find me beneath the Corsican stars where we first kissed...

ah another month goes by where i am MIA.  sorry. what was i doing...hmm...enjoying the warm weather, going to my first japanese baseball game, experiencing my first japanese onsen, discovering that traditional karaage...which is japanese fried chicken..is fried with potato starch, not wheat, so at some places, I CAN EAT FRIED CHICKEN. no big deal.  i also went headfirst off my bicycle and slammed my head into the sidewalk..that set me back 3 days in the hospital with a bleeding brain and about another two weeks of recovering at home.  hmm...and wedding planning!

three weeks from today, we leave for Europe!  jao and i are both presenting our research at a conference for air transportation dorks (this is our lives...conferences filled with airplane dorks), and it just so happens that this conference is in Bergamo, Italy.  damn, right?  so we'll be spending about a week, doing "work" here...

and much to my excitement, on the 3rd night of the conference, there is a gala dinner event.  i have absolutely no idea how formal this week be (my guess is not super formal...because this is a collection of engineers and super nerds, so most likely..it'll be tragic), but the words "gala" and "event" to me signal the need for an amazing dress!  natch.  so i sauntered my ass right on to the Tokyo Toyoko line train up to Shinjuku and off to H&M - and i found a GREAT blush pink, open back gown that is perfect for a summer night in italy!

i think it's perfect - conservative up front, and then a little daring in the back.  paired with white sandals, hair up, red lips...done.  

after Bergamo, we are headed to Lyon, France for a few days to meet up with a friend of ours/professor at EM Lyon for some collaborative human factors workshops, and obviously to get a bit of sun.  i have a new bikini and a new hot pink one-piece that i'm obsessed with, and a few new little sundresses...it's going to be a sick two weeks in Europe.

we also went to Hakone a few weekends ago (before i slammed my head into a sidewalk) - we did work with a group called Global Village...a bunch of high school girls from tokyo came out for an overnight fieldtrip type thing, and we were group leaders, teaching them about different cultures and helping them with their english..very fun.  and afterwards, we took the time to explore Hakone a bit and spent the night at a hotel with a private onsen in our room!  Hakone is town up in the mountains south of Tokyo, and is known for it's natural hot springs (onsen).  we had a perfect day and thoroughly enjoyed our in-room onsen (obvi).

pants, zara. top & shoes, j.crew. clutch, marc by marc jacobs. sunglasses, oliver peoples.

on the wedding front....my mom sent my dress to me!  i had a non-traditional wedding dress experience... i literally skyped into my gown shopping appointment at J.Crew on my mom's iPad and my sister tried the dresses on for me. so i picked one, my mom bought it for me and then sent it to Japan.  it was so exciting to receive a big enormous box in the mail and find my wedding dress inside.  it's all versions of perfect :)  oh, and our save the dates went out.  it seemed like...no rush guys, we have a year to go.  but now it's like...7 months or something.  and my aforementioned head-into-the-sidewalk accident only reconfirmed that i'm a lucky chick with an amazing man.  he never left my side and took perfect care of me, and i'm very lucky to have someone like him in my life!

i would, however, like to re-emphasize the importance of always wearing nice underwear...i mentioned this last year when i ended up in the hospital for an allergic reaction. but i'd like to mention it again, because i was in the ER, and they had to take my dress off of me, and i was laying there in nothing but my undies.  and thank god they were chic ones.  just a thought...

and for old time's sake...here's the latest playlist!

out of office (round 4) - Myanmar

up until 2011, travel into Myanmar (Burma) was strictly limited/prohibited for most American passport holders.  since then, most travel sanctions on the formerly junta-ruled country have been lifted, President Obama went for a visit, and Myanmar is topping every "must travel to" list on the internet.  even thought Jao and I hate aggro-tourists and backpackers, we couldn't help ourselves....we had some time during our trip to Thailand set aside for some travel, and the chance at visiting Myanmar was too exciting to pass up.

we went to the Myanmar embassy in Bangkok to get our visas, which was a surprisingly painless experience, and shortly thereafter, we were off to Yangon.  as soon as we stepped out of the airport, we were acutely aware that we'd basically just stepped into a time machine, set back 30 years.  Yangon, despite being one of the most developed (if not THE most developed) cities of the country, was surprisingly undeveloped.  cars were a mismosh of asian produced and western produced, traffic was an absolute free-for-all, road conditions were sub-par...but then our hotel for the night was surprisingly nice... air conditioning and chic decorations...but then there was no hot water in the shower and the power would cut frequently.  that tended to be our overall experience in the country... a bizarre mix of modern updates like air conditioned hotel rooms and wifi and everyone having cell phones...and then power outages and no hot water and taxis that were literally us sitting in the back of a pick-up truck.

our trip took us from Yangon to Bagan (via overnight 16-hour train) and then to Mandalay... it was quite a ride.

a pagoda in Yangon

buying our train ticket.

our train ticket to Bagan...

walking into Shwedagon Pagoda.

some Burmese girls... they were oddly fascinated with me... i think young white girls are kind of a rare sight for them at this time in the country, and they would follow Jao and I around, smiling at me and watching me.  it was very entertaining.

visiting the Shwedagon Pagoda.  it was stunningly beautiful.

out shopping in the markets in Yangon.

waiting at the train station. i love this picture more than anything.

getting on the train.

nine minutes into the trip.  oy.

