Thailand

200+ photos of Thailand at the photo link above ^^


GP and I decided long ago to have a nice, relaxing, warm beach vacation. Last April we tried Sydney and it was too cold. We replanned for Thailand and January was just right.

I'm too lazy to write a full report like I used to, so here's the summary.

Saturday 19th
Woke at 4:30am to get to the airport for our 7:30am flight. That get's us to the Holiday Inn Silom (Bangkok) just after lunch. The flight is good and we check into a very nice hotel. Next door is a restaurant with a good selection and we have a late lunch. A short walk, then a "nap". After our nap, it was 6:30am and we decide that is a good way to start a vacation :)

Bangkok was interesting, though not stupendous for those of us not looking to visit a lot of wats or historical sites. We did a little shopping, tried various food and bought some nicer rings (matching white gold with saphires and small diamonds) to replace our Australian silver rings. We're hoping it was as good of a bargain as the jewelry people said.

Tuesday 22nd
Our afternoon flight to Phuket was also uneventful and pretty quick, though delayed 1.5 hours. We taxied to the Holiday Inn Resort (Patong Beach) and found another fabulous hotel. I suppose it should be that nice for the price, but we were glad to have a fairly quiet, comfortable room for four nights.

To get all the details, you'll have to sit with us for all the photos over a beer :) Every morning, we had breakfast near the pool, rested by the pool and watched the Germans, Australians and Japanese play. One day on the beach (and some sunburn), one night to see the lady-boy show, one night to Phuket FantaSea for another great show. Lots of good food and, of course, one night to the seedier end of Patong Beach to see why all the single men travel there.

The food was great, the t-shirt and other souvenir shopping was cheap and the people were pretty friendly. We found a great tour operator named Honey and she proved to be helpful and honest. Look her up if you go to Patong Beach, Phuket.


Tasty, Western type food. Mmmm. Singha beer not shown.


Us


Lots of seafood in Thailand, including big lobsters and giant prawns


Dinner in the gay area of Patpong, Bangkok


Singha


Famous Wat Arun along the Chao Phraya River


GP waiting for the ferry


More food, best mussels ever


The pool, Phuket


The pool, Phuket


The pool, Phuket


GP making friends by the pool


GP and her new skirt


The better pool


Typical Patong Beach bar street


The pool at night


When phonetic translation should be avoided


The fun area of Patong Beach - pingpong shows, etc.


Ladies of negotiable affection


GP in her other new skirt


Us in Phuket


Shopping mall


Shopping mall


Muay Thai fighters


GP wai


Patong Beach


Pretty girl on the beach


More beach


Email me for the photo when she turned around


Patong Beach


GP finding shells


GP on the beach


Ladyboy show


Ladyboy show


Ladyboy show


Ladyboy show


Ladyboy show


I swear the one on the left is a woman. The t-shirt choice was merely coincidence.


Phuket Fantasea - amusement park and live elephant show


Phuket Fantasea


Phuket Fantasea


Phuket Fantasea


Phuket Fantasea


Phuket Fantasea


Phuket Fantasea - 1 of 5 toys we won


Phuket Fantasea


90F and sunny when we left Bangkok and we arrived to this.

Back in time for snow

The Thailand holiday was great and the memories are even more enjoyable since we've arrived to winter wonderland in China. For example, see this article about hundreds of thousands of people stranded around China. It makes a "two days stuck at O'hare" not sound so bad, eh?

The trip report and photos will come soon. With all the rumors at work, I may have a few free months to put together a great report :)

Happy Birthday to Jeff

If it weren't for birthdays, I'd hardly ever update.

Of all the people I know, Jeff most deserves his own theme song. Something mysterious with an opening like "There's a man who . . ." Actually, the theme from Shaft might be ok for him. He likes the funk.

A long-time friend will be visiting Suzhou in February. Mike formerly-of-Chicago-then-Ames-now-Long-Island will be in town on business and then his lovely wife (who I haven't seen forever) will join him for leisure. He will stay at the hotel which I can *almost* see from my office window. I'm looking forward to showing him around Suzhou and having him treat me to dinner ;)

In other travel news, my boss will be here next week, GP and I go to Thailand in 2 weeks (yeah!), I might have a trip to Japan in February, and . . that's about it. There are some interesting job things coming up - perhaps more on that later. The best interesting ones are that we might do some realy development work. Yippee! I'm very excited and I hope we get the chance.

I was inspired by Ohio Ann's blog of pork roast with sauerkraut so that's what we had tonight. I sent GP to the foreign food market for a pork roast and she came back with a 1 pound pork loin. Seared him in the wok (everything goes in the wok here) and then baked for 1 hour with some onion and apple. Sauteed the rest of the onion and covered the roast with sauerkraut (big can, from Germany, $4US), more onion and apple. Bake additional 30 minutes and YUM! Very nice piece of meat and we ate all with the champagne (uh, Freixenet wine with bubbles) we didn't open at New Year's.

Quick movie reviews:
- Madagascar - a little amusing after Freixenet
- 2046 - very interesting, multi-language love story, recommended
- Lust/Caution - good, but seems over-rated, might have been my mood while we watched
- My Blueberry Nights - surprisingly good, maybe not "good" but enjoyable and better than I expected.