No Rest for the Wicked

After shamefully neglecting my blog for months and months and months… I thought I’d update it with a few pictures of things that have been keeping me out of trouble for the past few months.

 

 

31 countries in 31 years…and then some

visited 35 states (15.5%)
Create your own visited map of The World or determine the next president

Here’s my list:

1. Canada
2. USA
3. Germany
4. France
5. Italy
6. Austria
7. Colombia
8. Costa Rica
9. Ecuador
10. Chile
11. Argentina
12. Uruguay
13. Brazil
14. Peru
15. Malaysia
16. Laos
17. Cambodia
18. Thailand
19. Singapore
20. Indonesia
21. Nepal
22. Vietnam
23. The Philippines
24. Belgium
25. The Netherlands
26. Sweden
27. England
28. Egypt
29. Scotland
30. Ireland
31. Czech Republic
32. Spain
33. Switzerland
34. Liechtenstein
35. Luxembourg
36. Tunisia

(updated November 4, 2008)

Brussels Turns HIP

Awesome, awesome concert! Check out the pix! Here’s Gordie!

Fellow cool, Canadian, chick Mel, and me

Even more cool chicks Buddies Brit and Sarah

Back to the band…

Funniest story of the night…

I’m standing in the crowd, only a few meters away from the boyz, when I turn to the couple next to me (who looked Canadian) and ask them where they’re from. They reply “Regina.” At which point I ask them if they know anyone who lives in Malaysia. I figured Regina’s a small town and there were a bunch of Regina-ers (?) working at my school in KL so it might be possible we know some of the same people.  Turns out… dude plays hockey with my former director’s son. How crazy is that?!

And then…  I point to the greasy haired lead guitarist pictured below (don’t know his name) and ask the girl “who’d shag that guy?” She replies “um, probably me.” I laugh and say “yah, forgot, you’re from Regina, you people will shag anything.” She totally laughed, but then spent the rest of the concert with her camcorder locked on long haired, greasy dude.  Ew!

5 Days in Paradise

Yesterday I got back to KL after spending five days in my favourite place on the planet… Kapalai-Sipadan. Pulau Sipadan is one of the world’s foremost dive sites, and it’s right here in Malaysia!

My first trip there was in November 2005 and when I thought about where I should go for my last vacation in Malaysia (for a while anyway) I just had to go back to Kapalai. My words can’t begin to describe how fabulous the resort is, so check it out at http://sipadan-kapalai.com/

I stayed at the resort, which is a entirely wooden stilt-house village built on a shallow reef, and was joined by my favourite divemaster buddy, Yanni.

Here’s where I spent my time when I wasn’t swimming in the ocean with turtles, sharks, schools of hundreds of barracudas, and so many of the most beautiful fish in the world! It truly felt like I was diving in a giant aquarium. Just amazing!

Malaysian Borneo – KK

This weekend I took my personal day from work and spent the weekend in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, which is in Malaysian Borneo. This has been my fourth trip to Borneo, and I have one more trip ( 5 days of diving in Sipadan) before I leave Malaysia next month.

 This weekend I had visions of climbing Kota Kinabalu, which is Southeast Asia’s highest mountain, but the cabins that are halfway up the mountain are booked solid through September. Crazy! So instead my travelling buddy and I stayed close to sea level and soaked ourselves in the park’s hot springs, searched for the infamous rafflesia, spent some valuable time on the beach, and fell in love with the baby orang utans at the orang utan sanctuary in the very oppulent Shangri La Resort.

This is the view of KK, just beginning to cloud over at about 9:30 in the morning.

Walking along the rainforest canopy.

               

This is the super cool rafflesia, which is the world’s largest flower, and is surrounded by mystery. Scientists still have not been able to produce this flower in a laboratory setting.

The Shangri La Resort with orang utan sanctuary.

So cute!

Kota Kinabalu Climb

Next week! Details coming soon.

