Lasting Impressions

As our time here in Bangkok draws to a close, I have some things I've been meaning to say that have been difficult to get out. I want to write about the things I will miss, mostly the people here that have made life in BKK such a wonderful experience for us.

First, I will deeply miss Kristy and Kaden. I don't think I've told you enough Kristy but I am so thankful for having you in my life this past year. We shared one of the greatest moments a woman will go through in her life. This experience is usually shared between a mother and daughter or sisters but because we found ourselves in BkK without our mothers we leaned on each other. I don't have any sisters so I thank you for being mine through this. It's amazing to me, that if you'd have asked me a year ago if I could have my first baby in Thailand I'd think you were crazy but with your strength, Kristy, and Gods grace I did! And how wonderful it has been to watch our babies grow up with each other. I will miss my daughters first friend and I will miss you sister.

I will also miss Marloes. You were the girl that arrived at the same time I did and we stuck it out together. I will always remember you as being the girl who was down for anything. You always went dancing with me at Australian Pub, even when I was trying to dance with my big pregnant belly! You dressed up at Halloween with me even though you don't celebrate and we were the only ones in costume that night! Oh I will truly miss your honesty and sense of humor. I love you babe!

Sarah, I am thankful God put you in my life. I have never really had a friend like you. I wasn't a girls girl, but I feel with you I grew into that. You were the first girl that came over to cook dinner for me and watch my baby while I slept. I never had a person(besides family) be so kind to me in a moment of vulnerability like that. And then you continued to show your kindness by babysitting just so Shawn and I could watch a movie. You are a very sweet woman and I thank you for that. It was wonderful going to church with you. You make me want to be a better Christian woman and I am forever grateful for that.

I will also miss AWC. Amy was the first person to introduce me to this world. I think she could sense my fear of the unknown and so she met with me privately to talk before I wandered into the notorious Monday coffee. I will never forget that Amy, thank you. AWC introduced me to women like Kristen, Kayla, Judy, Yvonne, Nev and Sara (just to name a few). I have had the pleasure of knowing these amazing women and hope to see you in the states or with the company. I was also introduced to so many women from all walks of life. I enjoyed learning your stories and always felt welcomed when I was around you. Thank you for being my family and always caring for me throughout my pregnancy.

 

Kristen and Sara, it has been so amazing to meet women from the same hometown, in the same company and living at the same hotel! Kristen thank you for welcoming me to Bangkok and Sara thank you for sending me off. I hope to see y'all back in Texas!

I will also miss my driver, Khun Natani (or as Shawn and I call him, Not-to-night!). No matter the hell I gave him he was always ready to take me wherever I needed to go. He was a very sweet man to us and our baby. So I will thank him forever.

Lastly, I will miss everything that is Bangkok. We have done so much here. Traveled to many countries, learned about many cultures, knocked some of the wonders of the world off our list. We've also played with tigers, elephants and monkeys. We've accomplished many of our goals and the best of all we are returning home with our first child. I'd say that we had the adventure of a lifetime here. And I take with me the memories, knowing that I have grown into a better person and now that I've grabbed a tiger by the tail and had a baby in a foreign country, I AM Fearless! So here's to the next chapter in our lives! Cheers!

 

Back on track: October

Ok so Shawn and I have fallen way off on keeping up with our blog. So I am going to do a little summary of somethings we have done:

October: Shawn turned 27! We celebrated with Marloes and Goof at a Creole restaurant called Bourbon St. He had cheesecake and we had a great time.

We also found out the most amazing news.. We are having a baby girl! We will welcome Shanel Marie Davis into this world sometime in February. Everyday watching and feeling her grow inside my body has been a blessing. We are truly grateful for this miracle that God has granted us.

We also took a trip to Bali. Shawn had to work in Indonesia for the week so I met him for the weekend. Being pregnant makes it really hard to travel sometimes. Getting dizzy at the airports and feeling way too hot at the beaches isn't fun, but it was a great trip. We really liked Bali. We stayed at a  nice beach where Shawn tried surfing and played volleyball.

 

 

Then our friends, Rachel and Andres (Mendez) came to visit. We took them to Koh Samet, a beautiful, white, soft sand beach. I also was their tour guide taking them to the temples, malls and around Bangkok. We had a great time and were so glad that we could share this experience with our friends.

