“At that moment I knew…I knew like you know about a good melon.”

I stole that quote from one of my favorite movies, When Harry Met Sally.  I love listening to the love stories between scenes.  It makes me wonder what Adam and I are going to look like in 50 years and how we will tell our story.
So far we are 0 for 2 on anniversary celebrations.  Last year our Anniversary fell on the day before the factory in China was scheduled to open meaning Adam would have to work long hours, including the weekend.  Rather than sitting at home hoping he could get an hour off to have dinner with me I took a trip to Singapore to visit my cousin.  We made up for it big time by going to Thailand the next month.  This year before the baby came we had our date nights in Hong Kong and we tried to make them extra special since “any day now” we would have to worry about packing up an infant to go to dinner.  This year our anniversary is special because we get to share it with our 8 day old son and my mom.  Not the most romantic day but special.

Back to the quote…like I wrote on Valentine’s Day…I am not big on showing your love for someone because you feel like you have to…I am all about the little moments that let me know my husband loves me.  Throughout the past year there have been many of these little moments which are more special than any huge celebration.  Sometimes it would take Adam a little longer to get home from work because he stopped off at KFC to pick up a mini ice cream Sunday for me.  When it’s Adam’s turn to pick a movie he tends to pick ones that I like and while I have been pregnant and stocking up on Children’s DVD’s he will even sit through those.  He spent hours downloading corny Christmas movies and even committed to watch them with me just because he knows how much I love Christmas stories.  I recently found out that late in my pregnancy Adam had to go to a business dinner and asked for an extra dessert to bring home to me…he forgot it at the restaurant and felt so bad that he picked up an ice cream on the way home.  He never told me about saving the dessert because he didn’t want me to be disappointed that all I got was an ice cream, but when one of his co-workers let the cat out of the bag I felt like the luckiest lady on earth.  My wonderful husband also makes sure that I always have a full bottle of water…in fact I keep bottles of water by the bed, in the bathroom, by the sofa and in the kitchen…somehow during naps or what not my water bottles magically become full.  I look forward to our daily talks at around 11:30/12:00 when Adam will call to see how my morning was.  I love our lazy Sundays spent in pj’s.  I love our game nights even though Adam usually wins. 
Living in China has truly made it so that we depend on each other and Adam is literally the only person in the world that I can spend 10 days with one on one 24 hours a day on vacation without getting irritated. 
Celebrating our anniversary is not about the fancy trip (although I would happily go to Thailand again) or a fancy dinner…it’s about looking back at the time you have spent together and looking forward to many years to come!

The Thailand You Don't Hear About On The News

When we arrived at the Bangkok airport I was a little nervous and again trying to get transportation from the Phuket airport I kept expecting for people to screw us over or something…boy was I wrong!

This is just my overall opinion after just 4 days in Thailand but I have to say that Thai people are some of the nicest, most welcoming, joyful people I have met.  The people in the airport that work behind the counter will bend over backwards to help you, the people in the market will joke around with you while you haggle, the people that you see walking on the street are always smiling.  Either there is something to be said for the sunlight or they are genetically predisposed to happiness.  When we told our cooking school teacher we were living in China her comment was “no one there smiles I asked someone why they don’t smile and it’s because they don’t have a job or money”.  I didn’t see anywhere in Thailand where it looked like the local people had money but they are happy anyway.  Never mind that we were on vacation, but walking the streets of Phuket with the smiling Thai people made me very happy.

I Eat Seafood Now

Bit by bit Adam is helping me learn how to enjoy eating fish.  He is wonderful about starting off easy and hasn’t pushed me into anything too crazy.  Monday our plan was to visit Old Phuket Town and have lunch there.  We asked the taxi driver to take us to a good place for lunch.  He took us to what he said was a cheap seafood restaurant.  It looked like one of those hole in the wall places that have amazing food so we decided to try it out.  I thought if anything we can stop for a snack somewhere else.  We picked out our fish from a pool and waited for them to do what they do to turn a live fish into lunch.  The lunch ended up being more expensive than we thought it was about 400 baht (34 baht = $1 US).  Apparently we picked a heavy fish and prawns.

talk about fresh!

Down town was full of little antique shops and we did our part to support the economy by collecting some treasures to remember our trip forever.

Monday evening we went to the Phuket FantaSea show…google it I can’t explain it very well but in a nutshell it is an awesome experience showing off the history and culture of Thailand.

A Couple of Islands, a Whole Lot of Monkeys and Mexican for Dinner

Saturday was more my thing well Sunday was defiantly more of an Adam thing.  We couldn’t go to Thailand without snorkeling.  We took a day tour of Phi Phi (pronounced Pee Pee) Island.

This was the town where our boat launched

This was a map of where we went

We saw where part of the movie Beaches was filmed,

we saw where the big Tsunami hit a couple years ago

and stopped at monkey beach where we stood at a safe distance while monkeys grabbed wraps off women and fruit out of hands.

