Yay! Time for my random blurbs. Why is it that now that I am doubly busy, I am more motivated to blog? I’m weird like that. Or perhaps I just have a lot of stories struggling to be told. Hahaha. I know it sounds serious but what I have are just mundane everyday stuff.

• Phnom Penh was in a bit of a frenzy this past week. The ASEAN Summit was held here so traffic jams, soldiers in full uniforms, attentive police (for once!), journalists, convoys abound. Some universities were told to suspend classes to lessen the traffic jams. And I did have a lot of fun getting stuck in the traffic and watch out for those wang wangs and diplomatic bigwigs and their convoys.

• And yup, a big indicator if there are some foreign dignitaries/visitors in this country: lots and lots of flags scattered throughout the city. Here’s a big lot of them in front of Chaktomouk Theatre along Sisowath Quay.

• I’m very very excited. Why? Khmer New Year is almost upon us and I’m always happy when it comes around. Not that I would stop working on my online projects and blogging, but the one week vacation would be a wonderful reprieve for me. And besides hubby and the kiddo won’t have work/school so we’ll all be together. We might go somewhere else for some R & R but at this time our plans are fluid. Bwahaha.. It’s subject to change and follow our whims.

• My Khmer language classes are going really well. You won’t believe how happy I was the first time I was able to read a sentence written in Khmer. I was practically giddy, I dunno why. Perhaps because I have always thought this language is difficult to learn and here I am actually making some progress in learning it. As of now, I only know about 15 consonants and a couple of vowels and I still have a long long way to go, but right now I’m all positive I could do it.

• Going back to school, even if its just a short course, is bringing some excitement back in my life. Not that my life now is not exciting but I kinda feel old. But going to school and seeing kids like these in the photos makes me feel a bit younger. Ha! I think there really is some truth to some advice I heard or read before that when you surround yourself with young ‘uns you’ll feel younger. See.. The snapshot below looks idyllic. Sigh.

Just dropping a little note to inform everyone dropping by this site that.. I’m revamping. Not the entire site or the theme, I’m doing some revamping on my galleries.

I had been hanging around on Google Analytics as well as the site stats provided by my hosting service and apparently majority of people who visit this site come and check out the galleries. A big chunk of people who ‘find’ this site by way of images I have posted. Yes, I had been diligent with most of the ‘alt’ tags on my images and its really worth it.

So I had been contemplating making the galleries a lot more pleasing to the eyes and much more easier to navigate. Mind you, I’m well aware that I’m not the best photographer around, I just take snapshots of things I find interesting and that’s it. But I’m thankful those images some find interesting enough and well, I’ve always said photos sometimes are better story tellers than words.

And another big reason why I’m revamping my image galleries: to save server space. Lol. 90% of my images are hosted in my server and after almost 4+ years of blogging, well, it’s just a lot. So I made the decision to just get a separate image host with hotlinking.

I’ll be downloading all images I have previously uploaded, then re-linking them to the posts. I know this is going to be tedious and I’m writing this posts as some posts might have some broken images for a time. Please bear with me.

And hopefully I’ll have better looking image gallery here in a week or two. Wish me luck.

Image: posterize / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was browsing my blog last night and it suddenly occurred to me, I had been posting mostly photos the past few months and writing less and less. Sigh. So much for trying to use this blog to practice writing. One of the main reasons I post a whole load of photos is that I’m obsessed with taking snapshots and I have this little belief that my photos share a better story than I do.

But this isn’t exactly how I envisioned my blog to be. And I have to slowly steer myself to writing more, at least alternate the photos with some articles and stories about living in Cambodia.

Right now I wanna get on with my weeky random ramblings..

• Cambodia is now getting sooo hot. It’s scorching hot that I rarely venture out because I always get migraines because of the heat. And were just in mid-March, my husband reckons it’ll be hotter in April. And that just scares me.

• I’m doing a bit of window shopping for some jewelry. My mom fancies some gold chains and we figured we’d gift her with some, if the quality and the price is right. Has anyone of you had any experience buying gold from those shops near Central Market? I also checked out some shops in Russian Market for made-to-order jewelry, but I’m scared about making a mistake and buying some fakes. I don’t know much about jewelry and I doubt I ever will know much. It’s just not an interest with me. But I want to have some nice ones for my mom so..

• I’ve been receiving a lot of emails from readers and I love interacting with them, and answering questions that I can.  Majority of them are very nice folks and its just makes me doubly passionate about blogging knowing that there are indeed a few people who reads this blog.

• Among those who email me, there are also those I find very rude. Some demand information from me  (usually about traveling to Cambodia) without so much as a please. I am NOT a travel agency and while I take pleasure in answering emails or tweets with tips on traveling, please be mindful of your manners too. I find it disgruntling when I receive an email demanding me to book a hotel or send them a hotel address.I would gladly help out with recommendations but please ask nicely. And it’ll be nice too if you learn how to use Google.

