"So, have you been to the mall?"

The malls in Thailand are not that different from te malls in America. They both have tons of stores and restaurants and you can catch the newest release movies there too. There are a few things in the malls in Thailand that those western malls just don't have. 

A couple of the malls here have indoor ice skating rinks year round. So awesome.

Several of the malls have water parks on the roof. How brilliant! Although you have to wear a swim cap which is a bummer.

Most all Thai malls have a "basement" of some sort where you will find items of cheaper quality as well as cheaper prices. This is where I like to shop.

Special parking spaces are always set aside in the parking garages for various minority groups. Mainly they are for "Platinum" credit card holders or even "Lady Parking". The mall just around the corner from our house has special parking for our neighborhood residents AND golf carts! The mall we went to today had "Supercar" parking. This is for those crazy expensive sports cars like the one in the pic. They even provide special flooring and lighting to show off said car. If I had this Lotus and parked it in the "Supercar" park under the special lighting I would be sure it was clean. But this is Thailand and the roads are dirty.

Most parking garages in the malls have a car wash/detail shop where for a pretty penny you can get your "Supercar" Lotus cleaned while you shop.

Each mall generally has a substantial play area/arcade as well as a whole wing set aside for learning centers. These are not day area or schools but enrichment/tutor type places.

Some things will always remain the same no matter where you are though: like parking in BFE and crowds.

Tag! You're it!

I found the security base. Now I know where to go when I'm playing security tag.

UUUGGHH!!

It's days like today that I wish all of those other moms, who say "I don't know how you do it", were flies on the wall in my house. These kids are INSANE! And taking me along for the ride, too! Just when I think I have a handle on things, one of them goes and adds another gray hair to my head. I'm too young to have all of this gray hair!

I have to remind myself that my kids are all basically the same age. So whatever stage one of them is going through, the other 3 are all going through it too. Or at least are not far behind. I think this is what stresses me out the most. I get the first one through whatever stage (or think I do) and feel a little accomplished and able to relax and then the next kid goes through it. You would think that having the experience of more than one kid going through the stages of development would help me to better know what I am doing. Not so much. Each kid has their own personality and therefore goes through said stage differently. What works for one doesn't work for the rest, not even one of them. This is exhausting!

Sunday Outings

We took a little jaunt to our favorite little get-away-from-the-house spot today: Koh Kret. It's really close to the house and always interesting.  We had already stopped by the Bike Expo and picked up a few things for our bikes so we decided we had a little more time to kill and crossed the river. 

It wasn't crowded like it usually is on the weekends. I think this is due to the large amounts of rain we had recently and the flooded areas of the island. People aren't visiting as much because they don't want to get wet. 

The old pier under water. Good thing they built a new floating dock.

This is the restaurant we ate at the last time we came with Ben's parents and Grandmother. It was closed for obvious reasons.

 

The tide is a little lower now.

One of my favorite snacks: rice and beans cooked inside bamboo.

Alot of the shops were closed because they were flooded. Some were open despite the water. We found what we (I) wanted though. Andy kept coming back to the puppet guy and "feeding" the dinosaur ice.

 

A quick hour trip and then a foot massage for Benny, Ellie and I, while the others rested at home before heading to church tonight. 

When in Thailand...

...if ominous clouds are lingering overhead when you are leaving to go to a meeting, AND it's the middle of rainy season, it's probably NOT a good idea to ride your bike. I left thinking I wouldn't be gone too long and could make it back before it started to rain. Yeah, No! It poured just after I got to my meeting. After the meeting was over we hung around a little while to wait out the downpour. When we thought it had lightened up enough I headed out. Of course, I got soaked! And no sooner than I got home and dried off, the rain stopped. I could have waited 5 more minutes and made it home without getting wet but I had fun riding in the rain.

You know you're in a foreign country...

... If the high rise buildings have windows that open on the upper floors. You would never find this in America! Too much of a risk someone would either by accident or intentionally find themselves flying be seriously injured. It's a common thing here as they don't regularly use the air conditioners, and even when they do they are only good in one room. No centralization here.

This pick was taken on the 13th, I mean 12A, floor. That opening is definitely big enough for any American, let alone any Asian.

From Aussies to Kiwis

The second leg of our R&R was a week in Auckland, New Zealand. After a LONG 6 hour flight with NO in-seat entertainment, we touched down in Kiwi country. It was already early evening so we grabbed our rental car and headed to the hotel. We got settled just as the sun was disappearing behind the horizon. The kids had their own room and were happy (as were we) for the freedom.

Our main reason for stopping in Auckland was to live up to our Nerd-family status. We set out early the next day and headed south towards Matamata, home to Hobbiton. For those non-nerds reading this, Hobbiton is the home of the Hobbits from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. We prepared for this trip by watching all 3 LOTR movies and the Hobbit the week before going. Ellie also brought the Hobbit book with her to read (since she is never found without a book).

The drive was beautiful. It was exciting leaving the city and seeing the hills get bigger and bigger on the horizon. Tom Tom took us on a beautiful route. We arrived just in time for our 11:00 tour. It was amazing. The grounds are on a real, working sheep farm, although no sheep roam on the set anymore. I will spare you all of the millions of pictures I (we) took. You can find most of them on Facebook anyway.We learned LOTS of movie trivia. Ellie asked a lot of very insightful questions. Our tour guide was impressed on how much Tolkien knowledge our little hobbits had.

