Saturday, March 21, 2009--Back in Seattle!

Saturday, March 21, 2009--Back in Seattle!

After a very long day yesterday, we are back in Seattle. While it is good to be home, the 50 degree temperature difference is no fun at all (it was 34 degrees this morning)! At least it isn't snowing (I think all of the snow fell while we were gone).

Our plans changed a bit yesterday and we were able to have lunch with Lucy before heading to the airport. We had dim sum at a place near the hotel so that we didn't have to drag baggage around. You can see some of the food here:

After lunch, it was time to head to the airport. We made it through immigration really quickly and had lots of time to kill at the airport before the flight boarded. It was a full flight (it almost always is), but the time passed quickly (it helps that we slept for about 5 hours and they fed us twice, LOL). Upon arriving in San Francisco, we had to go through Customs, but that was really quick and they let us keep the Thai tea leaves that we had brought back. Then it was on to another flight to Seattle. Once we arrived, we decided to grab a cab rather than taking the bus home--much faster, but MUCH more expensive!

Now catching up on stuff--lots of snail-mail to go through and trying to get a few things ready for the coming week. Hope everyone has enjoyed reading the blog. We've enjoyed your comments and e-mails. This is the final entry for this trip.

Thursday, March 19, 2009—Macau & Hong Kong

Thursday, March 19, 2009—Macau & Hong Kong

After our long day yesterday, we slept in this morning. Once we got cleaned up, we spent a few minutes checking e-mail and packing before heading out to eat a bite. We picked up some Portuguese pork chop buns, Taiwanese pepper buns, and Portuguese cream tarts and ate them in the square in Macau.

After checking out of the hotel, we spent a few hours in the casino and had some fun gambling. Joe and Lucy each won about $30 US and Don lost a total of $3 US. Not bad for a couple of hours, LOL!

We then headed to the ferry terminal and were able to get an earlier boat back to Hong Kong. The trip was a bit rougher than yesterday, but we managed to survive. A quick walk back to our hotel, and then a bit of time to rest before dinner at 8 p.m.

Around 6:30p, we left the hotel and walked through one of the many night markets along the street. There were plenty of interesting things, but no one bought anything. This area is is known as Mong Kok and is quite busy, as you can see from these pictures:

As we got near the restaurant, we walked past a guy writing Chinese characters on scrolls. What made this impressive was the fact that he had no hands, just arms down to slightly below the elbows. As you may already know, Chinese characters are made up of “strokes”, and strokes can be heavy or light—which they are determines the meaning of the symbol. This is not something that is easy to master for someone with hands, much less for someone without hands. The work was very impressive and Don bought a simple scroll from him for $50 HK (about $7 US). I will try to take a picture of the scroll once we get home (it is all packed for travel now) and post it here. But here are several pictures of the guy working:

By then it was time to meet everyone at the restaurant, so we hurried over. We had a group of six of us at a very small table! The restaurant serves sushi and sashimi, so we ordered many different dishes. Unfortunately, the table was too small for the camera to even fit, so there aren’t any pictures to share of the food. However, you can see a couple of pictures of the group here (notice how our friend K.C. managed to get into BOTH photos, hehe):

After dinner, we went to a dessert bar and shared a couple of desserts. Then it was time to walk Lucy to the bus station for her trip home and then to the hotel to pack and get ready for our long day tomorrow.

Tomorrow: No posts to the blog—we will be traveling back to Seattle. About 12 hours from Hong Kong to San Fran, then a 2.5 hour layover, then two hours on to Seattle and a bus ride home. Since we cross back over the International Date Line, even though we don’t leave HK until 5 p.m. on Friday, it will still be Friday (around 7 p.m.) when we arrive in Seattle—so, we do 16.5 hours of travel in only 2 hours! It’s almost like Star Trek, LOL!

