Greetings from Bangkok

Sydney and I arrived in Bangkok yesterday after a 4 hour flight, and I was very happy to have made arrangements ahead of time to have a car service pick us up at the airport. After a long flight, a wait at customs and a wait at baggage claim, I had spent all of my goodwill with Sydney and she would not have tolerated a wait in the taxi line.

We are staying at the Lebua hotel near the Chao Praya River. Every room is a suite with a kitchen, and our suite is 700 square feet. The living room is down the hall, which is great because I can watch tv or read a book without worrying about waking Sydney up at night. The service is impeccable and the food is fantastic. We've actually eaten every meal at the hotel so far because Sydney's schedule is a bit off here. The icing on the cake is that it only costs US$126 a night. I booked it during a promotion that they were running for guests staying at least 4 nights. Even so, I was too cheap to spring for a river view, which is amazing and I would highly recommend it for the non-frugal readers of this blog.

It took Sydney all of 10 minutes after we checked into the hotel to stake her claim to the king size bed. I quickly introduced her to her baby cot, as they are called in Asia, and she liked it but only to play and watch tv in. She has spent 1/2 a night in the cot and 1/2 the night in my bed. And would only nap on my bed.

Because of an hour flight delay, we arrived in mid-afternoon. We had lunch in our room so that Sydney could run around and then we headed to the toy store at Central Chidlom mall that was about 3 miles from here. We left around 4pm and it took us one hour to go those 3 miles. It wouldn't have been so bad if I wasn't with an active toddler. The mall was great -- a kids' play area, large toy section and cute, affordable clothes. After we shopped, we waited 30 mintues for a taxi and endured another hour taxi ride back to the hotel.

We woke up early this morning and decided to visit a couple of temples after breakfast. The temperature here is in the upper 80s during mid-day so I wanted to get all of our outdoor activities out of the way in the morning. We first visited Wat Po, which is also known as the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. It was built in the 16th century by Rama I and it is the oldest and largest Buddhist temple in Bangkok. It also serves as the residence for Buddhist monks. Inside the temple is the Reclining Buddha, which is more than 140 feet long and 50 feet high, and was built during the mid-19th-century reign of Rama III. This temple is also the location of the country's leading thai massage school.

We then took the boat taxi to Wat Arun, or the Temple of Dawn. The centerpiece of the temple is a tower that is 260 ft tall and the only way to reach the temple is by climbing the 100 or so steps up to the entrance. In addition to not being physically fit enough to carry Sydney to the tower, the steps were too narrow and steep for me to manage while holding Sydney. So we spent our time admiring the temple from the ground. There was a monk class that was just finishing when we arrived so there were many boys in monk attire wandering around. They were filing out of the temple when we were arriving and the temple looked amazing with orange robes descending the steps. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture of it.

The temperature was already too hot for comfort so I decided to head back to the hotel. Sydney insisted that we go by boat so we took a water taxi. It was a private boat that you can charter for $10, which is expensive when a taxi ride back would have cost us $3 and a regular water taxi would have cost about $3. I don't know what Sydney was expecting but I could tell by the look on her face that it wasn't the experience she was hoping for. Even though her face was flushed from the heat, Sydney wasn't ready to go back to our hotel. So we stopped by a nearby hotel and had drinks to cool off before going to grocery store to get provisions.

After a much too short nap, we took the sky train to Siam Paragon mall to visit the Aquarium. The sky train was great although carrying Sydney and the stroller up 3 flights of stairs to get to it was not so great. But it was clean, ran on time and got us to the Aquarium in 15 minutes. It also gave us a great view of the city. Sydney loved the Aquarium, especially the penguins. We then visited the bookstore at the mall and also did some shopping.

I didn't do a very good job of keeping an eye on the time and as a result, we ended leaving the mall at 5:30pm -- during rush hour. I didn't want to take the sky train because where it will drop us off by our hotel is a bit of a sketchy area and we would still need to take a taxi to the hotel. Our hotel had a shuttle bus that drove us to the sky train station when we left the hotel. So we waited at the mall for about 20 minutes to get a taxi. There is a taxi line at the mall and everyone knows how to stay in a single file line --- so civilized. People in Bangkok are very friendly and nice and the service has been great.

It only took us 45 minutes to get back to the hotel, just in time to order room service for dinner, bathe Sydney and go to bed. Sydney was agreeable with the first 2 items but had other ideas about going to bed.

Party Time

Sydney and I started our Sunday off with a fun day at the park to celebrate Julien's 1st birthday. It was held at a beautiful park near my apartment and we couldn't have had better weather for it --- warm and sunny, just how I like it. Julien spent the first hour napping in grandma's arms and then he was ready for the festivities.

(The birthday boy with Grandma)

The added bonus of the party was that it tired Sydney out for the afternoon nap. After Sydney's nap and a quick change, we went to Jenna's 2nd birthday party. Luckily Jenna lives in our apartment complex so it was a short walk from our building. Jenna is a classmate of Sydney's and Syd was happy to see so many school friends this afternoon, as well as her teachers.

