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It’s hard to believe that we are already over halfway through 2010. The good news is that means that I am now past the halfway point for my Project 365! 184 days down, 181 days to go.
If anyone is interested in following along, here is the link to my Project 365 photoblog – http://timchurch-project365.tumblr.com/
Some recent photos:
Category: Goals
I’m very excited to announce that I finally have my Swiss visa! It has been a long journey with many bumps in the road but it is finally over. I will be attending ETH Zürich as a graduate student in Computer Science starting in the fall.
I am looking forward to being able to relax and settle down for a little while and no longer having to leave the Schengen area for 3 out of every 6 months!
Category: Travel
Emily and David Jaffe decided to have a joint birthday party this year. The theme was the 80’s and costumes were required. There were plenty of flourescent colors, Tom Selleck mustaches, leg warmers, side-ponytails, retro sunglasses, scrunchies, and pegged jeans. Oh and Back to the Future was playing on repeat on the TV. Good times.
Category: Uncategorized
Emily and I were lucky enough to spent a long weekend in Paris for Easter this year. This was my third time in Paris and by far my favorite. I’m think I’m starting to see what all the hype is about. Here is a rundown of our trip:
Friday - We arrive in Paris in the evening (via plane). We are staying at our friend Claire’s apartment, which is near the Jourdain metro stop. Claire and her fiance are on vacation in the Dominican Republic and generously offered to let us use their apartment while they were away. It is a great way for us to see a new part of Paris and get more of a local experience. After we dropped off our bags at the apartment, we had an amazing dinner at Le Coude Fou (Thanks for the tip, Nikolai!). After dinner we took a stroll around Notre Dame – a great start to the trip.
Saturday - We started the day with a run in the park by Claire’s apartment. Then we went into the city to play tourist. We started with a great lunch at a random brasserie; we had two French classics – les moules (mussels) & french onion soup. Delicious! Then we went up to Sacré Cœur, walked around Montmarte, and ended up by Moulin Rouge. We bought some wine, cheese, and a baguette on the way back to the apartment. After a little nap, we had a nice dinner at local place – L’Escargot. We woke up at 3am to watch the big NCAA tournament game (online) – Duke vs. West Virginia. Duke won (yes!) and, luckily, Emily is still speaking to me after the game.
Easter Sunday – We had a non-traditional Easter brunch of delicious pastries from a local boulangerie. We spent the morning walking around the Left Bank to the Luxembourg Gardens. Then we took a metro to the “chinatown” area where we got some Vietnamese food – pho, a vietnamese sandwich, and steamed bun (not exactly a standard Easter meal). We passed the afternoon having a drink at one of the many outdoor cafes and then watched the sunset by the Louvre. We finished the day by going back to Le Coude Fou for dinner again (try the goat cheese salad!) for yet another amazing meal.
Monday - Claire returned from her vacation and we had breakfast with her before heading to our hotel. After walking around so much the past few days and seeing all the tourist sights, we were ready for a day of relaxation. Emily got some sushi then I tried to go to famous falafel place, L’As du Falafel, but it unfortunately was closed. I ended up getting a kebab instead. We finished the day with a little picnic (a baguette and a beer) by the Pont Notre Dame.
Tuesday - Emily went to work in the Ebay Paris office. I went for a run through Paris, past the Opera House and along the Seine, and then it was time for me to head back to the airport (Emily flew back the next day). It was a great weekend, and I have to admit that Paris is definitely starting to grow on me.
See all our Paris pictures on Flickr
Category: Travel
2009 was a record-breaking year for me travel-wise. Besides moving to Switzerland, and partially due to my visa troubles there, I traveled more last year than ever before in my life (including the year that Emily and I did our around-the-world trip). Here are the stats:
| January | Lake Tahoe | Weekend Roadtrip |
| February | Switzerland | Moved to Zurich |
| March | Lichtenstein | Daytrip |
| Norway | Weekend Trip to Oslo | |
| April | Czech Republic | 2 weeks in Prague |
| USA | SF and Seattle | |
| May | France | Paris |
| June | Spain | Mallorca |
| USA | DC | |
| July | Germany | Konstanz |
| USA | NYC, Chautauqua NY, Durham NC, Morgantown WV, Elkhart IN | |
| August | USA | SF, Seattle, and Chicago |
| Ireland | Stopover in Dublin | |
| September | Germany | Black Forest Roadtrip |
| Czech Republic | Prague | |
| Germany | Munich (Oktoberfest) | |
| October | Netherlands | Amsterdam |
| November | Germany | Berlin |
| Denmark | Stopover in Copenhagen | |
| UK | London | |
| December | Qatar | Stopover in Doha |
| Thailand | Bangkok, Ko Phangan, Ko Tao | |
| Laos | Vientiane | |
| USA | Seattle |
Category: Travel
As one of my goals for the year, I have decided to attempt the massive undertaking that is known as “Project 365″. If you are not familiar with this concept, Project 365 is a photography project where you take one photo everyday for one year. The idea is to get lots and lots of practice which will hopefully improve my photography skills. I also hope to learn some new techniques and figure out how to use the manual settings on my camera.
