Enjoy! Hopefully Fish will be posting her photos shortly… until then, have a look around. We will also be adding photos to our blog posts to illustrate certain points.

- Leeann 

Monday, Oct 18^th 2010 at 10:15PM

On Saturday, as we were leaving Tanzania to catch the shuttle to Nairobi International Airport, we were stopped by the police on the side of the road. They boarded our bus to check our passports and make sure we all had proper documentation (aka visas). Now think back when we were discussing how expensive the visas were for Tanzania… remember that blog entry? What we didn’t mention at the time was that we didn’t get visas. So for the past 3 days, we were technically illegally in the country (we’re such rebels!). On the bus back to Nairobi and before we were stopped by police, we were actually semi-celebrating about how smart we were and how we had saved $100 each… yea not so much. Because the penalty fee the police was charging was 4 times the amount of what the visa would have cost. Luckily, Leeann’s dad and Uncle Junlan were able to talk down the fee, already a sign that this was shady business that was going on. Lesson learned: always get your visas.

After our 5 hour flight, we were finally back in Dubai. Our 3 bedroom apartment in the Hyatt Galleria Residence was like a breath of fresh air at the end of our journey. That first night in Dubai, we went up to the 29^th floor lounge to use the free wifi and stayed up until 3am (updating fantasy football teams, no less).

Sunday was our first full day in Dubai. We started off by touring the Palm Jumeirah and taking a stroll through the Atlantis. Afterwards, we stopped by the Dubai Marina and the Madinat Jumeirah (there was a Coffee Bean! Unfortunately, it cost 6 USD). Next up was the Burj al Arab, which was beautiful inside and out. We were only allowed inside with the purchase of afternoon drinks and snacks for 125 AED. Inside the hotel, we took a tour of the underwater restaurant, took the elevator up to the tallest floor, then up and down the elevator again like little kids. Our final stop that evening was the Burj Kalifah, aka the tallest building in the world. Some fun facts about the Burj Kalifah:

• 828 meters high
• 24,000 glass panels
• elevator speed 10 meters per second
• as many as 12,000 workers on site per day

From the 124^th floor, we viewed the sunset and panorama of Dubai, then went back to the ground floor and enjoyed the Dubai fountain show behind Dubai Mall, a perfect way to end the night.

Today was our last full day in Dubai. We took the metro to the Mall of the Emirates to go to Ski Dubai, an indoor ski and snowboard facility (snow in the desert!). It cost 180 AED for a 2 hour slope pass and all equipment except for hats and gloves. Though we went skiing first, after about 2 seconds, we realized this was probably not such a good idea, since Leeann hadn’t gone skiing since she was a little girl, and Fish hadn’t gone skiing before, period. After failing miserably, we both switched to snowboarding, which was much better. Our hands were super cold because we didn’t have gloves, but overall, the experience was still so much fun. Afterward, we took the taxi to the gold souk and did some souvenir shopping.

In the evening, we all boarded a Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4. On the way to the desert safari, our driver took us off roading, like ATV riding on sand dunes but in the comfort of a car. Fish took this opportunity to scream like a little girl. We later rode camels in the desert and saw other camels mating, but forcefully so (poor camel!). At the actual venue, we enjoyed a lovely BBQ (where we ate camel meat) and dance show, complete with belly dancing, fire dancing and whirling dervish. On the way back, we got ditched by our driver and had to wait in the almost pitch black desert for 10 minutes before he came back to get us. Needless to say, our few short days in Dubai were quite eventful!

- Leeann and Fish

Friday, Oct 15^th 2010 at 10:10PM

Today was the last day of our safari. We started off the day at our usual time (around 6:30am). Leeann’s dad commented on how beautiful the sunrise was, so Fish decided to open the glass door of our room to take a look. Since we left in a hurry to eat breakfast, we forgot to close the sliding glass door. After we finished breakfast and as we were walking back to our hotel room, Fish commented on how funny it would be if someone was in our room. Upon opening the door, we were greeted by 3 monkeys in our hotel room! There was literally a 5 second pause as we stared (in shock) at the monkeys staring back at us. In their process of scavenging for food in our room, they had knocked Leeann’s camera bag to the floor, removed the used wet wipes from the trash can, and evidently took out everything from Fish’s backpack and threw it on the ground. Not to mention the fact that they had grabbed Suana’s TGWTDT and ripped off the front cover and spine (sorry Suana! Fish promises to buy you a new copy). We shooed them away as best we could as Fish held the copy of the now torn TGWTDT and shouted at the monkeys, “why the book, why?!”, but the monkeys insisted on staying near the window just on the other side of the glass door. What a way to start off our morning!

