So I disappeared for a bit...

2013 was a bit of a shit year, to be honest. After I read and reviewed Ghostwritten, my life sort of went down the rabbit hole. My boyfriend and I broke up -- we were in a long-distance relationship, so the absence shouldn't have mattered so much, right? Even so.

So I disappeared for a bit, and I stopped reading, and I stopped reviewing. I found it difficult to sit still by myself with my thoughts, and so I was just running around, doing as much as I possibly could. I went to Kep on weekends with new friends, went to Jakarta on another weekend to visit an old friend. I started cooking again, this time trying to make Chinese-style noodles (hor fun), or pierogis, or just meals that consisted of the four food groups. I adopted a kitten and named him Biggie Smalls. I fought with friends, made up with friends, said goodbye to friends. I went to new places, new events that I wouldn't have bothered with six months ago, and I met up with old friends who visited Phnom Penh. I bought a nice camera and (somewhat) learned how to use it. 

First day in Jakarta

Jakarta city-view

Parts of the city were waterlogged when I was there. 

But people still seemed positively cheerful 

With Christi and her boyfriend, hanging outside in the balcony

Biggie Smalls, when he was very small

Biggie Smalls, two months later. Dude got huge!

My pierogis. I was very proud of 'em. 

Jane and I looking like hot bitches on our way to a classical music concert (Photo by Ben Woods*)

At the night market with friends (Photo by Ben Woods)

Always at Liquid. Etan (third from left) visited me in Phnom Penh for about 48 hours. (Photo by Ben Woods)

And this was all while working my ass off at my job, which is utterly life-consuming in some ways. Work was a relief during this time. I complain about it a lot, but I do love it. 

In March, I returned to the States for a month for Cynthia's wedding. It was beautiful, of course, and it was great seeing her again. Talking to her always feels like such a relief, like nothing's ever going to change between us and that if there's one thing that I can rely on to be constant in my life, it's my friendship with her. Her husband, Chris, was very sweet, very funny, and loves her very much (obvi), and I, naturally, think that he's lucky to have found a woman like Cynthia.

We don't like each other. 

Puppies kissing Cynthia before the ceremony

Cynthia walks down the aisle with her father

I also got to spend some time with my mother. We took a trip to central California, to Solvang, and its surrounding towns. This place was like weird farm central. We went to an ostrich farm, a miniature horse farm, a miniature donkey farm and a lavender farm. My mom also accompanied me to a beer brewery, called Figueroa Mountain Brewery.

miniature ponies!

miniature donkeys! (This one was sweet)

The donkey was trying to get my mom to pet him. 

Ostriches are fucking freakish looking. Also ginormous, and have huge talons. 

Then New York, which was exhilarating and exhausting. I stayed with Marissa, and just had a schedule full of seeing family, friends, mentors, and former colleagues. I drank way too much beer, ate way too much good food, and spent... not as much money as I expected, which was a nice surprise given how expensive the city can be. But I guess since I was visiting from Cambodia, everyone seemed to want buy me lunch, dinner, drinks. I also got to go to a concert in Bushwick, which made me so happy. Haven't heard live music in ages. The band was Crushed Out aka Boom Chick -- a drum/guitar duo. They were great.

View of uptown from my uncle's office. He works near WTC.

My cousin. She got so big! And understands words now. 

I meet the Polish hotties in the East Village.

I miss these girls so much. 

got a hipster card from the girls

Last week, May 3, was my two-year anniversary in Cambodia with Emily. We didn't do much -- just had sushi for dinner to commemorate it, then went out drinking with a buddy who was back in town.

Two years in Cambodia. Nuts.

Anyway, it's been a pretty eventful four months. I'm glad that I was more willing to put myself out there and do different things, but obviously there have been some down sides to being unwilling to settle down and allow myself to be ok with just. sitting. still. But I'm trying, right now, I really, really am. I've even started reading again -- besides that Ron Vitale book I reviewed below, I've read three other books. I'm aware that puts me way behind my CBR5 goal of 26, but I'll keep trying.

(*My friend, Ben, has more photos of Phnom Penh at his tumblr. He's a great photographer.)

Cali shots

For Cynthia's wedding, I took a month off from work. Stopping over in California for two weeks, I managed to take a lot of photos (because I was so goddamn bored there). I also briefly considered on starting photo project of all the cul de sacs in our stupid, boring little town, but my lack of driving skills put an end to it. 

Nevertheless, here are some of northern Cali, where it was only about 10 degrees warmer than snowy New York, where I stopped in for two weeks as well

Cul de sac

Same cul de sac, different settings

Even my cat was bored

Nothing says suburban ennui like skateboarders in an empty park

I skateboarded too!

