August 11 - Packing? Who needs to pack? LET'S EAT!

I was planning on packing today. Geoff informed me this morning that we'd have the Delta van(with Peter the driver) available to us. So much for packing.

We went to Geoff's favorite restaurant in all of Thailand. It's down by the water. On the way we pass fish farms. There's no "city plumbing".
Houses are on stilts. Flush the toilet by dumping water into the toilet from the rain barrel. Homes have large clay pots to catch rain water for home use. At the restaurant... When you first walk in, take off your shoes and put on a pair of slippers at the door. There's toys for the kids to stay entertained. It gets chilly with all the strong bay breeze so the restaurant keeps long sleeve shirts and light jackets on hangers for guests to borrow.

While you're watching the tide come in you're entertained by the lung fish and crabs in the mud below.
It's comfy, casual, and of course... The food ROCKS!







After that we stop by a market an pick up dessert. It's sweet coconut grilled in banana leaves. YUMMMMMMMM. We should've bought more. I could've eaten that all night long... ok, it's good that we didn't buy more. We have a few other sweets and smoked buko(young coconut) juice. People are STARING at us BIG TIME!

We visit another striking wat.










Finally we meet Jack and Ying and their niece and nephew for a kick butt dinner. It's going to be sooooo hard to enjoy Thai food restaurants in the States after having the real deal. I'm beyond words. The kindness and hospitality is endless!

The restaurant is practically floating. It's in a neighborhood equivalent of Orange County. Live music, private karaoke rooms, and water features are ALL OVER the place. Unfortunately Felicia did get a small 2nd degree burn when she grabbed on to a light. But she got over it pretty well. It was a spotlight for one of the waterfalls. There's also lots of coy and the kids are having fun feeding them. It tickles me that in the photo you can see my kids have finally learned the "Asian squat". Sitting... without really sitting :o)

August 1 - A Trip to Hong Kong

Geoff left for China on Sunday to visit a plant in Donguong and today I left with the 4 kids to meet him in Hong Kong. I'm so glad that at the gate I can corral the kids into a corner and block then in with the stroller.


We flew Emirates Airlines where Economy Class is a lot closer to 1st class in the states. After boarding the flight attendants walked the aisles of the 777 with their trays of tong handled hot towels. The seats where equiped with individual touch screen monitors and airphones. You could watch movies or TV, listen to music, or play video games by yourself or with other passengers. The food was closer to real food and served with real flatware, no plastic. All beverages, with the exception of champagne, was complimentary. They'll gladly pour you a double.

So... the flight... Totoy sooooo does NOT like to remain buckled, particularly when the "fasten seat belt" light is illuminated. What can I say, I was ready to toss him out the nearest exit(which may have been behind us), as were anyone sitting near us. They made their appreciation for Cam's screams very clear. But we survived. Thank goodness that Emirates had great video games and cartoons for the other kids.


So we land at Hong Kong and it takes us forever and a day to get to baggage claim. Per Felicia, she learned this from an airport book from The Tangredi Fam, "We are in the largest passenger terminal in the world!". I can tell... In our journey to EXIT the airport... Flea has to poop(in bathroom stall with auto-flushing toilets.... auto-flushing toilets and Flea are a bad combo); T needs to go to the bathroom; diapers need to be changed; T decides that he's just done with walking... that's it, no more walking, just done... and if he's going to walk the steps will be no greater than 2 centimeters MAX. This is all before we've even made it to immigration. It takes us so long that our baggage is going round and round with the baggage from the next flight. I'm just glad it's still there :o)

EVENTUALLY, we find the driver from the company at which G is working. I find out later from G that we took SOOOOO long that the folks at the business were starting to really freak out that they had lost their potential client's wife and children. But MAN! This guy can walk FAST! Somehow, even with our baggage cart, he was able to move at running speed without actually running. Felicia and I(with the double stroller) were definitely running. I'm not sure why, but people move quickly here. Very, very quickly.

We get to the Harbour Plaza Hong Kong hotel and check-in to one of the two rooms(the other is in G's name and he's still at the plant working). We order hotdogs and fruit from room service and the kids GO TO SLEEP. (yippee!) Geoff rolls in around midnight and we escape to the connecting room. Tomorrow.... explore Hong Kong! (after we sleep in a bit and G gets some work done and we eat breakfast, get everyone to pee, change diaper, and tag them with a hotel card)

June 23 - We go to make merit in Phayao

So we have our final morning at the beautiful PhuChaisai Resort and hit the road to the temple in Phayao. On our way we'll make a tourist stop or two.

First, we stop by a town whose name I can't remember and do a little shopping. Cars and motorbikes drive up and down the narrow roads lined with shopping stalls. We try to keep an extra close eye on kids.

Second, we make a quick stop at the Golden Triangle to get our obligatory photos of our family in Thailand with Laos and Bhurma in the background. There's a school field trip of squeeky, teenage girls who are determined to take photos of the kids... the boys are less than cooperative. Again, we were a tourist attraction at the tourist attraction. Before we get back in the van... some important business. It's 3 THB to go to the bathroom. What a deal! It was the cleanest pay toilet I've seen! And I've paid more for more foul toilets... They were squat toilets. I'd learned from previous squat toilet experiences with Felicia that it's just easier to have her take OFF her bottoms and underpants.

Third, we stop by a very striking wat whose name I don't remember. While we're there we get the call from Geoff's friend Nui that we need to head straight for the wat for the ceremony. We won't have time to get cleaned up. We hit the food stalls and buy Pringles and sodas for everyone... our lunch on the road. Nui calls again, they're going to delay the ceremony an hour to accommodate our late arrival.

