Author: Jane

October 13-16

First stop on our ten or so hour drive down to Queenstown was a detour to Nelson. This is home to the famous Nelson hops that are used in lots of hoppy beers all over the world. Below is where you’ll see rows of hops later in the season.

They love hops so much they make their light fixtures hop shaped.

Then it was down the west coast.

Buller River:

These bushes are really similar to some we saw in Ireland. Bright yellow flowers with huge thorns. All the super green fields and the sheep also are quite similar.

Cape Foulwind:

We thought we saw some kiwi run into these bushes but they ran away before we could confirm.

We saw some of these birds later. Not a kiwi although I really wanted it to be:

Crow Bay:

Greymouth where we stopped for the night:

We found where Andy is from originally. Now we just need him to share his gold.

Lake Ianthe below. Tell me that isn’t an insane view.

Franz Josef Glacier:

Fox Glacier:

Thunder Creek Falls:

Some awesome sheep:

Lake Hawea:

We were planning on hiking Roy’s peak when we got into Wanaka. Turns out, they close this hiking path for a little over a month each year for lambing. This required me to google what “lambing” is.

Apparently it’s when lambs are born.

It actually makes a lot of sense. So we got stared down by some saucy momma lambs and then we drove away.

Plan B: sit by Lake Wanaka for a bit and enjoy the scenery. This was a better idea than climbing 5 miles up a mountain anyway.

We made it into Queenstown and loved the town. It is basically just a ski resort town. Great restaurants and cutesy shops. Plus the views are great.

We also had the second best meal of the trip. It was at a place called the Bunker. Scallops and boar and hare and snapper and a tom yum broth.

So good.

We said we weren’t going to do any more tasting menus because it’s too much food and we get so sleepy, but here we were doing it again. It was a huge success. Second best – after our lunch in San Sebastián with Johnny.

We took a day trip out of the city to the Milford Sound.

Gorgeous drive down, of course.

Funny about this… the Milford Sound is not actually a sound. It is a fjord that is misnamed. But apparently when the European explorers came here they weren’t familiar with the word fjord. They knew sounds and they knew inlets. So they chose the closest word. Sounds are river carved. Fjords are glacier carved, like our fjords in Norway that we visited with Liam and Sofia. Actually, a lot of New Zealand reminds us of Norway.

Below you can see a u-shaped valley which is consistent with a fjord. Rivers carve sounds in a v-shape.

It was really windy and pretty cold.

This waterfall is from that scene in X-Men Originals Wolverine where he dives off a waterfall.

We dipped under the waterfall a bit, so Michael and I got hit with some glacier melt.

You can see some seals lounging on the boulder above.

Super beautiful.

Now we’re driving to Christchurch for the last seven or so hours of our New Zealand road trip.

We popped back into Wanaka even though it was a little bit out of the way. Apparently the first time we stopped to check out the lake we filled up our gas tank and forgot to pay. Hmmm… Apparently this isn’t an issue in New Zealand. They called the rental company who shot us an email asking us to reach out. We were obviously embarrassed and wanted to resolve the issue immediately but they told us just to swing by whenever we had a chance. When we went in to pay they were largely unconcerned. I don’t know what would have happened in the US if we did this, but I can’t imagine it would have been the same outcome. The woman behind the counter simply said, “It’s a small country. We can find you.” Fair enough.

On the drive to Christchurch we saw some more beautiful sights.

And we finally got a glimpse of Mount Cook. It’s the highest mountain in New Zealand.

It’s this one:

So that’s it. Tomorrow we fly to Tasmania. Two weeks is not nearly enough to see New Zealand. But it’s a start! We’ll definitely be back here at some point.

October 11-12

Our first stop on the South Island was wine country… again. This time it’s Marlborough which is where New Zealand’s best Sauvignon Blancs come from. Sauvignon Blanc is the varietal that put New Zealand wine on the map. While we drink mostly big, bold reds, I love a crisp, fruity Sauv Blanc – especially on a warm beautiful day. That said, the weather for our few days in Marlborough was less than ideal. It was rainy and cold – not really ideal crisp whites. They get just two or three rainy days a year and we happened to make it for two of those days. Boo. But we must soldier on in this tough life of ours.

Our first stop was Spy Valley Wines. So apparently the area has a secure communication facility called Waihopai Station. It is claimed to be run by New Zealand’s Communication Security Bureau which I assume is their NSA equivalent. But it is believed to be part of ECHELON which is the worldwide network of “signal interception” facilities run jointly by intelligence agencies of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. So it’s a spy base.

In the background on the left you can see two white domes. That’s the spy headquarters. Apparently there is a huge radar antenna in each of the two domes which are actually called “radomes”. The radomes are suppose to protect the antenna from weather and conceal the equipment from view. I’m not sure those two huge domes are all that inconspicuous in wine country. Thank you Wikipedia for all of your great knowledge.

