- Getting a new camera in Malaysia
I had to sell my old camera to afford a new one, and no one would buy used cameras, I checked about 15 different camera shops before finding one that would buy my camera, and sold the new camera for the same price Amazon did.
2. Going kayaking at the beach in Malaysia.
We had debrief on this beautiful island. And one of the days me and Derek got to got Kayaking for an hour for 3 dollars each. We took off at the beach and got to kayak to some island. Stop for a swim, and on the way back found a dead baby squid.
3. Eating lunch on the beach at Daddies Café.
Same place we went kayaking at they had an amazing café right on one of the prettiest beaches I had ever been to. The food was pretty fair priced as well.
4. Orange juice in Malaysia
The main place I ate at in Malaysia was a Chinese restaurant called “Rest Time.” While waiting for my food from rest time, I would go next door and order some freshly squeezed orange juice that was some of the freshest I had ever had.
5. Guys night with Derek.
Once a week we had guys night and girls night. Me and Derek normally went and got Chinese then would go bowling. One night we even tried out their pool tables which were about 40% larger, with balls that were a bit smaller. Everything was very different, and we gave up after about 10 minutes of not getting a single ball in.
6. Staying up until 3am making my first video. I had started the race out with a much bigger passion for photography then for video. But when I got my new camera I told my self to make to purchase worth it, I had to start making some videos. I found I did a lot better of a job at this then I realized I could. My first video at the end of Malaysia took me about 4 hours to edit though to get everything timed right. I have sense gotten much more efficient. Lol
7. Taking a bus to the near by city Alstar for our day off and watching Taken 2 (disappointing movie) but fun hanging with the team.
8. Spending the month with a room to myself and sleeping in my hammock
We spent our month in Malaysia living in the kindergarten we did ministry in. The girls had a room to them selves, Derek and Christina and their own room. And I got the class room as my room. I set my hammock up on the windows bars for my bed. I had to back everything up and put it in the girls room every morning before class started.
9. Dressing up as Fred Flintstone for Halloween party.
We celebrated Halloween as a squad at the end of the month during debrief. All the teams were suppose to dress up with their own idea. Our team did the Flintstones.
10. Finding out Garrett was getting added to our team.
At the end of debrief, they told us my first team “Rooter Freedom” would no longer be a team, and they divided the members among several of the other teams. We got Garrett. I was very excited about this.
11. Watching the sun rise as we took a fairy back to the mainland after debrief. We had to get up at like 4am to head to Cambodia. And took the first fairy of the day back to the mainland. It was about a 30 minute or so ride. And I got to spend it on the deck taking pictures and filming the sunrise. It was absolutely gorgeous.
12. Stopping by the airport to get pizza.
Every week for our day off, we went to Phenom Phen, the capital of Cambodia. To get snacks, internet and food. One of the times we stopped by the airport on our way back to pick up some pizza, and I ran into a friend of my families who was in line at Dairy Queen in front of me. I had no idea who she was, but started a conversation with her, and she kept asking me questions about what I was doing. Until she finally realized she went on a mission trip with my family a year prior.
13. Going to the town fair.
For ministry one day, we went to a town fair, it was for some kind of boat race and they actually had a lot of really fun stuff. They had the dart throwing thing to pop balloons, and you won way better prizes then you did in America. There was also a Ferris Wheel.
14. Visiting Siem Reap and seeing Angkor watt.
Toward the end of our month, we got to take a weekend off and go 6 hours north to a very touristy city called Siem Reap and visit Angkor Watt.
15. The best pancakes I've ever had at an Australian restraint in Siem Reap.
If you havn’t noticed, there is not much that will get a World Racer more excited then good food. And some of these places it will be hard to match back in the states.
16. Mexican at "Viva” in Siem reap
Some of the best Mexican I had on the race, and it was 75 cent tacos and 75 cent draft beers. As well as some amazing chips and Salsa. You cant beat that.
17. Having a drink with Garrett and then an atheist walking up and asking to join our conversation on evolution and God. We then had a 3 hour conversation, and I think witnessed is a way this man was able to accept it. Possibly for the first time in his life.
18 .Having a Bon fire with the village for our last night even though it was blazing Hot.
