Baby's First Art Fair

This happened forever and a day ago but since I hadn't finished my travel stories yet, I thought I'd wait to blog about my art show. It was at Monarch Theatre last month and I showed with 42 other local artists. This was my first show as Iggy Starpup so I was very excited/nervous. I spent 2 months preparing so there was a lot of pressure for the show to be a success. For the most part, I'd say it was. The only exception was that I got SUPER sick the day before. Exactly 24 hours prior to the show I woke up with the flu (and I hadn't had the flu in many many years). It was probably a combination of stress and the fact that everyone I worked with was sick but the timing couldn't have been worse. If I hadn't had already sold all of my tickets to my friends I think I would've just backed out to be honest. But I felt an enormous amount of guilt bailing at the last minute. The morning of the show I took some Dayquil first thing after I woke up and by the grace of Glob, it actually worked. Within 30 minutes I felt better. Within an hour I thought, "I can maybe possibly do this." I had to be at the theatre at 2pm and since it was downtown, my dad gave me a lift. He was really worried about me and tried really hard to convince me to not go. It wasn't easy have to socialize with so many people for hours on end but I'm glad I went.

The show didn't start until 7pm so I was a little taken a back when they told us we had to be there at 2pm but our director assured us that we would need all of that time to set up and get photographed. I think it took me about 2 hours total to set up my booth but I did have to wait an hour for someone to help me set up my grid panel (I didn't have a boyfriend/husband to help me set up--I had to do everything myself) so I did end up doing a lot of waiting around. I popped some more Dayquil before they opened the doors and just told myself that I had to get through this. It helped build my confidence that a fellow artist bought a piece of mine before the show even started. Luckily I'd had the good sense to bring a chair with me, though, because there was no way I would've been able to stand for so many hours.

The show went from 7-11pm so it was a long day but it meant so much to me to see all of my friends there to support me. Some were only able to stay for a bit but knowing that they took the time to come downtown to support me and my art meant the world. It was super cool to watch people's face too as they made their way over to my booth. Everyone's faces went from mild interest to delight. I watched them as their eyes jumped from hoop to hoop and as they recognized characters they knew. It was very cool. Our director had told us to anticipate being at the theatre until 1am but I was positive it wouldn't run that long since it was a Thursday and things had thinned out by 10pm. We wrapped up around 10:45pm and I was home by 11:30pm. Even now, I don't know how I got through it being as sick as I was. Just looking at the photographs it's hard to tell that I was even sick but I guess that means I did a pretty good job with my makeup, haha.

In other art news, things have been going pretty well with my shop. I got interviewed recently for an article on a crafting blog and a crafting hero of mine, Twinkie-Chan, purchased one of my hoops! I've been a fan of hers for many many years so it's so cool knowing that she likes my work enough to want a piece in her home. That makes me so happy. In the past year I've befriended so many artists who I really admire and it's all thanks to social media. Even though my addiction to the internet does eat up a lot of my time, I am very grateful for the connections it's allowed me to make. In just 3 years my business has grown so much and I am excited for all of the possibilities and opportunities yet to come :)

Bangkok: Day 7

Our last day in Thailand once again began before the rising sun. It was quite a journey to Elephant's World; I think we left the apartment around 5:30am (aiya!) and took a taxi to the bus terminal. The taxi ride itself turned out to be an adventure! When we told the driver we wanted to get to the bus station he did not look pleased since it would take him out of his normal pick up area but he agreed to take us anyway. The first couple minutes were fine but as soon as we got onto the freeway our driver went completely loco. He was driving almost 100 mph and we had no seat belts in the back seat. I tried my best just to go limp and grip the seat for dear life. At one point the traffic got stopped up a bit but there was a small gap on the left. Our driver decided to gun it and try to make it through that gap but right at that moment the traffic started to move again and the gap closed! All three of us in the back went flying and both me and Pamela screamed EEEEEEEEEEK! as we bashed into the front seat. Since there isn't any car insurance or traffic laws (it's like a free-for-all Mario Kart kind of situation) in Bangkok, our driver just kept on going after bumping into this other taxi. It was so weird. And not once did the guy apologize for almost killing all of us.

