he is 13, and was born and raised in Washington State. He had decided to move to Cambodia to study buddhism as a monk. Unlike every other monk in the city (which there are thousands in Phnom Penh), he spoke perfect english and struggled with Khmer. We were lucky to run into him. Communicating with this monk was a breeze.

Later we visited the healer monk. He has healed over ten thousand people with traditional medicine and through “magic medicine”. Speaking with him was quite fun and interesting and he gave us a parting gift of tea leaves that is supposed to relieve headaches. I can’t wait to give it a try, and I do not want to be held responsible for any hallucinations I may or may not have.

Later in the day we went on a sunset boat tour and had a great time just relaxing on the water and taking pictures of the surroundings. Not too shabby for Phnom Penh.

Yesterday we spent the morning traveling from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital city. First impressions of this city are that its a litte more quickly paced and it definitely has more traffic violations (even more than we are typically used to).

Leaving Siem Reap was difficult because we had to part with our favorite tour guide, Rith. Rith is simply a very beautiful man who had overcome many horrible experiences in his life. The Khmer Rouge had committed genocide to Cambodia when he was just a child. Many people he knew and had been killed and they had almost killed him several times during the genocide. He shared his stories, jokes, and had us on an emotional roller coaster the entire time during our tours! I was very glad to get a picture with him and his giant, always gleaming, smile.

When we arrived in Phnom Penh, we had gone to a monastery and sat with a monk who shared many more insights to Buddhism for us. Our new tour guide, also named Rith (what are the chances… we call him “Rith Two” to avoid confusion), translated for us and helped us get through the city on the first day.

Sorry for being a little behind on the blog, we have been quite busy and tossed around Cambodia lately. This current hotel we are at has very poor internet bandwidth so I would be lucky if I get a decent enough connection to post up a few photos.

Wednesday was an interesting day. We started off our expedition early in the morning and went on a 20 minute up-hill hike to a monastery. The monastery too had some ruins behind it that was still active as people go there for prayer. We saw many beautiful flowers, goats, and best of all, a great view of the country side.

Later in the day we went on a small hike to a rarely visited site at Angkor Wat, this site is not well maintained and had rocks everywhere, we had to do tons of climbing over piles of boulders to get through. Nevertheless, it was fun.

This boy decided he would tickle my feet and poke my back and sides as I tried to listen to our Buddhist lectures. He was too cute to be mad at. Even though I didn’t speak his language, I still have the amazing ability to make friends with young kids.

Yesterday started out at 4:30am as we took a tuk tuk to Angkor Wat and watched the sun rise over the temple. It was quite nice, if we arrived there earlier we would have gotten the red glare on the clouds, but we had missed it by about 30 minutes.

Later in the day we visited a temple rumored to have been built by women in the 12th century. They suggested that women were more patient and were able to be much more detailed. This rumor has been proven false, but the detail on the architecture is still impressive.

After a few hours of shopping for deals in the market, Alicia and I grabbed a tuk tuk to get home. They are just like a taxi, except you ride in a carriage on the back of a scooter and it only costs a buck a person. I just got some great deals on silk ties, so please bear the excitement in my voice.

To end our day, we visited another Angkor Artisans shop, except this one specialized in the Silk that is used to create all the furniture and clothing in Cambodia.

The process is complete through the caterpillar spun silk cocoon to the final weaving of dyed silk. This was definitely interesting to see where my favorite new ties originally came from!

This video was shot as we were riding on our boat through the floating village, interesting to say the least.

While visiting the school, we had a bit of a singing exchange, this is their songs that they are singing to us, in return, we sang “Ol’ McDonald”.

After the rice fields, we visited a primary school for kids that live on the floating village in Cambodia. This village has a bunch of houses that literally float on the river. The locals all use the river as their bathroom, their entertainment, their source of income and source food through fishing.

These children have very little so we were happy to go to their school, donate items like toothbrushes to frisbees, and see the life of their village. I took a bus to school, these kids row themselves there. I had a bathroom with running water, the kids have a small outhouse with a hole that goes to the river they live on.

Our day started off with visiting a rice farm. The farm was absolutely massive in all directions and the locals were incredibly excited to see some new faces. Maintaining all the rice is a full time job and each grain has to be visited constantly. We saw a plethora of water buffalo and we were able to go inside a house of some of the rice farmers. They slept every night on a rug and covered themselves with a mosquito net. Their youngest daughter spent the night on the other side of a curtain. Their entire house was no more than 12 square feet.

Some students were able to actually go in and plant the rice. I would have thoroughly enjoyed that, but unfortunately for me, my recent cut on my ankle from the bonk bonk bonk down the monastery stairs has forbidden me to go into unsanitary water. I gladly took pictures!

I must have had some good Karma because today, at dinner, we were served garlic bread. Such a pleasant surprise!