We tried to get a little closer but all the roads were closed to the public. Figures they’d try to keep it extra hard to approach.

So Spy Valley Winery incorporates a lot of clever spy lingo and pictures into their buildings and their bottles.

Plus they use Morse code on their bottles. It was a lot of fun.

Next we popped into Nautilus. It was fine – a bit unremarkable. No pictures. No anecdotes.

For both nights we stayed at a really cute airbnb on a vineyard. Here’s the view out our back door:

It gave Michael a chance to cook a few meals (bolognese one night and rack of lamb the other night). Plus we got to meet a few new friends.

This picture does not do that rooster justice. He was a BEAST! Twice the size of the hens. The next day at one of the wineries we saw that someone had a portrait made of him.

For as delightful as the airbnb cottage was, the stay was a comedy of errors. First the internet was broken. Not a huge deal – especially since most wifi we encounter is not that reliable anyways. Then the next night the electricity went out for three or so hours. It was a large issue that required the electric company to come out. Then that same night a pipe burst at the cottage so we didn’t have water. We were there during a very rare freeze. I told you the weather was a bit crappy. But the guy was super nice and responsive and it was fine. And Michael was clever enough to finish dinner by boiling water on the grill to cook our pasta.

On day two, our first stop was Cloudy Bay.

Then we had a tour of Hans Herzog. This winery is another organic farm. Since they don’t use any pesticides they get these amazing wild flowers growing in between their vines. I just love it. The winery next door just had dead brown grass between their vines from the pesticides.

We had our tasting in the cellar which was delightful.

The above varietal – Zweigelt – was one that we were not familiar. It is the most widely grown red grape varietal in Austria. It is apparently a cross of St. Laurent and Blaufrankisch. Ahh – that clears it up.

The wines were delicious enough that we opted to stay for lunch as well. Before coming to Australia, the winemaker had a two Michelin starred restaurant in Switzerland, so we new the food was going to be delicious. And we were right.

Not the prettiest to look at, but this leek soup was possibly the best soup I’ve ever had.

All in all, Hans Herzog was our best stop in Marlborough.

The last stop was Fromm Winery. I was immediately excited when we pulled up.

Their logo is the Marianist logo! It turns out that this is the city emblem of Malans, Switzerland, where Georg and Ruth Fromm are originally from. But with the red and white here, it made my mind jump right to this:

Lots of Marianists on the brain in New Zealand. The wines were delicious – they do a lot of good Pinot Noirs which are not typically our favorite. But Fromm had some really great ones.

That’s it for Marlborough. Next we were off to start our trip south to Queensland.

October 7-10

The next stop on our road trip was Waitomo where you can find glow worm caves – something I was super excited about.

Our drive to Waitomo was incredible.

I know what you’re thinking:

These types of incredible scenery have became the norm for us while here in New Zealand. Every turn around each (often precariously) tight turn of the road led us to a view more incredible than the last.

We got in late to our bed and breakfast and then left quite early to go see the glow worms! When we got near the caves we looked into tickets. It was going to be around 120 New Zealand Dollars!! That’s nearly 80 bucks to do a super touristy attraction. So we passed on that real fast and moved on to our second choice: the Forgotten World Highway. Michael had picked up a pamphlet about this road in the B&B. It is basically just a 150 kilometers of road, some unpaved, that is beautiful and empty.

Here are the highlights:

Editor’s note: I’m doing my best not to mix up pictures here, but everything is super green and picture perfect, so… well… I’m doing my best.

After about three hours on the Forgotten World Highway, we started a new adventure and drove inland towards Taupo Lake.

We arrived at our airbnb right off the lake and settled in for the night. We arrived early enough to grab a run (for me) and a walk (for Michael). Yes – we’re all shocked that’s how the evening turned out.

Then next day we were on the move again to Hawke’s Bay. But first we popped over to see Huka Falls which were recommended by our great Airbnb hosts.

These falls are amazing. This river system produces about 15 percent of New Zealand’s power.

The Waikato River is up to 100 meters wide, but it abruptly narrows to just 15 meters as it crosses a volcanic ledge just north of Lake Taupo. This causes the huge volume of water to be funneled through this rocky gorge.

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Look at those incredible colors! About 200,000 liters of water plunge nine meters every second. Huka is the native word for “foam”.

Then it was off to Hawke’s Bay for a bit more wine tasting.