we spent 16 hours in this little "first class sleeper car."

beautiful Burmese country side.

we survived!

this was our taxi in Bagan...

rode bikes around Old Bagan.

bought traditional Burmese umbrellas. they're gorgeous.

the next day in Bagan, we took a horse cart out to see all of the beautiful old pagodas....

this was our chariot!

the view was amazing (white girl staying out of the sun with her umbrella, fyi)

giant Buddha

massive lunch!

the shop we bought some lacquerware from.

rest stop on the way to Mandalay.

this was our bus. on board the bus, they BLASTED Burmese pop songs the entire 6 hour ride.  the ENTIRE six hour ride. and i'm not talking like..background music. i'm talking BLASTING that shit.

arrived in Mandalay..took a cab with our chinese friends from the bus. pollution was so awful.

Mandalay was aggressive - it was our last night of the trip and we were tired and tired of kind of feeling all the aggression... so we went to this nice teak bridge - U Bein Bridge.  it is the largest teak bridge in the world, just outside Mandalay.  it was beautiful, and there is a massive monastery just across the road and the monks came for an evening walk...so it was very peaceful.

i did a bridge...at the bridge.

some burmese girls up on the bridge were watching jao do this little... "dance?" and they were laughing at him.  i loved it.

last night - great view.

perfect final Myanmar sunset over the water.

so the trip was legitimately incredible.  it was so beautiful and so strange...exhilarating and exhausting, all at the same time.  we got up on the last morning we were there, and we were ready to GTFO.  we couldn't get to the airport and back to Bangkok fast enough...but we love looking back at all these pictures and remembering how much fun we actually had.  i remember before we left, jao kept telling me "i only have one goal for this trip...our only goal is to get on the plane and get back to Bangkok." .... and when i got there, i realized what he meant.  Myanmar is definitely the kind of the country that for a week long trip...you can really only have 1 goal.  to get out of the country alive.  and we did it!!!

and a little bonus...here is a video from our trip!!!  enjoy :-)

out of office (round 3) - Hat Yai, Thailand

two posts ago - i talked about Bank and Yoko's insanely gorgeous traditional Japanese wedding that we went to in Osaka.  so Yoko is Japanese and Bank...is obviously Thai (Jao's cousin...Jao is Thai..so Bank is Thai.  ok. duh.)  anyways....so they had a beautiful traditional Japanese wedding...so about a week later, they had a traditional Thai wedding in Thailand!  Jao and Bank's mothers are from a southern city in Thailand called Hat Yai, so after a few days in Bangkok, we hopped a plane down to Hat Yai and prepared for some more Bank and Yoko celebrations!

Hat Yai street food - a rice noodle/meatball soup dish that was particularly amazing upon our arrival.

Bank & Yoko had several friends from the States come to the wedding, so Bank's dad used the family party bus to drive us all around the night before the wedding and go see some local sights.  Jao and I are here with Bond, Bank's brother...loaded up in the party bus, along for the ride!

 this was the first stop for the party bus - a large statue of Guan Yin (Kuan Im, in Thai).  traditionally, you pray to her in times of need or difficult times in life.  around this statue is a series of large bells that you walk around, ringing each one, and making a wish.  the deal is...if your wish comes true, you must come back in one year to make merit.  i'll let you know if i go back next january!

just a little farther up the hill was the Standing Buddha, which overlooks Hat Yai and is truly an impressive sight to see.  looking up at the Buddha is almost dizzying!  

this is basically the last picture, but turned around, overlooking Hat Yai.  the lighting is a little dark, but this is one of my favorite pictures of us from the trip.

afterwards, the party bus moved on to the River Market, which is exactly what it sounds like... a market on a river.  local merchants come and sell food, snacks, clothes, jewelry, etc. along this river from their small boats, and you can walk around and smell, taste, and buy the most amazing foods.  i was lucky to have Jao, Bank, Bond, and Bank's dad there to always help ask if the foods had wheat flour in them (most of them did NOT), so i was really able to thoroughly enjoy this experience! 

see no really - it was a party bus!  please notice Tamir throwing the "live long and prosper" up front there....

this is the day of the wedding - we were downstairs waiting for the next party bus to leave to take us to the hotel for the wedding and lunch!  jao looks very handsome :-)

Jao's grandma - isn't she to DIE FOR?! she's so cute and little!  she's my fav :-) 

Bank and Yoko at the Thai ceremony - again..Yoko looks beautiful!

snuck a picture in ...with the Bank and Yoko poster.  (side note: we were the tallest people at the wedding)

this was after the wedding - headed to the family dinner - see...it really was a party bus!!!

the party bus stopped for some coconut ice cream (the best).

Jao threw his coconut into the water (??)

we liked this purple couch.  very "purple rain."

so after the dinner - there was karaoke!  we were so surprised and so excited!  this is me, Barbara, and Yoko getting warmed up with some "dancing queen..."

and now we're really into it!

Yoko's dad and Bond, the dream team - singing Japanese songs!  (Bond speaks Japanese, so he was Yoko's dad's BFF in Thailand!)

so that was our Hat Yai trip - it was short and sweet - and we were off to Myanmar before we knew it! it was great to see where Jao's parents were from, and get a taste of the south of Thailand!  again... amazing food, beautiful temples, and lots of fun people.

up next...Myanmar.  stay tuned.
xx