Bangkok or Bust

I recommend to anyone traveling to Thailand that you DO NOT watch "The Hangover Part 2" before you travel. To the disappointment of many of my friends I did not get a face tattoo and we decided not to visit any bars that were equipped with poles ( if you have seen the movie you will know why ). But... I did get bit by a monkey and Dave became a human tissue for an elephant, so hopefully you all are not too disappointed.

This is a taxi. Seriously !!

On our first day we explored Bangkok on our own. When I say, "explored" I mean we shopped. The malls were huge and had hundreds of stores. I know it's hard to believe, but all I bought was tea. 

   
                                                                                                                         

Before making our way to Pattaya, our tour guide/driver Tony took us to see the royal palace. It was a beautiful place to visit but I was not appropriately dressed so I had to wear a jacket when we visited. So, wearing a jacket + 90 degree weather X a hundred smelly people = an amazingly fun day at the royal palace !!!! 

Once we arrived in Pattaya,we took a day or so to just relax in our hotel. Then we were off to the zoo.

Why hello 

We also visited an elephant/tiger/botanical garden/ ??. It's Thailand, what can I say. 

Yes !! They had 8 year olds selling bananas 

And finally, one of the coolest things I have ever seen... 

Is that a gold nipple? Yes, yes it is. The whole thing was painted in gold as a gift to the king. 

Okuma or bust

We drove about 2 hours north to spend the day with some friends at the military owned resort Okuma. They had tent camping  (no thank you), cabins (getting better), and hotel rooms (now were talking).  The ice tea was a $1 and the chocolate/coffee cheesecake made for the perfect "camping" essentials.  Except for the 10 minute rain shower the day was beautiful and we had a blast. 

I have no idea what I was yelling

Hurry up and take the picture, It's hotter than sh*t out here

We had another lazy Sunday afternoon here in Okinawa, just driving around the island checking out different beaches and enjoying the 250% humidity outside. I was even able to add to my collection of beach glass while avoiding the billions of crabs that seem to infest the beaches. 

The Corona Deluxe

We are the proud parents of a new 2 seater kayak. She is called The Corona Deluxe !! We bought her last week but Easter Sunday was the first nice day we have had in a while so we took full advantage of the beautiful day. We walked right out into our backyard and set it in the water, and if you can believe it or not we didn't even tip over !!! The tide was a little low so we just cruised around the bay and explored a sandbar. Dave even brought his fishing pole and fished off the back. We had a ton of fun and are super excited to do it again this weekend.

The dog tried to jump out when we took this picture.

That is a lot of fish poop

We decided to check out the Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium yesterday. It was a little bit of a drive to get there for us but we have yet to travel that far north so It was fun. They had sharks, whale sharks and Manta rays all in the same enormous tank. Outside they had sea turtles and manatee. And we even watched a dolphin show entirely in Japanese. 

It's ok, we have free health care

I have finally got around to posting our zip lining adventure. Sorry it took me so long. 
    Once again we were invited by some new friends to go out and explore the island. Now, I wouldn't say that I'm afraid of heights. It's just that I would much rather be shopping than doing anything involving heights. I made a quick phone call to up our life insurance, then put on my big girl pants and accept the challenge. It was the perfect day. It was just hot enough to make me feel completely out of shape when I walked up the hill ( I would not have gone had I known how many hills I had to walk up). We were given a very brief tutorial (in broken english) on how to not fall to our deaths, then we were sent to zip around the jungle.

wrong turn

Some friends invited us to explore the island with them. And since we still don't have cable we jumped at the offer. We originally planned on seeing the sunflower festival then grab some lunch together. We made a wrong turn and we were about to get back on the road when our friends noticed that we made a wrong turn at some ancient ruins. So we decided to go check them out. The views were amazing and we had a chance to walk off the donuts we had for breakfast. Eventually we did find the sunflowers and ended the day with lunch at the newest Okinawa style mexican food restaurant.