Another Day in Saigon

hu tiu

With our fabric purchases from yesterday we were off early today to find a seamstress who could make our ao dai for us. We got lucky and found a really great one on our first try. Everyone seemed to like him and he had a good price for us. He took our measurements and we talked about the designed we are interested in. He was a huge help and we are excited to see what he comes back with.

From there we went to a nearby church to pay our respects to Yvonne's grandparents and other relatives. We then drove to a nearby house to see where her grandmother once lived. It was great to be able to do this as part of our visit! 

We then grabbed lunch back near the house. Today we had hu tiu mi hoanh ton! This is a noodle dish with two types of noodles, meat, shrimp, soup, and some vegetables. 

in class

After lunch we rested for the afternoon to help Yvonne recover from her cold some more. She is doing much better now. Later in the day Dan taught another class. He taught about the American education system for 30 minutes and took questions for another 30 minutes. He now has even more Vietnamese Facebook friends after today. 

bun cha gio

For dinner we had bun cha gio which was all made fresh at home. This dish is made of noodles, spring rolls, and vegetables. After dinner we took the scooters out to see the city by night. The best way to see the city is by scooter so that you can take part in the craziness of their traffic. We drove into district 1, the city center or 'foreigner district'. We grabbed a drink and walked around. This was a totally different city from the part of town we have been staying in. Very cool to see. 

We took the scooters back and ate another round of dinner at 11pm. We picked up right where we left off with the bun cha gio. 

Tomorrow we are up early to catch a bus to spend a few days at the beach! 

the whole class - 12th grade

ready to hit the road

Rainy day on the town

Pho

fabric market at cua dong

We started our morning walking to a nearby pho shop to get breakfast pho. Then we headed into the main area of the city to find a tailor to make ao dai, traditional Vietnamese dresses, for Yvonne, Dan, and her mom (all for the wedding). We then went to one of the largest markets in the city to find the specific fabrics for the ao dai. Thank goodness we had Yvonne's family there to haggle a great deal, we never could have done it ourselves. We took a quick break to eat some che, dessert. Luckily when Yvonne's aunt ordered she omitted the durian, the che was delicious. 

lunch at Minh Duc

We then ate lunch filled with requests from Yvonne's dad, including canh chua​, rau muong, tom rim ram, ca kho. Dan had never eaten any of it before but enjoyed all of it.

We spent some time at the War Remnants Museum showing the after effects of the American impact​ of the war. A somber experience, and very interesting propaganda. 

Dan revealing the secrets of DreamWorks.

We returned home to rest as Yvonne still has a cough, but Yvonne's uncle Chu Hao requested Dan speak to a couple high school aged classes about working at Dreamworks and the American education system. He was a hit in both of the classes, even though he couldn't tell if they could understand his English. A little boy asked for his autograph, and three teenage girls requested to be Facebook friends. We think it's because they were impressed by his work on How To Train Your Dragon and not because of his charming good looks. 

While eating dinner past 9pm, we received news that Yvonne's cousin Hiep just got his American visa approved and he will be attending Cal State Fullerton next month! We are very excited for him and can't wait to show him around SoCal.  

tom rim

ram rim

A Warm Vietnamese Welcome

Landing in Saigon.

Brawn & Brains was closed this morning :( So we left Singapore.

Our trip between Singapore and Saigon  was another smooth trip for us. We arrived at the airport early to explore for a bit since it is one of the best ranked airports in the world. We got a quick bite to eat and then were off to Vietnam! 

We arrived in Saigon in the early afternoon. We received a very warm welcome from a few of Yvonne's family members who were there to pick us up and take us back to their home. Yvonne got to catch up with her relatives that she hadn't seen since 2001. We arrived at their place and found that it is 5 stories tall. They made a room for us on the fourth floor with a fantastic view of the city. Then they immediately offered us fresh local fruits, cherimoyas or soursops, and a type of lychee. They were delicious. 

Half of each story in the house is converted into a classroom. Kids would pile into their home from 6-9pm for additional classes on top of their normal schoolwork. They were very surprised to see Dan, and a few were brave enough (or coerced by teachers) to ask him questions in Vietnamese. However, many were in shock and awe when they discovered he worked on animated films, with one teenage girl covering her face muttering "oh my god" over and over. One kid even got Dan's autograph, but she is still confused that "Golembeski" is a last name. 

