... that we went to Thailand: day 4

A few pics of our second hotel in the daylight:

It was really pretty, but SO HOT ALL THE TIME and totally filled with mosquitoes. Matt and I had managed to avoid them for the most part in Taiwan, but Thailand mosquitoes are vicious. We didn't dare leave the room without dousing ourselves in bug repellent, and as soon as we got back there was always a ritual of killing all the mosquitoes that had somehow gotten in while we were gone. But the ladies who ran the hotel were very nice, and they fed us breakfast every morning out on the beautiful patio by the pool! Anyway, we got up Monday morning and rented a scooter for the day from Tony's Big Bikes so that we could see as much of the city as we could.

I loved it! Unfortunately, Matt did not love it so much. I didn't realize how stressful it was for him to be driving in another country! It was crazy crowded, traffic laws are questionable, scooters are scary, and most of the time we had no idea where we were going. I was happy as a clam to enjoy the ride, but by the end of the day Matt was pretty worn out. Sorry honey! But it was so nice to have the scooter because we got to see so much of the city!

(We went to about 4 temples before I realized that these were not real people... -___- )

We rode around to as many temples as we could, and each one was different. My favorite part about the temples though was the reverence inside each one. We had read in our trusty guidebooks that the Thai people take respect for their temples very seriously, so we made sure to dress modestly. But it was interesting to watch as many tourists tried to enter the temples inappropriately dressed: the monks quickly and respectfully stopped them and directed them to a stand of robes or shawls that the tourists could use to make themselves more modest. It was really touching and added a very deep sense of reverence to my visit.

Halfway through our temple tour, we stopped for lunch at an Indian food place recommended by the trusty guidebook

Why Indian food? I really have no idea. I think I was just so surprised that Matt wanted to eat Indian that I didn't question it. The food was good and we took our obligatory cheersing pic

Which was definitely fake on my part because this was the strangest mango lasse I have ever had in my life. I couldn't drink it. I am 98% positive it was made with goats milk yogurt or something and I just could not hack it. So strange. We jumped back on the scooter for a quick ride around the city's central wall and moat.

When Chiang Mai was built in 1296, it was surrounded by a moat and this gorgeous brick wall, but over time the city expanded and spilled outside the small central wall. Now much of the wall is in disrepair and only parts of it are left, but it is still absolutely beautiful and surrounds the very oldest parts of the city.

At Jake's recommendation, Matt and I signed up for a half day Thai cooking class that night. We signed up for a class with the Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School at the recommendation of our hotel. The class let you pick two types of entrees to cook (stir fry, soup, salad, or dessert) then taught you how to make five courses and curry paste from scratch. We were super excited to learn how to make Thai stir fry and dessert, but then they couldn't find our hotel to pick us up and we were late. By the time we got there, the rest of our group had already decided on the two types of entrees they wanted to make: soup and salad. I may have been extremely upset. Who wants to learn how to make salad and soup?? They were crazy. I tried to see if we could change it, but it was too late. I thought about trying to switch to another group or come back another night when we could cook what we wanted to, I was that mad. Eventually Matt calmed me down and we stayed for the class.

We started out the class with a tour of the garden and a lesson on Thai herbs from our teacher, who told us to call him M.

This guy was hilarious. He was cracking jokes right and left and kept us laughing all night long. After the tour of the garden, he walked us all down to the market, where he taught us more about Thai ingredients.

Finally it was time to cook! 1st course: a little Thai lettuce wrap appetizer that we ate while cheersing the rest of our group and repeating "chokh di!" which means "good luck"in Thai.

Then the 2nd course: spring rolls

M kept telling us how terrible all of our spring rolls were, and he was right about most of them. I can confidently say that Matt and I were the best cooks in the group, and there were several times where I had to stop myself from ripping spatulas out of peoples' hands. M kept calling our spring rolls 'ugly babies' and when I yelled at him that mine was beautiful, his response was, "Oh yes, it's beautiful... but also ugly" hahahahaha

After our spring rolls were done, we moved on to the 3rd course: salads.

Matt takes cooking very seriously.

My glass noodle salad and spring roll

Matt's spicy chicken salad.

After the salads were done, we started making curry paste from scratch.



We all took turns pounding the pastes in real mortar and pestles and it was HARD! We made 4 kinds of pastes for 4 different kinds of curries.



Once the pastes were done, we started making the 4th and 5th courses: curry and soup.