Word.

Sun setting

I went to San Francisco for a day to meet up with friends

I know these three from three different groups of friends. It was awesome to have them together.

Walking to Delores Park with beers to hang out

attempting close-ups

lavender shoes

Once I got to New York, I barely took any photos just because I got so busy.

My best got married

The happy couple, post-ceremony

My best friend from high school got married on March 10. I flew back to California to attend the wedding. It was held at a winery high above the city, away from the noise and people and crowd. The weather was perfect, the bride looked beautiful, and I might have even teared up just a bit during the ceremony.

Christmas cheer in Phnom Penh

Secret Santa gifts under our anemic office Xmas tree!

Our office Christmas tree, which droops a little, is covered with joke editions of our newspaper. It sits in front of the desks of me and my colleague, so it's nice to be a little bit cut off by the busy-ness of the newsroom.

Her name is Pinglinda.

My Secret Santa got me a giant pink pig, which is kind of awesome. It's now sitting at the corner of my desk -- my colleague says it should remain there as our corner mascot. The EIC said, "You don't seem like a stuffed animal type of girl. You're too serious." He's half right, I suppose, so he gets half a credit for that.

There were plenty of other really great/hilarious gifts. Our editor-in-chief got a watch with the prime minister's face on it, one of the Khmer editors got two bottles of soju and a gangnam style T-shirt, and one of the copy-deskers with long hair (and some dreads) got a hairbrush. Booze and mugs was a favorite though for the Secret Santas. And only one person got a crappy pen! (which was incidentally in a box that was beautifully gift-wrapped) -- so we can say that it was a successful round of Secret Santa.

I've been through a couple of these office Christmas parties, but this one was actually really fun. Everyone seemed pretty excited about the gifts, which were all nicely wrapped (surprising to me, since Khmers don't really celebrate Christmas). Since we had all filed our stories, we just hung out and drank beer, shot the shit while our poor editors wrestled through our don't-give-a-fuck-because-it's-Christmas-bitches copy.

I do miss New York desperately though, and wish I could experience a cool Christmas. I guess I'd just have to make do with Phnom Penh's dropping temperatures. It's down to seventy degrees now. And it's windy!

So cold I had to wear a scarf with my thin T-shirt!

I signed up for Cannonball Read 5 for next year, so hopefully this means more posts to this blog. I've more or less neglected it (as I always do) but not having Cannonball Read this year was a real lack -- I missed being a part of the reading community and staying on top of commenting on other people's reviews. And besides, it motivated me to read, so why the fuck not, yea?

Anyway, Merry post-Christmas and Happy New Year!

(PS. Crappy image quality is due to me taking the photos with an iPhone.)

Craving coffee in Vietnam

Sitting in a coffee shop in Hoi An looking at my photos.

When we were in Vietnam, we kept going on a search for good, Western-style coffee. While I enjoy the thick, sweet-flavored coffee that are usually served in most places in Vietnam (and also in Cambodia), we started to miss the familiar kick of espresso. In Hoi An, we found this little coffee shop that actually had a Lavazza machine! The first we've seen in Vietnam!

The owner of this little joint boasted that foreigners would come back day after day on their vacation just for their poison since theirs is the only place with a superior Italian coffee-brewing machine. Well, call us typical, but we stopped back at least once a day for the three days we spent in Hoi An.

Also, despite its sign, the place does not serve banh mi sandwiches.

I'm back! I promise!

Hi! It's been a long while! Did I mention that I went to Vietnam in February?

Fruit and flower sellers on the streets of Hanoi, near the Shoe Market.

I went to Vietnam in February! It was fabulous and I had so much fun. When I have more time, I will (try) to blog about my trip.

Until then, I got inspired by my best friend, Cynthia, to try to make an effort with this blog. The girl is blogging every day with arts and crafts or recipe ideas! Talk about motivation. You can see her work here. Some of her ideas are really interesting and fun — others seem just way too time-consuming (Or maybe it's just me because, if you haven't gathered from my lack of blog posts, I am extremely lazy.)

Anyway, I've been wanting to share some photos I took in Vietnam anyway, so consider this a primer for more to come.

Weekend in Siem Reap!

I went to Siem Reap with Emily two weekends ago since her parents were in town. It was really nice and super surreal—kind of felt like I was leaving real life for 2 days. Though it only 5 hours away by van, even just a quick jaunt out of Phnom Penh was such a welcome break from the city.

