Goodbye 2011!!

When planing this New Year, we wanted to do something a little cheaper than past years but still fun and with close friends.  A lot of our friends were out of town this year but when our good friend and Chris' old roommate asked us if we'd like to get out of the city with him and his fiance - we got excited about this NYE's potential!  We planned a weekend away in the Hamptons with Cesar and Courtney.  We rented a car to drive the 2.5 hours out to the Hamptons, rented a house with a grill and hot tub, and made dinner plans for NYE.  Although it wasn't a cheaper NYE, it was a fun, relaxing, casual and special New Years. We spent the first night in grilling, sitting by the fire, and then having champagne in the hot tub. 

First night in the house, Chris grilled steaks.

First night - Cesar and Courtney snuggling by the fire

Chris and Kate by the fire

The second day we woke up late, had a big breakfast and watched some football.  We walked around the downtown area of East Hampton before heading back to the house to get ready for our New Years dinner at Serafina.  There was an amazing pre-fix deal.  Basically every course came with truffles!  After dinner, we headed back to the house for champagne, our own personal dance party and more hot tubing. It was lovely to be away from the chaotic NYC new years we've experienced in the past.

New Years Eve dinner at Serafina - so good!

At the house, Cesar and Courtney introduced us to one of their New Years traditions:  Open a bottle of champagne and everyone makes toasts to people and accomplishments from the past year.  You do this until the bottle is gone.  This was a really special and fun tradition that I hope we do every year.  We won't share (or be able to remember) all of our toasts that evening, but here are some highlights from 2011.

1) We got engaged in Maui

2) We embarked on a world trip (the inspiration to start this blog)

3) Chris graduated with his masters degree from Columbia Business School

4) We moved into a new apartment in September

5) Chris started a new job

6) Chris' Grandpa celebrated his 90th birthday surrounded by dozens of family and friends

7) We celebrated two friends' weddings in Dallas: Josh & Dani and Paul & Mel

8) Friends John & Denise had their first child: Ryland Patrick

9) We went to the Coachella Music Festival in Palm Springs, CA

10) For Chris' spring break, we went to Cabo with friends Kerry & Chris and then visited friends Erin & Craig in San Francisco.  We also managed to make it to Napa for a wine-tasting day-trip.

11) Chris turned 30!! (more on that in a separate blog post)

12) Kate's friend, Malinda visited us in March

13) We've had many visits from family. Both our families came out for Chris' graduation in May, Kate's sister, Sarah has traveled to NYC for work several times, and Kate's parents came to visit in November.

14) Chris went to New Orleans for a bachelor party

15) We celebrated two friends getting engaged: Cesar & Courtney and Bharni & Anu. And Kate's cousin Tyler got engaged.

16) We started the year in Los Angeles, celebrating the New Year and our friend, Lauren's birthday. (And we got to party in Jim Morrison's old house on NYE!)

17) Chris took many snowboarding trips including one to Colorado in Janurary with fellow Columbia Buisness School students.

Needless to say, 2011 was a great year!  We already have a lot to look forward to in 2012:  Chris' sister and brother-in-law are moving to Houston, many of our friends are expecting babies, we already have two weddings on the calendar for May, and we'll be planning our own wedding (date TBD 2013).

9/11 Memorial Site

At the end of November, we went to see the newly opened 9/11 memorial site with our friends Liz and Fred.  The site isn't completely finished - the museum isn't open yet but the memorial is and it's really beautiful.  Although the site is free to visit, it's so popular that you have to reserve tickets for a specific time and date.  We heard the tickets were unavailable for months but that wasn't the case, there were plenty of dates to chose from.

Chris, Liz, Kate and Fred in front of one of the fountains and in front of the base of the Freedom Tower

The still work-in-process Freedom Tower

The fountains (there are two of them) are set in the footprints of the twin-towers and are huge.  The center of the fountains appear bottomless from all angles.

The outer ring of the fountains is circled with the names of the people who lost their lives on 9/11

At the back of the photo, you can see the museum which is still being built.

The Freedom Tower

The courtyard of the park

We visited the park in the late afternoon which ended up being a great time because we were able to see the fountains in the daylight, at sunset and at night.  Even though you are still in the city, the park is very quiet and serene.  It's a wonderful experience. If you're interested in seeing the memorial, visit: http://www.911memorial.org/

The Holiday Season: Thanksgiving & Christmas

We LOVE the holidays.  Chris' favorite holiday is Thanksgiving and Kate loves Christmas.  We spent the holiday seasons like most people - enjoying time with friends, family and good food!

