Home Sweet Home

Our journey home started at the Bali, Indonesia airport where we took a 4 hour flight back to Bangkok. Before we left, we all stood outside the airport trying to take in the last of what we called "equatorial paradise". The warm weather, tropical birds, palm trees, ocean waves, amazing flowers, and of course the busy streets full of people and motorcycles. The kids now tease me about the "Daddy moments" we had during this trip. Several times along the way, I would stop and ask the kids to close their eyes, to look at something, to smell something nice, or to listen to interesting noises. I told them soon these experiences would feel like a dream and they will want to remember all the different sights and sounds. The kids would usually just roll their eyes. I think the kids were glad to have their final "Daddy moment" on this trip.

We landed in Bangkok, Thailand, which always seemed like our "Home Base" in Asia. We had 9 hours on a Friday evening before our next flight, so we decided to visit our fun friends one more time - the Gibbons. They are such a great family and we felt very comfortable "hanging" with them at their house. We ordered many yummy thin crust pizzas, talked, watched TV and checked our emails on two of their personal laptops. It was so nice to rest and relax before taking our final taxi ride in Bangkok - our final taxi in Asia for that matter. As we left, we were a little sad to leave our friends, but we will see the Gibbons when they come to Utah for a visit this summer.

Our flight left Bangkok at 1 am and we arrived in Seoul, Korea, the next morning after five hours of flying. Our next flight delay was ugly, as we had a 12 hour layover. When we booked our flights last year, we thought it would be fun to tour Seoul during the long layover. Not sure what we were thinking as it is freezing cold in Seoul. Kristin sent an email to Asiana airlines asking if we could get better flight options. The airlines told us that all flights were full, however, they would be happy to give us two rooms at a hotel in Seoul, so we could sleep. We decided this was our best option. We were picked up by a nice hotel shuttle and then taken to our hotel. It was odd checking into a hotel room at 10:00 am and then asking for a wake up call at 3 pm in the afternoon. However, we all slept 4 or 5 hours, which really helped us to start our adjustment back to the US Mountain time zone. Asiana also gave us food vouchers, so we had a great meal at the hotel restaurant before we left for the airport.

Our next flight was 11 hours from Seoul to Los Angeles as we had more of a straight shot over the Pacific Ocean. We ate several meals and everyone slept another 2 or 3 hours before we landed back in the US - Los Angeles. It was great to be back in America, but we felt our first cool breeze as we walked outside to our domestic gate. I think everyone started to think about the warm blanket of Asian air that embraced us non-stop for 2 months. We were already missing it!

We had a 2 hour layover and we weren't very hungry, so we decided to get a snack. The kids wanted a couple of muffins from Starbucks and when we saw they were $2.50 each, we couldn't believe it. We were definitely "Asiatized" and now had to get used to the higher prices in America. For $2.50 you could have an hour long massage, eat a fantastic Italian or French meal, purchase a pound of cashews, get 3 large Mango/Papaya/Coconut/Orange shakes, and the list goes on and on. Oh how we will miss Asia prices!

Our flight to Salt Lake was a "very short" hour and a half before we landed. We arrived around 9 pm on a Saturday night and it was nice to see the mountains topped with snow. It wasn't nice when we left the airport in short sleeves and shorts and felt the wind smacking, no "kicking" us in the face. Can you tell we miss the weather, lol?? Adam was greeted at the airport by several of his friends - Tyler and Jason. Our good friend Dan drove them down with his other son to welcome us home. It was fun to see them and to hear that somebody actually read this blog. Dan told us he spent some time on Google Earth looking at the places we had visited. Kristin's parents picked us up at the airport and it was great to see them. Anna was a little disappointed that we didn't have people with signs at the airport welcoming us home. You know Anna, she loves a little attention, friends and a reason for a party! Anyway, the 30 minute drive home went by quickly as we discussed some of the highlights of our trip.

The last three weeks we have been home have been......interesting. It took us longer than we imagined to adjust to the 13 or 14 hour time zone change. The kids and Kristin and I had a really hard time getting up in the mornings until just a few days ago. It snowed the day after we got home and ever since it has been unseasonably cold. The sun only came up two days out of the last 20, which is not normal weather for Utah (which usually has 300 days of sunshine per year). We have been in somewhat of a daze trying to get back into the many routines of life. We often bring up what were doing a few weeks ago, or a month ago and enjoy reliving the amazing things we did and the great people we met.

