Well Come to Thailand!



We came well. I'm still looking for the collage...
The hotel is great, though, and they can spell English a lot better than I can spell anything in Thai! The staff is very friendly and the rooms are nice. AND, check this sign out... it makes me love Maninarakorn Hotel even more...


That's right... no DURIAN allowed!! In case you didn't believe me before, that should tell you something about the aromatic fruit...

So on our first day, we went on a scavenger hunt type thing to get to know the city a little bit. It was positively grand. Here's some of the peeps from my group. Charles, on the left, is 83 years old... he is basically my hero! He has been trekking all over the place with us.

Here's me with an elephant at Chiang Mai University. There are elephant statues and other elephant paraphernalia everywhere!

Thai and Joe played peek-a-boo in the lobby.



Robin, I thought you might appreciate this next photo:

The Gathering is where we went to church on Sunday. Ted Dekker anyone?

And here is me and my roomie, Maranda! The wall behind us is part of the old wall that went around the city. The moat is still there, too. That's right. I said moat. I'm staying in a city with a moat. I say that's pretty rockin.

We got some squid on a stick at the Sunday market! It really didn't taste too bad. It was pretty rubbery, though, and the fact that I think of it as crabbing bait didn't help it to look appealing. The way the tentacles dangling out of your mouth didn't help either.

Mmm mmm
.
This guy was awesome. He was selling all sorts of handicrafts from the hilltribes in Thailand. He posed for some pictures for us and played some cool instruments.

Ok, so meet Pat.
(Pat is the one in the blue shirt. I don't have a better pic yet.)

Pat is awesome. I love her to pieces.

Pat does not love snakes.

Her son, Peeti, does.

Peeti also enjoys scaring his mother.

So one day, Pat goes up to her hotel room.

And screams.

And runs out in a panic, explaining that there is a snake in her room...

I don't really expect to be able to do anything about a snake, but I want to see it anyways. So we go up to Pat's room, and this is what we see:

Poor Pat. Well played Peeti. But no worries, Pat got Peeti back..

So the second crisis of the day...

My eye started to itch... and grow...
But no worries, it got better.

I love the mannequins here. They are so excited.
Here's some of the group before we went out to talk to peeps in the afternoon.

Here's Kathy and Amy at one of the restaurants in the night market.

Here is Amy and me in front of an aquarium in the mall... aquarium... in the mall... so cool.

Well, until next time, Sawatdee Ka!!


Posted by carriehammie on Thursday, July 15, 2010 | Tagged | 0 comments

Singapore!!!


After we left the islands, Emily and I went to Singapore to spend the day! It was such a cool city.

Random fact about me: whenever I'm driving around in a new place, I always, ALWAYS get the "There She Goes" song stuck in my head from the Parent Trap. It is inevitable. So, I've been humming that song a lot lately as I crane my head out the window and soak in everything I see.

One of the things I was soaking in was....
MONKEYS!

These little guys were quite bold. We were sitting in a Taxi (necessary after I got us lost...) and all of a sudden we see this guy digging in a trash can! Then our taxi driver gave us some crackers to feed him. Our driver was the sweetest little Chinese lady. She also told us all about her clever Guinea Pig named Lion. "SOOO clever!" she said over and over. It was so fun. Once we got unlost, we headed explored Clarke Quay, a super cool shopping area in Singapore. Of course, me being the hardcore tourist that I am, I had my camera out at every turn to capture these shots of the city for you to see:


A random fish statue. Some other tourists were taking photos here, so it seemed like the cool thing to do. And I'm all about being a cool tourist. So I snapped a cool photo. Don't I look hip?

Emily and I then decided to take a boat tour of the area to get a nice view of some of the highlights of the area. We went right around sunset, so it was beautiful! Here is us on the boat:


The random boat building! There are these three buildings that are all attached by a large boat on top. There are gardens and a pool on top... but it costs like 21 Sing dollars just to go to the top! It made for a beautiful view from the river, though!

Emily actually snapped a few photos... finally! That means we were really in tourist mode. Before this event, our score was about as follows: Carrie: 700 photos Emily: 3 photos. I wish I was kidding.

