Sophie's Presentation

Sophie had a présentation this week and in the 1 day of practice the night before we noticed one thing. The girl is a natural orator. She has the ability to fake a presentation (e.g. make it up on the spot) and the charisma to command the room. The presentation was about a story by Robert Munch and even though she didn't really know it and she continuously butchered some of the words, she came home with A. Even though she's 5 years behind Juliette and 3 behind Nick, she finds a way to either play in the games or excuse herself when she decides it's too hard. And if she needs to fight for something, watch out, size doesn't matter when you're willing to scream bloody murder to win the confrontation. I've been asking her to play team sports for the past two years but so far no luck. I'm hopping next year is when she decides to follow in her sibblings footsteps and join a soccer or hockey team so that we can say by to dance and gymnastics once and for all. I am absolutely biased about this and everyone knows this including myself but I love watching my kids compete. It fills the competition void that has been such a big part of my life all these years.

Parent Teacher Interviews

I recently attended parent teacher interviews and I thought I’d jot down a few notes about the 3 turkeys at age 10, 8 and 5 while the thoughts are still fresh in my mind.

Sophie has an unfair advantage when it comes to dealing with a school environment. In recent years, as the two older kids have been assigned homework, she has demanded equal treatment. Nobody likes being left out, even if that treatment included dictées, preparing for oral presentations or memorizing their multiplication tables. As a result, Sophie is a pro at working autonomously on class assignments like colouring or counting while others in her class, usually boys, are busy pushing the limits of their teacher.

Nicholas is clever, now if he could only combine this cleverness with hard work instead of laziness then he might be able to avoid the same fate of his father. What can I say, the more he grows, the more I see him as a mini-me with all my strengths and unfortunately my weaknesses. Therefore, it was with a bit of disappointment but not much surprise that I found out that Turkey number 2 has been hiding homework from his parents. In recent weeks, when his mom asked him to study for dictées, he responded “What dictées?” when we asked him when his next assignments were due he told us “I don’t have any.” and when we asked him if he was doing any extra work at home to make up for the school he missed while he was away, he went for the trifecta and responded, “I’m all caught up.” He gets away with this stuff because he’s a quite and obedient boy in class who manages to stay under his rookie teacher’s radar just enough to not draw attention to his transgressions. The only flaw in his master plan was the parent teacher interview. When his mom found out the lengths he’s taken to avoid homework including the many lies he’s told us over the past couple of weeks I think it broke a little bit of her heart. She reacted by putting him through an extreme guilt trip and we punished him by taking away his 3 most favourite things in the world (TV, computer and video games). We’re on top of him now and I hope he takes this opportunity to develop the discipline and work ethic that he’ll need when this stuff we call life actually starts getting hard.

Juliette, in the past year, has blossomed into every Chinese mother’s ideal daughter by bringing home her first report card of straight As. She’s always been an A+ student for conduct but backing that up with actual grades has been a pleasant surprise for us. If you ask her why she’s doing so well in school this year (which I have) she’ll tell you it’s because her teacher from last year had given her the confidence through loud and vociferous encouragement in person and in writing. That being said, at 10, she’s continued exercising her social skills that she’ll need for high school by practicing put downs on her siblings. While I don’t condone this activity, it is expected and probably also necessary if she’s going to survive that part of life relatively unscathed. The interesting information I found out after meeting her teacher was that she’s also developing her adult socializing skills by practicing them on her teachers during the last 5 minutes of recess. The teacher thought that this was cute and a bit amusing and I couldn’t agree more.