 

Finally we enjoyed Halloween in Bangkok. I wasn't going to miss out on Halloween just because we were across the world. So it was an adventure trying to find the costumes we wanted but we succeeded. We also convinced our friends to dress up and they were scary! We had a great time dancing while the rest of Bangkok kept staring!

 

 

 

5 things I will miss

We recently went back to the US for a 2 week visit. It was a joyous time to see family and friends. We were also pleased to announce that we are going to have our first child due in February! Being back was an amazing experience and a perfect transition after being in Bangkok for 3 months. As soon as we arrived and throughout our whole visit we realized some things we were missing. I am going to summarize 5 things that we were so grateful to have and will desperately miss.

1. Open Skies: Being in Bangkok, all you see is skyscrapers, sky trains and muggy clouds. In Bangkok, you usually don't see tall trees reaching out for the sun, or precious clouds floating by. When we first drove away from the airport, we both noticed it but didn't realize what we were looking at. It wasn't until we hit downtown Houston and noticed the skyline as if for the first time, that we knew it was because we could see the skyline while driving. Maybe it is like this in Bangkok, and maybe it was just the beauty of being back home that we could appreciate it more. But open skies are one thing we will miss in Texas.

2. Open Roads: Along with seeing open skies while driving, it was a blessing to see open roads too. In Bangkok, there is always traffic. I feel like we can't go 10 seconds without our driver stopping short. Go, stop, go, stop. This is also partly because he's not a very good driver but the traffic doesn't help. Driving along Hwy 59 and through I-10 to Austin, it was just beautiful. The scenery was a sight
for sore eyes. Living somewhere else, really makes you appreciate how it looks back home.

3. Fast Food: The fast food back home is always delicous! It was great eating Whataburger, Jack in the Box, Pizza Hut, Peter Piper's, Taco Cabana, and Bill Miller's. From this list you can tell that we added a few pounds!

4. Comfort of Parent's home: There is nothing like coming home to a welcoming family. Our parents were so thrilled to have us home and we were equally excited to be back. Even though we don't live with our parents, being at their house just filled our hearts with joy and comfort. It was especially great for me to lay in my mother's bed. Oh how comfortable!

5. Comfort of home cooked meals: Besides seeing family in person and feeling their love, the one thing I will miss most is home cooked meals. Not only did family cook for us but our friends were generous enough to do the same. We had home made spaghetti, chicken enchiladas, rice, beans, calabaza, tacos, carne con arroz, bbq, and potato salad. Yum!!! It was all so delicous and the best food we've had anywhere on the planet.

We were truly blessed to have the opportunity to go back home. We enjoyed spending time with family and friends. We are thankful for all the love and support of family and friends. We will miss seeing and hugging you. And we will see you, God willing, big baby belly, in Decemeber!

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Saturday, Shawn and I went to Wat Muang. After the long 2 hour drive, we saw a Giant Monk and then the Giant Buddha letting us know we had arrived. We were a little disappointed to know that there was no guide to tell us about the statues we were going to see. We had researched this place on Somethingjam.com, a coworker of Shawn's website. Jam said that parents bring their children here to scare them and teach them not to do bad things or go against the Buddhist principles. There are 10 precepts Buddhists believe and must follow:

1. ..harming living beings.
2. ...taking things not freely given.
3. ...sexual misconduct.
4. ...false speech.
5. ...intoxicating drinks and drugs causing heedlessness.
6. ...taking untimely meals.
7. ...dancing, singing, music and watching grotesque mime.
8. ...use of garlands, perfumes and personal adornment.
9. ...use of high seats.
10. ...accepting gold or silver.

Therefore "according to Buddhist belief, depending on what kind of sin one commits while still alive (whether it be murder, adultery, etc) that person will receive the same or worse punishment back when they have passed on in hell before being reincarnated into the next life" (Sasi Aiumtamboon). Because Shawn and I had no idea what the statues meant, we made up some of our own stories based on the principles and what we thought. We saw statues depicting adultery, false speech, stealing, intoxication, and harming living beings (animals). Here are some pictures of the ones we guessed at:

Adulters forced to climb spikes naked

Liars tongues being rolled out

They harmed animals and so now the animals are torturing them

Thieves hands being cut off

After viewing these scenarios we also saw one of the largest Buddha's measuring 302 ft. Somethingjam.com said that if you touch the hand it is good luck, so we tried and I have to admit that I was scared I wasn't going to be able to do it but I did! So did Shawn! We had a great day.

