Socks Visits Vietnam

Hello friends, today I am here to talk to you about some of my amazing adventures in Vietnam. We were in Vietnam for a month and loved every minute of it. One of my favourite adventures was visiting Halong Bay. I also loved rappelling down waterfalls in Dalat.

Halong Bay is one of the top ten natural wonders of the world. It is located in North Vietnam. It is known for its tall islands and amazing scenery. We took a two day boat cruise to take advantage of everything Halong Bay had to offer. On the first day we visited a cave located on one of the islands. We have been to quite a few caves during our travels but this one was by far the biggest. On the second day we visited a pearl farm and learned all about pearl farming. Did you know that pearl farmers have to do a small procedure on the oyster to allow the pearls to grow? Even then, 70% of oysters still do not produce pearls! That is a lot of hard work for only 30% development rate.   We had some nice lazy days on the Halong Bay cruise and enjoyed the breathtaking scenery.

Another of my favourite adventures was rappelling in Dalat. We were taught how to rappel down waterfalls, and spent the day doing crazy outdoor adventures. We jumped off of high cliffs into the water and rode on a real waterslide in the river. My favourite part of the day was rappelling down a waterfall. It was very scary and we had to be careful not to slip. My monkey legs made it easy to be taken by the water so I had to be super careful.

Have any of you every been to a lantern festival before? While we were in Hoi An we were able to experience a festival first hand. The festival only comes every full moon and is a very busy night in Hoi An. The festival is set on the side of a river. You pay a small amount of money and are given lanterns to place in the river. They all float down stream lighting the way with colourful glows. There are also many small market vendors where you can purchase lanterns to hang in your house. This was an amazing night that I will never forget!

Vietnam was full of lots of adventure and relaxing time and I really enjoyed our stay there. I was even lucky enough to find a conical hat to fit my 

I Picture Tour

Hello Friends! I was just looking at some of our pictures and thought it would be a good idea to share some with you! Follow my journey though Singapore and Bali as we explore these amazing countries in Asia. Feel free to ask any questions in the comment section below this blog. I would love to here from you!

Socks

We started the Asian leg of our trip in Singapore. Singapore is a multi-cultural city and there are many temples, mosques and churches all around the city. In this picture I am standing in front of a Mosque in Little Malaysia.

There are many colourful streets like this one in Singapore. My family and I loved looking in the little shops. Too bad none of the clothing was in my size!

We saw this amazing colourful painting on one of the many buildings. It was so bright and neatly painted!

This is another of the amazing temples we saw in Singapore. It is covered with sculptures of gods. It was truly amazing, and one of my favourite temples by far!

This sculpture is the most famous in Singapore. It is called the Merlion. It is a mix between a mermaid and a lion. It was so tall and amazing to look at.

Singapore has an amazing waterfront, and that is one of the main reasons people come to visit here. We visited the waterfront twice, once in the daytime and once at night. In this picture you can see some of the amazing buildings featured at the waterfront. The tall building that looks like it has a boat on the top is actually a hotel! We walked up close to it when we visited the other part of the waterfront later that night. The other white building with the round bottom is a museum.

Behind the big boat hotel there are eight giant man-made trees. In this picture you can see the amazing trees when they are lit up at night. That was truly an amazing sight!

The next stop on the Asia leg of our trip was Bali. We spent two weeks soaking up the sun and enjoying the amazing cultural experience. This picture was taken of the wing of our Airplane on our trip to Bali.

During our time in Bali we went to many Yoga classes. This is a picture of me practicing at home. What do you think? I think I am now considered a monkey yogi!

This is my favorite restaurant in all of Indonesia! It is called Mammas Warrung. My favourite dish here was nasi gorrang. In Indonesian, nasi gorang means fried rice. The fried rice is usually eaten with egg, chicken satays and prawn crackers. Yummy, delicious!

One morning in Bali we woke up at 2.30am to see the sunrise on Mt. Batur. We hiked for 2 hours up the steep mountain and watched the beautiful colours brighten the day. We were so tired when we arrived home later that day that we fell right asleep!

We are now headed off to Penang, Malaysia. Singapore and Bali were so different than anything we have experienced on this trip so far, and I am very exited to visit some of the other amazing countries in Asia.

