No computer time...

I am still alive and here in Thailand. We're in a hidden gem of the world...the island of Ko Samui. I have no time to type a blog or use the internet, but for the impatient people out there you can look at Yale's blog for updates. www.yaleinasia.blogspot.com

BCB - if I were a big fat scientist who dissected pigs would you still be my boyfriend?

Wrapping it up in Bangkok

We came to find out that just about every form of transportation in Thailand is questionable. The water taxis (boats) don’t exactly stop when the pull up to the dock. You just have to jump on and off and hope you make it. We missed this small piece of information and missed our dock. We learned our lesson and were the first ones off at the next dock. We walked back to our original dock and took another ferry across the river to Wat Aran – yet another temple. Just as we were taking the smaller ferry across, after our 20 minute detour, it started to rain. Correction…it started to pour. To be honest it was a nice break from the heat. So we continued our sightseeing in the rain. We saw Wat Aran – an ancient temple decorated with broken pieces of Chinese porcelain. The temple reminded me partially of South American art – Mayan or something. Apparently it is beautiful at sunset with the reflection, but due to our ‘learning experiences’ with the ferry all chances of the temple at sunset were shot.

After the temple we decided, in order to avoid another HK experience, to follow the book’s suggestion for food choices. We went to Roti Mataba – a small hole-in-the-wall establishment just off the river. However, contrary to our experiences in HK, this place was amazing! And authentic! Roti is kind of like nan or flatbread. I know what you’re thinking and yes, imagine that…it was gluten free! (or so I would like to think so) For all three of us – eating an average of two meals each was a total of about $7. When we came out of the restaurant the rain had finally stopped and the sun was setting on the river with a huge double rainbow covering nearly the entire sky. There is natural beauty in Bangkok!

After we returned home I went straight to be…I literally crashed. I should have stayed up a bit longer because I woke up at about 4am for the day. Yale (who is on a normal sleeping schedule) and I spent the morning finalizing everything for our beach adventure ahead of us. We are renting a car that will be dropped off at our hotel tomorrow and making our way down the coast. We changed all of our hotel reservations and shuffled things around to see more of the sights while we are there. After making many phone calls to hotels and struggling to communicate with the large majority of people we spoke to, we finished and things should be in place for the next week or so. Stay tuned…

We made it out of the hotel by lunchtime and were off to the designer mall just down the road where we went for lunch. We spent our last day in Bangkok living the high life – bowling, IMAX movie, souvenir shopping, snacking at Dunkin Donuts, and roaming the plethora of air-conditioned malls Bangkok has to offer.

NBC = Need bowling classes…

1. contemplation - visualizing a strike

2. in the moment - I chose the run and chuck technique

3. didn't quite work out the way I planned...gutter ball

The outcome - didn't break 100...shockingly I think I am better at the Wii

We saw a 3-D IMAX show about an African safari. And yes, in case you were wondering my love for Africa is still strong. Once again we had to pay our respects to the King. Speaking of the King, apparently every Monday the King has asked the people to wear yellow shirts. As Yale and I walked out of our hotel this morning we thought it was just a big tour group…little did we know. Everyone was wearing yellow!!! When we asked someone at lunch, in her broken English told us how she loved the King. Imagine if Americans were united in liking something so much, other than Seinfeld or now The Office. We’re taking it easy tonight – probably going to McD’s for dinner…Buddha style.

Sunday Solace

Among all of our transportation nightmares in Bangkok, today has been great (so far). That doesn't mean we haven't been lost today, but we did make it to Church. The ward was a good size filled with expats and people from all over the world...reminded me of the demographics of Brooklyn wards. Church was great for so many reasons...

1. after driving around in a taxi for a while and wandering on foot for about 20 minutes...WE FOUND IT!


2. learning from past experiences, we left and hour early and made it ON TIME! in fact we were even EARLY! Just enough time for me to speak some French to a man from Paris


3. we went to the English ward so WE UNDERSTOOD IT!


4. AIR CONDITIONED!

After church we came back and are now taking it easy for a while. After reading the tour book on Thailand about Phuket and the southern beaches, I think we are going to change most of our itinerary in order to make time for bungee jumping, jungle zip lines, mountain biking, scooter rentals, kayak tours, and more. Should be awesome. As for the rest of the day we are going to ride the boats on the river to a highly recommended Indian restaurant and then head back down the rive to see the Wat Po (I think it's this one) Temple of the Dawn. It will be nice to get out of the dirty city and on to see more of the countryside and the cultural things.

One funny note is last night when we saw Pirates (not worth it), I failed to mention our mandatory 5-minute 'paying respects to the king' prior to the starting of the movie. Out of nowhere everyone all stood in unison while there was a video playing making him some god. Felt like a dictator. All rise....

Crazy Bangkok

A day in Bangkok. What a whirlwind. We started off the day going to the cinema to buy our tickets for Pirates tonight. Over here its assigned seating to you have to come early. Three hours of AC, new movie, all for under $4 – I’m in. We seem to be staying in the newer part of town and so we got a taxi to go see the sights after our movie tickets were secured. We arrived at the Grand Palace only to find that you have to be wearing long pants or a skirt so we decided to come back. We hired a tuk-tuk (a motorized tricycle) to take us around to some of the sights. Our crazy old tuk-tuk driver gave us a ride for our lives. We were grabbing on for our lives while at the same time trying to cover our mouths in order to not blacken our lungs from the pollution. Apparently there is some week-long tourism deal in Thailand where if tuk-tuk drivers take their passengers to certain tourist shops they are given free gas cards. We first went to the giant Buddha temple and then off to a few stores.