We got to the bus terminal around 6am and it was a pretty strange place. First of all, the place was HUGE, so huge that there were a million places to eat. It was kind of like a mall. We had the worst time just figuring out which teller to see to buy tickets for the right bus. By the time we bought our tickets and found where we were supposed to be picked up our bus was already pulling away and would not stop to let us in. Gaaahhh...After about 30 minutes another bus came and we were on our way. It was about a 2 hour bus ride from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi where Elephant's World is so I needed a way to pass the time since I wasn't really sleepy. I mentioned in an earlier post that Thailand is full of wild dogs so I decided that I was going to count them. In 2 hours I counted 105 DOGS! It actually turned out to be a really fun game because it got me to really focus on the scenery instead of just absent mindedly staring out the window. After our bus ride a van was scheduled to pick us up and take us the rest of the way to the elephant sanctuary. The "van" turned out to be large tuk tuk and we rode over with 3 other people. Two were boys from London and the other was a young woman from Paris who was travelling all over south east Asia all by herself. I love all of the interesting people and stories you hear while you're travelling abroad. While riding on the tuk tuk I had another moment where I was like, "Is this real? Am I really riding through the jungle in Thailand on the back of a tuk tuk?" It was a pretty cool experience.

The motto of Elephant's World is "Where the elephants don't work for us. We work for the elephants" and boy, they weren't kidding! Elephants require so much love and care. Just feeding them was an all day endeavor. It was quite the workout! The first thing we did was feed the elephants fruit. To be honest, I was a bit scared since I'd never been so close to such a large animal before. I placed a handful of bananas into her mouth and she gripped my hands a little bit and I thought, "She could just rip my arms right off if she wanted to." I did like the bristly feel of her tongue and trunk, though. It was pretty cool. I never really thought that I'd ever be putting my hand right inside an elephant's mouth! Life is full of surprises. After we fed the elephants they needed a bit of exercise so we walked off the grounds with them. I had only worn flip flops that day since I didn't think I was going to do a lot of walking so it wasn't long before my feet were killing me. But anyway, the elephants were so well behaved and never once got aggressive. Some of them had new mahouts (trainers/keepers) so they weren't exactly both on the same page yet. None of the elephants were bad but some of them just kind of did what they wanted. It was funny.

Another funny thing were all of the doggies that lived at the sanctuary. We asked our guide about them and she told us that they just showed up one day and then never left. They all seemed so happy and got all of the scraps from the kitchen. What a life! Next on our agenda was to prep food for all of the elephants without any teeth. I didn't know this, but an elephant loses its teeth around 60  years old. In the wild they die at this point since they can't feed themselves any longer but at a sanctuary they can live to nearly 100 years old. The oldest elephant was born in 1936! It blew my mind how old many of the elephants were and how sweet they were even after the difficult lives they'd had before they came to Elephant's World.

We all helped make the sticky rice balls for the older elephants and then it was time to feed ourselves. It turned out to be quite the feast! They even had tofu in curry sauce so I was one happy camper. After lunch we rolled the sticky rice balls into actual ball shapes and then headed over to feed it to the old timers. Again I got a little shy about sticking my hand in an elephant's mouth but our guide reassured me it would be fine since she didn't have any teeth (I was more concerned with her trunk whacking me in the face tbh). Pamela wasn't scared, though, so she jumped right in there. The last thing on the agenda was to bathe the elephants. At this part you were allowed to climb up and sit on top of an elephant. Out of everyone I think only Michelle and I didn't partake in this activity. The river the elephants were bathing in was a FOR REAL river with a rushing current and it just seemed to easy to get washed away. On top of that, climbing onto the elephant looked like such a struggle. Pamela volunteered to be the first one to sit on an elephant (she's totally fearless) and soon after she managed to get up there she got kind of bucked off and belly flopped into the river. Michelle busted a gut at this and we both decided that sitting on top of an elephant wasn't something we needed to do in this life. It was very entertaining, though, watching everyone else trying to scramble onto the elephant's backs and then being tossed back into the water. One girl even swam through a fresh pile of elephant poo without really realizing it.

We finished up around 4pm and were going to take the bus back to Bangkok, however, some other people in our tour group were headed in the same direction and asked us to share a van with them. Big mistake. We got stuck in a van with two German girls and they were two of the most obnoxious human beings I've ever had the misfortune of being trapped in a van with. One of them sat in the middle and the other sat in the back and they kept shouting across the van to each other with no consideration that there were other people in the van. One of them even told off the driver because he wouldn't let her stop and smoke a cigarette. There was a ton of traffic on the journey back so it took 3 hours instead of 2 and I had to pee for the majority of the trip. When we finally got back to the city I had no choice but to use a pay toilet before I peed my pants. While I was in the toilet Pamela bought us some snacks and I found myself eating buttered corn out of a plastic bag (it was both surreal and delicious).

