After a long summer the NHL season finally begins tomorrow…..here are the newest commercials from the NHL to start the season….pretty cool idea.
About 5 years ago in Cambodia, while visiting Angkor Wat, I went into a small souvenir shop and saw two small towers of Angkor Thom (the one with the faces) and thought what cool rooks they would make in a chess set…with some idea exchanges with Sue, I decided to build my own chess set with pieces from different countries/areas. So from that first purchase 5 years ago, I have been keeping my eye out for small statues/figures that would fit my vision for a chess set. I didn’t want this set to be a hodge podge of cheap looking figures so I have been very picky in ensuring that the pieces fit the vision I had.
It all started with the “Rooks” from Angkor Thom in Cambodia.
Next it was a no brainer for me in what I wanted for my “Pawns”…the Terra Cotta Warriors of Xian.
From this point on, I wasn’t exactly sure what I wanted for the rest of my pieces so I simply kept my eyes open.
The next piece I found was the “Queen”…now they are not exactly Queens, but I picked the traditional praying Thai Princess.
Then came the “Bishops”….from the depths of the Dirt Market in Beijing I found these masked Beijing Opera singers.
For the “Knights” I knew they had to be animals but was looking for something that better represented Asia than simple horses….I looked for dragons, snakes, monkeys, elephants but nothing seemed to fit the chess set. Then I found these for my “Knights”….Ganesh.
The hardest piece to find was definitely the “King”. I knew exactly what I wanted, but it was a matter of finding the right one. It had to be Buddha but was never able to find the perfect one….it was always the jolly fat Buddha or cross legged Buddha. Then this summer while I was in Cambodia on one of my community outreach trips we stopped for lunch at a park beside the National Buddhist Temple. I took a walk into it and saw this giant statue of Buddha but it has this mantle of snake heads rising above it. I looked for small versions of this at the markets but wasn’t able to find it. Then I started to walk into these small shops around Phnom Penh that made statues and asked if they could make small versions of this Buddha but most said they wouldn’t do it because it was too small….finally I found one that said he could do it at a very reasonable cost ($10).
So in the end after 5 years I was able to finish my chess set with custom made “Kings” in very same country that I started the chess set….
The next step is picking the right colors and trying to paint my chess set….stay tuned…
Where in the World Can You Eat Poutine?
That’s right ladies and gentlemen…..I’ve now eaten poutine in Canada AND Cambodia!! Can you say hello new favourite restaurant in Cambodia? Poutine and Coconut Fish Curry in one meal……heaven I say, heaven.
One of the departments at Cambodia Trust is this community outreach program where they do two main things. One is to travel to the villages of patients who can’t come into the clinic due to lack of transportation to follow up with them to see how they are doing and if there’s any other way that CT can help them (i.e. provide them with materials to help start a business or train them with skills that could help them get a job etc). The second is to contact the village chiefs so that CT can come and let the village people know about the free services that CT provides and to also examine any people that may require devices such as crutches for the elderly or wheel chairs etc. I’ve been able to go out with the woman in the picture below, Lim Eng, on each of the two trips. She’s one of many landmine victims that I’ve met and she’s very passionate and dedicated in trying to help the disabled in the rural areas.
“Village Meeting and Assessment”
In addition to the experience, being able to see rural Cambodia and meet some of the locals has been great. One day we stopped to chat and eat our lunch at a patient’s home (or hut you can say) and they sent the neighbour’s son to get us some coconuts…..not by buying it at the market but yet by climbing the coconut tree.
“Climbing the tree with barefeet”
“Bombs Away”
“Preparing the Coconut”
“Straight off the tree - fresh coconut water and coconut meat…..awesome”
“Rice Fields of Cambodia”
“Mortar Shells from the War”
Every Saturday John and I have made it an effort to head out to the local soccer stadium to watch the Cambodia Premiership League of Football. Now, I’m not much of a football fan but John, Irish background born and raised in England is of course a huge fan, and almost every sentence he uses during the game is “absolute rubbish”. However it’s still fun to go and watch a free game every weekend….that’s right, it’s free. The best part is after the game you can walk down to the field and hang out with the players….they just sit on the grass and rest after the game so the last picture is us taking part in the team meeting.
