Dalat Day 2!

Sorry for the delay! Andy and I have been busy starting our first week of work last week! We are both teaching many different aged vietnamese people. At the moment I am only teaching teens and adults. Andy however is teaching little kids (ages 3-6) on Saturday mornings. The first class he ever went to a little girl looked up at him and started balling immediately. Of course he had her smiling by the end of class :) He also teaches teenagers and adults during the week, but has more hours than I do. Right now I am working around 15 hours but still trying to get a few more classes, while Andy teaches 25 hours! 

Da Lat was a long time ago, but here are some more beautiful pictures from the day we did a city tour. 

We were able to visit a beautiful monastery in the mountains and it had real monks walking around attending classes (it was  University for monks as well) and praying in front of a huge buddha. If I were a monk I would for sure go to Da lat monk university. :) 

We were also able to visit the Valley of Love that was full of cheesy things for couples to do.  We had a third wheel with us so Andy and I did not really partake in any of the swan boats on the romantic man made lake.

However we were able to take a few fun photos :)

 The day also featured going to a silk embroidery museum, a waterfall, and to a strawberry jam tasting. I wish I could have taken photos of the amazing work done by these women at the silk embroidery museum but it was forbidden!

At the edge of town there was a HUGE gold buddha that was really cool :)

-Love the De Lat Crew...

Oh yeah and just to mention we stayed at the WORST hotel ever. The staff was soo unfriendly (maybe it was because NO ONE spoke a word of English, well of course the word No....which is the worst word to ever say to a guest if you are in the hospitality industry). This is the one picture I got a the silk embroidery museum because it was in the gift shop and it displayed my feeling towards the unknown name hotel. 

Da Lat Day 1!

Hello Family and Friends!

After graduating, a few of us (Andy, Brayden and myself) decided to take a little trip off to somewhere cool in Vietnam. We were waiting to hear back from a school about interviews, and were not able to move into our house until Friday Aug 5th and this was the perfect time to travel a bit. SO we walked up to one of the hundreds of tour offices available in our area and looked at the large map of places to go and things to do in Vietnam. Our original plan was to go up to Nha Trang, but due to a large storm hitting us at the time, it looked like going to the beach was not in our best interests. Not as far north on the map was a picture of waterfalls and trees, this place was called Da Lat.....WHY NOT?

We booked a one way bus leaving the next morning at 715 am, a hotel for a few nights and a country tour for the next day. I was really interested in an elephant tour and we were about to purchase this for day 2 but noticed the fine print at the bottom saying Tour Does NOT include Elephant Ride... well sorry but no thanks...I want to not only ride an elephant but bathe it and feed it. Ill wait til we go to Thailand.

Aug 1st 2011 Da Lat here we come! The bus was actually comfortable and the 7 hour ride was not so bad with the beautiful scenery to look at. Da Lat is called the "City of eternal spring" and a popular destination for Vietnamese tourists and couples going on their honeymoon. It is located 4,900ft above sea level on the Langbiang Plateau. The temperature was a very nice change to the hot we were use to, and at night I even needed a sweatshirt! During the 1890's french explorers wanted to create a resort center in the highlands. There were golf courses, parks, boarding schools, and homes but no industry in Da Lat. During the Vietnam war Da lat was held by the south. French villas, boulevards and swiss influence are still there today. Strawberry jam, artichoke tea, hydrangea's and wine are all produced here and are kind of special to the area. Something else kind of special, almost no one here speaks English. ESPECIALLY not our receptionists at our hotel. Oh man...........

This video highlights our first tour of the country! Enjoy :)

Song: Open Rhythms by bodies of water

I am currently working on video 2 sooo keep checking for updates :) 

LOVE, Lauren 

FOOD so far:

SO far the food has been a major improvement from the food we were eating in Cambodia. Its all really fresh and yummy :) And CHEAP! Which is awesome because I have no money and having a meal for about 30,000 dong is standard (a dollar and 50 cents) 

We have been eating at some of the street vendors (sorry mom I know you frown at this)but they are really nice and the foods good sooooo yeah. 

As for fast food and chain restaurants here: THey have KFC, PIzza Hut and Subway. BUT we have not tried yet! I know right...but Andy and I have fallen in love with this Doner Kebab Sandwich that we eat once a day lol. 

Banh Xieo- A ummy thing that you wrap up in the lettuce and dip in fish sauce. (weird yeah but delicious) 

 Step one- Order what kind you want I like shrimp

 Step:2 Get a lettuce wrap together and put some mint in it
Step 3: FISH SAUCE
Step 4: EAT Delicious Ricepaper banh Xieo.

 BEST SANDWICH IN THE WORLD 

 I tried this Andy did not. It was looking at me weird the whole time haha good but way too much work for so little crab meat.

 BEST STRAWBERRY SMOOTHY EVER! all the smoothies are great here and fresh YUM

 They wrap up everything here

YAY TIM TAM WE MEET AGAIN! Brit this ones for you

HELLO VIETNAM!