For dinner we had a feast of banh xeo, chao, and goi cuon, or Vietnamese crepes, rice porridge, and fresh spring rolls. They kept piling food onto our plates despite repeated protests. 

We spent the evening hanging with Yvonne's cousin Hiep as we jammed to some English songs he knew on keyboard. He offered to take is for a quick walk around his district, which is just off the central area of Saigon. We are starting our day early tomorrow: 7am for some pho. We're off to a great start in Vietnam!

View from the roof.

On the roof.

This was taken after the two of us were eating for an hour... Still so much to eat!

Meeting Ong, one of Yvonne's maternal grand uncles. He is 96 years old! He gave us his blessing for a long and healthy marriage.

Even more good food on the street!

Universal Studios

Prawn noodles in the Old Airport Food Centre.

We started our day with some coffee (Brawn & Brain again), prawn noodle soup, and popiah (kinda like a spring roll).  We picked up the food at the Old Airport Food Centre near our apartment.

Universal Studios Singapore

Once we were done eating we decided to head over to Sentosa Island which is pretty much the center of the tourist universe in Singapore. There are a whole bunch of attractions, resorts and restaurants all over the island. We decided to check out Universal Studios mostly because it has some DreamWorks rides! It was pretty cool to see the Madagascar and Far Far Away locations and we managed to get on every ride we  wanted to see despite getting to the park a little late in the day. 

We finished off the day with some noodles, soup and a few deserts from the Old Airport Food Centre. 

Lots off good food and a great time meeting with friends in Singapore... tomorrow we are off to Vietnam! 

Prawn noodle soup from Whitley Rd Big Prawn Noodle

At Shrek's house

At the gates of Far Far Away

Good Food Everywhere

Maxwell Food Centre

Lunch at Maxwell Food Centre.

We started off our first full day in Singapore with some good coffee and pastries. We found a place close to our apartment called Brawn & Brains. Zhenzhen, Edmund, and Clarissa then came to pick us up for some lunch in Chinatown. We ate at Maxwell Food Centre which is one of many hawker centres (open air food stalls) around Singapore. Maxwell has more than 100 stalls and we grabbed food from one of the most famous, Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice. We also picked up an oyster pancake and some sugar cane juice. Chicken Rice is a very famous dish in Singapore so it was a must have for us. 

Egg tarts from Tong Heng.

After lunch we went for egg tarts in Chinatown at a very well known bakery, Tong Heng Confectionery.​ We were not hungry at all after lunch but we managed to find space for these :)

View from the top of The Pinnacle@Duxton.

We took a break from eating and went over to The Pinnacle@Duxton to get some roof top views of the city. This building is a public housing highrise on the west side of Singapore. It has a huge sky garden on the top floor and they make it very hard for non-residents to get to the top. Edmund informed us that this is by design since they really did not want to draw any tourists to a residential building. So too bad, we found our way! The building has 360deg views of the city which made for a great way to see all sides of Singapore.

National Lion Dance Championships @ Orchard Road.

We spent the remainder of the day at Orchard Road which is the high end retail and entertainment hub of Singapore. We grabbed some coffee and pastries and then said our goodbyes to Zhenzhen, Edmund, and Clarissa. We were extremely grateful for the time they took to show us around! From there we did some window shopping, enjoyed the A/C, and caught the national lion dance championship. We just stumbled upon the lion dancing and stuck around to watch since it was so impressive.

We took the subway home and picked up some biryani and soy bean curd at a hawker centre near our apartment. More good food to close out the day.​

From the top of The Pinnacle@Duxton

Chicken at Maxwell Food Centre

The line for chicken rice

Cambodia -> Singapore

Super Trees in Gardens By The Bay.

We left hotel in Siem Reap at 8:30am this morning and arrived at our place in Singapore at 2pm (with a 1 hour time change). Our trip to the airport in Cambodia was pretty fun since we got a driver who wanted to practice his English and tour skills so he took us to the airport via back roads and showed us some villages. He hopes to start his own tour business one day so we were glad to be his beta testers. 

