StinkyLemsky: A Child of the 80s Grows Up

Vietnam & Cambodia - Part II - The Jungle Temple

This post is going to be photo heavy - but I think the images warrant the attention. The first tour I attended in Cambodia was at Ta Prohm, the Jungle Temple. Just a quick history lesson, courtesy of Wikipedia... the temple was built in the late 12th and early 13th centuries by King Jayavarman VII (or, more accurately, by the subjects in his kingdom). Now, this guy was responsible for most of the temple construction in the regions I visited, and the structures are truly incredible (just wait till I write about Angkor Wat!); but there's something unique about Ta Prohm. It's the one temple that conservationists have decided not to restore, as a "concession to the general taste for the picturesque."

 

This is the entrance - it's positively crumbling. This view made me think of a scene in "Return to Oz" where the yellow brick road has been destroyed. If you've never seen that movie, don't worry - I think I was the only one.

 

This is a Naga Guardian. She was a statue with 9 snake heads and was thought to be a protector of the religious dwelling.

While the stone carvings were truly amazing, the power of mother nature was even more spectacular. The tree below was literally growing out of the stone. If they removed the trees, the walls wouldn't stand upright - so the trees remain, growing bigger every year.

 

 

Can you see the wall above being slowly pried apart by the root at the bottom? Eventually this wall will crumble as well.

The architecture inside the main entrance was filled with religious carvings, including hundreds of Apsara (or celestial maidens).

 

Can you believe how well preserved the carvings are? Now, just in case you can't get a good perspective on the size of the trees and the scale of the root systems, look at how small I seem in the photo below...

 

Please excuse the polo shirt and khaki pants - that was my uniform. Yes, I have hundreds of pictures of myself traveling the globe - all taken while I'm wearing some form of my (very ugly) uniform. Most of the time I didn't even take off my name badge. Sigh. However, there were two reasons I chose pants that day instead of shorts. First of all, I had to be careful of mosquitoes and ticks in Cambodia because of the threat of malaria. I'd already been vaccinated against most diseases when I went to Brazil, but for malaria you have to take pills daily (which had fun side effects, like intensely vivid dreams and nausea). Secondly, I was wearing pants because the temple is still considered a place of worship. I saw a few monks making a pilgrimage and was awed by their vibrant orange togas. The monks in Cambodia are not allowed to talk to women, but our guide assured us it was not rude to take their photos.

 

He was pointing at something here, not waving at me.

 

The wall behind the monks was featured in a scene from Tomb Raider (which I'm now tempted to add to my Netflix queue because I've never seen it)... here's a view from further back.

 

Wow. Just, wow. It was so amazing to imagine this temple as it would have been back in 1191, bustling with over 12,500 people (including 18 high priests and 615 dancers according to Dr. Wikipedia). I couldn't imagine how war could cause such a powerful empire to just fall away and disappear.

My memories from later that night have faded - where we ate dinner, what we did at the welcome function, but my memories of the Jungle Temple are unforgettable.

Vietnam & Cambodia - Part 1 - Arriving

I think it's going to be impossible for me to write about my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia in anything less than a week because I just have so many amazing photos (and so many stories that go along with them). When I first found out I was going to Asia, I immediately had to get online and see where Vietnam and Cambodia actually were. Seriously, that wasn't the first (or the last) time I had to use to the internet to pick up the slack in my pitiful geography skills. I may be one smart cookie, but let's just say I could have never been a contestant on "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego," growing up.

So, anyway, in October of 2006, I landed in Siem Reap, Cambodia after 28 hours of travel time. I was miserable after the long flights (I am totally unable to get a 'good night's sleep' on an airplane. Sorry. Not happening - even despite a generous dose of Tylenol PM), and jet-lagged by the twelve hour time difference, but really reallyexcited to finally be there. The airport was small, but very tidy - it reminded me of the airport in Kauai with its open air baggage carousel. We were greeted by our DMC contact (destination management company - they run all the local transports and liaise with the hotel & are especially helpful in countries where you need a native speaker). After being ushered into a minivan, we set off to the hotel.

 

This was my first view of Cambodia - we had just passed some wild boars on the road and I was too late getting my camera out to take a photo of them. We also passed Angkor Wat (an absolutely amazing religious temple built in the early 12th century) but you'll have to wait for those photos in another post.

