The Thailand Saga Continues Again

[Sheesh, I'm starting to think this Thailand saga needs a theme song and catch phrase. Like a soap opera or something. Anyway - on with the story...]

Finally, finally, finally, we reached our hotel. After saying goodbye to my family and promising my mom that we'd call her whenever we woke up, Jason and I headed up to our room to pass out. At this point, we had been awake for basically 48 hours.

This is where we stayed.

But once we got to our room, we discovered that our room was actually a little apartment! I wasn't expecting that and am not sure if Jason was or not (he had booked the hotel, but hadn't told me much about it).

When you entered, you came into the full sized (albeit) small kitchen. Continuing into the apartment brought you to your "living room." Off of the living room was the bedroom. Next to the bedroom was a room o'closets. Seriously, it was a room with 2 built in armoires. Next to that room was the bathroom. We suddenly had a burst of energy as we checked out every nook and cranny of our "apartment."

One thing we thought was neat - the electricity didn't work unless your room key was plugged into this slot on the wall. Although, this kinda sucked because when we would go out exploring the city during the day, we couldn't leave the air conditioner running to keep the room cool. And trust me, the winter in Thailand is disgustingly hot. And humid. You don't even wanna know what summers are like there. Here are a few pictures of our humble, temporary abode:

Here's the kitchen

Our living room. The door leading to the bedroom is on the right. 

The bedroom

The room of closets!

One view from our balcony

Another view... I can't remember if this is
from our window or from another area of the hotel.

Anyway - we finally satisfied ourselves with checking out our new home and the weariness hit us again. I don't even remember if we bothered with PJs or if we just stripped down to our underroos and collapsed in the bed. Either way, it was around 4:00am (I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open at this point and wasn't making coherent sentences). We slept for hours. One of us would sort of wake up, but then we'd get pulled right back down into Sleepy Land. We finally woke up around 2:00pm I woke up in a panic thinking I was wasting precious sightseeing time. I called mom to let her know we were up and she gave us directions to my aunt's house, which is where mom stays every time she goes to Thailand.

Let me back up and give you a little family tree... My mom has 4 siblings. In order of age its: my aunt (A1), my mom, another aunt (A2), an uncle, then another aunt (A3). Mom says I take after the youngest aunt... especially in my short temper (that's another story). I would tell you everyone's names, buuuut I couldn't even begin to spell them. Mom stays with A1. My grandmother usually lives with my uncle (I think), but when mom is visiting, grandma stays with A1 since my mom is there. A3 lives close to my uncle and is the primary caregiver to my grandma. She also comes to stay with A1 when mom's in town... So, A1's house gets pretty dang crowded for a few months every other year or so.

After Jason and I got showered, we ready to continue our adventure. So we headed to...

[to be continued]

The Thailand Saga Continues

After making it through customs and all that fun mess, we started to make our way out of the airport to find transportation to our hotel only to find a small handful of my family waiting for us: my mom, my brother, one of my aunts, and 3 of my cousins.

My mom and brother had flown to Thailand on November 1st. Jason and I had wanted to go with them so that all of us could be there together, but we were using the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday as a buffer against our vacation time from work. My mom only makes it home every few years, so when she goes she stays for about 3 months. My brother, on the other hand, was actually flying out at 5:00am that Monday morning. So, they decided to just come on to the airport to wait for Jason and me to get in and then we would all hang out in the airport until Rob (my bro) could board his flight. 

At this point, Jason and I had been up for way too long. We were giddy with the excitement of being in Thailand and seeing my family, but we were also a little delirious with lack of sleep. We ended up hanging out in the airport from a little before midnight to 3:00am (at the time Rob was able to go through the security checkpoint to head to his gate. While there, we took a few pictures of the decorations around the Bangkok airport:

After saying goodbye to my brother, we piled into the van with the remaining family members and began the journey back into the heart of the city and our hotel. On the way to the hotel, Jason and I were hungry, so we stopped at a 7/11 (which you can find on every other street corner in Thailand... this is NOT an exaggeration) and picked up a few provisions to tide us over. Here's one of the things we bought.

Yes, those are salmon flavored Lays chips. They were good, but not as good as the seaweed flavored ones we had later in our trip. But, I digress....

Finally, finally, finally, we reached our hotel. After saying goodbye to my family and promising my mom that we'd call her whenever we woke up, Jason and I headed up to our room to pass out. At this point, we had been awake for basically 48 hours. But once we got to our room, we discovered that our room was....

[to be continued]

Step into my time traveling machine...

So I'm trying to get back to my blogging ways. I truly miss documenting some random moment of my life - whether it's big or small. Just some piece I found amusing/interesting/confusing/whatever.

