Liebster Blog Award

Hey all! Meritxell from TourismWithMe nominated us for the Liebster Award, an award for newbie travel bloggers. It was a very nice gesture and a reaffirmation for Vicky and I that yes, there are some people out there, believe it or not, who read this little blog of ours. Thanks a bunch!

The rules of the Liebster Award are:

• When you receive the award you post 11 random facts about yourself
• Answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who nominated you
• Pass on the award to 11 other blogs with less than 200 followers
• Set your nominees 11 questions

We’ll have to think more about the nominations, we’ve just been so swamped recently with Burma, but for now…

11 random facts about us:

• We met in a virtual high school course, which are courses that we took on the internet. We went to the same high school but would meet in the library to do our respective VHS courses.
• Combined we can converse (OK, get by) in English, Spanish, French, and Russian.
• Both of us have a fear of spiders.
• This trip is both of ours’ first trip to Asia.
• We love to play the Russian card game “Durak” with each other and have played hundreds of games since our start.
• Dave likes sweet, Vicky likes savory.
• For one year Dave taught himself how to play the drums.
• While in DC Vicky was co-runner of a catering company.
• Neither Dave nor Vicky really like sitcoms but love movies.
• Dave can wiggle his left ear but not his right. He can also make a clover with his tongue.
• Vicky has three active passports, Russian, American, and Australian.

11 Questions from Tourism With Me:

What kind of traveler do you consider yourself?
We like to think of ourselves as backpackers who are willing to rough it when need be but, when time and money permits, might take it easy with a few smoothies on the beach.

Complete the sentence: Travel gives me…

Time to think

What is your next destination?

Northern Thailand (After Burma). As Thailand is such a hub for plane flights, we’re actually going to do it piece mail in three parts. We did part one and now are in Burma (which is why there will be no Thailand wrap up, just yet). Then we have two more times (to do Northern Thailand, and Eastern islands).

If you could travel anywhere where would you go? Why?

Tough one, since in many ways we’re going to a lot of the places we want to – that’s how we planned our trip. Though I guess it would be really neat to go to Easter Island since it’s such a far off destination.

What’s your favorite city? Why?

No favorites but we both loved Tokyo. It’s full of life and energy but there’s an order about it that is so unlike most cities and purely stems from the Japanese culture.

A travel that has changed your life. Why?

Studying abroad for both of us introduced us to languages, friends abroad, and the travel itch that we are currently scratching.

Why you started travel blogging?

We started the blog as a way to preserve our memories and hopefully make some money to fund our trip. So far it is doing both and we’re very pleased!

Where did you experience the most cultural shock? Explain the experience

So far it’s been Yangon, Burma. That city is booming with people, colors, sounds, smells, noises in a wild, kaleidoscopic way that we have never experienced before. I imagine and hope that India will be something like that, perhaps even more so. As for now, it was a massive culture shock.

Explain the story of how you met someone while travelling

We had a great time in Yangshuo with Elle, who was a student of ours at the Language Institute where we taught English. She invited us to go bike riding and we went on an intense excursion in the outskirts of the town. Really nice!

If you could travel to the past where would you go?

We would love to go to prehistoric times. Yes, there are plenty of interesting times to see but to see live dinosaurs would be out of this world.

Give us a recommendation for something we should try doing somewhere in the world

We always recommend for people to give Couchsurfing a try, at least once. Works for all ages and situations (yes, we’ve Couchsurfed with older people, with parents and their kids, etc).