Because I was going to be running an incentive trip (basically, my job was equal combinations of cruise director, adult babysitter, and camp counselor), we were staying at one of the nicest hotels in the city.

 

This was the gazebo on our hotel grounds - isn't it beautiful?

 

This was the balcony of my hotel room. As was often the case when I was on the road, this was the only time I opened the door and enjoyed the view! There was a small creek below the deck rail, with lily pads and flowers. It really was beautiful. But, okay, I have to keep it real, right? It was also a mosquito haven. And there were little albino lizards everywhereat night, hanging out by the hotel lights to eat the moths and mosquitoes. I happen to have a strong dislike towards little critters, so the door stayed shut. Plus, it was hot - so there's that too.

My two staff members had arrived on my same flight, so we decided to go exploring after taking care of some work related meetings with the hotel. 

   

This is a view of the town. You can see that it wasn't exactly the most developed area. Cambodia has really started to grow in popularity as a tourist destination in recent years (thanks Angelina!), so the locals are responding by expanding their infrastructure and hotel options. We had taken a tuk tuk (small carriage pulled by a motorcycle) into town ($1) and then tried to walk around and explore on our own, but got nowhere fast. The streets were terrible, with construction zone debris all around and no real sidewalks. We were literally getting stuck in the mud, and (as the only blonde female around) I was getting a lot of attention and staring eyes. We decided to head back into the tourist zone and get some lunch.

 

This was the view from the little cafe where we ate.

 

And this was our lunch - complete with a "Coca Cola Light" - hold the ice please. Oh yes, I was so very careful to be safe with the food, ice, and water. A lot of good that did me... but that's a story for another day.

Our table was right on the sidewalk; different beggars and vendors would stroll by and stand just a few feet away with their signs written in broken English. Some were selling items, like postcards and books (obviously photocopies). Some were just children claiming to need money for school. I was heart-broken for them, but also somewhat guarded. Our DMC contact had explained that the best way to help the children in Cambodia was through local charities and churches - giving to the beggars only encouraged their parents to keep them out of school. 

 

This was one of the stalls in the local market - filled with pashminas (all 100% "silk", of course), post cards, baskets, hand sewn purses, and more. I am just awful at deciding what to buy in these markets because everything looks so cool when I'm there and then I get home and wonder what on earth I was thinking. Throughout this trip one of the coolest things I bought was a painting (which is still rolled up - unframed - in a closet, of course).  

If you've never been in an Asian market, there's really no way to describe the atmosphere. Every vendor is trying to convince you to stop and take a closer look at their wares - it's hot, muggy, and overwhelmingly crowded with stuff (they fill every square inch of those booths). And the smell - well, the smell is truly overpowering. It's intense. As you get closer to the food stalls, the smell becomes more and more staggering. The fish vendors are the worst - there are buckets of shrimp just laying around all day - not on ice, mind you - waiting to be bought. Let's just say I can totally understand how I got food poisoning.

That evening, after running through the program with the hotel contacts one more time (there's really only so much you can do in advance - most of my job was about reacting to issues that were totally unforeseeable), we decided to head back into town. We tried a few different bars & sampled the local brew before heading to a restaurant for dinner.

   

There were some traditional Cambodian dancers to entertain us throughout the meal (they couldn't have been older than fourteen).

  They were performing even though we were the only people there (though a few more tables showed up later in the night). It was... well, it was strange. One of my staff members went to use the restroom and later told me it was a trough on the side wall of the girls' dressing room - and that they were just kind of staring at him as he went about his business. Um, okay, that would totally not happen here in the States, right?

It had been a long day (at this point it had been about fifty hours since I had really slept), and I was totally exhausted. We headed back to the hotel and, instead of going to bed like a rational person, I decided to join my coworkers in the swimming pool. I hadn't brought a swimsuit, but my running clothes worked just fine. We sat at the swim-up bar and drank $1 beers and talked with the bartender for a while before heading to our rooms. I lay in bed, missing Mitch, fighting homesickness and culture shock, and slowly drifted off to sleep.

I may be crazy...

Mitch sent me an email this morning asking if I'd be interested in heading to another Buckeye game this weekend. The weather forecast? Few snow showers, windy, 30 degrees.

So, I said yes, of course. What can I say, it's his passion. Besides I've got a winter parka in the coat closet at home that's positively gathering dust. After all, we only have a few years left of spontaneous-head-to-Illinois-for-a-football-game-in-the-snow-crazy-couple-stuff anyway right? Why not enjoy it while it lasts? Before we get a dog of course, what did you think I meant by that?!

