We are including a few photos from our wedding in Bali. Enjoy!!
View from our bungalow
Balian beach, close to our wedding spot!!
Just about to tie the knot!!
Taking the final steps!!
The ceremony!!
The ceremony
Signing the documents
Its a done deal!!
Its final!!
Getting swamped by the waves!
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Wedding & Honeymoon in Bali Part II (2nd week)
After a few days around Pumuteran we jumped aboard a Bemo, an open-sided van which takes everybody and almost everything as it passes through the towns and villages. It is fun to be sitting with the local people and their kids amongst coolers of fish, chickens and vegetables. From Lovina, we hired a small private car up the winding road to the
Waking at
In Amed we found our best deal on accommodation so far in
After 3 days in Amed we left for historical Ubud where we would see traditional dances including the famous Kecak dance (known to many as the tribal dance in the Baraka video). Jecka jecka…jah jah! Impressive and mysterious in the evening darkness; dancers chanting in harmony with punctuations by soloist chanters, dancers swaying and flailing their arms and hands upward and outward in unison, costumed characters entering into the center of the circle as the story is acted out, torches burning in the background. Entrancing and fun! In Ubud we also did a walk through the hills to visit the well known
For our last day we headed to Seminyak near the airport for one last day on the beach. We witnessed some big resort style weddings where tourists crowd around to watch in their often small bathing suits illustrating different levels of fitness. Yikes - we are glad nobody came to watch our wedding in a speedo!
Thank you all for your congratulatory emails and phone calls and best wishes. We’re glad you liked the pixs Julie sent. We will be wishing good things for you too for now and for the future.
Missing you all. Much love and hugs.
Julie and Andrew
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Updated Photos
So sorry we havent updated our blog in a while, we have been totally swamped. Here are some pixs from August 2007!! I will post our wedding photos soon!!!.
Wonderful bungalow we stayed at in Kep for Julie's birthday in August!!
Andrew enjoying our hike in Kep!!
Great views in Kep!!
Julie enjoying the hike in Kep!!
Restaurant at our bungalow, pretty cool eh!!
Monsoon hiking at Ream National Park near Sihanokville in August
Our Irish Pal Aran with his beautiful fiance Leakhana in Phnom Penh
Julie trying to learn Khmer cooking with our Khmer family
20th Birthday party for Rada (our Khmer family)
Rada (seated to the left) with his pals on his 20th birthday
Our Khmer family!!
Lots of yummy food from our Khmer family!!
VSO Cambodia Conference in Sihanokville, Cambodia, August 2007
Andrew in a comedy skit at the VSO Annual Conference
Fun at the beach at the conference!!!
Had a great time at the conference!!!
Julie and Rachel at the VSO Costume Party at the VSO Conference. The theme was to dress up as something that starts with the letter P. Julie went as her twin bro Philip. Sorry Phil!!! You can guess what Rachel went as!!!
VSO Livelihoods Staff and Vols at VSO Conference
VSO Livelihoods Staff and Vols at VSO Conference
Andrew & Julie’s Wedding and Honeymoon in Bali: Part I of II (First Week)
After a lot of talk and planning we were finally able to put together a plan to get married on this side of the world. We are very happy to know that we will are now officially joined and committed to each other to share the joys and challenges which life will bring. On Sept 18th and for the remainder of out
The running around did not end until the ceremony started at
At
So, a little after
We stayed another 2 days at the Pondok Pisces Resort and beautiful
After 4 days at Balian Beach, we headed by car up into the interior passing through old mountain villages filled with dramatic views of old volcanoes and the smell of drying cloves on mats along the side of the road as well as small coffee and cocoa plots. Combined with the smell of the usual flowers and plants of
Our driver took us on a short detour to visit his parents’ village and house in the hills where we walked along the ridge overlooking terraced rice paddies resembling the classic
All of this seems to be maintained with great pride. This type of architecture was repeated in the various villages we passed through that day and we would see it in most villages and towns throughout the island. The foundation for this is traditional Hindu design and culture which shares many similarities with
We were enjoying our time together so much, meeting wonderful Balian people and foreign travelers and seeing and feeling this paradisiacal setting. We realized that we were so lucky to visit here! Of course we missed you all a lot and often wished that you could have been there to experience
Next Entry: Part II of II, Wedding and Honeymoon in
End of July to mid-Sept 07. Hello Again!
