Café Con Monica

OOoh Friday!

Could not be happier that is it Friday. I know I know I only worked 4 days this week and 2 of them were spent planning and decorating but still I am exhausted! I am excited for a weekend of nothing to relax before I go back to working my full time and various part time gigs. 5 months folks, its time to really start saving my pennies if I plan on doing anything exciting at the end of my contract!!

Ook so that aside. On Thursday the kids came back to school and the foreign teachers were asked to dress up in some of the “traditional” gear they had and a lot of the kids came dressed up so adorable. Took lots of pics of course!

I had dinner with a student & his parents tonight and as always they ask if  I eat snake. Usually I reply no. I’ve had it once before and I wasn’t impressed but today I was feeling brave and wanted to show off a bit (you get tired of the jokes about how westerners don’t eat stuff) and I went for it….

So I just realized I uploaded a crap ton of pics…sorry about that but really when you see how cute the kiddies look you will forgive me 🙂

oooh and ps.com joined in the Friday Chaos Blog Hop, love checking out new blogs 🙂

Travel Days: Month Long Asia Trip

Oooh boy what a long, exciting, exhausting, adventurous trip! I have to admit it was so hard to come back to this apartment. Going on such a long trip with a friend from home, granted she lives in NY so I don’t see her all the time anyway, but nevertheless I found myself really wishing I was heading home after the trip and not back to my place in Jiaxin.

Traveling with other people is hard. Much harder than say a loved one or boyfriend or alone. Sometimes you have to do things you probably wouldn’t do on your own, you have to compromise on things you might want but they don’t and above all you have to get used to how someone else does things for the entire trip. I admit I spent a lot of time being pretty crabby this trip because I felt like the first 24 hours after my friend arrived basically set the tone for the trip. Two broken cameras, hours spent looking for her, tears and anger and no sleep. It definitely set my mindset to a whole different place than it was beforehand.

Some things I learned on this trip:
1. There are always going to be more things than you have time to see
2. Maybe its better to visit fewer countries and spend more time in the ones you do than to jam pack your trip and spend very little time in each place
3. patience is a skill that takes an amazing AMAZING amount of work
4. It is ok to say no when you know you need to

It was a once in a lifetime trip and I am so happy that I took it and got to see all the places I did. Its hard to say my favorite place because I fell in love with Thailand when I was there last year but I did really enjoy Cambodia. There was just something about the atmosphere that I really appreciated, not to mention Angkor Wat was seriously just plain beautiful.

So now its time to get back to work with the kiddies and start planning my big trip for July. This time I am going to be sure to not over plan this trip and force too much into a tight timeframe!

I wish I could just show you all the pictures like I do on FB but that is too much work and I just don’t like doing it so I’ll post some fun pictures of the trip. My friend has so many awesome ones on her backup camera so once she posts those I will be sure to steal them and share!

The Great Wall 

In Beijing 🙂 

Meeting my cousin for the first time in Hong Kong 

This picture makes me smile everytime! Kids in a Cambodian  fishing village  

Ha Long Bay in Vietnam 

all smiles 

At Angor Wat-Tom Phrom where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed 

just goofiing off in a park in Vietnam 

Ahhhhh our Full mOon party night 

at the Grand Palace in Bangkok 

I’m Back!

Oooh boy what a long, exciting, exhausting, adventurous trip! I have to admit it was so hard to come back to this apartment. Going on such a long trip with a friend from home, granted she lives in NY so I don’t see her all the time anyway, but nevertheless I found myself really wishing I was heading home after the trip and not back to my place in Jiaxin.

Traveling with other people is hard. Much harder than say a loved one or boyfriend or alone. Sometimes you have to do things you probably wouldn’t do on your own, you have to compromise on things you might want but they don’t and above all you have to get used to how someone else does things for the entire trip. I admit I spent a lot of time being pretty crabby this trip because I felt like the first 24 hours after my friend arrived basically set the tone for the trip. Two broken cameras, hours spent looking for her, tears and anger and no sleep. It definitely set my mindset to a whole different place than it was beforehand.

Some things I learned on this trip:
1. There are always going to be more things than you have time to see
2. Maybe its better to visit fewer countries and spend more time in the ones you do than to jam pack your trip and spend very little time in each place
3. patience is a skill that takes an amazing AMAZING amount of work
4. It is ok to say no when you know you need to

It was a once in a lifetime trip and I am so happy that I took it and got to see all the places I did. Its hard to say my favorite place because I fell in love with Thailand when I was there last year but I did really enjoy Cambodia. There was just something about the atmosphere that I really appreciated, not to mention Angkor Wat was seriously just plain beautiful.

So now its time to get back to work with the kiddies and start planning my big trip for July. This time I am going to be sure to not over plan this trip and force too much into a tight timeframe!

I wish I could just show you all the pictures like I do on FB but that is too much work and I just don’t like doing it so I’ll post some fun pictures of the trip. My friend has so many awesome ones on her backup camera so once she posts those I will be sure to steal them and share!

The Great Wall 

In Beijing 🙂 

Meeting my cousin for the first time in Hong Kong 

This picture makes me smile everytime! Kids in a Cambodian  fishing village  

Ha Long Bay in Vietnam 

all smiles 

At Angor Wat-Tom Phrom where parts of Tomb Raider were filmed 

just goofiing off in a park in Vietnam 

Ahhhhh our Full mOon party night 

at the Grand Palace in Bangkok 

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