down under

Jarom, Zara and I went to Australia for the first time! We started out in Sydney, which was a lot of fun and very relaxing. Our hotel, Blue, was on the Wharf, so we could walk most everywhere we wanted to go. One of the highlights was meeting my Aunt Wafa and Uncle Hassan, my cousins Yanal, Hannah and Tareq and his wife Layla and baby Talia, who is a month older than Zara. The other highlight was taking a tour of the Sydney Opera House, which is an incredible building.

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Australia November 2011 - Part 1, Sydney

After Sydney, we made our way to Brisbane to stay with Jarom's sister Sonja. We met her husband, Dallas, and two kids, Audrey and Bryson. The cousins had so much fun playing together! Jarom's brother Sean joined us in Brisbane for the last few days of our stay, so it was a real family reunion. We took a long weekend to go north up the East Coast to Mackay and Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays, which was absolutely beautiful. Jarom went diving on the Great Barrier Reef, one of his dreams.

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Australia November 2011 - Part 2, Brisbane, McKay and the Whitsundays

long weekend in bali

Not long after we got back from London and Ireland, we decided we needed another break, so we decided to go to Bali for 4 days. Zara was an angel on the flight and at the airport, but after our long wait in the visa line and then a long ride to the hotel, we were relieved to be in our room at the Tugu Bali hotel.

The hotel was cool. It's built as a small village surrounding an 18th century temple that has been converted to a beautiful Chinese-inspired dining room and event hall. There were gardens and pathways leading to the various parts of the hotel which made it fun to explore. We were right on a black sand beach, which had big waves perfect for surfing. As I don't surf, I didn't really go in the water, but it was still nice to relax on the beach.

Jarom took a day to go diving while Zara and I stayed back at the hotel and had fun exploring the gardens and all the buildings. The water is non-potable, so Zara also got a bath in bottled water. The next day we hired a driver to take us to Ubud, the cultural centre of Bali. We explored a temple, saw the rice paddies, went to a huge and somewhat chaotic market, and ate lunch overlooking a gorgeous green field. The food was good, but it all started to taste the same by the end of our trip. For our last meal we booked a private dinner in the Chinese dining room at our hotel and had a Balinese-Chinese fusion meal.

After that, it was back so Singapore and reality...

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Bali July 2011

i {heart} london

Jarom had 2 weeks of training in London so Zara and I got to go along with him and hang out in one of the coolest cities on earth! A&O put us up in the Hoxton hotel in Shoreditch, which was a really great location. It was Jarom's first time in London and he loved it as much as I do! Zara liked it as long as there wasn't a cold wind blowing. Even though Jarom had training every day, it never went late so we go to see a lot of him every evening and on weekends. My Uncle Hisham, Aunt Margret, and my cousins Layla and Tareq live there, so we got to see them, as well as our friends Jimmy and Jen and their baby Perry from NYC. I loved being in London, going to museums,site seeing, eating great food, shopping, being surrounded by gorgeous historical architecture... And every morning the hotel provided the best yogurt and granola and fresh squeezed orange juice from Pret. I could have stayed there forever! I was so sad to leave, but luckily we were going to Ireland, so I had something else to look forward to.

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London May 2011

After our time in London we went to Ireland for a week on holiday. It was our first time there and we had such a great time! We decided to see as much of Ireland as we could, so we rented a car and went on a road trip. We started in Dublin, drove to Cork, then to Killarney, drove the Ring of Kerry, the Gap of Dunloe and the Cliffs of Mohr, drove up to Galway and then back to Dublin. It was so beautiful and green and COLD! Zara was a trooper and was so good even though we were at a different hotel in a different town every night. She also slept almost the entire time we were driving, which was great since that meant that Jaorm and I could both sit up front together the whole time. Jarom got really good at driving on the narrow roads on the left side. It was such a relaxing week and so much fun!

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Ireland May 2011 - Part 1

Ireland May 2011 - Part 2

babymoon in paradise

Phuket

We flew to Phuket, Thailand after Jarom got off work and arrived late at night in the middle of a torrential downpour. Hmmm... It wasn't really the start to our vacation we had imagined, but we decided not to worry too much about it, ordered room service for dinner, and went to sleep hoping that the next day would be clear.

We woke up to rain, but decided to go out anyway. By the time we caught a taxi to Wat Chalong it was only drizzling on and off, so we were pretty happy about that. Wat Chalang is a temple complex that houses 5 intricately carved and boldly painted temples, the largest of which houses several golden Buddhas. We had a great time walking around and looking inside each temple. There was a little man who's job it is to light fireworks in a giant kiln, and so every so often there would be a startling round of explosions that was kind of at odds with the reverent atmosphere, but also very entertaining to watch.