• I’m getting busy planning trips. April is my daughter’s birthday and it falls on a holiday. So we are planning going somewhere. She and (both me and hubby too) are not big on parties and during birthdays, we usually travel to someplace where we could enjoy being together and have some relaxation time. I’m looking up some hotels and let’s see where we end up.

• Were also going to the Philippines in June for my father’s 1st death anniversary (how time flies..) and as of now we have plans to also spend a few days in Malaysia. My daughter is itching to go up Petronas. I wonder why when it really just makes me feel queasy. Last time I went there, I went running to the bathroom the moment the ‘tour’ was over. Lol. But since she seems really interested, we’ll brave it again. Then after a few days we’ll fly to Manila. Going back we’ll be trying the Manila-Siem Reap, Cebu Pacific direct flight.

• And uh, its my birthday this weekend. Yay! I’m getting older and yes, more fabulous. Choz! Hahaha. My plans? Hubby wanted to go somewhere to celebrate, but moi? I want to stay here in Phnom Penh, eat a lot of steak, have a total spa pampering (scrub, wrap, massage, sauna–the works!). And my birthday wish is not to do any chores for two whole days. I’ll miss scrubbing the bathroom if its more than 2 days, noh?

Was really busy last week, gallivanting around Phnom Penh then we went off for a short trip to Siem Reap. We had some visitors and truth is, playing travel agent / tour guide doesn’t suit me. It just tires me out hahaha… So I’m really very exhausted and in a very pissed off mode right now.

But I do have a lot to say about our recent trip and about people traveling here without much knowledge or research about Cambodia. It’s part of the reason why I’m in a really bad mood right now. I will make a separate post, a full post rant about that later.

For now I have tons of chores to do (sigh….), huge pile of laundry to wash, I still need to go to market coz were out of food. And I have to look for discount dvds for some other project.

Phnom Penh now is extremely hot so I loathe going out after 9am. Not because I don’t want to turn dark but because the heat will just trigger my migraine on. I really dread the time when April/May arrives, since its bound to be even more hot here than now.

Will be back later..

Here I go again with some random stuff..

• Last week  passed by like whirlwind. Everyone was busy and I was struggling to keep up with house chores and some work online. Sigh. Weeks like this just drains me no wonder I could never keep up with updating this site. But that’s okay. That’s a mom’s life. Full to the brim as always.
• We started our own DIY project. We are fixing up our kitchen and we decided to do it ourselves. Yay! I’m just so excited about this. It’s a bit hard to find laborers here in Phnom Penh specially if you just need to fix something small. Oh, you can find someone to do it but based on our previous experiences hiring them, its not really worth it. So we decided to work on painting and stuff by ourselves during weekends. I’m so looking forward to how our new kitchen look. When we finish it. I have no idea when though. Hahaha.
• Phnom Penh is currently experiencing almost daily power cuts. We’re lucky if we just get only about 3 hours per day power cut. I don’t why this is but its so frustrating. I miss a lot of computer work and also its hard to finish chores at home and I’m not the type to sit idly and count poly mailers. Just today, we had a three-hour power cut and occurred just while I was washing clothes. So instead of me finishing washing in an hour or so, it took me over 5 hours. And I’m getting more scared, if this would keep happening during summer months. Can you imagine the sweltering heat without even a fan? I’m really sweating just by the thought of it.
• Another thing I’m excited about: a weekend trip to Mondulkiri. While its not exactly a leisure/pleasure trip, I am so looking forward to it. I think, Mondulkiri is one of my favorite places here in Cambodia. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful place. Almost unspoilt and tranquil. My kind of place…

Of course, I’ll be taking loads of Mondulkiri snapshots, so watch this space

Hey, how was your Chinese New Year celebrations? Ours was really fun and merry with lots of food involved. Lol. Khmer-Chinese really celebrate the lunar new year with much fervor. Even local Khmers are now joining in with the festivities! While this is not an official holiday, well, people do take a break. Lots of shops and businesses are closed for three days. So the cities empty out and a lot of people go to provinces to just relax and have a bit of downtime.

Chinese lanterns @ Koh Pich (Diamond Island) Park

As for us, we observed the usual Chinese rituals, offering food, incense and prayers to departed ancestors. Then the next few days were spent eating, playing cards, spending time with the whole clan and it was capped with a road trip.

Now, I’m pretty much tired but revved up. I feel like I’m all in good mood and hearing good music. I guess that little break has done wonders to my mind set.

The food and celebration though has wreaked havoc on my diet so I started today doing vigorous high impact aerobic exercises. I feel really good afterwards and its like my own body metronomes are all in tune and working! And the good news is that when I checked the weighing scale..I didn’t gain any weight. Uh, thank God for healthy Chinese food and the workouts. Lol.