Our game drive in the Serengeti started off quite tame, as there were no animals around whatsoever. It seemed like we were driving around aimlessly when finally we spotted a sizeable group of cars all crowded around the same area. It turned out to be a leopard, and we were lucky enough to witness it going in for the kill and hunting down a small antelope! It was all very exciting – something you’d see on the Discovery Channel. Definitely worth all the lack of animals prior to that moment.

After our morning game drive, we stopped for a quick picnic lunch near the gate of Serengeti National Park before heading to Arusha to spend the night. We’re off to Nairobi tomorrow to catch our flight back to Dubai, where we’ll be staying for the next couple days. Goodbye Africa!

- Leeann and Fish

Thursday, Oct 14^th 2010 at 2:30PM

We woke up bright and early this morning, before 6am, to enjoy the sunrise and the beautiful crater landscape. Because we were high up in the mountains, the air was super refreshing and cleansing… a good change of scenery from the usually dusty condition of our travels. Then it was straight to our first game drive in Tanzania! The day before, Peter had promised that he would show us at least 50 hyenas and at least 200 hippos by the end of our stay. Honestly, we were all pretty skeptical, but shame on us for our lack of faith, because we saw a good lot of hyenas and hippos within our first hour! Some notable animal scenes included:

•  A crowd of 15+ jeeps all huddled around 2 male lions that kept on leapfrogging from car to car, trying to hide underneath the vehicles to catch some shade from the sun. The lion would hide under one car, then the car would drive away, exposing the lion to the sun, so the lion would meander its way to another neighboring car, and repeat. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that lions are so lazy!
• Seeing 2 male lions bully a crippled hyena. It was so sad, the hyena was limping and yelping as the 2 lions kept on chasing after it, trying to shoo it away (lions hate hyenas, but they don’t eat them). To our excitement, about 7 or 8 of the handicapped hyena’s brethren came to its rescue except I don’t think they really did much, maybe just distract the lions as the crippled hyena dragged himself away?).
• Seeing those same 7 or 8 hyenas bully a band of zebras…yeah I don’t feel too sorry for the hyenas anymore.

We stopped by a picnic area that was next to a small lake housing a large group of hippos and had a quaint picnic lunch, where we had to fight off aggressive birds vying for our food (I guess that makes it a not-so-quaint lunch, huh?).  Upon completion of our lunch, we bid adieu to Ngorongoro in anticipation for the renowned Serengeti (which, according to Leeann, is often referred to in phrases such as “the African Serengeti” and “in the Serengeti”). Unfortunately for us, this was when our car troubles started.

6:45PM

Here’s a little background on the car we’re currently riding in: it’s a really old Land Rover that has been repurposed for safaris. Whenever we’re riding in the car, Peter always says, “We go slowly, slowly.” The car sits 9 (including the driver), but everything about the car indicates that it might break down at any moment. And lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened at about 4:30PM. The car started leaking water and was in danger of overheating, so shortly after we crossed the gate into Serengeti National Park, we had to stop by the side of the road to refill the water tank (whatever that is). Not to mention that one of the windshield wipers had already fallen off earlier in the day and the hood of the car does not close very easily – every time Peter has to close it, he jumps on the hood and stomps a few times. Anyway, at this point Peter waved down another car to take us to the lodge because at the rate he was driving, we would never make it. This other car only really sat 5 passengers, so since we had 6, Leeann and Fish had to share a seat. While the car we were originally in only went about 30 km/h, this Toyota Land Cruiser went at 80 km/h and was much less bumpy – big difference! However, we were only at the lodge for about 5-10 minutes when Peter arrived with our luggage… conundrum? He explained that he rushed over to deliver the luggage, then was headed to the village to find a garage to fix the car… we’ll see how that goes. For now, we’re resting in our hotel room. Almost the end to an adventurous day!

- Leeann and Fish

Wednesday, Oct 13^th 2010 at 9:50PM

Continuation of our last blog entry… we saw a spotted hyena at Treetops! It was a rare sighting, and so far the only hyena we’ve seen on our safari, so it was quite exciting.

The next day, we drove quite a ways to Amboseli National Park, where we could finally catch a glimpse of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Unfortunately, the mountain peak was shrouded in clouds for most of the afternoon and we could not get a good viewing. It seems that our expectations for what makes a good photo have increased substantially since we started our safari. During our afternoon game drive, we told Edward that we wanted him to stop when there was a group of elephants with the sunset and Mt. Kilimanjaro and a single tree in the background. Edward just shook his head at our demands. Back at our hotel, Fish decided it would be really cool to attempt to be Korean and speak with a Korean accent… fail.

This morning, we crossed the border from Kenya to Tanzania. The cost of a visa for someone with a US passport is apparently $100 (SO expensive!). Uncle Junlan tried to sweet talk his way to a cheaper visa by claiming that he just wanted to visit “[this] BEAUTIFUL country for only 3 days!” Needless to say, his approach did not work. We bid adieu to Edward and said hello to our new driver, Peter. Our first stop in Tanzania was for lunch, which was ehh not so good. Leeann had to use the restroom, which was probably one of the worst bathroom experiences of her life… no more details needed here.