We arrive at the Gateway Hotel in Phayao and are frantically trying to get cleaned up for the ceremony and town festival at the wat. At the hotel, I'm so tickled to see we have a bug-free room with super strength air conditioning. It's a BIG room with a huge window that overlooks the town. We'd also learned that this room was also once occupied by former PM Thaksin... it's the only hotel in town.

So we arrive at the wat. We'd been coaching the kids in the van: We'll take off our shoes, Sit on your feet and don't point them at people, Girls don't touch the Thai monks, When we're at the wat do we yell, jump, push or spin? etc, etc... I'd decided to wear my dressy heels for this occasion... I only wore them for the 5 foot walk from the van to the wat. (I should've left them in Maryland.) So, it turns out that by being an hour late we were still one of the first ones there... the ceremony didn't start for at least another 1.5 hours. In that time we'd decided it was better that I sit in the van with the kids while they watched a Garfield VCD. Geoff would represent the family. He was blessed with lots of water by the monks. He was given "bracelets" for the family, a poster of a famous monk and a bottle of wild bee honey that the monks collected from the forest.


After the ceremony in the wat everyone goes outside to eat and watch traditional Thai dances. Nui tells us that the kids and folks in the town have been preparing for over a month. The dinner was a northern style kantoke meal. Very delicious! And the dances where very entertaining. Especially one that involved "fire breathing". We had to leave before they released the balloons but we all had a FABULOUS time.




Once we get back to the hotel we get the kids laid out on the blankets and pillow on the floor.

Geoff and I contemplate the next day. We're suppose to be ready to head out at 7am. I'm going to need more caffeine.

June 2 - My good buddy... azithromycin

OK... It’s just not our week.

1st – Felicia’s sick, coughing… which means puking.

2nd – Food poisoning for me (So glad Geoff could leave the plant early and find that Z-Pack for me)

3rd – It must be fruit fly season… in the house?!?

April 5 - Oh Cr-p!

Kids are up at 3am local. It’s a sh—ty morning. I’ll elaborate…

1- Cam does his usual poop and bounce on his bottom. It can’t be too messy for him. Thank goodness for the handheld sprayer in the tub.

2- We’re in Japan. They’ve got these fantastic high tech toilets. They’re so high-tech that toilets have warning pictures. One of them is a caricature of a little boy sitting on the toilet leaning back on the lid with an “X” next to it, warning not to lean back on the lid or you may break the toilet structure. Turner’s interpretation: Little boys may not sit on the toilet. Yep, he had to poop. So where is a little boy to poop if NOT on the toilet? Where else but in his underwear while on the white, white, white bed linens… of course. So that’s mess number 2.

3- Felicia’s excited to take a bath in the fabulous, high-walled tub. So I help get the bath drawn and get her IN the tub. While she’s in there she gets her urge to poop and goes to the toilet to poop. Well, she didn’t quite make it… Did I mention that the tub was deep? She calls me to help her get back in the tub….. THAT’s when I see what’s happened to the white, white, bathroom. There’s now brown, brown: in the bath water, on the tub where she eventually climbed out in a trail connecting tub to toilet, and toilet to the door to call me. Oh, and then there’s Felicia.

Geoff was sleeping since he stayed up late with them while I passed out as soon as I hit the mattress… airplane clothes and all.

We hit the buffet breakfast at 6am and all is well :o) It’s the first of many occasions where I attempt to communicate that I can’t communicate in “fill in language here”.

So we squeeze on to the 7am bus to Narita Airport. We need to unfold seats that fill in the aisle. Fun for the kids. Not so fun to get through passport/ID check to the airport.

At check-in we try to convince the airline to let us bring Cam’s car seat on to the plane… nope. Looks like we won’t be able to strap Cam into a seat to keep from losing him… that’s going to hurt. Turner’s asthma kicks into full gear on the flight. By the end of the flight we could tell it was FINALLY improving. Phew! Nanay was scared. I’m also VERY sick of pacing the aisles with Totoy(Cam). So I’m in tears by the end of the flight between Turner’s asthma scare and the Cam challenge. So glad that Ronan sleeps the whole flight and Felicia is self entertaining for the 6 ½ hours.

WE’RE IN THAILAND!

Where’s the stroller? Waiting…. Waiting…. Waiting… “So sorry for the inconvenience the stroller is at baggage claim.” No biggie. Trip to bathroom… go through customs and make our way to baggage claim… we’re thinking we’re sooo not going to see the car seat or stroller. But hey! There they are! Got the blue Samsonite (which I’ve grown to loath… I swear it refuses to close for ME)… But there’s no black bag or silver bag. Geoff finds our black bag on someone else’s cart. We find a bag that soooo looks like ours. But soooooo is not. Thai Aiways rep is very helpful in filing paperwork to find bag. Hmmmm what was in the bag? Over $1000 of meds! 4 months of Singulair and inhalers, Tamiflu, Z-packs, malaria, etc… Gifts for Thai folks and our family toiletry bag! Maybe it wasn’t a mistake…. Maybe someone hit the pharmaceutical jackpot?

An angel with driver is at the airport to pick us up. Jack and Peter-the-driver (from Delta… company in Thailand) drive us to our temporary home. It’s over 90 degrees F and humid. It feels like 4th of July. We’re so happy to ride in an air conditioned van with bottles of water.

We get to the house and meet our very nice landlady and her husband. We get a ton of keys and a very nice looking bottle of wine. Jack and Peter take Geoff to the store so we can get toothbrushes, food, etc.

WE MADE IT!

Quote by Jack while shopping with Geoff at the Carrefour store, “Ahhhh, garlic! Very important.” Some things are universal, aren’t they?