Beijing, Frankfurt then home

Even though I’ve already been home for 12 hours I wanted to capture the rest of our trip for all my readers (and yes, having my mom as my only reader still counts). We arrived in Beijing ready for the comforts of the modern world and that is exactly what we got. Day 1 included a trip to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace. Our tour guide for the first two days was Tracy who had a degree in History and an excellent mastery of English. She was amazing and I strongly recommend that anyone considering booking a tour guide to check their CV before finalizing the booking. As we began the tour of the square, one of the most famous places for Chinese and Westerners alike only for two completely different reasons, we quickly realized 2 things. Touring Beijing in winter, which coincides with their off-season for tourism (this is not a coincidence BTW), is the only time one should visit because even during the off-season there were a surprising number of tourist. Our guide told us many stories of unhappy visitors caught it the crush of summer tourist season that left Beijing disappointed that they couldn’t see more of the sites through the sea of bodies. The other realization was that Beijing is much colder than Cambodia and even colder than Ottawa was during our stay. This made it even more difficult than usual to drag our kids out of the tour van than it already was. We did manage to get them out for a few tours and the historic city square was one of them. It was filled with tourists, security and unlicensed souvenir vendors that jumped at the sight of their own shadow. We purchased a panda hat to stay warm and before taking a tunnel to the Forbidden City across a 12+ lane street used for military parades. The palace was built in ancient times to show everyone the power and greatness of the emperor and it worked. It was a huge and majestic compound filled with beautiful statues and structures that symbolized all sorts of good omens like power, long life, wealth and good fortune. This was a common theme in all our visits of the historical sites in Beijing as they were all built during periods of extreme superstition. Our guide was excellent in continuously providing us information on everything around us and even engaging me in a few political debates. Our next stop was the Summer Palace that is located on the side of a hill beside a tranquil man-made lake. Again I was blown away by the scale and beauty of the structures. The kids, less so, and their favourite parts of day 1 were getting to the van at the end of the tour. One nice thing about the Beijing landmarks is that we were able to walk through the massive complexes and get picked up on the other side. Another highlight on day 1 (especially for my wife) was discovering a street filled with food vendors that sold every meat imaginable (including ostrich, millipedes, sea horses, starfish, snake) alongside the more normal foodstuffs that we actually did purchase for supper that evening, hot and ready to eat on a stick. What made the scene truly unique was the fact that all 50 stalls and roughly 200 workers had the exact same layout and uniforms. Day 2 was spent mostly on the Great Wall which, as it turns out, was my favourite part of the entire vacation. It had the size and majesty of ancient China; it had hardly any vendors or tourists, and a never ending path at the top of a awe inspiring mountain range. The section we visited was called Mutianyu and is the 2nd closest site to Beijing. The kids loved climbing; sitting on a donkey and playing hide and go seek in the watchtowers. I took off for a jog to the highest points of the wall located beyond the “do not pass this point” signs. We ended up staying a bit longer than planned and finishing our visit with a toboggan ride down a metal luge track back to the bus. The afternoon was spent shopping for a signature piece of artwork that has become a bit of a tradition for us on big vacations (which we ended up buying on day 3 in the form of a dragon and phoenix porcelain vase) and finished with a kung fu show that presented a story done in a Cirque du Soleil style production. On day 3 we had a bit of a letdown when our experienced guide was replaced with one that lacked a good understanding of English and the same level of maturity/professionalism we had come to expect (we spent a lot of time talking about her upcoming wedding and how handsome I was) that made our last day just a little less enjoyable. We started our day with a bone chillingly cold rickshaw tour of the Hutong district (the traditional houses of the Beijing people), shopping for artwork (success this time) and a tour of the Temple of Heaven (another can’t miss attraction). Dinner was at a roast duck restaurant (a specialty of Beijing) where we ordered by pointing at the menu and nodding our heads. Other highlights of our Beijing trip were the hotel breakfast (I love congee), shopping for traditional Chinese artwork and being expertly chauffeured around town by our own private driver. The kids did OK considering they were pretty road weary and we were very happy to get on the plane to Frankfurt knowing that Canada was less than 36 hours away.
In Frankfurt, what we lacked in time we made up in effort. The weather was a warm but drizzly 12 degrees as we left the confines of our very comfortable airport hotel (with their amazing but insanely overpriced 60 euro per person breakfast) and took the train downtown. We walked all over a very scenic and clean downtown visiting markets shops and churches as the sun rose and the stores opened for business. We were a bit early but in our defence we were on Beijing time (as we still are now). Highlights included listening to a small but talented orchestra in an enormous church, eating traditional German sausages and the hotel breakfast (that was included in the rate we got our room for at GalaHotels.com). The ride home was a quick 10 hour hop and we walked in our front door in Ottawa tired but happy to finally have arrived home. This marks the end of my tales from our trip as we put our efforts into re-integrating ourselves in our average Canadian lives. It was a trip of a lifetime and the only thing we’re enjoying more than the trip is being home surrounded by our family in Ottawa.