On our way to Ngorongoro Conservation Area, we stopped by a local auto shop so that Peter could have the car’s air filter cleaned. We were approached by a boy named Tony (grade 7) who tried to exchange the necklaces he was selling for Fish’s sunglasses, sandals, and Leeann’s mom’s watch – all the makings of a fine businessman.

When we finally reached Ngorongoro after a long day of driving, we admired the beautiful crater. There, we met a tour guide originally from California who attended Berkeley (go Bears!). The hotel we’re currently staying at is called Ngorongoro Wildlife Lodge and is probably the nicest place we’ve stayed at thus far. The view from the hotel is amazing – the crater is so close and the lodge in general has a nice ambiance to it. After dinner, we met a couple from Italy who told us about their experience at Serengeti National Park, which is where we’re headed tomorrow.

Here is a short list we came up with (to be updated later upon completion of our safari):

Top 10 “A Lot Of”

1. Sat in the car for a lot of hours
2. Inhaled a lot of dust and pollution
3. Waved hello to a lot of kids on the street while driving from destination to destination
4. Saw a lot of wildebeests
5. Heard the word ‘migration’ a lot of times
6. Ate a lot of potatoes (ate a lot of buffets in general)
7. Leeann was bit a lot of times by an unknown bug

- Leeann and Fish

Monday, Oct 11^th 2010 at 5:00PM

Jambo! (That’s ‘hello’ in Swahili). Since the last time we blogged, we’ve visited a few more national parks. Sunday morning, we left Masai Mara and drove many more hours (less bumpy) to Lake Nakuru National Park. When we got there, we saw tons of flamingos by the lake (Edward noted that there are 1.7 million that reside there). We got there just in the nick of time because it started to pour shortly after. There were also white rhinos nearby; Leeann’s dad insisted that we get out of the van even though there were rhinos around, and Edward warned us, “The rhinos will kill you.” We all laughed at this, but it was only funny because we didn’t actually step out of the car when the rhinos were around.

After the visit to the lake, we went back to our hotel called Merica Hotel – like America w/out the ‘A’. A plus about this hotel was that there was free wi-fi, which we used to update our fantasy football teams (we’re cool, huh?). However, when we went back to the hotel, the wi-fi was no longer working. Leeann noticed that she was getting bitten A LOT by some bug that was not a mosquito, but she was still quite itchy. Negative points. Also, the bathroom had a sewage-like stench and did not appear to be very clean. More negative points.

At 3AM, both of us woke up and could not fall back asleep, so we decided to watch some TV. The first thing we watched was some random movie called Nakita (nothing like the TV show) with the most low budget visual effects ever. Other notable things on TV: an Indian drama that featured a girl named Rohini and a very attractive doctor man. Finally, we settled on watching the Commonwealth Games, and witnessed the Malaysian teams dominate in badminton. Fish also fell in love with Alex Pang (from Canada) and Aaron something *shrug* (edit by Fish: his name is Aaron Heading and he shoots clay targets…so hot!).

This morning, we got back into the van and drove some more to the equator, where we were given a demonstration on the magnetic poles of the Earth. Afterwards, the man who gave us the demonstration informed us that we could obtain certificates certifying that we had visited the equator for 300 shillings (that’s about 4 USD). After Leeann paid him the money for the certificate, he then insisted, “And tip for the teacher”, which was a little amusing.

After a couple more hours of driving, we arrived at Treetops Hotel, which is literally a lodge built among trees (pictures to come). Our rooms are on the 2^nd floor of the building; dining area is on the 3^rd floor; and rooftop is the 4^th floor where we can observe the wildlife that come to the waterhole nearby. Out of all the places we’ve stayed so far, this is probably the most unique. Looking forward to seeing the animals come out at night!

P.S. We’ve been to 5 hotels thus far, and seriously none of the rooms have clocks.  What is up with that???

P.P.S. Africans can speak fairly decent Chinese, and their pronunciation is, dare I say, better than most of our ABC friends. Their common greetings are: ni hao, xie xie, bu ke qi, ma ma hu hu.

- Leeann and Fish

Saturday, Oct 9^th 2010 at 3:15PM

Yesterday, we started the trek to Masai Mara National Reserve with our new driver, Edward (go Team Edward!). We made the unfortunate decision to sit in the very back of the van. The drive to Masai Mara was 6 hours of the bumpiest road EVER and by the end of the journey, both of our butts were sore like no other. Lesson learned: never sit in the back.

Upon arrival, we went on our first game drive in the afternoon, which is basically Edward driving us around the reserve (which is 1500 square kilometers big) and scouting animals. On our first day, we already observed wildebeests, zebras, giraffes, elephants, buffalo, lions, ostriches, among others. It was cool seeing all the animals in their natural habitats. It’s almost like the reverse of what happens at the zoo: instead of the animals being caged, we were the ones confined in the van while the animals were free to roam around.