Wednesday, March 18, 2009—Macau

Wednesday, March 18, 2009—Macau

Once again, our day started a bit earlier than usual. We had to meet Lucy at 9:15a to catch the ferry from Hong Kong to Macau. We got up and re-packed so that we could leave the bulk of our luggage at the hotel in Hong Kong since we only needed an overnight bag for Macau.

We got checked out and had a light breakfast before taking the bus to the ferry terminal in Kowloon. Lucy met us there and we checked in for the ferry after clearing immigration. Even though Macau is part of China, as is Hong Kong, they are both considered Special Administrative Regions (SARs) and require visitors to essentially leave each area to enter another one. It is a bit of a hassle, but goes pretty smoothly and quickly.

The ferry ride to Macau was uneventful and pretty smooth. It takes about 1.5 hours for the trip and goes through the South China Sea. You can see a few pictures of us on the ferry here:

Upon arrival in Macau around 11:30a, we cleared immigration and caught the shuttle to the hotel. Our hotel, the Grand Emporer, was quite nice and certainly lives up to the standards for the gambling capitol of the world (Macau overtook Las Vegas in 2008 to claim the title, based on total gambling revenue).

Once we were checked in, we headed out to the central part of Macau to have some lunch and do some sightseeing. Macau has a heavy Portuguese influence, dating back to the16th century. It shows in the architecture, the food, and the language (both Portuguese and Cantonese are official languages). We sampled a number of foods and visited a number of the tourist sites, some of which you can see here:

We also had lunch at a Chinese restaurant, a little hole in the wall. We had a very grumpy older man for a waiter who chose to mostly ignore us, so Lucy ended up being our waitress and fixing our tea, washing our dishes, and generally taking care of things, LOL! Here's a picture of Lucy in her new job as well as a picture of our rather pitiful lunch:

We wandered around until about 3 p.m. at which time we went back to the hotel to take a nap before heading out to dinner.

For dinner, we took the public bus to Taipa, another island that is part of Macau. Lucy, who has been here before, wanted us to visit a Portuguese restaurant that she recommended. We actually opted not to go to that restaurant but rather to patronize another restaurant called Cortada. We were not disappointed—the food was excellent and I would highly recommend it to anyone. We had some cod fried rice that was incredibly flavorful and also a braised lamb shank that tasted wonderful. All of this cost the equivalent of about $10 US! You can see some pictures here:

After our Portugese dinner, we headed to a Chinese restaurant for the second course, consisting of shark fin soup and fried shark fin balls. Both were quite tasty, although Joe, the noodle critic, pronounced the noodles as being a bit chewy, LOL!

At this point, we were ready for dessert, so we headed to a Portuguese bakery and had sedura, a very light dessert. We then wandered around a bit before taking the bus back to the casinos.

We decided to visit several casinos and try our luck. We started at the Grand Lisboa—the tallest casino in Macau. The building was quite nice and the casino was fairly busy. Joe and Lucy both did a bit of gambling at the slots while I wandered around. Then we headed to the Wynn casino, stopping to watch the water show on the way. You can see some pictures here:

Finally, around 12:30a, we headed back to our hotel and visited the casino there. Our luck was a bit better and we played until about 2 a.m. Then it was time to call it a day!

Tomorrow: Macau and return to HK.

Tuesday, March 17, 2009—Travel to Hong Kong

Tuesday, March 17, 2009—Travel to Hong Kong

Our day started a bit early since our driver was picking us up at 8 a.m. We had done most of the packing the night before, so preparations were quick. Julian and Wit were both up to see us off on our travels. Our driver was right on time and we made good time returning to Suvanabhumi airport in Bangkok.

Clearing customs and security went quickly. We had a rather humorous customs officer who liked to make jokes. He had a small boombox, about the size of an electric razor that looked like a UFO. He made it fly around and was chatting the whole time. Definitely not your typical customs officer and a pleasant way to end our stay in Thailand.