This is something that I have talked about doing since around 2007. After finally buying a DSLR camera and following my friend Eric Wilfong’s Project 365 last year, I am finally ready to give it a shot myself.
I have created a new photoblog specifically for this project – http://timchurch-project365.tumblr.com. The photos will also be posted to a set on Flickr.
Category: Goals
Sticking with my annual tradition, here are my goals for the year:
Category: Goals
Without meaning to, I have just completed my second trip around the world. That’s right, I unintentionally circled the globe in 2009. Let me explain.
I was in the USA over the summer, then I flew back to Zurich for the fall, with a stopover in Ireland on the way back. Over Christmas, I went to Thailand for vacation with a stopover in Qatar on the way. Then, because I had accidentally overstayed my visa in Switzerland, I couldn’t use the return leg of my Zurich->Bangkok flight. Instead, I bought a new ticket back to the USA. Since I was in Asia, the shortest way to get to the USA, especially the west coast, was to fly over the Pacific Ocean. And with that flight, my RTW trip was complete.
Here is the summary: Seattle -> Chicago -> Dublin -> Zurich -> Doha -> Bangkok -> Tokyo -> Seattle
Category: Travel
Continued from 3.5 Weeks in Thailand and Laos – Part 1
Koh Phangan, Thailand
From Bangkok we traveled the cheap, backpacker way and took the overnight bus to a ferry to get to Koh Phangan. The bus was surprisingly comfortable and we both were able to get some sleep. This 12ish hour journey only cost 600 baht each (~$18).
In Koh Phangan, we went back to Haad Rin, where we had been 4 years earlier on our RTW trip. For people that know Emily and I, this may seem like a surprising choice since Haad Rin is best known for its crazy full moon parties on the beach. We weren’t there for the parties, it was just nice to go back to someplace familiar; plus Koh Phangan has decent beaches, beautiful sunsets, and most importantly – delicious chicken schnitzel! We are both obsessed with these delicious non-Thai treats. Almost everyday we would go to “Mama’s Schnitzel” for lunch where we would get a chicken schnitzel sandwich and a fruit shake (coconut, pineapple, and orange). The sandwich is very basic – a bun with fried chicken, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and sweet chili sauce – but it is amazingly delicious. I wish Mama Schnitzel would franchise and open up in the US/Switzerland!
Most of our time in Koh Phangan was spent relaxing on the beach or sharing a Chang beer while watching beautiful sunsets. We took one day trip to Koh Samui to extend my visa (apparently when you cross the border via car or train you only get a 15 day Thai visa as opposed to 30 days when you enter by plane…). We also took a longtail boat over to Hat Yao one afternoon, where I proposed to Emily. (She said yes!)
Koh Tao, Thailand
We took the short ferry from Koh Phangan to Koh Tao to get a change of scenery and to meet up with our friend CK. On Koh Tao, we headed to Hat Sairee and were lucky to find a good, cheap, basic bungalow right on the beach. Our first choice was all booked (as many places were since this was just a few days before Christmas) but they had room left at Crystal Dive Resort. Our bungalow was very basic – just a wooden shack with a bed, a fan, and a bathroom, but it was all that we needed and it was right on the beach.
In Koh Tao we met up with our friend CK and her friend Ty. (We had recently seen CK when we visited her in London a month earlier). CK and Ty stayed on a different beach than us, Mae Haad, but we met up with them everyday on the beach and for dinner. It was a lot of fun to see some familiar faces and hang out with them.
Koh Tao is famous for its scuba diving. I did some dives here on the RTW trip back in 2005 and was excited to get back in the water. Since I hadn’t been diving since 2005, I decided to take the PADI refresher course at Seashell Divers. The refresher course consists of a brief classroom session (~30 minutes) and reviewing all of the 20 skills from the Open Water certification in the pool. I remembered how to do everything right away, but I felt more comfortable after taking the refresher course. The next two mornings I went on double dives, so I did 4 dives total. The first day we dove Green Rock followed by White Rock. Green Rock has some nice swim-throughs but is otherwise rather disappointing. White Rock has a lot more diversity of fish and coral, and I really enjoyed that dive. The next day, which happened to be Christmas Eve, we went out to Chumphon Pinnacle first, where I had an amazing dive. We saw at least 8 bull sharks that were each 6-8 feet long. Even besides the sharks, there were lots of other stuff to see including huge schools of fish and tons of sea anemones. This was by far the best dive of the trip. My final dive was back at Green Rock and was nice and long but otherwise unmemorable.
