Long Time, No Blog.

I can't believe it has been 9 months since my last blog, that is some really bad correspondence. I guess life started to settle in and living in Singapore felt more 'normal' and it was harder to keep the updates going. 

I have just hit my 2 year mark and it's incredible how time literally flies. A few updates are that I have renewed my lease and working permit here in Singapore, time frame, I don't know!? I will be home in July for Danny and Maggie's wedding in July and can't wait! And Molly is coming back to visit, yay she loved Asia! An this time she is coming with the best neighbor a person could ask for Bethany, from Lincoln Park Towers...watch out Asia!

Anyways, I have visited some very special places and felt it was time for an update! I hope you enjoy.

Per usual I think the only way this blog can entertain is with photos. Before I get into Sri Lanka I wanted to share how clever I thought the W Bangkok was with the location specific decor!

The wall of lights is actually lights from Tuk Tuk's around town!

 Lights Out boxing gloves on the bed. Very clever since Muay Thai boxing is so popular there!

I will breeze right over Christmas and New Year's because that would be a novel in and of itself! I will dive right into Sri Lanka! I have always wanted to go there and so my friend Colleen and I booked ourselves on a fantastic 5 day trip, 2 nights at the beach and 2 nights in the tea trails!

When your hotel is all inclusive you have Rose for lunch!

 The fishermen on the sticks were something I have never seen before. I guess they prefer that, to a boat. 

The fisherman did craft a state of the art pier to get to work every day!

There is an actual reason they do this, if you care to have a look: 

http://www.wired.com/2014/08/florian-muller-sri-lanka-stilt-fishing/ 

 About 30 minutes drive from Weligama beach was a small town called Galle with a famous lighthouse and clock tower. The town was adorable and had lots of Portuguese influence.

Every school child in Sri Lanka was on a field trip to Galle the day we visited and it was about 150 degrees.

 Clock Tower

Lunch time! What utensils?! Eating with your hands, a craft I have not mastered. 

 Adorable shopping in Galle, quaint (sweltering hot) streets!

Bike Ride through Weligama: 

Rice fields with water buffalo's

2 trouble makers fishing for something ;)

I think these may be rubber trees, a major export of Sri Lanka...hard to tell my since guide wasn't so clear ;). It was only clear he was trying to tell me something important and I should be thankful and take a picture to cherish the mystery trees for years to come!

 Tons of peacocks roaming around

Fresh delivery

Well that is basically all I have to share from Weligama and Galle, they were amazing, the food (read, Rose) was delicious and it was a lot of relaxing. The next stop was the tea trails. Everyone says the roads in Sri Lanka are not that great but I always thought, how bad could they be? The answer is BAD! Imagine driving in a Geo Metro up a mountain over huge rocks and boulders for 8 hours, it was like that. The driver was so lost and for 3 hours told us we would be there in 15 minuets/10 kilometers. After he said this for the 12th time  I tried to explain the sun was going to set, we could potentially run out of gas and that we had no food. Toonces the driving cat simply looked and me and said...5 minuets/10 kilometers.

Driving around the mountain range about 4 times to try to find our hotel was worth it in the end. It was so beautiful, I think I ended up taking 150 of the same picture. 

I got up for sunrise, so you know it must have been good. No filer, it was absolutely divine

The Bungalow we stayed at: there were about 4 in the region in the same company. The Castlereagh was on the water, which was beautiful

Luxurious it was!

Bungalow flowers

Norwood Tea Estate- Tea Tour

To know me, is to know I love tea! Such a great tour!

Betel stains your teeth brown and it's really nasty, Not allowed here...however by the looks of the factory workers teeth, I think they were breakin' the rules.

Example:  from Google

The tea is picked from these beautiful, man made tea trails

The heavier your bag, the more money you earn...

There is a quality check, so you can't just fill it up with rocks:)

The tea pickers have dropped off fresh leaves to earn their daily wages. I think it's around $5-$15 USD; they live on government land and their children can go to government school. Typically every female in the village becomes a tea picker and every male, a tea factory worker. The average retirement age is 65...they start between 15-18 years of age

Fresh from the tea trails, tea leaves being spread out for tea leaf quality check

Full house of tea!

A lovely moment at the tea factory

Inside the Tea Factory:

Carefully spreading out the tea to breathe

All the tea, lined up

Before the tea is lined up, it goes through a few machines with a lot of manual assistance

The tea is packaged and ready to go to auction

Time to taste the teas, a few difference types are grown here

Tea time

The trails before the rain

Tuk Tuk'in around the trails...still on one way roads

Bliss!

I am not sure these videos will work, but they are inside the factory.

 Until next time! Lots of love, Katy

Aussie x 2 & Home Visitors x 3!!!

It's that time of year again when it's so hot you can't even bear to stand and wait for the bus without creeping behind a pole, wall or in the shadow of a tree leaf to find some relief from the shade.

I have been very delinquent on the blog, looking back at my last post I was writing about events in February and now it's June, shame on me!

I should start with my trip to South Australia, it was wonderful. A group of us from Singapore made the journey about and 8 hour flight to Adelaide and then drove the Great Ocean road to Melbourne which we did in about a week, stopping at wineries and beach towns along the way.

We started our trip in Adelaide and headed up to McLaren Vale for delicious wines. One of our friends on the trip is from Adelaide so we got to meet up with his friends at the winery which was fun to hang out with locals. It was heading into Aussie winter so it was nice to need a sweater and not be sweating to death :)

 After McLaren Vale we headed to Barossa Valley; the O'Malley'd did some major planning and we had gorgeous house rentals in each stop. This was the patio in our Barossa house. The wines here were amazing too, it was so great, I think i drank enough red wine for a year, or ten.