First stop was Trinity Hill. Last fall we attended a charity event in Rick Bayless’s backyard with Betsy and Andy and had an incredible time. Yes, I am using this as an opportunity to humble brag about how cool it was that we went to this event. Rick (because we’re on a first name basis) keeps bees in his back yard. Also, he invited Trinity Hill’s winemaker to the event. He supplied the wines and we chatted him up for a little bit at the event. So we knew that this winery had to be on our list when we arrived. The wines were good – although I will admit they tasted better in Rick’s backyard while eating incredible Mexican food with great company.

Mission Estate Winery was our second stop. I was super excited about this one because it seemed like it had a cool story. However when we tried to get info from the woman doing the tasting she was not very nice and seemed annoyed that we even asked any questions about the winery.

So not the best tasting, but I’ve found info online about this place and I was right. It is super interesting! Mission Estate was established by French missionaries in 1851 when vines were planted to produce sacramental and table wine. They were New Zealand’s first winery. The first record of a commercial sale dates back to 1870.

Since this time the brothers of the order have travelled to France to study and learn viticulture and winemaking skills. The current winemaker has been at the Mission for over 30 years and was trained by the priests. What order of priests and brothers? Thank you for asking!

They’re Marianists! Most of you know that Michael and I have quite a history with Marianists. We were bummed we couldn’t find someone more interesting to talk to at the winery, but were still pumped that we happened upon this place!

Our final stop was Urban Winery. They do make their own wines, but they also showcase smaller producers that are too small to do tastings in their own location. We went specifically to try some Sacred Hill which was available there. It was a great stop – the wines were good and we got to see their concrete eggs and their French barrel egg. We haven’t seen a French barrel egg before. We saw some concrete eggs when we were in Mendoza with Phil and Krystal. Apparently the wine maker here went to Mendoza also and after seeing the concrete eggs wanted to buy them but they were crazy expensive to ship to New Zealand. So now he manufactures concrete eggs and sells them to other winemakers in New Zealand and Australia.

After the day in Hawke’s Bay we drove down to Wellington for two days.

This entire week we were in the North Island we kept hearing how everyone loves Wellington and hates Auckland. Well… we didn’t quite agree. As mentioned in my last post, the small bit we saw of Auckland was lovely and everything we saw in Wellington was seedy. There seemed to be a lot of aimless young people – maybe homeless, maybe not. But not really heading in any good direction and it seemed more by choice than by circumstance. Perhaps grungy is a better descriptor?

We did pop into Garage Project for a few beers which was pretty good. The beers were delicious and everything on their food menu was fried or had a bunch of cheese in it. So I was happy.

We also got just out of the city to the nearby national park to do some hiking. We hiked the Orongorongo River Path in Rimutaka Forest Park. Now, we know it isn’t a race, but we did the hike in about 2 hours 20 minutes which included about 15 minutes at the river while they suggested it was going to take us four hours. So it wasn’t exactly what we thought we were getting into, but it was still beautiful. Plus it made us feel like accomplished hikers. A bonus – in those 2 plus hours we only saw one other couple and one family the entire time. The area was almost completely ours for the morning.

That’s it for the North Island – now we’re off to another ferry to go visit the more beautiful of the two islands. Hard to believe, right? We’ll let you know if the rumors are true.

October 4-6

We landed in New Zealand, our last new country on this trip. It makes us a bit sad that it’s almost over, but we’re also super excited for this country and excited to be heading home in a few weeks.

We flew into Auckland, on the North Island, and rented a car. We’re going to drive around the country for the next two weeks. We had just one night in Auckland before heading out to see what we could see in this country.

We liked Auckland a lot. It reminded us a bit of Seattle or Toronto with a beautiful waterfront and some great restaurants. We have heard nonstop from people in the North Island of their strong distaste for Auckland, but what we saw was delightful.

The next morning we boarded a ferry and rode out to Waiheke island.

This beautiful, small island is about an hour boat ride from Auckland and is home to a bunch of wineries. We visited 8 wineries while on the island: Tantalus, Te Motu, Stony Ridge, Passage Rock, Poderi Crisci, Jurassic Ridge, Mudbrick, and Man O War.

Tantalus was our first stop and one of our favorites.

That’s a light fixture made out of old vines. How cool is that?

It was also delightful because it housed Alibi Brewing as well.

Jurassic Ridge was also one of our favorites. The wine maker was doing the tastings. At first he was super pompous and snooty about how his wines are made and the organic process. But by the end he had warmed up to us a bit and we ended up having some good conversation with him about wine – and lees aging. Most important his wines were delicious.

Those rocks are old – from the Jurassic period or something. They found them on the property which is why the winery is named Jurassic Ridge.

Poderi Crisci was great because they had delicious food and Italian wines.

All in all we had a wonderful two days there, including great pizza on the beach for dinner one night.

All of the wineries were incredibly picturesque. We could have hung around for a week. But we have other things to see!

