Asia

I had a lovely weekend visit to Kampot with Khymer friends in Jan 2012. It is a beautiful riverside town with a more tranquil atmosphere, and I found it to be the perfect get-away from the chaotic fun of PP. My favourite thing to do in Kampot was to stroll along the river-front promenade and watch life on the river go by. The hazy Bokor Mountains were a romantic backdrop and I loved the beautiful flowering trees that lined the walkway and the waterfront road. We stayed at a lovely guest house near the Kampot river called Mea Culpa. As part of their restaurant they produced gourmet pizzas in their outdoor pizza oven. It was fun to watch them being prepared. The next morning we walked the short distance down to the river and had a look around the small fresh fish market. Boats were unloading the fish, crabs and other seafood, most of which was still alive. Then we took a wander around the the Kampot Market, just 1-2 blocks back from the river. I love markets, especially seeing produce that is famous from that area. Fresh green Kampot pepper corns are wonderful, complimenting fish or crab dishes with a bit of lime juice. I think on my next visit to Kampot I’d like to visit a pepper farm. Bokor Mountain The day’s main event was a drive up Bokor Mountain. The new highway up the mountain jungle has reduced to driving time from 2 hours to about 40 mins. Bokor Mountain is famous for the abandoned ruins of a French hill station, and along with those of a church and the former summer residence of Prince Sihanouk. Unfortunately the mystique and charm of this area has been ruined by the new development of an enormous monstrocity of a casino and hotel near the top of the mountain. It was under construction when we saw it but would probably be finished by now. Bokor Station was off limits as it was under renovation. I think developers are trying to return it to its former glory, but I fear it may lose its character. The views from the mountain are still magnificent but the development is badly damaging wildlife in the area which is a great shame. We had a picnic at the top of the mountain. There were different types of Cambodian fruits ( Mangosteen, Milk Fruit, Dragon Fruit, Bananas which are so much tastier than the ones we get at home etc) but the main treat our hosts bought especially for us was local crab. I think crab meat is delicious but they weren’t very big and it was very messy and fiddly getting the meat out of the shell. A great experience but I probably wouldn’t bother with it again unless someone else did all the hard work for me. Getting There It takes about 3.5 hours to travel from Phnom Penh(PP) to Kampot by car or private taxi (USD$40-50). We went in our friend’s car and about half way we stopped at a family road stall selling young coconuts for refreshment. We picked out a coconut each and one of the stall holders skilfully lopped the tops of with a machete and popped a plastic straw in each. We were told these were the best coconut variety in Cambodia and the juice was indeed delicious. Something rather humorous then happened. The store holders were looking at me and saying something to our friends. Apparently they thought I was very beautiful, which is funny because I am very much a “plain Jane” where I come from in NZ. It seems Cambodians admire the narrow Anglo-Saxon nose , and I certainly do have a long thin nose! Most bus companies (air-con but no on-board toilet so one toilet stop half-way) go to Kampot via Kep, take 5 hours and cost about USD$4.50. The more upmarket Giant Ibis Transport costs USD$8 and travels directly from PP to Kampot in 2.5-3 hours and will drop you off at your accommodation. The post A Beautiful “Thin-Nosed” Woman’s visit to Kampot. appeared first on Asian Ramblings.

I am not a visa officer, nor am I migration agent. I am in no way affiliated with the Australian Embassy Manila nor with the Australian government. This post comes from my experience with preparing and submitting visa applications for family members and for myself. Also note that this entry pertains to my experience in applying for an Australian tourist visa in April 2013. This is geared towards applicants who holds a Philippine passport, though the preparation can be applied for other nationalities as well. The Australian immigration update their forms every 3 months. I will try to answer your questions the best way that I can, but bear in mind that I can’t answer all your questions. If you ask a question I’ve already answered in the post, I will ignore you. After almost seven years, I finally have an update to my now epic How to Apply for an Australian Tourist Visa series. I have written two posts on the topic, both garnering over a thousand comments, with one getting over 4,500! I have stopped replying to comments, since I don’t think I’m not the best person to be talking about it, as my knowledge of the visa process is largely obsolete, so the visitors have taken upon themselves to answer each other’s questions, with successful applicants coming back to share their good news and help others. It has become a mini forum of sorts and I have to admit I’m happy it turned out that way. I found it to be a great help when I took another chance to apply for an Australian tourist visa once more. Before I get to the visa application process, here’s some background about me and my circumstances: I am a Philippine passport holder, and have applied and received a visa from Australia before. I have a valid US Visa, with used tourist visas to Canada, Japan, and Myanmar. I also have more than 70 arrival and departure stamps from various countries, and that’s just in one passport. I am single and have my own company registered with the DTI. I have a bank account and a couple of credit cards, and I have two sisters who live in Australia, one of which is a temporary resident and the other a citizen. My intention to visit was for a short break from life in Manila, and to hopefully visit places I missed during my first two trips to the Australia. Step 1: Download and read the necessary pages, documents, and forms. This is very important, I can’t stress that enough. It won’t do to just ask questions without reading these web pages and documents first, because you’ll look like an idiot. Majority of your questions would likely be answered by the information written in these files. All these are available for download at the Australian Immigration website, immi.gov.au, and they are all free. Visitor Visas (Subclass 600) information page Application for a Visitor visa – Tourist stream (Form 1419) Visitor visa (Subclass 600) Application document checklist Charges and fees (Form 990i) Currency converter There is no need to print all of those pages or forms (unless you prefer to read them off the computer), but the one thing you should print is the visa application form. It’s a fillable form, wherein you can type in your answers on the form itself and print it afterwards. If you use Adobe Reader to open it, it will not save the changes to the form, so fill it out only when you are ready to print and submit. However, if you’re using Foxit PDF Reader, it can save the changes to the form, so you can fill it out and edit it later on before printing. Step 2: Gather the required documents In page 15 of Form 1419, Part M is actually an application check list. The column on the left lists all the required documents, while the column on the right lists the additional documents you may submit. Here are the documents I submitted: Valid passport with certified copy of the identity page and pages with visa stamps Recent passport photo taken within the last six months Visa app

