(no subject)
alright.. i'm going to attempt to write about my trip to thailand but i'm sure i'll end up forgetting something. we saw so many things i doubt any of us will remember it all. but here goes!
so, after a really late night, emy diego alvaro christian and i met up at college residence at 8am and caught the train to the airport. we checked in, got through security and boarded the plane with no trouble, thankfully. i could do without all the passport control forms. we flew singapore airlines.. their planes must contain more purple per square centimeter than any other entity in the known world. when we touched down, immigration wanted the address where we were staying, but we didn't know it.. so after some rather loud deliberation, we all wrote "hilton."
we landed in bangkok around 8 or 9pm and were met by victor's mother, aunt and cousin, and we all headed to foodland, which is a big supermarket/restaurant. we immediately forgot all the bird flu warnings and dug into green curry and pad thai with chicken and ate ourselves silly.. everything in thailand is dirt cheap and our meals never really exceeded about 2 dollars US per person. when we were in thailand there was about 39 bat to the US dollar, and meals usually were about 40 bat, often cheaper.
after our meal we drove through the city to victor's house, which turned out to be REALLY nice. we didn't know what to expect really, but it was a really really beautiful house with plenty of room.
guess who had a house next door?
?
?
?
THE PRINCE OF DUBAI.
not kidding. his brother has a house down the street.
we all headed to bed.. enda, victor and victors dad (papa-san) showed up around midnight after finally catching a standby flight out of tokyo. the next morning we all got up and headed to their country club to enjoy an american breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage etc.. a rarity in japan). we drove into bangkok and boarded a small boat for a tour. i managed to get soaked, the only one. we fed really huge gross fish that belonged to a temple, sampled some traditional deserts made of coconut, and visited some temples. after that, we headed to a local mall where the boys all got haircuts. we had dinner on the bank of the river and ate all kinds of delicious thai food that i don't know the name of. on to a night market (thailand has hundreds of night markets where people sell touristy stuff and things they've made themselves, always really cheap. you have to sit there and haggle with them forever but by the end of our stay we were pretty skilled.) at the night market is where we sampled our delicious maggots, crickets and grasshoppers.. and the truth about the bugs: they weren't bad. they were dead and covered in some kind of barbeque seasoning. we all agreed the maggot was the worst because it was mushy inside, the grasshopper was second because it was too big, but the crickets weren't bad at all. a must try for visitors to thailand. although, victor's mother refused to eat them, saying it was gross and only weirdos ate them. buh. rebecca arrived that night.
thursday we toured the ruins of ayutthaya, rode elephants, saw a reclining buddha.. i think we made 6 stops in all at different ruins that day. the architecture of the old palaces was breathtaking.. i can't imagine what they looked like before burma burned them down. (we had a memorable conversation the day before with papa-san about the history of relations between burma and thailand. part of the it went like this: they're heathens.. i mean "you can rape the women, whatever, but don't burn the city! that's going too far." direct quote.) we ate lunch at a chinese place.. 6 of us eating more food than ive seen in my entire life, only costing us 40 bucks US. after touring all day, we went to suamlum night market which was fantastic..they had a huge food area with a live stage.. thai performers were doing covers of popular songs from the states and thailand.. it was kind of hilarious. we had one of our first experiences with transvestites in thailand.. they're very, very common in thailand, but only men turning female. halfway through our meal, victor announced in japanese (we were speaking japanese as code language) that his father thought our waitress was really a man. we spent some time shopping.. i got 4 shirts for about 11 dollars, some scarves etc, and diego and i enjoyed a humongous kamikaze in front of the stage while some man dressed as a boxer did some stand up in thai.
that night we didn't sleep.. instead we enjoyed al and diego doing a duet of songs from aladdin.. something that was to continue the rest of the trip, with diego whistling one part as al sang the other. we piled all our stuff into our rented van and set off for koh samui friday morning 6am, arriving at the coast at 6pm and boarded a ferry. on the ferry we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life.. unfortunately my pictures aren't very good. hopefully someone else has good ones. after a 2 hour ferry ride, we got to koh samui and drove around a long time searching for our hotel. we stayed at a place called coral cove chalet.. one of the most beautiful hotels i've ever seen.. it was a resort complete with spa, pool etc etc, right on the beach. the first night we all piled into the pool and had cocktails in coconuts. it was ridiculous.. a movie vacation.
the website for our hotel: http://www.coralcovechalet.com/ best thing? 30 bucks a night per room = 10 bucks a night per person.
