Plans thwarted, new plans made

Well, we were planning to fly to Bangkok. Yeah, I know. Great timing. Not sure if this made headlines back home, but apparently there are some protesters in Bangkok who want to force the Prime Minister to step down. So they stormed the international airport, took it over, and disrupted flights all over the country, thereby destroying the tourism industry and the economic backbone of their country.

Since our flights were cancelled, our discount air carriers graciously gave us our credit back (yes, Southeast Asian discount air carriers seem to have better customer service than stupid Air Canada...that's another story for another time). As a result we are now flying to Malaysia. We'll be exploring the West Coast, possibly Melaka and Penang. We have to stay on the West Coast because we heard it's the monsoon season on the East Coast (a bit disappointed about that as we wanted to go to Pulau Perhentian, the islands where we spent our engagement week).

After a couple weeks in Malaysia, we'll be flying to Laos, over land to Vietnam, and then to Cambodia. We'll keep you updated when we get there! Miss you all!

Accomplishments

Today we got a few things taken care of:

I booked us a flight directly from Bangkok to Samui, so we don't even have to go into Bangkok. We have to spend about 6 hours in the airport.

We heard back from our would be employer that they have finally received all of the needed documents and will be sending a contract in about three weeks. After many hiccups, it looks like things might work out, and I will be starting at Xiamen University around February 15th.

We also went to the Vietnamese Embassy and dropped off our passports for visa stamps. It cost 300HKD and should be ready by Friday.

Hong Kong

We made it to Hong Kong after 24 hours of travel on 3 hours of sleep. The great thing about modern air travel is that you get your own personal little TV screen, so you barely notice how long the flight is. We watched "Wall-E", which I recommend to anyone who hasn't seen it. It makes robots and cockroaches look cute and beyond that has a strong message about pollution and human laziness.

When we arrived, some of Cam's relatives were at the airport to pick us up, which was really nice since we had over 200 lbs. in luggage. Now we are staying at her Aunt's house in a high-rise apartment complex on Hong Kong Island. It's nice to be right in the middle of everything.

Resurrecting the Blog

We are off again! Camilla and I are sitting in front of Tim Hortons (the Canadian fast food craze), eating doughnut holes (aka: Tim bits) and drinking a half coffee/half hot chocolate (Cam's favorite).
We are here in Canada for a three hour layover in Vancouver on our way from LA to Hong Kong

A lot has happened in the past few months, so I'll breeze through some of the highlights:
-Camilla and I left California in July to head to New Jersey for Eric and Joanne's wedding
-Along the way we visited various friends, stopping in over 20 states.
-From the Eric and Jo's wedding we headed back to Toronto to stay with Camilla's family until our wedding.
-My parents visited and so they could meet Camilla's family before the wedding and see a bit of Canada
-We drove to Montreal and Quebec City
-Friends and family flew in to town for the wedding October 11th
-Camilla and I drove back to California for a second wedding reception and and extended visit in California.
-Camilla's family came for the reception and we visited Yosemite and San Francisco.
-After seeing a bunch of family friends and driving 17,000 miles, through35 states, we are back on the road to Asia.
-From Hong Kong we will fly to Bangkok and visit SE Asia for about a month and a half. Our plan is to see Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, then fly to Australia and New Zealand before heading back to China.
-The eventual plan, if all works out, is for me to teach oral English at Xiamen University and for Camilla to study Mandarin and tutor English in her spare time. Xiamen is on the coast of China between Hong Kong and Shanghai, closer to Hong Kong, straight across from Taiwan.