Where In The World Wednesday

I love this idea (an idea I got from Classy in Philadelphia) for two reasons: a) last week I turned 30 (yay!) and I realized that I have only stepped on the soil of 15 countries. That may seem like a high number to most, but to someone who HAS to show up to work every single day because I practically use up all of my vacation and personal days before I earn them, that number is very small; and b) because when I originally started this blog, I wanted to focus on writing about my travels. So far, I only have this one lonely post about my first night in Thailand and I only have myself to blame for that. Where in the World Wednesday is very simple. To partake, all you have to do is post a picture of yourself someplace in the world. It doesn't have to be somewhere foreign or tropical. It just has to be a picture of you somewhere that you consider traveling. Sweet. I'm in!

I am going to start this off with 2 photos from my most recent venture in Thailand again for two reasons: a) because you can't tell where my boyfriend and I are in the photo below just by looking at it and, b) because I am insanely excited about this new feature and had a hard enough time narrowing down the country to choose images from much less the photo.

In the photo to the left, my boyfriend and I were on a 2 week trip to Thailand to partake in his best friend's wedding. This photo was taken on the morning of our 1 year anniversary while watching the sunrise on the beach in front of our hotel on Ko Samui, an island in the Gulf of Thailand. We were there for five days following our friend's wedding in Yasothorn. I wouldn't have wanted to be there with anyone else. I love this man with all of my heart and am incredibly grateful everyday to be his girlfriend.

This second photo was also taken on Ko Samui. Later that day, we rented scooters and drove to the other side of the island and rode elephants! Riding an elephant was the #1 "must do" item on my list. I was about as excited as and the 8km ride there seemed like it took an eternity. I thought scooters were faster than that. I guess not. Contrary to what most think, elephants do not stink like barnyard animals. In fact, they were surprisingly clean and didn't smell much like anything. Their skin is extremely soft (I thought it would feel tough and wrinkly) and they are so sweet and massive. It is easy to see how they earned their nickname, gentle giants.

Tomorrow, I head to D.C. to see my little brother accept his Master's Degree. I am excited as I have never seen cherry blossoms and they are in full bloom right now!

The Big Mango - Part 1

I have been back from Thailand for a little over 3 weeks and I think my jet lag has finally worn off. Never in my life have I experienced jet lag like this, it was awful. I was wide awake everyday at 4 a.m. and would uncontrollably fall asleep around 6 p.m. The strange thing about falling asleep was that it would just hit me. I had no inkling that I was getting tired. One minute I would be wide eyed watching television and the next minute it was 4 a.m. and I had been asleep for 10 hours. I imagine that is what narcolepsy feels like.

The first leg of our trip was a ~15 hour flight from Chicago to Korea. We had a 3 hour layover in Seoul and then a connecting five and a half hour flight from Seoul into Bangkok. It is absolutely retarded to be on a plane for that long, I never want to do that again. My feet and ankles were so swollen by the time we arrived I was wobbling about the airport, and my poor toes looked like little sausages stuffed into my flip flops.

After collecting our bags, we headed out to the taxi stand to grab a cab to our hotel. The cabs in Bangkok are all brightly painted in hues of pink, green, and orange and most of the cab drivers have their dashboards decorated with stuffed animals and various trinkets. Our taxi driver had his dash decorated with money and a hand grenade. Let's hope this guy doesn't suffer from a bout of road rage while transporting us from the airport to the hotel. Should I have been worried?

I must admit, I did little to no research before leaving on this trip so I had no idea what to expect when I arrived in Thailand. For some reason I had imagined Bangkok to be cleaner than it was and more futuristic looking. The traffic and exhaust fumes are both unbelievably dense and everything seems to have a rather thick layer of dirt on it. It is easy to see why people wear those hospital masks when they are outside of their homes. In contrast our hotel, the Grand Sukhumvit, was ridiculously amazing for $70USD/night. Our room was like a small apartment. It had a fully stocked kitchen, 2 flat screen TVs, a very big and comfortable bed (honestly, this was probably the most comfortable bed I have ever slept on in all my life), tons of pillows, a couch and sitting area, and a bedroom that is separate from the rest of the room. We were on the 29th floor and had a fantastic view of the city. The hotel also had a fitness center and a lavish brunch buffet that we took advantage of almost every morning. The only downside to this place (and this is a rather minor downside) was that the pool never got any sun. I would suspect that the pool and shaded area are refreshing in the hot, stickier months of the year. We happened to be visiting during cooler seasonal weather and desperately wanted to return to Chicago with golden tans. We had to wait to get to Ko Samui to accomplish that.

We arrived to our hotel around 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning where Shaun and Brendan were waiting for us in the hotel bar drinking whiskey. Johnny Walker Black Label is huge in Thailand which made me very happy. Soi 4 was the street adjacent to our hotel and it is littered with bars, clubs, and ladyboys. Holy crap, is it hard to tell the difference between a real girl and some of these ladyboys. Some of them are very obviously men, but for the most part you can't tell that a lot of them are ladyboys just by looking at them (I will go into more detail about this in another post). We were able to grab two drinks before the bars closed for the night and wearily headed back to the most comfortable bed in the universe for a night of much needed sleep.