So yeah, it was a long day but all in all, a good one that I don't think I'll ever forget. The next morning I would travel back to the states solo (Michelle stayed another week in Thailand). It's not too exciting of a story but I will tell you that I went kind of overboard in the airport gift shop in Tokyo and bought $100 worth of Studio Ghibli products. I was a little afraid to fly back by myself but it turned out to be a piece of cake and now I feel confident that I could fly pretty much anywhere in the world by myself and be okay. Thank you so much for sharing this adventure with me. I hope you enjoyed it (I know I did). My next trip won't be until October where I'll be meeting up with Melissa in London for her birthday. Until then, it's back to living the craft life for me.

Bangkok: Day 6

Siam Ocean World

Saturday morning Michelle and I visited the aquarium and met up with my dear friend, Shong. Shong and I met on Myspace back in 2007 when I was still doing web comics. He was my very first fan of my comic strip "Marksville" and has always been so kind to me so when I decided I was going to visit Bangkok where he lived, I knew that we HAD to meet. Since he worked during the week we met up with him and his partner, Mario, on the weekend. Originally we had planned on going to Safari World but Shong had told us that Safari World was a bit far from the city and we had wanted to go to Chatuchak Market that day too and they closed around 5pm. I'd only been to one other aquarium before, the one in Seattle, so we decided on Siam Ocean World instead since it was right in the downtown.

As many of you know, I suffer from social anxiety disorder so although I was very excited to meet Shong and Mario I was also very nervous. We met them at the mall where the aquarium was located and I gave him a little Mickey Mouse plush since I know that he loves Disney. The aquarium was really cool and we were there for a pretty long time. I think we were there for about 3 hours. My favorites were the river otters and the penguins but we saw a bit of everything including some sharks and a massive manta ray. The place was so huge that it made the Seattle Aquarium look like small potatoes. After the aquarium Shong asked if he could treat us to lunch. Michelle and I hadn't eaten since breakfast and I knew she was hungry so we all agreed to have lunch even though I'm a bit weird about eating with people. I don't talk about it a lot but I've had an anxiety related eating disorder since I was about 15. It has nothing to do with my weight but I have trouble eating with other people sometimes since I carry most of my anxiety in my stomach. I didn't want to tell Shong about this because I really wanted to make a good impression but internally I was freaking out all through lunch. Before I knew it I was feeling really sick :( The thing about social anxiety, though, is that you don't want anyone to know that you're not okay so you keep how you're feeling to yourself to appear more "normal" but then that just makes it worse. I'm pretty sure that if I told people I was having anxiety and feeling ill that they'd be super supportive but part of this disorder is an innate fear of judgment and rejection from others. It's all very complicated and hard to explain if you've never dealt with social anxiety before.

Anyway, so I excused myself to go to the restroom but since it was a shopping mall there were a million people waiting in the restroom and so I bailed thinking I could wait until we got back to the apartment. When I got back everyone was pretty much finished eating and they asked me if I was ready to go the Chatuchak Market place. I didn't want to be a buzzkill and have to announce that I was having a panic attack in the mall so I told everyone I wanted to peek in Forever21 real quick, which was half true. They waited outside and I rushed back down the stairs in search of another bathroom. It turned out there were only 2 bathrooms in the entire mall so I had to walk all the way to the basement. I hate hate HATE using public bathrooms in this situation but my stomach was super upset by this point so I didn't have a choice. I was only gone about 10 minutes but when I came back to Forever 21, my friends were GONE. It was all I could do to stay calm. Michelle and I had agreed that if we ever got separated to meet back at the apartment. I knew how to get back from where I was but I couldn't imagine where they could've gone. So I waited and I waited wondering what I should do. (I'm feeling anxious rn just remembering this scary moment). I kept thinking, "You have one more day of this trip and you managed to get LOST." After about 20 minutes of despair Michelle came out of Forever 21 and was like, "THERE YOU ARE!" Apparently, they'd been waiting inside the store for me the whole time and I'd just managed to walk past them several times without them seeing me or me seeing them. Aiya!