What else is going on in Stinky-Lemsky land, you ask? Well, I don't have time for an actual blog post with actual sentences and all that extravagant well-worded-prose stuff that other bloggers are so fond of - so how about a cop-out? A bullet point list can be highly underrated you know...

* I only have five more classes left - with my very LAST final exam on December 9th. In the meantime I have two research papers, one exam, and one crucial presentation to prepare. All while trying to forcibly remove some usable work from unwilling group members. One of whom actually plagerized MY slides and sent them to us as HIS own. Seriously, did he not think I'd notice? And HOW exactly am I supposed to confront him about that one? I mean, he KNOWS it's my work - it's not like it's a surprise or something. How do you say, "Hey, um, Dude. Could you please actually put some effort into this and stop stealing my work? It's worth half of our grade and I'd like you to pull some weight around here." without sounding like a bully? Do you think I should leave the knuckle cracking and menacing face out of the equation?

* No job offers yet; but, to be fair, I haven't had time to network or apply either. I've just been TOO busy with work. Unfortunately I'll be busy until they kick me out of the office (I hope I can keep my red swingline stapler...) so I may not actually HAVE time to find a job until I am unemployed. Gah! Double Gah! Cannot let that happen! Am straight A, type A, all-around A person. Cannot be unemployed. Does not compute. Send wine fast!

* My little sister has officially submitted her law-school applications and may be moving as far away as California next year. She used to be my best friend and we've gradually grown apart over the years she's been away at school, so the idea of her moving even further gives me the choke for sure. How do actual parents do it?!

* That's all for now... maybe soon I'll write another Flashback post - I'd love to recap my trip to Vietnam and Cambodia (or, as Nancy called it in my comments section, "the trip where I got sick." Yes - THAT was an adventure...).

Freezing - but totally worth it

Here are a few highlights from my trip to Chicago this weekend for the OSU vs Northwestern football game.

  

Katie was our hero when she spotted this diner - we were starving! I can attest to their claim of serving the "world's best omelets"!

   

We tried in vain to find a bar near the stadium. After about an hour of aimless wandering we decided to just head to our seats early. Oh, and by the way, it was totally snowing!

I couldn't believe how many Buckeye fans there were in attendance. I would estimate that easily 2/3 of the fans were rooting for OSU!

At the end of the game, we were victorious with a score of 45-10! Even the last few seconds  were exciting - complete with a fake punt and one final touchdown with 20 seconds left on the clock! 

Top ten reasons you know you’re entirely too busy at work

1. You have to add “go to the bathroom” to your to-do list lest you forget. Same applies for “eat food” and “drink water.”

2. Your “how may I help you” face is interpreted by innocent passerby as an “interrupt me and die” face.

3. You literally begin to hate Alexander Graham Bell for inventing the freaking telephone & lose precious time wondering who invented the cell phone (besides Zach Morris) and hating them too.

4. You spill your soda all over your shirt (and pants) because you’re too busy to properly bring the can to your mouth.

5. Your clean-up of reason #4 is accomplished by using the last of the Kleenex at your desk because you’re too busy to involve paper towels and water in this situation.

6. Speaking of your desk; it resembles Times Square on January first.

7. Instead of taking four precious minutes to heat your low calorie, weight watchers friendly, diet meal (three-cheese ziti, my favorite), you grab two pieces of cold pizza leftover in the kitchen – then waste 2 minutes feeling guilty while gobbling down delicious buttery crust.

8. You hide under your desk when the talkative janitor walks by – now is not the time for another discussion on marriage in today’s society and his most recent ‘couples wellness’ retreat with his wife of forty years.

9. When the janitor finally catches you unaware (dear god, did he just say the word ‘sex’?! Help me!) you instant message your best friend, begging her to call  your desk immediately so you can excuse yourself from the conversation.

10. You actually say “Are you joking?” to your boss’ face when he adds another inane, ridiculous, unnecessary project to your duties. FYI, he’s totally not joking.

There should be a time limit on these things... Or at least more alcohol

I was at my friend's baby shower this weekend, chatting with her in the kitchen when one of her coworkers joined in the conversation. Wait, let me set the scene... S, the mommy to be, is standing there cutely in all of her 4'11" glory. She's got a tiny basketball belly bump and looks great. She's holding a plate with a very reasonable amount of food on it - I'd even venture to say that her plate held quite a bit less than my own, to be truthful.