Angkor Wat: Not just another temple

So this weekend was our weekend to travel. We could both feel the travel fatigue getting the best of us since we weren’t really that excited about this trip. But, we already had the tickets and we decided to make the best of it. After seeing so many amazing temples in Bangkok, we were fairly doubtful that Siem Reap, Cambodia and Angkor Wat had much new to offer. Boy were we wrong! Cambodia proved to be an altogether different experience and I’m certainly glad we went.

This trip was trippy right off the bad. Our flight was delayed by 2 hours and when the flight did arrive we had to catch a bus to get on it. Then we found out that we were seats 1a and 1b but we weren’t first class or anything. To top it all off, the airplane had exposed propellers like a crop duster and had cartoon fish drawn all over it. Needless to say we were a little apprehensive about the flight.

Our Plane to/from Cambodia

When we landed safely in Siem Reap (Thank God), we were surprised at how small the airport was and how few people were arriving compared to other tourists destinations we’ve been to.  Going through immigration was an adventure, since the immigration officials were sketchy. One guy asked Angel 3 times if she was from Mexico, and the other asked me for a tip on the down low. The nice surprise was that most all Cambodians speak English and take dollars, which feels like a foreign currency by now. The adventure continued as we were expecting a car to pick us up only to find out that there was a little guy name Bullfrog with a tuk-tuk who would take us to the hotel. After all was said and done, we were just happy to go to the hotel and get some shut eye.

Saturday was the day for us to go to Angkor Wat. We got up later than we wanted, jumped in our tuk tuk with our driver and our guide and made the 15 km or so trek. Even though Cambodians do speak English, it was hard to understand a lot of words because they pronounce “th” with a “shr” or a “fr” and they accent letters where Americans usually pronounce them longer. So “three dollars” sounded like “free dollars” and “meters” sounded like “mater”. But right from the start, both the driver and the tour guide were very polite and professional and hard working. I always have a special appreciation for people who do their jobs well without complaining.

The first impressions of Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples upon arriving was that there were quite a few tourists and it looked like all the temples were growing inside a jungle. Surrounding the whole area is a moat that I think is 4 km by 4 km and 3 meters deep. It’s a good way to prevent enemies from attacking you, that’s for sure. We were immediately treated to some monkeys and chickens that were cute. The downside was that almost immediately there were little kids trying to sell us postcards and little souvenirs. And these kids were relentless. They followed me one time for about 30 minutes and repeatedly told me to give them a dollar for what they were selling.

I won’t go into all the details of each temple since some folks may actually want to visit themselves. But we went to three temples; the Bayon temple, the Ta Prohm (Tomb Raider), and of course Angkor Wat. Each temple was amazing in its own way. One of the things that was evident right away was that the recent floods of Cambodia and the years and years of tourist activity had taken a huge toll on the temples. Most parts of each temple were closed because they were falling down or had fallen down.  But in a rare sign of cooperation amongst many countries, multiple countries had volunteered to sponsor the rebuilding of certain parts of the temple. The engineer in me was happy to be able to see how all the pieces were going to fit back together.  The Tomb Raider temple was beautiful with several little spots to duck in and get good pictures.  Also, the trees were growing inside the sandstone and causing the temple to fall. The temple rebuilders also took a poll; people couldn’t decide whether to cut down the trees to save the temple or to leave the trees since they have been there for centuries as well and have just as much right to stand. I tend to agree with the people who say leave the trees, because there are thousands of temples but very few with marvelous trees the size of the trees in Ta Prohm. We also found a neat little spot where you could make a loud Echo when you hit yourself on the chest at a certain spot (on your heart). The tour guide wasn’t really able to explain why, and although I’m sure there’s an official scientific definition, I’m just so amazed by all of these little details that people were able to come up with over a thousand years ago, purposely or not purposely.

