Month: January 2019

Tangential to the main story of our day of traveling… Mark recently showed Alex the movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles- I had never actually seen the movie but it’s not exactly what I expected. Nor is it exactly a great movie for kids – unless you want your 8 year old rolling around telling jokes about playing with your balls, which he will, to anyone who will listen!

The day started out with a very early wake up and ride to the airport. There are two airports in Bangkok, but only one has daily flights to Hai yat So we had to drive to the other side of Bangkok and because there are only two vans at the next stop (one at 11:30 and one at 3:30) and only two boat departure times- everything had to go smoothly.

I apparently didn’t think that getting pictures of anything up until the boat ride was important. After arriving at a very small airport, we wandered around trying to find anything to eat (the airport was that small) we found a Dunkin Donuts and grabbed a few donuts and Thai ice tea to go and wait for the van to pick us up.

I arranged with a travel company that picks you up at the airport in a party van, they bring you to the pier and get you on a big speedboat to take you to the island we were visiting. It was relatively expensive, but not having to worry about or negotiate any other trips or travel plans was worth it to me! The company is called Cathay Tours Hat Yai, and there is a link to their facebook page under one of the pictures. 

The Van was full on the way to the pier, we had 8 people plus the driver. Alex played games most the ride which made it easier on everyone! It was an hour and a half drive from the airport to the pier, and most of it was the same as anywhere in Thailand- beautiful trees, lots of plants, tree farms (may have been rubber? they were being harvested for sap of some kind, but I couldn’t tell what). But half way to the pier we saw a couple of monkeys just sitting by the road. That was a highlight for me!

We got to the pier around lunch time, but again, not really anywhere to eat. Alex and Mark split a bag of salt and vinegar chips and some water. Next time I will plan all of this better and grab sandwiches in Bangkok before we leave.

Now for me, the boat was going to be the scariest part of the whole adventure. Last summer before we left for China, we visited my Dad and stepmom in Florida and we went on a fishing boat (which was great and we all really enjoyed), but I got really sea sick for the first time in my life. So I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing, it was an hour and a half on a big speed boat. But if you want to go to this island, this is your only choice.

Alex and Mark picked the seats up at the front of the boat, right across from the captain’s station. They were raised up and facing forward and Alex was a champ the whole time, he loved going on the boat!

Because the bench that Mark and Alex were on was only for two people, I sat behind them on the long bench that lines the side of the boat. This was a bad choice… for me at least. Despite it not being bad weather, the chop of the waves was pretty high, and every time the boat would ride up a wave and slam back down. Now this was no fault of the crew- it’s a product of us going during low season and the crew tried to steer out of it as much as possible. I managed not to be sick, but only barely- and I had a few bruises from holding on so tight. And I was lucky, there was another lady on our boat throwing up for most of the ride.

Now, I’ve not mentioned the name of the island until this point… we were arriving on the picturesque shore of Koh Lipe. It’s a little island, not well known like Krabi or Pattaya and I selfishly want to keep it that way. We had wanted a beautiful place, with snorkeling and scuba, and white sand beaches- We got all that and more at Koh Lipe.

When we got to shore, there was a representative from our hotel, waiting to take us in a long boat to our hotel. I felt bad for the poor guy because he carried our heaviest suitcase across the sand to the smaller boat.

And I’m going to share with you all, my most prized secret…. Ten Moons Hotel. This place, there aren’t words- it’s got an almost private beach (they share with another hotel next door), you have a bungalow to yourself…. the staff is so wonderful, by the time you leave you feel like family. There will be lots of pictures and stories of the staff in upcoming posts.

It was about 4pm when we got to the hotel and settled in, so we got Alex suited up and into the water for a bit before dinner. We ate at the hotel that night since we were all a little tired from the trip (and we had 7 days on the island to explore). Mark had a few movies downloaded to share with Alex and at night after a day of beaching, or snorkeling, we’d watch some classics together. Notably on this trip was Arachnophobia, Minority Report, Ready Player One, Mission Impossible… and a few others I can’t remember now.

Ok, so we’re back to our regularly scheduled program! I haven’t been great about writing because I’ve been working so hard on my grad school work, but I’ve got a month long “break” and I want to get caught up on here and the massive amounts of housework I have let slide. So bear with me while we time travel back to August.

