Well, once again, it's been awhile since I've last blogged. I'm beginning to feel this sentence is a little reminiscent of my Catholic confessions.... At any rate, we've been busy this past month and a half. Jon and I've been on two dates to great Minneapolis restaurants, leaving Meredith at home with babysitters (both girls from her daycare), and I went to Thailand while Jon stayed home with Meredith and then his mom came in for a visit and to help while I was gone, too!
So, yeah, I just got back from a Thailand for 10 day trip with my 27 year old sister Emily. She's my sister that has the son who is one month older than Meredith, and she has a 5 year old as well. Her good friend from college, Jonathan (aka Stumpy) has lived in Bangkok for the past couple of years teaching English to Thai students and she wanted to visit him and I've always wanted to go to Thailand, so we left the little ones with their very capable fathers and hit the road. It was a 24 hour trip to get there in total with 3 flights equalling 20 hours in the air, plus layovers. It actually wasn't too bad, we got there at midnight on Saturday night and Stumpy picked us up at the airport with his girlfriend, Pimm (who is a wonderful Thai woman). The brought us to their hotel to get ready and then we went to one of her friend's birthday party, which was a lot of fun. The rest of the week they had activities and restaurants all planned for us, it was great. Between their knowledge of Thailand and Pimm's ability to speak the language, it was just perfect. While in Bangkok, we went to the old capital, rode elephants, had a couple of Thai massages, visited several Temples and palaces, saw many, many Buddhas, shopped, went to a floating market and a cultural park and ate a lot of wonderful Thai food.
Then we flew to Krabi, near Phuket, on the beach and stayed at a beach house with Jon and Pimm and 10 other friends of theirs. The beach is the most beautiful I've seen so far in my life. The water was near 80 degrees and a beautiful aquamarine color, the sandstone cliffs just jut straight out of the ocean and are apparently some of the best rock climbing in the world. The beaches are white sand and lovely. We rented a boat for a day and went island hopping and snorkeling and there were also many fun bars and restaurants to visit on the secluded peninsula. I would love to go back there with Jon, though it would take 3 flights totaling 22 hours, a 45 minute van ride, then a 30 minute boat ride and then a 20 minute walk to get to where we were, we'll see - I'd love to make it back.
With every vacation I feel like I learn more about the world and myself. I would say Bangkok is enormous, like 11 million people, very, very hot - sweating buckets everyday, a lot of activities, restaurants, etc - but not exactly a beautiful place. You can tell it's a third world country, everywhere you go looks, more or less, like a ghetto. But it is extremely safe, according to our friends and my experience. I wore a purse and walked around late at night and never once felt unsafe. The people are very friendly there, though their language is so completely foreign to me. I often found myself speaking Spanish to someone in response to them speaking Thai to me; a natural reflex, I guess. If anything, this trip has sparked in interest in the history of Asia and I definitely want to do more traveling in that area. And if it weren't for my sister's friend and his girlfriend, it would have been a lot harder to get the wonderful experience that we got!
While I was gone, Jon was home alone with Meredith. You wouldn't think that's a big deal, except that with him being a surgeon, it is a bit harder. He had to make sure he wasn't on call while I was gone. And he was trying to make it so he had no patients in the hospital to round on over the weekend that I left, which didn't happen. He ended up dumping Meri off at my aunt's house while he rounded. Plus, I just happened to be gone over the time he took his test for board certification, which he needs to keep his privileges at the hospital he works. I did feel very guilty about this, but he assured me it was okay. Another one of my aunts was able to come by on the Sunday before the test and watch Meri so he could study.
Then his mom came in for a visit and to help from Wednesday until Sunday when I returned. It looks like they had a lot of fun. They took Meri to Jon's office, went to a Pumpkin patch, the Mall of America, bought her a Halloween costume and went on a bike ride with our new Burley. I'm a little jealous, actually - even though I was having fun in Thailand!
So, that about sums up our last month and a half. I'm sure the next month and a half won't be nearly as interesting. Here are some pics of our activities....
My Trip To Thailand
Soon after we landed, at Samira's Birthday party (she doesn't remember meeting us!)
Here is my sister's friend Jonathan (aka Stumpy), our very gracious host
In Auttuya, the old capital, feeding an elephant corn
My sister and I taking a ride around the ruins on an elephant
As you can see, these ruins are starting to sink into the ground
There are many Buddhas everywhere, most with their heads missing. According to Pimm, it's from thieves who have stole them and sold them for a lot of money on the internet
Here is a large Buddha statue, I'm not sure if the head is original or reconstructed
This Buddha head has grown into these tree roots, apparently there is a very famous photo of this with a young Buddhist monk sitting in front of it
Jon and Pimm took us to a fish market, "If it swims, they have it". We had some awesome Thai seafood.
Here we are in Bangkok visiting the Grand Palace, what became the capital after Auttuya was burned to the ground by the Burmese. It isn't where the current royalty live, but is still used for many things. You can see my very cute outfit, since I had a tank top and shorts on (your shoulders and legs must be covered) I had to rent these items as to not be offensive. I was SO hot walking around in this get-up!
The give you gold leaf to place on the Buddha statues and you are supposed to make a wish
Then we went to another Temple in Bangkok that housed the enormous reclining Buddha
The next day we headed almost 2 hours out of the city to the Floating Market where you take a boat around to this market where you can float up and buy things, or other boats will float to you and try to sell you fruits and hot foods. It was very interesting.
On the way home we stopped at another Temple and here we are in a cave where they keep several Buddha statues to pray to. This one is the fat, happy Buddha
We also stopped at a Cultural Park and rose garden. Here they are making silk from the silk worm's cocoons
They had a presentation that included some Thai Boxing. It was pretty cool
That night we went to the night market to shop and we came upon a fish spa. This 10 year old Dutch girl had tons of fish sucking on her legs and she was just giggling.
So Jon and I decided to try it out, my sister didn't think she could handle it. It was very ticklish and weird, but I'm glad I did it.
After an hour flight we were in Krabi town, but still needed to get to our resort, a 45 minute bus ride and a 20 minute boat ride, followed by a 20 minute walk - got us there.
When we first got to this beach we saw all these small balls on the sand. At first we thought they were eggs, but soon realized they were balls of sand that these small crabs pushed out of their little holes. If you stand still you can see the little crabs coming in and out of the holes.
This was our beautiful beach house
This is a picture of when were leaving the island and the tide was out. A lot of sand was exposed and people were walking on it and "crabbing".
This is where we went snorkeling - off Chicken Island. The water is a beautiful aquamarine
Here is an example of these rock cliffs that jut out of the ocean.
My sis and I enjoying a beer on the boat
Back on our beach chilling until sunset
A gorgeous sunset in Krabi
Jon, Meredith and his mom while I was away...
While I was gone, Jon's mom Kathy came into town. Here they all are at Jon's office where apparently Meredith ran around and "bugged" some patients - but in a cute way
Jon and Kathy took Meri to a pumpkin patch, they picked some pumpkins out for us and it looked like they had fun
Meri standing by the Pumpkin Meter, she'll cost at least $20, I'm sure!
It also looked like they had some fun in our yard with leaves. Meri just looks all bundled up and cute
She seems to be having fun, too!
They also took our bikes and the Burley around Lake Harriet. Must have been one of our last nice days here in MN.
They even got to the Mall of America and had lunch at Crave. Apparently Jon gave Meri some sushi and she wasn't a fan.
Here are some pictures from Meredith's One Year Photo Session by Honeybee & Peony
