Epic Asia Trip! (Recap)

Well, it was an amazing adventure. Here is a recap with some highlights from the trip:

We started off the trip visiting Tokyo, Japan. Japan is pretty much a perfect country, and Tokyo is the perfect capital. 

We had an awesome time checking out Tokyo and making new friends from Germany (Robert and Rafael), and from the local YSA: C-dawg! (Chris). 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufm0RwSOZSE

Next we flew to Osaka and visited Osaka, Himeji, and Kyoto with Charles! He's an old friend of mine from the World Scout Jamboree in London. 

We flew over to Taiwan and met up with Ru!!! (My old roommate and one of my best friends from college). My parents also hung out with us, and my cousin even came on a hike with us! (I've been trying to get her to hang out with me since all last summer). 

After Taiwan we went to Bangkok and visited Art!! An old friend from BYUH. We also sang in Wi and Rafael's wedding which was super fun. They're such a cool couple. 

🎶 Mother, Father, Sister, Brother... 🎶

After Bangkok we took the bus to Cambodia. Angkor Wat was amazing, and Siem Reap was super cool too. "No money, no honey!"

We then went to southern Thailand and went to church in Phuket. The branch members were super friendly and we all got to share our testimonies with them. 

Then we took a boat to Phi Phi islands. They are incredibly beautiful. The food was super good too. 

From Phi Phi we went over to Ao nang. I don't have a great photo of the cliffs, but they were awesome. This is the view from the balcony of our hostel. 

Our last stop was Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. While we were there we also took a side trip, 

To Kuala Gandah! Where we hung out with Peiyin and played with Elephants. It was amazing. 

Here are a few numbers from our trip: 

Countries: 5

Cities: 14

Miles flown: 14,709

Nights: 33

Total cost of housing (per person): $78

Average cost per night: $2.36

Elephants: 12

Monkeys: 176

That's it! The trip was really fantastic and I definitely wish we could have had more time over there. I love Asia! What an amazing place. I'm grateful for all our friends that we got to hang out with and were so generous to host us or take us around. Thank you! I can't wait until the next time we see each other again.

This trip has been AMAZING. EPIC. WONDERFUL. I'm so so so so grateful to Ray for making it happen! Ray Banks, THANK YOU SO MUCH! The people we've met, the places we've been, everything has been so great! All of the amazing memories from this trip will be with me forever, from raptor running in Thailand to vicious monkeys at Angkor Wat to 7/11 corn dogs. Shout out to everyone who hosted us, what champs! What amazing people! And especially Rays family in Taiwan, they are the nicest people! I already want to come back to Asia, and travel basically everywhere else in the world!!! 

Monday - splitting up and heading home

Today it was time to head home. Lei and Anna went from KL to Narita then home, and I had to take a train down to Singapore before flying up to Narita then home. 

Max!!! He was such a great host and we were stoked that we finally got to try his jam!! Hahaha, breakfast provided. You just have to bring your own bread for toast and milk if you want milk. But he provides the jam! It was pretty good. 

Me at the Singapore Changi Airport. I took a long train down to Singapore and then an hour and a half bus to finally arrive at the airport around midnight (having left KL at 2pm). My flight was around 6am. 

Gotta love McDonald's! And if you notice one of my ketchups is off-color because I decided to put some chili. It was so good! I wish McDonald's had that chili everywhere. 

The benches I slept on. That spacing makes them terribly uncomfortable. 

The benches I wish I slept on (they were on the other side of security). 

I can't say why, but it felt really good to be flying back into Japan. What a perfect country. 

Back together!! You can't tell it in this photo because everyone is so out of it, but we were happy to see each other again. hahaha. 

On my next flight. 

My customs form. Almost too many countries to fit on it! : D

Church and Batu Caves

Sunday! The Day of REST. We were really happy to go to church and really happy that it didn't start until 11AM! Church was so great. I had one of the best lessons I've ever had in priesthood. The teacher was really well prepared and we had a great discussion about the Holy Spirit and how we can always be conscious of Him and the spiritual promptings we receive. I'm so grateful for everything I know about the gospel of Jesus Christ and that I can keep learning more!

Sacrament meeting was pretty amazing too. There was a kid that sang a solo but he forgot the words halfway through so he asked if he could start over. It was pretty adorable. I love small branches. 

There was also a speaker that told us about how his sister had died in a car wreck when someone had crashed into her, but it was actually chill because she was a jerk to everyone in the family anyway! Haha. It was such a crazy story! 

Sacrament was awesome! That little boy was so adorable! His mom was the relief society president, they were such a cute family. And the guy that talked about his dead sister was unreal, he said something like "it's okay to dislike people." And "all of my sisters friends said such nice things about her after she died, and we were all surprised because she was so horrible."

