Archive for January, 2007

About to go SCUBAing

Thursday, January 4th, 2007 by Brian

My laptop charger died after plugging it in to a bus socket so my phone and laptop are both out of juice. Usually Jennifer and I write at night and then upload pictures and post to the ‘logue here but we’re just getting short opportunities to check at Internet cafes until my replacement arrives [...]

G’day Mates

Monday, January 15th, 2007 by Jennifer

First, we apologize for slacking on the blog entries. We’ve been pretty busy here in Australia and are just now making the time to catch up. A few quick notes on some other sites we visited in New Zealand. Just before we left we headed to the Coromandel Peninsula for some beach [...]

Happy Birthday to Me

Thursday, January 18th, 2007 by Jennifer

On NYE I turned 31. I didn’t think it was so bad until I was filling out a form and had to check the 31-40 box. Ugh!
After a 12 hour bus ride north, the rain finally stopped and we were ready to hit the beach! We arrived in Airlie Beach and [...]

Finding Nemo

Thursday, January 18th, 2007 by Jennifer

One of the highlights of our trip to Australia was diving the Great Barrier Reef. We booked a 5-day course with Pro Dive Cairns, one of the best dive centers in the world. We spent two days in the pool learning all of the basic skills and three days on a boat out at [...]

Going “Up Over”

Thursday, January 18th, 2007 by Brian

As we cross the equator and leave “Down Under” for Vietnam tomorrow morning, I’m caught with a few parting thoughts about our time here in New Zealand and Australia. We’ve found the people lovely, the scenery amazing, the activities breathtaking and the food… well, the food was just so-so.
Nonetheless, this has been real “vacation”. [...]

Ho’s Hanoi

Tuesday, January 23rd, 2007 by Brian

I worked hard to not title this first post from Hanoi, “Good Morning, Vietnam!”
We’re in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, home to some 3 of the 83 million total people living in this country. After landing late on Friday, we caught a taxi for $12 to go the 45km from the airport into [...]

Climate Change

Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 by Brian

Although our friends here in Vietnam aren’t too keen on “recycling” (unless burning piles of plastic and trash alongside major motorways constitutes recycling), the news is full of climate change and the EU calls to focus on carbon caps. In countries where eating is more important than conservation, it’s all too apparent how critical [...]