After visiting the Banyon temple and the tomb raider temple, we were starving from all the walking and decided to take a lunch break. It was a good thing too, because just before we got in the tuk tuk it started pouring raining. The weather was pretty scary but thank God we were tucked safely away in the tuk tuk. I felt pretty bad for our driver who just had a pancho to cover him while he drove through the pouring rain and lightning. I’m sure we were all pretty relieved when we pulled up to lunch. After eating a delicious lunch, I was especially grateful to our driver and tour guide b/c they decided to take us to the outskirts of the park instead of having us eat lunch in the more jam packed area. We didn’t see either of them at all during our meal though, and I’m thinking there’s some law or code that prevents them from eating with the tourists. Kinda sucks though, b/c I hate the idea of people thinking they are beneath me. Anywho, the rain chilled out over lunch and we were ready to see the main attraction, Angkor Wat, the not so seventh wonder of the world.

Our visit to Angkor Wat

There is so much that is amazing about the temple, but one of the more amazing things is that it holds so much history and so much of the beliefs of the people. Like the temple at the Great Palace in Thailand, it holds multiple (hundreds) episodes of a story about King Rhama fighting against the demon God for the hand of his lover. This version was a bit different from the Thai version, but the art and the inscriptions were just as incredible if not better. Again, I was taken aback by the fact that someone did this a thousand years ago with the most limited technology. Those people knew something about hard work and attention to detail! Our tour guide also shared with us a very personal story of the reason that Buddhists in Cambodia drink their parents’ bones when they pass away! He had lost his father only a few months ago and we could see the love was very real as he explained how important the ritual is to show respect to his parents. Even though we probably won’t be taking it up, I can certainly appreciate his point of view and respect the importance of his parents to him.

As we wrapped up our tour of Angkor Wat, it started to pour down raining again. We hurried to our tuk tuk just before we got completely soaked and headed back towards the hotel. Good timing once again! The rest of the trip went by very quickly.   It was weird that when we turned the tv on in our hotel “America, the Story of Us” was playing and we couldn’t help but watch it. After getting some cheap delicious food from the hotel and lounging around till about 10pm, we called another tuk tuk and headed over to Pub street, a one block version of 6^th street. We had a late dinner at a place called Red Piano, which turned out to have good priced, good tasting, western food. (Also made famous by Angelina Jolie.) I decided to be brave and try a “fishy” foot massage where all the fish attack your feet and eat at the dead skin and other particles. Needless to say they were having a field day on my feet.  To close out the night, we partied at “Angkor What?” and Temple Bar for about 40 mins and then took it to the house.

Sunday we did some shopping (i.e. got hustled), had some cheap ice cream, and then road to the airport to the drum of even more rain. Cambodia was certainly an unforgettable experience, in both good and bad ways.

Weekends in Thailand

So Angel and I made an unofficial agreement to spend every other weekend doing something in or around Bangkok. There’s so much to do in Bangkok that we want to make sure we don’t spend all of our time traveling and forget to dive into the local culture. The first 2 weekends of this agreement led to our trip to the Grand Palace, the Floating Market, and then to Phuket. Angel wrote about the Grand Palace so I’ll write about the others

As instructed, we woke up early on Sunday to head to the Damnoensaduak Floating Market. Our driver and his son picked us up at 845 and the journey. It took us about an hour to get there and we parked at one of the boat renter’s place that actually had a restroom. To our dismay (especially Angel’s), their definition of a toilet is basically a hole in the ground. You have to buy your toilet paper or bring your own (luckily we were prepared).  To rent a boat and driver to take us to the floating market cost 2000 baht (~$70) for the whole boat, which I guess isn’t that bad. It was pretty much the only choice we had though since that’s where our driver took us and we didn’t know anywhere else. So, we paid the money and hopped in the boat. As we traveled along the river, we went from just us and a couple other boats to several boats in the water at once. The market itself was impressive because you could pretty much buy anything that could fit in a boat. I’m not sure how good a business model it is to have a shop there though because there are at least 10 other shops selling the exact same things. You would think that it’s good for the buyer, but you can still easily get hustled if you don’t know how to negotiate. In retrospect, it’s probably best to go to a couple places before you settle on one.  Negotiating is tricky because the shop owners will always say no first to whatever your offer is. The typical conversation goes something like this..

