Day 1 - Travel Day/Bangkok, Thailand

OK, so I decided way to capture my trip the best was to do it by days. Between my friend Natasha that I went with and myself, we have almost 1200 pictures!!!! Obviously I am not going to post them all, but I will post a TON. So "Let's start at the very beginning..."

TRAVEL DAY: Wednesday, January 17th - Seoul, South Korea to Bangkok, Thailand

We actually stayed over at one of Natasha's friends house in Seoul on Tuesday night. Of course we were up ALL NIGHT with excitment!!! It's like when you are kids and you just can't stop moving because you are so excited about leaving the next day! hehehe So we got about two hours sleep, if we were lucky that night. We awoke around 5:30am and it was FREEZING! We got out of the house by 6am. Sunny then drove us to the airport in the WORST FOG EVER!!!! You couldn't see 5 feet in front of you!!!!! I hate driving in fog like that!!!! We got to the airport safely and with time to spare!!! We checked our baggage and went in to have some coffee which I DESPERATELY NEEDED!!!!! I blame you Mom for my coffee addiction!!!!! HA!!!

Here I am just TOO COOL FOR SCHOOL! Don't be fooled, the glasses are on as I have no make-up on, and NO ONE wants to see that. hehehehe

We get on the plane without any problems. The flight was long but we found plenty of ways to keep ourselves occupied. Sleep was number one of course as we hadn't had any really. We also played MANY games. Side note... We played that dot game. Ya know, the one where there are all these dots and you have to make boxes. If you don't know the game we will have to play it sometime. SO ENTERTAINING!!! Anyway, I NEVER win at it. I WON!!!! I beat TashM!!!!! I was SO excited!!!! By the way, TashM is what I call Natasha. Good to know for future referances in this blog.

We get off the plane and I, of course, choose the line with the "TRAINEE". HA!!!! It's all good!!!

We then arrive in THAILAND!!!! WOOO HOOOO!!!! Boring picture, but I was excited!!!! As soon as we arrived we checked into our hotel, and went exploring. Note, TashM has been to Bangkok before, so she was my tour guide for our "One Night in Bangkok". That is in quotes for two reasons: 1) it is a song and 2) there is a story that you will learn in a few days/blogs. I digress, we will get back to that story later. The following pics are of the "Golden Palace" that we checked out...

This above picture is the enterance way to the Palace. That is me on the left and notice the man on the right. That is my "Boyfriend #1" of the trip. You will meet my boyfriends as we travel on our journey. Just for some of you who can't catch the sarcasm of my typing, they are not really boyfriends, they are guys that followed us around trying to "help" us with whatever we needed. Got old REALLY fast, but all the same, very flattering. Wait till you meet Effy!!!! That is in Agra, India!!!!!! HOT!!!!! Again, I digress...

So the moment I walked into the palace, my sunglasses fell off and broke. As you can see, I was not a happy camper. Don't worry though, I did wind up fixing them later that night!!! YAY!!!!

Here is a picture of me entering the main palace. As you can see, it is pretty breathtaking!!! I had no idea what was ahead of me for this trip as this was just the beginning!!!

Here is a pic from a different angle... AMAZING!!!!! It was just this HUGE GOLD MASS!!!

OK, this is a picture of a monk that was entering the temple for prayer. I found out that ALL MEN have to "serve" as a monk at some point in their life. If a woman touches a monk durning this period, they have to go into seclusion/prayer for SEVEN YEARS!!!! I have to say, my "ID" wanted to touch them SO BAD!!! I never would, but being told not to... SO TEMPTING!!!!

Welome to MY PALACE!!!! (That is what I am telling myself anyway!!!! HA!!!!)

OK, so this is my first "TukTuk" ride. If you can't tell, it is a motorized scooter like vehical. No doors, holds about two/three people. A MAJOR way to get around. VERY CHEAP. We took it to dinner that night for 20 bot. That is about 60 cents. It was a 15 min ride!!!! Can you believe it!!!! Please not the FUSCHIA TAXI to the left of the picture. Pink Taxi's, LOVE IT!!!!

Here is a pic of TashM and I in the back of the TukTuk on our way to dinner. Can you see the tired in our eyes!!!!! But there was no time to sleep, we only had "One Night in Bangkok". There is that referance again... it keeps coming back. Not to mention that I sang it NON-STOP of course. I only knew the chorus though, TashM made fun of me a LOT for that too. hehehe

Here is a pic of the prettiest drink!!! We each had one at dinner. The resturant was SO cute and the food was AMAZING!!!! The resturant we went to was considered one of the more expensive resturants. We only paid $7 each for an AMAZING meal. In NYC, that drink alone would have been $10!!!! Needless to say, we had a great meal!!!! We went back to our hotel after that to change and get ready to SHOP!!!! I COULDN'T WAIT!!!!!!!

We got back to the hotel and changed and we were off!!!! The night market!!!! AMAZING!!!! I am going to be using that word a TON throughout these blogs, so I apologize in advance. The night market is this wide street that it FULL of shopping. I got SO MUCH STUFF!!!!! The best part about this market is that you barter your prices. They see foreignors coming and try to mark up the prices. It is like this in India too. But for the lot of you that know me, I am a bargainer!!!! Needless to say, I did the shopping for both of us. When Natasha wanted something, she would pull me over and I would barter the price for her. If I can pat myself on the back, I am an excellent barterer. They would start their price at 1300 bots, ($37)and I would get them down to 500 bots. ($14) And that is just the beginning!!! More bartering to come in India! Now I apologize that I don't have any pics of the night market, but we were SO BUSY shopping!!!!

Here is a pic of the almost end of the night shopping. TashM was SO TIRED and needed to get home. I walked her to the hotel, dropped of my bags, and went back out shopping by myself. Don't worry Mom, I am safe and nothing happened! hehehe

I would like to point out here that TashM and I are a pretty equal match when it comes to shopping, but I outlasted her!!!! HA!!!! TashM, I told you I would put that for the world to see!!! You have met your match!!!! But in her defense, she did have "Bangkok Belly". HA!!! I told you TashM that I would post that for you too. So there it is, as promised. For those of you who don't know what "Bangkok Belly" is, I am not going to explain it. Use your immagination. This was just the beginning of TashM's "Belly Issues". More on that later...

That was the end of my "One Night in Bangkok". (there it is again) I got back to the hotel to find TashM passed out on her bed. It was around 2am and I fell asleep VERY easily! A GREAT way to start our trip!!!! The end of Day 1!!!! SO much more to come, and I couldn't wait!!!!!