When we came home, we were surprised to see a large yellow sign on our garage door with the words "Welcome Home" in Thai and in English. Our friend Lori went out of her way to give us a nice memory as we pulled into the driveway. It also had some nice pictures and notes from some of the kids in our culdesac. As you can imagine, Anna was especially tickled with this fun surprise as she got the "welcome home" sign she was hoping for.

One of the things we have noticed since being home is just how "clean" things are in the US. The roads seem enormously wide and perfectly painted. And where are all the motorcycles, chickens and goats?? It was odd for me to drive a car again after 2 months of being "chauffeured" everywhere. I made a comment to Kristin in regards to how difficult it must be to get in an accident with the amount of order and procedure in our roads. We both agreed that because driving doesn't take your full and undivided attention as in Asia, people probably get in accidents in the US mostly because they are distracted. In Asia, it takes your complete and undivided attention to drive as you are constantly dodging dogs, goats, chickens, motorcycles and people.

Another thing we have noticed is how much "stuff" we have in America. We walked into our home and it seemed like a mansion. We all felt like we were very indulgent and living lavish lifestyles as compared to southeast Asia. The kids said they felt funny sleeping in their "own" bedrooms. I think one of the goals we had was successful. We wanted our kids to really appreciate everything they had (3 provided meals a day, beds, a warm home, a closet full of clothes, nice schools with competent teachers, money, etc) and to not take anything for granted. The kids are quite grateful for these things and at times now wonder if we need so much. Kristin and I have both taken several trips with bags of clothes and other items to the DI (charity). We saw many poor people wearing clothes in Asia that were donated from the US as they had "Monsters Inc" or Las Vegas or Gap on them. The people wearing them had no idea what these words meant, but they were happy to have something to wear. I would encourage anyone to clean out your homes with the "stuff" that hangs in the closet or sits on a shelf in the garage, only rarely used. If you give it to a charity, these things will get used by people who have a real need and they will really appreciate them.

Am I glad that we took this trip? YES! Would I do it again? YES! Has it changed our outlook in life and even changed things we want to do in the future? YES! It made me realize that almost everyone in the US are blessed with many "opportunities" if we choose to do something with our opportunities. We choose how to spend our time each day and sometimes find ourselves "crazy busy" with tasks or with busy work. We don't spend enough time connecting with family and friends. Friends and family are a major part of our lives! Some of our best memories of this trip were being together as a family 24 hours a day over a 2 month period, without any distractions. We bonded in ways that I personally believe will pay back dividends in the future. Especially as were are now commencing right into the "teenage" years. We really enjoyed the many new friends we met along the way in the various countries. It would be a shame if we didn't maintain these new friendships because we become too "busy" back home.

THANKS to everyone for taking time to read this blog which allowed us to share our adventure with you. We really enjoyed the comments made by everyone or those who had a chance to say hello on the blog as we traveled (Aunt Susy and Family, Makell, Lori C, Rob, Bret, Renee, Annabel & Sammy, Mike & Kristin D, Mike and Tonia J, Courtney, Lang, Jeremy and Jeff). I also have to give credit to Jeff for sending me a simple, but firm email about a week into my trip "strongly encouraging" me to set-up a blog.

I know there are many others who read the blog that didn't have a chance to make a comment. In the spirit of cherishing the family and friends that we have, please send us a note to say hello at relinkowski@msn.com. We would love to hear from those of you who shared this blog with us!!! To all of our new friends across southeast Asia, please keep in touch or come visit us in Utah!

Sawateekhap!

The Elinkowski Family

DEAL OF THE WEEK: Ouch....we haven't found too many deals since coming home. For example, the only issue we had from leaving our house and cars for 2 months was coming home to a dead battery in my car. A new Mercedes car battery cost me $150! I could have had 50 hours of massages or 100 fresh fruit drinks for the same price! I have to quit comparing everything to fruit shakes and massages, for my own good...

FUNNY STORY OF THE WEEK: Nothing funny about the cold weather and snow! Kristin and I have decided that if you can't beat it, then join it - so we are going skiing tomorrow (April 16th) in two feet of fresh powder!

Beautiful Bali

Our last minute decision to come to Bali, Indonesia was a great one. It was the perfect way to end our southeast Asia tour, as Bali contains many of the things we love - tropical air, great food, beaches, volcanoes, surfing, nice people, and of course........an abundance of wild monkeys.