This morning, we went on another game drive and witnessed two female lions with their most recent kill (a wildebeest). It was actually quite gruesome – the prey’s innards were fully exposed for all of our viewing pleasure. We also saw an ostrich couple with their tiny ostrich babies (so cute!). Other notables were a male lion which walked right in front of our van and a leopard lounging lazily in a tree.

After a quick break for breakfast, we were back on the road heading to the Masai village for a visit. We were greeted by our tour guide, Mareh. We were treated to a traditional dance in which the men took turns jumping very high. Mareh later informed us that the dance was done prior to a marriage, and if the man jumped high enough, he would not have to pay the usual dowry of 10 cows (or in his words, “free wife!”). We also sat in a traditional Masai village hut (made with cow dung and sticks, roof made of grass and more cow dung to make it waterproof) that would normally house an entire family of 8-10 people. Mareh explained that the cow was very sacred to the Masai people: it provides them with meat, milk, hide for their beds and dung for their huts. They even mix the cow blood with milk to drink in order to grow tall and strong.

Later on, we had a throwing competition with a stick (which was probably a bone of some sort). Sadly, Fish won, but truthfully, we both sucked at throwing it. Afterwards, we visited the nearby school which had 520 students, grades 1-8. A total of 7 subjects are taught there, 6 in English (as explained to us by Joseph the headmaster). We then said goodbye to Mareh and the rest of the Masai people and drove back to our hotel.

Looking back, the visit to the village was probably the most memorable event of our stay in Kenya so far. To be able to see how the village people live was an incredibly eye opening and thought provoking experience. Now for a quick nap before our next game drive. Until next time…

- Leeann and Fish

Friday, Oct 8^th 2010 at 8:00AM

Today is Day 1 of our safari. Yesterday, we arrived in Nairobi and took a tour of the downtown area. Some of the things we noticed:

• Everyone is dressed really nicely (dress shirts and suits). You hardly see people wearing t-shirts.
• Lots of people walk to and from work or wait for public transport.
• There is crazy traffic on the roads to and from the city (not to mention lots of pollution!).
• Our driver, Maurice, informed us of how expensive private primary education is (about 200 USD for 3 months).

We had Chinese food for dinner that was okay (note: the rice was not very fresh). We stayed the night at Safari Park Hotel with mosquito nets around the beds… good thing there were no mosquitoes because they LOVE me (the feeling is not mutual).

- Leeann

That same night while I was unpacking, I noticed something suspiciously wet in my backpack.  To my dismay, the banana that I had been saving for a late-night snack had been severely smushed by all my belongings, and the wonderfully sticky banana past was thickly spread across the bottom of my backpack, its juice soaking my netbook, my camera case, and Suana’s TGWTDT (oops, Suana).  That’s the bad news.  The good news is that I took a shower (totally unrelated to the banana incident, but friends who know me will be relieved to hear this).

One thing I also thought was interesting while exploring Nairobi was that public transportation consists of vans, or shuttles, that fit around 9 to 14 people.  I thought it was peculiar that buses weren’t the public transit of choice, as it has a much greater capacity…seems inefficient to have numerous vans carrying people around vs. one bus *shrug*.

- Fish

Thursday, Oct. 7^th 2010 at 10:00AM

Greetings from Dubai Airport! We are currently on our way to Nairobi, Kenya. Last night, we landed in Dubai and explored the downtown area. We walked through Dubai Mall and saw the Burj Kalifah and Dubai Fountain (unfortunately, we missed the last fountain show by 15 minutes). The first thing we noticed about Dubai was how incredibly hot and humid it was. At 7:30pm, it was still 91 degrees outside! From this, we concluded that Dubai is not a very romantic city because one would not want to be too close to their loved one in their sweaty state. We also got gelato for 18 AED (which equated to almost 6 USD – expensive!). After we got back to the hotel, Leeann took a shower while Fish proceeded to pass out on her bed whilst watching ‘What I Like About You’ (with Arabic subtitles). Overall, a pretty low key [insert word that means good introduction] to our journey.

- Leeann and Fish

Welcome to our blog! We hope you enjoy your stay. For the next 2 weeks, we will be prepping for our trip to Africa! Specifically, we will embark on a 10-day safari through Kenya & Tanzania (plus a couple nights in Dubai). What we have done so far to prep for the trip:

• gotten vaccines (hepatitis A, yellow fever, typhoid/typhoid pills)
• picked up anti-malaria pills (to be taken for basically 3 weeks)
• gone shopping for DEET, sunblock, etc.

As we get closer to the trip and throughout the trip, we’ll try to update more frequently with photos and posts.

Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

- Leeann and Fish