Happy New Year

We'll we just left Cambodia and we are stuck in the Bangkok airport dealing with a 2+ hour flight delay. Since my last update we spent a bit more time in Sihanoukville in, what passes for, an average hotel located 100m from the public beach. The hotel was perfumed to cover up its moldy smell, the kids and I weren't feeling 100% since we started eating low end street market food again, the breakfast was terrible and the public beach was filled with drunken patrons, loud music, aggressive child-age souvenir hawkers and beggars crawling at your feet. Let's just say you get what you pay for and we couldn't get out of there fast enough. The only good thing that happened to us on this part of our trip was when we took a boat tour and jungle walk through a nearby national park. We saw mangroves, dolphins, collected more shells for our collection and made new friends, a couple from Switzerland who happened to both be doctors that were on the tour with us. We hit it off so well with them that we spent that night at dinner together and then again in Phom Penh a few days later touring the National museum with the kids. We even got rid of the kids and welcomed in 2011 in a proper fashion with copious amounts of beer with our Swiss friends and a pet dragon made from beads we named Angkor (Angkor is the type of beer we drank all night). The kids welcomed in the new year asleep after a night of TV and Video Games at the house we stayed at which was filled with friendly teenagers that spoke English and hyper 7 year old boy. New Years day was spent spoiling ourselves rotten with bowling, bumper cars and eating the kids favorite food in Cambodia, pizza. That night the kids and teenagers continued their celebration with a trip to a fair filled with rides and games. They topped the night off with a evening ice cream at a posh restaurant in the tourist area. The teenage family members were exhausted and, considering they spend 6 days a week in school, this was the most partying they had ever done in one day. I spent the evening with one of our Swiss friends at a goat soup fondue restaurant and watching a traditional Cambodian kickboxing fight night. The kids spent their last day playing and playing some more with the kids in their rooms. My wife and I visited a museum that was the largest prison in Phnom Penh during the reign of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. It was a truly disturbing but valuable visit with hundreds of pictures of the dead that included men, women and even children. The images will stay with me for quite a long time and gave us a better understanding of why my wife's family left 37 years ago. This marks the end of our Cambodian adventure and it is unlikely that we will return for another 10-15 years. Next stop Beijing and then hello Canada.

Merry Christmas

It's boxing day and our high end resort stay is coming to an end (good thing too, the prices are a bit high). Tomorrow we'll go back to our $30/day rooms and party with the masses here in Sihanoukville. We had a very different kind of Christmas this year on this tropical resort and it's something I could get used to. Our days are filled with games in the pool (my personal favorite, a game we played for hours, is throwing Nick 10ft in the air where he is supposed to catch a ball thrown by Juliette before crashing into the water at, sometimes, awkward angles. Sadly, we have yet to complete a catch due all the variables involved like the accuracy of Juliette's throw, the accuracy of my throw or the ability of Nick not panicking in mid air and execute on the catch.), games in the ocean (if you can handle the surf and the salt) and regular outings. Our favorite outing so far, which we did on Christmas day, was a boat ride to a couple of coral reefs for snorkeling and a warm lunch at a especially calm but busy beach island. The kids loved the snorkeling and the shell hunting on the beach, feeding the ducks and I was able to find an especially large hermit crab that we plan on bringing home as a souvenir (the shell, not the crab of course). The day was topped off with a dinner at a sea-side restaurant where we watched the sun go down. Other activities during our stay included volleyball games for me (where the guests lost to the workers 2 games to 1), a visit to the spa for my wife and too much cartoon network for the kids (they can recite the 10 odd commercials word for word). That's all for now, next stop will be more beaches and pools on the coast, perhaps a tour of a National Park before a New Year's celebration with family at Phnom Penh and then on to Beijing.