If you've read my previous posts, you saw that the one last I wrote before my huge sabbatical was about Jason and me buying plane tickets to head to Thailand. I really meant to keep notes throughout our trip so that I could regale you all with stories of the adventures Jason and I had. But, I think I just got too caught up in enjoying myself. Honestly, I'm even bad with taking pictures of things. Thank God for Jason. We wouldn't have nearly as many pictures as we do if he hadn't been there. He's so much better about documenting our capers, at least with photographs.

For some some reason, our Thailand trip seems to be at the forefront of both of minds. We've been bringing it up a lot lately to some of our friends. This got me thinking about my blog and how I should relive that vacation now and in a bigger way.

So we bought our tickets in June 2013. We had to wait until November for our actual trip. From the moment we bought our plane tickets we went into overdrive with making lists - of things we needed to buy for the trip and things we needed to do before we left. Some days we felt that our leave date would never get here. Other days, we were shocked that time was flying by.

Finally, the magical day arrived. We left on a Saturday morning at the ass crack of dawn (did you know there's a 4:00am as well as a 4:00pm???). Our awesome friends, Josh and Jessica Coleman, took us to the airport. We were planning to drive ourselves because we didn't want to be an burden on anyone since we had such an early leave time. But, Jess wouldn't hear of it. They also picked us up when we came home. Thankfully our return flight wasn't too horrible of a time.

Anyhoo - we got to the very quiet airport. It may have been early, but you can bet Jason and I were WIDE AWAKE with the excitement of where we were going. This wasn't just one of our normal vacations. We were going to a new continent. I was going to see family members I hadn't seen in 18 years. Hell, I was going to meet family I had NEVER met. Even cooler - Jason was going to meet the maternal side of my family for the first time ever!

Our flight took us from Greensboro, NC to Washington, DC. From there, we headed west to Seattle. Then to Japan... then finally Bangkok, Thailand. Amount of time it took us to get from North Carolina to Thailand? 30-ish hours. Amount of time I slept on the planes? Umm, just a couple of hours and not all together. Usually, I get in a moving vehicle of any kind and I'm out. Don't even need sleeping pills. But, nope, not this time. I don't know why either. Our longest flight (Seattle to Japan) was about 10 hours. Jason had decided we should spend the extra money to upgrade our cheap ass seats to get not as cheap ass seats. I'm glad he did. We had a little extra leg room and our own personal TV screens built into the seats in front of us. Even better - the row we were in only had 2 seats, while most of the rows on the outer edges of the plane had three. This was nice because we didn't have to worry about some random seat mate. I popped in my headphones and proceeded to watch 4 movies back-to-back.

We landed in Thailand around midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. Remember, we were up at 4am our time, Saturday morning. At this time, the time difference between here and there as 12 hours on the dot, with Thailand being ahead (so if it was, say, 4pm Sunday afternoon here, it would be 4am Monday morning in Thailand).

After making it through customs and all that fun mess, we started to make our way out of the airport to find transportation to our hotel only to find...

[...to be continued]

Leavin' on a jet plane

Finally, finally, finally!! The Hubster and I are going to Thailand. I'm so stinkin' excited!

I've been to Thailand twice now - the first time was when I was 12, the second time I was 16. That was eighteen years ago. Jason has never been. He's never met that side of my family (my mom's kinfolk).

From pretty much day one of our marriage, we've been wanting to go. But, we just focused on the want and not so much the plotting. I think we would get discouraged at the cost. Plane tickets to Thailand are very expensive.Very. I don't know why we never set up a game plan to save up... maybe the task was too daunting?

But, just over a year ago (maybe closer to two years now), we started a savings account that we decided to build up for house projects (redoing our master bathroom, for example).  To help us build up this account, Jason split up his paychecks. Each pay day X amount would automatically go into our checking account and Y amount would go into that savings account. So, in the year and change that we've been building up that account, we've got a nice bit saved up.

In July 2012, Jason and I were visiting my hometown. My brother informed me that he and our mom were heading to Thailand at the end of 2013, so why didn't Jason and I come along too? Why not, indeed!

Up until today, the plotting that Jason and I have done for this trip has just been somewhat dreamlike. Still not exactly a concrete being. But, today, shit got real. 

We bought our plane tickets. That's right - We. Bought. Our. Plane. Tickets.  We've waited so long for this. We still have to wait until November. But, knowing that we have an actual date set... Eeeee!!!!

Next steps? Booking our hotel. Planning our itinerary. Buying some necessary items. Counting down the days. Making pack lists. Actually packing. Actually GOING!