With New Zealand being as beautiful as it is expect more pictures than text for the next few posts. Although I’m not sure there is a single picture that we’ve taken since our arrival here that is as beautiful as real life.

Maybe this one. This is a really great photo.

October 1-3

We flew into Cairns in Northwestern Australia, one of the main airports that services the Great Barrier Reef. We rented a car and drove north to Port Douglas of which we had heard a lot of great things.

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system with over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands stretching over an area of approximately 133,000 square miles. It can be seen from outer space and on google maps. The reef lies along the continental shelf with slopes down to depths of more than 1.25 miles while the reef itself is on average only 115 feet deep. The reef is like a barrier along the edge of the shelf, hence… the name…

The first morning we hopped a boat out to see the GBR.

There it is! You can see some of the reef under the water and then that line where the waves are breaking is the continental shelf. I thought it was awesome that you could so clearly make out that break.

You can kind of tell from the above picture – the water was really rough. But even with the rough water, the views were just stunning.

Super rough. Luckily Michael has a stomach of steel! And I have Dramamine.

They urge all snorkelers to wear these awesome Lycra suits because of the jelly fish.

It is hard work looking this good.

The snorkeling was incredible. Michael and I have both gone a few times before – but only in the Caribbean. The colors and the amount of different fish we saw were just astounding.

We rented an underwater camera and I was shocked at how great the photos turned out!

We saw a lot of beautiful blue fish:

Here is a huge clam in the top center of the below picture.

Michael was following this huge fish for awhile trying to get a photo:

There is another clam in the picture above (bottom left corner) and the fish in the picture below were my favorites. About a hundred of them were following me around the third time I jumped in the water.

After the last stop, one of the crew members congratulated people coming out of the water and called it the “roughest water” that they let people snorkel in. It definitely felt rough. I struggled on the final stop and definitely took down a bit of salt water. But the ride back to the marina was the worst. At least half of the people on board got sick heading back. Michael and I kept it together, but just barely.

Besides the Great Barrier Reef, the area is also well known for the beautiful beaches along the coast.

No – we definitely didn’t go hang gliding off the side of some cliffs next to the highway. We’re happier with our feet on the sand.

One of the coolest things about these beaches are the ghost crabs that live there. The crabs are active at night and spend the day in spiral burrows where the sand acts as insulation to keep them moist and cool.

I couldn’t find information on why they create these designed. Also, there is a chance that they’re called soldier crabs, but the internet is not the most conclusive on the topic. Regardless of what they’re called, look how cool this design is. It looks like an angel below! There were also a lot of star and flower shapes. The internet suggested that the designs may be for mating or protection.

The area is also known for the jungle. We drove up to the Daintree Rainforest for a day.

The jungle comes right up to the beach.

Apparently so do the crocs.

We didn’t end up seeing any crocadoodles on the beaches we visited, but we dropped into a crocodile sanctuary to see a few upclose.

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Besides the incredible “nature-y” things to do here, Port Douglas also was a really cool resort town with a nice variety of food. We got some tacos, fresh seafood, Vietnamese, burgers and some pizza. After being in Asia and having such limited choices (although delicious food), it was a nice change of pace.

Michael took this hazy picture of the beer… still a chance for instafame? Not likely.

We also got to taste the “Best Ice Cream Ever”. That is how they marketed it – as in THE best in the history of ice cream.

It’s made by Betty:

My vanilla was really good. Michael’s was just ok. Best ever is a tough statement to make on ice cream although we did really enjoy it.

We also got to see some koalas at the crocodile sanctuary. We had the option to hold them, but we didn’t feel right about it.

They seemed sad or tired or something. The sign said that they are only allowed to “work” for 30 minutes a day, so there are a lot of limits to how much they are touched by strangers, but the one we saw being held by a child didn’t look too thrilled, so we opted out.

Now it’s time to take a hiatus from Australia – we’re off to New Zealand for two weeks!

September 28-30

After so much hard work traveling through Southeast Asia we decided we needed a vacation. So we booked a flight to Bali. Really, we knew we wanted to make it to an island in Indonesia – something exotic and wonderful – but we didn’t have an exact location until Michael found a great restaurant on Netflix’s Chef’s Table. It is an all dessert restaurant that is called Room 4 Dessert. Chef Goldfarb does tasting menus – entire tasting menus of just desserts.

So, we went to visit Bali so we could eat a lot of dessert. Seems about right.

Ridiculous? Yes it is. But also delicious. And the “meal” had cocktail pairings, because of course it did.

