Koh Lanta!

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We arrived in Koh Lanta yesterday evening around 7 pm.  It was a pretty long day of traveling.  We took a flight from Chiang Mai to Bangkok then from Bangkok to Krabi.  Once we go to Krabi, a car picked us up from the airport, and we had a 2 1/2 hour car ride (that included 2 ferries).  We were pretty tired when we got to the resort.  Koh Lanta is one of the southern islands of Thailand. We are staying at the Lanta Castaway Resort on the beach.

Even though it was dark by the time we got here, the sound of the water and the breeze was so nice.  Our room is pretty spacious with a separate sofa/table sitting area.  The bathroom is not the best, but it has everything we need.  Also, we have WiFi.  It doesn’t seem like all the rooms have it. I’m glad that we do so that I can keep up with the blogging!

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Temples, Tigers, and Silk….oh my!

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For our last full day in Chiang Mai, we hired a tour guide to drive us to see some of the main attractions in the city. It seems like this would be an expensive thing to do, but the whole day with the tour guide only cost 50$. This is almost what we paid the taxi drivers in Japan to take us to dinner!!

The temples in Chiang Mai were pretty different from the temples in Japan.  They were much more crowded and louder than Japan (although, I think anything would be louder than Japan!)

The first temple we saw was Wat Chedi Luang. It was a local Buddha temple that had many people praying. The tour guide explained to us that their religious days were based on the moon. There was an area where locals brought food offerings to the temple.

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Best Day Ever!!

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We just got back from the Patara Elephant Farm!!

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This was an incredible day that gave us a wonderful and up-close experience with elephants.  There are many many different “elephant encounter” type places in Thailand; however, many of those places do not give the elephants the care and attention that Patara provides.  They focus on the health care, breeding, and conservation of the elephants.  Most of the elephants at Patara have been rescued from circuses, log rolling camps, or from the streets of Thailand.  This experience is pretty much the reason why we wanted to stop in Chaing Mai.

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Thai Cooking School

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We just go back to our hotel room after a really fun day!

One of the popular things to do in Thailand is to go to a cooking class that teaches you how to cook local Thai dishes.  There are many many different companies that do this, but Justin’s extensive research led us to “Alot of Thai: Home Cooking Class.” It is a family run business. The chef, Yui, spoke wonderful English and was a pleasure to spend the day with. Her husband, Kwan, picked us up from our hotel (in an adorable light blue VW bus), along with the rest of our group.

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Goodbye Japan, Hello Thailand!

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Well, we are on the fourth leg of our journey.  We left Tokyo around 6:15 this morning and took a bus to the airport. Then we look a flight from Tokyo to Bangkok. It was about 7 hours, but the time passed pretty quickly (I watched Harry Potter, Kindergarten Cop, and a few episodes of Modern Family).

Then, we had a connecting flight from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.  As soon as we stepped off the flight from Tokyo, I could tell that Thailand was going to be a much different experience than Japan.  Japan is so orderly, organized, and disciplined. The airport in Bangkok was difficult to navigate and poorly labeled. I’m not going to fuss about this too much.  We were able to make it to Chiang Mai without any major issues and our bags were there too (my biggest fear!).

Although, I couldn’t believe some people’s behavior in the Chiang Mai airport. I actually thought a few people were going to get in a fight at the baggage claim area. It was pretty crowded and there was some pushing and shoving going on.  Unfortunately, I think these people were Americans, and they were being extremely rude to a couple of Asian men.  It was disgusting.

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I love Tokyo

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Well, we made it to Tokyo a couple of days ago and it has been great so far! There is something about the Asian culture that I absolutely respect.  The service, cleanliness, and hospitality is something that I have never experienced. After the bullet train, we took a taxi to the Park Hyatt. WOW!! This hotel room is AMAZING. We are staying in the Park Suite, and we are loving all of the space. Our hotel room overlooks Mt. Fuji, and it is so beautiful. Justin said that we will probably never stay in a hotel room this nice again, so I better enjoy it……let me assure you, I am LOVING it. Everything about this hotel is incredible.  Apparently, this is the same hotel that the movie Lost in Translation was set in.  I never saw it (because I don’t like most movies), but Justin seems pretty excited about it.

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We had a few glasses of wine at the New York Bar on the 52nd floor before our first Tokyo dinner at Yoro Niku. This restaurant uses a cooking method called Shabu-Shabu. Basically, they brought out raw meat and cooked it for us on a fire grate built into the table.  Everything was delicious.  We ate heart for the first time!!  The idea of this kind of grossed me out, but I did it anyway.  It was good but sort of chewy.  We also had tenderloin, shoulder, tongue, thigh, and a few other things.  Most of it just melted in our mouths.  We also tried a few different ice creams at the end.

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