Interview in Australia

Well hello again! It’s Socks the travelling monkey here. I am sorry I have not written for a while, I was too busy having fun! Right now we are in Australia and having a blast. While I was in Cairns, Australia I met another fellow monkey who was in radio broadcasting.  Sadly, he was not travelling the world, but he wanted to interview a monkey who was.  The interview was broadcasted all over the world to every monkey.  Here is a transcript from the show, I hope you enjoy it!

Monkey Reporter: Well hello Socks, we are very happy to have you on our show today. To my understanding you are travelling the world, is that correct.

Socks: Yes sir, I have been travelling with my human family for almost 10 months!

Monkey Reporter: Where have you been in Australia so far? What was your favourite place?

Socks: We started out in Sydney and then travelled up the east coast to the Gold Coast. Then we arrived in Cairns. I have to say, Cairns is my favourite spot in Australia.

Monkey Reporter: And why is that?

Socks: I love Cairns because of the Great Barrier Reef. We went out on a boat one day and went SCUBA Diving and snorkeling. It was truly amazing. We saw so many colourful fish and coral. We even saw a Nemo fish! Luckily, I don’t get seasick and I was alright on the boat ride.

Monkey Reporter: Wow! That sounds amazing! What was your favourite place in Sydney?

Socks: In Sydney I loved going to Bondi Beach. It is this famous beach that is known worldwide. They even made a TV show about it. I think they might have been filming while I was there.

Monkey Reporter: Did you visit the Sydney Opera House?

Socks; Oh Yes! That was one of the coolest buildings I have seen so far on this trip. It was shaped like a seashell.

Monkey Reporter: Wow, that must have been something! I have heard lots about the Gold Coast; did you like it there?

Socks: It was probably my second favourite place in Australia. There were tons of surfer dudes, and I think I saw some monkeys hitting the waves as well! I tried surfing with my human friends Ally and Meg, and we had a blast.

Monkey Reporter: I here you come from Canada, is the weather much different there?

Socks: Yes, the weather is very different here than there. Here we get temperatures around 24° where at home it can get down to -24°. It gets so cold in our winter that we get snow. You never get snow here in Australia!

Monkey Reporter: What about the food? Is it different here than in Canada?

Socks: No, not really. Most of the foods are the same. Although you do have banana trees growing here. At home we have to import all of our bananas. My family even showed me a tree once, while we were touring around.

Monkey Reporter: Well I better let you get back to your human family then. Thanks for coming on our show today Socks.

Socks: It was my pleasure, thanks Mr. Reporter.

Sydney:At the beach 

Sydney: The Sydney Harbour 

Sydney: Bondi Beach

The Gold Coast: Learning to surf

Cairns: My favourite fish

Cairns: Ally and Meg learning to SCUBA Dive

Cairns: Nemo

Cairns: Sea cucumber 

Cairns: Table coral

Socks in New Zealand

Hello friends! Socks here, we have just left New Zealand and are on our way to Australia. We spent a whole month travelling around New Zealand. We are finally the farthest we could possibly be away from Canada. When you guys are going to sleep we are just waking up in the morning the next day!

New Zealand was a lot like Iceland and had lots of snow capped mountains and glaciers. We loved taking hiking trips up the mountains and looking at all the cities below. One hiking trip was 4 hours up a huge mountain. I was lucky and got a ride inside of Ally’s backpack, and didn’t have to climb all the way up! By the time we reached the top Ally was very tired.

One of our hiking trips. 

Have any of you ever wondered were kiwis come from? Guess what, they grow them right here, in New Zealand! We went to a kiwi farm and saw the kiwi trees! I have never seen a kiwi tree before! It was so cool!

At the kiwi farm.

Under a kiwi tree. Can you spot the kiwis?

We also stayed in a place that was on the set of a movie! They used the place as an ammunitions bunker in the movie Vertical Limit! The movie was about mountaineering, which means mountain climbing. It was about a group of climbers that got trapped in a crevasse (deep crack) on K2 the second biggest mountain in the world. They had to be rescued by blowing open the crevasse so the rescue people could get them out. The bombs that were used to blow open the crevasse were held in the ammunition bunker (the place were we were staying)! The place where our beds were was in the movie! We even got to sign our names beside the the director of the movie on the blackboard wall. I think I am the first monkey to ever have slept in a set of an old movie!

The bunker!

I really enjoyed my stay in New Zealand and it was very pretty there! I hope to come back some day with my family and explore this neat place even more!

Socks

P.S Did you know that New Zealand is also home to the movie the Hobbit?

Milford Sound. 

Milford Sound.

Milford Sound.

Kayaking with Ally.