cooking lesson

At my cooking lesson I learned how to make yaki onigiri!! Yum! (Yaki origiri is grilled rice balls.) I was a natural at the triangular formation.

ikebana #6

My last arrangement

Angkor Wat

The most famous site in Cambodia is Angkor Wat, and it was the primary reason I wanted to visit the area. Angkor Wat is a Buddhist temple that is apparently the largest religious monument in the world. While visiting, we weren't quite sure where exactly they measure from to make that determination; there is a main building complex surrounded by some open land enclosed by a wall and moat. We don't know if everything inside the moat is counted as a religious structure or not.
We made three trips to Angkor Wat. Our first trip was as part of the tour Chelsey talked about earlier; we got up very early in the morning to get there for some iconic sunrise photos. (You've seen some of Chelsey's fine work already).
We didn't stay long that day, as we had many other temples to see, but we went back another day for a full exploration. It is quite the place. The entrance from the west is on a bridge across the moat. It's quite a long bridge and makes for an impressive approach to the outer walls. On either side of the bridge, the handrails were carvings of a giant snake being pulled by Hindu gods and demons. It's a scene from the Hindu creation myth, The Churning of the Sea of Milk. This was a popular myth, as it was used over and over again, almost anywhere they needed a handrail or balustrade.
After the moat, we crossed through the entrance in the wall and were greeted with about a kilometre of mostly open field between us and the actual temple. What is now field was apparently buildings back in the temple's heyday. However, most of the non-religious (or non-sacred) buildings were made of wood, not stone, so they have not survived centuries of neglect. There were some stones and other ruins scattered about. Right in front of the temple were two ponds, on either side of the path. These made for some nice pictures reflecting the temple's towers.
We explored the inside of the temple itself, although you can't go in the signature towers. It was enough to wander around the courtyards, though, and examine the immense amount of carving on the walls. The outside walls were all carved with various scenes from Hindu mythology. One of the sections, part of the Churning of the Sea of Milk, was closed for cleaning, but there were lots of others, including a couple of scenes from the Ramayana. There was also a scene from an actual Khmer battle on the Tonle Sap, the huge lake near Angkor Wat. The carving was complete with alligators eating the soldiers thrown overboard from their boats. Incidentally, this made Chelsey a little nervous for our later boat trip on the lake.
We returned to Angkor Wat one final time before we left, this time at sunset. It really was a remarkable place that lived up to the expectations I had for it.
-Jason

I posted some pictures from Angkor Wat on the picasa site. Picasa sorts the albums by the date the photos were taken, so you will have to scroll back a bit to find them. It is the "Angkor Wat" album. Also, these are only the pictures from the morning so they don't include the pictures from "the carvings" -- these are the outside walls that have the most famous carvings. I'm still working on those pictures.

"Wow. She's good."

Last week at elementary school I had one class with 1st graders. I don't normally get to see kids that young, so it's a treat for me because they're so cute and excited to see me. When I walked into the classroom I saw that the homeroom teacher had prepared some cards with English greetings. It was evident that they had been practicing so that the kids would be able to do a proper greeting when I arrived.
So I started class and said "good morning everyone". One little boy opened his eyes really wide and said "Sugoi. Jouzu." -- which essentially means, "Wow. She's good."

Kite Festival

Just after we returned from Cambodia we went to the kite festival in Himeji. Imagine hundreds of people in a park (which is really an inactive horse race track) all trying to fly kites at once. It's beautiful but inevitably crowded. We had more than once entanglement. But it was still a nice day and a lot of fun.
Once again I was amazed by the size of some of the kites. These are huge canvases which require 50-60 people to launch. And when the launch fails they really come crashing down. There was a small army on patrol with whistles who'd let you know that there was something falling in your direction.
I also love the little kids who'd get hold of the kite string and then run about erratically. It didn't seem to be an effective way to get your kite in the air, but they seemed to have fun.
We met up with our friends Yumi and Megumi who also came with me to cheer for Jason later in the day at the Himeji Castle race. (Jason's writing a different post about that.) Yumi had purchased a Buzz Lightyear kite at a closeout sale for about 50 cents and we were all surprised that it was the best flyer in our group. Yumi spent the rest of the day trying vainly to get her other kite stolen -- this is Japan, after all.
Jason and I did feel a bit like celebrities because there were quite a few people who wanted to take our picture. I guess it was something of a novelty to see foreigners flying kites.

cooking

There was an extra spot at my last cooking lesson, so Jason filled in. We made chicken nabe and fried oysters. I even ate the oysters! I've come a long way.

ikebana #5

My latest attempt.