You guessed it! Another Temple! In Cambodia we keep seeing these t-shirts that say “Same Same But Different”. Apparently this refers to the people of the country, how they are all people, but they all have differences. I am convinced that shirt is really referring to the temple sites we are visiting. Same, same, but different.

This one seemed a little more broken down than previously visited sites.

After the monastery, we visited a place where the Buddhist art is kept alive through the generations. This place is a school where people go to learn about Buddhist art and all the intricate details about the paintings, sculptures, and accessories.

Here are a few pictures of items being made from stone and wood. What I specifically found that was amazing was a group of deaf and mute artists that spend hours a day just working and practicing on the same paintings that we saw in the monasteries. A member of our group was communicating with them via sign language. It was quite impressive.

After walking down the street, we were able to visit the town’s monastery. It is amazing to think in a town full of poverty, such a beautiful monastery could exist. Many people from all over the town pull together their little wealth and time to create these beautiful places.

The artwork on the walls and ceilings of this monastery is very similar to others, and tells stories of the Buddha.

A couple little locals from the street followed us there and had a great time pulling on my backpack and giggling. I learned that they really like high fives and posing for the camera!

Also, behind the monastery was yet another small temple built by the same king that had built Angkor Wat. We got to climb around and explore for about 15 minutes. I really liked their “Danger!” sign.

Today we started our trip by going to a monastery early in the morning. To get there, we had decided to walk down a typical street on the outskirts of Siem Reap.

Once again, we found ourselves surrounded by extreme poverty. Kids wearing little clothes if any (some were naked), with barely anything to eat or toys to play with, but still carrying big smiles ear to ear when they greeted you from their homes. Families were doing all they could for a couple bucks; From painting tuk tuks (little carriages attached to scooters) to selling dried fish from a dirty river, the average income is about 40 dollars a month.

I found it fascinating that one of my favorite iPhone game, Angry Birds, has merchandise that has made it to Cambodia and covers young children. These kids have probably never held an iPhone but happen to be wearing one of it’s highest selling apps. Once again there were nice houses on the street too, the fifth picture in is a house that is fully furnished and comfortable, yet across the street (photo 7) is a house with barely any insulation. These nice houses cost about $25k.

If there is one thing that I have learned from this trip it is that in the states, we have convinced ourselves that through consumerism we can purchase happiness. Yet in cities and towns like Siem Reap, people have nothing yet are still able to smile and live a happy and fulfilling life. Nobody honks a horn in traffic, or screams and curses. I have spent days outside looking at locals, I haven’t seen one person visibly upset, angry, or sad. It has become clear to me that we don’t have the right definition of happiness, nor the knowledge to bring us there.

Video of me riding an elephant with my professor. It was really shaky but still some good fun!

Today was a fun one! We visited Banon Temple. This temple was built in 1180 AD, about 50 years after Angkor Wat. Since King Jayavarman could not build yet another temple using the same resources Angor Wat had required, he decided to use basically scraps and leftover from the construction of the other sites. This is most evident in the smaller bricks used to put the pillars and walls together.

Banon Temple has 54 towers with 200 smiling faces of the Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva is one who reaches enlightenment but refuses to move on to nirvana until all sentient beings can move on with them. Bodhisattvas are generally very selfless people who care for all those around them, hence the smiling compassionate faces in every direction in the temple.

Walking around the temple was quite nice knowing no matter where you looked there was at least one smiling face looking back at you!

But, single handedly, the best part of this temple visit was the elephant ride to get there. I have a shaky video of the elephant ride that I will try and post up sometime tomorrow (when this hotel internet isn’t so slow!!). I have to say the elephants could maneuver extremely well given their massive size. I also got to feed a small banana to one. Really fun! I am kind of thinking of getting one as a pet… just need the space for it…

Overall, new experiences and tons of fun!

After dinner the restaurant hosted a little show of Cambodian traditional dance. This was basically the opposite of breakdancing.

For lunch I drank a coconut! It had the consistency of 2% milk and the taste of a coconut… very interesting!

Here is a quick video of some temple ruins. Enjoy!

Today, we visited more sites in Angkor Wat. Much of the artwork is similar to the main temple that we visited yesterday, but a lot more construction and renovation is needed at these smaller, sub-sites.

The last site we saw was nicknamed “Jungle Temple” by Cambodians. This site has tons of trees growing around the temple walls. Really cool stuff! If this looks really familiar to you but you can’t place it, you may have seen this temple in the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider film.

Overall these sites were interesting, but very hot and humid to visit. I recommend to anyone interested in visiting to drink tons of water!

Siem Reap, Cambodia. This is the night life, not too shabby, lots of fun to be had here and lots of English speaking tourists!

After using a Buddhist Wat for a history class, we had to wrap things up to accommodate monks that were arriving to do their chants which they perform every day at 5am and 5pm.

