Happy 3rd Anniversary!!!

Happy Anniversary to Mr. & Mrs. Kaes de Jong! 3 wonderful years together experiencing so many amazing places. It has been a wonderful experience and I can't wait for us to make many more memories together :)

On that note, just a re-cap of our recent AH-MAZING trip to the Maldives!!!!

For those of you who don't know, the Republic of Maldives is an island nation in the Indian Ocean formed by a double chain of twenty-six atolls stretching in a north-south direction off India, about seven hundred kilometers (435 mi) south-west of Sri Lanka and (250 mi) south-west of India.

Distance Travelled: 5 hour flight from Perth to Singapore, 2 hour layover, 4 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to Male, and a not-so-pleasant sea plane ride from Male to the South Ari Atoll where our beautiful paradise at Centara Island Resort began. {Side note: stormy weather, confined space, and the smell of diesel is NOT a good combo for motion sick sufferers...}

Our original plan for our Easter holiday and anniversary was to go to Japan to see the Cherry Blossoms in season. With the recent devastating effects on Japan, we decided to search elsewhere to spend our holiday. It turned out that the Maldives happen to be in great dive season and we headed off in hopes to see and snorkel with the famous {gentle giants} the whale sharks. Unfortunately, we weren't lucky enough to see them, but we did come across some some really cool creatures we haven't seen before.

The first time we have ever seen a sting ray! Unfortunately, we didn't have anything next to it to compare the size, but it was 6 to 7 feet in width and about 10 feet long!!! He was a pretty big fella.

We are very excited about coming home to Houston soon! It is been a year since we have been home and we are both in need of some family and friends time as well as some Mexican food!!!

1st Anniversary Trip to Australia - Margaret River and The Great Barrier Reef

Kaes and I flew into Perth April 30th and stayed with a friend from work that we know from Houston. Ross was very accommodating and let us stay the night before we drove to Margaret River the next morning to go wine tasting.

The next morning, we picked up Farah and Patrick at their hotel and were off heading south to the wine country. We were meeting another couple, Christina and Dirk, a little while later. Once we got to Cowaramup, a small town just north of MR, we checked into our chalet at The Grove Vineyard. It was a very nice cozy 3 bedroom chalet with living room, kitchen and outdoor grill. We even had a nice outdoor spa to enjoy after our long day of wine tasting! The scenery was very tranquil and the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. A light jacket was needed in the evening and it was nice to have the change from the always humid Singapore weather.

Our first stop was Sandalford winery first that was just a short drive from where we were staying. The view was breathtaking and the wine was even better! Then we met Christina and Dirk at the chalet and were then off to Woody Nook for lunch. After lunch, it was off to more wine tasting. Most wineries are open from 10am-5pm, so we didn’t have a lot of time to taste since we had to drive a ways to each one. We then headed to Tassell Park, the Cowaramup Butcher for some Australian steaks to cook for dinner, and then last to Lenton Brae. After the wine tasting, it was time to grill out our dinner. Dinner turned out delicious and we ended the evening by getting in the hot tub to indulge in our ever so tempting wine.

The second day, after a long night over overindulgence, Kaes, Farah and I finally got up and headed to Evans & Tate. We had to leave the other couple behind to do a bit more resting. This was one of my favorite wineries with the beautiful vineyards looking out in the back of the store.

Below is a picture of Farah and me with the Evans & Tate vineyard in the background. Their wine was outstanding and the scenery absolute bliss! Patrick joined us and we decided to head into the town of Margaret River to do some cheese tasting and find a place for a picnic. On the way to Margaret River, we stopped off at The Margaret River Dairy Company to do some cheese and yogurt tasting. After the cheese tasting, we decided to go to Cape Mentelle, which was an excellent recommendation from Farah for the scenery and delicious wines. Cape Mentelle had the perfect place to have a bottle of their 2007 crisp, oaked chardonnay. The pairing of chardonnay with our deli meats accompanied by the cracked pepper cheddar and vintage cheddar cheeses were perfect for our afternoon picnic.

After our picnic, we decided to go back to Evans & Tate to make a few purchases and then headed to the boutique winery Windance. Afterwards we decided to head down to the beach to capture the breathtaking views as the sun set. It was definitely a romantic end to our Margaret River weekend.

Sunday morning we woke up and had to head back to Perth to drop off Farah and Patrick. After we said our goodbyes, we met back up with Ross and decided to drive to Fremantle to see the harbor and visit the Little Creatures brewery. The bohemian staff and hippie atmosphere was quite different than what we were used to, but nevertheless a cool place to hang out before our flight out to Cairns.

We reached Cairns at 5:30 am Monday morning after our red-eye flight from Perth. We were both exhausted since airplanes are not conducive for good sleep. We headed to the Esplanade in Cairns and hung out at the McDonald’s in front of the Tusa Dive shop where we got picked up at 11:30 to begin our journey to the Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea. We started off meeting everyone on the boat, getting orientated with what to expect during the next 7 days, then had a delicious spread off food for lunch. I unfortunately, did not partake in these events as I was worshipping the porcelain god…a moving boat has no mercy on me for my chronic sea sickness. Even with good medicine, sometimes there is nothing you can do when you are hitting 5 foot swells in the ocean.

Later that night I felt better and was able to do the second dive. Kaes was feeling just as sick as I was and missed the two first dives of our trip. The next morning we started early at 6:30 for our first breakfast (Yes, I did say “first” breakfast) and were in the water by 7:30 for our first of 5 dives for the day. We dove Steve’s Bommie, Cod Hole, Cod Feed, Dynamite Pass and Pixie Pinnacle for our night dive.

Wednesday morning we were heading towards Lizard Island. This was the place where some of the people would get off and fly back to Cairns and others would join for the last leg of the trip. After a long day of 4 more dives, we had the traditional “Australian BBQ” that consisted of baked potatoes, salad, Australian steak, and kangaroo. It was delicious!!!



The rest of the week consisted of more diving in the beautiful #3 and #5 Ribbon Reefs each day followed by our journey back to Cairns before flying back to Singapore. We had about 5 hours before our flight to Singapore, so we decided to visit the Cairns Wildlife Dome that was on top of a casino right in the city. This is where I met Harvey, and it was love at first site!!! You can see why below. He was the sweetest thing I had ever laid eyes on. It was a great way to end our wonderful trip in celebration of our first Anniversary!!!

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Back in Miri as Mr and Mrs de Jong

Kim and I have been back in Miri for a couple of weeks now. We got our new rental car yesterday - Nissan X-Trail. Its brand new, has less than 100 miles on it, and is very nice. Here is a picture.

Kim is taking scuba lessons this week and will be certified on Sunday. We're excited since we'll be able to dive whenever we travel.
We're crossing our fingers that our air shipment gets delivered on Friday this week. The shipment includes most of Kim's clothes, our wedding gifts, and scuba gear we bought in Houston. Hopefully it arrives so we can use the scuba gear for dives this weekend.
Kim and I will likely go to KL next week (for seperate meetings) and are trying to take a long 3 or 4 day weekend somewhere like Phuket or Langkawi. This wil be our first trip! There will be plenty of pictures if we go somewhere ;-)

Me and Kim

I realized that some of you might not have met Kim yet. Here is a picture of us while we were vacationing in Jamaica last year. Three weeks from today we'll be married!

Trip to Malaysia

I have accepted an expat assignment in Miri, Malayisa and will be moving there in early February 2008. I will return to Houston in May to get married to my beautiful fiance Kim. Over the Thanksgiving break, Kim and I traveled to Malaysia to look around and hopefully find a house (which we did). The following posts capture some of the highlights of the trip.

This is Miri from our hotel.