Last thoughts: Belize it or not!

Today marks the end of my stay in Belize.  It was a bittersweet good bye since Belize City was Belize Shitty.  That's actually what the locals call it, no joke!  One weekend there was a shooting on the street where the shooter knocked down an 8 year old boy and shot him in the face and body 5 times!!!  Yes, I said 8 year old.  I think the scariest thing about this place is the fact that there is no clear delineation between sketchy neighborhoods and nice ones, it’s all just sketchy.  Here are some pictures of the neighborhood.

Cave Tubing- Primary Research

Altun Ha - More primary research.  It's hard work out here in Belize!

Street in Belize Shitty

Renaissance Towers where MBAs Without Borders put us up for the month

On the other hand, the project we worked on was extremely interesting.  We got to meet some really cool local artisans and also got to interview a lot of cruise passengers.  The people we worked with were extremely supportive and we actually got to use the skillz we learned in business school, which is always a bonus! 

Me presenting part of our final presentation

Final group picture!

Next stop: San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua!

Diving the Blue Hole: Un-Belize-able!

130ft under the sea! This at the inside of the Blue Hole on the southern end.  We are on our way to check out the underwater stalactites 

More of us heading towards the stalactite wall.  At this point I was feeling a little of the nitrogen narcosis from being so deep! :)

That's me in the yellow flippers, yeah that's right I'm soooo fashionable

Bull shark in the distance! Since it was so deep the visibility was poor so you literally could not see the shark until it was RIGHT THERE! And yes, that's a BULL SHARK

Yup, he got closer! Good thing the dive master clanked his tank and scared the shark away.  I was hiding behind the dive master.  Made for an awkward conversation on the boat when the DM was like "Yeah I KNOW you were using me as a shield" haha, my bad!

I love fishes 'cause they're so delicious! Juuuust kidding, I didn't eat any of them!

Half Moon Caye by the Blue Hole.  This is also a World Heritage site.  We stopped by here for lunch, it was absolutely amazing!

Me on the boat leaving Half Moon Caye.  

I got to ride shotgun in this small commercial flight from Belize City to San Pedro, or "La Isla Bonita".  It was a pretty sweet ride! Unfortunately it was on autopilot so I didn't get go drive :D

Here's a picture of the team that I'm working with in Belize City.  This is us at the Caye Caulker lobster fest along with Fran (who owned a stand at the lobster fest and made the BEST grilled lobsters).  They were totally going to enter me in the Miss Lobster Fest pageant but unfortunately we missed it by a weekend!  Apparently a little 12 year old girl won, I TOTALLY would've been able to beat her!

From left to right: Fran's helper, Ryder (team member from DC), Cameron (team member from DC), me (duh), Fran (seated because she was tired from grilling lobsters all day), Anand (team member from NY) 

Flight Back to LA

Of course it is only fitting that there would be an incident on my flight back to the states.  Halfway through the flight the flight attendants came on the loud speakers asking for a doctor on board.  Since this has happened to me on multiple flights I didn’t think too much of this.  When we landed in LA we were then asked to stay in our seats while the medics boarded the plane, again this seemed pretty procedural to me.  When it finally came time for me to leave the plane I walked past a person who was laid out across the four middle seats completely covered in blankets to which I thought to myself “dang, that person is passed the fuck out!”  As I continued walking I passed 3 seats and a blanket or two that were completely covered in what looked like ketchup.  I thought, “Wow these people were inconsiderate ruining their seats like that!”  As I went through customs the customs guy looked at my immigration form and said:

“Oh! Flight PR102, didn’t somebody die on that plane?!”

”Um, WHAT?! What happened?!?!?!”

“Yeah they were saying something about how they couldn’t stop the bleeding”

Yup, that was a dead body that I walked by and that was NOT ketchup.

Cambodia - More Amazing Than Advertised

No words can describe how amazingly beautiful Cambodia was so here's just some pictures.

Angkor Wat

In the center of Angkor Wat

Famous face temple

Ta Prohm Temple

More Ta Prohm

Even More Ta Prohm (You can guess which temple was my favorite)

Crazy Pho Vietnam

The most creative pick pocketing situation I have ever heard of happened to Chris and Kevin in Vietnam.  Our last night in the city Chris and Kevin decided to stay out later and continue to bar hop.  On their way there a man and his lady pull up in front of them on his scooter.  She jumps off the scooter and comes toward the guys and begins to aggressively proposition for sex.  She grabs their “junk” and asks to see if they’re interested.  Apparently this is where she sneaks the wallets out of the front pocket of the male victim.  Only after they fly off on their scooter did Chris and Kevin realize they’ve been pick pocketed.

Besides the pick pocketing incident Vietnam consisted of visits to the War Remnants Museum, Cu Chi Tunnels,  and the Cao Dai Temple.  It was amazing how much anti American propaganda still existed in those places (minus the temple).  For example, they showed a video at the Cu Chi tunnels  that showed a girl who’s parents were killed by Americans.  She then killed eight Americans and became “American Killer War Hero”.  Awesome. 

Mid-Southeast Asia Adventure Update!