Our trip to Singapore was very smooth. Easy getting out of Cambodia and very easy arriving in Singapore. The flight was only 2 hours and our apartment was only 15 minutes from the airport. We got a place through airbnb.com and got a really good deal on a nice apartment. They even have a really nice swimming pool here so we can keep our swimming streak alive.​

Group shot at Zhenzhen's place

Yvonne's friend from USC, Zhenzhen, invited us to her place for dinner where her mom cooked a big Cantonese dinner for us and we got to meet her 5 month old daughter, Clarissa. It was great to have a home cooked meal and meet her family. 

Super Trees and Marina Bay Sands

Zhenzhen and her husband then took us downtown to show us around and take us to the Gardens By The Bay. This is a large park next to the Marina Bay Sands Hotel/Casino.​ The park is famous for the iconic super trees scattered throughout the park. The trees are lit up at night which makes for a really beautiful walk through the park. We are looking forward to some more exploration with Zhenzhen and her family tomorrow.

View from Zhenzhen's balcony.

Super Trees at Gardens By The Bay

Our final day in Cambodia and we decided to see...

Holding a flame at Preah Khan. (Special thanks to the police officer that offered to take this for us and then asked for money :) )

Sak resting in the tuk tuk while we are in the temple.

more temples!! We tossed around the idea of seeing some other sites but there were still so many more temples to see and we liked riding around the temple area by tuk tuk. In total we packed in 5 temples today(Preah Khan, Neak Pean, Ta Som, East Mebon, Pre Rup). We got the same tuk tuk driver from yesterday (pictured to the right) which was nice since he is a really nice guy and always seems to find us faster than we can find him when leaving the temples.

Making elephants at Angkor Artisans.

​We spent ~6 hours exploring the temples and having fun taking a ton of photos. Once we were done at the temples we headed back into Siem Reap and visited an artist training and workshop center called Angkor Artisans. There is a much longer story to it but it basically serves as vocational training for rural young adults and maintains traditional Khmer art trades. We toured the facility and got to see many of their final products in their gift shop... Really amazing work.

Swimming pool at Sala Lodges

​We finished off the day with one last swim at the hotel and then headed out to another great Khmer restaurant, Marum, which is a training restaurant for street kids. Everything was great here.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Singapore!​

North gate to Angkor Thom.

At Preah Khan.

A little side building at Preah Khan.

Walking out to Neak Pean.

Ta Som

East Mebon Temple

Pre Rup Temple

A Relaxing Day In Cambodia

Temple on the top of Phnom Bakheng.

Entrance to Banteay Kdei.

Today we started off a bit later than the last few days by heading out at 7am. Thankfully we both woke up feeling a bit better than the previous day. We spent the morning visiting two more temples, Ta Nei and Banteay Kdei. Both of these temples were pretty much free from any other tourists which was kind of a nice break from the big temples the day before. Ta Nei is tucked away in the middle of the jungle and is overgrown by vegetation. Banteay Kdei is simple and small but still fun to explore. 

Once we got back from exploring temples in the morning we came back into the city for a massage. After the massage we went for a swim at the hotel. Overall a really rough afternoon :)

For the evening we went out to see the sunset from one of the mountain top temples, Phnom Bakheng. We hiked to the top and watched the race between the sun setting and an oncoming thunderstorm. The thunderstorm won and we ended up leaving before the sun completely set.  

For dinner we went to a resturaunt in Siem Reap called Chanrey Tree.  Here we had some amazing Cambodian food here. Either we were starving or everything they make is just really great. Probably both are true.

Riding in our tuk tuk.

We liked our tuk tuk driver, Sak, so much from today that we kept him for most of the day and asked him to continue driving us tomorrow. So we plan to see some more temples tomorrow that are a bit further from the city.  

Entrance of Ta Nei.

Entrance of Ta Nei.

Inside of Ta Nei.

Overgrown Ta Nei

Banteay Kdei

Inside Banteay Kdei

At the top of Phnom Bakheng.

Temples

Angkor Wat at sunrise.

