Nolan Matthews 1/26/18 Nolan Matthews 1/26/18

Holidays in Asia

A shorter blog today to catch everyone up on our holidays. It seems like ages ago now, but we are reminded of our holiday experience often because it was pretty much the last time we were warm! Just take a look at our photos from Singapore, Bali and Hong Kong and you can see for yourself.

We are currently in Japan, where we are in the midst of a winter wonderland and prior to Japan we were in China, which was freezing!! Seems like a long time ago since we were basking in the sun, but that is exactly what we did during our Christmas “break.” Aside from getting sun we did a whole lot of nothing. It was terrific to relax, catch up on sleep and read.

This will be short and sweet and then we will update you on our time in China next week, which was wild!

Singapore

After spending a solid five days on the beach in Krabi, Thailand we headed further south to check out Singapore for a few nights. The airport there sets a very high standard for the overall city. Everything was new, impeccably clean and super efficient. We were pretty blown away even as we got off the plane. Yes, we know Singapore has some of the oddest and strictest rules on the planet, but they work!

We had an absolute blast in Singapore and it easily has become one of our favorite cities in the world. It is modern, international, oh and clean! Furthermore, English is one of the main languages so it was nice to finally be able to communicate with everyone without a problem.The city itself is architecturally gorgeous and the climate is subtropical so we enjoyed checking out the incredible botanical gardens and wildlife right in the middle of the city. Furthermore, the food scene is amazing and we enjoyed some amazing food and drink while we were there.

We loved the look and feel of the city and could easily see ourselves living there. We realized long ago that cities are cities, but Singapore is one we think is definitely worth visiting!

Bali

Since we were sad to be away from home for Christmas, we had one goal in mind: to splurge on a nice getaway vacation. We accomplished this goal when we spent a full week in Bali for Christmas. We stayed at two different locations: Candidasa Beach and Ubud. Both were very different, but gave us a chance to recharge the batteries once again.

Candidasa Beach is on the eastern coast of Bali. Anyone who has read the news probably heard about the volcano, Agung, that had just erupted before Christmas. Well as luck would have it, we found ourselves spending Christmas on a beach right under Agung. Luckily it was back to sleep while we were there.

We spent our time at Candidasa Beach doing absolutely nothing and enjoyed a Balinese version of a Christmas dinner. While it certainly didn't feel like Christmas in the traditional sense, the staff at our resort made every effort to make us feel at home by playing Christmas tunes and wearing Santa hats around!

After Candi Beach we went to Ubud, which is a more central destination in Bali’s rainforest. Once again we had amazing accommodations thanks to a friend who works with Alila Hotels and we enjoyed every second of our time there. Highlights for us were cycling through the rice fields, watching the monkeys attempt to steal our breakfast and a traditional evening of Balinese dance.

All in all, we had a blast visiting Bali. It was technically their rainy season, but we didn’t mind one bit. We got lots of sun, lots of rest and sadly said goodbye to the warmth for a long while…

Hong Kong

We spent our New Year’s in Hong Kong and our first two nights opted to stay in the Conrad Hotel on the 59th floor overlooking Victoria Harbor. Holy view, it was awesome! This was by design, as we decided to spend our time ringing in 2018 with room service, bath robes and an insane view of the HK fireworks from the comforts of our room.

We stayed in Soho for the first two nights of 2018 and did a lot of sightseeing. We got to the Peak, visited the bird market, ate dumplings at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant, rode the Star Ferry and watched the light show from Kowloon. We also were able to catch up with some friends, eat amazing dim sum and enjoy this awesome city.

Nolan had been a few times prior, but it was Kirby’s first. HK is definitely an incredible city and very friendly to expats. Once again, the convenience of getting from their world class airport into town is insane. It makes our US airports seem sad….

From HK it was off to see mainland China, which ended up being an entirely different experience altogether. More on that next week and once again Happy 2018!!