 Making wine, on site at the Rockford Winery. The tastings are free in Aussie and they call the area for tastings the Cellar Door. So you just pull up to the wineries and head into the Cellar Doors for the tastings. The prices were very reasonable to buy wine, unlike in Singapore where a bottle of Barefoot costs $25 USD, ouch!

 Great view from Murray Hill Winery.

 Wynn's Estate in Coonawara

 Sunset from the patio in Warrnambool, this was a really cute town that reminded me of South Haven or something along those lines, it was fairly quiet since it was winter...50 degrees.

 Along the great Ocean Road, this was Bay of Martyrs

 The 12 Apostles, reminded me of the Goonies :)

 My favorite stop along the way, Lorne. It was an adorable beach town and as you can see we had a great view of the ocean. This is a big surf town but since it was 'winter' it was pretty quiet.

 These huge, beautiful, scary birds just fly around town and hang out on the patio.

Water fall at Erskine Falls, the walk back up was a work out!

 Bells Beach

 I love kangaroos and I can't believe we got to see this lil joey jump in his mom's pouch! This was a major improvement from the first 'roo I saw, which was road kill..depressing...

It was an amazing trip that ended in Melbourne which is a major city in Aussie land. I didn't know what to expect but it was a beautiful city that reminded me of San Fran with lots of hills and cable cars, great shopping and food. They even had a target!!! (although slightly different from Target as we know it bit still better than shopping here :) The trip was amazing but, the one thing I would leave people with: that the Great Ocean road has a lot of farm views, so if I was in charge I would call it the Great Road with some Ocean Views.

I don't even know how to summarize having three friends from home visit at once, we had the time of our lives, well I did! I will share some pics. (many photo credits go to the Duffey's!)

KOC's first dinner in Singapore, we took her out for French food, why not, the Mexican place was closed! 

Coupla besties hanging at my pool while I was at the old grind....work.

Tourists enjoying the beautiful colorful bridge in Robertson Quay

The Duffey's enjoying a few local brews

Singapore looking all dressed up at night

Boat Cruising

More boat cruising

Marina Bay Sands Pool

O'Malley's splish splashin'

Matt Duffey and his fancy photos of MBS pool at dusk

We made is to Thailand

Sunset Cocktails

Mobile Absolution: Walk up to a monk with a Buddha on the back of a pick up, for your daily blessing

   Beautiful water in Phuket

 Chilling before dinner at the hotel

                                     

The Bennihana of Phuket; he had some mad skillz

 Day trip to the Phi Phi's, look at that water!! #nofilter

 Crazy Songkran aka Thai New Year's. It was a 24/7 water gun fight and it was crazy!

 We ventured out into the madness, it took less than 5 seconds to get 100% soaked in water

I think this picture sums up Songkran in Thailand, doused in water and red lights a blazing.

To give you a live view of Songran, here are a few videos. 

Note the guy on the far right...

Erika and I venturing out into the street, there are water guns and people that smear talc/chalk all over your face, but it smells good, so there is that!

I should mention that it was after a delish thai dinner that we decided to let our hair down and partake in the fun! Apparently there was a water shortage in Thailand this year, you would not have known it if you saw what was going on. None of us had any idea what we were walking into when we decided to pop into town to shop around,  and I am quite sure we won't forget!

It was an absolutely amazing trip!!! I was so sad to let them go. I wish I could transport all my people over here to share in these amazing experiences but I guess that's part of the journey. Thank you for making the journey Katie, Erika and Matt XOX

So much Aussie in so little time.  Just after the Chicago crew left I headed back to Australia this time to the West side/Perth for work. Perth is a very wealthy town b.c. there is a ton of mining business there. So while you would think you could get a decent priced hotel room it's hard to find one under $300 b.c. the mining companies have to pay to have their staff stay there as they usually work 3 weeks on and 1 week off. Perth was beautiful: the weather, the food and the people. I looked at my boss after sitting at lunch one day and said, everyone here is so pretty men and women alike and he said, I was thinking the same thing. It was strange. 

You don't realize how much you miss Western things until you turn on the TV in your hotel room and see this! I clapped and cheered I was so excited. Frankly, I 'd probably clap no matter what country I was in if this came on tv, but we don't get these gems in Singapore.

Another Target!! As you can see the font is different and there is a . at the end of Target. but I'll take it. As they say in Singapore 'Same Same, but different'

This is the version of target we have in Singapore, can you understand my excitement now!

 Freemantle is a cute little town about 20 minutes from the Perth business district that had a lovely market with fruits, food, coffee, and local soaps, etc.

 The famous Cottesloe beach, it was gorgeous, the water was an amazing blue that I was not expecting from a 'city' beach

 Surf's up

 Really beautiful and New Orleans type architecture in Perth

 All the major 'to do's' in Perth. For a business trip I checked a lot off the list. The main attraction to head back for: Margaret River. It's a wine region about 3 hours south of Perth and I have yet to meet someone that doesn't absolutely RAVE about it.

Here are the videos I tried to upload on the last blog that were locked!

Myanmar, crazy circus to get to the Ferry:

The cleaning brigade at the temple in Yangon:

Stay tuned for many pics and fun stories from my sister Molly's visit! I have quite the trip planned and can't wait to see Cambodia & Vietnam!

Love you all and enjoy that summer sun that I can see finally came out.