Besides eating desserts, we also checked out some fancy coffee. Bali is known for their luwak coffee. So here’s why it is so famous: Asian palm civets eat the coffee berries and then poop them out. Every day, at Lumbung Sari coffee farm, employees wander around the farm picking up their droppings so they can find the undigested coffee beans. Then they treat the coffee beans the same way that any coffee beans are treated. They are roasted and then ground to make coffee. What makes the coffee better is that the civets only choose to eat the best cherries and also fermentation occurs as the cherries pass through the civet’s intestines. Too much information? Agree. There is some concern about the ethical aspect of this type of coffee. Some farms keep the animals in cages and force feed them. However, the farm we visited relies on wild civets.

Here is a picture of an Asian palm civet:

She is actually pregnant. The farm only has two civets that they “keep”. One is kept in a cage and the above has a cage that they leave open and that she chooses to stay in. I don’t know why – I guess she likes being taken care of. Neither of those two civets will eat the berries. Apparently they are pampered now and will only eat fruit. However, wild civets come in at night and eat the berries and 💩.

Here is a cacao tree at the farm.

Besides the coffee, this farm also makes a handful of different teas, cocoa, and flavored coffees.

And finally, we drink!

The full cup was the fancy coffee and it was delicious, as promised. It was pretty sweet without any added sweetener. The rest of the coffees and teas were delicious as well. We’re bringing some poo coffee home so you all can try it too!

We also took a trip to some rice terraces. They were beautiful and gave us the chance to wander around a bit.

These are the kids that sold Michael some postcards.

They had his number, big time. After selling him much more than he needed (what we needed was zero), they were then not even pleased with his purchase and immediately started trying to sell him more. Then after we got off the terraces another little girl tried to sell us the same cards with a starting price of 1/5 what Michael had paid. Haha. You win some, you lose some. I guess if we’re going to “lose some”, I’d want it to be to some kids in Indonesia.

And, of course, we had a chance to check out some gorgeous beaches.

And these sunsets!

Plus, some random locals shooting off fireworks. It may not be a Fourth of July display, but it was fun to see them.

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While relaxing on such a beautiful island, we also got very lucky. In August, Bali was hit hard by a 5.2 magnitude earthquake. Then while we were in Bali another Indonesian island, Sulawesi, was hit by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake. The most recent news I have is that 1400 people died in the quake and the 20 foot tsunami that happened shortly after. There are still over 1000 people missing and over 70,000 who are now homeless. Then a volcano erupted on the same island (although in a different area of the island which is about the same size as Missouri). It sounds like the volcano eruption isn’t currently impacting anyone as the area doesn’t have inhabitants, but still – come on! This island deserves a break!

We feel very lucky to have been able to visit this country without experiencing any of the horrible effects of these natural disasters. What we saw of Indonesia was amazing and hopefully they’ll have some time to recover after so much devastation and so much loss.

So that’s it for Asia. The next day we hopped a super early 1am flight to Australia. In the words of Michael, “the sun is setting on the Asia portion of our trip”.

September 24-27

A bit sad to be flying solo again, but excited for a few more days in such a cool city! With quite a few days, we were planning on relaxing a bit, getting our post cards cranked out, catching up on the blog, and cooking Thai food! And we were successful on all of those things except getting caught up on the blog. I’m losing steam on this a bit. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…

Our first night in town we popped out for food and found the Sunday market that we were hunting down last week with Ken and Janine.

And, of course, found some delicious food:

The next morning we were off to the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery school. This is the same school that Michael took a class in 14 years ago when he last visited Thailand, so that’s cool. Our first stop for the class was the market.

The market sells these little bundles to use in soup. It is the right amount of kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, ginger, and everything else you need to season your soup. I thought it was clever to sell this way.

The below is a Kaffir lime. Michael has cooked with the leaves before, but I had never seen the actual fruit. It’s too bitter to use for cooking, but you can zest the skin for soaps and candles and such.

Then it was off to class with an Irishman named John and a woman from China named Sateen. The woman teaching the class was named Garnet and she was the most delightful human I’ve ever met. I apologize in advance – you’re getting a lot of photos of our food that we cooked. It doesn’t all look that professional, but we did it and it tasted awesome. If it does look professional, then it might be a photo of Garnet’s example dish.

Here is the hot and spicy prawn soup:

I’m not sure what I’m so excited about above. I may be teasing about how Michael’s dish turned out.

Here are our fish cakes.

The first plate is mine and the second that looks like someone was murdered over the plate was Michael’s. I think the carrot flower gives me an unfair advantage. That and my superior plating skills.

Plus we made green curry with chicken:

I think my curry was the first one again, but I’m not really sure any more.

And we made Pad Thai:

And spicy pork salad called larb:

And we finished with a delicious water chestnut and coconut milk dessert:

We were planning on coming back the next day for a second class, but we had such a great time with Garnet that we changed our plans to come back the day after that and have round two with her.