Angkor Tour

I signed us up for a tour on our second day in Cambodia. I thought it'd be a good way to see and learn about several of the temples. Plus, I'd found a company that advertised "photo discovery tours". I was excited about this because I knew the bright sunshine would make getting properly exposed photos a little tricky. The tour turned out to be our only disappointment of the trip. It wasn't a photo tour at all. Our guide didn't know a thing about photography and couldn't offer any pointers. Bummer. But we still visited seven interesting places that day, and I did my best with the photos.
The day started very early with the sunrise at Angkor Wat. Then we went on to visit Preah Khan (1191), Banteay Kdei (~1200), Pre Rup (961), East Mebon (953), Ta Som (~1200) and Neak Pean (~1190). There are certain elements from the temples that stand out in our memories, but as a whole the day kind of blends together into one big temple visit.
Here are some interesting things we learned about Khmer temples and rulers:
-There are around 100 different temples in the "Angkor" area. They were built between 800-1300 by series of 26 different kings.
-The temples were not built as places for worship. They were palaces for the gods and constructed to resemble Mt. Meru, which is the center of the Hindu universe.
-Many of the temples were built in the "temple mountain" plan, where there are a series of layers. Often, the size of the steps and other elements on the top levels are actually smaller than the ones at the lower levels. This creates and optical illusion and makes the entire structure seem bigger and taller than it really is.
-The oldest temples were built in brick. The bricks appear to be stacked directly on each other and you never see the mortar. This is because they were bound with a vegetable compound -- which, incredibly, is amazing strong and thin so you can't see it.
-Later temples were built in sandstone, which is better suited for carvings.
-King Jayavarman VII was particularly prolific and built many of the most famous temples in the area (but not Angkor Wat). J7 was a passionate Buddhist and installed Buddhist imagery everywhere. However, much of this work was destroyed by Jayavarman VIII, who was Hindu.
The pictures from the day of our tour are up on the picasa site under the "Cambodia tour" folder.

Siem Reap

I wasn't really expecting much out of the town of Siem Reap. I thought it was just going to be a quiet, probably dirty little town to stay while we were seeing the temples. I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was plenty of activity and interesting things in town as well. Cambodia's still a poor country, and that was certainly evident - as was the effect of landmines, as we saw many people who had been crippled by them.
The heart of town, and the area we spent the most time in, was near the Old Market. This is a large covered market that sells everything from food to clothes to trinkets. The food part was interesting, because some of it was things we weren't remotely familiar with. We also enjoyed walking through the other areas and looking at the clothes and things for sale, although we did get tired of the constant hard sell (this would be a theme).
Near the Old Market is an area known as Pub Street. This has apparently grown up quite quickly and is now the site to go to eat. There are probably a dozen or more restaurants on or just off this street. We tried Cambodian food a couple of times (it was very good), some Indian, even some Mexican. It was nice to eat near the sidewalk and people-watch. This was an extremely touristy area, so most of the people we saw were foreigners (or Cambodians trying to sell things to foreigners or tuk-tuk drivers), but I thought that was interesting. All in all, I found Siem Reap to be a much more pleasant place to hang out than I was expecting.
-Jason

sunrise pictures

The rest of the sunrise pictures are on picasa.

We were there a bit before sunrise, so the first pictures are very blue because the sky was still quite dark. Then they shoot through the range of colors as the sun rises. It was beautiful.

sneak peek

Here's one of my shots from sunrise at Angkor Wat.

Malaysian street food

There are a lot of street markets in Kuala Lumpur and we'd read that the street food is very good and something not to be missed. I admit that I cringed every time we walked by a market with raw meats just sitting out. But then I'd remind myself this part of the world does things differently, that I'd packed a generous supply of Pepto Bismol and that I just needed to go with it. So we did. And the food was terrific -- though we were glad to have the Pepto Bismol.