After I'd been found I relaxed a bit and we got on the BTS and headed over to the market. This time I was thankful that the BTS was so freezing because being cold calms me when I'm having anxiety. Watching the funny commercials on the ride over helped a lot too (distraction is very important during panic attacks). By the time we got to the market I was feeling a lot better (my anxious episodes usually time out after an hour or so these days--which is a vast improvement since before they could last several days at a time). I was so glad to have Shong there once we started walking around because the market was pretty overwhelming; there were hundreds of vendors selling just about everything under the sun. I hadn't done any shopping for my friends and family yet so now was my time to really get to business. I bought some more elephant pants, coin purses, a tote bag, handmade journals, candles, and all sorts of other cute stuff. Before I knew it I'd managed to fill two bags full of souvenirs. After we'd gotten our fill of shopping Shong asked us if we wanted to see the pet section of the market. We did.

I wish they'd allowed photography in the pet section because words can't even describe it. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. They had every kind of pet you could possibly imagine for sale and THEY WOULDN'T LET YOU PET THEM!!! It was physically painful for me because y'all know how much I love to pet the critters. Before I knew about the no touchy rule I pet the itty bittiest pug puppy and quickly got the smack down. We saw puppies, kittens, bunnies, hedgehogs, mice, rats, hamsters, geese, chickens, sugar gliders, lizards, snakes, frogs, parrots, piggies, squirrels, and even monkeys! It was banaynays! I wanted to just stuff a bunch of puppies in my purse! Tbh, I was really worried we were going to see some dead animals since it was so hot and they were all crammed in these little cages (so sad) but surprisingly we didn't see a single one. Once we'd looked at just about everything there was to look at Shong walked us back to the BTS. Shong was such a dear and is honestly one of the nicest human beings I've ever met. He was so kind and helpful and just cute as can be. I'll never forget his giggle when I told him about my infamous Thai massage. He and Mario would like to visit Disney World someday and Michelle and I agreed to be their tour guide when they make it out to the states.

Minus my anxiety attack, I really had a great day and am so glad I got to meet my friend of so many years. I hope we'll meet again someday soon.

In my next post I'll tell you about our last day in Thailand where we visited Elephant's World. Thanks for reading!

Bangkok: Day 5

Island Girl

On the fifth day of our trip we woke up very refreshed from a much needed night of peaceful sleep (10 hours). After we got dressed (i.e. put our bathing suits on) we headed towards the beach in search of breakfast. There wasn't that much open at 8am (I guess people sleep late on the island) but we managed to find a little café. I got a glazed donut and an orange smoothie that tasted just like a melted orange Creamsicle. It was SO GOOD--OHMYGOODNESS! After breakfast we walked down to the beach and it was almost deserted. We found a free spot to put down our things (some spots you have to pay to sit in their beach chairs) and then we hopped back in the water. We swam all morning and it was the best ever. I remember breathing in the sea air and thinking, "Is this real? Am I really here?"



Sunrise at Koh Samed

Like the day before we were in and out of the water and it was lovely. While we were floating around we saw this inflatable beach toy drifting out to sea and Michelle decided she was going to save it. She swam SO HARD! That girl can SWIM! When she finally managed to retrieve it this guy comes over to us and was like, "Thanks for rescuing my tube!" and Michelle was like, "WTF! I swam so hard for nothing!" Poor bb. Another funny thing happened while we were swimming. I had told Michelle to keep her eyes peeled for jellyfish because you never know when jellyfish are going to be around and soon after I said that she was like, "OW OW OW! MY FOOT STINGS!" We quickly got out of the water and examined her foot but it looked fine. After a minute or so she said it didn't hurt anymore. Weird.


I bought a dress in that shop on the right ;)

But about an hour later I'm swimming and my hand stung out of nowhere and got all red and I was like, "SOMETHING BIT ME!!!" and she was like, "LET'S GET OUT OF HERE!" and we beat it out of the water. After that we just sat on the beach and people watched and enjoyed the scenery. There was a group of Japanese girls that took selfies of themselves jumping for over an hour. It was super cute. They didn't once get in the water either, it appeared that they just came to the beach to take cute pictures. While we were watching them we saw a doggie that looked just like Michelle's dog, Bella. I whistled at him and he came right over. He was super chill and sweet and sat in the shade of my beach chair the rest of the morning. Also while we were being beach bums I saw this merchant from the day before who had this gorgeous elephant shawl that I'd wanted so bad. I'd been looking for him all morning and then there he was and he still had the black shawl so I snatched it up.



me at our bungalow

We caught the ferry back to the main land around noon. We were the last ones on so we had to stand the whole way back (bleah!). It was pretty bummer watching the island get smaller and smaller as we sailed further away. While we were on the boat I saw one of the prettiest little girls I'd ever seen in my life. She looked just like little Chiyo in "Memoirs of a Geisha". I think I even snapped a picture of her when she wasn't looking. Shhh! Tbh, the bus ride back kind of sucked. We got stuck in traffic so it took about 5 hours to get back to the city. We were pretty starving when we got home so we met up with Michelle's mother and went to that same yummy restaurant on Thong Lor. Since it was a Friday night the place was absolutely packed to the gills and we had to wait forever for our food. I had a bit of trouble communicating to the waitress that I wanted to add tofu to my curry so we ended up getting a ton of additional dishes that we hadn't ordered but we wound up eating all of it, haha. After dinner we had a bit of a sweet tooth so we got a gelato then headed back home. I think the ants in my bed had missed me because again I got no bites while I was snoozing.

Minus the super long bus ride home, it was a great day. The next day I'd be meeting up with my online friend of 8 years, Shong, for the first time. I'll fill you in on that meeting in my next post. 

Bangkok: Day 4

Thursday morning we were up before the sun. We walked to the BTS in the dark and then rode over to the bus station. On our walk there a bird flew into all the billions of telephone wires that are strung all over the city and got zapped. Poor bird.

Our bus left around 7:30am and OH MY GOSH! It was freezing cold inside this thing! We were dressed for the beach too so we froze our buns off the whole way. It was a pretty long bus ride to the coast but we chatted and looked at all the cool scenery along the way.

We got to the coast around 11:30am and would then take a ferry to the island. As soon as we got to the dock a lady told us we needed to get in line to pay a "national park fee" in order to get to the island. It was only like 6 bucks but we were still annoyed. The ride on the ferry was pretty exciting itself. The boat pulled up as close as it could to the dock but there was still a gap of about 3 or 4 feet that you had to walk over on a little wooden plank. I was in flip flops so I was certain I was going to fall in (I didn't). Once we were on the boat, the ride was really smooth. Tbh, I hadn't been on a boat since I was 10 years old. I love riding on them, though, I find boat rides very dreamy and romantic. While Michelle and I were sitting there this guy who was by himself asked if I could take his picture. I did but since the sun was behind him you couldn't see his face at all in the picture. I suggested he move to the back of the boat so the lighting would be better but he was like, "No, it's fine. I'll just edit them afterwards." Okaaay. I'd like to see the app that can add light where there wasn't any to begin with...

When we got to the island they hit us up for another 3 bucks for some other wacky entrance fee but we were so happy to finally be on the island that we didn't care. We managed to find our motel pretty easily, I think it was called Barbados Terrace. Once we checked in we went in search of food. I wound up getting pad thai (again) since we were on an island and my options were limited. After we'd eaten we went back to the room and relaxed a bit (and connected to their free wifi) before we headed down to the beach. When we finally made our way to the beach we totally freaked out. It was frikkin' paradise! I could not believe my eyes! The water was turquoise blue and was warm enough to just jump into. Our time on Koh Samed and swimming in the Gulf of Thailand was a time of pure joy for me. I remember telling Michelle over and over, "I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN!" or "I'M HAVING THE BEST TIME". It was a truly magical experience. We loved not having anything else on our itinerary besides swimming and eating. All afternoon we were just in and out of the water. While we were swimming we saw this brown thing floating in the water and I was convinced it was a manta ray but it turned out to only be seaweed, haha.

Once the sun started to set we decided to do some shopping (I bought a super cute little tie dye dress) and got a few snacks. Michelle got some fresh watermelon and pineapple--that she was kind enough to share with me--and I got some more mango sticky rice. SO GOOD! For dinner we went back to the beach; all the restaurants had set tables and cushions up right on the beach and everything was lit up with little fairy lights. For dinner I got fried tofu but it was the strangest tofu I'd ever had. It was the consistency of custard which is not my favorite consistency for food but I was starving so beggars can't be choosers. While we were eating a skinny little kitty cat came over to see if we had anything to share but I doubt she would've enjoyed my tofu so all I gave her were pets.

That night we slept like BABIES. I guess it was a combination of not getting enough sleep for the past few days, being on a bus for the majority of the day and swimming in the ocean for hours on end. We went to sleep around 9pm and didn't wake up til 7am the next morning! I wish I could swim in the ocean everyday and sleep like that. Normally, I don't sleep 8 hours all the way through so it was really amazing to be out like that for 10 hours straight.

In my next post I'll write about our last day at the beach aka paradise.

