Last night Kingsley and I celebrated the 6 year anniversary of our first date. We went to a place called the Equinox on the 70th floor of the Swissotel. The view was amazing.
Kingsley and I just got back from a quick trip to Bangkok. I had been once before with my family about 8 years ago but was excited to go back and check it out with Kingsley as it was his first time. We did a few of the touristy things, visited the grand palace, floating market ect
But the highlight of the trip for me was going to the Tiger temple. This temple is about 2 hours hours outside of Bangkok, here is a quick history:
In 1999, the temple received the first tiger cub, it had been found by villagers and died soon after. The story goes that several tiger cubs were later given to the temple over time, typically when the mothers had been killed by poachers, others who wanted to get rid of their tiger "pets" or those were under pressure to do so as laws and policies surrounding the keeping of protected species became more strict. As of 2007, over 21 cubs have been born at the temple and the total number of tigers is about 12 adult tigers and 4 cubs. As of late December 2009, the total number of tigers living at the temple has risen to almost 50.
The goal of the temple is to eventually buy enough land in the mountains behind the temple that they can release these tigers back into the wild. One very cool opportunity we had was to spend an hour feeding and playing with 3 tiger cubs that were between 2 and 3 months old.
They only allow 4 people in per session and there are only 4 sessions per day. Feeding the cubs is usually booked out weeks in advance. But somehow that day there were 2 spots still open, they said it was likely because of Chinese New Year that things were a little slower. Feeding and playing with tiger cubs was a dream come true for me!
In so many ways the cubs reminded me of the kittens we fostered, same mannerisms, same desire to pounce on anything that moves. Kingsley and I had such an amazing time playing with the little guys, in fact almost a little too much fun, at one point a cub named Wan pounced on his back and nipped at his hand. She was only playing and no harm was done but Kingsley is very proud to say that he was bitten by a tiger and lived to tell about it!
In the afternoon we were part of a group of 15 people who were placed in a small fenced area and allowed to watch as 12 adult tigers ran around us swimming and playing in a water filled canyon. This also was an incredible experience as the tigers were often less than a few feet away from us with only a small chain link fence and the thai monks and trainers between us and them. I have to say I was a little panicked when they first started running around but they had no interest in us, just wanted to play and swim. We got some great video footage! Kingsley had to pull me away at the end of the day, I have to say visiting tiger temple was one of the coolest experiences I have ever had.
Just to give a bit of history, Kingsley and I chose the name Sakura for our blog because it means cherry blossom in Japanese. I have always loved cherry blossoms and although we are not in Japan I see them everywhere in Singapore. Kingsley loved the idea of the cherry blossom representing the "Wood" family branch in Asia... and that is how our blog name was decided.
I know that so far I have only posted a lot of strange pictures and not so many words, the last few weeks have been so challenging, strange, amazing and wonderful that I really struggled to describe all of the emotions I was experiencing.
Several months ago when Kingsley and I first began to consider moving to Singapore, I was incredibly excited for several reasons-being in Asia again, the adventure of living in and learning a new culture and the opportunity to travel was very appealing. Once the decision was made, the hard work started- packing up the house, closing up shop in Seattle and hardest of all, saying goodbye to family and an amazing network of friends in Seattle. The last week we were in Seattle was the absolute hardest- all of our things were in a shipping container on their way to Singapore, the house empty and saying final goodbyes left me wondering what on earth we had done.
However, as soon as we landed in Singapore I felt the excitement building. Although we had just spent 22 hours traveling around the world and it was 2am by the time we got to our hotel, Kingsley and I could hardly sleep and we spent hours talking and planning our new life in Singapore.
After 22 hours of travel we arrived in Singapore very tired from the last few weeks of packing and closing up shop in Seattle but very excited to start a new life in Singapore. This blog will be a way for us to stay connected to friends and family back home.
