Beijing

This may be the last post from Asia.  We left Bangkok at 1am on Friday April 18th.  That Thursday as we were packing up to leave the hotel, I realized that the next 2 nights we would be sleeping on an airplane and still arriving home on Friday April 18th.  I think I have a basic understanding of timezones, but adding in the international date line is a step up in the math requirements.  Thankfully there is an app that will tell you what time it is at home.  Anyways....

We only had a 9.5 hour layover in Beijing so we decided to hire a driver and head out to the Great Wall.  Laura had been to Beijing twice before so she had done the Forbidden City, Tienanmen Square, and all the knock off shopping before.

Once we arrived we took a ski-lift up to the top of the wall.  Thank goodness we didn't walk.

 A quick selfie on the way up.  Notice we are bundled up.  We would later regret hauling all those jackets up to the top of the mountain.

 The mountain was pretty cloudy and prevented great pictures, but you can certainly see the size and scale of the wall.

 Our flight landed at 6:30am so we were able to get there pretty early and take pictures like this without a lot of other tourists in the pictures.

 I am not sure that these pictures show how steep the stairs were.

An impressive view.

 I think this picture gives a slight indication of how steep it was.  Imagine climbing a ladder with around 1000 rungs.  Thank goodness our guide convinced us to go to the "flatter" section of the wall.

 Sweating pretty good making it up to the top.

 We did get a stranger to take our picture.  Oddly enough that person was wearing an UNC tarheel shirt despite not having attended the university.

 The cool part about this particular piece of the wall is that there was a toboggan run that would take you back down the side of the mountain.

 Certain parts were pretty steep and the curves were pretty fun.  If we had enough time and money, I think I could have done this all day.

A quick video of the way down.  There was a family in front of us and their tour guide was pretty scared going down and caused a bit of a back up going down the hill.  But you can get an idea of how fun it was from this quick clip.

After that it was time for a quick shower in the airport lounge and some flights to get home.  On the 13 hour flight from Beijing to Houston we had the entire first class cabin to our selves.  That meant we each had our own flight attendant and our own bathroom.  I can honestly say that the flights we had were amazing.  I think I got a solid 8 hours of sleep on this flight, watched 3 movies, 2 great meals, and a bottle of champagne.  Laura is going to hate flying coach on her next trip to China.

A beautiful sunset on the descent down into Charlotte.

Bangkok Part 4

Bangkok Day 3 was a bit more relaxed that the previous days.  We started with a quick cab to the market area where we hit up some street food for breakfast.  For breakfast we decided to not go with local ingredients for once and got nutella and banana.  

 We eneded up in the malls in both Hong Kong (because that is where the subways were) and in Bangkok (to get some free airconditioning and a chair) quite a bit.  The cool thing about these malls is that they were stuffed to the gills with luxury stores.  No, not a really nice Belk, but Louis Vuitton, Tiffany, and many places that we have never been inside.  It was crazy to see the poverty outside of these malls and the complete opposite inside them.  I thought the US had a wide gap between the rich and poor, but I think it was much wider in Thailand.  This was a Lamborghini dealership in the mall with about $1 million dollars worth of cars sitting in the mall on the 2nd level beside a Starbucks.

 And a gorgeous Lotus just sitting out.

 And the other kind of mall in Bangkok.  This was the wholesale clothing market and was nuts.  If you needed to buy a 20 pack of blue jeans....this was the place.  What you can't see from this picture is the maze of tiny alleyways and tiny shops.  There must have been 500 shops in this area selling clothing.  We then went into an air conditioned shop where I got some nice dress shirts for about $12 a piece.  I only wish I had bought more. The prices of clothing in Thailand were incredibly cheap.

 This shot is for Matt and David.  This may not have even been the worst power setup we saw.

 What we didn't eat for snack...

 We spent the last half of our day in Bangkok at the spa.  It was located underneath this terrible sign, but was awesome.  We got a 90 minute foot massage, 90 minute oil and body massage, and 60 minute facial treatment for around $80 a person.  Going into it, I thought "How is someone going to give me a 90 minute foot massage?  I know I have big feet, but it won't take that long."  Let me tell you....the time flew by.  It was awesome.  I have never been so relaxed as I was when we left that place.

 Unfortunately due to the timing of the massage, our late night (1am) flight out of Bangkok, and me leaving my debit card in an ATM somewhere in Bangkok leaving us cash poor; we didn't get to leave the hotel in search of some street food for dinner.  We ate at the hotel and had probably the most disappointing meal of the trip.  It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't epic like the other meals.

Bangkok Part 3

So after the chaos of Songkran, we got back to the main purpose of the trip to Asia.....eating.  Day 2 of Bangkok we started with a food tour.  It wasn't private and it wasn't 9 hours, but it a way to try new and different things in the short period of time we were there.

First stop was this eatery where we would enjoy one of the fine roasted animals hanging in the window on the left.

 Sorry for the blurry picture, but the camera did not appreciate going from the cold train to the steamy 95 degree heat quickly.  This was a simple duck and rice, much like Hong Kong and very delicious.

We walked by another temple so I took a few pictures.  We did not eat anything in this picture.