The week of Thanksgiving Kate's parents came up to New York to visit and to do some wedding planning.  We took them to four wedding venues and all agreed on one final one! Now we just need to pick a date and start the contract!  We also took Kate's parents to Chris' favorite steak place - Keens.  This is where Chris wants to have our rehearsal dinner so that was our "excuse" for going to dinner there and taking a tour.  As expected, they loved it.  It wasn't all wedding planning while they were here.  We also took in some NY pizza, an Irish pub, visited Former President Grant's tomb, and saw the Broadway show War Horse.  If you haven't seen War Horse at Lincoln Center, you must!  It's such an amazing show and the theatre is small so there are no bad seats.  This Christmas the movie version came out.  We haven't seen the movie yet but heard it's good but not as good as the show.  Most movies aren't as good as live theatre, though. We always love when they come to visit.  And every time they visit we go to at least one Broadway show. 

Kate's Dad, Dave, enjoying an Irish pub specialty - Shepard's pie

A scene from War Horse (a pic I found online) - the horse is actually a puppet but after a few minutes into the play, you forget it's a puppet and accept it for a live horse

 After Kate's parents left, it was only a few short days until Thanksgiving!  Ever since moving to NY 4-5 years ago, we've spent Thanksgiving here with friends and now we really look forward to meeting up every year for Thanksgiving.  Everyone still gets to bring their favorite side dish or dessert but we order in the turkey.  NY apartments don't have big kitchens or ovens so putting together a large dinner like this really involves a lot of planning.  Thankfully our friends Liz and Tina are the perfect team in organizing this dinner.  And Brandon and Tina have a great dinning table to fit the 10 people who end up spending this holiday together.

Brandon, Liz, Chris, and Tina preparing Thanksgiving dinner

Tina and Liz making dessert

Now, fast forward to Christmas!  We are lucky that Kate's parents and sister live only 30-40 miles from Chris' parents and sister.  Our trip to the Dallas-Ft. Worth area for Christmas is hectic but at least we get to see both families. 

We spent the first few days of our trip with Kate's family.  Our first day we wrapped presents and went to our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Uncle Julio's.  As you can imagine we bought pretty much all of our presents on our Summer trip and so we shipped those to our parents house - which is why the first day was focused on wrapping presents and getting ready for the holiday.  On Christmas Eve, Kate's sister's boyfriend and his family came over for a fancy Christmas dinner.  We eventually ended up in the living room drinking wine, eating dessert, and watching old home movies of Kate and her sister, Sarah.  Everyone had a good time laughing at how silly and adorable Kate and Sarah were as little girls. After our company left, we opened Christmas presents with Kate's family before heading to the 11pm church service.  Kate loves going to the late service because it lets out at midnight which is Christmas morning!  We really enjoyed watching Kate's family open their presents from around the globe.  And of course, we loved opening our gifts from them!  We got clothes, DVDs, some "How to be a great husband/wife" books from the 50's, and many other things.

Amazing homemade sweets!

Olive, Kate's sister Sarah's dog - all dressed up for Christmas dinner

Beautiful (and tall!) tree with oh so many presents!

Kate's sister, Sarah, modeling some Christmas gifts

Kate's parents, Dave & Linda, showing one of my mom's gifts from India

Christmas Day was very hectic, as we're sure it is for most families.  We had a large breakfast of homemade cinnamon rolls, blueberry muffins, eggs, bacon with Kate's family.  Then we opened our gifts from "Santa."  Around lunch time, we headed over to Chris' parents house to open presents with his parents, sister and brother-in-law.  We had a light lunch of sandwiches, cured meats and cheeses.  Of course "Santa" had gifts here, too - toothpaste and candy!  What a sense of humor "Santa" has! :-)  We then watched Chris' family open the many presents from around the world.  And of course we got some great gifts as well.  The celebrating, and eating,  didn't stop there! Next it was off to the neighbor's for dinner and then to Chris' brother-in-law's family for amazing ribs and Tex Mex.  To say we over-ate on Christmas would be an understatement!

Kate's mom, Linda, joined us for Christmas with Chris' family

Derek (Chris' bro-in-law) with Linda (Chris' mom) and Michelle (Chris' sister) in their Japanese kimonos

Derek and his new bookends from China

A very traveled-looking present.  Shipped from India, purchased in Cambodia

Inside the package: rice paper artwork from the temples in Cambodia!

