Well its coming to a close for this assignment. A few of us leave tomorrow a the rest in the next week. (we leave Sunday). So a big group of us got to go out together for dinner....

There is a quality about you
That touches me deep in my heart
This quality is so special
It sets you quite apart
Your special ways of doing things
In everything that you touch
The warmth you have for others
Is why I love you so much
Your gentle and loving way
So much you give to others
You have so many good qualities
I don't see in other grandmother's
I truly am so thankful Grandma
For what in you I see
I hope someday my children
See the same things in me

Today is the Thailand King Bhumibol Adulyadej's birthday. This is a national holiday! There are shrines to the king all over thailand and at the begining of every movie we stand while we salute the king.

This week my lesson was "rules" of taking a picture...one was using your environment to sometimes make a frame...her is my Thailand version of that! LOL

This is a two year little girl (daughter of one of our manicure/pedicure ladies) she was chatting on the phone with her grandma---VERY impressive how well she could talk at 2! And she was just sooooo cute!

Even Thailand has started getting some Christmas decorations up! It helps get in the holiday spirit to see some Christmas trees up.

I found me a Christmas countdown calendar at the store! I now get one piece of chocolate everyday till Christmas!

Went to McDonalds today and you know what they have here? ....
A DOUBLE big mac....so I HAD to order that! (and a VERY unattractive picture of me eating it!)
Also a girl with pony-tail mullet hair!And some Engrish for you, this was a Burger King sign next door though.Woot last day of NaBloPoMo!!!!!

My mother, Joni, has started figure out her Skype program so we can talk for free. She also just got a new computer with a webcam in it so she can see me. Its pretty wild for her! LOL So here she is via my skype program...(you can see what she see of me on the bottom left small picture! )

Well we went back at the Pattaya Bangkok Hospital on Thanksgiving week. Two years ago in this same hospital I was a patient for a couple days with a BAD stomach issue. This trip though--WASN'T for ME! WOOT!!!
Troy has been sick for about two weeks now, first the flu, then a chest cold, now a head cold. Well this head cold took a turn in the last two days so he went in to see a doctor (you go the hospital here like you would a clinic in the states). So after a couple head x-rays he now has a doctor to agree with his nurse wife! LOL
Diagnosis: sinus infection
But I got a copy of his x-rays and thought they would be fun for my daily blog! LOL Only I would be sitting in the hospital looking at them thinking-"woot picture of the day!" hehehe so here you go...... This a picture of the x-ray copies we got of troy's head.
Anyone else catch that this man hasn't had ONE cavity in his teeth!

About 16 of us got together to have a Thanksgiving meal (even though some weren't Americans we let them slide!). It wasn't great food but it was good company and ok food, so it still was a great time!

So the grocery store did some re-stocking. Well this time they added some of my favorite american made stuff!!!!!! Ok so regular wheat thins, salsa, Harbio Cherries, etc may not be cool to you...but for me its like Christmas!!! Oh and the hotel is going to be having a special Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow so it looks like I will be getting a Turkey dinner!

So we travel with Ear Candles....we love them! They are these candles you stick in your Ears (bet you couldn't guess that huh?!). Any way the inside of these things are hallow so when you light the end this suction vaccum is formed and it cleans out your ears! Its great after flying and a life saver after scuba diving, it also is great for when you have sinus issues.... (which troy does)....we put the towel over our hair just incase a spark or something falls down.

I have to share more photos of Cambodia! LOL I promise non-Cambodian ones after this (well at least on THIS blog).

Thailand has no copyright laws, or if they do they are never enforced. They have knockoff glasses/clothes/shoes/etc plus they copy all the latest and greatest movies. Here is a SMALL cart of some knockoff movies, they have full stores of these also. You can also get movies that are only in the theaters because they will have someone sit in there with a video camera and tape it! LOL So that's why you can already own the james bond movie that just came out!

Well these are still from my trip in Cambodia this last week...since I didn't do much today and I took so many Cambodia pictures I thought I would share a few more....

Today we did a ton of shopping. Also noticed a couple other funny things...

First the normal toilet sign you see when they have European toilets (normal ones for us instead of the ones in the floor that you stand on) in Asian countries...
Then here is a typical gas station....yep that old Johnny Walker Whiskey bottles/soda pop bottles/etc full of gas or just plain barrels. These stations are all over the place! Mainly for tuk tuks and bikes. But I don't remember actually seeing many for cars-but they must have had them...

Woke up early to see the sunrise at Angkor Wat (but we got a crappy cloudy day, so no pretty sun rise). :(

We went to Angkor Thom today it was great. I don't have a lot of internet time so I will explain more in my travel blog when I get back but for now here are a couple pictures from today....

