Blog stats

Blogger recently introduced "Stats" as one of their many services (ok, maybe not recently... I actually just found it the other day). It compiles statistics from your blog about how often posts have been accessed, how people are getting linked to your blog, and, most interestingly, where people who view your blog come from. Not surprisingly, most people are reading my blog from the United States or Thailand... but there's also an interesting mix of other countries:

Now, I can guess who the people in the Netherlands are and link together the people in South Africa (a friend in Namibia?) and possibly even someone in Malaysia but I have no idea who's viewing my blog from Taiwan, Germany, Canada, Ukraine, or Belgium. Pretty cool! If you're in any of these countries, please let me know who you are :)

(I also love the fact that Alaska and ALL OF CANADA gets highlighted on the map... makes me feel like I have wider coverage than I actually do. In fact, I probably have one small dot around Pennsylvania from my parents and another somewhere in the middle of Washington state from a friend who's currently being stalked by tumbleweeds. Now I just need one reader in Russia and another in China to make it look like I'm really taking over the world!)

Krabi, Siem Reap, and Hong Kong, oh my!

In hopes of pleasing my one blog-post reader (callefille), I'm going to post this just so you know I eventually will post something again. Here are some pictures from the trips...

Their whirlwind trip began with a flight down to Ao Nang, in southern Thailand, taking in the warm beaches, island hoping, and getting a first introduction to Thai food.

The fam on a small island off Krabi

Elephant ride through Krabi-area jungles

The following weekend, we headed to Angkor Wat, the Khmer temple complex built from the 9th to 13th centuries. Hiking around the temples was amazing, as was hearing about the Thai-Cambodia border conflict from our Cambodian tour guide. He knew that I lived in Thailand and spoke Thai, so I think he wanted to impress upon us/me the Cambodian side of things. It took some carefully worded, politically neutral statements to return the conversation to the safely ancient ruins of the Khmer temples.

Me and Momma in a temple in Angkor

 A picture of a self-portrait (Mom, Uncle Bill, Me)

In front of the famous faces of Bayon temple

Our next stop was Hong Kong, where we all were quite cold! However, we did enjoy the many public transportation options available in the city – from the super-express train from the airport to the numerous ferries to the Peak Tram up the mountain to, my favorite, the escalators up the mountain. It was a whirlwind adventure of site-seeing, transportation-hoping, and noodle/dim-sum-eating (that was more me then my new-food-exhausted family). From there, my family headed home and I headed back to belovedly warm Bangkok.

Freezing in Hong Kong!