We spent Christmas on the beach in Koh Tao. It felt very strange to be away from home and in 90 degree weather for xmas, but at least there were enough tourists and expats that we saw lots of Santa hats and heard some Christmas carols playing. On Christmas morning, Emily and I filled stockings for each other, mostly with cheap Thai trinkets. We both put a lychee instead of the traditional orange at the end of the stocking (well, traditional in my family at least).
From Koh Tao, we took another ferry and overnight bus back to Bangkok. We only had a day in Bangkok before we had to head back to the airport where Emily flew back to Zurich and I flew to the USA (I couldn’t go back to Switzerland due to the visa issues). Overall, it was an amazing trip. It felt like we were gone forever. Long enough to forget which day of the week it is, which I think is the sign of a good vacation. Now it is back to reality…
Category: Travel
After my visa issues and stopover in Doha, it was on to Southeast Asia for 3 and a half weeks. I feel very fortunate to be able to say that this is not the longest vacation I have ever taken (3rd longest, I think). I spent 3 days in Laos and the rest of the time in Thailand. This was my 3rd time visiting Thailand – its combination of beautiful beaches, great food, friendly people, and cheap prices makes it one of my favorite countries in the world.
Vientiane, Laos
I arrived in Bangkok on December 6th with one night reserved in Bangkok and no other set plans. I was on my own until Emily arrived five days later on December 11th. I decided to do a quick trip to Vientiane since Laos was the one place in SE Asia that I had still not been to yet, and I wanted to check it out.
To get to Vientiane you can either take an overnight bus, overnight train, or fly. I chose the overnight train from Bangkok to Nong Khai, followed by a quick train across the Friendship Bridge into Laos. Unfortunately, I made the bad decision to go 2nd class on the way there. The bed was fine but they left the lights on all night long so I didn’t get any sleep at all. So when I arrived, I was suffering from some serious “trainlag”.
Maybe it was due to my sleeping schedule being off or maybe because I got sick while I was there (cold), but Vientiane didn’t really impress me. I stayed in a cheap guesthouse near the river, or rather, near the riverbed. The Mekong river was extremely low (I assume just because of the season?) and it only filled about a third of the total riverbed. So instead of eating dinner overlooking the water, I had a rather unspectacular view of dirt. The food in Vientiane, however, wasn’t bad and was dirt cheap. I really enjoyed the chicken laap, a traditional Lao dish. Laap, or larb, is minced meat mixed with a lot of herbs and chilis and usually served with sticky rice.
I did get out and do some sightseeing in Vientiane one day. I took a tuk-tuk/jumbo to the Patuxai monument and then walked back from there. [Side note - negotiating with tuk-tuks is much more difficult in Laos than in Thailand because they are run like a cartel - the driver must get the price approved by the leader of the group before he can leave.] Patuxai, or “Victory Gate”, is Vientiane’s Arc de Triumphe. There is a funny story behind it; the US government gave Laos concrete to build a new airport in the 60s but the Laos government used it to build this monument instead, which is why it is often referred to as the “Vertical Runway”. After Patuxai, I also stopped by the Talat Sao market and the That Dam stupa.
Bangkok, Thailand
Emily and I met up in Bangkok, after she flew in from Zürich and I took the train back from Laos (1st class this time). We stayed in a guesthouse on Soi Rambutti, just off of the main backpacker strip of Khao San road. We had been there on our around-the-world trip so we were already familiar with the area. It is a bit crowded and chaotic there which was fun for a couple days, but then we were both ready to get out of Bangkok and down to the islands.
We did manage to get away from Khaosan road a couple times. One night we took a tuk-tuk to the flower market, and another night we went to Chinatown and ate dinner at T&K Seafood, which had been recommended to us by a friend. We ate outside on the crowded sidewalk and had a great meal. I had the crab curry and Emily tried the sweet chili fish. Both were great. Emily also ate a couple of the biggest oysters I have ever seen in my life. Even after cutting them in half, they were still enormous.
Continue to 3.5 Weeks in Thailand and Laos – Part 2
Category: Travel