As her coworkers walks up to us, she crassly blurts out, at a decible level comparable to the average Hannah Montana concertgoing tween, "Well, should we just strap a feed bag on you now?!"

Me: "..." <jaw drops to the floor>

S: <sweetly> "Oh, this is going to be my breakfast and lunch, you know I don't really eat a whole lot."

Good thing she didn't see my plate - I wouldn't even have an excuse for taking two-whole-mini-chicken-salad-sandwiches and some cake. Plain gluttony I suppose. And I'd just like to state for the record that my reaction would probably have been slightly different than S's. Just sayin'.

Now I'd love to recap in-full-blog-worthy-detail the remainder of my weekend, which included an amazing "staycation" with my husband in downtown St. Louis (and free tickets to the Blues game); but I really need to get back to studying. I have a Logistics project that is threatening to overtake my weekend - and seeing as how I'll be in Chicago for the OSU vs Northwestern game, I had better remedy that situation immediately, if not sooner.

All Hallows Eve

My ever so glamorous plan for this evening involves battling notoriously hellacious Halloween rush-hour traffic, running four miles while watching Charmed on DVD (season 5), and then heading home to crack open a bottle of wine, cook a pot of chili, and pass out candy to the twelve or so children that show up on our front porch. What? You don't watch Charmed while you exercise? Well, my friends, you are missing out. First of all, it's brainless excitement - while all the cells in your body are screaming out for relief from the pace, you can ignore them to ponder more important questions like, "Since when does lingerie count as wardrobe?" and "Could Rose McGowen actually be a worse actress?" and, my personal favorite, "They turned Phoebe into a mermaid? What?!"

Next thing you know, your run (okay, jog, let's be honest) is finished and you weren't even bored once. Priceless.

Right now, unfortunately, I am not headed home via early Halloween related dismissal. Oh no, I am not. I am actually cursing the stupidity of people who respond to an email asking you to answer a question that was the sole reason you sent the email in the first place. It is the single most frustrating thing that happens in my workday and I always have to check my reply to make sure it's not too obviously demeaning. Like, "See answer below in original message. Duh." Or even the classic 90s sarcastic response of, "from the department of the obvious..." Yeah, not so much appropriate for the workplace, right?

Tomorrow night, Mitch and I will be downtown for the hockey game, so if you're watching the Blues on tv and a blonde girl gets knocked upside the head with a hockey puck while holding a cold adult beverage, it might possibly be the writer of this blog. Just sayin'. We actually made a hotel reservation so we can both partake in all the benefits offered by seats with free catering - that's right - a waitress comes to our seat offering free drinks  and snacks (hot dogs, brats, popcorn, and pretzels... oh my). We'll be walking to the game and stumbling home from it, good times!

I also feel obligated to add a post script to my previous entry - don't worry Stacey, I don't think there's a Michael Buble christmas album, but he did have 4 bonus Christmas songs on a CD once, so I am assuming they're available on iTunes. Is November first too early to bust out the Christmas carols?

I totally spelled maschistic right on the first try

Well, the game was... not so good. Yes, as Pryor made his ill-fated throw towards the endzone in the final seconds of the game, we watched with bated breath from the parking lot right outside the 'shoe. And we knew, seconds before the rest of the television-viewing audience, that the throw would not be successful. We were literally within a few hundred yards of the stadium and the roars of despair from the crowd reached us before the five-seconds-delayed broadcast could. Sigh. There's always next season, right? 

Honestly, I really enjoyed the tailgate anyway. There's nothing quite like being surrounded by hundreds of thousands of die-hard fans, all rooting for a victory. And also nothing quite like the air of defeat after a loss. That's the very nature of being a fan, I guess. You have to take the good with the bad. 

In other news, school has officially swallowed me whole. I have 4 major projects due before the end of the semester and my study plan tells me I should be spending five hours on homework today. During work. Shhh - it's our little secret, right? Oh, and also our little secret? The fact that I haven't done even ONE hour of homework yet today. My study plan is an unforgiving masochistic jerk if you ask me. Though, that judgement should have no bearing whatsoever on your perceptions of the study guide creator because that person may or may not be the person writing this blog entry right now.

