Baby Shower!!

My friend, Lydia, had a baby shower last week. Being on an island here, we go to a LOT of baby showers. Since Lydia was tired of doing the same thing at all the showers, she requested that hers be a little different.

SO, they decided to do a "country" themed shower and everyone had to come dressed up 6+ months pregnant.

Here are a bunch of us showing off our baby bumps... (although I look like I'm expecting triplets!)

Lydia is the one in the middle of this pic, so her baby bump is for real... she's expecting a little girl any day now!
And here are a couple of the girls playing blind-folded wresting (actually they were searching for clothes pins, but it looked like wrestling).

Definitely a fun baby shower! :)

More of Singapore...

We continued to do more shopping... thankfully they took us to some places with more affordable things. I love>

What can I say? I can't help myself!

After shopping, Debbie and Alvin took us to the Singapore flyer... you can see it in the background of this picture. It looks like a giant ferris wheel, but each of the "seats" is actually a capsule which hold about 15 people.

Here's a picture of the capsules in the background before we got on one...

You could get up and look around while in the capsule. It was an unbelievable view, even though it made me a little nervous to be up there.... the wheel moved at a very slow pace, so it took about 30 minutes to get all the way around.

Here's a pic of the view... you can't see much here, but Singapore has some beautiful architecture.

I have to mention that we happened to be there during the opening of the Youth Olympic Games. I'd never even heard of them, but apparently, it was the first year. This picture is of the stadium during the opening night.... wish we could have been there for more, but unfortunately all of the tickets had to be won through a lottery, so our chances of getting to any events were pretty slim. We had such a fun time in Singapore.... it was such a beautiful city! And we can't speak for all Singaporeans since Alvin and Debbie are the only ones we know, but they were unbelievably hospitable and generous to us while we were there - taking us out to dinner, shopping with us, and spending their entire weekend to show us the sights. We would have never been able to see so much of the city in 2 days without them, so we're very grateful!! :)

Singapore!!

So, in addition to our Thailand vacation, we also made a stop in Singapore for a few days... Chris had a friend in Singapore (he's in the military there, but did his training in the states with the US military and that's how they met). Our first day there, we were on our own, so we did a tour through the city and went to a bunch of shopping places that were way out of our price range...

That night our friends (Alvin and Debbie) took us out to dinner along the river. We had SO much food! And we ate all of it! Here we are with our crab...

We walked around the city a little...

And Chris and Alvin decided to try out the "Reverse Bungee"... they tried to talk me into, but there was no way that was going to happen. 1 - I get very motion sick and 2 - I just had a huge dinner.... that's recipe for disaster!!

My hubby has no fear!

We walked through a series of restaurants and shopping areas at night... they had such a fun night-life atmosphere by the river. Overall, Chris and I were very impressed with the country.... it was so clean and while not everyone there is wealthy, they seemed to have relatively no problems with poverty or crime. It was pretty much a big city feel with very few of the problems.

That night, Alvin and Debbie took us to "Chinatown" for peanut soup. Doesn't sound great, but it was really yummy! It was a peanut flavored broth with doughy globs filled with peanuts inside... kind of hard to describe, but they eat this as a dessert there...

The next morning, we went to a curry restaurant for omlette-type dishes with curry and meat (to dip them in) and delicious chocolatey drinks. (We did a lot of eating!!)

Alvin and Debbie also took us to their apartment to meet their sweet little girls... here's a picture of me with their oldest daughter, Desiree.

And of course we did more shopping... Chris looks like a kid on Christmas morning here as we shopped through 4+ stories of electronic stores.

Last Day in Thailand...

Thailand has several cooking schools for foreigners that it offers throughout the week. You essentially go for a half or whole day and they teach you to cook Thai food. So, I talked Chris into it!

They start by taking you into the local markets (which smell awful!) to pick out food....

Then they take you to the school, which was pretty neat because it's all open on the sides.

And then they teach you step-by-step.... we made 4 different Thai dishes and sent us home with a cookbook of recipes to make!

Thailand, Day #6

So, we're up at the very northern part of Thailand, near Chaing Rai (different than Chaing Mai, which is a little more south).

This arch says "The Northernmost Point of Thailand" on it....

I look really happy in this picture, but I was actually mad at Chris. He thought it would be super-fun to take a boat to Laos and I didn't really feel like it.... so, I gave in. Well, on the way back, it started pouring down rain, and in this picture we knew we were about to get soaked!

Here's another picture of a hilltribe village....

And before we headed back to Chiang Mai, this was our last stop.... the White Palace. It was another beautiful Buddhist temple, but was made entirely in white and silver.

