Siem Riep

After my weekend trip to Siem Riep I would go as far as saying without any hesitation that whoever declared “first is the worst, second is the best…” has never been to Angkor Wat.  Stacy and I decided to take a weekend trip, 6 hours on a bus, to Siem Riep to see the beautiful palaces and temples of Angkor and enjoy the much more peaceful city of Siem Riep.  While I loved the city and was blown away at the differences between Phnom Penh and Siem Riep (which I did not remember being so extreme) I was not as impressed with the temples the second time around.  They were still amazing and very “Legend of the Hidden Temples “ like, but I did not feel the same excitement as I did when visiting with Semester at Sea.  That being the case, I had to find some other ways to entertain myself as we toured from 5:00 AM (sunrise) to 5:00 PM (almost sunset, didn’t quite make it).

Here were my 3 favorite means of passing the time:

1.     Taking pictures of other people taking pictures:

2.     Playing with random little children running barefoot and dirty throughout the temples:

3.     Stalking (aka playing paparazzi) Stacy as she viewed and enjoyed the temples:

And one more hilarious picture from Angkor Wat….

I have no idea why these people were carrying their child like this but it actually seems to make sense for a few reasons:

1. He is too heavy for one parent to carry by him or herself.

2. If they held him by both his arms they would probably dislocate his shoulders.

3. If they held him by his legs all the blood would rush to his head and that would just be uncomfortable.

Therefore, I think it is actually quite genius that they came up with carrying him as they did.  He seemed to be enjoying it and at the same time they were amusing passersby’s like Stacy and I. (Side note: I saw them flip him after a little while so neither leg or arm was getting too much pull. Don’t worry)

Just to keep you up to date- nothing new is going on at Palm Tree.  It was water festival this weekend (as many of you probably know due to the stampede that is all over the news).  The festival is to celebrate the water gods in hopes of a good harvest.  There are boat races, food vendors and millions of people mulling around.  We spent one day walking around with 2 older Palm Tree students and made a quick walk through the next day but we were not there Monday night (the race finals) when the stampede happened.  Thank you all for your concern but I honestly did not even find out about it until I woke up to go to the bathroom around 4 am and saw all the bbms and emails flashing on my phone.  Going to the internet room to post this now.  It is Tuesday and there is no class today (water festival continuation) and there was no class Friday or Monday either.  Literally every day is a holiday or they find some excuse to cancel class.  Fine by me!  We have made a lot of progress on our dvd watching and book reading.  Modern Family, True Blood (3 seasons) and almost Big Bang Theory (3 seasons) completed as well as 4 books…lots of free time.

Just noticed the really long post.  Hope yall enjoyed it!

Week Three

For entry #3 and week 3 I am going to tell you a few things I have learned thus far living in Cambodia.

1.   They love love love pajamas sets. Everyone, babies to grandparents, wears matching pants and button up tops to work and play.  I don’t know who started this fashion trend but I do not think I will be joining in any time soon. 

One of my students in his yellow pajamas

2.   They call every meal “eat rice.” Apparently rice refers to all hot food and since we are never served anything cold they can just ask us “eat rice?” and that means “are you eating lunch/dinner?” At first I thought they just didn’t know how to say anything else but then I was told that is how they translate lunch and dinner.  Weird.

3.   The kids will play with anything and everything.  So far Stacy spotted her old cereal box being used to carry school notebooks (like a trapper, remember those?) and I have seen my old bowls and spoons being dug up like prized possessions.  

Here they are using Stacy’s thrown away Pringles can to hold their rocks (used to play “jacks”)

4.   Sleeping and a bed do not necessarily have to go together.  No matter the time of the day I can find someone sleeping miscellaneously around Palm Tree.  Here are my favorite 2 spots so far- the bookshelf and literally RIGHT outside our door:

5.   This fifth point is a little weak but I want to make a list of 5 so here it is: there is some weird obsession with Korean socks.  We have seen numerous signs advertising, “YES! WE HAVE KOREAN SOCKS!”  Stacy and I are yet to get to the bottom of this but I will be sure to update you when we find out what is so special about these Korean socks.