Singapore- Good for the food baby!
Arrived safely to Asia sans checked bag thanks to Phillipine Airlines!  Luckily, I had some "emergency medication" that I absolutely needed from my bag; magically the bag then appeared at the hotel 2 days later :D Three whirl wind days in Singapore = lots of eating yummy Singaporean food!
Memorable moments:
1. Fish spas:  You sit with your feet in a tank and the fish "feed" off of the dead skin on your feet.  It was the oddest thing I have ever experienced, although I highly recommend that everyone should at least try it once, kind of tickles
2. Kevin spitting: Yup Kevin broke the law and spit right after which he realized what he had just done and nearly crapped himself.  No joke.  It was awesome.
3. Casinos do not allow people in wearing tank tops, shorts and flip-flops. Check, check and check, thanks to me we couldn't get into the casino, oopsies!  Although there is a super sweet looking casino that is three buildings and a boat that sits on the roofs and connects the buildings together, check out the pics!
4. London Eye, or is it Singapore Eye?  Giant ferris wheel that goes reaalllllly realllllyy slow but you can see the whole city on it.
5. Being yelled at by the locals for not knowing that its ok to drink on the street because they thought I was Singaporean.

Sipadan, Malaysia = SipaWOW!
Travelling to Sipadan is definitely tricky.  We caught a flight to Kuala Lumpur, then another flight to Tawau and finally an hour and half car ride to Semporna.  The next day we took a boat to Mapul; this is the island that people stay on when visiting Sipadan since people are not allowed to stay on Sipadan island.  Mapul itself was absolutely amazing, the water was so clear you can see to the bottom in the shallow parts.  Sadly the locals are polluting the water and after a rainstorm you can see the plastic bottles, bags, etc floating in the water.  I HIGHLY recommend the place we stayed at Sipadan.com, the people were extremely friendly and the dive masters were awesome!  Since the shower there was outdoors and drained directly into the ocean, I spent 3 days not showering with shampoo and soap out of principle, I smelled delicious! (Eric will be proud of my tree hugger ways!)

The diving in that part of the world was by far THE BEST I have ever seen.  Some highlights include:  TONS of turtles, white tip reef sharks, beautiful coral, cuttle fish, sting ray, a HUGE school (it looked like a wall) of jack fish that you can swim through, another HUGE school of barracuda that you shouldn't swim through, and a FLAMBOYANT CUTTLEFISH! these fish apparently are the rearest to see when diving, many of the dive masters there with hundreds of dives have never seen one.  When it got aggravated with us the FC walked along the bottom of the ocean floor and was changing colors, it was unbelievable. Photos to follow.

Travelling Part Deux

Yay! It's that time of the year again, time to hit the old dusty trail! :D  Since I am unemployed until mid-September I figured the best use of my time and money was to go travelling!  The agenda so far is as follows:

June 15-30: 3 days in Singapore, then 5 days diving in Sipadan, 3 days in Ho Chi Minh, 2 days in Siem Reap.  This should be an awesome trip minus the fact that I'm going to be travelling with the brothers (Kevin and Neal) and Kevin's friend Chris and Akari (Akari's there for only 4 days).  So basically it's going to be the guys getting drunk and me being like "aw come on guys, really? what did you eat?!"  Ah, good times had by all.

July 2-30:  Belize.  I'm doing an MBA's Without Borders project there (yes, MBAs have hearts too, not just doctors!).  I'm super excited about this project since it'll be working with 3 other people who are also going to be working for the same company in the fall.  As per usual, I'm not sure what the details of the project are but will update when I figure it out!

August 1-16:  Solo travelling in Central America!!! YAY!! Um yeah, that's the extent of that travelling, I was thinking of Nicaragua but then my brain started hurting from any more planning than that so I guess I will figure this portion out when I'm in Belize.

August 16-25:  Los Angeles! Yes it's the most exotic place ever! You can see all sorts of creatures with crazy botox :D  Actually the girls are coming into town for a fun filled week! Can't wait to see everyone!!!!! It's been too long!

August 25-early Sept: I'm still trying to figure out whether it will be Croatia or Machu Picchu

Early Sept - when my life is handed over to the man: Barcelona!  Yep, I've never been to Spain before. Yes it's embarassing, but this will soon be rectified! Also, let's hope that Greece continues to suck so I can go to Barcelona and be the rich American!

So here's a preview of what's to come.  I met an old, white guy (yes I am still specifying his race Chase, deal with it), let's just call him "Uncle Ray" who was telling me about how he was going to the Phillipines to meet his fiance.  It turns out it was actually just his pen-pal who he was hoping was going to become his fiance on this trip out.  That's when I graciously backed out of the conversation.  Lucky for me though, he ended up sitting next to me for an AMAZING 14 hour flight where I was stuck between him and another big old guy (note to self, check in online before hand to get a window or aisle seat).  First he sits down and was like "hey didn't I meet you in line? you can't imagine how much I had to bribe the ticket people to seat me next to you".  Yup, he managed to out-creep himself. So during the flight the attendant had Ray reach over to wake me up for a meal to which he replied "I know she's beautiful, but she's not my wife", imagine waking up to hearing that?! I proceeded to vomit into a paper bag. Again, Ray, you've out-creeped yourself, bravo! Just to up the ante, other fat guy on the other side of me started asking me about whether I had a boyfriend or not and how he would love to introduce me to his daugher, yes daughter.  Riiiight.  It was a happy flight for sure!

That's all for now! I'm going to try to soak myself in bleach to wash the creep off my skin.