19. Tutoring Lynda and Rhatana on Psalms 23.
Every day from 2-3 we did one on one English tutoring with a lot of the kids. Several of the days I got with Lynda and Rhatana, the 2 most advanced students and worked on their English by explaining phrase by phrase what Psalm 23 meant. I also gave them 5 days to memorize it, with a 2 dollar prize for them if they completed it. That is a days wages for most people there.
20. Watching the amazing Spider-Man with all the kids in the village.
One of the nights I got all the kids together and played a movie for them. They were very excited
21. Watching the sun rise over Angkor watt
I took a time-lapse and meant a professional videographer who was doing a project for Pixar. I got to talk to him, and get his opinion on several different things.
22. Going with Derek to a random home.
I had taken a walk down a new path, and meant a family who God really opened my heart to. They spoke no English, but I tried to show them the Love of Jesus how I could. I came back the next day with Derek and we did what we could to help them harvest some of their rice.
23. Spending the day at the river.
One of our days for ministry we got on the back of a truck with 20ish kids and went to a river for the day. It was a “interesting” but fun experience.
24. First day getting to visit Phenom Penh
25. Extreme coffee every morning
Every morning with breakfast we got some of the strongest frappuccino style coffee I have ever had. It sure woke a person up in the morning.
26. Going to the grocery store and finding chips and salsa, goldfish, beef jerky, gummy worms, jolly ranchers, recesses, and granola.
I cant explain how happy this made me.
27. Meeting Shrey-on and bringing her to Jesus
One day when teaching I realized there were two girls there who I hadn’t seen before. I asked about them, and was told there normally are working in the factories, but today was a holiday. My heart went out to them, as I had heard how bad the human rights violations were in the factories (for example, they only let women work, because men tend to “fight back” more when mistreated) Anyways, I went and talked to her for a half hour. And talked to her 2 or 3 more times that month. She accepted Jesus at the end of the month.
28. Playing soccer with the kids.
29. Walking in circles around an electricity poll talking on the phone.
We were in the middle of no where, but still some how had cellphone signal. (Everyone everywhere has a cellphone. People might be struggleing to feed their kids. But they have a phone. So there is always some kind of reception.) Anyways, I didn’t get very good signal inside, and outside if I sat down, I would get eaten alive by bugs. So I would go on a walk, and normally for some reason stop at the electricity tower, and walk circles around it, while I talked to my friends or family.
30. Hunting a rat with Derek in his room.
The place we stayed at had 4 walls and a roof. There was however still about 6 inches of space between the walls and the roof giving only partial cover. We were still very thankful for it. Rats however, were a big problem. One of these rats ate a hole in Christinas backpack to get to her protein bars. Then a week or so later another one tried to get in Christinas stuff again. We were able to trap it in the room, and me and Derek chased it around the room throwing anything we could get our hands on at it. We about broke several things. I finally remembered I had a glue pad in the other room I had used to try and catch the rats. I placed it in front of the rats path stopping it dead in its tracks. I wont say how we disposed of it afterwards.
31. Watching 2 seasons of game of thrones in 3 days
I started the series “Game of Thrones” and got so into it, I couldn’t put it down. I watched 18 episodes in 48 hours. (It was our last two days, and we were not doing a whole lot.
32. Visiting Daughters of Cambodia (a cafe that employs girls rescued from the sex trade that serves some of the better food ice had on the race)
33. Worship with K squad Cambodia.
At the end of our month in Cambodia, we ran into K squad who was just arriving there. We got to do worship with them that night. It was very interesting getting to see how completely different, and yet totally the same our 2 squads were.
34. Bus ride to Vietnam
35. Spending the month with ac Internet and a warm shower.
36. Smoothies, Kabobs, and subway 🙂
Just about every day I had a $1 fresh fruit smoothie for breakfast. Ate a Kabob for lunch, sometimes two. (they were a dollar twenty five.
Then went to subway for a 6 inch sub for $2.50. I wont say I got tired of eating the same thing every day. It was wonderful
37. Slacking lining in the park and getting kicked out by the police.
They have a big park in the middle of HMC where people go and do all kinds of activities. Practice karate, water gun fights, roller blading. Just about anything you can think of. For some reason though, the police really disliked me tying my tight rope to two of their trees. I got kicked out the first time because they said I had to big of a crowd around me. I needed to move. So I went to a different part of the park. And got kicked out again, They told me it was a $150 dollar fine if they found me again. I took the hint and did not try it again.