 Next stop was a Muslim restaurant ran by Indian-Thai decedents.  We had a curry-chicken soup, yellow pancake filled with curry and meat, and pickled veggies.

 We stopped on the street and had Thai "macaroons".  I don't know if she knew what a macaroon was, but I would call it more of a sticky rice pancake.  These were yummy and we would had bought more if we had seen them on another street (and we looked) the rest of the time we were there.

 The next stop was for a different type of beef noodle soup.  The dish also had some awesome condiments that spiced up this meal.

 And some sort of tea with a preserved onion in the drink.  It was also delicious.

 I completely forget what these were called, but it was kind of like a sticky rice meatball with a hot pepper stuffed inside.

 A plate of Thai green chicken curry.

 And a papaya salad with crispy catfish.

 After this impressive meal we took a break at the pool to get out of the heat then headed out to dinner.  A couple of Thai teas with a loaded papaya salad.  It had Thai sausage, pork rinds, tomatoes, peanuts, and papaya, covered with fishsauce.

 And an order of Thai-fried chicken.  I don't know how to describe the flavor, but it seemed like it was soaked in fish sauce before breaded and dusted with awesome sauce at the end.

Bangkok Part 2

I mentioned in the previous post that we arrived in Thailand on Thai New Year known as Songkran.  One of the traditions is to throw water on others.  This originated from a part of the religious ceremony where people will cleanse their Buddha statues by gently throwing water on them.  This then transitioned to throwing water on people to wash away the bad and to smear chalk on someone's face as a blessing.  This further devolved into the largest city wide water fight you can ever imagine.  The best part is that Thai new year falls at the end of April which is the end of their hottest season, so it was quite refreshing to get soaked after walking around for a couple hours in 95 degree weather.

This is a shot from the Tuk Tuk on the way to one of the main areas.  You can see the look in the eye of the little girl as these kids have this corner staked out shooting water (mostly at tourists) at passing Tuk Tuks.

 This is a pickup truck full of kids and buckets of water roaming the streets looking for victims (mostly tourists)

 This was the entry way to one of the main areas of celebration.

 And a few of the people covered in chalk.  Laura was a popular target for chalk from the locals, but not a lot of people had the courage to smear it on me.  She ended up getting her face covered pretty quickly.  Luckily I had packed a handkerchief and we were quickly doused with water along the way that washed most of it off.

 Laura headed into battle.  The water guns cost us about 3 dollars a piece, but we quickly upgraded later on in the day.  Thank goodness we were warned and had packed everything in ziplock bags inside a water proof bag before we headed in.

 We ended up walking up and down the street being attacked by the locals.  They would setup a cooler in front of a store front and fill it with ice.  They would sell you water to fill up your guns for about 20 cents, but mostly take buckets and toss the ice cold water onto tourists walking by.  You can see Laura getting attacked by the group setup across the street.

 We eventually found a bar where we set up shop to be attackers rather than victims.  We made a group of friends with some folks from Switzerland, Holland, and some African nation that I didn't understand.  We would run out as a group and attack the group across the street and any one that shot into our bar.

 Soaked to the bone and having a blast.

 The battle continued on into the night and likely until dawn.

 On the way out we stopped by a random noodle cart and had a bowl of soup that Laura thought was one of the best meals we had on the trip.  It took most of the next couple of days for our clothing to dry out after the first day, but was an absolute blast.  We were so lucky to have had the opportunity to visit during Songkran.

Bangkok Part 1

So after arriving late in to Bangkok we set off on a new day's adventure.  We didn't realize until a couple days before our trip that it would be Thai New Year and many things would be closed (and crazy festivals going on) so we had to adjust our loose plans.  First off was an attempt to get some Pad Thai.  The place we were going was closed so we walked next door to this joint.  

 I don't know why Laura only took one picture and why I have such a goofy looking grin, but this is it.  Nothing like a $1.00 plate of pad thai and a $0.25 coke for breakfast.

 So the first half of the first day was spent mostly doing tourist stuff.  This turned out to be fun, but exhausting.  It was 95 degrees and seemingly 99.99% humidity with no breeze.  But we did get to see some amazing temples wandering through the city.

 Since it was Thai New Year and a big deal for all of the Buddhists there were tons of people in the temples actually praying and celebrating.  This was an actual "sermon" going on.

 This is at the main Emerald Buddha Temple.

 Impressive structures covered in gold and detailed tile work.

 When we were in the main temple, this group of Asian girls wanted to take a picture with Laura.  At first Laura thought they wanted her to take their picture, but they literally wanted to take a picture with her.

 Sadly, no one wanted to take a picture with me...  If you notice the pajamas we are both wearing...in the main temple you couldn't wear shorts or have exposed shoulders so you had to rent these pants for $1.00.

 The reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.  It is hard to tell from this picture but it is over 120 feet long.

 More temples.

So after the temples and nearly passing out from heat exhaustion we decided to get in a Tuk Tuk.  They are mostly pointed at tourists, but something we had to do.  If you like dangerous high speed travel in tight spaces with no seat belt and lungs full of exhaust; a Tuk Tuk is your kind of ride.