We weren't in Texas for very long but we did both get to catch up with some friends we don't get to see often. 

Amanda and Kate at Library Bar at the Dallas Warwick

It's difficult, and very expensive, for us to come down to Texas for Christmas but it's so worth it.  We always have a great time and enjoy seeing our loved ones over amazing food.

Reflecting on our trip: Our Favorites & Best Ofs

For our final "reflections" blog post, we wanted to list our favorite locations of the trip for a number of categories.  It was difficult to choose but here's the best of the best from our trip.

Favorite Food:
Kate: China
Chris: Japan

Favorite Site:
Kate: Taj Mahal in Agra, India
Chris: Ta Prom in Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia

Favorite Island:
Kate: Maui, Hawaii
Chris: Mykonos, Greece

Favorite People:
Kate: Japan
Chris: Japan

Best Shopping:
Kate: Barcelona, Spain; Istanbul, Turkey; Greece (couldn't choose just one!)
Chris: Istanbul, Turkey

Most Fun City:
Kate: Brussels, Belgium
Chris: Dublin, Ireland

Best Transportation:
Kate: Japan
Chris: Cambodia

Favorite Overall Stop on the Trip:
Kate: Istanbul, Turkey
Chris: Siem Reap, Cambodia

Reflecting on our Trip: Packing

Packing for this round-the-world trip was daunting to say the least.  What do you pack for 60 days that can fit into a single backpack?  What do you pack that works in every climate your visiting?  We think we did a pretty good job on packing and can now recommend what to pack for this type of trip.  Below is what we didn't need, what came in handy and what we couldn't live without.

What we couldn't live without:
1) Dry-wick clothing
2) 40% DEET inset repellent cream
3) Back-up camera (our first camera broke in Hawaii and wasn't repaired until we returned to the U.S.)
4) Benadryl
5) Imodium
6) Laptop
7) Passport holder that we wore under our clothes
8) Our luggage with the zip-off backpacks
9) UV-light toothbrush sanitizing cases
10) Travel toilet paper

What came in handy:
1) Silk sleeping bag
2) Travel-sized laundry detergent
3) zip-off pants
4) Blackberry (with international service)
5) Jewelry (for Kate to turn her travel clothes into an outfit for a nice dinner out)

What we didn't need/use:
1) clothing line
2) Ponchos (we opted for umbrellas instead)
3) Dry wick towel
4) Toilet seat covers
5) Shampoo & body wash (hotels and hostels provided these)

Reflecting on our Trip: Appreciation for our Country

That’s Amazing

It’s amazing what other people find amazing, and what they don’t.  Chris had this realization back in 1998 when visiting family in Italy and got excited in the car on the expressway when they passed a castle on a hill, taking out his camera to snap a quick picture.  His cousins couldn’t understand what he was doing or why.  To emphasize the point, within a few minutes they passed another castle, and yet another just a few minutes after that.  Amazing is only what you’re unaccustomed to.

Chris and Kate were on the other side of this experience in China and Cambodia.  Chris had brought a standard MasterLock combination lock on the trip and attached it to a loop on the shoulder-strap of his backpack.  Our tour guide in China asked what it was and was interested in its purpose.

The best experience with the MasterLock, however, happened in the Siem Reap airport in Cambodia.  While buying a last minute item from the duty-free store the salesperson at the register asked what the lock was and Chris took it off and showed him.  Chris put in the combination and opened the lock to an audible reaction of surprise.  Then Chris closed the lock, handed it to the salesman and walked him through the combination to unlock it.  Then, with the combination properly entered, the salesman opened the lock and reacted with the most sincere sensation of joy and surprise. 

 Combination locks, as it turns out, are amazing.

The Stars and Stripes Forever

WARNING: AMERICAN PRIDE COMING OUT....
So after all our travels and experiences one other realization continued to drive itself home, time and again:  We are truly lucky to live in and be citizens of the United States of America. For all the problems we have in our country (and we have many), we have gotten a whole lot very right. 

China has between 3,000 and 4,000 years of continuous history.  Greece developed democracy over 2,500 years ago.  Istanbul has been the center of multiple empires during the last 2,000 years.  All three of those countries combined don’t produce as much in one year as the people of the United States.

In less than 300 years the USA developed the world’s largest economy, history’s most advanced society and the highest standard of living the world has ever known.  We are the most prosperous people on the planet, and we did it in roughly one-tenth the time as the rest of human society.