After the stores we went to the Golden Temple. We climbed to the top for a view of the city. Fortunately it was a clear day and we could see the gray city with the random golden temple spire sticking up, and no, it wasn’t angel Moroni. In some reverence for Buddha all of these temples make you take your shoes off once you go in which makes the 200 degree stone surface under your feet seem to constantly heat up. So imagine us prancing around the Buddha statues, stopping briefly for an occasional picture. Well after we came down from the Golden Temple our tuk-tuk driver was nowhere to be found. Supposedly he got the gas card and was gone – free transportation though. We then found an actual taxi to take us back to the no-shorts Grand Palace. This guy had to stop at the shops as well. Coincidentally they were the same shops, making it a little awkward for us. We were again ditched, but this time it was after the jewelry store. We then came to our senses and found a METERED taxi to take us to the Palace. I think we paid less than $2 for the ride. But hey, the ones before this one were free! At this point we were all frustrated from scamming Thai businessmen, hot (high of 36 today), sweaty (I’m sure you can see the drops in our pictures), hungry and I’m sure dehydrated. We decided to go in the Grand Palace – “Buddha, this one’s for you!”

We had to ‘borrow’ pants and a skirt…hence the awkward looking attire in the pictures. The skirt might as well have been wool – it was roasting! So I decided to be a little edgy and create a fashion concoction of my own. The guards weren’t too happy but I got away with it until the very end aka…it was worth it! The temples and shrines were impressive, mostly because of their colors and size. These golden, colorful temples stick out among the slum-ridden, gray blanket over Bangkok. In some of the pictures you can see what I am talking about in the background. After walking around the Grand Palace for a while and only exacerbating the dehydration we grabbed a bright orange taxi and headed home. I should mention here that the taxis are bright tropical colors like tic-tacs – helps amongst the drab colors. We ate at the food court of the high end designer mall just down the road from us. We splurged and spent $4-$5 each for lunch. As for now we are done being trucked around some foreign dity city and are taking it easy and preparing ourselves for Pirates – updating the blog, making calls to try and find church for tomorrow, and watching the only English channel on TV, HBO.

Bangkok

Last night we arrived in Thailand...what an adventure getting here. We RAN for the plane in the HK airport (I knew that was going to happen at least once but who knew it would be so early in the trip for me!) only to sit for 4 hours before taking off. Apparently there was some technical problem on the plane. We finally arrived and made our way to our hotel only to find that they in fact didn't have any reservations on file althoughwe had the receipt right in our hand. Welcome to Thailand. Luckily they found something for us. And here I am sitting in the lobby in my pajamas writing in my blog because it is the only time Yale or Fernando aren't on their computers. I do what I can.

There is an entirely different feel to Thailand -- we have certianly left the devleoped Asian world. However, I am looking forward to the adventures that await us in Thailand. We have a 7-11 practically next door to us and a movie theatre down the road...I think we are going to catch Pirates tonight.

as they walked and walked...and walked

So yesterday we romped around HK seeing just about everything. The highlights of the day are as follows

• crazy Italian lady on our bus
• the gluten-free market...check it out above
• crazy Dutch people living next door
• Mango ice cream cones seeing us through right at the point of exhaustion
• getting turned down from Buddha's big birthday bash because there were already too many people there
• seeing the temple
• accidentally speaking French is response to a Chinese person...guess I am that well trained
• going to bed!!

I was absolutely exhausted when we came back to our hostel and crashed...only to wake up at 5:15.

We started the day on a bus ride down from our military hostel camp acocmpanied by a crazy Italian women spouting or should I say shouting random things off to everyone in bus. At one point we were all ready to pay her way to get on another bus. Once down in the city we went to some fetival/parade that was pretty net. After we walked to Victoria Park -- don't get too excited here, nothing more than cement slabs painted over for soccer fields and basketball courts. Walking and more walking. Causeway Bay...Kolwoon Penninsula...and more that I entirely forget at this point. It was later in the afternoon that I hit rock bottom with jet lag and with a little help from a mango ice cream cone managed to continue on. Walking and more walking. We went to see the temple and ask about doing a session tomorrow. It was really neat to see the temple and hear the stories behind its construction. Dinner. Fernando wanted to have something authentic so Yale spotted a hole-in-the-wall Chinese place with reasonable prices. Well that's about the last time I do authentic. I ordered braised pork and I am not even sure there was meat on that fat cube. (see picture) It was the nastiest consistency -- not that I tried it but from prodding around with my chop sticks I was already disgusted. Yale ordered spicy chicken and ended up with chickens feet....yummy! Needless to say it was one for the record book. Fernando, who ordered eel, was the only one who tried everything. There is a video of him eating chicken feet on his blog http://blog.mladineo.com/.

ahhh.....more at home...

The day we left for Thailand we were able to do a session in the morning on our way out. It was incredible! I am so grateful for translations!

So that's a wrap for Hong Kong. It has taken me probably an hour to post all of these dumb pictures...I'm not very savvy with all of this -- still new to blogging.

Arrival

This is the before picture...if I don't return the same at least I have evidence that I once showered. I arrived in Hong Kong after hours of delay and managed to only sleep for 2 hours. Right after the airport we went trekking around downtown HK with a small child (or so it felt like) on my back. Good work out though. We are at a hostel that is perched up on the hill and feels nothing like HK but rather some jungle military hideout. So I'm here...