The Floating Village (Natalie)

          The Floating Village    

    On our second day in Cambodia, we headed out to a "floating village" to see the sunset on the water. All of the houses in the village are raised 20 feet or more off the ground on wood supports. During the wet season, the river rises all the way up the stilts to the house's porches. Most of the families that live in the village own a boat that they use to get around during the wet season.

    Kakada drove us in the tuk-tuk for about an hour and a half through to reach the village. We passed racks and racks of smoked and smoking fish along the way. When we arrived at the boathouse Kakada talked to the owners. They provided us with a boat and a driver. 

    We learned that the houses there only just got electricity last year, so it's pretty new for them. Most of the locals, fish for a living and the waterways were very crowded.

    We rode in the boat about an hour to get to the best place to watch the Sunset. It was super fun because the driver let us sit on the bow of the boat for the ride there.

                                 

                                 

                                 

    After taking some pictures we headed back. Along the way, we stopped for a snack of some smoked fish and bamboo rice (sticky, sweet, coconut rice with black beans, steamed and bamboo). Overall, I enjoyed the trip even though it was a long tuk-tuk and boat ride to get to the final destination. We got back to our hotel around 10:00 p.m.

Angkor Wat (Natalie and Ansel)

                                              Angkor Wat

    When we arrived in Cambodia, our first destination was the famous Angkor Wat. For anyone who hasn't heard about it, Angkor Wat is the largest temple complex in the world. Our family didn't really know what to expect, but we were very excited to walk around and explore the temple.

                                     

     We got up at 4 a.m. in order to see the sun rise over Angkor Wat. Our tour guide, Kakada, (5 star photographer) picked us up in his tuk-tuk and drove us in the dark to the temple. We took a dark path, lit only by the light of Kakada's phone. A few minutes along the trail, we found something that made us jump a foot in the air! It was a shiny black dead scorpion. Kakada was the only one brave enough to pick it up! After that, we were all a bit more cautious about were we stepped. 

                                                     

    When we stopped walking, we were positioned with only a pond in between us and Angkor Wat. The sun rose with a large variety of colors, shades of orange, red, pink, blue, green, purple, yellow... basically the whole rainbow. The temple itself is comprised of 5 towers. The center tower is the tallest. Depending on where you stand, it may look like there are only 3 towers.

                                             

                                         

                                         

    After sunrise we walked around and snapped more pictures of the park space in front of Angkor Wat. It was still the early morning so the hot sun hadn't fried us completely. Then we entered the temple, the first thing we noticed were the intricate carvings on the walls and ceiling. 

                 

                                              

                   

We walked to the heart of Angkor Wat stopping on the way, to marvel at the patterns, animals, and gods.

                                             

 Touching the carvings is strictly prohibited due to the fact that the stone the carvings are done in disintegrates the more it is touched. 

                                                     

    We were now entering the middle of the day when the sun is strongest. We decided to head out of magnificent Angkor Wat and see what adventures lie ahead.

                                                 

Nozawa Snow Monkeys (Ansel)

Last week, after a few days of skiing, we took a mid day tour to visit the Japanese macaque monkeys at the Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park. We took a bus from the town of Nozawa Onsen. The ride was roughly an hour long. I practiced Duolingo on the bus to entertain myself. I am learning how to speak German. 

When we arrived at the snow monkey park we stepped off the bus and headed to the trail. The trail was really beautiful through the trees. 

In some parts it was very muddy and icy. I was glad we had snowboots on. We walked for about 20 minutes. At the end of the trail, we walked up some stairs and saw our first monkey sitting down the hill on a rock. It had a thick fur coat and a red face. It climbed onto a slab of rock and was sitting there silently watching us. From then on, it rained monkeys. We saw monkeys who were big, small, loud and quiet. 

We checked in to the park using tickets that our bus driver had given us, then continued on the trail. We first walked up the hillside and saw a monkey sitting very close to us on the railing. We continued on the trail which sloped downward to a bridge with a view of the river on one side, and a hot spring pool on the other. We walked toward the hot spring pool first and saw monkeys taking a bath and cleaning each other in the water. Some were chilling out in the water staring at us, others were drinking the water, and more were cleaning each other, combing through their hair with quick fingers. 

Next we walked over to the river and saw a group of baby monkeys playing. It was so adorable!  Thoe only problem was that we all got pretty cold standing around in the snow.

Overall, I think if you take a trip to Nozawa Onsen, you should definitely go and see the monkeys because they're so cute and entertaining.  It's also a site that you won't find in other parts of the world - wild monkeys bathing with each other in a natural hot spring!

Nozawa Onsen (The town)

                                     Nozawa Onsen 

    Have you ever been to Japan? Since we are living in Taiwan we thought it might be fun to visit the northern neighboring island of Japan! Japan has very close ties to Taiwan given it militarily occupied Taiwan for 50 years. At just under 3 hours, the flight from Taiwan to Japan is quite short. As skiiers, we researched different Japanese ski areas and decided to stay in the snowy ski resort town of Nozawa Onsen. 