We stayed at a Bali styled villa with four bedrooms which came referred to us from our friends Sammy and Annabel (Dreamcatchers). We realized that we didn't really know which island in Indonesia was Bali or where exactly it was located. All we knew is that we were south of Malaysia and Singapore and near the equator. We did find a map of southeast Asia while here and were excited to see just how far south we had flown. Bali is actually 7 degrees south of the equator, directly above Australia. In fact, it is only an hour flight to Derby, Australia. I pointed out to the kids that for the first time in our lives, the sun was actually slightly north of us. We also looked at the southern stars at night, as we knew these were constellations which couldn't be seen back in North America.

Bali is a place that would require months to explore. It has something like 5 or 6 different climates across the island. I met a local named Vicki at the neighborhood gym who said she and her husband have lived here for 4 years and still have not seen everything. They are originally from Australia, but love living in Bali. It is interesting to note that the average monthly temperature only varies by 2 Celsius degrees throughout the year. Because of this, we found most of the Bali style homes to be open with no walls. It took us a few days to get used to being in our living room, sitting on a couch, with a complete and open view of the palm trees and pool outside. We also enjoyed watching the frogs hop into our villa at night, look at us, and then hop back out.

Kristin and I slept in a detached round villa or bungalow with a thatched roof. We loved the outside bathroom which had a shower with no roof. You could watch and hear the exotic birds flying around while you lathered up your hair with some shampoo. Besides the birds, there was a tree nearby that had the brightest pink and purple flowers. I even took a hot shower one morning while it was raining really hard outside, which was an interesting thing to do. Isn't it true that rain water makes your hair softer? Bali was just ending their rainy season, so it only rained on us one night and one morning. It was fun to listen to the thunder outside because it was some of the loudest rolling thunder I have ever heard. It really shook the ground below our bungalow.

We spent a few days exploring some of the beaches. The first beach within walking distance had black sand. The sand was soft but was entirely black with shiny specks, making it beautiful. The beaches all had huge waves which made it great for swimming. These beaches always had a lot happening with dogs and even horses running down the beach. (No, the horses weren't wild and did have people riding them.) On our first day at the beach, we realized we were swimming in the Indian ocean. It's fun to see something that you once memorized in geography class.

We went to the other side of Bali and visited another beach, which had soft white sand and smaller waves. The large waves "broke" about a mile from shore from an outer coral reef which were great to watch. We located this beach as a referral from Vicki and quickly found ourselves in our beach chairs with umbrella about 20 feet from the water. We had so much fun swimming in the ocean and even found some rocks nearby which provided daytime shade.

The island is primarily inhabited by people belonging to the Hindu religion which Kristin and I knew little about. The Hindu's only have 4 options for first names, so you meet a lot of people with the same first name. It is determined by your birth order and it doesn't matter your gender. I asked someone what happens if you have five kids, and he said the 5th child would use the same name as the first born. The Hindu's also worship many gods. They believe in one primary god, but then there are many gods under the primary god. We often saw people placing straw bowls outside their homes and in the streets with food and flowers in them as an offering to the spirits. They believe you try to keep the good spirits happy and the bad spirits happy enough to leave you alone - very interesting. All of the Hindu people treated us great and we found them interesting to converse with. We even had the chance to see an ancient Hindu tribal monkey dance which was very dramatic with 50 men singing, dancing and walking through fire.

We hired a driver one day to take us to the middle of the island to a city called Ubud. The drive was awesome as we saw three distinct volcanoes in the background. We found a monkey sanctuary, which is basically a place where hundreds of monkeys live in the wild. The kids loved seeing and feeding the monkeys. You could see them living in families, swimming in ponds, climbing trees, eating, playing, and even some moms carrying their newborn babies. We realized that monkeys really are like people. There are good monkeys that are fun to play with and there are bad monkeys that growl and like to steal hats and sunglasses.

We decided to go surfing on our last full day in Indonesia. We negotiated with several people on the beach until we found two great instructors, five surfboards and two hours of lessons. Within 5 minutes, we were surprised to see Anna "standing up" on the board, riding a wave into shore. Lexi was was up a few minutes later and then Adam. Surprisingly, we were all up on our boards "catching a wave" within 20 minutes. We all joked about "catching a wave" or "riding the big kahuna" while we hummed the "Hawaii Five O" theme song. It was a blast to see the kids at the end of our lesson, riding their surfboards and doing tricks like jumping off their board and doing a "180" while surfing. Maybe snow and water sports in Utah helped us to pick it up faster. We all agreed it would be fun to come back to Bali in the future for a surfing vacation. The water was so warm and perfect waves came every 45 seconds. I guess that is why Bali is known as one of the surfing capitals of the world.

