torsdag 24. mars 2011

Paradise pulse

While daydreaming about our trip in Norway we read about the The Full Moon Party in Thailand. It's held on a beah off the east coast called Koh Phangan evey full moon. The 19th of march the moon was beaming in the sky and we had made our way down from Bangkok to join the celebratio, ns. We had left Bangkok 3 days earlier, spening 16 hours on buss (overnight) and another couple of hours on a ferry with huge waves. Fortunately it was soo worth it. Since the party attracks around 10 000 people almost all the hotels were full by the time we did our booking. Ended up paying a little more than we usually do, but having an air con bungalow right on the beach is not such a bad thing I suppose.. Especially not when we lived by night and slept by day when it's usually around 35 degrees!! We met a great bunch of people at our hotel, mostly english and irish. The latter giving us a good excuse to party it up on St. Patricks day on the 17th. The pool party at Coral Bungalows was another highlight so the days night we went out before the actual full moon were so much fun as well!

Seing as I never would have brought a camera to the party we don't have any photoes to show you.. Google it if you want, that gives you a pretty good idea. And I'll try to paint a little picture: The beach with lots of bars along, all with DJs playing different sort of music so everyone can get exactly what they want, people dancing everywhere covered in glowing neon body paint, the waves rolling in on the beach and the beautiful full moon above it all. Wow. The party kept going after the gorgeous sunrise and people were still dancing on the tables when I left sround 8 in the morning.. We'll never forget the full moon of 19th of March 2011!

The day after we left Phangan and took the ferry to Koh Tao, a smaller island known for its great diving. Sanna is doing her open water padi certificate and will be finished later today if eveything goes well. I did mine in Malawi years ago, so I did a refreshment course yesterday and enjoyed diving again so much! Soon we'll be able to do dives together which we are both looking forward to very much! The island is beautiful with white beaches, clear water and a huge crowd of young travellers just as us. We like it so much we might stay longer than we intended, and we're considering an advanced diving course. Its awesome, no other word will do!

Thats a lot of text (and sorry it's been a while since our last update, we've been far to busy having fun to have time to write :D) so here is a little photo selection from our last week!


The lovely irish girls we met at our hotel painted us in neon, irish colours for St. Patricks day!

The beach right outside our bungalow at Power Beach Resort on Koh Phangan. It was a bit rainy by day but we ended up sleeping through most of the bad weather..

Nice to jump into the pool when the saltiness and sea weed of the ocean gets to you!

Koh Tao seen from the ferry. Left Phangan at 6.30 in the morning, had a great trip sitting right at the front of the boat enjoying the sun and clear early morning veiw.

Tired crowd after the crazy full moon party!

On the diving boat, Sanna's last day of open water course. Takes us to the different dive sites around the island. The instructors almost have more fun than we do, they are a crazy bunch :)

Sanna's diving course! (I'm sure she'll do a post dedicated to this will more detail later..)

Scuba Sanna all geared up!

To get to the island we went by buss from Bangkok to Surat Thani and then ferry out to Ko Phangan. Ko Tao is the smaller one further north where we are now!

søndag 13. mars 2011

Sunburns and earthquakes

I wanted to write this post for several days, there's so much to tell and i think many are excited about hearing about Pahn and her family in Thailand. I just want to write a couple of lines about the earthquake first. I think we can all agree that it seems we left Japan just in time (two days before it happened) but all the people we met are still there and the thought of it being so close certainly made an impressions on us. Everybody we know are fine, but affected of course, and its very strange to think about this very modern and very controlled nation in chaos and destruction. I can barely imagine it.
Now to more nice and less serious things. We've come to Thailand and again the contrast to Japan is huge. First of all WE'RE NOT COLD ANYMORE! over 30 degrees and HIGH humidity. I've never expericed such humidity before and its quite the experience to constantly walk around feeling sticky and sweaty. This however is just outside. Everywhere inside there aircondition to such extent I have feelt slightly cold here too.
Pahn and her sister Fiona came to pick us up from the airport and took us to Chon Buri (an hour south of Bangkok) where they live. (For those who might not know, Pahn was our thai exchangestudent, who lived with my family 08/09 in Norway). Fiona speaks very good English (she's live in the states for a year) and when we came back (rather tired from a VERY short night) we met Pahn's grandmother who lives with then, Pahns parents and Fionas fluffypuffy, loveydovey dog, Chon. (Åslaugs dog description). That evening we went and had a movely meal of fish and shirmps and mangosalad and rice and much more. Finishing the meal with coconutmilk icecream, yum. Pahn parent doesnt speaks much English but that doesnt stop them comunication with us and they have been ver kind.
I can possibly narrate about everythings we've done the last 5 days, (even though i kind of want to) so i will just give a few keywords from each days to give you all an idea and boost you jealusy a little more.
Wedensday: Beach, bathing, shopping mall (Assi bought a phone), Thaimassage and more tradional Thaifood
Thursday: Roadtrip! (got up at 7 am) Went to waterfalls with 3 of Pahns friends, almost 3 hours away. Bathing with fishes and natural spa. (Assi gets suntouched) Market in the evening.
Friday: All day at the beach, we've gotten to know Pahn best friend Book very well now. Ate lunch with family on the beachpromenade where Pahn other grandmother has a little dining restaurant. New market in the evening.
Saturday: Bangkok! But first the most dramatic haircut in my life! To Bangkok and went to a special weekend marked. Huge shoppingmall called Paragon with an amazing cinema on top finshed our evening. Fiona was at a concert and we were home by 1.am.
Today is Sunday and we've played badmington in the sun (at a time where only the white people are stupid enough to go out) and been to the mall. Åslaug cut her hair and I bought make-up to next weeks fullmoon party.
I loaded up many photos this time, and i hope you all enjoy! I have to start with a picture og my new cut (sorry forgot to turn it), Its good but a lot shorted than what i intended. So everybody can relax! I'm getting over the trauma now.
You can see the sceptims on my face on this photo though... yeah, not sure yet.


