St. Petersburg, Russia

For the summer of '04 we flew to St. Petersburg, Russia to begin our adventure on the TranSiberian Railway.
We wanted to stay as cheap as possible since we wouldn't be spending any time in our rooms, except to sleep. We stayed at a hostel for a couple bucks a night...so what if it wasn't clean or had hot water, this was an adventure!
What I remember most about this vacation was all the walking! My feet have never been so sore. But we were only here for a couple of days and we wanted to make sure we saw everything! The train system was a little tricky at first (we're spoiled in Hong Kong with the public transportation). The train doors would slam closed without any warning (just ask Clay) and it was very noisy... but it got us where we wanted to go. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside the train station. Emily almost got her camera confiscated! Luckily she just had to pay a fine.

Here is the multi-domed Church of the Resurrection of Christ. It was amazing to see all the different colored onion domes.
One day we went to the Grand Palace, Petrodvorets (also known as the Summer Palace). It was huge, we spent the whole day walking around all of the gardens and fountains.

We also spent a lot of time around the Winter Palace which was the residence of the tsars until the revolution, now it houses part of the Hermitage museum.
A highlight was spending a day at the museum. It was incredible to see original paintings and some of them we even knew after studying them in high school! Most of the paintings were captured by the Red Army from private collections in Germany. We saw paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Picasso and Matisse.
In the middle of this huge courtyard was the largest free standing column in the world.
Right outside the Hermitage was the Atlas statues.

This is the Peter and Paul Fortress. It is the oldest building in St. Petersburg. According to the lonely planet, Peter planned it as a defense against the Swedes but defeated them before it was finished. It's main use up until 1917 was a political prison.

We made our way over to Vasilevsky Island to see the Rostral Column on the Strelka.

No matter where we went we could always find McDonalds!

The evenings in St. Petersburg were so beautiful. The sun didn't set until around 11:00pm!









Next stop...Moscow!

Kota Kina Balu, Malaysia

Jeff's parents and sister came to visit us the Summer of '04 and we had many adventures planned. The first one took us to Malaysia. All was going well until we got to the gate right before boarding the plane and Jeff's mom couldn't find her passport. 3 of us got on the plane and 2 went to go get another passport. We stayed in a beautiful hotel overlooking the water. Lindy, Jeff and I spent the first day snorkeling off the beach and catching the rays. And we spotted another baby monitor lizard and this time we got a good picture.
We ate at a hole-in-the-all place that was so good and had huge mango shakes.
The next day Clayton and Carol joined us and we took a very long bus ride to go on a river tour to see probiscus monkeys. Their noses were huge! While on the river we saw crocs and water buffalo too.

We also ate some more Malay food, the best was fried bananas!

Macau, China

Just a 45 minute ferry ride away from Hong Kong is an island called Macau. It used to be part of Portugal but now belongs to China. We hired a guide for the day because we had no idea what there was to see or do here. We visited some temples, churches, and a casino. In the temples incense was burning constantly in these huge yellow rings. And of course Buddha was everywhere. One painting had his eyes follow you no matter where you were standing.
We also found a great export factory store which was my personal favorite! There were a ton of motorbikes here. Everywhere parked along the road were thousands of them.

Australia

For Chinese New Year 2004 we went with our friend Joh to Brisbane, Australia. Our first day there we went looking for koalas at the Daisy Hill Koala Center but we didn't see a single one. Then we went to the Zoo and saw lots of them and even got to pet them. We were petting one named Cooper and the zookeeper told us he was "on a break" so we had to pet a different one instead. We also got up close and personal with the many kangaroos that were jumping around everywhere. We saw a great crocodile show too.
We spent some time shopping and eating in the city. We had some great meat pies that Australia is famous for. The town sure did close early though, everything including grocery stores closed by 7:00pm.

We took a river cruise one night and got to see the beautiful waterfront. There were thunderstorms almost every night too.

One day we went to see a natural bridge and glow worms! We had to go in a scary cave to see the worms and there were bats everywhere.
Another day we went to Gold Coast and lounged on the beach watching surf lessons. There was a lot of good shopping there and so many beautiful exotic birds.
The best part of this trip was going to Fraser Island. We took a tour out there riding in a 4x4 bus on the beach. We walked through the rainforest and this is where we spotted a monitor lizard that Jeff was thrilled about. Apparently he was just a baby but he looked huge to me! I was trying to get a good picture but he kept walking closer and closer towards me.
Then we swam in the cleanest natural lake. It was gorgeous, the water was so clear and warm. They said you could even clean your jewelry in the sand.

Thailand

We spent our first Christmas overseas in Thailand. We went to Phuket and Phi Phi Island. It was absolutely gorgeous there. We spent most of our days laying on the beach eating fresh pineapples that vendors would sell as they walked by. Some days we'd get to the beach at sunrise and wouldn't leave until sunset.
We also took a tour which included a visit to a gibbon (a type of monkey) rehabilitation center. Small gibbons are taken and used as tourist bait then dumped when they get too big. Unfortunatley we were part of this ploy because right when we arrived someone put a baby gibbon on our shoulder and snapped a picture before we knew what was happening. Of course then we had to pay for the picture. We also went on a hike to a waterfall and spent more time there than we had planned because a rather large Russian guy...who was very drunk...got lost and we had to look for him. Then we took rowboats down a river and drove to an outdoor restaurant overlooking the city. There we got our first taste of Thai cuisine. Next was an elephant ride! Our guide was hilarious, he would jump off the elephant and play hide-n-seek with it making it turn every which way. It was a very bumpy ride! It was a lot of fun until the very end when we went through a bee hive and I got stung on my forehead. Ouch! After the ride we got to enjoy a baby elephant show. We both got "massages" from the elephants and afterwards I got a lot of wet kisses!
In Phuket we enjoyed the shopping and the food! Everything was so cheap. We ate Mexican food a lot and had steaks for $2! We also enjoyed milkshakes and margaritas every night! The taxis there were called "tuk-tuks" and we took them to the mall several times. We even found a Dairy Queen there. (Hong Kong doesn't have DQ so you can imagine Jeff was pretty excited...we went there a lot.)
We also spent 4 days on Phi Phi Island. It was so beautiful there. We went snorkeling (my first time ever) and had a blast. I admit I was a little afraid of the fish if they got too close so I just stuck my head out of the water every now and then (...if I didn't see them, they weren't there...right?!) Our guide took us out in a little wooden motorboat and he went so fast over the waves that we would fly up in the air and crash down on the boards. It hurt so bad but we couldn't stop laughing so he kept going faster and faster. Again we enjoyed the wonderful food and total relaxation on the beach. We went kayaking a few times also...okay Jeff did most of the kayaking, I just enjoyed the ride!