 

Bangkok: Day 3

Me at the Grand Palace

The third day of our trip would turn out to be the busiest of our adventure since it was the day we would be visiting all the various temples. We got up bright and early and walked down to the BTS. We took the BTS all the way to its last stop and would then take a ferry for the Chao Phraya River Tour. The river tour was quite the experience itself! We were one of the last people to board the boat so we had to cram on. I was either clicking away taking pictures or looking off into space dreamily and I guess getting in the way a lot, so I got yelled at a bit by the lady who was in charge of making sure everyone entered and exited the boat quickly and safely. Out of all the people we would encounter on our trip, she was probably the grumpiest but as far as grumpiness goes, she wasn't that bad.

The night before I had done some research on the dress code for entering the temples and was bummed that I hadn't managed to pack anything acceptable. I had only brought one dress that covered my shoulders and didn't really think much about the fact that it was made of polyester when I got dressed that morning. We knew you weren't supposed to wear shorts but I wasn't sure how long dresses had to be so we stopped at a shop along the way to the palace and bought some light cotton pants. I'm still kicking myself from not buying more pairs then since that would turn out to be the cheapest place to get them (100 baht or around $3 USD) and the merchant had so many cute prints. I also bought a cute cotton blouse that I would later change in to. The moment we walked onto the grounds of the palace an employee took one look at us and said, "Too short!" so I was glad we had just bought pants we could slip on instead of renting some.

Let me tell ya, this place was PACKED! Every time I visit a major tourist attraction I'm reminded of just how many human beings inhabit this planet. The line to get in was just wall to wall bodies and Michelle and I quickly got shoved into the rain gutter, haha. Anywho, the Grand Palace was totally mind blowing! Everything was gilded and the temples were so ornate and beautiful. The attention to detail was truly magnificent. I wish we could've gone on a day that wasn't swelteringly hot and humid so we could've spent more time there but I think we managed to see almost everything in about 2 1/2 hours. I saw these two sisters having their picture together holding hands and knew Michelle and I had to get a photo just like it. I asked a lady to take our picture and she was so cute and sweet. Her little girls wanted to know where we were from and we told them the USA and they bowed and said, "Nice to meet you! Nice to meet you!" It was the cutest!


We had to take our shoes off to go inside the main temple and I was pretty excited about that since I'd been sweating my butt off in combat boots. Inside the temple everyone was sitting down and saying a prayer to the Buddha so I made one too. Outside there was a bowl with lotuses floating in water that you could bless yourself with so Michelle and I both got blessed. We left the Grand Palace around 2pm and thought we'd head over to Wat Pho next and see the Reclining Buddha. This is when our day got a little bit more...spontaneous. We were standing on a street corner trying to figure out if we should go left or right when a guy asked us where we were trying to get to. We told him Wat Pho and he said we could take a tuk tuk for 30 baht (about $1) and we didn't have any idea where to go and they seemed so nice that we decided to jump in.


Wat Pho

I'm not normally the free spirited type so it was pretty exciting to just jump on this tuk tuk not knowing really where we were going. For the first few minutes I was thrilled to get off my feet and be racing down the streets of Bangkok but then we started to question where we were actually going. We asked our driver (who said he was 15 years old) and he said he was taking us to see the "Big Buddha" and then he'd take us to Wat Pho. We thought, alright, cool, let's do it! He took us to this other temple and said he'd wait outside for us. This Buddha was pretty big but not spectacular or anything. I was more taken with all the little kitty cats living at the temple. They were all super friendly and just lounging around all over the place. We only stayed about 5 minutes then we were back flying down the road. When we asked where we going now he said he was taking us to "Thai Center". We had never heard of anything called Thai Center and were like, "Wtf??" when he pulls up to some shop. He asked us to go inside for 5-10 minutes and he'd wait outside. At this point you'd think we'd have figured out we were getting the run-around but it hadn't hit us just yet. Once we walked into this shop, though, it became clear. This dude came up to us and asked us if we wear suits at all. We said no but he still suggested we get fitted for one anyway. We were like, "Um...BYE!" and immediately left this store. Our tuk tuk driver seemed a bit displeased but in a joking kind of way and we told him we were ready to go to Wat Pho. He drove a little ways then stopped again. This time he told us he had a deal with a few shops that if he brought tourists in for 5-10 minutes that they'd give him a voucher for free gas.

We weren't exactly happy about this arrangement but this boy looked hard for 15 so we thought we'd do him a solid. Michelle and I are both terrible at lying, though, so this turned out to be more difficult than we'd imagined. We walked in and saw all of these other tourists who were in the same boat as us. We looked at some catalogs and made some bogus chatter about shirts and stuff. Then a guy came over and he was all business. He was ready to lock this sale down. We told him we were still thinking about it and not necessarily ready to buy blah blah blah. It seemed like we'd already been in this place forever when I (what I thought was discreetly) glanced at my watch. The guy caught me doing this and was like, "If you're just here for the gas coupon, I already gave it to him so you can leave." We were a bit stunned by this abrupt dismissal but were happy to get the heck out of there all the same. When we got back in the tuk tuk our driver was like, "Ok, just one more stop." and Michelle lost all patience with him. It was pretty awesome! She was like, "No more stops! Just take us to Wat Pho!" After about 2 minutes of arguing back and forth with this kid she said, "100 BAHT AND NO MORE STOPS!" Begrudgingly, he took her money and didn't speak to us for the rest of the ride over to Wat Pho. By the time we arrived at the temple he'd wasted about an hour of our time :/



Reclining Buddha

Wat Pho was a totally different vibe from the Grand Palace and a lot less crowded. It was really peaceful and tranquil. One of the residents at my work had told me all about it and said I MUST get a picture of the Reclining Buddha's head and feet so I was looking forward to doing that. Once we got out tickets, though, I made a beeline for the bathroom and changed out of my sticky dress and put on my airy cotton blouse. It felt so good! The Reclining Buddha was fantastic and even more impressive in person than I thought it would be. It was around 4pm by the time we got finished at Wat Pho and were starving so we went in search of food. We somehow managed to find the dock to get us back on the ferry and from there we would pass China Town so we thought we'd get off and see if we could find some food.



Michelle and I in our "tourist pants"

China Town turned out to be a bit too much for us after the busy day we'd had so we gave up trying to find food there after about 15 minutes. It was mostly just endless rows of shops selling all kinds of junk. We did take a small sugar break so we wouldn't pass out on the journey home, though. Once we got back to the apartment the pool looked so inviting so I took a quick dip before we got dressed for dinner. I felt loads better after cooling off  and changed into the bamboo flip flops I bought in China Town. We then walked around the neighborhood and saw a cute little restaurant (with air conditioning) so we poked inside to see if they might have tofu--I need protein BAD. The waitress didn't understand that we just wanted to look at the menu and proceeded to seat us at a table and Michelle was like, "I guess we're eating here."

Their menu was HUGE and lucky for me included a vegetarian section. Michelle ordered the pad thai and I ordered the red curry and added tofu to it. After fasting pretty much all day this food was DELICIOUS and it was SO CHEAP! Both of us ate for like, 8 bucks! My meal took a lot longer to prepare so I kept stealing bites of Michelle's pad thai until it was ready. I found out that there aren't a whole lot of vegetarian options in Bangkok (most people didn't know what the heck tofu or bean curd was) so we would end up eating dinner at this restaurant every night for the rest of the trip, haha.

We turned in pretty early that night because we were totally worn out from our busy day and we knew we'd have to be up super early the next morning to journey over to the island of Koh Samed. I'll tell you that tale in my next post :)

Bangkok: Days 1 & 2

Terminal 21 (Tokyo Level)

It's been a week since I returned from my vacation in Thailand and I'm happy to say that it was one of my best trips ever! Let me start from the beginning:

Our journey to Bangkok started mighty early, 4am to be exact. When we set out on the road the whole city of Phoenix was covered in fog. You could barely see 20ft in front of the car. It was quite spooky. Our flight was supposed to depart at 7am but we didn't end up taking off until nearly 8am since the pilot had to wait for a gap in the fog to appear. Michelle fell asleep shortly after we boarded and woke up before we'd even left and was like, "Are we there already?" and I had to tell her we hadn't even taken off.

We had a layover at LAX then it was off to Tokyo. Our flight to Narita airport took about 11 hours and to be honest, it was pretty brutal. I cannot sleep on an airplane to save my life so I watched a buttload of movies. Here's what I remember watching in case you're curious: The Giver, The Fault in Our Stars, Frozen, Sixteen Candles, WALL-E, and Only Lovers Left Alive. I had planned on finishing "A Dance with Dragons" but once I was on the plane I did not feel like reading at all. I wish I'd remembered to request a vegetarian meal as well because all they served was meat on both flights so I only ate salads and bread that day. I even had to eat an egg and biscuit sandwich (I HATE the taste of eggs) just so I wouldn't drop dead. Once we arrived in Tokyo I perked up a bit. They had so many adorable Studio Ghibli things for sale and I made a mental note of all the things I wanted to buy on my return trip. We connected to our Bangkok flight about 6:30pm (Tokyo time) and arrived in Thailand at about 12am. Blurrgghhh...