We of course snorkeled and saw some beautiful coral and brightly colored fish.  We had a blast!

I didn;t spend much time in the water...fish kinda freak me out

 

 
The night before we spent hours walking up and down the street looking for a Mexican restaurant that we saw advertised (there is nothing even close in China).  Saturday we decided to ask the people in our hotel and take a taxi there.  We had a pitcher of margaritas and some chips and salsa.  It’s amazing how good something so simple tastes.

LOVE the big hunk of Guacamole

Keep Smilin'

Saturday morning we took a taxi to Putong beach and went to Pum’s Restaurant and Cooking School where we learned to cook some traditional Thai dishes and sauces (we of course got to eat it all as well).

Our instructor was amazing; she was full of life and a wonderful teacher.

The owner of the restaurant and all the staff would cheer for us after each dish and they taught us a song to sing as we make curry paste. 

Adam and I with the restaurant owner

I of course ate it all up and Adam of course thought it was corny.  We made red and green curry paste, a couple soups, a couple chicken dishes and a couple fish dishes.

We also took a tour of the wet market where Nom (our teacher) showed us how to pick the best ingredients.  The most important ingredient according to Pum and Nom is to smile!  After our class we stopped for a couple of cold drinks as we walked the whole area before stopping at an Australian restaurant for dinner.  We took our first Tuk Tuk ride back to the hotel. One of my favorite things in Thailand is the Taxi’s are like pickup trucks with a roof and they are called Tuk Tuk’s. 

A Day At The Beach

Friday we spent the morning sitting by the pool, at lunch at the poolside bar and spent the afternoon on the beach (after getting a Thai massage of course).

Before our trip I researched and researched for hours until I planned our trip activities.  We had dinner at a wonderful Thai restaurant. 

Then I couldn’t have picked a better activity for our first evening in Thailand.  We played mini golf at Dino World.  I know it sounds strange for anyone to spend the time they have in Thailand playing mini golf, but it is one of the little things we miss from living in the states. 

Not necessarily mini golf, but the little dates we used to have with some healthy competition.  I won of course…

however I can’t brag because one of Adam’s shots were ruined by a girl running through our course.  You can’t leave dino world without stopping at the dino bar for some dinosaur themed frozen drinks.

The Journey

We left on the Airport bus from Huizhou at 12:20 on Thursday and got to the airport around 3:30 for our 6:30 flight.  Since we left from the Hong Kong airport mid trip we have to get off at the China border get on a different bus and get off 30 seconds later at the Hong Kong border where we go through immigration again.  At the Hong Kong Airport we had real western food from a sports bar for dinner and left on Shrilankin Airlines to Bangkok.  The service on the airport was wonderful but there was a Chinese tour group that made me feel like we were on a plane with middle schoolers on an unsupervised field trip.
 I have to admit that I was a little nervous with the recent news that the Bangkok airport would be crazy with protestors.  It was exactly the opposite.  Security was extremely tight but other than that it was full of smiling Thai people and tourists.  Our flight from Bangkok to Phuket was simple and quick.

We got to Phuket at midnight and took a airport shuttle to our hotel.  It took us about 2 hours since we were the last ones dropped off.  In the end for a short plane ride we ended up spending a lot of time traveling.

We Packed Our Red Shirts And Headed to Thailand!

Just kidding about the red shirts, we weren’t anywhere near the dangerous area.  We also made sure not to pack any red or yellow shirts.  We didn’t want anyone to worry.  We had a wonderful time!  I have a lot of pictures to post as well as details about what we did and what we saw.  All in all Thailand is my new favorite place and Thai people are my new favorite people. 

Our Anniversary Trip

We leave this afternoon for our top secret anniversary trip!  We will tell you all about it when we come back.  I will tell you this it is tropical and Asian.  We will be back Tuesday at about 9:00 pm (our time…so am your time) and will post all our pictures Wednesday!  We are very excited and will not be able to top this anniversary EVER!  

Our First Anniversary...and we will be in seperate countries

I won’t get to post for a while since our internet won’t be in until ? sometime this week ? and I will be in Singapore and Hong Kong from April 1^st – April 7^th.  I know it’s our anniversary weekend but it’s also D-Day #1 at the factory so rather then make Adam feel guilty that I am sitting waiting for him to spend time with me on our first anniversary and rather than me getting annoyed because there is a problem and we have to postpone plans…I thought it best to leave the country.  I will be visiting Andrea (my cousin) and who knows what we will do all weekend.  Then I will make a stop in Hong Kong to extend my Visa (this requires me spending 2 nights there).   Don’t worry we will plan another day to celebrate…it isn’t about when it’s about how…and we are in China…it will be something we never forget!