Thailand 2015...

Ancient City of Ayutthaya

This day trip to Ayutthaya was one of our favorite things we did in Thailand. After a 2 hour van trip from Bangkok, we hired a woman (in a car with AC) to take us around to some of the ancient sights.

We ended up going to different places and she waited for us in the car at each place. Most of the places we went were remains of temples and palaces. They were so beautiful! I can only imagine what they looked like in their prime! Us history lovers (and photography lover) were in heaven!

Beaches 

We spent 5 days on the island of Koh Lanta. From there we took a day trip to Phi Phi and Maya Bay, which is where they filmed the movie, "The Beach". That particular beach was overrated, but the beach at our resort was amazing! Great sand and great swimming! It also was very calm there because more of the people there were retired and had turn their skin to hide...:)

Bungalow- Koh Lanta 
(Sayang Beach Resort)

We paid a tiny bit more than we usually pay for budget accommodation ($55) and we got a private bungalow on the beach with an amazing interior and a great free breakfast! Also, their restaurant was top notch and we ate there almost every meal!

Exploring Koh Lanta

While in Koh Lanta we rented a moped one day and explored the island. The gasoline was being sold on the side of the road in little stand like this picture on the left. We were searching for more beaches, but realized our beach at our resort was the best one! It was still fun to ride around and see the wild monkey along the side of the road.

Chinese Lantern for Chinese New Years

On Chinese New Years, Ben and I released a lantern into the sky. This was my first time to do so. We sent our wishes for the new year high into the sky. It was magical to watch the light get so small and then eventually disappear. I look forward to the upcoming adventures. Needless to say, I am very excited about the new year with my man...

Night Markets

During our stay in Thailand we went to quite a few night markets as a form of entertainment. I enjoyed them much more than Ben did I think. This was mainly because most of them were filled with homemade crafts and souvenirs. At one point after two straight nights at the busy market in Chiang Mai, Ben and reached his limit...crabby Ben came out! Why so Krabi?

Riding Elephants- Rantong Elephant Rescue Camp

Another highlight of Thailand, was riding elephants. I figured I needed to do this at some point in my life, and where better than Thailand! We researched and found a camp that treated their rescued elephants with care and respect.

After learning some basic commands, we got on Comemoon and off we went up an embankment! Our 18 year old elephant was pretty well mannered and really only rebelled so that she could get some snacks!

Elephants eat constantly, and Comemoon knew exactly what foliage she was interested it! After a walk we got to "bath" in some poopy elephant water. Comemoon dumped us off. Later we fed our elephants and then fed ourselves with the lunch they provided!

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

This Buddhist temple was located on a mountain outside of Chiang Mai and offered and overlook view of the city below. We hired a red "songthaew" (local transportation) to take us to the temple early in the morning. We learned it was better to get an early start and avoid all of the tour buses when going to places like this. The location and the all gold chedi made this a memorable experience!

Wat Rong Khun (White Temple)

Ben and I made the journey to Chiang Rai for this special temple. I had seen pictures online and instantly knew I needed to go! I'm so glad we did as it turned out to be very high on my favorites list! This temple was first opened in 1997 and is a contemporary take on Buddhism by artist Chalermchai Kositpipat. He has completely designed, contructed and mostly funded this amazing artwork.
Last year (2014) there was an earthquake that did a lot of damage, but Kositpipat has vowed to restore it in 2 years. We say many cracks and missing pieces that had no been restored, but we also saw some painting inside the temple. The entire temple/complex will not be finished until 2070 or so.
The murals on the inside of the temple were of modern things like cartoon characters and politicians. I really enjoyed the modern take this temple showed!

 I added this last picture because I find it really funny. We took a Thai bus back to Chiang Rai from the White Temple and the only seat left for Ben was at the front of the bus... He was at least a foot taller than everyone else on that bus! ahah

January Jottings...

January was a little bleeeeeeeeeeeeh. All of our friends were going on these amazing vacations and we had to wait until February to do that. We spent a lot of time holed up in our apartment, but I guess I have a few things to share about what we did with our time....
We ate a rice burger for the first time. There is a place next to our gym and every day I would hear Ben comment on how he wanted to go there. Finally it was the perfect day and we tried it out!
Mixed reviews...

There is a hike next to our apartment that gives a great view of Chilgok, but also Daegu on the other side of the ridge. It's a lovely hike and although Ben like to hike it more often...he managed to get to me go to the top at least a few times in January!

