Sin City

I will start off by apologizing again for such delayed posts! So much has happened in the last couple of months, I have had a really hard time keeping up! It is my goal to completely update the blog before Kevin and I leave again (Feb 23). Here we go!

December 20-22, the ladies and I went to VEGAS! The purpose of the trip was an early bachelorette party and we had a blast! All 4 of us are teachers so the trip could not have come at a better time, as school was let out just days before we left. We flew out of Colorado Springs around 7pm on Monday evening and got to our hotel - The Paris - around 10pm. We quickly dropped off our bags in our rooms and went  down to the "Lobby" for dinner. We were all starving! After dinner, we gambled a little, danced a little, and went to this great dueling piano bar! Before we knew it, it was 2am and we called it a night.

Waiting patiently in the Colorado Springs Airport...thanks for bringing the cuties Ashley!

We were so excited to finally get some food!

Just outside the entrance to our hotel.

Amanda and I at the Piano Bar.

4 good looking ladies!

We got up and moving around 10am on Tuesday morning. We wanted to eat at the breakfast buffet, but the line was never ending, so we settled for a little crepery instead, which turned out to be awesome! We spent the day walking around and gawking at the nearby hotels on the strip. We started at Caesar's Palace, and then went on to the Venetian, Treasure Island, and the Mirage. It started raining while we were out, so we found a Pai Gow table at Bill's and I taught the ladies the luck of the game...unfortunately none of us walked away "winners."

Insert $1 - Loose $1! It was fun while it lasted!

Outside Caesar's Palace.

Amy is such a clever photographer! She made me "walk on water"

We did some shopping at the Roman Forum and paused for a quick self-photo!

Green Eggs and Ham in French!

The mini Rialto Bridge outside the Venetian.

We were so excited for our Gelato at the Venetian.

While we were in line for gelato, Amanda says "Do you watch Glee?" and I said "Of course I do, Why?" and she responds by saying "I think Coach Beaste is standing behind us!" So we thought long and hard about asking for a photo and finally caved! She was so nice!

Treasure Island. 

Amy and I on the tram from Treasure Island to the Mirage.

Amanda was the only one of us who had not been to Vegas before, and she was the only one of us to win money. She put $5 into a video poker machine and won $80! Way to go!

We went back to the hotel around 5pm and freshened up for our evening. Because it was still raining, we took a taxi down to New York New York. We had dinner reservations at The Excalibur, so we walked around the hotels in that area. Dinner was delicious, complete with steak and 2 bottles of wine!! The show that we planned to see did not start until 9pm, so we walked around the area some more. The nice thing about so many of the Vegas hotels, is that they are connected so you don't have to walk outside to get from one to another (this was very beneficial in the rain). While we were walking around, we stumbled upon Dick's Last Resort Bar and we had a blast! The servers there are rowdy and raunchy and so appropriate for a bachelorette night out! One of the servers took a liking to Ashley and made the night that much better! We stayed at the bar for about a half an hour and then went to the show. What better way to celebrate a bachelorette party in Vegas than to see the show "Thunder From Down Under!" That's right, we saw half-naked, australian men, dancing! It was a great way to celebrate! I put on some "bride" attire for the evening and when we went into the show I was given a special wristband that entitled us to a free bottle of champagne at a bar after the show. Of course we did not decline the "free" offer, so we went to the CatHouse and collected our prize. It was a great night! 

Just outside our hotel. 

Amy and I in front of New York New York.

The Excalibur - where we ate dinner and saw the show.

Our fabulous dinner.

We were very excited about the show!

Most of the photos from Dick's were pretty inappropriate, however this one is the "cleanest." This is the server who took a special liking to Ashley!

And here is an advertisement with Ashley's admirer on it - TACO. 

These are the guys from the show! It was very entertaining!

This is at the CatHouse in the Luxor. It was so nice to be treated with with VIP service!

Our flight left on Wednesday afternoon so we took our time in the morning, packed our things, had breakfast, and shopped a little. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 3pm, and land in Colorado Springs around 6pm, but unfortunately that was not the case! Because of weather, and a small plane crash at the COS airport earlier in the day, our flight was re-routed to Pueblo! I didn't even know Pueblo had an airport! We landed in Pueblo around 6:30pm and waited for almost 2 hours for buses to come pick us up and bring us back to the springs. It was quite an interesting adventure, and so nice to experience it with the ladies! 

So bored at the Pueblo airport!! 

It was a great 3 days and I am honored that these ladies chose to celebrate with me! Thank you girls!! 