Today was all about visiting temples. We woke up at 4:30am to catch the sunrise at Angkor Wat. We explored Angkor Wat with our tour guide for ~4 hours. Angkor Wat is the center piece of all temples in Cambodia. Then we grabbed some breakfast and jumped back into our tuk tuk to head over to Angkor Thom, a walled royal city. Once inside we checked out the Bayon and Baphuon temples. The last temple we visited for the day was Ta Prohm. All in all we were out hiking and exploring the temples for ~9 hours. There really are no words to decribe how amazing each site was. Instead we are just posting a bunch of pictures below. The remainder of the day we ate, rested, and went for a swim. Bit of us seem to have come down with a cold so we took some extra time to rest the remainder of the day.

The north side of Angkor Wat.

The last set of stairs to the top of Angkor Wat.

Rehydrating at the top of Angkor Wat.

West facing view from the top of Angkor Wat.

Demon on the bridge entering Angkor Thom.

Arriving at Bayon.

Three Buddha faces at Bayon.

Posing with some locals at Bayon.

View from the top of Baphuon.

In a tree at Ta Prohm.

Tree on a temple in Ta Prohm.

Leaving Ta Prohm... Done for the day.

A new day, a new country

Main entrance to Kunming Airport.

This morning we left very early to catch our flight to Cambodia. We had to make one connection flight in Kunming. A quick side note, the airport here is really amazing. It is brand new, and is huge. All in all it wasn't a bad place to have a couple hours to kill between flights. This gave us a chance to eat and do some Cambodia research.

Our house for the next 5 days.

We made it to Siem Reap, Cambodia without any issues. Our hotel, Sala Lodges, sent a driver and he gave us the scenic route back to our hotel per our request. The hotel is amazing! It is made up of 12 old Cambodian houses that were moved to this common area to make up a small hotel. You get to rent out one of these houses. We spent the afternoon just admiring all of the houses around the grounds and then went for a swim. We decided to continue hanging out at the hotel for dinner, planning our next day, and watching a thunderstorm roll in for the night. We are pretty excited about some of the things we have lined up for our stay here plus we really like the hotel. 

Some more houses and a lounge area.

Shanghai Day 4

Match makers in People's Park.

On Sunday we did some more exploring with Elj and Xiaohan. We started the day by heading out to People's Park to see the match makers (parents both advertising and searching for a match). According to Eli and Xiaohan what we saw was a quiet day due to the holiday weekend but there was still a ton of people there.

​We stopped for lunch nearby to pick up some soup dumplings. After waiting in line for awhile we ended up getting pork and crab egg dumplings as well as some seaweed soup. Everything was great. From lunch we moved on to the fabric market to see of we wanted to get anything made (shirts, suits, dresses... etc). This market was huge and we spent a lot of time there. In the end Yvonne bought a blazer and Dan picked up three dress shirts. All of these are being custom made and we will pick them up on our way ​back through Shanghai at the end of our Asia trip.

Bees and grasshoppers at Southern Barbarian.

For dinner we went out to a place called Southern Barbarian which specializes in Yunnan style food. The one notable dish was the 'three bug platter' which was made up of bees, grasshoppers, and woodworms.Unfortunately they were out of woodworms but we still got the other two. They tasted liked fried stuff.    

That was out last day in Shanghai. Eli and Xiaohan were amazing hosts! Off to Cambodia tomorrow.​

One last photo with Eli and Xiaohan.

Shanghai Day 3

Shanghai at night.

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Water calligraphy at Fuxing Park.

This weekend is the Mid-Autum Festival in China which means only one thing... Mooncakes! We started off the day with Eli and Xaiohan to pick up some mooncakes at a local Shanghai bakery. On our way there we walked through Fuxing Park again and found that even more people than during the week were in the park singing, flying kites, dancing, and doing water calligraphy. We continued on to the bakery where we got in line for mooncakes. Despite there only being about 15 people ahead of us in line, we gave up after 1.5 hours of waiting. The mooncakes were made fresh on the spot but it seemed every person ordered the entire batch (~50 mooncakes in a batch) when it was their turn. So this took forever and we just couldn't wait any longer. We ended up buying some at another bakery later in the day, they just were not from such a famous place and were a different style.

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On the subway with Eli and Xaiohan.

