It's not beginning to feel a lot like Christmas....

That is me and an infamous dragon fruit. I will be eating a lot of these soon... READ ON!

Christmas is fast approaching and it does not feel very much like the season. For one, in Japan, Christmas is not a national holiday so people go to work, children to school, you get the picture. They look at it as more of an event. They eat 'Christmas cake' which they think is traditional in America and sometimes they give a present to their family members, but for most people, it is a very low key holiday.

I decided to take three of my paid vacation days, one of which is Christmas, and combine them with days we already have off for New Year's vacation to create a "SUPER HOLIDAY". Since I will be returning to America in Feb., I really wanted to see a little more of Asia.

With this in mind, I decided to have a Christmas of adventure and head out to SE Asia for a beachy holiday (and hopefully a cheap one too! ).

I wanted to keep you all updated and also give you a bit of information about what to keep an eye out for one here in the new year.

First I will be flying into Bangkok on the 23rd of December. From there I will be staying at an amazing!!!!!!! beach resort on Koh Chang Island where I hope to go diving, ride a motorbike, and ride elephants through the jungle. :) Then on the 26th I will be heading to Cambodia to visit the famous Angkor Wat and Pheom Penh. After that the plans get kind of fuzzy as we don't know how long we will be spending in Cambodia...

We will end up in Ho Chi Minh City... also known as Saigon... for a while and hopefully visiting some Vietnamese beaches before flying back to spend the last two days in Bangkok.

The total trip will be 13 days long! I am so excited to get this opportunity and to be able to have this much time off from work. I will take tons of photos and video and will start uploading it as soon as I have internet access.. Expect MANY blogs on this vacation! I will make sure to take my handy dandy pen and paper, seeing as many of these places are without internet. :)

If there is anything that any of you would like to know or have from these places please let me know.

Also, on a side note, I will be leaving Japan in February to start another chapter of my life....even though this blog is Jen's Eastern Travels... I do believe it will continue and become one of travels in General. Keep checking... keep reading....and keep traveling!

Have a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year!