Relief society was great! I'm so happy and grateful for the Holy Ghost and the protection, guidance, and comfort that it brings into our lives. I love this gospel! I'm also so grateful that we got to take the sacrament and renew our baptismal covenants. 

Some random guy checking out the church. I hope he joins!

Batu caves. Amazing statue, magnificent cliffs, and MONKEYS EVERYWHERE. At one point there was a dog that was threatening them and all the monkeys got totally crazy. Actually, there were a lot of points were the monkeys got totally crazy. Monkeys crack me up. 

Too many monkeys, not into it. Ugh. 

View from inside the caves looking up. 

This photo doesn't really capture it, but it's the best I could do. Basically the monkeys were jumping all over the cliffs and it was super cool. 

With our new friend, Sandra! We met her at the hostel. She's from Canada, but she's actually portuguese. She quit her job, came traveling around SE Asia, and nest she's going to go do a working holiday in Australia! After that she wants to head to South America. She's so cool! Hopefully we run into her in some part of the world someday in the future. 

Sandra is awesome, she was a therapist for troubled children at a school, and she lived in San Francisco for 4 years. She's 4 feet and 11 inches, and is super feisty! I love it!!!  

Kuala Gandah

Today was unbelievable. Pictures can't really capture it and I don't think the few videos we took come close either. It was just SO COOL. We played with elephants, snakes, hedgehogs, geckos, deer, ostrich, and just had a total blast! When I say played with I mean we were really playing with them! It was so cool. Lei arm wrestled and got smacked by an baby elephant with it's trunk, I kissed a snake, and Anna got jolted when she touched a little hedgehog. It was just so cooL!!

This elephant was such a punk, it kept reaching over and smacking the other elephants. Haha. So funny!

So adorable!

We got to hold this hedgehog! So amazing!

We also made a new friend, Peiyin (she's on the far right). She's super cool! She's King (a good friend from BYUH)'s childhood friend and best friend and she was our tour guide for the day! We ate some great local food together! We also all got into the river and washed the elephants! It was the coolest. 

Peiyin was so nice! She drove us around, knew all these random animal facts (she's a zoology major), and took us to eat delicious food! Thanks King and Peiyin!

At night we went and did laundry. I sneakily took a photo of this guy sitting down because he was helping Anna with her laundry for no reason and then I thought he kinda looked like the guy in the "BECAREFUL THIS GUY !!!" sign. 

I'm on the fence, I think Ray is just being racist. Or am I being racist? We will never know. But what an amazing day!!!!!! 

Ao Nang to KL

Today it was time to leave Thailand and head to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia!

Lei didn't really want to take a morning photo. This was while we were waiting for the van to pick us up and take us to the airport. 

Construction at the airport. 

I'm not really sure why I took this photo...but it kind of reminds me of the super long walkway in KL (which was actually way bigger and longer), but it was super cool! It was a walkway connecting the terminals but it was so big that planes could go under it!! Amazing. We love KL already. 

Dinner! It was super good and cheap and the people here are all friendly. 

When we got to the hostel (which was super nice) we met Max, the hostel manager. He's a super nice guy and a bit of a character. He told us something like this:

"We provide breakfast from 7 o'clock to 11 o'clock every day. We have jam for you, and you just have to buy your own bread at the store if you want toast, and buy milk if you want milk. But we provide the jam."

This is the jam in the fridge. Hahaha. So funny. ^^

Ao Nang

Today was a chill day in Ao Nang (Krabi). Rainy season means that the weather can be pretty hit and miss. 

The view outside our hostel this morning:

Same view five minutes later: 

It got pretty wet. 

Raining so hard!!! 

So we mostly just chilled and we ate some good local food. Pictured above is where we got most of our meals. They were pretty cheap (50 baht, about $1.60) and pretty tasty too. 

For dinner we decided to splurge and go for some Italian. It was so good! Lei and I had a little date night. Between the two of us dinner was still only about $9. 

We forgot to take a picture, but it was fun!!!

Tomorrow we'll head off to Malaysia! The last country of our trip. 

:'( 

Phi Phi to Krabi

Well, today we left Phi Phi! It was kind of sad because Phi Phi is so beautiful and amazing, but it was nice too because it was hard to go to sleep at night with the live music being played next door to our hostel (they were really good though!)

The girls weren't really feeling a photo in the morning. 

"DELETE IT"

Breakfast. It was so good!

Not our boat. But I thought it looked nice. 

Trying to get a timer photo

Oh gosh haha. Fail.

Lei posing with a random cat. The cat wasn't feeling it. 

It hated me.

It says welcome to Phi Phi, but we were actually saying goodbye. :'(

Lei on the boat over to Krabi

Fun fact: almost hurled while this photo was being taken

Ao Nang! This is the beach about a block from our hostel. It was so cool! I love the cliffs here. 

Kap kum KAP!

I'm gonna miss Thailand! Thanks for being an awesome country!