Bangkok & Ko Samet Sites

So many multi-colored meats, so little time. Can you guess what animals they were originally? Neither could we. :)

Amir loves his bucket o'booze. He wouldn't even give me one of the 12 straws in his mouth.

A street-pad-thai-cart named Desire...did you see the scrumptious egg rolls as well? Check out the pricing sheet in yellow on the front of the cart. That's right, 25 Baht for an eggless pad thai which means $0.76. Are we cheap buggers or what?

Oh the bunnies....We went to a market where I think PETA might have a sting agency waiting in the wings but who can really complain as they are sooooooooo cute. And yes many of them are dressed up in extra special outfits.

The Grand Palace-Jess did some exploration and got some great shots of one of Bangkok's coolest landmark.

We finally make it to the beach...

and whats the beach with out a beer...and a wonderful lack of open container laws

Finally we end this picture filled blog post with a short video of death defying fire play. Which was part of a nightly 30 minute show we enjoyed sitting at our favorite beach restaurant each night. I think the video may be a bit jerky in terms of quality but I am assuming you will get the gist of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq6JBvpWxWQ

Vancouver/Seattle or Bust

Dear All,

Lets just accept this as a weird blog post. Below are the things I can say about the places we visited...but in the end all I have is immense thanks for my family. They are truly wonderful people and Jess and I are blessed to be a part of their world. As such, this blog post might be irrelevant to many...so hang in there if you get bored...Bangkok, street food and large Buddhas are just around the corner.

Seattle-Fish throwing markets, Starbucks, rain and grunge. Well no grunge on this trip but I will credit Maya Cole with several excellent ballet shows.

Vancouver-White rock, cousins and family members galore, Starbucks, and a basketball game that some family members will never live down. (Zubin and Dustin you know who you are. LOL)

Both Jess and I have actually started this blog post several times and are just not sure how to put into words the fun we had. So in the end I am not going to really try, I am going to wait for Shilo and maybe Asif to send me the pictures from the Saturday night party and the amazing sunday brunch so that everyone can just see how great it was. In the mean time some thanks are in order.

Larissa, Scott and Maya-thanks for being amazing hosts and wonderful ballerinas (Scott that includes you, your lifts and pirouettes just kept improving.)

Shilo-you were an incredible host thank you for taking the day of and showing us all Vancouver had to offer. I think we were able to see every single place you thought we might enjoy moving when we return...and of course white rock! Also thank you again for hosting the party on Saturday night.

Gulshan, Amir and Laila-Thank you so much for a wonderful dinner. The food was extraordinary and the company even better. Plus we actually got to visit White Rock instead of having Shilo just point at it from a distance.

Asif and Larissa-Thank you for inviting us to Dusty's game while they didn't prevail I am sure I made a spectacle out of myself enough for them to know our family should not be reckoned with. Also Larissa, that soup was delicious Shai is a fool for eating before he came over.

Shai and Behin-thanks for being great family and cousins. Shai I am sorry that we didn't get to go to the plant on Saturday but at least you were able to go to the store and get juice which I imagine was a big accomplishment for you.

Shamim, Iqbal, Omar, Sarah and Sasha-Thank you for a lovely brunch on Sunday. Jess and I truly appreciate the time you took out of your day for us. Apologies for crashing it with a whole gaggle of family. Shan, Mike and Judah, sorry we missed you but we will catch you next time.

Finally all my younger cousins- YOU GUYS ROCK. It was such fun hanging out with all of you over the time we were in Vancouver and Seattle. You are the next generation of our family and I am exceptionally proud of all of you. Thank you for all the laughter and good times.

All in all the family time was incredible. Thank you to everyone for being a part of it. (Pictures, if someone sends them to me, to follow)

PS. What's even more humorous about this post...is that most of the people mentioned here will never even read it. For those of you that do...we love you...for those of you that don't...it's ok we love you too and more than likely my father will call you and read this whole post to you.

