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
This reminded me of our kitchen lamp from our California house 
Istanbul Center, I loved the tiles here
San Francisco was the food court level 
I mean, how cool is that? 
I admit I wanted to have a bit of a Godzilla moment, and start smashing, but probably not a great Idea 10 stories up on a bridge suspended from the ceiling. 
Just one of the good court options, I liked the aesthetic of this building
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!
The first floor was Rome, Alex was really excited for this one 
I don’t know that they were supposed to sit on it… but we did, so there ya go. Mark is doing his Gregory Peck ala Roman Holiday impression 
Alex getting into the swing of it too! 
The famous Mouth of Truth… Alex didn’t get it 
Mark being a good sport for his crazy tourist wife
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!
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.
These guys did the snake wrangling and milking of the snakes 
First they explained how the process works and how they get the venom out 
That is an actually cobra getting milked… so cool! 
I was in awe of their coolness under pressure, I would not be that calm holding a snake. 
That’s all the venom they get from two snakes during the milking process- you can see why it is an expensive procedure if you need to be treated. 
Outside there was a cage with a King Cobra in it ^^ this is him. He didn’t have his hood out, but his head was massive even without that. 
The back of the King Cobra’s head. He definitely knew we were there, but he was just hanging out. 
Alex was hot and needed a drink… I was saying maybe Coke would like to use this in an ad campaign?
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!
It’s not a big or fancy place, but it’s good 
Prepping our 3 pad thais 
Good eats!
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!
Traveling Expat Family 
Ceci hopes you will write about the beach vacation! She loves when I read her your blog. 😍
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