The Adventures of Flat Stanley in Sydney, Australia

From October 26 to November 15, Kevin was on the new Royal Caribbean ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean. He cruised from Turku, Finland to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He ended up coming home 5 days later than planned and had about 18 hours at home before leaving again for Sydney. We flew to Sydney on November 16 and 14 hours later and crossing of the international date line, we got there on November 18 around 8:30am. We were able to check-in to the hotel early, so we freshened up and then went into the city. We had Indian food for lunch, went shopping at the hay market, found an incredible bookstore, and much more wandering. We ended up back at the hotel around 7pm.

On Friday, we went on an adventure with Flat Stanley! Flat Stanley is a fictional character who has become an international phenomenon. Flat Stanley has become the new version of a pen pal, but so much cooler! Kids create a Flat Stanley and then mail him off to friends and family. The friends and family then send Flat Stanley off to someone they know and eventually, Flat Stanley gets to see many different parts of the country and even the world! Photos of Flat Stanley are taken at each location and then mailed or e-mailed back to the students. It is an awesome project that lasts a full year or even longer. So long story longer...My friend Ashley has a cousin participating in the Flat Stanley Project right now, and she asked me if I would take Flat Stanley to Sydney....So here we go!

Flat Stanley on the Train to Circular Quay - the stop for the Sydney Opera House

This was taken right after getting off the train, before even exiting the station. Pretty incredible view!

Getting closer. 

Right in front of the famous sails! Flat Stanley was so excited to see this world famous building!

We went for a walk around the harbour and this was the view we saw! 

Another view a little further down the path. 

We went into the Royal Botanic Gardens and found these Flying Foxes - AKA huge bats!! They were everywhere!

A close-up of one of the many bats! Pretty neat!

The rest of the day was spent shopping and visiting a few different pubs. We inspected the ship on Saturday, quickly visited the Rocks Market, and then went back to the hotel to pack our things. Our flight left around 3pm on Saturday and we flew 10 hours from Sydney to Hong Kong, had a layover of about 1 hour, then flew 12 more hours from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. It was an incredibly long day! Overall a quick, but great trip! 

Coffins, and Pumpkins, and Pi's oh my!

I realize I am about 2 months late with this post, but I still want to briefly document this years Halloween. On Saturday, Dad and I went to the Emma Crawford Coffin Races in Manitou and had a blast! It was the first time either of us had been, and now we hope to make a tradition out of it.

The Smurf team were the 2010 winners!

Finally, a decent photo with my Dad! 

A huge zombie!

Later that night, mom and I went up to our cousin, Wynn's, house again for her annual Halloween party. Can you guess what we were?

Pumpkin....

Pi!!!!

And the lovely host!

On Sunday, I went over to Mom's and we watched Rocky Horror Picture Show while passing out candy to the trick-or-treaters. It was a great way to celebrate the holiday! 

Hong Kong, People's Republic of China

Thursday, October 21

We flew from Santorini to Athens to Munich to Hong Kong and landed around 3pm. We cleared customs and immigrations, re-claimed our luggage, and boarded the Airport Express Train into Central Hong Kong. Then we got a taxi to our hotel on Kowloon Island. We cleaned up a bit and then went out to explore the area around the hotel and have some dinner. We ate a Thai restaurant off of Nathan Road. Nathan Road is a well known street in Hong Kong filled with shopping and food, but best known for the bright lights! It was similar to Nanjing Road in Shanghai. We didn't last too long before we were exhausted and ready for bed. We fell asleep around 10pm and with the help of 2 different sleep aids we slept until 4pm the following day! We must have been tired!

One of the sections of Nathan Road. All of the bright neon signs are advertisements for restaurants or shops on floors higher than ground level. This is how we found the restaurant we ate dinner at. Unfortunately, this picture really doesn't do the street justice, but it gives you the idea.

As I said before, we didn't wake up until 4pm on Friday! Because we had already wasted most of the day, we had planned to stay in the area around the hotel again. We walked over to the Jade Market and browsed for a bit, and then walked over to the Temple Street Night Market. We were a little early for the night market so we decided to go have dinner and then go back. We ate at a great sushi restaurant that had a moving conveyor belt with the sushi on it for you to pick what you wanted. They charged you by the plate color and the sushi was so cheap! Each piece of sushi was only about $1, Kevin was in heaven! We went back to the night market and then got on the Metro and went down to the waterfront. The waterfront on Kowloon Island overlooks all of the skyscrapers in Central Hong Kong. It was beautiful! The area around the waterfront has free public wi-fi, so we checked our email, made some skype calls, and then walked back to the hotel. It was a great way to spend the evening.

A beautiful mural all lit up on the outside of Tin Hau Temple.

It's not the best photo, but proof that I do eat sushi!

In front of Central Hong Kong. Apparently, Hong Kong has the most skyscrapers of any city in the world! Over 7,000 buildings that are over 13 stories high!

