aslinterpreter Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 (edited) Hello TPR friends! My family and I just returned from Thailand, it was my wifes and mine 4th visit, and our 12 year old sons first. There is a lot of culture type of stuff in the first part of this, with the theme park pics coming at the end. A few bullet points before the pics start: The meaning of the words mai ped ( not spicy ), and totally different if you are a 12 year old American than is you are a 60 year old Thai lady. I should of done some cross culture mediation here. The people in Hong Kong have queue ettipuette that could rival the French. Thai men make the most convincing transgenered people. Pics of this later. Even in biz class, flying to the opposite side of the planet can suck bad. Driving a hybrid car has not caught on in Bangkok..you might actually get bonus points if your tuk tuk reaches a certain amount of emmissions. The hospitality in northern Thailand is even better than in the city. Its hard to stay on an elephant when it is trying to buck you off. Thanks for checking out the TR! Like Robb always says, stick with one airline for the best results. We are almost a million miles on AA, who is a partner with Cathay Pacific who took us to BKK. Our upgrade cleared to J class the weather was terrible at ORD and we were 3 hours late coming in to HKG. cathay Pacific put us up for the night since we missed our connection. Here is our Hong Kong Mcds credit. The Hong Kong Mcds was pretty awesome! Finally arrived in Bangkok. we always stay at the Anatara Riverside. we snagged the corner suite this time. as the name suggests, the hotel sits right on the river. They also provide this cool boat that takes you back and forth fromthe sky train. Our first stop was to see our tailor Jack who has made all of my suits for the past 10 years. First street food of the trip the death trap on wheels AKA the tuk tuk The traffic in Bangkok is so bad, we just got out and stood up for awhile. Photos of the king are everywhere! He is the longest serving monarch in the world right now. He has been king around 60 years. You cannot speak ill of him...the lese majeste laws are VERY strict here Breakfast!!!! Who can guess what it is??? More breakfast. Any ideas what it is?? The crown prince will probably be the next king...nobody really likes him tho. after breakfast, we went to the orphanage in the forest they have one tv and all the kids were watching Thai cartoons thai playhouse we brought gifts for all the kids, then passed out treats after this is Joel..he loved wearing the gopro head cam even without shoes, Joel killed us in soccer when I kicked the ball on the roof, he just climbed up to the top like a monkey this was an awesome way to start the day! next up was teh elephants!!! it can be a bit scary between these two giants.....especially when you run out of sugar cane! into the river!!!! the water was refreshing that day. the elephant my wife was on was much more calm than ours was! our elephant "full moon" went totally under the water then started to try and buck us off when the mahut guy told her to do the "rodeo" you are supposed to squeeze with your legs and hold her ears. we were supposed to se who could splash the most water...the elephants easily won. its hard to tell in the pic...but one of the tattoos on my wifes leg is of a Thai elephant and a mahut you "drive" the elephant by using your feet behind its ears to guide her where you want her to go. our favorite fruit of the trip. anyone know what they are called??? after the elephants, we stopped at this buddist temple in a cave the monk blassed Parker, gave him a special bracelet, and sprinkled water from a lotus flower on his head the first monkeys of the trip were living outside of the temple lunch was our first Thai Mcds credit. I will get more pics posted soon of the tigers, swimming monkeys, Thai boxing, and the theme park! Edited September 4, 2012 by aslinterpreter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caffeine_demon Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 our favorite fruit of the trip. anyone know what they are called??? lychees? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shivtim Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Great pics, looks like you guys had a blast! The elephant rides look insane. I think the fruit is a rambutan, which is similar to lychee. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jynx242 Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Thanks SO much for posting these!! It's always been a dream of mine to ride on an elephant in Thailand! They are some of the most fascinating animals in my opinion and I just love them! Looking forward to the rest of the update! BTW - I have no idea what the food was, but it looked freaking delicious! David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECZenith Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 I love elephants! Thanks for sharing the pics And I'm almost a 100% those are lychee fruits, I've always wanted to try it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disneyfan1313 Posted August 10, 2012 Share Posted August 10, 2012 Wow! Amazing so far!! Can't wait to see more. Are the tailors in Thailand as good as what you hear about in Hong Kong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslinterpreter Posted August 10, 2012 Author Share Posted August 10, 2012 The tailors in Thailand are awesome!!! They do great work of copying the high end stuff, you have to be careful of which fabric you pick. some of them will try to sell you cheap stuff with marked up prices. You have to know what you are looking for. A regular bespoke from my guy runs aroun $225 US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
asimowalk Posted August 11, 2012 Share Posted August 11, 2012 The fruit is called rambutan, I'm guessing in the same family as lychee. And I'm going to guess your breakfast was either duck or pork? Even if it's not, that still looks better than any breakfast I've had in recent memory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslinterpreter Posted August 13, 2012 Author Share Posted August 13, 2012 Thanks everyone for checking out the first part of the trip!!!! Rambutan was the mystery fruit, and the dish I had was roasted duck for breakfast!!! That sauce on the side is super spicy! Here is the second part of the pics. tuna pie is very popluar here..... so is foot massage. Its only $5 an hour...not bad at all! it looked like it was going to pour all day...but never did here is the US my wife and i are both sign language interpreters. Today we went to visit the Deaf school in Bangkok. We thought they would think it was cool we were interpreters from America, but they were mostly interested in how Parker got his skin so white and why he was so tall at age 12. im not so sure this is safe???? is there OASHA standards in Thailand?? the traffic is awful here. when it really starts to get backed up, cars start going over the double yellow into teh wrong lanes of traffic. They honk all the time, but it is used to tell other drivers that you are coming into their lane. Nobody here "lets you over" you have to take your spot in traffic tonight was Muay Thai boxing. Since we are Farang, we ahd to sit in the front rows. all the Thai people sat back there. It was kind of like the movie "bloodsport" where everyone is yelling at throwing money for their bets This dude won the main fight. Parker also picked to winner of every fight that night. We should of been in the back betting with all te Thai