In August we went back to Thailand- honestly, I think that even if we got nothing else from coming to China (which isn’t true) my family’s love for Thailand would be worth it. When we asked Alex where he’d like to go, he immediately answered with Bangkok. This time though, we wanted to do more of a beach relaxed visit, and really spend some down time together.

We stayed in a nice little hotel, in a very different part of town than we stayed in last time. This one was closer to things we wanted to do and most importantly, really close to a metro stop. The “downside” to this trip was that it was during the rainy season. But that really only affected us a little.

So priorities in this group always lean towards food, and so we got up and went right out to find something to eat. We ended up yelping for something nearby and ended up in the Tesco food court at the mall/metro stop near our hotel. It took us forever to find the stand we wanted, but the food was so good it was well worth the wait.

After lunch we found a Dairy Queen… now, we do have a Dairy Queen at the mall by our home in Haining, but it really only has Oreo as an option for blizzards (ice cream blended with candy or cookie bits) – Although this last time I thought I was ordering a strawberry blizzard and ended up with rose flavored… tasted a bit like body wash. But… this Bangkok Dairy Queen had other flavors! Mark had a heath bar blizzard and was very happy!

The hotel had a pool (since that’s something we always look for, don’t all people with kids?) and if we were at the hotel, Alex wanted to be in the pool.

The area surrounding the pool had tons of beautiful flowers and birds of paradise around, it really felt like a little island in the city.

That night we went out to a fancy dinner place that Mark found. I don’t remember the name of it (maybe he will remind me when he reads this) but it was wonderful. I don’t think they get a lot of kids in there, and there definitely weren’t while we were in there. The very first thing that happened, was they gave Alex a big glass of water, and as he went to take a drink, it slipped put of his hands and right onto the floor– smash! He felt so bad about it, he was beating himself up for most of dinner. Thus the less than happy expression on his face in the picture above. We had a really great lime sea bass here, and it set Mark on a journey to find that taste again.

Our second day in Bangkok, we went to the famous Terminal 21 mall. This mall is themed, each floor has a city that it is modeled after, and has kitschy themed things throughout. The whole mall is set up to look like an airport- with arrivals and departures listed on the escalators. It also boasts the world’s longest escalator… we didn’t go on that!

We thought that was funny, since we had just gotten back from Tokyo a few weeks before. And it was a very Tokyo feel, the stores had things we had seen in Tokyo, and the signage all felt very accurate

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We ate lunch at Terminal 21, but we ended up finding where we wanted to eat in the basement area. There was an Ippudo Ramen spot there, so while Alex ate Subway (because he’d always eat Subway) Mark and I got to have Ippudo again. It wasn’t as good as the one in Tokyo, but it was still very good!

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Overall, we had a very good time at the Terminal 21 Mall… it was an easy metro ride from our hotel, which saved us time and money in the rain. And we found a place across from the mall that the guys were really excited about!

This was a really great way to spend our rainy afternoon. Mark found it using one of his secret ways, and we thought it would be a nice surprise for Alex. When we got there, the hardest part was picking which of their huge game collection to play!

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We have always said how great it would be to have somewhere like this in Haining, maybe we’ll have to open one ourselves.

We still had one day in Bangkok before heading to our island portion of the vacation…. so we did what any normal family would do, we went to the Snake Farm.

Now, the snake farm is not just a bunch of snakes in cages… it’s also a really important part of the antivenom production system in Thailand (and globally). This is something I’ve learned more about since starting school since snake envenoming (snake bites from venomous snakes) is a neglected tropical disease and that’s what I’m working on. So we had to go check it out. The cab driver had never heard of this place and didn’t know why we would want to go there.

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The snake farm was really neat, and I think if you get a chance to go see something like that you should. I learned a lot from it, and now am even more invested in it because of my research.

After snakes, it was time for lunch, and we went to an all you can eat hotel buffet at a nearby fancy hotel- it was good, Alex was treated like a little prince and was in 7th heaven.

After we got back to our hotel (and went swimming again!) we had a plan for the last night in Bangkok of this part of the trip. Mark had found a pad thai place that is YouTube famous, in a equally famous section of night market that we wanted to go try out. We were also going to try a popular place for Cha Yen but they closed right when we got there, so no such luck.