The morning we left, we had a chance to further visit with John Paul and Danielle who owned the villa. They lived next door in a very nice 2 story Bali style home complete with their own lily pad moat (around the house) and large swimming pool. We enjoyed spending some time with them and the chance to get to know them better. John Paul is a photographer by profession and Danielle runs a successful high end clothing business with several boutique stores. They are from France, but spend 9 months of the year living in Bali.

Bali was a difficult place to leave, especially as we knew our vacation was about over. We were so glad we decided to visit and to explore a small piece of Indonesia. I am glad I was able to share our trip with our friends and family and anyone else who received this blog address. I will try to make one more blog update over the next week with my final thoughts and perhaps a picture or two.

DEAL OF THE WEEK: No doubt about it, it was the surfing lessons. Bali offers some great surfing schools and you can pay $75 an hour....or more. We were able to negotiate lessons for five people, the expertise of two private instructors, and five surf boards for the total cost of $54 US. Our instructors were very patient, easy going, and a lot of fun. The total cost was less than the price of one ski pass to Snowbasin! Of course the food and massages and spa services were also very cheap in Indonesia as in other parts of Asia.

FUNNY STORY OF THE WEEK: It would have been easy to write about the monkey relieving itself on Lexi and Adam, or when I found myself riding a borrowed motorcycle into town dodging flying bats along the way. Instead, I thought I would mention our visit to the beautiful white sand beach on the east side of Bali. This was a private beach near a great restaurant and about a mile from the public beach. After Kristin and I rented our beach chairs (free if you ate lunch at the restaurant), we quickly sat down to rest in our chairs taking in the sun. The kids said they wanted to swim, so they ran into the water to cool down. After a few minutes, Kristin and I noticed that we were suddenly surrounded by Europeans also spending the day at the beach. Well, not sure how many people have ever swam with Europeans, but their culture dictates that it is NOT necessary for the women to wear the top half of their bathing suit. Europeans fully believe that women and men are very equal at the beach. Before we knew it, most of the kids, moms and "grandmas" were sunbathing in a manner that would fully prevent them from getting any tan or sunburn "lines". We told Adam to keep his eyes on the water. Kristin commented how interesting it was as they would continue to play with their kids, swim or eat lunch as if they were fully dressed. No big deal. The group next to us contained about 5 moms and about 12 kids playing the same way you would see a "play group" back home.......with only one exception as Kristin pointed out!

Magnificient Malaysia

Malaysia turned out to be another favorite of ours and a country that really intrigued us. Since this country was not on our original itinerary, we didn't really know what to expect. We found a nice airport, no requirement to purchase a visa, and beautiful landscape with lush trees and forests everywhere. The country definitely has a strong Muslim presence, but again we were treated kindly by everyone. Many people went out of their way to give us directions, show us how to do something or ask us if we needed any help. Almost everyone here speaks English and it appears to be their official business language, which was nice. I think the kids and Kristin and I have all gotten well over any negative stereotyping we might have had regarding people that cover themselves from head to foot in public.

Our hotel was very modern and located in the downtown area which was only about 15 minutes from the airport. The currency here is the "RM" or the Ringet. It's been interesting to use so many different forms of currency on this trip. The nice thing is that it doesn't matter the currency in southeast Asia - you will almost always find that things are cheaper than in the US.

So, what does a person do while in the capital city of Maylasia - called Kuala Lumper? Well, our recommendation is to walk to the nearest bus station where you can purchase a $2 ticket for an hour long bus ride to the "Genting Highlands". It's a great ride as you drive up into the mountains which are also a tropical rain forest. When you arrive, you can buy a ticket to take the longest cable car ride in southeast Asia to an elevation of 6,100 feet. As we were riding to the top, we opened the windows and couldn't believe the sounds of the birds, insects and many "mystery" animals we couldn't see. We did see some monkeys in one of the rivers below. The rain forest is so thick you really can't see the ground when riding over in a cable car. At the top, we exited from our cable car and found a very modern amusement park. Picture "Lagoon" or a six flags at the top of Ben Lomond peak and you will get the idea (for those of you in Utah). We decided to buy tickets and enjoy the amusement park....not something we ever thought we would do in Malaysia.