In the afternoon we went to the 'fake mall' which as you may have guessed is a huge mall filled with fake versions (or overruns) of EVERYTHING you can think of. We had a lot of fun here because you can (and should) bargain for everything. Eli and Xiaohan are experts and taught us well. 

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Dinner was in the building with the small dark red awning and lighted doorway on the right.

For dinner we went out to a very small resturaunt-like place in a woman's house where she cooks for a very small number of people each night. The meal was local Shanghainese cuisine, and everything was great. We had snails, shrimp, fish, tofu & bamboo soup, crab, and some vegetable. It all came out at once which you can see in the photo below. 

Dinner!

Shanghai Day 2

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A wall at Yuyuan Garden.

Today was another day with lots of walking as we explored some new parts of town. We started the day walking over to a nearby park named Fuxing Park. The park was filled with older adults flying kites, dancing, and singing (not all at the same time). We are coming to realize this is fairly common at all parks on weekday mornings.

We then walked through Sinan Mansions on our way to an arts and crafts district called Tianzifang. Here we explored the shops and old architecture. We grabbed some food here and then headed over to another part of town to check out the City of God Temple and Yuyuan Garden.

Good thing Eli and Xiaohan informed us to never fall for the 'tea ceremony' scam! As soon as we got off the subway we were approach by a young chinese couple who spoke English very well. They asked us a bunch of questions and were super friendly. We were both crazy for thinking they were actually just nice and friendly people but quickly woke up once the invited us for tea. Thanks to the warning from Eli and Xiaohan we saved ourselves a lot of money and disappointment as well as some new fake friends :)

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The Pavilion at Yuyuan Garden.

After all of that we made it to the temple and garden, both which were very beautiful. Then we grabbed a late lunch (crepes, recommendation from Eli and Xiaohan) . Tonight we are heading out to dinner with Eli and Xiaohan which will be nice since we haven't had much time to catch up with them.

Hanging out at Yuyuan Garden.

First Day in Shanghai

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Lunch!

Today was our first full day in Shanghai. We spent most of the day taking advantage of the good weather by walking, exploring, and eating. We started the day walking from Eli's place to People's Park. After exploring the park for a bit, we moved on to walking down Nanjing Road. This is just a super packed road with tons of shopping and food... and people. We looked around for some food and stumbled upon a great food area on the third floor of a shopping center. Here we got some fried dumplings and a bowl of noodles and meat (not sure what it is called). 

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Photo at The Bund.

From there we continued down Nanjing Road to The Bund, a riverside park with great views of Shanghai. We then traveled under the river via The Sightseeing Tunnel to get to Pearl Tower (side note: we will save you the trouble and recommend against taking the tunnel as there are no sights to see in this :) ). 

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Our smoggy view while sipping tea high above Shanghai.

​After walking around this side of town for a bit we visited the Shanghai World Financial Center (aka the bottle opener building) to enjoy some tea on the top floor while looking out over Shanghai. This was a much needed rest from walking across the city all day.

Once rested, we took the subway home (at rush hour!) to meet Eli for dinner. We went out of Hong Kongese food.​

Arrived in Shanghai

Flight map from when we landed in Seoul.

Flight map from when we landed in Shanghai.

We had a really smooth day of travel and are now in Shanghai. We didn't end up having as much free time as we thought during our layover in South Korea since we had to cover a lot of ground and go through another round of security for transfers. However we still did manage to grab a quick bite to eat (on top of all the food we got on the flights) so that we could get some food in Korea.

Our friend Eli picked us up at Pudong International Airport (PVG) in Shanghai. It was great to have a familiar face in a new country and it was great to catch up a bit before we all crashed back at his place. He set us up with a full agenda for tomorrow. So we are now prepared to go get lost on our own for the day :) 

Leaving LA

Yvonne already on the plane.

We are at the airport and about to board a Korean Airlines A380!  The flight to Seoul, South Korea is 12.5 hours. We then have a short layover where we will pig out on some delicious Korean food. Then on to Shanghai, China!

Our plane getting ready.

First Post

We are testing out our blogging abilities before we take off for our trip. Below is the map for our 5 week vacation. We will be flying from Los Angeles -> Shanghai -> Siem Reap -> Singapore -> Ho Chi Minh City -> Hanoi -> Shanghai -> Los Angeles. 

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