walking

I was amused to hear a Khmer friend telling a group about a strange experience she had overseas (Korea).

"They have traffic lights just for people walking. When the lights change all the cars stop and people walk across the road. So many people! And all the cars wait for them."

Amusing to me because it's not a strange thing where I'm from.
One of the big things Westerns first notice when they move here,
and that they miss even after being here awhile and getting used to many things, is that you can't really go for a walk. In fact the day before a fellow ex-pat had been talking about how they found that hard.

I guess because of the  weather and lack of space on the footpaths (or lack of footpaths) and other factors.

In town there are actually lights for walking people. If I'm crossing a big road I try to use them, but I'm often the only one. And its not necessarily safer to cross there, as motos and cars don't always stop at the red light, so sometimes you can't cross when the green man is flashing.

Buses and bike lanes

I like the streets in China- footpaths, bike lanes, lots of buses and 2USD taxis.

Hot Pot

Mmm..sesame paste

Sunny morning in small northern Chines town

A little smoggy

Beijing is BIG

The friend I visited lives in one of these- I think they are 16 stories high! Designed so everyone has lots of natural light inside. Seem to be in groups with a nice gardeny area in the middle. Greenery and natural light, not so common in Cambodian city housing.

I was in a city in north China for about ten days, it was so huge, a town of about 3 million people. I thought it was funny that my friend refers to this town as small, but when I visited her in Beijing I couldn't get over how big everything is.

Me in front of the Birds nest

Some of the many many apartment blocks. I think this is the outskirts of the city.

So many huge buildings and so many people.

I arrived on 10/10/10, we saw quite a few weddings happening as it was a lucky day. The China Daily said that 11,230 couples were registered to get married in Beijing on that day.

Typical view from city apartment in Nth China

Modern China? McDonald's, Pizza Hut and KFC in one convenient location.

The good thing about flooding is our house stays dust free inside. I guess the water is covering all the roads so there is almost no dust in the air.
The bad thing is that we can't work out our water bill as our water metre is under muddy water.

While I was in China, Soeun was mainly at work in Phnom Penh. But during 3 day public holiday (when people take food to the wat for their ancestors) he went to visit preahvihea.

Flood season again

"Daddy I caught a fish!"

"Where from?"

"From under my bed."

Early one morning recently Kimsoeun was woken up by this conversation that our neighbours were having.
Our home is girt by brown stinky water again. This time of year is called rainy season, we call it floody season. Unlike other homes near us, the water hasn't made it inside our house as we are too high. I would hate to have rubbish and sewage floating around on my floor.

Here are some links to some of our flood photos:

The first lot- "Who needs rivers when you've got road like this...?!"3rd day of flood in 2008, i rushed around taking photos as everything looked so amazing and I thought it would only be for a short time- little did i know I had 3 months to go...

Water Log (all the bits on K Extra blog about the flood)
Day 77, Flood 2008 (photos from around campus on that floody day)
Day 83- photos comparing water levels over previous few months (August- Nov 2008)
Photo album from Kronicle Extra blog- all the photos we're put on that blog, many of them are flood ones.

China photo 3

The streets were very clean, lots of rubbish bins around. And people seem to use the bins.

2 weeks, no blogging? why?

See the tall  buildings in the distance? If only that white stuff in the air was fog.

Blue flower from the west and poor man's duck