Hello Everyone,
VSO Annual Conference, mid-August 2007
In early August VSO volunteers and staff traveled to Sihanoukville/Kompong Som on the coast for the Annual VSO Conference. In light of various recent disagreements within the organization between volunteers and the Cambodia Program Office and amongst volunteers as well, most of us approached the conference with a certain amount of apprehension. The main problem was that many volunteers felt that their advice for the country program was being ignored and that needed changes were not being addressed. However, the week unfolded very well with a superb program prepared by several hard-working organizing volunteers and which surpassed expectations. Over the course of the week many lingering problems would be addressed (at least many of us think so) and many good times had.
The program included guest NGO speakers, professional development workshops, and collaborative sessions by sector to solve challenges within VSO and problems facing volunteers in certain projects including out project TSEMP. We also had skits (often hilarious!), cultural performances, indoor and outdoor (beach) team-building activities (hard work and fun!), evening entertainment activities such as Khmer and country western dancing, international quiz, (funny) bingo, and regular dancing (also lots of fun, especially if you like retro). We livelihoods volunteers did a pro-environment and anti-corruption skit with me (Andrew) as the corrupt land owner and Julie doing sound control. She did a great job with melodrama/pantomime effects using music both ominous and joyful as well as boos, hisses and cheers. Boo to bad corruption man! Good job hunny!
Most volunteers and staff left the conference feeling that the organization was developing and maturing and that we had got to know each other better. We used the paradigm of a tree growing, branching out and eventually blossoming and sprouting fruit. Yeah we know, it is feel goody NGO stuff but it was a good analogy we thought. We were particularly pleased to see increased emphasis by VSO Cambodia on volunteer input. This is the direct result of new Program Office leadership responding to demands from vols re. the lack of this and also the result of the reaction and advice from VSO HQ in London (UK). It is now apparent to most of the volunteers that we must donate time, effort and ideas to the organization in order for it to develop, and secondly, that the Program Office must work with us as well as listen.
A positive development - in the opinion of many volunteers - is that VSO will likely stop placing volunteers in large government ministries and aim to create placements within NGOs which will build bonds with local communities and town councils, with government, and with other NGOs and development organizations. Julie and I feel that we have built productive relationships with many of our government co-workers and other local and foreign people associated with the TSEMP project. We feel we have made a bit of difference in this country. However, we feel that had we been placed in a reputable NGO we would have been able to direct more project time, money and resources to the poor villages on the great lake. So much of the time and money in projects which are implemented by government and driven by big international donors gets gobbled up by office work and administration, expensive foreign consultants and lengthy programming and compliance report writing, expensive vehicles and equipment, local and international study tours which sometimes turn into Karaoke bar tours or other forms of recreation, corrupt practices (around the world, not just in Cambodia), politically driven but ineffective activities, and absentee government staff.
Aran’s visit and Lekana (!)
For the first two weeks of his visit Aran would sleep at our house while spending the days with Lekana’s family. The introductions very quickly took the shape of semi-formal interviews with Aran sitting surrounded by several family members for hours at a time in
After the first two weeks, things relaxed a bit for the two of them and they began to enjoy their time together and with family more even though they were fairly closely chaperoned the whole time. Somewhat to their and everyone’s’ surprise, things became quickly serious and before the end of August they had secured a visa for Lekana to travel with Aran to
So how ‘bout that for a volunteer (Aran’s) cultural adventure!? And what a life change for Lekana too!? It appears that Julie and I will not be able to attend their Dec wedding as we will be traveling for 5 wks before returning to Canada and then to the US. We are sad for that but will probably visit the happily married couple in
Other stuff
Our jobs are pretty much the same with weekly small surprises. We think we are absorbing a lot in
Julie and I plan to finish our placement in early Dec, travel for several weeks and arrive in
Next blog entry: Our Wedding and Honeymoon in