Tom (another roadie) and I grabbed a plane and headed from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia today. We got a flight for about $400 on Bangkok Airways--this was only a 1 hour flight but we got a full meal that was good! A nice change from the nickle and dimming on most American airlines. When we arrived they had a big welcoming party going on. We felt kind of special till we realized we had some government officials on board the flight and it was for them. Apparently the Prime Minister is in town for something so there is tons of extra security all over.
We got a tourist visa at the airport ($20, and yes everyone uses USD here!). We stood in one line to give them our papers for the visa (got on the plane), and my picture (need a passport size photo). If you don't have a photo (like tom LOL) you can pay an extra $2 to have them copy your passport's photo and use that. We waited about 20 min to hand it in and get it back. While waiting I notice this is a really nice airport-it reminded me of the one in Honolulu Hawaii. It a indoor/outdoor one with beautiful gardens all around it, and this one the building was in traditional Cambodian style (I'll try to remember a picture on the way out!).
We are staying at the Tara Ankor Hotel, which we had pre-arranged airport pickup (which I love). The hotel is very nice-got everything we need/want.
Once we got all checked in we took a nap and planned our trip out some.
Then we headed to the Angkor National Museum. Its open from 9AM-8PM and is $12 per ticket. It was nice to learn some history about the country, hopefully we will not be as lost when it comes to the temples. It made us more excited to go also! It took about 2hrs total to walk through, and we read about everything, and watched all the little quick movies they have. I would say go see it if you have sometime before you see the temples.



Then we grabbed a moto and had it take us to the Pub Street. This is where many restaurants are and is next to the Night Market. We ate at Khmer Family Restaurant. Got some fried egg rolls, Khmer style soup, a honey baked duck (GREAT!), wide white noodle chicken dish and some sticky rice for dessert. ALL of this food plus drinks for $21.75!!! It was a great meal, and wonderful people watching location.

After dinner we headed down to the Angkor Night Market (free to walk around). This was a really nice one. Usually people are pushy salesmen and the area are just sticks and tarps put together to form a market. Here is a was an actual structure and the people wouldn't push you much, there was one lady but that was it. I shop so much better in this environment! LOL I got a new bag and a shirt. (pictures latter of them). Also we found a place down there that has Dr. Fish Pedicures, I have been wanting to try one of these since I heard about them. We didn't do it tonight but we ARE going to do it before we leave!!! I will make sure to get video of it!

Tom (another roadie) and I grabbed a plane and headed from Bangkok to Siem Reap, Cambodia today. We got a flight for about $400 on Bangkok Airways--this was only a 1 hour flight but we got a full meal that was good! A nice change from the nickle and dimming on most American airlines. When we arrived they had a big welcoming party going on. We felt kind of special till we realized we had some government officials on board the flight and it was for them. Apparently the Prime Minister is in town for something so there is tons of extra security all over.
We got a tourist visa at the airport ($20, and yes everyone uses USD here!). We stood in one line to give them our papers for the visa (got on the plane), and my picture (need a passport size photo). If you don't have a photo (like tom LOL) you can pay an extra $2 to have them copy your passport's photo and use that. We waited about 20 min to hand it in and get it back. While waiting I notice this is a really nice airport-it reminded me of the one in Honolulu Hawaii. It a indoor/outdoor one with beautiful gardens all around it, and this one the building was in traditional Cambodian style (I'll try to remember a picture on the way out!).
We are staying at the Tara Ankor Hotel, which we had pre-arranged airport pickup (which I love). The hotel is very nice-got everything we need/want.
Once we got all checked in we took a nap and planned our trip out some.
Then we headed to the Angkor National Museum. Its open from 9AM-8PM and is $12 per ticket. It was nice to learn some history about the country, hopefully we will not be as lost when it comes to the temples. It made us more excited to go also! It took about 2hrs total to walk through, and we read about everything, and watched all the little quick movies they have. I would say go see it if you have sometime before you see the temples.



Then we grabbed a moto and had it take us to the Pub Street. This is where many restaurants are and is next to the Night Market. We ate at Khmer Family Restaurant. Got some fried egg rolls, Khmer style soup, a honey baked duck (GREAT!), wide white noodle chicken dish and some sticky rice for dessert. ALL of this food plus drinks for $21.75!!! It was a great meal, and wonderful people watching location.

After dinner we headed down to the Angkor Night Market (free to walk around). This was a really nice one. Usually people are pushy salesmen and the area are just sticks and tarps put together to form a market. Here is a was an actual structure and the people wouldn't push you much, there was one lady but that was it. I shop so much better in this environment! LOL I got a new bag and a shirt. (pictures latter of them). Also we found a place down there that has Dr. Fish Pedicures, I have been wanting to try one of these since I heard about them. We didn't do it tonight but we ARE going to do it before we leave!!! I will make sure to get video of it!

Made it to Cambodia. We got our visas once we got here and then took a nap LOL. Then we saw the national museum but no pictures are allowed inside. Then hit up a cool street called Pub Street and the Night market. I already did some shopping. Troy couldn't make the trip so its just me and one of the other roadies-Tom. Here is us with a traditional Khmer Family Restaurant--it was GREAT....all the food in front of us plus drinks came to $21.75 (they use the dollar here).