Hi everyone! I hope everyone is getting some good R & R in during these warm, flower-filled summer months. In fact, I thought it might be fun to post a check in, to catch up on how everyone’s summer is going.
As some of you know, I’ve been out of the country for the last 3 weeks, visiting Malaysia, Thailand, and Korea. I love travel, and I am sure some of you do too, so here are a few highlights of the trip. These pictures are untouched (sorry Instagramers!)
When we travel to these far-flung locations, we usually go on a group tour, one that really immerses a person in the culture while taking care of the flights, transfers, hotels, and many of the activities, so you can just enjoy, participate, and soak everything in.
We started off in Malaysia, checking out local markets, visiting war memorials, the palace, Muslim temples & Buddhist shrines…and so much more.
We also hung out with monkeys and gibbons, saw fireflies, visited a tea plantation, ate some crazy stuff like jellyfish (like eating cartilage…not a repeat!), learned how to shoot darts with a blow gun, and went on a jungle hike to find a rare fungus-flower.
(The hike in the jungle was tough, and I’m pretty sure I got heat stroke–it was incredibly hot out. I also fell off a 5-foot high boulder and bashed up my legs quite bad, but luckily no broken bones.)
The highlight of Malaysia was a “home stay” visit where we lived with a Muslim family for a few days at the Suka-Suka Lake Retreat, where they owned some lovely property at the edge of the water.
You could swim, fish, kayak, walk the nature trails or hang out in a hammock and read (which I did and it was BLISS).
My oldest son and I did a cooking lesson here and learned how to create some popular Malaysian dishes. Later, we dressed in sarongs and ate dinner in the traditional style: on the floor, using only our right hand. Messy, but fun!
The visit was extra special as we arrived at the end of Ramadan which is also the beginning of the Muslim New Year. So there was much celebrating, fireworks, and socializing, and what a treat to be invited into the locals’ homes and experience another culture’s celebrations first hand.
In Thailand, we started out at Krabi, just beating out a monsoon that showed up after we left. We traveled to the world-famous Railay Beach, and loved all the rock formations that reminded us so much of Halong Bay in Vietnam.
Ironically, while in the water here I was stung by a jellyfish…I guess it was karma for eating a relative a few nights earlier!
We also saw a ton of Buddhist temples and ruins, often traveling around on tuk-tuks or by boat.
We stopped to see the famous bridge on the River Kwae and swam in a 7 level waterfall filled with fish (the small ones liked to go after our feet in a “Au natural” fish massage, lol). It was hilarious to see the reaction of our tour mates who have never felt fish nibble at their feet!
One night we stayed on a floating house that was pulled out by tugboat to a private island on a lake. We swam, kayaked and drank Chang beer as the sun went down.
There were geckos EVERYWHERE too, living on the floating house, chomping down on all the mosquitoes. I’d fall asleep watching them skitter back and forth across the ceiling of the boathouse, chasing their dinner.
At the end of our time in Thailand, we spent a day at an Elephant Rescue Park, one that was truly a rescue, with no riding, no tricks for tourists, just a sanctuary for elephants to roam and live free.
The elephants there were purchased by the sanctuary’s owners from circuses, tourist riding attractions, and illegal logging camps, saving the elephants from a lifetime of misery and abuse.
We spent the day feeding three young elephants bananas and sugarcane, accompanying them on a walk, and finally bathing them in a river.
It was something I will never forget.
After this, it was time to leave our group and set off for Korea, then home.
We arranged a 10 hour layover, enough time to see a bit of Seoul.
While we didn’t have time to visit the DMZ, we did venture into the city for a bit of site-seeing.
All of us enjoyed the time we spent there and I could see us heading back again for another trip.
I tooled around the market too, and found these gems:
We continued our marathon travel back home, (about 38 hours all told). Exhausting.
I came home to roughly 1000 emails, and a nice surprise…more foreign editions from Japan, this time, The Positive and Negative Trait Thesaurus books.
While the covers seem unusual to me, I know they must make perfect sense for that market.
Our Japanese publisher made us two beautiful books–they are just incredibly well laid out in the interior, and you can feel the quality. I’m really happy with them and hope they are as popular as the Emotion Thesaurus is over there.
And, as if this coolness wasn’t enough, I also came home to The Writers’ Guild of Alberta’s magazine…and a familiar face on the cover. Crazy right?
Inside there’s an interview with me written by phenomenal YA author Janet Gurtler, and what’s so fun is that they used a bunch of my photos from my last big trip (Australia) in the article. Seeing this sort of made my vacation feel like it had come full circle! Such a wonderful homecoming.
So, that’s been my summer so far! What about you? Are you relaxing? Gardening? Traveling? Writing? Reading? Let me know all about it!
I managed to get a few books read during my trip–the second and third book in the Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children series (so terrific!), and also the mammoth novel Dune (an oldie but a goodie.)