The next class was shared with two guys from the US. They both were huge value adds to the day. The one, Brennan, is a baker so he had great cooking knowledge. And the other guy, Kyle, had just finished living 3 years in Cambodia, so he knew some of the local language and had a lot of interesting things to say about Southeast Asia.

Day two we had Chicken and Coconut Milk Soup, Red Curry with Fish, Vegetable Stir Fry, Crispy Fried Noodles with Pork, Banana Cake, and Papaya Salad.

Plus we had another great day with Garnet!

We don’t have a picture of the stir fry, but here is Michael easily executing the dish:

I’m a little less comfortable with the wok:

We ate a little less on our second day of cooking, so we were able to go check out Wat Phra That Doi Suthep after class.

The temple is about 10 miles outside Chiang Mai and is up on a mountain, so there are incredible views of the city.

Plus they had orchids in crazy colors!

After visiting the temple, we walked over to the chocolate factory, a place Janine found for us earlier that week while reading up on Bangkok.

We ordered two types of chocolate lava cake and demolished both of them. There are no pictures of the food.

It was really good. Plus the view of the river was beautiful and just far enough outside of the old city to be calm and peaceful.

And that’s basically it. The rest of our time was spent relaxing, wandering around the city, eating, and detoxing. We had a few great runs around the old city and got to check out the cool gates and walls. Plus we got in cheap massages and cheap haircuts. My haircut is one of the best I’ve ever had and was under 10 bucks!

Plus we got to see this guy who was trying to videotape the pigeons at their level. It was a ridiculous sight and he chased them around for a very long time.

We were well rested and well fed by the time we left Chiang Mai. It was definitely one of our favorite cities in Southeast Asia and we will definitely be back! Now off to Bali!

September 21-23

Round two of Bangkok for me and Michael. That said, we had a completely different experience the second time around. It even felt, to me, like we were staying in a completely different city.

Instead of staying near the palace, we stayed in the State Tower which is one of the tallest buildings in Bangkok. We rented an airbnb condo that was actually in the hotel section of the building. It was super fancy with great views.

With only about 48 hours in the city, we got a jump on the visit with a very busy first night.

This is me being super patient while waiting for Michael to join me on the balcony.

Found him!

Look – Ken even got my shoes in the picture.

After dropping bags and a quick game of pool in the apartment, we went off to Wat Pho to see an old friend.

Our next stop that night was back to our old hotel, the Sala Arun to show Ken and Janine the great view of Wat Arun.

It was hard to see due to the aggressive amount of instafame happening right in front of our eyes, but we enjoyed the sunset regardless.

That’s right. She’s standing on a chair. Please note how many people in this picture are even looking at the sunset – zero.

We’re not looking at the sunset either – but at least we’re not staring at phones! I am, however, holding three bottles of water. Not sure why that’s happening…

The rooftop also gave us a great view of an illuminated Wat Pho.

We got out of there as soon as we finished our drinks and then we were off to a craft beer bar that Michael and I visited the last time we were in Bangkok. There we had the crispy pork noodles that I had previously labeled my favorite food in Bangkok. In the three weeks we’ve been gone the bar has been shuttered and the food stall is gone. So much for that!

So we did the next best thing – drove 40 minutes away to have beers at another Mikkeller beer bar. The beer was great and the food was delicious.

Look at how happy the men look! Plus we were featured in their instagram that night. No surprise that our presence makes the evening a “good Friday night”.

The next morning it was a delightful brunch and then off to the Chinatown market.

We also wandered past the “St. Louis” section of Bangkok, complete with a St. Louis Church, hospital, and school.

That night, we popped into the bar on the roof of our building for a quick, casual drink.

Just kidding, it wasn’t that casual. They made Ken go put on pants and charged us an arm and a leg for this delightful cocktail:

But it was a beautiful view.

Plus it’s the bar that is in the movie Hangover 2 and also in the Netflix series, Travels With My Father, which is pretty funny if you have some time to burn and are looking for a clever travel show.

Tell me this isn’t the best photo of Janine:

See what I did there? Just a little well placed cropping…

Final stop of the evening was to a Japanese yakitori restaurant called Jua. Chef Tony, from our hotel in Phuket recommended it and it was a huge win. The food was delicious plus we had seats at the counter so we had the chance to chat up a few expats who ran the place. Apparently they also had a burger place that they were running illegally out of a building without food/drink permits. Their landlord found out and refused to extend their lease. So their burger place shut down. The day that we ate at Jua they found out that the Michelin rating guide had named their burger restaurant one of the best in Bangkok. So that’s ironic.

The meal itself was great. The food was delicious and I was pumped to have another yakitori meal (meats on skewers grilled over charcoal). Plus Janine got to be an adventurous eater again.

The next morning we were up early to head out of town. Michael and I were off to Chiang Mai while Ken and J9 started the long trip home. A long trip that included a flight from Taipei to Chicago on a Hello Kitty jet.

