Phuket, Thailand - Day 3

Well, I'm not sure how else to say this, but today was full of awesomeness!  Seriously.  We went on a three hour tour - just kidding it was eight hours.  Scott and Olsen stayed under cover for most of the time, but Drew Taylor and I went to the front of the boat - my favorite place ever.

 The scenery was breathtaking - I know that sounds cheesy, but it's true.

 Taylor, of course made friends with all the staff on the boat - he kind of has a knack for that.  And, one time  when I was headed upstairs, I looked in to see the captain and saw this:

After that, he kept telling people, "You can just call me Captain."

This is Khao Ping Gun, also known as "James Bond Island."  It is the island that is in the 1970's movie "Man with the Golden Gun" - we even saw the entrance to James Bond's hideout.  

Then we took the long-tail boat over to do some canoeing. This was probably our favorite part of the day.  It was incredible.  The kids thought it was fun because to get into some of the caves and grottoes we had to lie down flat in the canoe.

Then out to the mangroves.  We even saw some walking fish.

Then we went to a floating village (you can see it in the distance).  There are over 300 houses in the village, a school, shops, etc. all over the ocean.  It was pretty amazing, but the storm that had been following us all day finally caught up to us and we got drenched.

After that- lunch and a beach stop.

Don't worry - after we got back to the hotel we stopped and got some Thai pancakes.  

Because of our late flight home, we needed to keep the kiddos awake, so we headed off for one last stop.  This was to Phuket FantaSea.  It was kind of an amusement park based around a cirque du soleil type show.  

And, who doesn't need an "Affectionary Factory" hamster exhibit?  Really, this is a hamster house.

This is the theater - pretty impressive.  Unfortunately, we don't have any photos of the show as they make you check in all recording devices.  It was pretty good - maybe not as impressive as the outside of the theater, but good.

Then we took our tired selves to the airport where we once again waited for our delayed flight, sad to be leaving beautiful Thailand.

Phuket, Thailand - Day 2

Today wasn't quite as rainy (for most of the day), so we thought it would be fun to rent some scooters and cruise around to see the town.  The boys had so much fun and thought it was pretty cool.  Honestly, I was nervous, but it was fun.

 Then in the afternoon, we went to do a little elephant trekking. First, though we got to meet some baby elephants.  As you can see from the picture, Taylor was less than happy with the proximity.  The funny thing is that the picture right before this, the other elephant in the background had it's trunk on Taylor and so he was freaking out.  Poor kid was not loving it.  I think it is pretty awesome to be able to get so close to these amazing animals.  There is just something about them.

 After these little babies did some tricks and harmonica playing, we got to feed them some bananas.

 Then pictures on this seriously stinky water buffalo.  I was surprised, though that it's skin is slick with just some whiskery hairs growing.  Weird.

 Then, the main event....elephant trekking.  We got to ride through the jungle for about half an hour.  It really is a cool experience to do that.  After a while, Drew got to ride on the neck.  He was a little unsure at first, especially when it started moving, but he ended up loving it!

 We finished it off with an ox cart ride, noodle lunch and a short demonstration on how to harvest rubber from the rubber trees.  It was a seriously fun afternoon.

Then back out on our scooters...to get more Thai pancakes.  Really, you should try them before you judge.

 Oh, and we made a little stop at the market to look around and buy me some new flip-flops.  Turns out scooters and flip-flops are not the best of friends.  Then we went to get some more amazing Thai food.  Olsen stole Scott's coconut and was loving it.  He also was getting a lot of attention from the staff.  Anyhow, another wonderful day in Thailand!

Phuket, Thailand - Day 1

So, for the last few years after leaving Singapore, we have been a bit remiss not having traveled as much as we could have since everything is so close in Asia.  Then, here we are, having lived in Hong Kong for a year and we have not done much travelling.  After I visited Thailand in February with Penelope, I wanted to go back so bad and take the kids and Scott too.  Last minute we found a good deal to go, so we jumped on the chance - and we are SO glad we did.  The travel was a bit tricky, because we are squeaky cheap and got flights in the middle of the night.  But, the kids were troopers and maybe it added to the excitement to get to leave in the middle of the night.

