Bali - part one

We just returned from our one week trip to Bali. It was absolutely fantastic.

We enjoyed the beach, the temples and the seafood dinners. Here are some pictures of our first days at the beach in Nusa Dua and visiting the Tanah Lot      Temple. Tanah Lot is the temple by the sea built by the 15th century priest Nirartha. The temple is one of the seven sea temples by the balinese coast. You can read more about it here.

Nusa Dua Beach

Ubud rice fields

Tanah Lot Temple

Small balinese temple next to Tanah Lot

Smaller sea temple at Tanah Lot

Around the property

We were almost going on vacation when I realized that you did you receive a proper tour of our Vietnamese estate. So here are some pictures... Enjoy!

Animals around the place

Neighboring houses 

Pond/lake, depending on how much it rains

Entrance to main road

Petrol sales are quite low in the area

Across the street neighbors

Entrance to our resort

No comment

On the way to our house

Pond/lake #2

And you would think the resort would be famous for its seafood...

That truck still works!

Resort guests laundry drying facility

Towards the beach

The beach during winter is depressing

Paths

The other end of the beach

Do you see that balcony on the 1st floor? That's where we live..

MiniVan Stuff

Our child has just graduated to growing baby-fat, but we are going crazy around here…

We already have the room ready, a stroller and some clothes. Yeah… I love when people just think of bringing us stuff because they saw something tiny and cute…

So let us present you the MiniVan wardrobe at the respectable age of 23 in-belly weeks…

Here is what Santa brought for the MV… Somebody's gonna be Santa's Assistant next year….

Here is the furniture…

And here is Mrs Van still hoping that it will be a girl…

New Year Tour

This is how people around the world celebrated New Year's...

Times Square NY

Burj Khalifa Dubai

Greece Acropolis

Red Square Moscow

Sydney Opera House

Beijing China

Tokyo Japan

Singapore


This is us celebrating in Hoa Sim Vietnam.  HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Merry Christmas

Our first Christmas together we celebrated in Toronto. We had enough time to buy a beaver - our classic tree top ever since, get back to Abu Dhabi and eat a sarmaluta, put the tree up and open a present before we headed to New York to celebrate New Year's Eve in Times Square. That was a good year! Always been a dream to spend the night between the years in our favorite city! But no drinking as somebody was working the next day.

The reindeer and the angel guarding our candles...
Guess who is the reindeer?

Last year we met in Paris, walked the streets full of lights and Christmas decorations, shopped a bit in Lafayette and returned to Abu Dhabi to eat a sarmaluta, put the tree up (with the beaver on top) and open a present before we headed to Munich to celebrate New Year's Eve over a snitzel. No drinking that night as somebody was working the next day at 7AM.

This year it was a totally different game. We put the tree up on December 6th (!!!), we started cooking on December 23rd and we had a great get-together with our friends on December 25th. Talking about taking it easy... The appetizers were great (Thank you K), the turkey was divine and even the 10 chocolate bars cake was nice... Pure decadence! But again no drinking, as somebody is pregnant! Do you notice a pattern here?

Merry Christmas to everyone!

The Van's Christmas Tree.
Notice the top beaver.
We got it in Canada on our first
Christmas together.

We hope to soon find out how two of the seven
dwarfs ended up in the Christmas Tree.
And where is Snow White?

The legendary turkey massaged and
baked with love by Mrs Van

20 weeks and why are we so silent recently

We are shyly coming back and seeing that the last post we wrote was almost a month ago...We burry our head in the vietnamese sand and try to blame it one the baby? Isn't this how it works? 

So here is what we have been doing recently:

GROWING... And I don't mean that as a metaphorical term. We are physically growing! Bellies and all... Both of us! 

More

Inside Job

Hmm...

We are moving

Since we moved to Vietnam in April (Mr. Van) and in June (Mrs. Van) we had a pretty weird living situation. Our new residence is just on the beach, part of a 'resort'. The apartments had to be re-fitted for family use. Here was our arrangement for the past months:
On the left is apartment 204 - our living quarters that include a kitchen (ex-bathroom) and a room with a couch, table and TV.

On the right side, apartment 205 is our sleeping quarters with a bathroom and a room with a bed. My 'favorite' thing about living in Vietnam is having a bathroom like this. There is no designated area for shower. You can take a shower at the sink, in the middle of the bathroom or even while sitting on the toilet! Brilliant!

Of course to get from one apartment to the other you have to step into the communal hallway.

This is our dining table/desk. Gotta love the view...

And this is the barbaric romanian-belgian way of drying one's clothes when you do not have a dryer or a drying rack (not available for sale in Vietnam, for whoever is looking for a new business idea).

Now we are moving across the hall, to a bigger apartment that has a bathroom in the same living area as the kitchen and the living room. We are forever grateful! We will come up with some pictures after we sort out this situation: