05/03/2019
During gold week, Yassi, Clement, and I all went to Thailand! I have limited pictures because my phone broke, but I hope that you enjoy!
On Friday, we flew into Bangkok. I thought I was going to die of heat when we stepped out, it was above 90 degrees the entire time I was there. We got in around 11 pm and took a taxi to our hotel. While we were waiting for the taxi, Clement ate grilled cheese OFF THE AIR PORT FLOOR. He dropped it, and claimed the 10 second rule. We were all really hungry, but you couldn't pay me to eat off the airport floor.
Thank you to Yassi's mom, Farnaz for letting us use her points to stay in the Hilton for a night! When we walked in, they gave us chocolate chip cookies, still warm. After checking in, we set our things down and went out to have food. We went to an Indian restaurant that was a 15 minute walk from our hotel, it was almost two am when we left so not much was open. On the way there, the police stopped and searched our bags. I found it crazy because that doesn't ever happen in the United States except when you are going into a public event. On the way to the restaurant I saw rats, prostitutes, and cockroaches. It was pretty disgusting and disturbing, but it is a third world country where sex tourism brings in the most money. You would just walk around and see all these white men with Thai ladies and it was just really uncomfortable. At the restaurant, I ordered Shanghai noodles. They were a little spicy, but overall really yummy! We didn't get home until around 4 am, which was like 6 am Japan time so I was exhausted. I volunteered to sleep on the cot in the middle of the room because I didn't care and just wanted to sleep.
We slept until around 10 am, and headed right down to breakfast. Because Yassi's mom is a Hilton Diamond member, we had buffet breakfast. We had SO MUCH food, as you can see. It was SO good. I tried dragon fruit and loved it. They had everything, including ice cream. After breakfast, we packed up our things and checked out the hotel pool before checking out. Every hotel in Bangkok seems to have a roof top hotel. They are all really nice, with a bar right next to them. I would definitely recommend checking them out sometime! We left our bags with the concierge and went out to see Bangkok! We took the subway to the Grand Palace. The subways aren't nearly as clean as Japan and also have a different way to pay... you carry a chip instead of a ticket, which was interesting. The Grand Palace was actually closed due to a buddhist holiday, but we did see the city hall! There were a lot of buildings that had painted on fake windows, which I thought was interesting. There were also a ton of yellow buildings and yellow portraits of the King EVERYWHERE, I think yellow is the color of the country. Next, we really wanted to go to the Chatuchak market in Bangkok, it is one of the biggest markets in Thailand. We took a Tuk-Tuk to get there. The thai people really push their sales on you, but you have to be careful because they usually try to rip you off. Once we got to the market, we had about 45 minutes or so to walk around. We browsed a small portion of the market, and I drank water out of a coconut! I bought a few souvenirs and then we needed to go back to the hotel and pick up our stuff so that we wouldn’t miss our flight to Phuket. We rode the skytrain, which is Thailand’s train station that looks out over the city. We ran to the hotel and called for a taxi. Luckily, our flight was delayed by about 30 minutes because traffic was so bad that we almost missed it! When we arrived in Phuket, we met an American who helped us find where to buy a bus ticket and exchange our money. He has lived in Thailand for a year or two, so it was nice to have some help. After arriving at our hotel (Baumann Residence) and checked in, we went out to get food and some shower supplies. UNFORTUNATELY, it was POURING RAIN. I got so soaking wet that my clothes literally didn’t dry for 3 days. The storm actually broke our umbrellas. We took shelter in a SevenEleven, where I bought a kinder egg, but it wasn’t an actual egg which was fairly disappointing. Defeated, we returned to the hotel and went to sleep for the night because we had to be up early for a boat tour.
On Sunday, we decided to go on a Phuket Island Tour. We went to 6 or 7 different islands! Every beach had very blue, clear water. Thailand has some of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen. The sand is almost white and you can always see the ocean floor. Unfortunately I stubbed my toe on a rock on the beach (the rocks are white also so they blend in with the sand). It started bleeding but I think the salt water helped it from getting infected. We stayed on each beach for about 45 minutes or so. The weather was perfect for relaxing at the beach. This was also whereI went snorkeling for the first time, which was a really neat experience! I saw many types of tropical fish, several of them were the ones you see in Nemo. The coral wasn't so brightly colored, but the tour guide told us that the coral is having troubles living due to people touching it all the time, so they are trying to prevent it from happening. After snorkeling, we headed to get lunch at a small island, I think it was called Princess Raya restaurant or something. It started to rain on our way over there and the waves became a lot larger and threw the speed boat around a lot. When we arrived at the pier and were trying to park the boat, I literally thought I was going to throw up from seasickness. Luckily, I didn't, but there was a lady from Russia that did. The food was AMAZING. They had fried rice, deep fried vegetables (omg, these were to die for), some sort of mixed vegetables, chicken (I think?? I didn't actually pay attention to the meat), pineapple, watermelon, and some other items. It was buffet style so naturally I ate as many fried vegetables as I could. We met a Japanese family there. They were so sweet. They said they lived near Nara and after we told them that we are living near there for the summer, they became really excited and said they wanted to show us around sometime! It was hilarious, they took like 10 pounds of watermelon because it is really expensive in Japan. At the supermarket, I saw it for around 30 USD the other day. Melons cost like 15 USD, and strawberries like 10 USD. Fruit is TOO expensive. After lunch, we had to attempt to get back on the boat safely. The pier was floating on the water, so it moved whenever waves came and because the waves were so big, people kept falling over. They kept sending 2 guys to escort the girls down to the boat because we kept falling. We finally all were on the boat and headed back to shore. Once we were there, some of the people were trying to sell pictures they took of us getting on the boat to us. I didn't buy mine because I had no idea what they were doing so I wasn't even looking at the camera. My hair was also half done... Yassi was braiding it but she had only finished half of it when we were boarding the boat. There was a cockroach on the boat at one point and the boat buy ran around to kill it because everyone was screaming and really freaked out. I am not the biggest fan of them, but I hate rats more. When they dropped us off at the hotel, we hung out in the pool for about an hour and went upstairs to shower. We went out to eat dinner and ordered Pad-Thai because it's the traditional Thai dish that everyone has to try. Unfortunately, I found a hair in mine and couldn't finish it. After dinner, I went and bought aloe vera gel because I was slightly burnt and wanted to prevent it from getting worse. We decided to go check out the night life near Patong Beach, and OMG. I will just say that Patong Beach should be rated R with full disclosure before you enter the strip. I was super uncomfortable because everything and everyone was out in the open and I mean EVERYTHING.
After staying up late, it was nice that we didn't have our next excursion until around 11 am on Monday. They picked us up in the rain and took us to Chalong Elephant Retirement where we FED AND BATHED ELEPHANTS. This was probably my favorite part about Thailand. The experience felt surreal the entire time, and honestly it's hard to believe it actually happened. We first watched our guide cut up banana tree and sugar cane for the elephants. He explained that the sugar cane tastes hot to them but still good. They like the banana tree better though, which is 70% water (I think that is the percentage he said, but I could be wrong). The main tour guide explained the great elephant migration to us as well. The other guides brought out two elephants, I think one was from Africa and one from Asia, named Sombat and Lulu. We were able to go up and feed them by giving them food directly to their mouth, or sometimes they would take it from their trunk. I tried to take a ton of pictures because I would never want to forget. Next, we gave the elephants a mud bath. We literally went into the water and spread mud on their back and body. It stopped raining by this point, but apparently elephants love rain and water so they were perfectly content the entire time. They then walked through a tall shower where a lot of the mud came off and we took more pictures with the elephants. Finally, we scrubbed and rinsed Sombat and Lulu in another water tub. I was a little nervous that they would accidentally step on my food but they were very well behaved the entire time. It was truly a great and memorable experience. On the way back, I realized my phone no longer worked. I didn't think it was from water damage because my phone is waterproof for like 3 ft deep of water (or around there). I kept trying to touch the screen to unlock it, but it was non responsive. We called a store in Thailand that was recognized by Apple and had permission to fix Iphones, but they said it would take them a week or two to fix my phone...but I was leaving on Friday to go back to Japan. They weren't an actual apple store, and there are no apple stores in Thailand, so they have to ship phones to the closest apple store to get any phones fixed, especially international models. We tried restarting it over and over, and ultimately gave up and decided I would get it fixed when I got back to Japan. I was pretty disappointed because I couldn't take any pictures due to the fact that my phone could not be unlocked. After deeming my iphone a temporary lost cause, we headed out to get dinner. Clement and I found a Thai market, and waited for Yassi before deciding what to eat (she had to run back and get her wallet because she forgot it). I bought a mango smoothie that was DELICIOUS. I think I discovered my newfound love for mango during that moment. Yassi and I split fried sweet potato balls, pad-thai, and pineapple rice. It is basically rice with vegetables and pineapple chunks in a half of a pineapple used as a bowl to hold the mixture. All of it was really really good, until a rat ran out from the trash piled near the table we were sitting at. After evacuating, we set out to find a thai massage. . We found a place that would give us a 1 hour thai massage for 12 USD, which is crazy cheap for a massage, and no happy ending. It felt really good, with the exception of the lady walking on my back. I literally thought my lung was going to be crushed. They really do massage almost your entire body and also crack every joint that you have. After the massage we walked along the beach and headed home so that we could catch our ferry to Krabi in the morning.Â
We narrowly caught our ride to the ferry. My phone was broken.. and I was the designated alarm person. Luckily, I woke up first still, but only about 5 minutes before the ferry staff came to pick us up. We has to rush to pack everything and get dressed before they left without us. I think they ended up going to pick up other people first and then came back to get us. They drove us to the ferry, which was about 1.5 hour ride to get to Krabi, another portion of Thailand. Once we arrived in Krabi, we tried to check into our hotel, but we couldn't check in until 2 pm and it was only 11 am. We decided to find lunch and see if there was any afternoon tour open. Luckily, we found a 7-island tour that picked us up at 12 pm. We booked it, for around $32 and searched for lunch. We settled on thai food, eating fried pineapple dipped in honey (SO GOOD) and a mango salad...which was a salad soaked in mango juice, also delicious! Unfortunately, when the tour escort picked us up, it was already starting to pour rain. They took us to two islands, and was raining lightly. We were actually able to sit on top of the boat which was really awesome. The wind and air was actually cooler than the water, and so I tried to stay in the water most of the time. One of the beaches seemed more like a sandbar than a beach because the sand was only about 10 meters across, with water on both sides. They then took us to go snorkeling, but we ended up jumping into a jellyfish field. I barely even saw any fish because I was so worried looking for jellyfish. Once they realized there were a ton of jellyfish, they sent us back to the boat. Around 15 people were stung, including myself and Yassi. Luckily for Clement, he escaped, although he was very close to a few that I steered him clear of. Once we were back on the boat, it started raining really hard, so we ate dinner under the main deck. It was still pretty cold with the wind and sea blowing through the windows of the boat. The tour staff told us we could go back early if we wanted to, but if we wanted to stay, there would be night snorkeling and a fire show. We decided to stay because we had paid money and were fairly curious about both events. Night snorkeling was terrifying, but also really cool. We had to be led out on a rope into this cave area. If you move your hand under your snorkeling goggles, you can see glow in the dark plankton, I think it was yellowish/orange. It was pretty scary because you couldn't see anything else around you. I was secretly scared there was a shark that would come eat us, but that didn't happen, don't worry. They finally took us back to shore around 8:30 or so and we walked to the fire show. One of the tour guides and his son (maybe?) put on the fire show for us. They danced to music and used different tools...the son used a long fire baton and the father used nun-chunks and like this floating fire ball string. It looked like there was a ball of fire, but there was a string holding it, I am not completely sure how it worked. He ate the fire ball to put it out at the end and kept bringing it close to us to try to scare us. It was pretty neat. I knew they have similar acts in the circus, but I had never seen it before. We went back to our hotel (Glow Hotel) and checked in. Literally, not 2 minutes after entering our room, the power went out in the entire building. Clement tried to take a shower, but our shower head broke...so Yassi got even more angry. She went downstairs and the staff agreed to give her and I a place to shower. They gave us lanterns and spare rooms (where excess mattresses are stored) and we showered there. The power turned back on by the time we were done showering. The hotel didn't have a back up generator or anything, which was relatively frustrating. They mentioned that electricity is government regulated and that they personally couldn't do anything about it, which makes sense because Thailand is a Militant Dictatorship with a King. We decided to walk around for a little while and wanted to eat a snack because we ate dinner earlier in the day and gained an appetite from all the snorkeling and excitement of the day. We stumbled upon this Indian restaurant that offered to make veggie burgers for Yassi and I because that was what we were craving. The food was really good! I lost my appetite when I saw a rat crawl up the wall into a picture frame but I didn't say anything because I didn't want Yassi or Clement to freak out and us to have to find a new place to eat when nothing else was open. I choked down the rest of the burger. It tasted great, I was just scared it was infested with rat germs or something. Luckily, I didn't get sick from any of the food or water in Thailand (you have to use only bottled water there). We tried walking around the bar area, but apparently all the bars in Krabi close at 1 am. I have no idea why, but everyone goes home at 1 am when everything shuts down. We stopped in family mart, and headed home. On the way, we ran into two people from England who highly recommended that we go to Phi-Phi island, which they claimed was the prettiest and best island to stay on. We were pretty frustrated because everything closed so early, we couldn't book any excursions, as they were all closed by the time we got back to the hotel from our earlier one. We took their advice and decided to try to see what we could book last minute in the morning. Once we got back to the hotel, Yassi and I talked for a while because Clement fell asleep early on top of his covers.Â
Around 7 am in the morning, I woke up to a call from Kim on Yassi's cell phone. She was trying to get into my apple account to set up an appointment in the Kyoto apple store for me so that I could get my phone looked at. Unfortunately, I had no idea my password and they couldn't confirm my identity because my phone line was suspended so I couldn't get a confirmation text. I called apple and yelled at them for a while and they scheduled the appointment for me. At 7:30, I walked around outside asking if there were any trips to Phi-Phi island. The tour coordinator called over 7 tours and all of them were full (I guess Phi-Phi is pretty popular). Luckily, she found ONE that was open..but pick up from the hotel was in 15 minute and Yassi and Clement were both sleeping. I called Clement and had him run money down to me to pay for our tickets and begged Yassi and him to be ready on time. Clement stuck some breakfast rolls in a napkin, got dressed and made it down on time. Yassi was a couple minutes late, but they still waited for her. We were the last ones to arrive, and had the whole boat waiting on us. The tour guide instructed us that she planned to take us to all the sights first, and lunch last so that we would miss the rain that the forecast predicted. She planned it perfectly. We first visited a lagoon that was enclosed by mountainous thai islands, it was beautiful. We jumped off the boat and swam in the water for around 20 minutes. Afterwards, we went and took pictures in front of a beach used in The Beach movie (I have never heard of it, but apparently it is famous) and a old cove that had wall paintings. We couldn't really see the wall paintings from the distance that we were at. Next, we stopped at monkey beach. There were a ton of monkeys crawling all over, but were highly advised from getting close to them. They will bite you if they are feeling aggressive or threatened and could send you to the hospital for 7 days. I had Clement take a picture of me with them, but I didn't get too close. There were a few people that let the monkeys climb on them, but I wasn't willing to risk it. I kept reapplying sunscreen throughout the day because I was sitting in the front of the boat with Yassi. I think I reapplied probably 6-7 times. Our last stop before lunch was snorkeling. I was quite terrified the entire time. This was one of the best snorkeling spots because you could see so much coral, sea life, and tropical fish. I saw a rainbow fish, several types from nemo, long fish (2 ft long), and many others. However, the poisonous sea urchins were EVERYWHERE and we were extremely close to the surface. I was constantly afraid I would accidentally kick one while swimming and have to make a hospital trip. That didn't happen, although Yassi and I almost missed the boat. We wandered too far and thought a different boat was ours. We made it back, but I was pretty exhausted after how far we had to swim, quickly while avoiding sea urchins. Once we made it back, we went to get lunch. It was very similar to the first day, having watermelon, fried vegetables, rice, and a vegetable mix. However, they also had pasta. It was all really good! I was glad to be in the shade, especially when I realized how bad my sunburn was. By the time we got back to the hotel, I could barely move my arms. I had burnt the soft skin right above your armpits and was in a ton of pain. We tried to cool my skin down by sitting in the pool, but it didn't help much. I decided to head upstairs and take a cool (and I mean an extremely cool) shower.I was already starting to peel in some areas. I tried to take a nap and was woken up like 3 hours later by Yassi telling me to get ready because we were going out. It felt nice to sleep but as soon as I woke up I was in so much pain I was on the verge of tears. I couldn't get dressed by myself because it hurt too bad. Yassi helped, and then we searched for some Aloe. A thai lady at the pharmacy gave me some special burn medicine after she saw me crying from pain. I don't think she would have given it to us otherwise because it is for severe burns, but I think mine was. It felt like my skin was blistering. After applying the cream, the pain became a little more bearable. Yassi and Clement were able to convince me to go to a rooftop restaurant. Yassi and I split onion rings and spring rolls. We talked to another guy from England for a while, but ended up getting into an argument about politics. I kept getting frustrated because everyone seemed to be so critical of our government and have strong opinions when they weren't even being governed by it. I am fairly aware that most people in the world disagree with me on politics, but it is frustrating because they don't try to understand it from an American's point of view. I took a break and calmed down, and we left to check out some other places before heading back. We ran into the English guys that recommended Phi-Phi again on our way out and they suggested Yassi and Clement stay the night there after I leave because it was definitely worth it. We headed home and went to bed.
In the morning, we sprinted down to breakfast so we could eat before they closed and we had to check out. We ate similar food to that of the Hilton's breakfast, but with lesser options. It was very good! I had some cereal, an egg, fruit, pastries, rice, potatoes, and juice (orange and pineapple). I stayed downstairs with Clement to have the front desk print off my flight information because I had to fly back alone. My company is more restrictive on arrival time at work, so I had to leave a couple days earlier to make sure that I would get to work on time. As soon as we had the documentation, we packed up our things quickly and left it with the concierge. Yassi wanted to get a manicure and pedicure, so we went to a massage place that also gave those. Clement got a foot massage during this time. Again, we almost missed our ferry pick up. Yassi's manicure took longer than expected to Clement and I rushed back and tried to delay the driver a little longer. He waited and we made it to the ferry on time. I wore a shawl around my shoulders the entire time because any sun hurt them so bad. I stayed inside the boat and looked out the window for the entire ferry ride because I didn't was to risk being hurt by the sun again. I was relieved to be going back to Japan soon because I couldn't handle the sun as well as everyone else. Once we arrived back in Phuket, Yassi and Clement checked into their hotel. It was on the opposite side of the beach that our previous Phuket hotel was. We arrived later than expected because the ferry ride took 3 hours instead of 1.5. After checking in, we searched for an airport bus to take me to the airport, as my flight was at 5:30 am. We asked 3 people and none of them had airport buses that took past 9 pm (it was already 8 pm), except for one man, who proceeded to tell us that all of them were full. He suggested I order a regular taxi to come pick me up, so I did because Clement agreed to ride with me. I was a little scared to ride alone because of how huge human sex trafficking is in Thailand. After booking the taxi (which cost 24 USD, yikes) we found another market to eat dinner. I had pad thai for the last time and a mango smoothie, both were amazing. We had a huge plate for under 2 USD. The thai food is crazy cheap, but also very good! I also didn't see rats running near the booth we bought from, so that was a nice addition. After dinner, we walked around again for a while and ended up at the Patong Beach Strip again. We ended up running into some guys from Spain that talked to us for a while. One was a veterinarian, and another an engineer. They were very nice, and we talked to them for about an hour until it was time for me to head back to catch the taxi. I bought some water on the walk back... you can't drink enough water in Thailand, you are constantly sweating it out. I had enough time to shower before I got back and tried to check into my flights, unsuccessfully. Yassi tried yelling at Scoot Airlines to have them check in for me, but they said they couldn't do that. It wasn't a huge deal because I got through the Thai security pretty easily, as it was just a domestic flight. I slept on the flight back because I had nothing else to do ( I didn't bring a book and my phone was still broken). I arrived at the Bangkok airport and got lost when trying to get to my international flight. I didn't realize you had to exit the airport and return to departures and go through security all over again, but at least I know for next time! I waited for check in for over 50 minutes. I was nervous because the line was so long and there was a sign that said check in closes 1 hour prior to flight time with no exceptions. I checked in with about 50 minutes until the flight was scheduled to depart. I got through security, and barely made it in time when they were boarding. Lucky for me, I had about 5 minutes to spare so I bought some pineapple and water to use up the baht that I had left. The flight was pretty miserable because I just kept trying to sleep, but kept waking up and had nothing to do. I was completely exhausted but couldn't sleep. Finally, I landed and bought a limousine bus ticket to get to Kizugawa-Shi. I made it back home around 8 pm on Friday night and went straight to sleep because I was so tired. Yassi called me to show me that she was in a hostel (somehow Clement convinced her to stay??). Don't worry, she ended up booking a hotel at 3 am because she was too uncomfortable.Â
On Saturday morning, I went to Kyoto to get my phone fixed. I got lost on the way there and asked a German man to give me directions. I found the store, but was about 20 minutes late for my appointment. The apple store told me they couldn't unlock my phone without my apple ID password or a receipt, so I would have to try again. I called my dad to ask him to find one for me, but he wouldn't be able to get it until the next day. I scheduled an appointment early on Monday morning and headed up. I got super lost on the way back and ended up in tears because I asked three Japanese people in Japanese 'Where is Shijo Station?' and they all just said 'No.' or 'I don't know'. Eventually, I found a tourist shop and the lady was kind enough to print me off directions. After arriving at home, I bought groceries and took a nap from exhaustion. I asked Diego to ask Terry if he would mind directing me to the store Monday morning so that I wouldn't get lost again, and he agreed. I took a break on Sunday, and was late for church because I couldn't figure out the bus schedule properly. On Monday morning, I took a copy of the receipt with me and Terry as my guide and we made it to the apple store 10 minutes early. It took them about an hour, but they fixed my phone by replacing the entire front screen. Apparently, this is a common problem with the Iphone X, so they fixed it for free. None of my data was lost and I felt truly blessed. After a long week, I was finally able to relax for a few hours before starting up work for the remainder of Summer semester!