A lovely bunch of Totoros

It was about 27 hours of traveling and such a LONG day. Michelle's mother, Pamela (I instantly adored her!), met us at the airport with a taxi. Even though I was so exhausted I had trouble falling asleep because A.) I was so excited to finally be in Bangkok and B.) there was this horrible bird outside my window that made this wailing sound at all hours of the day. I only got about 6 hours of sleep that night and was expecting to have horrible jet lag but I didn't really experience any at all. The first thing we did that morning was take a dip in the pool. It was pretty chilly but I felt nice and refreshed afterwards. Next we walked over to Pamela's school and met up with her for lunch. I was amazed how cheap the food was. I had spaghetti for lunch that day which I thought was funny since I hadn't imagined myself eating any pasta on this trip.



Starbucks date

After lunch we decided to make our way over to the mall for a bit of shopping. We had to take the BTS (the sky train) to get there and that was an adventure in and of itself! We thought the train was just right up the street but it turned out to be about a mile from the apartment. We walked down a busy street loaded with street vendors and people eating delicious food. After about 10 minutes of walking we decided to ask if we were going in the right direction. The lady who we asked didn't speak much English but was able to communicate how to get to the train just through hand gestures which I thought was really cool. I loved the convenience of the BTS. Not only was it SUPER cheap, it was just so easy to use. All the directions to buy tickets and the stops were in Thai and English so it was easy for us to navigate our way around town. In the week we were there I don't think we ever got lost. It was mostly due to Michelle's natural good sense of direction but I'm still proud that two American girls were able to find our way all over Bangkok all by ourselves. It made me feel like I could go anywhere in the world and be okay.



Michelle on the BTS (the lady behind her cracks me up)

The mall we went to, Terminal 21, was absolutely HUGE and each level was divided into a different major city. There was Tokyo, London, Paris, and Qatar. I surprisingly didn't really buy anything, though. I think it was just too much and I really only wanted to buy authentic Thai souvenirs. All of the clothes at this mall were Western style and a bit pricey tbh. We got thirsty as heck after so much walking so we took a break at Starbucks. This Starbucks had the longest line I'd ever seen but we found out it was because Tuesday was buy one get one free day. We took a break for about an hour then headed back to the apartment to meet up with her mom again. What we would do that evening would turn out to be a LIFE EXPERIENCE.

Both of us were still hurting from being trapped inside that tin can they like to call an airplane for an entire day so we thought we'd treat ourselves to massages. Pamela told the ladies that we all wanted "oil massages" which were supposed to be comparable to Swedish massages but I don't think my lady got the message. For such a petite woman (she couldn't have been more than 5ft tall) she had hands of steel! She nearly broke me in half! It was all I could do not to cry out in pain. I figured I should let her do her thing, though, and that maybe after this horrible torture my muscles would feel better and for the most part, they did. However, she did leave me with bruises on my arms and legs. Another thing both me and Michelle weren't expecting was that she touched THE STUFF. I had never had a masseuse go so far up the leg before and got terrified as she got closer to it but then she kept grazing it like it was nbd. All I could keep thinking was, "AM I GOING TO GET A HAPPY ENDING?! I DIDN'T ASK FOR A HAPPY ENDING!!!" Then out of nowhere she climbed on the table like a ninja and was punching my back and pinching my neck. It was BANAYNAYS!!!




Street food!

After surviving a beating from a cute Thai lady we walked down the road for some street food. Luckily they had vegetarian food for me to eat. I got vegetables and noodles, an iced pineapple drink, and we split mango sticky rice (my new favorite thing). One of my favorite things about Thailand is how fresh the fruit is. I'd never had such delicious fruit in my life. We were eating tons of fruit every single day. You could get a giant plate of watermelon and pineapple for $1.50. It was MADNESS! Every single time I'd take a bite of juicy pineapple I'd have to exclaim, "OHMAHGAWD! HOW IS THIS SO GOOD?!" The fruit I buy in the states now tastes like total trash >________<

It was nice to have our first official day in Bangkok be a leisurely one because the next day was pretty action packed. I'll continue our story in my next post :)