In the news this week

A few weeks before Christmas, we learned for the first time about the Koi.  

The Koi is a sailing ship that has brought many a sailor home from rough seas.  But one day, she ran into trouble on the high seas and she succumbed, sinking to the depths of the ocean floor...

...only to be rediscovered, several centuries later:

Air Bagan

There are a lot of photos from our trip to Burma/Thailand that I still haven't shared here.  But I just must tell you about one of our favorite parts of our travel in Myanmar.  Since the rail and bus options are not excellent, we opted, like many tourists do, to fly from city to city (except for once when we hired a driver and private car).  

There is "Yangon Airways" where the terror-inspiring slogan is, "You're safe with us."  Not only do you get paper tickets, you also get the planes from way back when they used to issue paper tickets, too.

For those who did not travel before circa 1998 and the era of E-ticketing,
this is what an old-fashioned airline ticket looks like

The closest airport to Inle Lake is Heho airport, where cars are not allowed to drive up to the front entrance so you either walk over from the parking lot or you can hire one of these hand-held cart pushers to do it for you:

And then, once you check in, you get a boarding sticker!

 

This mural of an idealized Myanmar scene is in the Yangon departure terminal.
Ethnographically speaking, it will blow your mind.

But by far our favorite airline was "Air Bagan."  There were so many entertaining aspects.
Everything that possibly can be is colored turquoise.  The flight attendants are trained to do exactly the opposite of what airline attendants do in the U.S. ("Please sir, sit down and let me take your suitcase, I will load that for you into the overhead compartment."), their in-flight magazine is guaranteed to be unlike any you have ever read before---EVER, and will provide enough material to contemplate for the rest of your visit in Myanmar.

And then, to top it all off, there is a theme song that is played at landing.  It is sappy, it is sentimental, it is the very definition of triumphant.  The Air Bagan song will remain a family favorite for a long, long time to come.

a Saipan Christmas

2015

Happy New Year, everybody!  

The future is looking pretty good from our angle.  Plenty to contemplate and observe out there in the world.  Looking forward to new adventures and discoveries this next year. 

How to beat the tropical heat in December. Fresh coconut milk smoothies: a tutorial

Step #1: buy fresh shredded coconut on Saipan, CNMI. (alternatively: you can harvest your own and shred it for free if you like.  But we pay the whole $1 dollar to have someone else do those steps for us)

2: Measure out fresh shredded coconut into blender (2 cups)

#3: Add two times as much water (4 cups)

#4: blend in blender.

#5: run mixture through nut milk bag to strain

#6: squeeze out every last drop of yummy coconut milk,
with a helper's help

 #7: add fresh or frozen fruits, plus vanilla (optional)

#8: blend

Enjoy!

BR action shots (by L)

What kind of cow is this and why does it have a bump on its back? (Just want to know) by L.

Signs in Burma (by L.)

This is a toilet paper dispenser

          

So many uses for bamboo (by AM)

In Myanmar, we saw a lot of things that were made out of bamboo. Here are some pictures that I took when we visited Inle Lake, where entire villages are built over the water and up on stilts.
The next few photos are from a weaving factory that stands above the water.  The loom pictured below has many parts of it that are made of bamboo.  The pedals are only one example.

Pedals on a loom.

The following photo doesn't show the loom, but a very clever storage system for the woven fabric:

Hangers to store the fabric (in the rafters).

Thread-holders on the loom.

These bamboo thread-holders (see above) hold the pattern of what the future fabric will look like in between the poles. As the lady at the front of the loom shifts the pedals, the thread, and the thread-holders move around. Slowly, the fabric is made.

More thread-holders, higher up on the loom.

These other bamboo thread-holders are similar to the last ones. They have a different purpose, that I don't know of.

Bamboo house.

 You may not notice it in the picture, but this bamboo house is tightly woven with bamboo. It is also on high bamboo stilts above the water. Many houses on the lake are similar to this one. They have a "driveway" somewhere in between the stilts in a narrow spot for their boats.

other bamboo houses

There is a bamboo fence, bamboo stilts, and a "driveway" for the boat, like the last house.

A bamboo-made household, on the outside.

There are small bamboo poles for the "floor" of each of these two boats, bamboo stilts for the house, and even the floorboards of the house are bamboo, too!

A bamboo TV antenna pole.

We found this TV antenna next to a cigar-making plant along Inle Lake in Myanmar. It caught my eye since it was brown and wooden. I thought that it was creative that somebody would use a bamboo pole instead of a metal pole for their TV antenna!

A 'takraw' ball

'Takraw'  is a game played in Thailand that involves hitting a bamboo-woven ball with your knee, foot, and head to another person in a circle of 6 or 7 people. You may not hit the ball with your hands.                                                                                                                                      
 We own the 'Takraw'  ball shown in the picture. We practice in our backyard every once in a while with it to improve our skills in the sport.

A few bamboo poles holding up the floating gardens on the water.

Mommy and I guessed that the poles that we saw were meant to anchor the floating gardens, but we aren't sure what their real purpose is.

More bamboo poles in the floating garden.

These are 2 bamboo recliner chairs.

We saw a lot of people sitting outside of their shops\stalls, hanging out on their awesome recliners. We found these 2 at the cigar-making plant. All of us thought that it would be so cool to own at least 2 of these in our family! ;-)

Bamboo pillars at Yangon International Airport.

 We found these pillars at the airport when waiting for our plane. They were very polished & light brown, with beautiful carvings above the poles.  I hope the new airport will incorporate bamboo carvings in some way, too!

A close-up picture.

Even though the two spinning-wheel pictures below are not made of bamboo, I thought that they were really cool, because they were made of old bicycles!
The people living in Inle Lake seemed very clever with using the resources that they were provided with, such as bicycles and bamboo poles!