We were able to fall asleep around midnight and we both woke up around 9am on Saturday morning. We went back to the waterfront area in search of an Indian restaurant and a bookstore. We were in luck, and found both! I was able to get some new children's books for my library and we had another great lunch! We stopped at a Circle K convenience store to get our tickets to Disney's Haunted Halloween and then went back to the hotel to relax for an hour or so. The Halloween celebrations did not start until 6:30pm, so we decided to fill our afternoon with a trip to Lantau Island to visit the world's tallest sitting Buddha. Both of these attractions were about 30 minutes outside of Central Hong Kong and were only one metro stop apart from each other. We traveled the 30 minutes to Tung Chung Station and walked over to the gondola entrance to get up to Big Buddha. Big Buddha sits on top of a mountain and the easiest and most scenic way to get there is by the 30 minute gondola ride to the top (you can also take a city bus, or HIKE to the top). It was a beautiful view of Lantau Island and the surrounding islands! We got up to the top around 5pm and Big Buddha closed at 5:30. We ran through the shopping areas and past the Po Lin Monastery and made it to the base of the Buddha with about 15 minutes to spare. Then we climbed 268 steps to reach Buddha himself! He sure was big! We took some time exploring Buddha, the Monastery, and some shops, and then we were on our way back down.

On the gondola

Just one section of the cable car ride to the top!

On the way!

In front of the 268 steps to the top!

Buddha, time for your close up!

Just being goofy

Just the two of us!

Beautiful sunset behind Big Buddha

  

One of the first and last views of Buddha.

We got back down around 6:30 and rode the Metro one stop to the Disneyland station. It was so convenient that there was a Disney train that was a part of the city metro system! The train was so cool! All of the windows were shaped like the famous Mickey head, there were character statues on the train, and the hand rails were Mickey heads too! Disney always amazes me! We purchased our tickets earlier in the day, so we were able to walk right in, without having to wait in lines. We got into the park around 7pm, changed into our Halloween costumes, and started to enjoy the fun! The whole park was decorated with pumpkins, and zombies, and dragons and more! We rode Space Mountain 3 times throughout the night, Buzz Lightyear twice, and the River Cruise once. We also saw the Halloween Parade and Fireworks, and walked through the Haunted Hotel - not to be confused with the Haunted Manson. It was such a fun evening, and a great way to celebrate Halloween together (since Kevin will not be home for Halloween this year). We left around 11pm and went back to the hotel!

On the Disneyland Metro to the resort. See the window!?! It's all about the details!

Welcome! I felt like a kid in a candy store! It was so exciting!

The Train Depot and Mickey!

A Zombie on Main Street

I never thought I would need chopsticks at Disney!

In front of Sleeping Beauty Castle. It was so little!

A professional photo that we purchased. Do you like the costume? Funny thing is that the costume is a Universal brand!

The fireworks show was pretty neat!

"To Infinity and Beyond"

The Nightmare Before Christmas was the main theme.

A pumpkin from the parade.

Sunday was a much slower day! We slept pretty late again, had some Thai food again for lunner (lunch/dinner), and then went back to the Jade Market. We told a very nice lady at the market earlier in the week that we would come back when we had Hong Kong Dollars, and that is exactly what we did. I bought a jade bracelet, and Kevin got a neat carved ball with another ball inside of it. We also went back to the Temple Street Night Market and this time the market was hopping! We found the south section of the market which had much better stalls! Kevin bought a tripod and we went back to the waterfront to watch the Symphony of Lights Show. This is a laser light show that takes place on the waterfront between Central Hong Kong and Kowloon Island. This particular night, the show was announced in Cantonese, so we couldn't understand what they were saying, but it was still cool to see the lights over the water!

The light show!

That tripod sure came in handy!

The night market was hopping! The stalls went on for blocks!

Monday was our work day. We were on and off the ship within 2 hours and then we went back to the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and then went out to make the most of our last day! The last thing I wanted to do in Hong Kong was go up on the Peak Tram. It is a very big tourist trap, but I am glad we had the experience! We rode a tram to the top of the peak and the view over the city was beautiful! There was also some great shopping! We spent about 2 hours up on top and when we got back down it was rush hour! I have never seen so many people in a subway station in my life! Thankfully we only had to go 2 stops! We finished the night with another trip to the sushi restaurant and the night market. It was another great day!

On the tram. 

Madame Tussauds Wax Museum is at the top of the Peak, and Bruce Lee is waiting for tourists to take this photo. 

Overlooking Central Hong Kong and Kowloon Island in the upper left corner.

The buildings were SO tall!!

All of the people! 

Our flight left of Tuesday, and we took the free train to the Airport Express station and we were able to check-in and check-in our bags before even getting to the airport. It was definitely hassle-free traveling! I flew home alone, and Kevin flew to Turku, Finland. It was a great trip! Sorry for the delay in posting!