Our flight to Hong Kong was smooth and the food was delicious. Compared to what you get on US domestic flights, even in first class, the food was very nice.

Upon landing in Hong Kong, we cleared immigration and caught the #21 bus into Hong Kong. The bus let us off right in front of our hotel and check in went smoothly. Our room was nice and we had about 2.5 hours to kill before meeting friends for dinner. Joe wanted to do some shopping (which is what Hong Kong is known for), so we wandered around the TST area for a bit before heading to dinner.

Dinner was at a nice restaurant in Times Square. There was a group of 8 of us and we pigged out on food! I know that is surprising, but I had to mention it. You can see pictures of some of the food here:

We finished inner around 10:00p and headed back to the hotel to turn in.

Tomorrow: Travel to Macau.

Monday, March 16, 2009--Pattaya

Monday, March 16, 2009--Pattaya

Today is our last day in Pattaya, so we will try to get this entry finished before going to bed tonight since we won't be able to post tomorrow for most of the day.

As planned, Joe, Don, and Julian went to HomeWorks to look at sprinkler pumps and outdoor lighting; however, our search was mostly futile and we really didn't end up purchasing anything or really learning anything helpful about the type of pump Julian needs. We did find a really BIG rice cooker and took a funny picture which you can see here:

After HomeWorks, we walked next door to Big C, kind of the equivalent of WalMart. We wandered around, Joe had an ice cream cone, and we bought a couple of little things, but nothing exciting. Then we came back home and Don & Joe walked to the fresh market to get some limes and tea. After that, it was nap time!

Around 4:30p, we headed out to the pool for a quick swim and cool-down before getting cleaned up for dinner. Joe had selected Preecha for his birthday dinner and we all readily agreed. We arrived in time for the sunset and proceeded to pig out! You can see some before and after pictures here:

Before the Devouring Began:

After the Devouring was finished:

It is now 8 p.m. and we are packing and making final preparations for tomorrow. The driver will pick us up tomorrow at 8 a.m. for the 1.5 hour drive to the airport outside of Bangkok.

We have had great time in Pattaya and Julian and Wit have been great hosts. They have made us feel very much at home and have certainly indulged our food obsessions!

Tomorrow: Travel to Hong Kong (so a delayed post or no post at all).

Sunday, March 15, 2009--Pattaya

Sunday, March 15, 2009--Pattaya

A lazy, lazy day! We all slept late (until 8 a.m.) and had a leisurely breakfast, worked on the blog posting for Saturday, and tried to figure out what to do today. By the time we felt like moving around, it was noon and Wit volunteered to go out and get us a "light snack".

One thing you need to understand is that there is apparently not a Thai equivalent of the English phrase "light snack"--I base this on the fact that everytime Wit goes out to get a light snack, we end up with a buffet, LOL! This time was no different--we had enough food for a full meal. You can see the food here:

After we ate, no one was much in the mood to do anything, so everyone opted for a nap.

When we all got up, Julian, Joe, and Don went for a walk along the beach. It was a very nice sunset and the weather was really pleasant. Here is a picture:

On the way back to the house, Julian and Don spied the tell-tale smokestack of the vendor who sells the delicious ribs that we had last week. We immediately ran over and bought almost all of his ribs--16 ribs in all, for about $4 US. They were delicious! But, it ruined our plans for dinner at Mignon, but everyone agreed that this was OK. We decided to get an ice cream cake to start Joe's birthday celebration a day early, so we went out to get the cake. Julian had seen a decent looking ice cream cake at one of the local markets, so we went there and got one and brought it back to the house. Here is a picture of Joe about to blow out the candle on his piece of cake:

After the birthday celebration, we watched another episode of "Dexter" and then called it a night.

Tomorrow: A trip to Homeworks to look at sprinkler pumps and outdoor lighting; a return to the local fresh market to get another bag of Thai tea; possibly a trip to Central Festival to look at dishes; and dinner for Joe's birthday at Preecha.