As we made each dish, M would ask us how spicy we wanted our food by asking, "What's your sexy?" on a scale of 1 to 10. And then he would make fun of you if you said anything below 5. I got made fun of a lot hahahahahaha

My khao soi curry and coconut milk soup:

Matt's tom yum soup and massaman curry:

It was all really good, and by the end of the class, we were so completely stuffed that we couldn't even eat everything we had made. They also gave us each a recipe book with ALL of the recipes that they offer for the class, so I wasn't really mad anymore about not making stir fry and dessert since I knew that I could figure it out on my own now. And if I'm being completely honest, it turned out that it was a good thing our group picked soup and salad because we learned to cook things that we would have never chosen to cook on our own that were really good! Matt said that my glass noodle salad was his favorite food of the night, and I had to agree.

We love Thai food, Thai temples, and Thai everything!

... that we went to Thailand: Day 3

We got up the next morning and grabbed a quick breakfast before heading down to the gorgeous hotel pool

I had eggs and toast and Matt had... french fries. We heart America. I think Matt's biggest complaint about Asia was the breakfast: who eats chicken and rice for breakfast?? Give us dessert for breakfast like civilized people!!!



The hotel pool was BEAUTIFUL!!!!! I was in heaven! We took the morning and just relaxed before heading to the bus stop to catch a ride back to the airport. We grabbed a quick bite to eat at the airport before boarding our flight to Chiang Mai:

We are such terrible tourists. We should have not even eaten, because our tickets on Bangkok Airways came with passes to their lounge in the airport that was pretty swanky and stocked with all sorts of snacks and goodies!

Popcorn! Sandwiches! Cake! Drinks! Bangkok Airways was definitely a classy way to fly!

We found a little taxi to take us to our hotel in the heart of central Chiang Mai: the Baan Klang Wiang Hotel. Not quite as pristine as our hotel in Pattaya, but it was still pretty nice and a GREAT location right inside the old central city gate. We unloaded our stuff and decided that we just HAD to make our way out to the Sunday Night Market.

Jake had given us all of his best tips and tricks for visiting Thailand, since he'd been there just a few months before, and he made us promise not to miss the Sunday night market. We were exhausted and not even hungry, but the market was worth it. The whole street was lined with stands and tables filled with beautiful handcrafted trinkets and crafts and it was pretty awesome. Matt eventually made a rule that I had to walk in front of him because I kept stopping to look at everything and he would walk away from me! We picked up a couple of souvenirs and wandered around until our feet hurt and the stands started packing up. I was also able to stop Matt from eating a bug and he complained about it for the rest of the trip.

We eventually made it back to the hotel and fell into bed exhausted. Jake was furious with us for not eating anything, but I didn't see what the big deal was. We had the whole rest of the trip to eat whatever we wanted! But I would definitely come to regret that thinking later...

We love Chiang Mai!

... that we went to Thailand: Day 2

We wanted to spend a few days on the beach and a few days in the city, but Chiang Mai is so far away from the beach, and we wanted to minimize our travel time/costs. So we compromised a little and chose to spend a few days on the coast in Pattaya before heading up to Chiang Mai. And it did not disappoint! Matt was all about the guidebooks (he didn't want to do anything that wasn't mentioned in one of his trusty books), and I had read in one that you can take ferries out to islands off the coast. The island of Ko Lan is right off the coast of Pattaya, and there happened to be a dock right on the beach a block from where we were staying! So we decided to go try to catch a ferry ride to the island in the morning.

We got up and ordered breakfast in bed, which only solidified my love for this wondrous Eden of a hotel.

We explored our hotel grounds a little more

GORGEOUS. Then we strolled down to the dock to look at buying tickets. It turned out that there was a ferry leaving in about an hour, so we bought tickets and wandered around to wait for a little bit. Then we walked down the docks with the rest of the crowd to jump on a boat.

The ride wasn't bad, but it was HOT. We eventually made it to the island, where we had to take these hilarious little pontoon boats up to the floating docks on the island

Finally we were ON THE BEACH!!!!!

I think Matt was screaming, "We made it!" like we had been on some death defying trip that had taken much longer than an hour. I don't know why.

It was INCREDIBLE. The beach was pristine and not too crowded, we had umbrellas for shade, and the water was almost too warm. We swam and lounged around for several hours, taking breaks to gather seashells, drink pina coladas, and eat a delicious lunch of garlic fried shrimp and rice.

"Wait... take one of me flexing"

We stayed until we had had enough sun, then fought our way back onto the little pontoon boat to catch the ferry home. The best part of this whole thing? The cost: ferry rides, two chair/umbrella rentals, a pina colada, a soda, and lunch, all for 17 dollars. Total.

Asia is awesome.

That night Matt and I ventured out to explore Pattaya's night life.



Pattaya is a fairly touristy city... for slightly sketchy reasons. Pattaya is apparently famous for their "Lady Boys." Yep. I said "Lady Boys." We saw a few of them walking up and down the Walking Street, which is where all the night market stands are, and we pretty much just tried to ignore them. Pattaya has a large Arab district and a Russian district (random) and Matt had found a highly recommended Mediterranean food place in one of his trusty guidebooks, so we went off to try it. It was kind of hard to find and I was wondering why Matt wanted to eat Mediterranean, but it was actually really good.