Pad Thai x 10

We arrived in Bangkok in the wee hours of Wednesday morning after three flights, the longest of which was 15 hours. Having stupidly stayed awake throughout almost all of the flights to watch various movies (including "This is it" the Michael Jackson documentary) we were ready to collapse onto our rock hard bed when we finally found our guest house in Bangkok. Note: for those of you who intend to make it to Thailand at some point, many streets have more than one side (across an intersection) and the numbering makes absolutely no sense, even to local Thai taxi drivers.

I had a cold dating back to our final days in Washington state. So that plus being up for approximately 33 hours straight = an entire day in bed. We definitely got our money's worth on the room those first two days between our naps and our retreats out of the heat. The only thing we managed to leave the room for on day one was street vendor pad thai.

Since that first pad thai, we have had three subsequent pad thais. If you do the math, that equates to approximately 1.25 pad thais per day. Yes, it appears we have a mild addiction at this point. It doesn't help at all that Amir's friend Poon (a Bangkok native) took us out last night for the "original pad thai" which basically changed our lives. You know that pad thai you can get in the US in Thai restaurants? That is to the original pad thai we ate last night as is gas station purchased celery and ranch dip (you know who you are Joel) is to a homemade Caesar salad from Pasta Mia in Dupont Circle. Which is to say, incomparable and wildly delicious.

Today we are going to a weekend market that is purportedly one of the biggest in the city. We aim to bargain hard for sunglasses for Amir and a watch and sunhat for me. Here's a warning for all you internet watch shoppers: do NOT buy any watch that ships from China for the bargain price of $9 because it will last you a mere 8.3 days before going kaput. Anyway, we had some great practice bargaining yesterday at some of the nearby markets. The trick to getting the lowest price is to work the salesperson lower and lower by attempting to walk away 3 times and then, when you see 2 beads of sweat appear on his brow, you know you've gotten the best deal available.

After shopping, we're headed to the Royal Palace. After two unsuccessful attempts at seeing it yesterday, we found out the King of Thailand has some kind of lesser relative with a birthday that requires shutting down the entire palace for a full day to properly celebrate. We're hoping there are no more birthdays today.

Tomorrow we leave at 8am for Ko Samet, an island 3 hours south of Bangkok. We're taking a bus and then a ferry for the bargain price of $7.50 per person. Did I mention earlier that our street pad thai costs us $0.76? And that a bucket of liquor costs us $4.50! I don't think I mentioned the bucket o'liquor before but after drinking one, who can remember anything?

Back to Ko Samet...so we'll spend a week there on the beach working on de-whitening our pasty complexions. You can basically tell how little we've traveled thus far by how milky white our skin is. There isn't a whole lot to do on Samet aside from lounge about on the beach, drink blended beverages, nap and go to bars at night, but we'll try to survive.

Gotta run to the market so we can keep our American commercialism skills in tact. Ciao.

Vegas: Why 2 days is always enough

Vegas: Where the concept of sleep goes to die.

(Jenn-you rock! Thanks for taking this picture.)

Day/Night 1 - Sleepless in Vegas

We arrived in Vegas on Sunday the 10th of January. We were met by several friends; among them Steve Bergen, Jess Stambaugh, Joel Foster, Jennifer Hopkins, Jan Gdovic and Dan whose last name I never got. It was a long night...and most of the credit for sleeplessness on night 1 goes to Jess Stambaugh who arrived at 3pm on Sunday and headed to back to the airport at 4:30am Monday morning to make it to work on time; a fact she will doubtlessly keep from her boss. :)

Night 2 -A challenging day resulting in an Epic Battle.

The day began with an all-you-can-eat Sushi feast at noon and progressed onto a failed attempt at a nap, several energy drinks for all, a poor choice of a diablo shrimp burrito with repercussions and several Family Guy (cartoon) episodes to recharge. the remaining Vegasites- Jess, myself, Joel, and Steve- steeled ourselves for a beer pong battle in the hotel Excalibur that drew crowds from miles around. (For those of you unfamiliar with the game-beer pong rules and game description can be found here..http://www.bpong.com/)

(Seriously- it felt as if at least this many people were watching us.)

The game pitted Jess and I vs. Joel and Steve and it was well fought, ending in a crushing defeat for the lesser team (Steve and Joel). Not really; actually it was perhaps the closest game in the history of the sport in spite of the fact that I had to drink for two since we couldn't find gluten free beer.