Drew was tickled pink to be able to ride on the Airport Express - for some reason he has been asking to do that for quite a while now.  Maybe it's the comfy seats?  Who knows, but he was pretty excited just the same.  We landed in Thailand around 3am, and by the time we went through customs and what-not, we arrived at our hotel at 5am.  Who needs sleep anyway right?  Well, I guess we did, because we hit the sheets and didn't move until 10:30.  But, after that, we were ready to go.  

We wanted to start the day with Thai pancakes - which were a favorite of mine from February.  So, we jumped in a tuk-tuk and found a small little shop - they were delicious.  After that we went back to check out the resort.

 

The room was huge (ha ha, maybe anything is huge when we compare it to Hong Kong size) and the kids even had bunk beds, so no sharing (i.e. he's touching me) through the night.  A mom's dream come true.

We also had a sliding glass door and patio that overlooked the kid's pool.  The kids had so much fun playing out there and making friends.  Although, Taylor did get smacked across the face by a little girl.  Starting young I guess.

The other pools were pretty amazing too.  We had a good afternoon just swimming and enjoying the rain.

Then we walked down the street to Karon beach.  We couldn't swim because of the rough waters, but the kids had fun splashing and playing in the water and sand.

 Our little Olsen stinker is quite the dare devil, though and we had to have a firm grip on him at all times or else he dashed straight for the water.  He was pretty much in Heaven, but he got pretty sad when we wouldn't let him go.

 Ummm, then more Thai pancakes.  Yes, they are that good.

  After that we walked around the little town for a while checking it out and planning the adventures for the next couple of days.

What?!?! I have a blog?

Just kidding, I knew it was here the whole time.  The thing is, though, our computer had an untimely death after a brief encounter with a vase of water and later a fist.  We were sad to see it go.  We were trying not to have to get a new one in Hong Kong, but it seemed like as soon as it died, Drew was needing it for homework and I had a strange urge to blog. We put it off for a while, but ultimately decided to buy a used computer from a local website here.  Scott met the guy in the train station to check it out.  In the process of that, I called him and told him that I was taking Olsen to the hospital for stitches on his noggin (but that is another post).  He got a little flustered and just bought it without much more inspection so he could come to the hospital.  Over the next few days we used the computer, but after the third time of restarting it, the screen no longer turned on.  Oh boy were we mad.  We usually don't buy stuff second hand, even though I know some people swear by it - it seems like we have bad experiences every time.  Well, we decided to call the guy and see if he would give us our money back or help us out - it was a long shot, but hey.  The guy met Scott in the train station again and said he would have someone at his work check it out.  Knowing that we may never see the guy or the computer again, Scott handed it over, but not without writing down his ID information.  Well, we didn't hear from the guy for a few days, so Scott tried to call - DISCONNECTED!  Now we were for sure seeing red - we were frustrated feeling duped.  Almost a week later, we had pretty much resigned to the fact that we were out the money when all of a sudden we get a call from the guy saying that the computer was now fixed and he wanted to get it back to us.  We were stunned and grateful for this man with the integrity to not only bring the computer back to us, but also to pay to have it fixed.  It was a good reminder to us that there are some truly good people in this world.  So, now I have a computer and hopefully still the desire to blog and get caught up a little...

We Surrender

Dear Hong Kong,

We are raising our white flag.  We surrender.  Give up.  Throw in the towel.  We are calling Uncle!!!  Please don't make us sick anymore.  We have taken the attacks with all your strains of the flu, bronchitis, colds, golf ball size bug bites,  sprained ankles, allergens, stitches, and whatever else you have thrown at us, but SCARLET FEVER?!?!?!  Really?  That's just not nice.  Please leave our little family alone.

Most Sincerely,
The Sickos Gordons

Fireworks

Well, what Hong Kong lacks in parade skills, they make up for in firework skills.  After last night, we weren't sure we had the energy for all the crowds and rain, so we headed to Scott's office which overlooks Victoria Harbor.  It was warm, it was not crowded, and it was wonderful.  The fireworks were shot from boats in the harbor not far from where we were, so we got quite a good show too.  Some friends joined us along with a few of Scott's co-workers.

 Taylor and his buddy Claudia.

 It was a good night, but I think we totally wore the boys to a frazzle.