We made the mistake of not having our taxi driver wait for us at Wat Chalong, so we ended up walking over an hour to the nearest taxi stand, where we caught a taxi to Old Phuket Town. The old town isn't very big, but it's full of lovely Sino-Portuguese colonial architecture, which I love! We found a map that outlined a walking tour, and followed it all around the entire area. We found a really cute little place called China Inn where we had a delicious Thai lunch in a quite outdoor courtyard.

After we finished our tour we took a taxi back our hotel and got ready to go into Phuket that night. We went to dinner on the beach at a great restaurant called Catch, recommended by one of Jarom's coworkers. Then we made our way to Phuket, where we started our tour by walking along the deserted beach. It's a long but narrow beach that is apparently very very crowded during the day, but at night there are only a few people walking along, some of whom were setting off lanterns, which is really cool. We wandered to the tourist area to see what the hype about Phuket is all about, and discovered that it's not really our cup of tea. At all.

There were chain restaurants like Pizza Hut and McDonald's lining the streets, masses of tourists wandering around, and a nasty red-light street that is crowded, noisy, and disgusting in every way possible. After about 5 minutes were were ready to leave and wished we had ended our night with the walk along the beach. As we made our way to the taxi stand, we were pestered on every side by women standing on the sidewalk calling out "Massage!" in whiny accents, men trying to get us to eat their restaurants, and people selling things. We finally escaped and ended the night peacefully in our hotel, which is located far far away from Phuket town.

Krabi

We woke up early to gorgeous sunny weather - perfect for our ferry ride to Krabi. The scenery is breathtaking with rocky islands topped with tropical vegetation jutting up out of the perfect green-blue water. We sat right at the front of the ferry, so we had a great view and a breeze. On the way we saw flying fish and two huge schools of jellyfish!

We checked into the Amari Vogue which was wonderful! The hotel is the last one of 3 on a strip of sandy beach, a little ways away from the nearest town. The hotel itself is very pretty and completely private so we really felt like we were getting away from it all. We spent the afternoon walking around Ao Nang, which is a very laid-back tourist destination and attempted to walk along the beach, which is covered in crushed shells making it uncomfortable unless you have really tough feet.

This was definitely the best half of our trip. Krabi is so relaxed and removed from the tourist-trappiness of Phuket, which was just what we wanted. Jarom went diving for 2 days and I went with him on the boat. We saw so many beautiful islands, including Phi Phi Island, James Bond Island and Chicken Island. We took a day trip to Railey, which is even more relaxed than Ao Nang. We went exploring and saw adorable little monkeys and natural caves. We also laid on the beach, watched the sunset over the water and rode an elephant, which was one of my favourite parts of the trip.

All in all, this was one of the best trips I've ever been on. Perfect for a babymoon!

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Babymoon in Thailand November 2010

en Chine

Jarom and I just got back from a two-and-a-half week trip to China. Needless to say, it was amazing! We spent 11 days in Xi'an with Jarom's family and then 4 days in Hong Kong and I didn't want to leave. I'd been to Hong Kong before, but the mainland is a whole different world. It was a lot of fun to spend time with Jarom's family and I loved seeing all the sites in Xi'an, which is a very beautiful and interesting city. Hong Kong is one of my absolute favourite cities, and after this visit I remembered why I said I want to live there some day.

out and about in Hong Kong

Unlike Xi'an, you can get around fairly easily with English in HK. We only had three and a half days, but we managed to do and see a lot. We were there right before Rememberance Day, so we were lucky enough to get poppies! They were the British ones, which are made of red paper with a black button and a leaf. I personally prefer the velvety Canadian ones, but I'll take what I can get now that I live in the States and can't find any kind of poppy to wear. It was warm and humid, and everything smelled like tropical plants - especially the Peak. It was so nice to wear sandals and short sleeves again, especially after the short summer we had this year.

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Hong Kong November 2009

adventures in Xi'an

This was the first time that I spent any significant amount of time with Jarom's parents when there wasn't a wedding on, and it was really great to just hang out and get to know each other better. Jarom's mom and sister agreed to be our tour guides, which was great because not only do they know what sites to visit, they speak Chinese! This is pretty essential in Xi'an, as Jarom and I discovered the one time we tried to do something on our own. (We went to a restaurant to order dumplings, but the only word we knew in Mandarin was "dumplings" and even though we got (a lot of) dumplings like we wanted, it was with a lot of  embarrassment on our part and a lot of laughing from the restaurant staff.) Unfortunately, Jarom was sick for the majority of our stay, but he still got out a lot, and I did a few things with Elise while Jarom stayed home with his brothers.

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Xi'an, China October-November 2009