I tightly gripped several immediate takeaways from this Hangout. The post Productivity 101 with Brennen Reece appeared first on Geeky & Genki.

Whenever we visited somebody’s home in Shan State, we were inevitably offered green tea or water and a bite to eat. Often the snack was fruit, such as a few bananas or the watermelon shown above. Sometimes it was something a bit more substantial such as nor khom, a type of bamboo, steamed and eaten with a simple but utterly delicious dip made from ground salt, dried chili and makhwaen (prickly ash). I really enjoyed these simple meals, which usually also involved conversation in Tai — a language I understand very little of, but love to try to figure out — as well as the chance to peek inside somebody’s home. Perhaps one of the more interesting opportunities for the latter was in Wan Puen, a Thai Lue village outside of Mong La. Most of the 69 families in Wan Puen still live in traditional-style wooden houses — a relative rarity, even in this area. The houses can be rather dark inside, so most socialising is done on the elevated bamboo porch, which also functions as the kitchen and laundry area: Sitting on this porch, which was about eight feet high, provided me with an entirely different perspective on the village. I was struck by the way the tidy tiled roofs formed something of a rural skyline. That the houses were surrounded by neat fences and faced the same direction also lent the village an almost city-like element of organisation. Shattering this perception was the fact that, directly below every house was a buffalo or cow, and the messiness, sounds and smells that accompany this. Inside, cooking was done on an open hearth; a soot-blackened rack above the fire held garlic, shallots and dried chilli. At the other end of the room, a girl watched a Thai game show on television. After a while, when people had gone back back to doing their chores, and when my guide and our hosts were deep in conversation about the price of dried frogs — at least that’s what I caught — I had essentially been forgotten about. This casual hospitality left me free to crunch watermelon, take pictures, listen to Tai, and generally just soak up the scene.

I'd be the first to argue against a common misconception regarding the Turkish diet: that it revolves around lamb. While it's true that many Turks eat lamb, it's also true that many avoid it. Turkish cuisine is about so much more than lamb. It encompasses the dairy-heavy dishes of northeasterners, the fish dishes of those on the Black Sea, the meals rich in vegetables and leafy greens of Turkish people on the Aegean and the beef-centric specialties of those in south central Anatolia. But dang, when Turkish folks do do lamb they sure do it right. And at Babao?lu Kuyu Kebabi in Tire they've been doing it right for decades. We'd come to Tire, a smallish city not far from Ephesus, for its massive weekly market. (More on that market later). But before we could market, we had to eat. And where else should we eat but at a favorite spot for market vendors? "This is a perfect breakfast for sellers at the market, who will be working the whole long day without a break," our friend Serkan said as we approached Babao?lu's door. Piles of cut wood, fuel for the pit, sat on the pavement, nearly encroaching on the shop's stoop. In the front window roasted lamb ribs and a leg, and rounds of pocked pide, hung from hooks; steam rose from a shallow cauldron set over a brazier. After six days of clear skies on the Aegean coast our first day inland was cool and rainy. We welcomed the wall of meaty steam that slapped us in the face as we pushed open Babao?lu's door. When I awoke that morning before dawn, my belly still full from nearly a week of hearty eating, the thought of lamb for breakfast had held less than zero appeal. But as I watched Babao?lu's usta working his cleaver my stomach rumbled to life. Suddenly I was starving. We started with Tand?r Çorbas?, soup that accompanies meat cooked in a tand?r or pit oven. There wasn't much to it -- fatty lamb stock, rice, red pepper -- but it was pure comfort, an ideal precedent for the feed that was to follow. Garlicky vinegar, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of kirmizi biber (crushed red chilies) added a bit of zip to the rich meaty broth. Then we moved on to the main attraction, opting out of liver and specifying meat half fatty, half lean. To assemble their kebabs owner Fikri Babao?lu (dishing up soup, up top) and brother Selahattin pluck a pide from the hook in the window and slap it to the side of the small tandoor-type oven behind their prep counter. While the bread warms they prepare the meat, shaving it from ribs and leg and shoulder bones and hacking it into bite-sized pieces. The warmed bread, sliced into thickish strips and dipped into red pepper-infused meat juices (in the small shallow tin, above), is a bed for the lamb. If one asks (and this one did), a few additional spoonfuls of meat juice will be drizzled over the lot. The kebab arrives at the table piping hot and ready for a generous sprinkle of fragrant dried wild thyme.   Babao?lu's kuyu kebabi is a knife and fork dish; the chewy pide, though soaked in meat juices, resisted mushiness to the final bite. The meat was fabulously tender. After my slow start I seriously contemplated a second order. As we ate market vendors and Tire locals came and went, some leaving with a takeout packet or two. Occasionally a young helper would emerge from the back room, which houses the pit oven, with a freshly roasted chunk of meat or a side of ribs blackened and crusty from the fire. At that moment forks and knives would pause in mid-air as eyes followed the lamb to its resting place on a hook in the window. Fikri Babao?lu told us that his family has been preparing kuyu kebabi in Tire for over a century. They do lamb right -- so right that we rose early enough the next day to return for Round Two. Fikri Babao?lu, lamb usta Babao?lu Kuyu Kebabi, Gumuspala Caddesi, Hasir Pazari Sokak No. 16, Tire; 90-232/512-0116; about 15TL for one serving, including soup. Go

