Guess who's back?

I was at work today and I started thinking, I really need to make more of an effort to post on this darn thing, especially for my friends and family who I don't keep in touch with all that often.

So here I am. Let's see how long I'll last this time.

Well, what has happened since the last time I posted? Probably a lot, but I won't go into detail. Roderick and I went to Venice and then departed on our Mediterranean cruise, which took us to Croatia, Montenegro and Greece. It was an incredibly relaxing trip, we got to meet a few other couples who we got on really well with, and yeah, just a really nice time.

We also decided to put in for an extension, which would mean a 3rd year here in Pakistan. We enjoy it, and we've got nothing holding us back, so why not? I told Rod though, that the only way I'd stay another year is if we had our German Shepherd, Mya, shipped over. So that's what we did. It's been really nice having her around, and good for my health as well, as I've been walking her daily. And I hate walking without a dog, it's just not as fun.

Our next trip is in October. We're off to Kenya and Tanzania. It'll have been 4 months in between vacations, which is the longest stretch we've gone since being here. It's a hard life, eh? 

South Africa

Well hello there, long time no see!

I said that I would post more here, and then failed, obviously.

Anyway, in my last post I talked about going to South Africa. We were there for 10 days and it was uh, quite the adventure. We flew in to Johannesburg and then rented a car (a standard - which Roderick had only driven a handful of times, in Afghanistan, where the speed limit was 20km/hr and it didn't really matter if you crashed - so that was an adventure in itself) and drove the 4 hours to Nelspruit, where we were going to stay with my friend Riki. She and I were best friends when we lived in the Netherlands, and we kept in touch so I figured it'd be cool to see her again. In the time we were with Riki, we went to Kruger Park and went on safari, saw the Drie Rondavels, God's Window, plenty of waterfalls, and a lot of nature. It was great, minus the fact that it turns out, Riki and I actually hate each other. Yeah, unfortunately I grew up, and she hadn't. I won't go into all the gory details, but basically there was a lot of screaming and crying, and then hundreds of dollars spent to change our plane tickets so we could get the hell out of there. A very expensive lesson, but what can you do?

In a way, it was good because it meant we would spend more time in Cape Town, which just so happens to be the most amazing city that I've ever been to. Sorry Ottawa, you've moved into second place. We ate a lot of delicious food, saw a lot of beautiful scenery, and had a wonderful time when it was just the two of us. I ended up spending a few hours with another friend from the Netherlands, Ibti, so that was nice too. And the best part of all? I got to swim with Great White Sharks! Fuck yeah! (Excuse my language). It was Rod's number one dream, and he (stupidly?) reached his arm out of the cage, and touched one. It was incredibly amazing to see the love of my life's dream come true.

Here, have some photos, in no particular order.

 At God's Window

 Drie Rondavels

 Cape Town from halfway up Table Mountain

 Cape of Good Hope

Yesterday

Yesterday was one of the best days that I have had in a very long time.

Ever since September, we have been restricted to using Armoured Vehicles, with a driver, and since there are only so many AV's, when you need to go out, you're supposed to make it as quick as possible. But they lifted that recently, and so yesterday we were able to go out in our own vehicle, by ourselves. It was so nice to be able to just drive ourselves around, especially since I haven't gone out in quite awhile and was starting to feel like a caged animal. (It's not hard to feel that way, when you're surrounded by concrete walls, razor wire, bars on all of the windows and doors, barriers, check points, etc)

So Rod and I had a wonderful time yesterday, we went to the shoemakers to pick up a pair of boots that I was having made, McDonald's for lunch, to the butcher and vegetable market, to the candy shop to pick up some snacks, and to Tribal Arts, which was by far the highlight of the day. We had been trying to go there for several weeks now, but every time we went it was always closed, and finally it was open! And it is my new favourite place, and probably where most of my money is going to go from now on.