Phnom Penh

We are back in the nation's capital (Cambodia's that is) for a short stay before taking off to Sihanoukville for a week at an ocean beach resort. The big city had stuff to offer that the small towns didn't. My wife and I really enjoyed visiting the Royal Palace, the shopping for souvenirs in the outdoor market, eating at high end restaurants (owned by more family members) and playing volleyball with the locals on their dirt court (good thing I didn't get my feet cleaned by the Dr. Fish foot massage in Siem Reap, I needed all the dead skin padding I could get). The kids liked the hotel breakfast, the tuc tuc rides in the insane Phnom Penh traffic, eating pizza at the mall (as well as ice cream cake for Sophie's fake birthday), playing in the arcade, painting figurines, roller blading (man some of those teenagers could skate) and sneaking into a high end hotel by the waterfront to use their pool. I was able to spend a bit more time with one of my wife's cousins who happened to be a doctor that spoke fluent French and his niece and nephew who spoke excellent English. I learned that teenagers are the same the world over and I told them about all the things we would do together if they visited us in Ottawa. I learned from the doctor that he was considered middle class and was far outranked in salary by politicians, members of the army, policemen and university professors (in that order). A few other major differences between our countries was the amount of garbage found all over Cambodia (he said it had improved immensely in the past couple of years), the lack of law enforcement for traffic violations and the complete and utter lack of laws that encouraged safety like motorcycle helmets, safety barriers etc... That's all for now, next stop is a beach paradise.

Kampong Thom

When I learned we were going to visit a successful family member who is a vice-governor of a province in Cambodia, I was wary of the type of person he would be considering it is the politicians of this country that have most of the power and wealth. What we encountered was a doting father and loving husband who treated us like family the moment we walked in the door. He did have a significant amount of power but during our stay with him, he used it in a very unassuming and kind way, like a grandfather to the people he governed. That being said, here is a list of a few of the craziest things that happened while we were staying with him:

1. During a visit to some ancient temples (500 years older than Angkor Watt), I told him I wanted to try driving a motorcycle so he asked a policeman (who's presence at our location was no coincidence) to let me use his. I proceeded to get lost in the jungle and, for a few minutes at least, was wanted by the police.

2. At a temple site, he showed us his flock of ostriches that were given to him by the ambassador of Vietnam. There were 10 of them and each and every one was twice my size. Needless to say we kept our distance.

3. I made the mistake of telling him that I was willing to eat anything. I'm sure you can already guess what happened next. He proceeded to feed me crickets, water bugs, cobra soup (skin on), cobra blood & bile mixed with whisky, Cayman, tarantula (that I bought for myself), deer, 2 types of turtles (with eggs still attached), bee larvae and my least favorite, tree worm/larvae found in the wood of a specific tree that were more than an inch long and half as thick. I only had trouble with the worm/larvae due to it's mushy texture and giant maggot like appearance. Nick tried quite a few of the dishes (including the giant larvae/worm) and like them all.

4. Even though we were in a small city, hours from the nearest airport he provided us with hospitality that a 5 star hotel would have had trouble competing with. We had comfortable air conditioned rooms for all the members of our party (13+). There was free WiFi, a flat panel TV in every room, an iPad, full use of his "cottage" by a river with boat and a floating dock where he kept fishes (7,000+) under the floor all manned by a team of servants. Every structure was modest in size but luxurious in appearance and the building materials were a stark contrast to the wood huts and aluminum shacks that surrounded us. Truth be told the most welcoming site to all of us was the western style toilets in every washroom :-)

It has been a fun couple of days and the kids have kept themselves busy fishing, playing with the iPad, watching the Cartoon Network (which plays mostly Tom and Jerry), going for boat rides, playing with baby Allison and, as usual, going for outings. Our most memorable outing during our stay was a trip to a temple located on the top of a hill. There are few hills in this part of Cambodia so the views are magnificent. The temple was an interesting maze of structures and rocks with few tourists and locals enjoying the cool Cambodian winter. The highlight of the outing were the monkeys that we fed with mini bananas. There was an entire troupe that we fed for almost an hour, some with pieces by hand while others were thrown whole ones that they peeled themselves. Between the monkeys and an impromptu soccer game with some locals the kids had a great time. Next stop, back to Phnom Peng.