Salt Baked Crabs $130 (Two large) If you are a crab lover, you would no doubt have heard about Ga Hock's salt baked crabs.  I have been wanting to eat at Ga Hock for the longest time, but never managed to get down to it till now. I had always imagined the salt baked crab is like salt baked chicken where the whole crab is encrusted in salt and then baked in the oven.  So when the crabs were

Playing for Pain! Bleed! Immersion!Oh my!Be sure to check out all of the larp links from the ladies for more information. They are below the video.The Nordic Larp Wikihttp://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Main_Page The Nordic Larp Talkshttp://nordiclarptalks.org/ ____________________ Book-wise, there isNordic Larphttp://nordiclarp.wordpress.com/The Knutebooks (all available for free download)http://nordiclarp.org/wiki/Knutepunkt_booksThe last couple chapters of Leaving Mundaniahttp://lizziestark.com/leaving-mundania/_____________________Beginner blog postsThree of my most-trafficked posts provide basic knowledge about Nordic games. I’ve got:Jeepform for Noobshttp://lizziestark.com/2012/09/17/jeepform-for-noobs/Nordic Larp for Noobshttp://lizziestark.com/2012/08/08/nordic-larp-for-noobs/Why “Nordic Larp” is Confusinghttp://lizziestark.com/2013/02/19/why-nordic-larp-is-confusing/ We Go By Jeepjeepen.org,Fastavalhttp://www.fastaval.dk/?lang=enAlexandria, scenario archivehttp://alexandria.dk/englishThe pos

Philippine Airlines have been promoting the super low prices of their Mabuhay Class seats, both for their domestic and international flights. While the prices were truly tempting, I was rather disappointed that the fares for their Melbourne flights are still rather high. My brother, who received the newsletter with the low fares, noticed that the fares to Brisbane from Manila are quite cheap, and then my sister pointed out that fares from Brisbane to Melbourne go for around AU$100 round trip, so it’s still quite a savings if I’m to take that route. So I went the PAL website to check if these fares are for real. And they are! Click on the image to see larger version The biggest surprise of all is that the business class promo seats are now cheaper than if you’re buying an economy class ticket! Click on the image to see larger version PAL’s Mabuhay Class promo runs until seats last, except for Sydney and Melbourne, which is only from May 1 – July 31, 2013. Fares are exclusive of

Newborn children are often considered treasures that we should take care of. However, for whatever reasons, some think of them as possible sources of income and choose instead to sell these gifts in order to earn money. A man in India sold his grandchild on Facebook for 70,000 rupees (US$1,278). After his daughter Noor gave [...]Author informationRenz BaxaLawrence Baxa, or Renz as his friends call him, is a writer living in the Philippines. He admits that even though he is new to the writing industry, he is very willing to learn and improve as a writer. Renz loves to play basketball, and spends most of his time in front of the computer; surfing the net and playing online games. He dreams to be a well – known chef someday. He also serves their parish by holding youth camps and helping in events that help other children become closer to God.FacebookThe post Stolen Newborn Sold on Facebook appeared first on Weird Asia News. Related posts:Facebook Compels Indians to be…Whiter?Newborn in India Killed Over 20

John Wick, master GM and awesome game designer, gives us tips and tricks from his book Play Dirty. The post John Wick: Playing Dirty 101 appeared first on Geeky & Genki.