It's basically a maze of a shop, full of old pieces of wood, old doors, trunks, cabinets, that the owner, Shirazi, turns into beautiful pieces of furniture. I wasn't really expecting to buy anything, but Rod fell in love with one piece in particular, and so we came away with that, and have another one on hold. I am in love with it, but I want to see if I can find another piece that I like more, and if not, I'll buy it. Rod's will be delivered sometime this week. There were so many things that I wanted there, and it's perfect because we don't really have that much furniture back in Canada, and these are all things that we need. Not to mention that they all have a story to tell, instead of just buying some mass produced piece of furniture at IKEA that everyone else has, and isn't even built that well. The piece that Rod got is going to be a liquor cabinet, it's over 150 years old, made of Rosewood, from Punjab, and was used to store grain. It's beautiful.

 What I put on hold

 What Roderick bought. For $290! Can you believe it?

Then we had Lars and Mike over for a game night. It was Lars' last night here in Islamabad, and he's off to Nairobi for a week and then back to Ottawa. So we played Balderdash and ate junk food and laughed our heads off and had a wonderful time. I'm sure going to miss him. He was a TD, which means Temporary Duty, they come in and out a lot and are only here for 6 weeks. And most often, I tend to like them a lot more than the people who are here permanently, so it's always sad to see them go.

 One of my resolutions is to be healthier, hence the ginger ale while the boys drink Breezers

Once everyone left, I booked the flights for our trip to South Africa next month! I cannot wait. Not only is it Africa and maybe I'll see a lion (and then I can die happy) but I'm going to be staying with one of my best friends, Riki, whom I met when we were both living in the Netherlands. Woohoo :)

And have I mentioned that I am 2 weeks smoke free? Let's hope I can keep it up.

Koh Samui

The final week of vacation was spent in Koh Samui, a beautiful tropical island paradise.

Here we got to visit the largest waterfall on the island, Namuang, we got to see Grandfather Rock (we couldn't find Grandmother), we went to a Muay Thai fight, set off a paper lantern into the night sky for good luck, and went parasailing, which was super awesome and exhilarating and you should totally try it one day!

 Roderick went after me and took the camera up with him

 Yup, that's me :)

 If you look closely, you'll see Rod in the pool

 Grandfather Rock ;)

Phuket

The second part of our journey in Thailand took us to Phuket; pronounced Poo-Ket!

While in Phuket, we went on two boat excursions to the Phi Phi Islands, where we got to see the places where the movies 'The Beach' and 'James Bond: Man with the Golden Gun' were filmed. We got to snorkel, go sea canoeing through caves, shop, eat some amazing food, and just admire the beauty of the Islands.

Phuket was way better than Bangkok, and if you ever go to Thailand, I highly recommend visiting this place! I fell in love. 

Bangkok

Well, we're back from our two week holiday in Thailand. It was great to get away, as the hubby really needed a vacation, and he's never really been on a proper holiday before, aside from our road trip to Boston in the summer. All the other "vacations" were work related, Afghanistan, Germany and Cyprus. So this was an exciting one for us!

Before we arrived in Pakistan, we knew that Thailand would be our first vacation. Rod had heard lots of great things about it, and once we arrived here, everyone was telling us that we must go there first. It's close, it's cheap, and it's just a beautiful place to visit!

Our first stop was Bangkok. I am happy that I had the chance to see it, but I don't think I'd want to pay to go back. It's nice, yes, but it's a big city and I'm more into beaches, nature, etc. It was interesting though, stinky, dirty, full of hookers and LadyBoys, great for shopping, and full of delicious restaurants!

For those wondering what LadyBoys are, they're basically someone who was born a man, but lives their life as a woman. We would call them transgendered. In Thailand, it's perfectly normal and ok for someone to have this lifestyle, and they're actually thought of as a third sex, which I found to be very interesting! Now if only every country could be so open to this.

While in Bangkok, we visited Nana, which is basically the Red Light District. Full of hookers, strip clubs, and old men looking to have a good time. I've actually never seen so many old white men with hot young Asians in my life! They're everywhere, but good on them I suppose. I've never been to a strip club and sort of wanted to test it out, but we never had the chance as we were in bed early each night and up at 6am.

We took a day trip to Ayutthaya, which was founded in 1350 and now just a bunch of ruins.

After our trip to Ayutthaya, we stopped in at Bang Pa-In Palace, but a massive storm came in quick so unfortunately we didn't get to see all of it.

