Greetings friends, clients & Asia associates!
Happy (autumn) to all of you! Following summer (yet active!) break, the Lynch Family (Bev, Zen and I) is looking forward to another year of school and compelling travels. On our calendar the next ten months we have trips scheduled to Southeast Asia (Cambodia, Laos), Egypt (Nile River Cruise), Japan, and Italy.
Our Egypt trip will be a reunion of sorts with our dear friends, the Xu Family - Jay Xu, Director or the Asian Art Museum (SFO), his lovely wife Jennifer, and their precocious daughter, Toni. Our two families have traveled together far and wide, including Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma. This will be our first trip together outside of Asia, our first love.
Enjoy reading our September luxury travel updates!
Safe travels - Randy Lynch rlynch@kiplingandclark.com
- Experiences vs. Consumption
Although we really love all of our nice things, none compare to our amazing travels. Several recent academic studies on what makes people happy only confirm what Bev, Zen and I have known for years: experiences, particularly travel, create more deep-seated happiness that the very short-term high from material consumption. Memories last forever...It's no coincidence that our closest friends are also the same individuals that we have shared travel experiences with.
Two noteworthy Malibu clients' recent private tour of Kyoto illustrate this point. We arranged a private visit at Kinkakuji Temple (Golden Pavilion), along with an audience with the senior monk. The concluding heartfelt conversation with the monk, discussing the couples' children and careers, ended up being the most emotionally-charged activity of their trip. Both couples feel they will treasure this very special experience for years to come.
ZEN'S CORNER
Hello kids of the world!
Wow, did this summer go by fast! I am back at Parker starting 4th grade. I am so excited with my new teacher, Ms. Cuesta! We study Egypt in 4th grade so our trip there in February should be a big help.
I am looking forward to our Nile River Cruise and sharing a cabin with my San Francisco friend, Toni. The last riverboat cabin we shared was on the Irrawaddy River in Burma. I remember my dad complaining he couldn't sleep with the sound of "High School Musical" from our cabin!
Water and Orphanages in Cambodia
Many kids in Cambodia must walk miles just to get clean drinking water. All of us can help by donating to the Water Wall Project in Siem Reap. After doing this last year, my family and I met the villagers with their new well. The families were so excited and I felt so good to help. Also, here are some orphanages in Cambodia that we know need help -
* COSO Orphanage (we donated a motor for their tuk-tuk!)
o www.coso-orphanage.com
* New Day Cambodia (our friend, Cindy Szadokierski at UA, visits these kids every year!)
o www.anewdaycambodia.org
Braces are tough but you can get through it!
I've had my braces for nearly seven months. Here are some tips from a braces "veteran" -
* The first three days after the braces are put in are the worst! My dentist had me take Motrin which helped the pain.
* At least in the beginning you should ask your parents to help you floss between the braces.
* Once you get the colored brackets you will feel more pressure on your teeth.
* Now after seven months I feel AOK! (My dad says my tips are not necessarily recommended by the American Dental Association!)
Make Your Own Sushi Birthday!
Here is my 10th "Make Your Own Sushi" birthday celebration at Sunda in Chicago. Thank you Tenae and Aeron!
Happy Travels to everyone! - Zen Lynch
P.S. If you need to reach me you can e-mail my Dad - rlynch@kiplingandclark.com
- Tawaraya vv NAHA and Frontera Grill
What do Kyoto luxury ryokans Tawaraya and Hiiragiya have in common with Chicago's noteworthy restaurants NAHA & Frontera Grill - location! Amazingly, two of the most famous ryokans in all of Kyoto, Tawaraya and Hiiragiya, are located directly across the alleyway from each other. Similarly, James Beard award chefs Carrie Nahabedian (NAHA) and Rick Bayless (Frontera Grill) are also located directly across the street from each other, both near Clark and Illinois streets, home of Kipling & Clark!
- Carrie Nahabedian's private (luxury!) tour of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Thailand
Speaking of Carrie at NAHA, please note one of the e-mails Carrie sent us from Siem Reap, as part of her whirlwind Southeast Asia private tour...yes, Carrie gave us the OK to open this up to all of you..
The temples of Angkor are just like the photos you have seen and then some. The Raffles was great, we had a suite by the pool as big as NAHA...Randy has taken good care of us! We had active days and then an afternoon break, Colin slept and I swam in the luxuriously large pool. I also had a great massage courtesy of Bev Lynch and that made my day. We would then tour again in the afternoon, visiting the fishing villages on Ton Le Sap Lake which was having a big windstorm the day we were there. We visited some villages in the rural areas where Phal has installed water wells for his project which is to bring clean water to each village. Hard to believe in 2010, but millions of people in this region do not have clean water access, electricity or even a home with four walls. The water well project will be my next project and I will be asking all of you to donate to build wells. You can't even imagine the joy of the villagers to go to a pump and be able to get clean drinking water for cooking and drinking. They still bathe in the river and we wont bring up the bathroom situation in the villages. But despite their hard living, they are truly lovely, genuine and hard working people who survive as a community. Their kids go to school and they raise all the food they eat. Colin was quite moved by it all, since he has never seen anything like this. One more thing on the water wells...for $350 a well can be built and will supply clean water for five families. Each well has a big sign and who it was donated by. I was happy to see many American tourists donating thousands to this wonderful cause.
Good job Carrie - you would make a great travel writer!
Although Asia is our favorite area in the world, we prepare amazing high-touch, private luxury tours globally. Our clients recently traveled to France, Italy, Turkey, New Zealand, and East Africa. The common thread among all our trips is personal singular service, individually designed. Our sense of passion and enthusiasm for what we do is unfettered and unrestrained - we truly love working with our wonderful array of clients! (Yes, we admire Alexis de Tocqueville's writings)
Farewell to all!
P.S. Coming in October - our top luxury private tour picks for 2011!
