Myanmar may have been my favorite trip so far. I was nervous; it was very far and I really didn't know much about it at all. I loved it. It was so full of exotic surprises, coupled with very kind and welcoming people.
I looked up the discrepancy of the name. The tl;dr version of it is that their colonizers called them Burma. When the military government took it over, they changed the name to Myanmar. The issue is that many people did not see or agree with the validity of the military government to take over, and therefore change the name. So many people still consider it Burma. In the country it is quite interchangeable and different governments around the world recognize it by different names. The US officially recognizes it as Myanmar (Burma), yes in those parentheses lolol. In the words of J. Pederman, "you most likely know it as Myanmar, but it'll always be Burma to me"
So because it was a very short trip (one week, Saturday February 16 - Friday February 22), I kept feeling like it was "nothing". Like, oh next week I'll be in Burma but whatever I'll be back by the weekend, what do you want to do? It wasn't until like the day before it hit me how far it was and how I was going to be traveling about 24 hours to make it there! Sheesh!
Flying out over Santa Barbara!
Somewhere over North Korea O_o
Pulling into the Mandalay airport
So, here was my great introduction into Myanmar. Despite my best efforts with the flying timing, I couldn't not land in Myanmar at an unreasonable hour. I think my flight landed about 1:30am. I arranged an airport pick-up with my hotel because I was nervous about the taxi situation in Mandalay, to say nothing of that hour.
For the first time, no one was there to greet me. No worries, I'm patient, despite the hour. When I was the only person left in the airport, I got nervous. I decided to say whatever and just get a taxi because I just wanted to get to the hotel. There was one "taxi stand" in the airport, and this was it.
Looks fine right? Right. So I go over there and this is the guy working the taxi stand.
I am tired and nervous and want to get to the hotel so I am there for a solid 15 minutes, borderline shouting 'EXCUSE ME!' 'MINGALABAR!' 'HELLO!' and this guy WOULD. NOT. WAKE. UP. Only in Burma, right? Well, spoiler alert, I finally get through to the hotel and they pick me up and I finally get to sleep around 4:30am. So I thought the trip was off to a bad start. Well obviously it wasn't IDEAL but the trip really shaped up in the end.
My hotel was the bees knees
Walking along the Mandalay Palace perimeter
toward Mandalay Hill in the distance!
ALL YOUR ATTENTION NEEDS TO BE
ON WALKING. ALL THE STREETS
LOOK LIKE THIS
Mandalay Palace moat
You may have heard me talk about it on the Meet Us In Paris podcast that I am a regular contributer on, but when I go to new places, I try to learn the following phrases: Please, thank you, sorry, hello, yes, no and count 1-10. Wellllll that was impossible in Burmese. I tried to look up "thanks" in Burmese but it was insane. So I thought, well what's a simple "no"? I took a look at the below and was like welp, I tried haha.
Stopped here for a drink after the palace.
Doesn't it look like Adventureland of
Disneyland?? I just love it.
Amazing stupas!
The Buddha in the Stupa
The entrance to Mandalay Hill!
But I took the tuk tuk down the road...
The pagoda at the top really was breaktaking. All of the roofs and steeples were gold plated, and every inch of the walls were mirrored and bejeweled.
Then of course, the reason I was there! The education fair hosted by the US Department of State. I actually took a picture of this to send to Chrishon, since she works at George Washington University, and then I saw the UCI pennant afterwards haha!
No shoes inside the building!
But, they had complimentary sandals for you to use inside the bathroom LOL.
Lunch was amazing and droolworthy
Flew Myanmar Airlines from Mandalay to Yangon. I was a little worried. Mainly because they are the only domestic carrier and when I was doing research on them prior to this trip, they were saying it was a government airline and not the most organized and sometimes the plane would have to change destination mid-air??? It ended up being 100% completely fine, the only oddity being that when we checked in, we were given these stickers that we had to wear LOL
The Shwedagon Pagoda is famous, and rightly so. It is the most famous pagoda in Myanmar and was breathtaking and amazing!
Sadly the video only captures the sight and sounds, didn't include the smooth, cool marble floor or the wafting incense from every direction...
I went to a big famous market right next to my hotel and bought fabric and had a Burmese longyi made! This was the skirt fabric. I loved it.
I thought I looked like a hotel maid lololol but whatever, I liked it
A cat wearing a sweater.
My student helper at the fair in Yangon (Rangoon)!
All the helpers were so adorable!
Chinatown in Yangon
You there! Sell me one of your melons!