This is what Matt looks like when he's not trying to rub it in my face.

We love spending the day on tropical islands!!!!!

... that we went to Thailand: Day 1

We woke up early the next morning and drove the 2 hours to the airport to drop off the Rexs. Cutter was still pretty sick, and now Kell was looking like she wanted to die too. It was a pretty somber goodbye at the airport, but before we left, we huddled together in a quiet corner of the airport and the boys gave Cutter, Kell and Finley blessings. It was a special little family moment in their time of need, and it made me so very grateful for the priesthood in my family!

Matt and I had decided a long time ago that we wanted to take an extra week off and go somewhere else after we visited Mom and Dad, and we finally decided on Thailand! So while the Rexs headed home, we were getting ready to board another 5 hour flight to Bangkok!!! Kell was seriously regretting her decision to not join us, but she was pretty much on her death bed, so it was probably a good thing she didn't come. Sorry Kell!

Matt and I had a few hours to kill before our flight to Thailand, so Mom and Dad decided to take us back into TaiPei for one last round of Bing!

So great! Then we jumped back into the car and into some bumper to bumper traffic heading back to the airport. Anyone who knows me knows that I have what I like to call "bad airport karma," and this trip was no exception. We got into a little fender bender on the freeway and had to pull over to wait for the police to come! But Matt and I were going to miss our flight, so Mom decided that we needed to WALK OFF THE FREEWAY to catch a taxi to take us the rest of the way while dad stayed with the car. So Matt and I had grabbed our bags and were getting ready to walk, when an empty taxi just happened to drive by and see us! He quickly pulled over and said he was on his way to pick someone up from the airport! Perfect! We gave Dad a quick hug goodbye and jumped into the taxi, praying that we could still make it on time. The driver was really nice, didn't mind us taking selfies with him, and had U2 on repeat for us.

Good times.

We made it to the airport and even had enough time to grab some food for the flight! We were actually stuck on the runway for a little bit for some reason, but we had our food and didn't care at all.

They kept saying things on the intercom in Thai and Mandarin, but we couldn't tell what was going on. Finally a stewardess came and let us know that we would be taking off soon. After she left Matt turned and said, "You know what that means, right?" I asked him what he meant, and he responded, "We are the only Americans on this plane." I looked around and started laughing. She had come to give us a personal message because we were the only English speakers on the flight! Hilarious.

We landed in Bangkok and had a short wait to catch a two hour bus ride down to Pattaya, where we would be staying on the beach for a few days! I was really really excited to get to the beach, but I was SERIOUSLY nervous about our hotel situation. We had booked two hotels in Thailand online, both with good reviews, but not too expensive, and I was really really worried that they would be sketchy. I basically prayed the whole bus ride down that our hotel would be clean and comfortable! We got dropped off at the bus stop and found a little taxi truck to take us to the hotel. As we drove through the surrounding neighborhoods, I was getting more and more worried. It looked like Sketchville for sure. I was starting to panic when we pulled around the corner and saw this:

The Siam Bayshore Resort. I think I cried tears of joy.

It was clean! It was air conditioned! It was beautiful! The bellhops brought us wet towels and cold glasses of cranberry juice!

I could not have been more happy!!!!! There was a short moment of terror when they couldn't find our reservation and I just knew they were going to kick us out of this glorious City of Enoch, but everything was sorted out quickly and they did in fact give us a room.

I still miss it.

We love Thailand!!!!!

... that we went to Taiwan: Day 7

On our last full day in Taiwan, mom and dad wanted to take us out for a day trip to Sun Moon lake.

It was BEAUTIFUL!!!!! The weather was perfect and the lake was gorgeous! We ferried across the lake and explored a little temple

Our attempt at the Vitruvian Man (or the Vesuvius Man as mom kept saying hahahahaha)

Then we ferried across the lake again to another dock where we ate the most delicious stuffed chicken legs and tempura shrimp lettuce wraps for lunch

Poor Cutter got sick and threw up, so we waited for him to feel a little better, then we all walked over to the gondola station.

We rode the gondola up and over the surrounding mountain tops. It was beautiful!!!

Poor Cutter was fading fast. He needed a nap and was now running a fever, so Mom stayed with him at the top of the gondola while we rode back down and ferried across the lake again to get the car and pick them up.

When we got home, Matt asked me if there was anything I wanted to eat before we left the next morning, and I said I finally wanted to eat a Freen Burger! So we hopped over to the mall just the two of us for a little dinner.

It was DELICIOUS.

I love Taiwan!