38. Visiting the tunnels from the Vietnam war
We got to visit the tunnels used in the war. It was very interesting hearing the other countries prospective of a war. And made me extremely glad I did not fight in the war. The Vietnamese are a very fierce people.
39. Playing darts and foolsball at Boston's
At a local bar we would go to some times to minister at, or just hang out. They had darts and foolsball. It was a hang out we were at often.
40. Getting my package from home J
My wonderful mother sent me a package in Campodia with a lot of stuff I really wanted. It was supposed to take 10 days, but ended up taking a month to get to our location in Cambodia. So I had to pay 50 more dollars to have to package fwded to Vietnam. It finally made it.
41 Spending hours at the post office sending a package home.
42. Getting to see the hobbit!!
I was very sad not getting to see the hobbit on opening day with everyone back at home. It was not released in Vietnam until 2 weeks after the states. I was very very excited to see it. However slightly disappointed with the movie its self.
43. Twenty minute walks to the grocery store
44. Spending the day at coffee bean downloading videos
I was told the best way to improve on film making was to watch stuff other people had made. I spent a good amount of time download videos off of youtube and vimeo. I downloaded 100-150 to study.
45. Skyping my family with my team
One of the days for team time, our team skyped each persons family for a couple minutes.
46. Christmas dinner in the hotel lobby
47. Sharing a three pound burger which also happened to be the best burger I've ever had in my life.
48. Ultimate frisbee in the park in Há»” chi mon city
I enjoy ultimate frisbee somewhat. But we did it two or three times a week for two hours. I don’t have the attention span to play the sport that long. But it was good excersize.
49. two hour "tea talks" with the college students in Vietnam
50. Spending 4 hours going around the city looking for PVC pipe and other needed parts to build a shoulder rig for my camera.
I went to shop after shop looking for a part that every shop said they didn’t have. Most people would of given up, but I saw a picture of what I needed in one of the shops and new they had to have it. After four hours of running around, I finally found it. See, being super persistent is not always a bad thing!
51. Burger King in the airport and remembering how "awesome" fast foods makes you feel.
52. New Years in Uganda –
We had debrief in Jinja, a lodge that I had gotten to visit the year prior. So we were just hanging around the lodge that over looked the nile river for the new year.
53. Traveling in the nicest airline I have ever been in. Wishing my plane flight would last longer. We took emirates airline, and it was an extreamly nice flight with amazing service. It was the first time I had ever been in a plane for 8 or 9 hours, and was sad it was over
54. Rafting the Nile for the second time and having the same guide both times.
55. Taking videos of my team bungee jumping .
I went up on the platform to try and film everyone jumping. But really struggled to get good footage because I was so terrified of being up there. I was more scared then any of the people who were actually jumping.
I jumped from the same platform a year prior. Did not care to do it again.
56. Bon fire in Uganda and it actually being cold.
I love fires, and it is one of the things I missed the most about winter is camp fires with friends and family.
57. Camping in my tent for debrief in Jinja Uganda
58. Fajitas that Jason made at debrief
59. Chilling by the pool at a resort
60. Late nights with the gang playing cards against humanity (a different twist to apples to apples)
61. Building a website for the orphanage we worked at.
I have taken 1 class for web design, that gave me a little bit of an idea how to build a website. I volunteered to make one for our contact, and took me about 100 hours in 2 weeks to do it. (with spending the time to research how to do a lot of the things.) It was very difficult, as I spent about a week going 8-10 hours a day. But it was awesome getting to bless the contact.
62. Taking pictures in the middle of the night of the stars
63. Spending our 200th day of the race at an all night African worship
We went to a all night Worship rave. And it was pretty crazy. People were lifting chairs over their heads in praise to God
64. Three hour ride from lira to where were staying for the month wondering what would happen first, us getting stuck in the mud overnight from the heavy rain (dirt road) or losing my legs from the lack of blood making to them.
65. Getting to visit lira for 2 days and going back to the contact I stayed with last summer in Uganda and getting to see everyone I worked with a year and a half ago.
I was planning on doing 100, but I gave a lot more detail in each then I did last time. And this is already 3,000 words. So I don’t want people getting scared because the post is to long.
I should be posting a video from Uganda at the end of the month when I have better internet.