(The birthday girl)

Quick Update

We've been enjoying a visit from our good friends, Bill, Lisa and Elli Anderson. Sydney is especially happy to have a friend stay with us. While there has been some tug of war of toys (and the attendant tears and cries of "mine"), the girls have been playing relatively well with each other considering that neither one has a sibling and has never had to share everything every day. Elli is almost 3 years old, and one of the most articulate and energetic kids I know. She typically doesn't take an afternoon nap and doesn't go to sleep until about 9pm, and I often wonder how her Mom manages it without having a drink at the end of the day.

We finally hired an assistant for the Legal Dept here. I've been busy getting the department organized and printing out 11 months worth of documents and emails to be filed. It would have been easier for me to organize my documents as I went along, but somehow I was always able to find something else to do.

I've been busy getting organized for the move back to Dallas. I had forgotten how much planning and paperwork this entailed. I have 2 relocation companies coming by on Monday to do pre-move surveys so that they can submit bids to my company for the move. I have finally figured out what I am going to leave here, what I am shipping and what I am bringing back in my luggage. The next step is to itemize everything that I am shipping to Dallas for custom and insurance purposes. The target date for shipping our things is May 12th.

Next Thursday is May Day, which is China's version of Labor Day. Sydney's school and my office are closed for a couple of days so Sydney and I are going to Bangkok for a couple of days. Our last vacation in Asia!

Last Day in Sanya

We spent our last day in Sanya doing pretty much the same things as yesterday -- playing on the beach, playing in the kiddie pool, taking a walk, and playing in the Kid's Club. But Sydney only stayed on the sand for about 15 minutes before she was over it and wanted to go to the pool.

This has been such a great escape from the greyness of Shanghai. Hopefully, our flight back to Shanghai tomorrow will be a better experience than the one to Sanya.

Happy Tomb Sweeping Day

Today is Qingming Day (or Tomb Sweeping Day), which used to be a 3 day holiday, then it wasn't recognized as a holiday at all. And now, in an effort to help Chinese people embrace their culture more, the government decided to recognize Tomb Sweeping Day this year. But it is now only a 1 day holiday. Sydney's school and my office are closed today and since we don't have an ancestors here in China, we decided to go to Sanya instead.

Sanya is a beach resort town on Hainan Island in southern China. We took a 3 hour flight directly to Sanya last night. It ended up being a v-e-r-y long, frustrating trip --- a long flight delay, Sydney not reading the memo I gave her about sleeping the entire duration of the flight, an unfortunate incident involving vomit --- and we ended up checking in at the hotel at 11pm instead of 8pm.

Sydney started to nod off in the stroller but as soon as we reached our room, Sydney sat straight up in her stroller, screaming "Yea" over and over again. Then she jumped on her bed and rolled around on her pillows. It took another hour before everything that warranted touching was touched, every drawer begging to be opened was opened and every piece of paper unfortunately placed within her reach was torn.

She finally nodded off at midnight and I immediately called room service to send up a glass of wine. And just so that I didn't feel like an alcoholic, I also ordered a plate of fried rice. Because when you are about to put on a swimsuit, the very best thing that you can do is to carb up at midnight the night before. But seriously, it was the best fried rice I have ever had. And after spending 10 months in China, I have had a lot of fried rice.

We are staying at the Sheraton hotel here because it's not a vacation unless I can speak English all day long. The hotel room is really nice but not as nice as the Marriott that we stayed at in Phuket, but the grounds are amazing. It has everything that you would want, including a Kid's Club, which is an indoor kid's playroom, and an outdoor playground, although the swings and slide were too hot from being out in the sun to play on. Sydney is FINALLY over her aversion to sand. She was relunctant to step onto the beach, and once she was on it, it still took a little while before she was comfortable with the sensation of sand between her toes and walking on an uneven surface. We were able to take a nice long walk on the beach. She held my hand the entire time, and it has been way too long since she was willing to do that. I could have walked with her like that for hours but.... Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I coaxed her into going to the edge of the beach and letting the water wash over our feet. That didn't go over well, and our adventure on the sand came to a sad ending. We did hang out on the beach a bit longer to enjoy the sunshine. Glorious, glorious sunshine. It was a beautiful day to be on the beach --- sunny, temp in the 80s and a nice breeze sweeping through. It is hard to believe that we are still in China. It really wasn't until we got to the kiddie pool that I started seeing smiles and hearing squeals of joy. After Sydney's much too short nap, we spent the afternoon at the Kid's Club. It's a great indoor playground for kids of all ages, with toys, obstacle courses and craft projects. Sydney had a great time until she started throwing blocks around the room and wouldn't pick them up. It has been a long day and she didn't get enough sleep last night so I was expecting her to act out at some point, which is why we went to the Kid's Club. There were hotel employees there to clean everything up. We headed back to the room for a little quiet time.

We ordered room service for dinner tonight, and settled in for an early bedtime. The nightmare flight over to Sanya was definitely worth the trouble.