guys! more mystery food.....anyone know what it is?? today we started at the "train market" Parker had "frog on a stick" yes its a whole frog with a popsicle stick shoved up its butt then grilled its called the train market becs it is built right over the top of the train tracks! the train comes thru twice a day i have a cool video from this, i will get it posted soon after the train comes thru, its back to business as usual! today was the start of buddist lent, where the monks cant leave the temple for three months. Here the school kids are all taking food and gifts to the monks in the temple the best dessert on the trip was mangos and sticky rice! Next up was the fisherman village. All the houses here are built up on stilts over the water Our friend Reed lives right next to a group of swimming monkeys. This was just about my favorite part of the trip. We stopped at a local market and bought a ton of fruit to feed them the babies were so cute!!!! there were so many of them!!! There are 3 guys in this pic This is "Rara" He/she was awesome!!!! We met several lady boys on this trip, but she/he was our favorite. More pics soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stitch_101 Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Wow! I've heard about the "lady boy" fascination in Thailand... But that's so great! Thanks for sharing! Looking forward to seeing more! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Farmer Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 That's a turtle just sort of walking around in the 7th pic, isn't it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslinterpreter Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 Sorry, I got behind with work and forgot to finish this out! The HK Disney pics will be in these next two updates. Yes that IS a turtle in pic 7 In Thailand, they let you do all sorts of cool things....like play army, with real army guns... and play with tigers Parker found a new girlfriend that is a slice of ham inside the aunite anns!!!! Pass! Dinner was awesome tonight!!!! the main reason we came to thailand was to visit the boy we sponsor thru compassion international. we was born a week before parker was born. we brought him a bike riding in the back of a truck is legal here Parker taught Sathit how to play angry birds. He had never played a video game before. This is the elephant show outside of Chiang Mai. THis elephant painted a self portrait! more elephant rides good bye As soon as I got in this thing, I regretted it! it was super hot in there! i looked like an idiot! my try at an artsy shot Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 So what was Parker's take on everything? I love traveling around the world to such crazy places just to see it through KT's eyes. I'm sure this trip even though you had been there before was completely different getting to see it from his point of view. You are very brave to do that crazy elephant stuff. We saw it in India and they couldn't have paid me enough to do it!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslinterpreter Posted August 31, 2012 Author Share Posted August 31, 2012 You are exactly right! It gave us a totally different perspective this time. Parker absolutely LOVED it! He usually tells people that meeting Sathit was the highlight of the trip...followed closely by the elephants, tigers, and monkeys. He also likes how friendly the Thai people are.... I doubt he would admit it, but he really liked how people wanted to have their picture taken with him all the time. He also had people asking to touch his hair, mostly in the rural north. I really likes what you said about seeing it thru KTs eyes my favorite thing is to hear him tell other people about his experiences and give advice about what to see and do. He still tells us every couple of days how much he misses it! Which trip do you think was KTs favorite??? Being in the water with the elephant was a bit scary!! But tons of fun and would do it again in a heartbeat! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RoCo Posted August 31, 2012 Share Posted August 31, 2012 Wow, this is incredible. So many amazing pictures and adventures; that train market is CRAZY! And loving all the animal encounters! Feeding the swimming monkeys... so envious. Plus, you're doing some really wonderful deeds there as well. Three cheers to you and your family for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslinterpreter Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Well, hopefully I can get the Hong Kong Disney in this update! we finally made it!!! THe whole place was much nicer than I thought it would be. After we finished with the HK park, it only left one Disney park we have not been to.....Paris. This is where we got our first experience with the Hong Kong queue culture This ride always brings back memories, no matter whre we ride it around the world!!! I originally thought that one of the cast members had left their gloves on my tray, but when I looked around I saw that most of the people were using their gloves to eat the fried chicken The castmembers were very nice and offered to take our picture often. Parker displays the correct Chinese way to pose for almost every picture. People really crowd in before the philharmagic show starts. We were about run over when the doors actually opened. The new toy story land was really cool! sorry this one is so blurry. The ride is really neat tho! this was my favorite ride in the park!!! i was expecting something like big thunder....but it was a very nice surpise!!! It was also a very smooth ride!!! i liked the popcorn in tokyo better I will end with our "english" jungle cruise ride. Overall, we had an amzing time in Hong Kong, and will be back for sure!!!! thanks for chceking out all of our pics! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
packfanlv Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 My son loved Thailand as well. The people were so friendly and the random wild animals helped I'm sure. I can't wait to go back and see how he sees it through an older kid's eyes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 Honey Mustard Popcorn!!!!! AHH!!! Sounds awesome, hope that it's still there in a few weeks or that it gets adopted by Tokyo as I'd love to try it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cfc Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 I'm always up for a new popcorn flavor (as long as it's not peanut butter). I'll definitely try some honey mustard corn at Hong Kong Disney. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moose Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 What style train does this Space Mountain have? In the picture it almost looks like a long train, but that could just be multiple trains stacked in the station. Thanks for the report. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharkTums Posted September 4, 2012 Share Posted September 4, 2012 ^Multiple trains, basically same as Disneyland. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aslinterpreter Posted September 4, 2012 Author Share Posted September 4, 2012 Thanks Elissa, I honestly did not pay attention to that part Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chadster Posted September 5, 2012 Share Posted September 5, 2012 I absolutely love this report. After reading just the Thai portion I felt like I had been there. I'm sure getting the new bike and playing Angry Birds made that kids day! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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