Tell me that isn’t incredible.

We were sad to see them go, but felt so lucky to have Ken and Janine come out to visit us two times in this past year. It was a blast both times and we are so grateful to them for making the effort. We know it’s not easy to coordinate a trip this long when you have jobs and busy lives and little ones at home. So really what we’re saying is – thanks again to Pop!

September 17-20

The view was so beautiful that they decided to try this landing twice.

A little scary, but I’m a big fan of the pilot taking a second try if the first one isn’t looking just perfect. By the second landing attempt, the rain had stopped and we made a clean and safe landing.

Our time in Phuket was spent making two day trips and relaxing around our resort, which was really easy to do. Welcome tea and flower bracelets? Yes, please!

It was easy to relax at the resort because it was super beautiful, we had our own compound (private pool and three buildings for the four of us? Seems about right), and the beach and pools were pretty empty.

Rainy season may be a bit dreary, but it has its advantages. Plus, with our euchre obsession, we don’t really mind the rain all that much anyway.

So Ken and Janine’s house was to the left, mine and Michael’s was to the right, and that middle house in back was our living room. Obviously. The sofas up front were for outdoor lounging next to the bbq grill. On the far left you can see just the edge of the swing.

Here are pictures of our outdoor bathroom which was behind our portion of the compound. It was wonderful!

Here was my snail friend on the wall by the shower:

Seriously, the resort was super luxurious. And the food was great.

We did run into a bit of an issue with breakfast, though. Michael has an incredibly detailed toast making process. That process requires the butter to be soft and a bit warm so it melts completely on the warm toast when applied. It makes the best toast, but it is a very specific process. On the first day at breakfast, the butter was too cold and hard. So he put the bread into the toaster with the butter which then fell off the bread and had to be abandoned in the toaster.

The next morning we were greeted with this sign:

Just a little note asking Michael not to put anything in except bread. Haha.

The first day trip was an hour and a half drive to Patong Beach. The drive home that night took only 45 minutes. Part of the difference was that the second driver drove like a maniac. But also the first driver stopped for gas. Never good for your time when you make a gas stop.

The visit to Patong was to meet up with Tom – a friend from home who is in Thailand for a month studying Muay Thai boxing and jujitsu.

We met up with Tom at a brewery for a few beers before…

… heading to the beach. Patong Beach has more of a California vibe than our resort beach, where there is a ton of stuff going on and lots of people wandering around.

And a lot of activities, like this gem of a parasailing operation shown in the video below. The boat nearly flipping several times wasn’t even the most messed up part of the process. Check this out:

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You might not believe this, but they put that woman down in almost the exact same spot she left. We didn’t believe it even though we saw it.

After watching a few brave souls go up, we wandered over to grab a couple more beers at a craft beer shop before heading to the main strip. Tom was only going to have a beer or two with us, but it was pretty easy to convince him to stay out all night.

We weren’t planning on staying at New York bar for very long, but the band was great and they were quick to play our requests. Also, thanks to Tom, the band believed that we were from New York. Not entirely true…

We had a lot of fun.

A lot.

Really, all J9 and I need is a little Whitney Houston and we’re all set.

And tell me this woman doesn’t have a crazy good voice:

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The video doesn’t do her justice. She sounded amazing in the bar. The video does do justice to exactly how annoying that blonde girl in front is. She was one of those girls who has to be the star of the show all the time. She kept getting up on stage with the band and being escorted back off the stage. Super annoying.

It was hard to leave the bar that night because we were having such a great time, but we had an early morning.

We got picked up early to drive across the island for a boat ride through Ao Phang-nga National Park.

First stop on the ride was to get on some smaller boats and check out caves. Now, I know Thailand and caves aren’t two words that we like putting together right now, but it was really safe. We were mostly gliding along the rocks and peeking into a few cutouts in the rocks.

Our guide thought he was incredible for insisting on taking our picture inside this leaf cutout:

He kept saying “VIP treatment” while I just sat there panicking that he was going to drop my phone in the water.

Ok that last one was a bit tight, but it wasn’t a cave, it was just a cutout in the rock that we slid under.

On our ride we did get to see these little fish:

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They are fish that have evolved to be able to walk out of the water in addition to swimming. I tried to find them on the internet. These may be mudskippers who can spend days out of water and can even climb mangroves. Which would make sense as we observed them near the mangroves.

On next stop on the boat tour was to Khao Phing Kan island, also known as James Bond Island. This island was the hideout for the antagonist, Francisco Scaramanga, in the 1974 Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun. You may recall that Roger Moore didn’t make the list of our favorite “bands” when we were in Belfast.

It was cool seeing it, but there were so many tourists. I cannot even imagine what it would be like during busy season. Just one big insta photo shoot.