 “Me: I like that little trinket, how much is it? Owner: This one is very nice I give you special price 400 baht. Me: 400 baht??!! I’ll give you 100. Owner: No, no way, cannot go lower. 400 baht lowest price. Me: I’ll give you 150 Owner: Ok, I give to you for 250 baht. Best Price. Final. Me: I’ll give you 180. Owner: No, cannot. Pleeeeeeeeaaaaaaaase. 250 baht. Me: No thank you, I am leaving. Owner: Ok, Ok! 200 baht for you. Me: Ok”

It’s fairly similar to our experience when we went to Mexico and I imagine it’s similar in any tourist destination. The biggest difference to me is that if you walk away after your initial offer the owners will let you leave, they always start about 50% over what is a reasonable price, and they beg! The begging thing caught me off guard the first time but I wasn’t gonna let them fool me twice. Anywho, the trip to the floating market all in all was a good time. We picked up some nice things and we had fun doing it. My personal favorite part was on the way back. We hadn’t eaten lunch and we wanted chicken and rice, so my driver stopped in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road at an old lady and her husband with a stove and a covered eating area. It was sketchy to say the least, but they had a little tv with the pacquiou fight on and they were extremely nice. The meal cost us about 5 bucks total after tip and it was delicious. Neither of us has gotten sick so I count that as a successful stop.

Upon returning to Bangkok, we made plans to go to church. This time we decided to try a Catholic church called Holy Redeemer. We learned from our past mistakes and had our driver drop us off. The most surprising thing about the church was that upon arriving we could see people flooding in from all sides. There were no stained glass windows on the side of the church. Instead, they had huge doors where the windows would be and they had all of the doors open. I searched the ceiling but I’m pretty sure there was no air conditioning unit, which meant that we were depending on the breeze outside and the 30+ fans that were blowing air all around. It was actually not that hot but the humidity prevented the fans from making it cold. The priest had a great and powerful sermon. He spoke about the fact that people put so much emphasis on the holiness of the church and the traditions but that we forget that it’s equally important for the people in the church to be holy. He shared a story of a priest who resigned from his church because although the members came to confession and followed the rules, they would not lift a hand to help an old couple whose house was falling down. This message resonated with me quite a bit. I also thought the whole atmosphere was nice and the people were generally very nice. The church was full of people of all different backgrounds. Probably the biggest blessing was that Angel met a lady who was a member of the Thailand Habitat for Humanity Chapter.

This past weekend (June 15-17) was our weekend to leave Bangkok, so we scheduled a flight to visit Phuket. Angel did most of the booking, but I was very happy to find that for a fairly low price we were staying at a beachside resort named Duangjitt. My cheapness actually saved us some money because instead of paying the 2200 baht that the hotel wanted us to pay for them to pick us up, we ended up getting a ride on a shuttle for 200 baht. Once we took the hour long shuttle ride to Patong Beach, we used Friday as a travel day and pretty much crashed as soon as we got to our room. The hotel was nice and the staff had made a heart on the bed to welcome us because Angel put “honeymoon” in the notes. Saturday morning after our free breakfast, we headed to the beach. The water was not as blue-green as we expected, but there were some hills/mountains in the background that more than made up for it. For 7 bucks we rented 2 chairs and an umbrella for the day and it was time to chill. After a couple good hours of relaxing, I decided to negotiate a 5 minute parasail for myself and a 30 minute jet ski ride for 2 for 80 bucks.

The parasailing was a fun first, even though there was a man with his feet on the ropes just above me directing the parachute and I didn’t go very far or high off the ground. Just flying through the wind and enjoying the elevated view was well worth it. For the landing, the man actually wrapped his legs around me from the back as he steered the parachute to the ground. It was definitely not a safe activity for him but I enjoyed it.  I got bored after about 20 minutes of jet skiing and we decided to head in for a nap. Our nap ended up lasting well into the evening and by the time we hit the streets for dinner it was after 8pm. After passing expensive restaurant after expensive restaurant on Beach Street, we settled on a pizza place that was also expensive. However, the pizza hit the spot and we left full and satisfied. We were beginning to be a little worried that the party district that we read about online was not existent in Platong, but after dinner we walked a little farther, turned the corner, and BAM! There it was, Bangla street! The best way to describe it is slightly cleaner than Bourbon street, a lot more shops and strip clubs than sixth street, and lights like Vegas blvd.