As far as the job hunt goes, I've had some great leads (big thanks to Stacey for one recommendation!) but nothing's panned out quite yet. I really don't have much energy to focus on searching right now (see above, re: crushing homework load) so I'm hoping I'll be able to find something after the holidays before my big fat cubicle eviction notice in February or March.

Speaking of the holidays... I loooove Christmas time! Last year we were so busy with the wedding that everything kind of got pushed to the sidelines and forgotten, but I have no intention of letting that happen again this year! Right now I'm trying to decide when I should pull out the Christmas decorations (especially our tree). We're hosting a baby shower (which, in our family means HUGE party, complete with keg and tons of food) for a cousin (okay, she's not actually my cousin by blood or law or anything like that, but she's part of the family that we have adopted as our own and therefore just as important as a cousin, if not more so because we actually chooose to love her and her family and lavish her with presents and I fully intend to rub her belly, so there) the day after Thanksgiving. We're going to have quite a few people in our house that day and I think putting up a tree or two might cramp the space and may be better used for drinking! and presents! and mingling! and food! Gah! Am so excited! It's enough to make a girl purchase 17 "Christmas Spice" wallflowers and pull out the chafing dishes right this insant!

I'm refraining myself like a lady, don't worry.

Until this weekend, at the very least, at which point I fully intend on purchasing Michael Buble's Christmas songs online. And maybe a baby gift or two. Because I'm practical like that.

Just in case you were wondering...

This is what the seat looks like when it's not empty.

 

Seriously, when did my cute little baby nephew grow up to be so big?! Maybe someday I'll write a post about the day he was born. We didn't know if my sister was having a boy or a girl and it was so much fun to find out in the waiting room - her husband walked out with a video camera and told us & we cheered and cried and celebrated. Hmm, I'm not so sure the other new mommies appreciated that, as it was after midnight at the time.

This is turning out to be a quiet, slow Friday. I'm looking at my post-it note of things to accomplish today and it's quite sparse. (And only 30% of it is work related). Sparse is a good thing though because today, after work, Mitch and I are going to Ohio! We're so excited; it's been way too long since we made a trip back. Nearly all of his family lives in Ohio and we always have so much fun when we go visit. I love hanging out with his friends from high school and college - they are a riot! They even introduced me to a new drinking game which I solemnly vow to avoid playing more than 1 round of because it is bad news. Although, most of his friends have had children within the last year, so they may  be a little more tame this time around.

Yeah. Riiiight.

Mitch and I are even taking the day off work on Monday (though I still need to be back in time for school that night). Oh, fyi, I only have eleven classes left! Eleven! I can not wait until this semester is over, it's been one of the most difficult of the whole program; culminating in what is guaranteed to be my most difficult group project - hands-down. Seriously, this project is so difficult it's giving me nightmares. And I wish I was joking.

I won't be worrying about school tomorrow, oh no. Not tomorrow. It's going to be one of the biggest Buckeye games of the season and we'll be tailgating in Columbus to celebrate. Please think of me when you're in your nice cozy homes & I'm freezing my hiney off in a parking lot and trying to gauge exactly how much alcohol I can handle at a time. Let's just say day-drinking has never been a strong suit of mine. I pretty much have a five hour time limit and once I open that first beer I had better be thinking of a place to crash - or else. That doesn't exactly lend itself to the "kegs and eggs" atmostphere of a Buckeye tailgate, now does it?

So, if you're in Columbus tomorrow and you see a girl drinking a diet sunkist at noon, please don't give her too much trouble - she's just trying to avoid embarassing herself (until dusk at the very least).

Usually there's just an empty diet sunkist bottle floating around back there...

Here's eomething I'm not used to seeing in the backseat of my car...

   

Yes, that's right. My nephew's car seat is currently residing in my good ol' Saturn LS 2000. Such a trusty vehicle, I'm telling you. I happen to really dislike the color of the interior (I'm more of gray / black interior fan, myself. Or leather if I really had the luxurious choice. Though it's not so luxurious when you scald the back of your thighs in the summer...). Anyway, the reason I'm driving around town with a carseat in tow is because I've been taking my nephew to preschool while my brother in law is out of town on business.

Good times. I'm actually going to miss the chance to spend the morning with him when it's gone - we've been having fun hanging out in the car together; playing a Diego matching game while we wait for the school to open. It won't be too long before he's a teenager &  embarassed to have a conversation with his dorky aunt, much less give me a big 'monster hug' and a kiss goodbye.

Why can't they stay little forever?