This area of the island was pretty cool. Apparently it was formed from a crack and slide of rock due to gravity faults. The base of the rock was scoured out by the tide, which made the higher rock too heavy to support, resulting in it sliding down and resting in a leaning position. But that info is my interpretation of the poorly translated sign, so who really knows what happened.

Per wikipedia, this island was also in Tomorrow Never Dies, but they identify it as Vietnam in the movie.

Finally, we grabbed lunch at this little village that is built on top of the water.

Complete with a mosque, school, and soccer field right on the water:

We had some delicious crabs:

And Michael got to have fish pulled right from the water by this guy and his net.

Here it is all ready to be eaten:

Our last full day on Phuket was spent sitting at the pool. Yes. The entire day. It was glorious.

Do we have pool shots? Sure. Do you really want to see us lounging around in swim suits drinking tiki drinks? Meeeehhhhhhh….

That night (and the night before), we wandered about half a mile away from the resort to eat dinner at a little beach shack. The food was great and it was super cheap. Plus the women loved that we came back a second night for dinner and some cards.

Plus they served us huge beers in equally huge koozies.

We loved Phuket – it was a little piece of paradise for a few days.

A few important shout outs before we head to Bangkok:

1. Shout out to MVB and LGDB. I forgot to post this picture from Bangkok. It’s a sweater tree just like the one in your neighborhood!

2. A huge thank you to Kev/Pop and Janine’s parents. Without you all, we would never have had a chance to sit by a pool for an ENTIRE day doing nothing but relaxing with not a care in the world. We owe you, big time!

“It’s ok POP is here” – LGDB

3. And a big shout out to Donna – we miss you!

September 15-16

Editor’s note: some of the pictures I’m posting in the blog have been supplied by Ken and Janine. There is no way to know which ones and it’s highly unlikely I’m going to give any photo credit to them, similar to how I don’t give Michael any credit for his photos. Additionally, one of the photos I “borrowed” for the last post Ken had stolen off the internet. So… thank you and sorry about that to whatever random person took the photo. You also will not be getting any credit for your shot.

We left Hong Kong on Saturday, about a day before the typhoon arrived. Random fun fact since the US is busy tackling storms also: what’s the difference between a typhoon and a hurricane? Only difference is where the storm occurs. Hurricanes occur in the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and eastern North Pacific. The same storm occurring in the Northwest Pacific is called a typhoon while the storm would be called a tropical cyclone in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.

Here’s us enjoying our default pastime while waiting for our flight:

We arrived that night in time to check into our airbnb before heading out to see the night market…

… and play some more cards. If it aint broke, am I right?

The next morning we jumped into Ken and Janine’s first tuk tuk and raced into the old city.

A little tight up front, Janine?

Mike wasn’t impressed.

We found a great place to have brunch, complete with coffee, delicious food, and champagne (if you wait until 11am which we did).

Then we were off to check out a temple. We wandered through the old city to Wat Chedi Luang.

This Wat is a large ruined temple. It gets its name from this building, below, which is a Stupa or Chedi, meaning someone is buried there:

Wat Chedi Luang was originally build to hold the ashes of King Saen Muang Ma’s father. Construction was completed in 1475. In 1575 the temple fell to ruin and was never rebuilt.

In the 1990s, UNESCO and the Japanese Government built a new Chedi right next to the original structure. Not sure why the Japanese Government was involved, but the internet told me that, so I’ll assume it’s true. So we got to check that out as well and go into it.

And then a few cool pictures outside as well:

This tree is an ancient Dipterocarp tree which was planted by the King who originally commissioned the temple. It is believed that great catastrophe will befall the city when the tree falls. Hence, tiny bamboo sticks symbolically holding it up.

There is also a small cross shaped building adjacent to the tree that houses the “city pillar” which is dedicated to the spirit of the city. The tree and the pillar are said to protect Chiang Mai from evil and disaster. But that building was off limits to women, so no pictures and we didn’t get to figure out what they mean by pillar. Ken got a kick out of the idea that Janine and I were barred from entering a building. I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that it doesn’t phase me any more. I’m sure I’ll get over that indifference the second I leave Asia.

The rest of our short amount of time in Chiang Mai was spent checking out a cool beer bar, riding tuk tuks, playing cards and eating delicious food.

Oh and I wouldn’t want to forget to mention the fact that the restaurant we were eating at had a mini bus that carted around bottles of alcohol. We don’t know where it went or who it served, but it’s a thing.

With less than 48 hours in the city, it wasn’t enough to really explore too much (also it was crazy hot), but it was better than getting stuck in the typhoon and it was a good chance for Ken and Janine to get a feel for Northern Thailand. Now it’s off to the south!