Kaikoura - New Zealand

Kaikoura - New Zealand

After lots of time away from family in unfamiliar cultures, we were very excited to travel to New Zealand to visit my brother and sister-in-law, Justin and Tania Peterson, for Christmas and New Year’s Eve. After a few very long flights, arriving in Christchurch, New Zealand felt a little like coming home with clear-cut rules, clean restrooms, and native English-speakers everywhere. Our first weekend in New Zealand the four of us traveled north from Christchurch to Kaikoura, a tiny beach town on the South island with a lot of tourist activities. 

Read More

Phnom Penh & Koh Rong - Cambodia

Phnom Penh & Koh Rong - Cambodia

The main place to visit in Phnom Penh is the Khmer Rouge Killing Fields, which is actually a collection of sites where about 2 million out of the total population of about 8 million people were killed in the 1970s by the Khmer Rouge regime. In order to save ammunition, the Khmer Rouge executed this genocide by using all manner of horrific tools to try to kill as many people as quickly as possible. That included children, whose heads were bashed against the trunks of trees before they were tossed in mass graves next to their parents. 

Read More