... okay my times up.. i have to get ready for a meeting with kuriharo-san. tomorrow i start a teaching job.. three group lessons teaching english to little kids back to back from 3:55-7:10 once a week and i get 90 bucks plus travel expenses every time! i'll continue this thing about thailand asap. i'm getting more pictures from al and diego tomorrow so you can look forward to that.
so, after a really late night, emy diego alvaro christian and i met up at college residence at 8am and caught the train to the airport. we checked in, got through security and boarded the plane with no trouble, thankfully. i could do without all the passport control forms. we flew singapore airlines.. their planes must contain more purple per square centimeter than any other entity in the known world. when we touched down, immigration wanted the address where we were staying, but we didn't know it.. so after some rather loud deliberation, we all wrote "hilton."
we landed in bangkok around 8 or 9pm and were met by victor's mother, aunt and cousin, and we all headed to foodland, which is a big supermarket/restaurant. we immediately forgot all the bird flu warnings and dug into green curry and pad thai with chicken and ate ourselves silly.. everything in thailand is dirt cheap and our meals never really exceeded about 2 dollars US per person. when we were in thailand there was about 39 bat to the US dollar, and meals usually were about 40 bat, often cheaper.
after our meal we drove through the city to victor's house, which turned out to be REALLY nice. we didn't know what to expect really, but it was a really really beautiful house with plenty of room.
guess who had a house next door?
?
?
?
THE PRINCE OF DUBAI.
not kidding. his brother has a house down the street.
we all headed to bed.. enda, victor and victors dad (papa-san) showed up around midnight after finally catching a standby flight out of tokyo. the next morning we all got up and headed to their country club to enjoy an american breakfast (eggs, bacon, sausage etc.. a rarity in japan). we drove into bangkok and boarded a small boat for a tour. i managed to get soaked, the only one. we fed really huge gross fish that belonged to a temple, sampled some traditional deserts made of coconut, and visited some temples. after that, we headed to a local mall where the boys all got haircuts. we had dinner on the bank of the river and ate all kinds of delicious thai food that i don't know the name of. on to a night market (thailand has hundreds of night markets where people sell touristy stuff and things they've made themselves, always really cheap. you have to sit there and haggle with them forever but by the end of our stay we were pretty skilled.) at the night market is where we sampled our delicious maggots, crickets and grasshoppers.. and the truth about the bugs: they weren't bad. they were dead and covered in some kind of barbeque seasoning. we all agreed the maggot was the worst because it was mushy inside, the grasshopper was second because it was too big, but the crickets weren't bad at all. a must try for visitors to thailand. although, victor's mother refused to eat them, saying it was gross and only weirdos ate them. buh. rebecca arrived that night.
thursday we toured the ruins of ayutthaya, rode elephants, saw a reclining buddha.. i think we made 6 stops in all at different ruins that day. the architecture of the old palaces was breathtaking.. i can't imagine what they looked like before burma burned them down. (we had a memorable conversation the day before with papa-san about the history of relations between burma and thailand. part of the it went like this: they're heathens.. i mean "you can rape the women, whatever, but don't burn the city! that's going too far." direct quote.) we ate lunch at a chinese place.. 6 of us eating more food than ive seen in my entire life, only costing us 40 bucks US. after touring all day, we went to suamlum night market which was fantastic..they had a huge food area with a live stage.. thai performers were doing covers of popular songs from the states and thailand.. it was kind of hilarious. we had one of our first experiences with transvestites in thailand.. they're very, very common in thailand, but only men turning female. halfway through our meal, victor announced in japanese (we were speaking japanese as code language) that his father thought our waitress was really a man. we spent some time shopping.. i got 4 shirts for about 11 dollars, some scarves etc, and diego and i enjoyed a humongous kamikaze in front of the stage while some man dressed as a boxer did some stand up in thai.
that night we didn't sleep.. instead we enjoyed al and diego doing a duet of songs from aladdin.. something that was to continue the rest of the trip, with diego whistling one part as al sang the other. we piled all our stuff into our rented van and set off for koh samui friday morning 6am, arriving at the coast at 6pm and boarded a ferry. on the ferry we saw one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life.. unfortunately my pictures aren't very good. hopefully someone else has good ones. after a 2 hour ferry ride, we got to koh samui and drove around a long time searching for our hotel. we stayed at a place called coral cove chalet.. one of the most beautiful hotels i've ever seen.. it was a resort complete with spa, pool etc etc, right on the beach. the first night we all piled into the pool and had cocktails in coconuts. it was ridiculous.. a movie vacation.
the website for our hotel: http://www.coralcovechalet.com/ best thing? 30 bucks a night per room = 10 bucks a night per person.
... okay my times up.. i have to get ready for a meeting with kuriharo-san. tomorrow i start a teaching job.. three group lessons teaching english to little kids back to back from 3:55-7:10 once a week and i get 90 bucks plus travel expenses every time! i'll continue this thing about thailand asap. i'm getting more pictures from al and diego tomorrow so you can look forward to that.