 (image:http://www.nemotravel.com.sg/nemotravel/FreeEasy/mount_kota_kinabalu.jpg)

The Great White North

I hadn’t experienced a Canadian winter in over four years until I went home this past December. I had forgotten how much I love winter and snow! I was worried that my five years of living in the tropics had made me a winter wimp… but my three weeks at home in the cold were wonderful! I especially loved wearing my winter clothes! I never feel cozy here in the heat… just hot and sticky. I’ve been back in KL for almost two weeks now and feel like it’s hotter here than it has ever been! Argh!

Since it doesn’t often snow in Vancouver, I made sure that I would find some so I went skiing with some friends, including my good buddy Nicole, up at Cypress Mountain. Ahh, sigh… Vancouver truly is the best city in the world…

But then… the snow came to us. Here’s a picture of my parents’ street the day I left Vancouver for KL. Talk about extremes…

Oh! The Places I’ve Gone

create your own visited countries map
or vertaling Duits Nederlands
updated March 2008

How groovy is this? A big thanks to Superkimbo “Follow that Elephant” for starting all of us on this blog path. However, I can’t believe how many of my very well-travelled friends haven’t made it north of the US border!

Here’s my list:

1. Canada
2. USA
3. Germany
4. France
5. Italy
6. Austria
7. Colombia
8. Costa Rica
9. Ecuador
10. Chile
11. Argentina
12. Uruguay
13. Brazil
14. Peru
15. Malaysia
16. Laos
17. Cambodia
18. Thailand
19. Singapore
20. Indonesia
21. Nepal
22. Vietnam
23. The Philippines
24. Belgium
25. The Netherlands
26. Sweden
27. England
28. Egypt
29. Scotland
30. Luxembourg (April 2008?)
31. Ireland (April 2008)
32. Spain (May 2008)

I’ll Be Home for Christmas

Yay!!!!! For the first time in 4 years I’m going home for Christmas!

I am so excited. I got my plane tickets today and have been dreaming about wearing my winter clothes! Sweaters, coats, real shoes instead of sandals all the time! I can’t wait! I fully realize that I’ve been rather homesick for the last little while, so going home might not be the smartest move right now… but so what? I do wonder how many days of being cold will it take before I can’t wait to be back in the hot and steamy tropics. Hmm…. we’ll see….

Found this photo taken way back in 2002 when I was living in Colombia. This was the last time I came home for xmas…. check out my hair… ugh! Beckett and Jenn look perfect as always ; )

 

Sisters: can’t live with them… can’t shoot ‘em ;)

This past Sunday I called home and experienced one of the worst things that can happen to someone who lives on the other side of the planet from their nearest and dearest… well almost. After doing the chit chat routine with Ma for a few minutes. It will always make me laugh that everytime we talk on the phone she asks what’s the weather like? ummm here in KL now? hot and wet. yesterday? hot and wet. tomorrow? you guessed it… hot and wet. Gotta luv her  

So after the oh-so-informative “how’s the weather?” chat, Mom jumps into something new with “I’ve got some bad news for you… Kelly(sister) was in a car accident.”  I seriously felt my heart stop and all these questions immediately enter my head: is Kel ok? is she in the hospital? am I going home? who will look after my class? can I change my plane ticket? will I stay at home? And then… I really should be a more organized teacher. Half a second later I got the “but she’s okay” part of the message, and all was well again. Thank heaven.

Here’s to you Kelbelle. Can’t wait to go skiing with you this winter when I’m home. Am so happy you and Angel weren’t hurt. Love ya heaps and heaps. But do realize this… when we’re heading up whatever mountain, I’m driving!

Here’s us tanked at this year’s Canada Day Party (to my Yankee friends, no I don’t wear my Canadian flag pin all the time!)

And here’s Kel’s little green bomb… totally totalled. I say, life is short Kelbelle, buy the VW Beetle you’ve wanted since you were 13.