The rides at the park were fun and it was interesting to have "clouds" move in and out of the park. One minute it was sunny and then the next minute you were literally in a cloud. It even rained once for about 40 minutes. We could tell the local Muslim population thought we were an interesting site. Many of them would smile at us or the parents would point us out to their kids with sidebar conversations. We also caught a handful of people trying to take pictures of us in the park. Kristin and the girls had more pictures taken of them than Adam and I. Kristin and I commented that being a minority has been a great experience for the kids. They are very comfortable now in cities or countries where they are the ones who are different. It was great for us to be on the rides with so many local people all having fun together. It makes you realize how similar we are as people - we all like to get away from our daily routines or the stress of life once in a while to have some fun! Hopefully some of this came through in the pictures posted above.

The next day we took a taxi to the Petronas Towers. I remember hearing about this twin tower building when it was built years ago because it took the title of the worlds tallest building away from the Sears Tower in Chicago. At the time, I remember thinking where in the *&^^(&%! is Kuala Lumper, Malaysia. Now I know! (Apparently Taiwan has the largest building now, but Dubai will take over the record in the next year or two.....) The Petronas building was fun to see as it contains a world class mall inside on the bottom 5 floors. Outside is a large park with a pond and an impressive water feature which reminded me of the Belagio fountains in Las Vegas. We were actually surprised again at how modern the mall was....incredible. Unfortunately, they had signs posted saying no photography allowed inside the building.

The last thing we did was to visit a children's science museum inside the towers. It was an impressive museum with more hands on exhibits than I have ever seen in a museum. We all thought it would take "days" to go through the entire exhibit. The kids could have spent all day inside the museum, but we had to leave after a couple of hours to catch our flight. Of course, the museum was sponsored by who else - Petronas Petroleum. A lot of the museum was explaining all about oil - its importance, many uses, and why they must protect it. Malaysia is so modern and has a nice infrastructure because oil is big business here and oil is money. Petronas is a large corporation which has many oil platforms in the ocean and they also pull oil out of the rock beds found inland. I even noticed a Kuwait bank downtown. It's obvious there is money here...

We wondered why more Americans don't visit Malaysia. Maybe it has something to do with the oil, or maybe the Muslim community. I don't think the Malaysian government does a lot of tourism advertising because they probably don't need tourism revenue like other countries. It probably has more to do with the long flight to get here. I know a couple of locals asked us about the economy in the US, what we thought of Obama and why more Americans don't come to Malaysia. Whatever the case, it is a place we would like to come back and do some "beach" research. We spoke to a couple of locals who said the beaches are absolutely phenomenal.

This was our shortest visit to a country during our trip as we were there less than 48 hours. It will be very memorable and we all said we were glad we added this stop to our itinerary.

DEAL OF THE WEEK: All votes are in and we all agreed that the deal of the week in Malaysia was our trip to the amusement park. We bought five full day passes for the park at a total cost of $40. It was also fun to eat lunch at the amusement park, stop for periodic snacks, water and soda for about $15 that day...a total of $55 for our entire family for the day.

FUNNY STORY OF THE WEEK: I thought since I was taking the time to write this blog that I could avoid contributing again to funny story of the week. I was out voted again. The story this week took place at the amusement park in Maylasia. We were having a great time, walking or running from ride to ride. After a couple of hours the kids saw a ride that resembled the alpine slide in Park City. We waited about 5 minutes in line and when we were about to get on, they had Anna get on a scale. It was really sad when the guy working the ride shook his head "no" because she didn't make the weight requirement. I felt bad for her because we all know what it is like to be too "small" for a ride. Kristin decided she would wait with Anna and then maybe go on the ride after I took Adam and Lexi. As I was standing there, the guy motioned for "me" to get on the scale. I got on the amusement park "scale" and imagine how I felt when he started shaking his head in a way that said "NO WAY" or "NOT A CHANCE" big guy. He told me I was too "large" for the ride. This has never happened to me in an amusement park. I guess there is a first for everything. You have to remember that the Asian population is much smaller than we are, and the rides are designed for the locals. At least that is what I told myself. Kristin then took Adam and Lexi on the slide as Anna and I went on another ride more suitable for small and large people. I am sure I will be hitting the gym hard when we are home......