Emily held the boat on her head. Yes, she is that strong. Whoa. I'm impressed.
The Merlion tried to attack me with burning acid, but luckily I deflected it with a quick block.

I met some cool statues.
I love interactive statues. They make for the best touristy photos.
Here's me helping the statue man with a bag of grain or something. I really don't know why I find endless amusement in this.
The city at night. Pretty pretty
.
Flute player under a bridge

In addition to statues, we met some oversized soccer stars.

Ya know, just hanging out on a bridge in Singapore

OK, so this one is weird. There is this place in the shopping area called "The Clinic." The chairs are wheelchairs and electric chairs, and you drink out of IV's. Bizarre.


This was the fanciest Burger King I have ever seen. Like insane.
So remember Durian? The gym sock fruit? Singaporeans LOVE Durian. They even modeled their famous theater after a Durian. Like seriously. The architecture is designed to look like the beloved fruit.

Anywho, that's all for now! I'm in Thailand now, and will get you pics and stories soon!!!

Posted by carriehammie on Sunday, July 11, 2010 | Tagged | 1 comments

More Islands!


Ok, just take a minute and look at how beautiful this place is....




Incredible. Absolutely incredible.

These next ones are for Miriam...
She sent me with a "housing project." Some of the shells for the hermit crabs are too small, so she sent some larger shells to place on the beach. Prime real estate right here...


OK.... so this little fellow was on my bed. Correction: this BIG fellow was on my bed. Creepy!!

We had a great time hanging out in a tropical paradise, swimming, kayaking, hiking, and watching people belly flop:


We left the resort to head to one of the islands that the tour groups go to. We were able to hang out for a while and eat dinner with a very sweet "Ebu." It was exactly what you would picture as an island village.



We were quite a sight... a parade of "boule," aka white people, walking through the town, followed by a huge group of kids. All the villagers came to see us, because they had never seen real live white people. I felt so famous. In fact, everybody seemed so famous. My tummy was turning and I felt kinda homesick. Too much pressure and I was nervous. That's when the taxi man turned on the radio and a Jay Z song was on. So I put my hands up! They were playing my song! The butterflies flew away. Nodded my head like yeah. Moved my hips like yeah. So I put my hands up, they were playing my song, and I knew I'd be OK. YEEEAH! It's a party in Indonesia!

A special thanks goes out to Miley Cyrus for this post.

Posted by carriehammie on Friday, July 9, 2010 | Tagged | 0 comments

Days 3-something


Well, gotta start off this entry with a food pic. Check out all the peppers at the grocery store. This was only a section of the pepper section. They like their food SPICY! And I love it! There is one type of pepper that looks like a green bean that is a little too much for me, though. A lot too much, actually. I had a little piece and it made my tongue numb.

So I finally rode the motorbike... It wasn't nearly as scary as I thought. Emily is a good driver... something that is rare in this country! No, just kidding, they know how to drive, but the laws are relative...
So even though I was not in America, we still partied like it was 1999 on the Fourth of July! We had a bunch of Emily's coworkers and some of the tourists over to the house, where we ate lots of American-ish food, shot off some really hardcore Chinese fireworks that angered the neighbors, and sang national anthems. Here is Emily pretending to be the Statue of Liberty.

Here is us posing with the "Roman Candle." There is a lot of power packed into that!! It was awesome.
Sparklers! I love sparklers. For reals.

And of course, to make the night complete, we had a dance party. Cupid Shuffle, Cha-Cha Slide, Party in the USA... oh, yes, it was epic. Here is us doing some swing dancing.

After we celebrated America, we went out to experience some of the islands!! The harbor was full of all these really cool boats.

Here's some of the other tourists
.
The clouds are BEAUTIFUL here!

On the boat!

We were warmly greeted at the resort with cool towels and yummy orange drinks.


Ian took us out to the ropes course at the resort... which we DOMINATED! We also saw monkeys there. And an ant the size of Morocco. Pretty cool stuff! Here's Emily and Ian showing off their mad skills!



There were lots of hermit crabs on the beach! Brings back good memories of the Shell Shanty. And here is the resort!!!

Well, there is much more to come, but I must go now! Fare thee well, friends!


Posted by carriehammie on Thursday, July 8, 2010 | Tagged | 0 comments