My lunch today consisted of an appetizer of delicious vegetables in some sauce I cannot pronounce (the drinks to the right are water, and Jasmine Tea, YUM!), a course of chicken and rice with a honey sauce (I think), and a dessert of a cooked banana, and a bowl of ice cream with a plethora of fruits underneath…

It’s safe to say, the presentation and contents of my food make me feel as if I am eating like a king!

A video of the Monkeys, my current roommate, Bill Loftus, has captured for us using his GoPro camera… Have to admit, those little creatures are cute.

Oh, did I mention Angkor Wat had about 30 monkeys surrounding the temple? We had a fun chance accidentally feeding them and giving them tons of water! They were adorable.

Today, we visited Angkor Wat, one of the seven wonders of the world. This ancient Hindu temple was built by hand by volcanic stones (that were lugged by hand, there isn’t a volcano for many miles).

Every square inch of this temple has symbolic, astronomical, ecological, political, or religious meaning behind it, all hand carved. You could spend your lifetime looking around Angkor Wat and still be surprised when you turn a corner. I cannot wait to spend more time around this temple.

Words simply do not describe the feeling you get when you are browsing and learning the stories that the walls tell.

Tara Angkor Hotel

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel_Review-g297390-d988266-Reviews-Tara_Angkor_Hotel-Siem_Reap_Siem_Reap_Province.html

This is the hotel we are staying at in Cambodia. Since their website does not accurately represent how beautiful this place is, I thought a review site would do a better job!

Kingdom of Cambodia!

Day 5 was not as interesting as previous days. We boarded a bus and went over the border, located at a place called Aranyaphrathet, from Thailand to Cambodia.

Here are some pictures of our 7 hour bus Journey and the first impressions of Cambodia. We see again some poverty and luxury in the same mile stretch of a road. This is odd, coming from someone in the states, but I guess to each their own!

Some quick notes about Cambodia:

• They take American currency (on the streets and their ATMs provide it as well!) 
• The food is absolutely delicious and there are no preservatives in any of the cuisine!
• Many Cambodians speak enough English for this American to get by!
• Cambodians are generally honest and nice people, always with a smile and always there to help, this is deep seeded into the Buddhist religion and their culture. I haven’t met one that hasn’t smiled yet!

Our final visit at Ayutthaya was Wat Sri Sanphet. This is a Wat placed at a city of ruins. These ruins were so ancient and historical, it figuratively blew my mind. May people piled small stones on walls as forms of prayer or meditation, many Buddha statues are broken everywhere. One Buddha head has actually fallen, and a tree has it’s roots grown around it. I was instructed to actually crouch and get low while taking a picture of this Buddha due to the fact I would be disrespecting Buddha, and all those who honor him if I held myself higher than he…

I, of course, agreed…

We continued to travel Ayutthaya by boat just to do some sight seeing. The water didn’t seem exactly clean and what was amazing to me is the poorer houses on the water were generally placed next to the nicer, well built houses. There didn’t seem to be an exact distinction between a “nice” neighborhood and a “poor” one. Everyone seemed to live on the same river no matter how much money they put into their homes.

In Thailand we took our bus outside of Bangkok to Ayutthaya. Ayutthaya was the former Thai capital for 417 years! We started to visit at the Bang Pa-In Royal Palace. This group of pictures came from the palace grounds that we roamed freely. Bang Pa-In has many beautiful flowers, foreign architecture, foreign art, and foreign statues from Europe and China (mostly). Here are a handful of pictures (I have about 50 more) that were taken at the Bang Pa-In Palace.

Yes, I tried to take some artsy photos of flowers… one or two actually came out decent.

Started looking at and understanding Buddhist architecture. Some of these pictures are incredible and even more breath taking in person. The colors are extremely bold.

After the first Wat (temple) we visited, Alicia wanted her photo taken with a guard and then we proceeded through a market to get to the boat that brought us around Thailand some more, we did some epic climbing, took some pictures, proceeded to more Wats (I was finally allowed to take pictures in the last two we visited) and properly honored Buddha. The first big Buddha was on the Inside of the Wat and the last Buddha is the largest Buddha statue made entirely of gold. Notice how shiny the golden Buddha is!

Oh yeah, we also saw an extremely large lying Buddha. This position is extremely uncommon to find a Buddha statue due to the fact it resembles Buddha before his final death. Since he was enlightened, he was no longer going to be reborn. Rather large I must say.

If you aren’t jealous yet, this video is just a short clip of the “Sky Lounge” in our hotel overlooking the City of Bangkok. Too bad there is no drinking on this trip… I’ll have a water.

Some familiar fruit, some unfamiliar fruit!

Thai Coke!!!!

The contents of this bag are all I have with me for the next 20+ hours of my life. I am hoping my electronics’ batteries pull through and my sandwich lasts me a long time. All the excitement is killing me. Soon I will be abroad!

The contents of my travels. Let’s go put it in a tiny bag!