Two weeks have flown by! We have been super busy finishing up the TESOL program. School was everyday from 9am to about 530ish- including VIetnamese class ( I can say hello, thank you and please after two weeks of training) haha Its really difficult to learn but I really like it and hope that Andy and I can maybe take another class soon to expand our knowledge. The tones are killer.

After two weeks of lesson planning and teaching we got to have a Graduation dinner at rap and roll! Now we are looking for jobs and waiting on hearing back for interviews :)
We found a place to live! Its a 5 bedroom we are sharing with 3 other people (annette, brayden and joel) and its really cool with hard wood floors and nice bathrooms so thats exciting.

We move in on Friday, soooo Andy Brayden and I are off to Da Lat tomorrow for a few days of waterfall exploring and I am going to get on an elephant! :) I will update you more when we get back! Thanks for all the emails Its nice to hear from everyone I am starting to miss you all very much!

 The Street our new hotel is on

 Andy and Brayden looking like army men at the War Remnants museum

ME! 

 One of my students! 

 The WONDERFUL ladies of Language Corps : Left Lien was our Vietnamese Teacher, Hien the best help ever finding a house and Lan who helped us do random stuff for class. 

 YAY! now I can teach English to anyone ANYwhere in the world

Graduation Dinner :) 

LOVE,

Lauren

SNOOKIEVILLE!

My last weekend in Cambodia was so much fun!

We took a van to the beach on Friday morning and arrived around 12pm. After moving into our cute beach bungalow we hit the beach. One of our teachers who came with us brought his friend Richard who has been to sihanoukville before and knew a guy from Italy who owns a restaurant called Martini's on the "party side" of the beach. We had dinner and drinks there in super comfy chairs. Andy was super happy to get some legit spaghetti and beer for 50 cents.

Saturday was the first day we got to catch up on sleep in weeks and get some sun. I had a beach pedicure for $5 dollars that was pretty nice as well :) The hotel we stayed at had a pool in the shape of a foot and you could lay in the toes and I really liked this. During one of our swims we meet a guy from Alaska who was about 60ish and said that he has lived in Cambodia for three years and loves it. He has a new wife and 6 day old baby at home. wow wow wooow. He told Andy that he was foolish for "bringing sand to the beach" and told me to keep my eye on my man hahaahahahaha.

Its really hard to beat beach clubs with fire dancers and bars at the end of the pier with disco dancing. Snookie ville....you will be missed. Andy and I will be back.

Don't Bring Sand To The Beach Andy :)  

TJEU being cool and playing us some tunes on the beach. 

 After all that rain we were able to enjoy a beautiful rainbow :) 

 .50 cent beers, yes please! 

Love,
Lauren

Angkor Wat!!

Hello! Sorry it has taken me so long to post this blog! (I went to Angkor Wat two weeks ago) My life has been super crazy lately and hopefully you all can forgive me :)

Friday afternoon we got out of class early and got on a bus to go to Siem Riep. The bus ride took more than 6 hours because the infrastructure here is not very good. It was really neat to get out of Phnom Penn and see what the country actually looks like. The houses were all on stilts and had no power or running water! Crazy right? The streets were filled with water buffalo, cows and naked babies. The rice patties were really amazing to see as well.

Saturday we woke up and got to go see multiple temples including: Main Angkor Wat, Bayon Temple, Baphuon Temple, Phimeanakas Temple, Ta Prohm Temple (also known as the Tomb Raider Temple bc of the movie) and on Sunday we went to Beng Mealea.

Some facts about Angkor Wat:
-Meaning City Temple it is Khmer architecture
-It is the largest religious building in the world and is a world heritage site
-It was made for King Suryavaman 2 in the early 12th century and was originally dedicated to the hindu god vishnu but eventually became a buddhist temple.
-in 1860 the french discovered the temple and the native people living in the forest didnt know who made it and thought that it was made by the gods.

Beng Mealea is actually older than Angkor Wat and was originally going to be the main temple until the king changed the site. It was really fun to explore on SUnday because you are allowed to go wherever you want and it is just falling apart.

I made a fun video for you all to watch, it has pictures from the temples, some takes of us goofing around making LAUREN CROFT TOMB RAIDER. I had a great time making it sooo enjoy.

Love,
Lauren

Happy Fourth of July! Cambodia Traffic Video

Greetings Everyone! I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend! I was going to make a post about how amazing it is to be an American, but class and moving to Asia caught up with me and I have not had a second to upload a new blog post. I have always appreciated living in the USA and know how blessed I am, but after visiting the S21 Genocide Museum here made me even more grateful of my freedom and my amazing country. I have some really sad pictures to put up...but I will have to do that next week because tomorrow Andy and I leave for Angkor Wat temple in Siem Riep!!!!!! Have a great weekend. Traffic is CRAZY HERE : Enjoy this lil number:

Love you
Lauren