In January, Sian and I went and visited Emily in Busan since she is leaving soon. We will miss this goofy gal! We were at Shinsgae shopping center and just needed to try these cute little animal cupcakes! I got a pig and Emily got a bunny! Surprisingly, it was actually really delicious and was filled with strawberries and cream.

Ben and I tried something new. We wanted to put a twist on the very popular Korean gimbap. We added an American twist and replaced the fillings with a tuna egg salad.
It was our first time using the mat, and it turned out really good! Ben even took some to lunch the next day!

Oh yeah... I got my wisdom tooth pulled and actually had a terrible time. In Korea, they just numb the area that they are actually pulling the tooth from. My tooth had really long roots and didn't enjoy my dentist saying after the first 20 minutes of pulling my head from side to side trying to remove the tooth, "Oh, I usually get these out in the first 5 minutes..."

Thanks dude, I wish you had...

Anyways, finally it was out and I tried so hard to follow all of the instructions so I didn't get a dry socket. Well, all of the directions from online, since I didn't get anything from the dentist...

It was to no use because days later I was in pain and went to the dentist to find out I did indeed have a dry socket. Three days later I had the medicine removed and that night I was in agony! The only way I could even sleep a little was in I numbed my whole face with ice. The next morning I went in again to find out that I have ANOTHER dry socket. Needless to say...horrible experience that resulted in my going to the dentist 5 times in 7 days.... And it's not like I can just jump in my car and hop on over to the dentist! Each trip takes about 1.5 hours round trip on public transportation. Boooooo....

As of January this is how much time I have left and I am sure that it will go FAST! Then we will go one to new and different things! yay!

Taebeak Snow Festival...

I'm starting to try to complete my bucket list for Korea, and one of the things that was I needed to do yet was go to the Taebeak Snow Festival. Since Taebeak mountain was a trek to get to, Ben and I took an extra vacation day to have a longer weekend. We have some friends up there that we got to see and actually stay with, Mark & Elena. They are awesome and it was great to catch up with them and hear about their upcoming adventures.

On Sunday we made our way to the festival via country buses. This is always a risky thing because some buses don't run very often and you could easily get stranded for hours or even overnight. To avoid this we tried to leave extra time in our transport. In the end, we had no issues and were very lucky with the times of the buses. We hardly waited at all!

After 3 buses we made it to the festival and saw some sculptures. The festival was located going up a valley. The first sculptures we saw were not very good and had pieces of them melted or eyes falling off. Ben and I were both looking at each other like..."Is this it? Did we just travel 7 hours for this?"

There were so many kids in this area, and they were terrorizing the snow sculptures and it appeared the parents did even care!

Luckily we kept walking up the valley and we ran into another group of snow sculptures and they were much better than the previous ones. We walked up one more tier and they were AMAZING!

I'm assuming there were 3 different levels of sculptures: amateur, intermediate and professional. The professional ones were really great and they had security trying to watch out for them so they didn't get damaged.

This festival was full of humans! There were so many people there and it appeared that most of them were older. This is one of the most frustrating age groups in Korea because they just don't care a lot of the time. There were signs not to touch or step on the sculptures, and most people still climbed on them to take pictures. It was very disrespectful. Also it was a challenge to take a picture with the sculptures as well, because many of these people would jump in front of your picture because they just didn't care... 

After a time there we headed back to Mark and Elena's because they were preparing Mexican food for us and we couldn't be late for that!

On Monday, Mark and Elena drove us to an outdoor spa. It was similiar to a jjimjilbang, but this time there was a "swimsuit" area that had an indoor pool and also outdoor hot pools. Obviously there you were required to wear your swimsuit and a swim cap!

The pools outside were really cool because they overlooked the mountains. Sadly they were not covered with snow when we were there, but they still looked really cool!

Wax Santa English Festival...

For my winter English Festival, I decided to do something special with the 6th graders. Luckily, our budget allowed us to have each student make a wax Santa. It took forty minutes of the students listening to directions to complete it, but it was worth it! The outcome was really quite and it was obvious the kids enjoyed doing it!

Each Santa looked a little different, and I made several to demonstrate that you could alter what the instructions said to personalize your Santa. Of course when you are working with soon-to-be middle schoolers, some of the boys get a little "creative" or perverted...
I really liked lining all of the Santas up at the end of the class to see the final products. There were some amazing ones!

Jinwoo and I made a Santa in our class! He is a great artist!