It took us forever to find the place because the addresses aren’t really labeled, and it’s all in Thai anyway, so all we can do is ask people and look for a sign that looks the same as what we’ve seen in the YouTube videos. In the process though, Mark and Alex got to pet 3 or 4 stray cats, we ate a traditional Thai dessert, and saw a rat about the size of a small cat…. so, it was an eventful night!

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And then in the morning, we had to get up early and get a cab to the other airport in town, hop on a plane, ride a van, get on a boat, get on a smaller boat to get to our beach vacation!

We woke up pretty early, unlike the Disney’s in the US- even if you stay in the hotel, you don’t get into the park an hour earlier- but you do get to use a less crowded entrance. Alex and I were up and ready to go right away, but Liz has two teenagers and like most teenagers, they like to sleep in. So we checked out and went ahead and they met us at the Park when they were ready.

First order of the day… breakfast! Alex didn’t know that this was the plan, but it’s always nice to surprise him and keep him on his toes.

 

I am writing this one out of Chronological order, so that I can post about Christmas relatively close to Christmas, I will get back to our summer adventures after this post.

This semester we have had some great visiting professors that we have become good friends with- one of the families will be here the whole year and you will see more of them in upcoming posts. The other family will sadly be leaving in a few days– but we have had such a great time getting to know them and having mini adventures with them. So this is a shout out to the Hsiao-Weckslers!

Liz is a visiting Mechanical Engineering professor, and her two boys, Jack and Doren (Doren has been going to school with Alex). We have been talking about Shanghai Disney pretty much since she got here, but have always had something come up and wreck our plans. One hiccup has always been that I was a little afraid to go, I was worried that it would all be in Chinese and too hard to navigate. But I am delighted to report that that is not the case and we really enjoyed our visit!

This trip involved a slow train to Shanghai, and then a metro ride to the end of the line and then a shuttle bus to the hotel.

We went to check into our hotel first to drop off our bags and rest a bit before hitting the park. We stayed in the Toy Story Hotel, and it was as cute as you would expect

A quick 10 minute stop into the rooms, and then we headed off to the park. Picking up our tickets was a breeze, we walked up to the turnstiles, handed over our passports and were handed our tickets. They even had discount tickets (I think because of Christmas) that let you into the park after 4pm.

I was expecting it to be mobbed, I’ve been to Disneyland in California before at Christmas time and it was so packed you couldn’t move- but it was actually relatively empty. The big rides had “long” waits, but I think Soaring was an hour and Tron was even less.

Tron was really hard to try to get a good picture of- Abby and I waited below for everyone else.

A good time was had by all the riders. Alex will quickly tell you anytime he is asked that Tron is his favorite part of this trip. After this we grabbed some dinner and waited for the tree lighting ceremony.

After tree lighting it was back to running around for rides. As soon as we got over there, Pirates of the Caribbean closed temporarily- so we moved on to Fantasy land where we rode the Storybook ride (think Jungle cruise but with princesses) and Peter Pan’s Flight- which is the same at all the parks I think- and wander through gift shops (because we all had a roughly$12 coupon on purchases over $22).

After shopping for a bit, Pirates was back open and we were able to get on it with no wait at all. Pirates was pretty cool, lots of CGI and different special effects than the ones in US Disneys… and a bit darker too. Not to spoil too much, but in the famous scene with the guys in jail trying to whistle the dog with the keys over… In Shanghai it’s all skeletons, the guys and the dog. The whole ride is in Chinese, and while I didn’t understand it, you don’t really need to to enjoy the ride.

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After that we decided to head out of the park as it was about to close for winter hours, and while Abby and Nora went to find a good spot to watch the closing finale, the rest of us went on Seven Dwarf’s Mine train since there was no wait.

We decided to head in and get shopping while everyone else was watching the finale. When we got done, we headed to Disney Town (which is the equivalent of Downtown Disney or Disney Springs) to have a late night dinner at Cheesecake Factory.

And all of this was just the half Day at Disney! Abby and Nora only joined us for this half day because Nora was a responsible student who had to study for a test… unlike me, who had a final in two days but hung out at Disney anyway!