Bag End!!!! (Bilbo and Frodo's home)

All other days after this one just couldn't compare. We toured around Auckland and saw the sights.

We climbed a dormant volcano and got a great view of the city.

 We visited MOTAT-the Museum of Transport and Technology.

We climbed (or rode the elevator) to the top of the highest tower in NZ. We actually did this twice. The first time was at night, then we went back while the sun was still out the next day. We got to see someone bungy jumping from the top while we were up there. The kids liked that.

We crossed the harbor and visited North End/Mt. Victoria and the military installments there.

 

We spent our last day just checking out the nearby harbor and train station. Just pure random wandering.

View from our hotel room.

Then we left Auckland heading to the South Island of New Zealand for our next adventure.

If you give a girl plane tickets to Sydney....

...she will gladly accept them! No questions asked!

As part of our tour here in Bangkok we are offered a R&R every year. Bangkok's R&R point happens to be Sydney, Australia. Who wouldn't want to go there, right? I waited a WHOLE YEAR to get to go. Lots of planning, preparing, and packing. Lots of emails to friends who had been, people we didn't know. Research on the web. Lonely Planet guides. Excited kids, and parents.

The day finally came. Our airport taxi picked us up at 5am. I will NEVER again be able to get the kids up that early. They were so eager to go they got up and helped. They were ready before Ben and I were.

It was a long flight, 8 hours, I think but we have endured longer so I didn't complain. The in seat entertainment is always such a huge help making the flight more bearable (for the parents). I always bring busy stuff but end up never pulling it out because the kids are too occupied with their screens. I love it! Everyone gets to do what they want. No fighting over which movie to watch, whose turn it is next, or how much longer until the next person's turn. They even feed you on planes. How nice!

We arrived in Sydney after dark and had to take a taxi to our hotel, which was way out in tim-buck-two because it was the only Marriott that would accept our reward points. We had planned on taking the train but it seemed the train didn't go out as far as our hotel was so we went with a taxi. The money we saved on the hotel went right out the window on that taxi ride. Because there were 6 of us and we all had luggage we had to take what is known as a "Maxi-Taxi", which is just jargon for a large van. That taxi ride cost us about $100. WHAT!!! Unreal! We found out the next day that the train DID go out to where we were and was only about a block and a half from the hotel. Ugh!


We only had 2 full days here so we didn't get to see too much but we made the most of it.
Day 1:  We took the train down to the harbor. The kids loved riding on the train. I couldn't believe how clean it was, the stations were clean also. Such a different experience than the Metro in DC (I'm sure there are worse train systems but DC had been our only experience thus far in our travels).
We took the ferry over to the Taronga Zoo which provided amazing views of the harbor, including the Sydney Opera House. We entered the zoo up over the treetops in a gondola ride to the top of the hill. The zoo was fun. We only heard a few complaints out of Danny this day. The vacation was just beginning so not much to complain about yet. (Don't worry, he gave us buckets full in the following weeks). We saw many animals that we had never seen before, being from North America. We had great views of the city. Had a very expensive lunch, which we all shared. Bought souvenirs. The whole touristy thing. After we spent the whole day at the zoo we took the ferry back, jumped on the train and called it a day.

Harbor view from the Train station.

This has to hurt, right?

I love this shot of the Eagle with the Sydney skyline in the distance.

View from the Zoo

Day 2: We once again rode the train into the harbor area as we had tickets to a show at the Opera House. How awesome is that?! In my research I found a kids play that would be there the same time we were so we splurged. It was a splurge as it wasn't cheap but now we can say that we saw a show INSIDE the Sydney Opera House. My kids are so lucky!
After the show we got lunch at a very crowded McDonald's. Still pricey, but not as bad as the zoo. We explored a little bit away from the harbor into the Botanical Gardens. I say "a little bit" because we didn't get very far into the actual gardens, nor past the Opera House before turning around and heading back to the train. The kids did get to burn off some energy by running, throwing boomerangs, and climbing trees so all was not lost. It made for a nice, quiet train ride back to the hotel.

Ready for the show to begin.

 

Of course, this kid was in Hog-Heaven!!!

Day 2 ended with a hike about half a mile away from the hotel to none other than TARGET!!! We HAD to go. I had not been to a Target in over a year! And it was so close! We had to!
On the way there Ben had given Andy his phone so that he could watch the map to see when we were getting closer, to stop the "How much longer?" and "Are we there yet?" questions. Leave it to the 7 year old train enthusiast to read the map and discover that there was a train station just outside the mall where Target was. We didn't have to walk all that way. We could have just gone one more stop. Geesh! Anyway, Target did not impress me. Ben bought a new pair of shoes and the kids got new Skylander Giants for the XBOX. I got nothing! I should have spent more time there. It just wasn't the same as any SuperTarget in North America. We took the train back to the hotel and packed up to leave the next morning. We of course took the train to the airport and it only cost us about $45. We waved good-bye to Sydney and looked forward to our next stop in Auckland, New Zealand.