Francie’s last set of photos

Francie just got her last set of photos developed and I think they are really fantastic (but maybe I am biased).  It includes pictures from Tibet, Bangkok, Indonesia, and New Zealand.  Below is a subset of the pictures or click here to see all of them. 

Boy in Tibet. He brought the horses on Francie’s horse trek.

I like to call this one ‘Baby with tin can’. Tibet

This woman was trying out the binoculars. Unfortunately, we think she was trying to focus on the rock a few feet away from her (at the right of the pic).

Man prostrating himself in the Barkhor in Tibet.

Kids taking care of business in Lhasa.

We think this munchkin was in Bangkok. Francie loves the dogs and they love her.

Three year old elephant in Ayutthaya, Thailand. While you may not love the fact that he is being taught tricks, keep in mind that his previous job was/would have been in the lumber industry (Thailand ‘freed’ all the elephants from doing manual labor). Regardless, it is a pretty damn cute picture.

Gili Islands (Lombok), Indonesia

This is definitely the best picture we have of Rinjani. We are standing on the volcano’s outer cone looking down on the inner volcanic cone.

Francie and I at the Rinjani Volcano.

These two pictures are of the large Dusky Dolphin pod (at least 200 dolphins) that showed up when we were whale watching.

We still have a few Burma and China videos to post.  Does anyone know some good software that rotates MOV videos (I was holding the camera sideways).

New Zealand Videos

Here is a video of a Sperm whale breathing on the surface off the coast of Kaikoura, New Zealand. 

Whale Video

Here is a video of Dusky dolphins swimming around our whale watching boat.  There were about 200 dolphins in this pod and they were happy to see us.

Dolphin Video

Fiji doesn’t suck

Francie and I decided to spend a few days in Fiji before ending our trip and flying back to Seattle.  In fact, it was actually cheaper to have a layover in Fiji than to fly straight from New Zealand to the US.

Well, you know how Francie likes the beach soooo off we went!

We ended up deciding to stay at the Tokoriki Island Resort which is in Fiji’s Mamanuca island group.  Not surprisingly, it was pretty awesome.  In addition to soaking up the sun and being totally pampered we snorkeled and I saw a reef shark and Francie interacted with a giant clam.

We flew into Fiji and took an hour ferry to our island.  This little island was along the way… 

And this is the Beachcomber resort or Island…

Here is the view from our resort.

This is our beachfront bure.

And the view from our bure.  That hammock was sweet!

 

You can’t see it from the picture below but there is a small beach as well.

Here are some other random relaxing pictures.

The seaplanes were cool.

We would definitely recommend the place!

More trip photos!

Francie uploaded some more of her pictures to Flickr and I wanted to post some here.  These are from the batch she got developed in Bangkok.  You can see all of them here.

Greg and the one year old Pandas.

Camping in Tibet.

5,300 meters up at a glacier in Tibet.

Me jumping for joy that the hike is over!

Kids playing in a park in XiÁn.

Signs in Hong Kong.

View of Hong Kong Island and Kowloon as we walk down from ‘The Peak’.

Francie at the main square in Macau.

Francie screwing around while on the clock at Wolong Panda Research Center.

Cute Panda pic

Dried fruits and nuts for sale in the Muslim Quarter–XiÁn, China. I found out that you can only eat so much dried pineapple.

Two little girls at the Great Mosque in XiÁn, China.

Slide no workie.

Figures unearthed from a Tomb in XiÁn, China.

What this Panda really wants is a Thomas the Train. Balls are boring.

Suggest your own caption

Goats in Tibet

I think I need a thicker coat!

Ok.  Maybe we will post from Fiji!  Maybe we will just work on that tan!

Whales, dolphins and sheep! Oh, My!

We are in Kaikoura, New Zealand and it is very, very beautiful.  There are lots of fun things to do here like whale watching, snorkeling with dolphins, watching some sheepshearing, hiking and just hanging out.

This is what the main street looks like-sleepy! Look at all that available parking!

We decided to spend some of our precious remaining time to try and see a sperm whale.  We ran into the writer of the Rough Guide and he had went whale watching the day before and apparently the only thing to watch was the third of the boat that had sea sickness. 

Fortunately, we were lucky and had a beautiful, calm day where we saw two sperm whales. 

Here is a picture of the other Whale Watching boat close to the Sperm whale.  The whale hung out there for about 15 minutes so I don’t think he minded our presence.

Here is Francie helping the captain listen for whales!

We were also really lucky because we also ran in (not literally, duh) to a pod of Dusky dolphins.  There were at least 200 of them having fun around the boats-jumping high in the air, racing with the boat and all that kind of ‘we’re happy’ stuff.

After we got off the whale watching boat we did a short hike back to our motel.  We saw a lot of great terrain, sheep and seals.  Beware! Extremely pretty scenery ahead!

This is the sheep section of the blog post!  Francie just found this great story on Shrek-a sheep somewhere near us that had hidden from the sheepshearers in a cave for six years and was finally caught.  Check out these amazing pics.

Here are several, non-Shrek, sheep.

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb and its fleece was not quite as white as snow.

These sheep are rightfully frightened of Francie. I don’t blame them.