When you are in a place like Cambodia or India, you start to get a sense of people who have no opportunity.  Where they are born is where they will die and, at best, they will have only as much as their parents, who were born into the same fate.  There is no social mobility, there is no opportunity, and there hasn’t been opportunity for generations (though in places like China and India this is finally beginning to change).

This is the miracle of the American experiment in democracy and capitalism.  In a remarkably short period of time we have created the most enviable system for prosperity and opportunity in the world.  Travelling the globe and seeing the stark comparison is a vivid reminder of these accomplishments and not a small source of pride.

Reflecting on our Trip: Adapting to the Culture

Let's Get Religious
It's no surprise that religion is different wherever you travel to but we still found other countries religions to be so interesting and thought-provoking. Japan has many popular religions, some that we'd never even heard of before and your religion seems to correspond to your age. Religions in Japan co-exist, even in the same household. One of our Japanese tour guides said he was Shinto, his wife was Buddhist and his kids are Christan. Although achieving religious freedom is arguably the reason our ancestors came to the "New World," different religions in the US are far from co-existing. However, we of course visited places in the Middle East (Istanbul and Dubai) where a single religion is so prominent there are prayer rooms in the airports and call-to-prayer heard through the streets.

When in Rome… or Tokyo…

When we were in Japan we got tired of seeing temples, when we were in India we got tired of seeing Mosques, when we were in Europe we got tired of seeing cathedrals, but the fascinating thing about wherever you are is how unique it is compared to everywhere else you go. 

Even in this age of globalization and high speed travel, each place is uniquely its own with a special sense of culture, social norms, cuisine, architecture and all the other arts that make humanity such a fascinating and confusing anomaly.  While you will absolutely see the impacts of global reach (for whatever reason KFC is huge everywhere, even for people who have no idea what Kentucky is), the world has remained remarkably local.

One of the great joys that we had on our trip was throwing ourselves into the places we visited and trying to live as they did, if only for a few days.  Learn how to say “hello” in Japanese; say “thank you” in Khmer; shake hands with a touring rural farmer in outside of Gandhi’s memorial in India; take a picture with an old Chinese couple.  These are simple but impactful experiences you can only get by allowing yourself to get immersed in a place.

And, of course, you must eat the local cuisine.  The pineapple in Cambodia is surprisingly unique, the sushi in Japan is truly second to none, the curry in India is not as hot as advertised (as long as you ask for it be made mild), the Peking Duck in Peking Beijing is crispy and delicious, but you have to be willing to dive in and try the local cuisines to learn anything about them.

Everybody Poops!
It’s true, and it’s unavoidable.  What’s amazing is the variety of contraptions the world has developed to accommodate this. 

In China, a baby’s or toddler’s diaper is literally a pair of pants with the butt cut out, and this is considered totally acceptable.  In India, the kids don't wear any pants, just shirts for the same reason. Also, the “squat toilet” (if you don’t know what a “squat toilet” is, just be happy and know that ignorance is bliss) on Chinese trains, is a hole in the floor that opens onto the tracks (not exaggerating). 

Bring your own toilet paper, especially in India.  The bathrooms aren't equipped with toilet paper, instead they use a hand-held sprayer (for lack of a better word).  However, the people of India know this is unusual for tourists and sell paper (napkin-like paper) to you in the bathroom. 

You will know we are successful when we finally have a Japanese toilet installed in our home.  If you haven’t seen one of these before, find a way to check them out.  They are amazing, and we’ll leave it at that.

It’s the Most Important Meal of the Day

For whatever reason, breakfast is terrible in every country outside of the U.S.  Bacon as we know it simply does not exist.  People advertise bacon on menus, but it’s always ham and it’s often boiled.  Sausage is always hotdogs, again boiled.  The Japanese serve miso soup and dumplings.  The pancakes in Thailand come with honey, not syrup (due to a lack of maple trees).

Country after country we raised our hopes for a piece of bacon with our eggs and time and again, we were disappointed.  We can’t explain why, exactly, the rest of the world has not discovered the glory that is pan fried American bacon, or spicy breakfast sausage, but for some reason, they have not.

That’s not to say that some countries haven’t developed their own version of a tasty breakfast, they certainly have. Chris liked the Greeks combination of yogurt and honey that is cool and delicious on a warm Greek morning.  And we both liked the Irish world famous breakfasts which are hardy and warm on a cool July morning. Still, all the charming adaptations the world has on breakfast fail miserably in comparison to the basics that you can grab at any Waffle House, IHOP or diner across the good ol’ US of A.