 It had just about everything you could get in trouble doing at night. There must’ve been 100 guys and girls inviting us to a “Ping Pong” show, which I was initially excited to see since I’m fond of table tennis and I assumed it would be some sort of special ping pong tricks. However, after looking at the catalog, I realized that this ping pong show they were referring to had nothing to do with table tennis. It was our first night out in Thailand and we had a really good time. We listened to some live music from a Korean looking band seeing American pop music. We met a couple that was in the US NAVY who were both a lot drunker than we were, we stopped by one club and started the dance floor to hopping, and we had a short but romantic walk along the beach on the way back. It was Definitely a good day.

Sunday we were pretty tired so we slept in and then decided to visit the hotel pool. It was the biggest pool I’ve ever seen. It was more a baby lake than anything, but the water was clean and refreshing. After we hopped out of the pool we pretty much only had time to shower and catch a taxi to the airport. This time I did have to pay the 650 baht that everyone was charging.

All in all, we’ve certainly enjoyed our weekends here so fare and we’ve added a return trip to Phuket to see the James Bond Islands to our already lengthy list of things that we “must do” over the next year. Until next time, Sawadee Kap!

Grand Palace, Wat Po, Temple of Dawn

We started our day awaiting our tour of the Grand Palace, Wat Po, and Temple of Dawn. It took about 30 minutes from our hotel to get to the Grand Palace. Once we were there, Khun Not was generous enough to drive us around the wall of the Palace so that we would know how to get to Wat Po and Temple of Dawn from there. We get down and are thrown right into husslers. Over the intercom, a woman was giving a warning to not be scammed and rightly so. A man standing right in front of the Grand Palace entrance was telling people that the entrance was around the corner. We were like dude it’s right there! Once we entered the Palace a woman wanted to be our tour guide for 400 Baht. We chose not to get her as a guide which was good because once we paid our entrance fee of 400 Baht (the palace is not free) we found a free guide inside. Walking around the Grand Palace was a little overwhelming because it was a very hot, humid and sunny day. Shawn and I were not prepared. We did not have an umbrella or cool towel and on top of that you have to cover up when in the palace. So we were wearing Jeans, tennis shoes and sleeved shirts! We also didn’t know what to when we got in the temple. This may sound closed minded, but being Christian we were a little unsure because we were going into a Buddhist temple, where Buddhists would be worshipping. But we also knew that we wanted to observe and even though we didn’t worship Buddha, we could still observe and delight in its beauty. Walking around the Palace, everything was very beautiful, and there was lots of attention to detail. All the art was symmetrical and beautifully hand crafted. It was an overwhelming amount of beautiful art mixed with very spiritual feeling and respect for the king. There was a mixture of art from Thailand, China, Europe, and India. All the walls were painted with the tale of the demon king (Ravana) vs. King Ramayana and the monkey army. In the story, the Demon took Ramayana’s wife and the monkey army fought to get her back. Our tour guide was awesome. She was very knowledgeable and stopped to take pictures of our group. At the end of our tour, Shawn and I were taking one last picture together, when suddenly Shawn was bombarded by Japanese tourists. We guessed that they thought he was famous or something! It was so funny! Shawn was very surprised but was a good sport about it.

After the Grand Palace, we walked over to Wat Po.  Wat Po was very beautiful as well. It is home to the school of Thai massage, thus the original Thai massage. We had the Original Thai massage for 30 min’s which cost 520 THB total. It was kind of rough because elbows and knees were used.  The weird thing was that we were fully clothed and sweaty. We left with all our bones popped and feeling refreshed.

After that we took a 3 THB ferry to Temple of Dawn which is 10 cents! Temple of Dawn is very tall. There were some steps you could walk up to the highest point allowed. The one thing I learned is that no one in Thailand is there to stop you or question your judgment.  So be a no one stopped us, we decided to walk up the steps. Going up isn’t so bad, but once we got to the top, I was a gonner! The walkway around the Temple was very narrow and there were sharp turns. So after we walked along the top it was time to get down! I don’t think I’ve ever had a panic attack or been so fearful of something in my life. I could not hold it together to climb down for the life of me. Shawn was trying to be supportive but I don’t think he realized that I was actually having a panic attack. He tried to calm me down and went down before me. He suggested going down like a ladder with your face to the steps, but I couldn’t fathom turning around on the stairs. So instead I went down holding onto one side of the rail and almost sitting on each step I made it safely. So when people come to visit I will be sitting at the bottom on the ground waiting for them to climb those steps!