Your turn. Fill me in on your summer plans! 🙂
Oh and before I forget, a few guest posts published while I was out and about. So, if you’ve ever struggled with Describing a Setting in a Place You’ve Never Visited, you’ll want to check out the advice and mother-lode of helpful researching links at Romance University.
Also, if you’re wondering How To Show Readers What Your Character Is Hiding, Be It A Secret or Emotion, I hope you’ll stop by The Romantic Times Author Portal.
Happy Summer!
Angela 🙂
Angela is a writing coach, international speaker, and bestselling author who loves to travel, teach, empower writers, and pay-it-forward. She also is a founder of One Stop For Writers, a portal to powerful, innovative tools to help writers elevate their storytelling.
Fantastic journey and photos, Angela – thanks for sharing them with us! Great front cover. We were in North Wales this summer (UK) where we have relatives. We love it so much because it’s hilly and wild like Scotland but we visited two fascinating old house this time and I’ve just written about the second one on my blog.
I love old houses! I haven’t gotten to the UK yet, but it is on my list! Will have to stop by and have a read. 🙂
I love old houses! I haven’t gotten to the UK yet, but it is on my list! Will have to stop by and have a read. 🙂
Thanks for sharing the details of your amazing trip. You sounded very upbeat–despite heat stroke and near broken bones!
It was a terrific trip, and just a bump or two, no big deal. 🙂
wow. what a fabulous vacation! and the elephants! How wonderful they get to ‘retire’ for real. Thanks for sharing 🙂
So few do get to retire, but I am glad someone out there cares enough to dedicate themselves enough to saving as many as they can. 😉 Hope your summer is going great, Marcy!
Loved reading about this! Sounds wonderful (aside from stings, falls, and the like!). Taking care of rescued elephants sounds and looks amazing! Thank you for sharing your stories and photos.
I’m so glad. I don’t post a lot of personal stuff on the blog, but this was such a wonderful experience I really wanted to share it. I hope you are having a relaxing summer as well. 🙂
Wow, my summer could not be more different than yours if we had planned it. Sounded like you had a fabulous adventurous trip, so I’ll attempt that same positive spin to my summer “vacation”.
My summer began with an all nighter with the Stones. Not the extremely famous Rolling Stones group, but the lesser known excruciating Kidney Stones. I’d say the ER experience brought tears to my eyes however I like California was experiencing my own personal drought of being135 IV ounces shy of a raisin.
Two weeks later had a well attended all night party celebrating the 5th of July with a huge T-bone. Wish it was steak, but sadly more vehicular in nature. Met four oblivious adventuresome teens who completely redesigned my mommy van. At our get together the Fire Dept visited, Highway Patrol stopped by, and the nice Ambelence guys gave me a backboard ride to hang out with some pretty ER ladies. I was reacquainted with numerous unused acronyms, CT, MRI, X-RAY, IV, MDs, and RNs. Did some great drugs and took home some unique parting gifts, neck brace, purple armed sling, and a decent twinkling stars conclusion.
The remaining part of the summer and year will most likely be filled with addition exciting travels throughout the city to tabulate future medical physical therapy writing research. Currently conducting in-depth interviews with medical and auto insurance adjustors, personal injury lawyers and neurologists.
In all it should make an interesting annual holiday newsletter to relatives and a future best seller if I remember what I’m talking about… oh ya, wow, my summer vacation could not be more different than yours….
Holy cow, Patrick! I am sorry this summer has been such a series of unfortunate events. Hopefully it means that to get back into balance, a lot of good things are coming your way. 🙂 HUGS!
I’m so glad you had such an enjoyable, relaxing vacation. It was well deserved. Thanks for the fantastic pictures. I enjoyed them all. Do wish you could have brought back an elephant or two.
Me too. They were so cute and playful. It was just unfathomable to me that people are willing to torture such a great animal in order to break it and get it to bend to their will. I was very glad to find this sanctuary, and the people there were amazing. They’d just lost an elephant due to infection from a condition brought on by working in logging camps, and the owner had to leave and compose himself when telling us this because he cared so deeply, and tried so hard to save her. It was very moving.
I love all your pictures and what an adventure!! I went to Romania this summer, which was awesome. And now I’m spending time with the kiddos, going to museums and parks when the weather permits, preparing for a family wedding and after that Yellowstone/Grand Tetons, and then the Oregon Christian Writer’s conference in August, a 10k run, and then the school year will be in full swing. WOW, the summer has been crazy busy, crazy fun, and is disappearing crazy fast. Thanks and have a great rest of your July!!
Romania would be amazing to visit–how great that you got to go. And it sounds like you’re squeezing every drop of awesome out of the summer with your family too, which is great. Sometimes we get too caught up in work and the summers slip by. My kids are older now, and I would love a summer back when they were kids again. 😉