Finally, I leave you with two very special Steve Bergen pics. One reminding everyone that he has a glass eye and the other reminding everyone he is very much in touch with his Asian heritage.

This was obviously a ridiculous post, but then again, that is what Vegas is. Freakin Ridiculous. More from Seattle and Vancouver soon...

Utah Pics

Becky and Randy Yard's Cowboy Collectibles



















AT BRYCE CANYON

Pangrilah

After St. George, we drove up to Panguitch via scenic route 9 and highway 89. Little did we know that we would end up paying a $25 "toll" to the folks at Zion National Park because they wouldn't let us just "get to the other side" on our way to Bryce Canyon. We may have offended one of the Zion park rangers by saying it was a shame we couldn't drive around the park instead of going through it.

When we got to Bryce, there was another $25 fee to get into the park. Thinking that it wouldn't be worth $25 to see the canyon from the parking lot, we asked the park ranger whether the trails were hikeable. He said that if we weren't a bunch of wusses, we could certainly hike the trails as he hikes them all the time. Well, then. Tell us how you really feel about tourists that ask you whether they'll survive a snow and ice covered hike through the canyon.

As it turns out, the trails were covered with mostly hard-packed snow with only one muddy spot that we had to ford by throwing a few stepping stones down in the muck. I've never hiked in the snow before at a national park and it was breathtaking. We went from the Queen's Garden trail that features the HooDoos Bryce is famous for to the Navajo Trail that wound through a snow covered forest. Definitely a way better return on our $25 investment than driving through Zion.

After hiking Bryce, we went to visit friends and family in Panguitch which is a little town in Southern Utah about 21 miles from Bryce with a population of 1,500 soaking wet. I can't really express how great it was to see friends and family I hadn't seen for as long as 4 years in some cases. Amir was his usual outgoing, fun self and I'm pretty sure made one or two BFFs while there.

We spent Saturday exploring downtown Panguitch which consists of approximately one block of the best shops in the West. Cowboy Collectibles and Bronco Bobbi's are not only the best shops in the town, but also happen to be owned and operated by Panguitch's finest. (Of course it goes without saying that we liked the liquor store, too.) I happen to be a popcorn connoisseur so I have to tell you that Leland's Chevron on the main intersection in Panguitch has the absolute best plain buttered popcorn that I have ever tasted. There is nothing better than grabbing a bag of Leland's popcorn and spending time in the shops of Panguitch on a Saturday afternoon surrounded by snow covered mountains.

Saturday night, our friends Becky and Randy hosted a get together of so many of our friends and family in Panguitch at their gorgeous, self-built, cowboy themed home. We played games all night long and ate like kings (everyone in Panguitch cooks only gourmet food). My aunt Janine brought this habanero chocolate fondue that we started dipping in everything from the dried bananas and pretzels she brought to accompany it to the bacon wrapped cocktail weenies we couldn't resist experimenting with.

Next stop was Vegas but I've been so verbose over the fun we had in Panguitch that you'll have to wait to hear about the three days of fun, friends and epic beer pong battles we experienced there. Pictures to follow...

Communing with nature & whiskey

We are in Southern Utah visiting my grandmother Becky and her beau Bill. Today, Amir and I hiked through Snow Canyon where we were, at times, surrounded by a 360 degree view of breathtaking red cliffs, petrified sand dunes and lava rocks. And nary a Mormon passed us by the entire hike. After such vigorous exercise, we hastened to the In-N-Out burger joint where Amir vanquished a Double Double (self-explanatory) and I had a Protein Lover's burger (lettuce wrapped, sans bun) and we both shared a fry. My god, that was totally worth 7ish miles of hiking/running. I think we're going to do the North Rim of the Grand Canyon tomorrow so we can have In-N-Out for breakfast guilt-free.

One of the many truly beautiful things about visiting Grandma and Bill, aside from the awesome company, nature vistas and endless supply of fodder for Mormon jokes, is that happy hour can begin as early as 9am if we feel like it. Nature and whiskey/bourbon, truly a match made in heaven. I must sign off now before my rocks completely melt with my Red Stag.