This is Pahns house. Its quite big in a very nice, quiet and safe neighbourhood. And they have great cars!
They gave us the room of Pahn's middle sister (her names is prononced Poh/På) And we sleep very comfortably in this big room with aircon.

This is from breakfast in their living room, this morning. From the left; Fiona, Assi, Poh, Daddy Somshit and Pahn.

Icecream the evening we arrived. Assi, Pahns dad, me, her mom and Fiona.

We ride bikes to the beach and the malls and averywhere around Chon Buri and this is going out for breakfast on the first day. Its taken in their driveway.

On the beach (10 min bike ride from Pahns house, I wanna call it Bang Saen). We got this big airtire to play with. Also, since this is a beach with more locals than tourists (i think i saw two other white people there) everybody bathes and swims with their clothes on. Their shorts and t-shirts.

Afterwords we enjoyed fresh fruit and cards in the shadow and beachchairs.

Sticky rice and mango has become Åslaug's salvation. Sticky rice is quite similar to rice porridge in Norway (risengrynsgrøt), and now Assi is forever dedicated to Thai cuisine.

Since I havent quite mastered the whole uploading photos to the blog thingie yet, this is a little out of place, but it a scene we passed in Bangkok and I love it.

Waterfalls..

We had to get a ride to another waterfall with Pahn's friends and hitchhiked with some dudes on the back of their pickup (dont worry mom it was not more than a couple of kilometers on some very safe and crowded roads, it would have been hard for them to abduct and rape us)


We visited the childrens school were Pahns mom works. Its a very nice school and literally right next to the beach.

Lunch at her grandmas on friday.

Trying to figure out we're we are on the unlikely huge marked in Bankok. Pahn on the let and Book on the right. Looks like they agree though
We'll finish off with a taste of Assi charming sunburn. You'll all be pleased to hear that by this time, 3 days later, the redness has turned into a very nice tan, even though its still rather white in the middle. We're having a great time! Its time for me to go to bed now.. Good night, and good luck.

onsdag 9. mars 2011

Fastelavensboller and Okonomiaki

Iif you're not English or Japaneese neither of the words in the title will mean anything. As im writing this im actually in Thailand (and its so awesome a post about this will arrive shortly) but it happend so many nice things right before we left Japan that we have to tell you about it.
First of all, we met a lovely japaneese girl at Starbucks in Asakusa, who we just started talking to (she lived in Canada so she can actually speak English and we love it!) and decided to meet for dinner a couple of days later. That was our last evening in Japan and we wanted to have the food we liked the most; Okonomiaki. She took us to this little restaurant in a sidetreet which we'd never find on our own, and we ordered okonomiaki and something else called something-I-cant-remember-but-I-want-to-say-"monji". They actually just give us a bowl of all the ingredients we wanted, inkluding raw eggs and pankake batter, and then either they fry it on the table or they let us have a go ourselves. It was very nice and we had a lovely evnig with our new friend Nicole.
Here the waitress (or cook) is making what Im not sure what's called. It was with camenbert cheese in it and we loved it.
Yeah, clearly we eat like children since they made us wear those thingies (almost kind glad i dont know the word for that in English, smekke på norsk)

Nicole did some cooking too and, Yep, thats cotopus frying on the table next to the vegetables.

On our last day in Tokyo we woke up and there was snow outside. We pretty much just looked at eachother and agreed that it really was time to go to Thailand! On a rainy(snowy) day in Tokyo everybody has umbrellas!
FASTELAVENSBOLLER
On facebook on sunday, so many people had written about these delisious buns wth wipped cream, known as fastelavensboller, on their status. As the night went on and the 100yen store 30 meteres from our hostel is open 24hours we decided around 1am that it was time to go buy buns and cream and make it ourselves, Japaneese style.

Our german friend, Felix, also enjoyed our attempt to follow Norwegian tradition.