Thailand, Day #5

We ventured up to the border of Thailand with our tour guide. They call this area the Golden Triangle... where Thailand meets Burma and Laos. We took a cool little boat along the river for a little while.... it was so relaxing.

This is a picture of us with a tuk-tuk. These were our main means on transportation while in Thailand. The driver rides in the front and we stay in the back on the little cart. This was a rather small tuk-tuk, so they vary quite a bit in size and style. They're also really popular with the tourists because they only cost around $1-3 to get around the city....
Of course, we checked out a few more Buddhist temples...
Here we are overlooking Burma... looks and feels very similar to the poorest/dirtiest parts of Thailand....
Up in the hills of Thailand are hilltribe villages, where people gather together to make their huts. They let us look into a few of them.... they're mainly made of bamboo and the people here essentially live off the land, making their own food, clothing, and crafts, which they take into town and sell at the markets.

Thailand, Day #4

Day #4 was my favorite day in Thailand... we were heading up north, but we made several really fun stops along the way. First, we stopped at the orchid and butterfly factory. They actually take the live orchids, cover them in some stuff (I know that sounds really scientific) and then outline them with gold and sell them as jewelry.

Next, we stopped at the Tiger Place (not the official name, but I can't remember!) Not only can you go in and look at all the tigers, but you can take pictures with them as well. I'll admit that I felt a little bad about doing this because the place advertises that they don't drug the tigers in any way, but that's pretty hard to believe. The tigers are up playing around one minute and the next, they're laying down calmly the next. But, it felt like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we took it!

They actually charged more to get pictures/pet the baby and small tigers. So, of course we were cheap and got pics with the largest tigers. Once we got up to their cages, I got a little nervous though!

Then, we went to see the elephants! You can pay to watch the elephant shows (which we missed), feed the elephants (which we again missed), and ride the elephants (which thankfully we made!) They have local Thai people who are "steering" the elephants, but then you ride on a cart on their backs... definitely my favorite thing that we did!

Thailand, Day #3

Our third day in Thailand was the start of our tour with Gap Adventures. Basically, we have a personal tour guide and driver that take us through Thailand. We were in Chaing Mai and they took us around to see several craft places.

We started at a huge temple on the top of a mountain...

And yes, we climbed all of those stairs behind us....

After the temple, we went to a Jade factory. Thailand is pretty well known for their jade jewelry and figures. Ironically, I didn't buy any jade, but instead got a pair of pearl earrings!

This is a picture of us at lunch... just like Japan, most of the Thai restaurants serve all the same Thai food...

We then moved on to the paper-making factory. Essentially, the people in Thailand are so poor that they find really creative and crafty ways of making things to sell to foreigners. At this place, they made paper, then turned it into umbrellas and other items.

You could then purchase your items and take them to their artists, who would paint these beautiful designs in just a few minutes....

We then went to a silk factory, where they grow silk worms, pull out the silk, and then weave it into fabric using machines. This was essentially a demonstration place, attached to a silk store. Thailand is also known for their silk, but lots of people in the street markets claim that their products are 100% silk, but they're really not!

This woman is pulling out the silk thread from the worms...

And of course, we had to fit in a few foot massages! Thailand is also known for their cheap massages... they were about $7/hour for a foot massage! :)

Thailand, Day #2

On day 2, we headed up north to Chiang Mai. Our tour hadn't started yet, so we spent the day exploring the city. Here we are at another temple...

This is the typical scene inside these temples... you can find people praying or being "blessed" by the monks at all times of the day. We obviously were saddened by this, especially as we saw small children or our tour guide praying to Buddha. They follow a ton of rituals in the hopes of receiving good luck.

One thing that Thailand is known for is their Thai massages. While we weren't crazy about the traditional Thai massage, (which is a serious of stretches to help relax your body, but it hurts in the process!), they also offer all kinds of full body oil massages, foot massages, facials, etc. They were so cheap that we couldn't turn them down!! The average 1 hour foot massage was about $6-7! Needless to say, we hit up a few of these places, which are all up and down the streets.

Another popular thing for tourists to do in Thailand is hit up the night markets. They start around dinner time and often go to about 11:00. People there spend so much of their time making crafting, carving, painting, etc. and then sell their products at these markets. You can also buy delicious food there and often the markets are really long.

This one happened to open in the afternoon, but continued into the night hours.

Here I am posing with a couple of cute little Thai girls. All of the vendors at the markets will bargain with you, as they're pretty desperate for you to buy their items. These little girls were bargaining with Chris to try to get him to buy a t-shirt. Of course he caved, as he couldn't resist how cute they were. I tried to get him out of there before he bought everything under their tent!