Another day we went to see a floating market. We took a traditional long boat through the canals to get to the floating market, which was just amazing. I was in awe, and it is probably one of the coolest things I've ever seen or done. Basically, people set up shops alongside the canals, and tourists and locals alike get in the boats and float along from one shop to the other, buying things that they need, or don't need.

We were only in Bangkok for a couple of days, and that was enough I thought. Glad I've had the opportunity to see it as it really is an interesting place! 

After all it was a great big world...

I should totally be going to sleep right now, or at least cuddled up in bed with my lover, as I have work at 7am tomorrow (and can I just say how much I love my current job? I'm sad that it's only a short contract), but I'm too excited to sleep!

Most of the time when I have nothing better to do, I travel plan! Expedia.ca, TripAdvisor.ca, Gadventures.com and google maps are my best friends right now. We haven't even gone on our first vacation together yet (I went to Dubai without him), which is coming up very soon, and I'm already planning out the other trips that we'll take while we're here.

January/February 2013: to be determined
May/June 2013: Euro Trip! (Czech Republic, Austria, Croatia and Italy)
September/October 2013: Africa (exact countries to be determined)

Then the following year, somewhere between January-April, we'll go to the Maldives. And then there's the house hunting trip to whichever province we'll be posted to, most likely sometime in June, and then it's back to Canada for good in July 2014.

Do any of you guys know anyone who's been on a Euro trip? I'd like some first hand experience and suggestions, if possible. I have a budget in mind, and I'd just like to find out if it's realistic or not. Of course, I've been to Europe before, heck, I lived there, but I was on a super strict budget at that time. I didn't pay for hotels, I didn't do a whole lot of things that cost me any money, other than eat and drink. So it's a totally different ball game this time around. So if you know of someone and could get some info for me, that would be fabulous! Or if you have heard of a great website for Euro trips that I haven't, send it my way :)

And if you could send me some recommendations for another place to travel to, that'd be great as well. 

Photo Dump

Last night the Canadian consulate here in Dubai was hosting thanksgiving and invited us all along, which was really sweet of them. I was pretty upset to have missed the thanksgiving dinner in Islamabad last Monday, so I am glad I got my fill of turkey before Christmas. And I can't tell you enough how delicious it was to finally have a proper Canadian home-cooked meal, none of this fast food or Pakistani food that I've been eating for the past couple of months.

Prior to that, I hadn't left the hotel since last Tuesday, except to go down for breakfast and into the mall food court that's attached to the hotel to grab something for dinner. I just didn't feel like doing anything, I've seen pretty much all there is that Dubai has to offer (at least the things that don't cost an arm and a leg) and I was engrossed in a new novel. The Fifty Shades of Grey, I'm sure you've all heard about it. Haha! I've had it on my ereader for quite some time, but never bothered to read it. And boy, after picking it up that first time, I couldn't put it down until I had finished reading the first book and staying up until 4am to do so. I haven't done that since the night before I moved to Holland, my mother had bought me the Twilight series and told me not to read it until I was on the plane. But I couldn't help myself! It feels good to be sucked into a book again. I was like that with the Harry Potter series, and the Hunger Games, also. However, I don't recall staying up until the wee hours of the morning reading The Hunger Games.

I've been doing so much shopping here in Dubai, I honestly don't know how I am going to fit it all into my suitcase. Hopefully I'll find a way, even if it means buying another suitcase.

Anyway, just a bunch of random photos I've taken throughout my time here.

 Both of these, top and bottom, were taken in Bastakiya, the oldest residential area in Dubai.

 While having dinner in the Dubai Marina

 Sunset on the Arabian Sea, which is the warmest water I've ever touched. It's like a bath - heaven!

 The top, and two below, were taken in the Madinat Souk, and that building is the Burj Al Arab, dubbed the only 7 star hotel in the world. Rooms start at a whopping $11,000 per night. Yikes! 

The most delicious beer I've ever had. (It was only Budweiser, but when you're in a Muslim country and alcohol is hard to come by, it tastes all that much better) $10 and worth every penny!