Yeah they look pretty good! But.. sadly the cream was not very sweet, even though Assi put all her love into whipping it, that was not like norwegian cream, not even with a bunch of suger. The buns were ok though, so it certainly was a decent attempt, and it made us feel good!

Go Assi, whip it, whit it real good!

søndag 6. mars 2011

Octopus on a stick?

One of the most interesting things about arriving in a new country is the food, so we're dedicating this post to the discoveries we have made in Japan!

After Indian curry heaven we were excited to go Japanese. Prices are just a bit lower than in Norway, cheaper food can be bought at the gracery stores that are everywhere.. All the hostels we stay in have small kitchens which is great for our backpacker budget! We've been to restaurants though to try the different traditional things. Always a little challenge because the level of english spoken here is very low.. Usually all the restaurants have the different dishes displayed in plastic (!!) outside the restaurant, which we find strange but makes it easier! Not to be mixed up with the sample foods..




By now we have found our favorites, after a lot of trying (and some failing). Of course we had to go for the sushi bar where all the dishes are transported around. Some of the pieces where great, others were chewy and tasted very raw indeed. The colour of the plates indicate the price, you take what you want and then pay after. Healthy and fun!







We've been eating a lot of instant noodles, but in Fukuoka we had them the proper way: Prepared fresh in a yatai (small restaurant sheds in the street) with hot sake! Perfect for a cold, rainy night!


This is the yatai! Tiny, with some plastic curtains to keep the rain out. There was a small counter, seats, a hot plate and a cook. Suppose thats all you need! There happend to be an American man there who spoke a little japanese, our luck as the cook didn't speak a word of english..


 We've been ejoying the great selections of bakeries and cakes and coffee shops:




While we're trying to stay clear of the funny tasting sweet beans they put in everything here (we keep thinking its chocolate, and then get dissapointed every time!!) and the strange green tea flavor, macha. I think you need more than two weeks to get used to that!! Then there is the whole bunch of stuff that we have noo idea what is, and aren't really tempted to try either ;) :






tirsdag 1. mars 2011

High heels and talking toilets

After two weeks of Indian madness (in a good way!), we left for Japan. We knew it would be very different, but I still can't really believe that these two countries are on the same continent. Our impressed is that they differ in almost every way. I'll try to sum up our first impression. Japan is cold, actually. Very high tech, structured and clean. And people here are so polite that they hardly speak to you in case they bother you or make a mistake when they speak. Seing as we speak VERY limited Japanese there is little room for conversation.. After constantly being spoken to in India that is a big change. Luckily there are some brave Japanese students who stay at hostels, brave and english speaking. We've been living in hostels ever since we got here which has been awesome. We always meet a great bunch of people to share food, drinks and stories with. Pluss a lot of the people who travel around here study Japanese so they double as translators. Very handy!

We had a couple of days in Tokyo before we traveled west. It's a huge city, and it was kind of like I've always imagined New York to be. Tall buildings, masses of people, fancy shopping malls and cafes everywhere. All the people, girls espacially, are so made up many of them look like dolls. Sky high heels, short skirts, bows and dots and pretty coats and perfectly tamed hair. The guys usually wear suits or other fashinable outfits. Walking around in jeans and trainers makes us feel very scruffy!!


At the Shibuya crossing, green light!

 Toyko from above! We couldn't even see where the city ended..


This is at a mall called Shibuya 109, where the young and beautiful girls add to their (we're guessing) aready large selection of sugar sweet dresses and high heels. Everything was white, lace or candy colour.. We actually had to follow these to around for a bit, we couldn't believe our own eyes!!


The toilets here are a whole little chapter by themselves. The seats are warmed up, very appreciated in the cold spring they have going on. They have a bunch of different buttons, which include spray, air drying and flushing sound. Some even speak to you, what they'r trying to say still remains a mystery.. Again, slightly different from the "hole is the ground" toilets in India where toiletpaper was nowhere to be seen!





We've also tried some different types of local food with various outcomes. We've had sushi at the "go around restaurants", noodles in a lot a lot of different varieties, sake and even okonomiyaki - fried japanese pancake with cabbage, noodles, egg + a bunch of stuff I have no idea what it. There are also a lot of bakeries with all kinds of delicious bread and cakes. Yes please!!


The colour of the plate tells you the price, eat what you want as it passes you and pay after!

Having some chop stick difficulties as first, Sanna has become with the expert! ;)

Enjoying sizzeling hot okonomiyaki, Hiroshima style. Our favorite so far!!

Wonderful bakeries with real (as in not fluffy white) bread!

That is a little taste of Japan for you! By now we've activated our Japan Rail Passes which allows us unlimited travelling around for a week. So far we've visited Hiroshima, Kyoto and Fukuoka - tomorrow we leave for Beppu! There is much, much more to tell. Later! We're off early tomorrow to enjoy the hot springs and onsens of Beppu. Can't wait, it's been rainy and cold for several days now..