Jodi and I went and got some amazing foot massages from a highly rated spa on TripAdvisor. They completed it by giving us some thanaka, which pretty much all women wear. It's a sandalwood paste that helps the skin on top of serving as a sunscreen agent
I loved Myanmar, and I didn't get to see everything either! Bagan is one of the holy cities that you see a lot of the pictures of with the hot air balloons and the temples. I definitely didn't have time to make it (it was a four hour drive from Mandalay) but this trip was such a wonderful introduction.
I'm already off to my next trip on Sunday, so before I get backlogged any further, I'd like to catch up on my past trips. I really don't have time to go into much detail or stories, but each trip was pretty lengthy so I'll divide them up into different entries.
Hope you all have been enjoying this rainy spring that brings us the beautiful superbloom!
Since Vegas didn't materialize this year, but San Diego did, Pam did a really good job of making San Diego as Vegas-like as we could, at least for 24 hours. On Saturday, AJ and I drove down (so many butterflies!) and were welcomed with a few shotskis before we all headed down to Pacific Beach for burritos and watching the SDSU game (sadface). So you see, that's basically all we do in Vegas anyway and we made it happen.
Rob and Rafael met up with us and we all discovered Skrewball (which only pairs well with beer, mind you), a peanut butter whiskey that was quite delicious. (It resurfaced more times later that day).
We had power naps (or was that just me?) and then we went downtown to see Harland Williams stand-up. It was really good! (As were the openers!) Harland Williams was my favorite part of There's Something About Mary (the hitchhiker) and yes, I definitely told him.
The comedy show also included entrance to the big Sham Rock festival happening in Gaslamp, so we were around after the show too and ended up at Double Deuce, everyone telling everyone else to ride the mechanical bull (but no one would!). That was the most I had ever seen AJ actively dance, and of his own accord too!
When we got back to Pam and Doug's we ordered (I'm not kidding) $80 worth of Taco Bell and downed it over SNL and our newest favorite comedian Nate Bargatze (thanks Pam!) so after all that, the morning was pretty rough. It sure was a beautiful day though... La Posta on Rob & Raf's patio in their beautiful condo in Hillcrest, it was a nice recovery day!
We had to leave since Pam needed to go to a dinner and AJ and I had a painful, traffic-ridden ride home. I was exhausted (I still am) and the look of Anana here next to me on the couch that evening pretty much sums up what was me then... and now.
Here's to a better week ahead with more energy...?
I had an amazing birthday yesterday! And 33 is very special to me. Not only do I like numerical alliterations, but Bordeaux, France is sort of known by it's postcode 33, so it's a special number for the city, so I've always liked it.
Anyways, inbetween all the work trips, I've been very happy to be home and even more happy to get to celebrate my birthday with my husband! I had the best day, thanks to him.
On my idea, we both took the day off work to go to Disneyland together. We had morning shots and I cashed in on my Starbucks free birthday reward. Then we did Disneyland! I insisted on getting my birthday button so I got lots of attention (yay!) and a few front-row seats on rides too. We took care of a lot of rides we haven't done in forever (Peter Pan) and then one we had never done (Enchanted Tiki Room!) It was weird doing something I'd never done at Disneyland before, it's quite rare, but was fun.
AJ surprised me with this birthday donut! Vomit @ the strawberries though
My mom and Jim were able to meet up with us and join in, including dinner at Cafe Orleans and my own birthday beignet! (SER. GERD.)
My mother-in-law gifted me a Disney gift card to go along with our trip to Disneyland, which went toward my Minnie ears (if you knew the agony of trying to choose the ears... zomg so bad. AJ would not have put up with that shit if it weren't my bday hahaha and I still just landed on the rose gold ones #basic) and by the end of the night I was insistent on (finally!) buying a Heihei! I am obsessed with this rooster from Moana, he makes everything amazing, so I got that courtesy of my Disney dollars too!
I also got a penny-pressed Moana, and AJ and I ended the night with Gibson girl ice cream (drool). I was hopped up on sugar, it was a rough morning having to get up and come into work today. At least it's Friday! And we're going to go celebrate my bday down in San Diego, the usual Plan B if Vegas doesn't pan out.
I still have so much to share from Myanmar, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Vietnam. One of these days...
Part of me feels almost insensitive saying this, but knowing that life is nothing but riding the waves of ups and downs, and knowing that I have hard times yet to come... this season of my life is as close to perfect as I feel I can expect.
I love AJ. We had the most amazing wedding that I still can't get over, and I'm still taking in the fact that I'm married, and how happy I am to have found him and how wonderful he is.
I love where we're currently living and our little home with our little pets.
I can't believe my luck in my job. I can't believe that I get paid to travel the world and share education and meet the youth around the globe and see all these beautiful cultures and the people we share this world with. I can't even believe I'm writing this from Vietnam.
Of course, one of the best things about traveling, is going home. And I can't wait to get home this Sunday.