This is some guy playing football outside the stadium with John’s home town team’s jersey on which is “QPR”…when he asked the kid if he new what team it was he answered “Scotland”…a little bit off I’d say.
Here’s us waiting to get onto the pitch…
Taking part in the team meeting afterwards…
Well, I’ve arrived and have finished my first week here in Cambodia. Internet at the hotel is EXTREMELY slow (7 min to download a 505kb word doc) so I can’t upload too many photo’s cuz it just takes too long…but it seems to be good right now so I decided to post some pics.
The organization runs both a school and a clinic where everything is free for both students and patients. I’ve mostly been meeting everyone who works here and learning how the organization works. Everyone here is very friendly and helpful. Since I’ve finished the first year of the technical program I’ve been mostly hanging out and helping in the tech area. The two techs below are my main two hommies “Oeun” and “Houng”…they have some to limited english (Oeun’s only phrase to me everytime I’m not sure how to do something is with a smile “No problem”) but Houng’s is alot better. I’ve been trying to help out and be as minimally useless as possible.
Oeun
and Houng
One of the devices I helped work on was a pair of ankle foot orthoses. Now although I had no part of working directly with the patient it was quite exciting to see the child wear and gain the ability to walk and stand properly with the devices that I worked on.
Anywho, my first week is done and hopefully I will be able to post some more pics next week. This weekend is the national election so we’ve been cautioned to stay away from main markets and attractions just to be safe. In the elections here, not only is it pretty much mandatory for everybody to vote but everybody must return to vote in their home province. Since most Cambodians in Phnom Phenh are not from Phnom Phenh, I’ve been told to expect almost everything to be closed on Sunday….but I’m hoping that since I live in quite a “touristy” area that something will be open…..Dougy needs to fill his belly with grub.
The upcoming Olympics in Beijing has already been the news for many different issues but here’s something that I can’t wait to possibly see. Oscar Pistorius, a 21 year old South African bilateral below knee amputee (was born without fibula’s), was initially disqualified by the International Association of Athletics Federations in competing against able bodied people because the “legs” gave him an unfair advantage. However, a few months ago that decision was overturned by the Court of Arbitration for Sports and basically said “If you can qualify, then you can compete in the Beijing Olympics.”
He currently runs the 400m in 46.62s but needs to run it in 45.55s to qualify for the event or possibly come close to 46s to qualify for the South African 400m relay team. The South African Olympic team has given him one more chance to qualify this Wednesday. Although shaving over 1s off your time is quite a difficult task in a short time, so is running without legs. I hope he does it for Beijing but if not I think we’ll definitely be seeing him in 2012.
Recently I’ve been computerless because our dog Bella chew through the AC adaptor cable, but never fear she is still alive and well.
Anyways about two years ago I posted a video of Charles Barkley golfing:
And I keep getting these messages in my e-mail saying somebody has commented but have never bothered to read them…until now. So I opened the video clip and it has now been viewed 186, 591 times (the most of all my videos…the next most viewed is Nassau Hockey 961 times.) I started reading the comments and they were all pretty much the same….”Wow he sucks”, “How can he hit the ball”.
But there was one string of comments that stood out as quite funny:
gdangvuu: Is that the dude that sings “Crazy”? Cuz if it is then he sucks at golf and MUSIC!
funkeroni: That would be Gnarls Barkley.
carmeloxx: You are an idiot, watch some TNT or read a book, god there’s some dumb ppl on the internet.
dkmonkeys: Kill yourself.
trentl2002: NO….its Charles Barley, basketball legend….youve never heard of him?
theoriginaljrs: u r thick.
dbneeld: P.S. “crazy” is a good song
Recently in the news it has come out that CBC is not renewing the Hockey Night in Canada Theme song. Now many people might say who cares but for many hockey fans it has been like a 2nd National Anthem. This news has become so big I was surprised to see the following skit on one of my favourite shows “The Colbert Report”….very funny stuff. Even an American Political Satirist knows how stupid this act by CBC is…..