                                     

   Nozawa Onsen is accessible by taking an express train from the Tokyo airport to the main Tokyo train station. From there you can catch the Shinkasen bullet train. That train will take you to liyama station in 1 hour and 40 min. From there you can either take a 20 minute taxi or bus ride into Nozawa Onsen Village.

                                     

    The snow in Nozawa was crazy, it was piled up to 6 feet high in some places. On our first day there, it snowed about a foot. The second day it dusted and the third day it snowed about 8 inches. The city has an elaborate infrastructure to run hot spring water under the streets and melt the snow and ice. My mom didn't have snow boots and could still walk around in sneakers comfortably the whole time.

             

    One of our family's favorite activities was soaking in the one of the numerous onsens located all around the village. Ansel wrote a separate blog dedicated to the onsens.

                                             

    The village is filled with little places to eat. Our family found a nice food hall that we used for several dinners. They had sushi, udon, and other good food. For breakfast we frequented a Swiss bakery that was right around the corner from our hotel.

             

                                               

    The other tourists in Nozawa were mostly from Australia and New Zealand. Our first day on the mountain, we kids attended ski school; as we were the only Americans in our group, we got complemented on our accents. Unfortunately, after our first day in Nozawa, I came down with the flu and spent the next couple of days resting in our hotel room. It definitely wasn't fun feeling sick, but the hotel beds were warm and cozy, so I was able to get a lot of lot of rest and reading done on the clean and comfortable tatami mats.

    Our family would definitely recommend Nozawa Onsen as a great place to stay and/or go skiing.

                                 

The Cat Village (Natalie)

                                                                The Cat Village

    On Sunday, we had all planned to go to the Houtong cat village, but Ansel and Dad came down with a stomach bug and had to stay home. We decided to get out of the house and let them rest, so we headed off bright and early. To get to the village, we hopped onto the subway to the train station. After the subway, we transferred to another train which brought us to the village. Mom accidentally purchased local train tickets instead of the express train, so it took us over an hour to get there (oops!) Luckily the train ride was comfortable and above ground so we could watch the city melt away and enjoy the scenery. On the way home we took a much more comfortable (and much more direct) bus. 

    When we arrived at the village, we were immediately greeted by a black and white splotched cat, with an adorable black mouth that made him look like he had been eating a lot of blueberries. 

After we finished petting him, we crossed over the train tracks and entered the cat village. Just to be clear, there are 2 sides you can get to out of the train station. The hillside is the official cat village. On the other side the terrain is more flat. It is also more touristy, filled with shops, little restaurants and ice cream vendors. It also has a small coal mining museum which teaches visitors about the history of the village. There are cats on the touristy side, but not as many as the hillside. After we finished petting the cat in the train station we immediately headed out to the hillside. It was raining, so most of the cats had taken shelter under cover. The first cat we found was a dark tabby. 

This was the first cat we gave a treat to. Charlotte and Mom found four cats in a sheltered part of the trail. There was a plumb brown and white colored feline who was very fluffy and looked like a ragdoll, as well as two skittish black cats and one calico colored kitty. 

We had pre-purchased cat treats and recommend doing that, as the treats in the village are normally overpriced. We saw many more cats, some of them skittish some bold, a variety of colors and patterns. The most common cat we saw were dark tabbies. 

                                

                

                                    

                                    

                                    

    There are certain areas in the village where you are allowed or not allowed to feed the cats. Some of the locals feed the cats at set meal times so you don't have to worry about them going hungry; it's just fun to feed them.

              

    For lunch, we stopped at one of the many small cafes at the top of the hill and ordered quiche, sandwiches, hot chocolate and salad. Then we headed over to the flat side for ice cream. After we finished with lunch and the cats, we were feeling good and still energetic, so we decided to take a bus to Jiiufen old street, a festive street full of good food and small shops. We walked 15 minutes out of the village to the bus stop. We took a bus and planned to stop at the 7 eleven but may have gotten off at the wrong stop and had to hike to the street. 

                                    

    When you first enter the street, the lighting takes a little getting used to because the roofs of the shops are so close to each other they block out the sunlight. The street is lit with red lanterns. The first thing that caught our eye was a small shop that had a wall of pet outfits including a dragon costume for a small dog or cat and little traditional pet kimonos. After looking around that shop for a while, Charlotte got hungry so Mom purchased a sweet hotdog on a stick. (Yep, that's Asia for ya. Sweet sausages are normal here). Charlotte loved it and ate the entire thing. We next stopped at a street vendor for some little bricks of tea. We also peeked into a cat themed shop. Feeling hungry, we then found a beef noodle soup place and ordered up some soup, beef rice, soup dumplings, and cucumber for dinner. We had a hard time getting home because we were a little confused by the bus system, but eventually we made it home by 7:30. 

             

                                                     

            

    I would recommend Jiiufen old street as a "After cat village" activity. The cat village (as always) gets 5 out of 5 stars!