Our friend, Christi, had said that Siem Reap's like Disneyland for adults, and she is not wrong. The entire city is laid out so perfectly and everything seems to be comfortably walkable. There's a street where you can get drunk (allegedly. Emily and I were so beat from temple-hopping that we just stayed in our rooms and watched SYTYCD), and if you want to feel cultured, you can go to the temples. We only had one day to do the temples, so we asked our tour guide, Sokun, to take us to the three best.

First stop is Ta Prohm, which is better known as the temple where Angelina Jolie shot Tomb Raider. It was seriously hilarious how every single tour guide seem to have met Angelina Jolie. "Oh yea, I met her when I helped with the set design team of Tomb Raider," Sokun said. "She's very sexy." (I know it sounds like I think he's lying—he probably is—but that seems to be the schpiel that every tour guide dropped at this temple. I think they think Westerners really like Angelina Jolie, which you know, they're not wrong about.)


Sokun was an amazing tour guide and really informative, but I'll give you my cliff notes version: There are some very large, enormous trees in this temple. Some of the temple is actually held up by the giant tree roots, so if you cut down the trees, you will be removing an integral part of the temple's foundation.

I took a lot of photos of all three temples, but my photos will just not be able to convey the awesomeness of each temple. So I'll try to show off my favorite parts of each temple. Like this! Dinosaur carvings!!!

See the Stegosaurus?

It was really funny how Sokun pointed those out. He was showing us some intricate carvings with Apsara dancers on them, just describing in detail how each dancer is in a different position. Then he went on the other side of the column and just pointed at it and said, "Look. Dinosaurs." then walked away. Subtext: Westerners get Angelina Jolie and dinosaurs. No explanation required.

On our way to the second temple

Emily contemplating the giant face gate to the Bayon temple

The second temple was called Bayon, and it's famous for having enormous statues of faces.

There was a really intricate depiction of an epic battle on a stone wall. The creators of the wall even carved out different features for the different nationalities battling—for example, the Khmers had longer ear lobes, the Chinese had smaller eyes and wore hats and the Vietnamese looked kind of like mean monsters. (Quick Cambodia cultural lesson: Cambodians really don't like the Vietnamese. The word "Yuon" is the Khmer word for Vietnamese, but it also has a derogatory connotation to it.) Here's about a tenth of the wall with Sokun.

Did I mention that Sokun was awesome? I know i'm not saying too much about the temples and its histories (and frankly, a quick google search would probably do it far more justice than my half-remembered made-up blabbings) but he really had just this wealth of information. I know he probably could have been making half the shit up and I wouldn't have noticed, but he would go along with all these facts, and then correct himself after because he wanted it to be right. We basically spent the entire day with him and though I don't remember too many historical facts about the temple, I now know a lot about him and his life, and man, he is one fucking interesting person.

Here is a family photo of Em and I:


There were also Buddhist shrines set up in various parts of Bayon, with old ladies manning them. One of them beckoned at us and gave us a joss stick to offer to the shrine. Thanks to my buddhist upbrining, I knew that I had to bring the joss stick up to my heart, down to my head then out to the statue (If I remember correctly, it symbolizes giving what's in your mind and what's in your heart). Then I gave a little bow for extra effect. Emily did an awkward half bow with her joss sticks...

After we gave our offerings, the old ladies tied a red string band around our wrists. Emily told me that the lady who gave her the wristlet whispered a blessing of sorts, like good fortune for your future, etc. I didn't get a blessing (I don't think. I might have just been oblivious—it was a semi-emotional experience, to be honest) but it just felt really very nice, and I'm still wearing my red band.


Our third and final temple was the Angkor Wat temple. Here it is in all its reflective glory:



My favorite part about this temple was being able to go up to the highest level and looking out. The highest level is also kind of a bitch to get to—you gotta hoof up these very steep rickety metal steps that were constructed just for tourists because the actual stone steps would just be impossible to climb up. And you might not think you get vertigo, until you look down and realize that you could very well fall to your death.

Once I got up to the top, it was like I've been removed from the crowd of tourists and it's totally peaceful and I kind of got why these kings would want to even climb up those steep 72 steps (yea, fact-check that) to pray.

View from the top, in a photo that really does no justice to how great it feels to be on top of the world:

I saw monks on the way out of Angkor Wat.

Next, Sokun took us to the floating villages of Siem Reap. These river communities live on the Tonle Sap river and their entire lives take place there. They have floating school houses and it's very strange to see kids carrying backpacks and leaving the school, except instead of stepping into a car, they are just jumping into a boat.