Day Two in Bangkok - The Rocket Cafe & Weekend Market

Saturday was our second (and last) day in Bangkok.  We had an evening flight to our "vacation" destination of Chiang Mai.  We decided to spend the day at the weekend market.  It was quite the adventure.  We forgot that we would need to check out of our hotel earlier in the day and that we would have no place to store our luggage.  So... we arranged a driver to stick with us for the day.

Before we set off we decided to take a little adventure for breakfast.  We went to a place called the Rocket Cafe.  It was one of the highlights of the trip for me.  The place was amazing!  The food was fresh, prepared on sight and much of it in front of you.  The dishes were amazing.  It was just a small shop but busy. We were all wowed.  (I am still learning how to use my camera so the pictures are not "food blog" worthy but I had to document the fun dishes.

The hot chocolate.  This was the favorite for everyone.  How dreamy to have hot milk and cocoa on a stick to custom make your hot chocolate.  I would love to recreate this sometime!

Homemade Granola on top of home made yogurt.  Berries on top and honey with stick for sweetening to your desired taste.  Again, so fun.  By the end Will was licking his honey stick.

Reagan ordered a whole grain waffle with tart fruit compote and cream.  It was my favorite dish.  I love me some tart.

Eggs on homemade bread with some type of sour cream.  It was good but was overlooked by our bunch because it was the most common and simple.  Still delicious though.

My second favorite was the oatmeal with fresh pomegranate and mango.  Oh it was so good.  

So if you are ever in Bangkok.  You have to stop.  My mouth has been watering just looking at these pictures.  

We made it to the market about noon and it was a hot hot day.  We were drenched with sweat within minutes of arriving.  The market is massive, like 60 acres of market.  It was very cool to see all the different goods being sold.  Even though this day was hard on my body (let's be honest, they all were) I had a great time.  Marcus on the other hand, could have done without it.  After ten years we are learning he could do without the shopping.  At least when the children are involved.  I think I am slowly learning that I love to shop, especially in unique places.

Here are some photos from our adventures that day:

In Thailand everything is colorful.  The taxi's come in pretty much every color of the rainbow (we would play a game while driving to find all the colors).  This was Paige's favorite taxi.  She always wanted us to ride only in the pink ones.

Smoothies were a staple in Thailand.  They were less than a dollar and made of fresh fruit and/or yogurt if you wanted.  We had a couple every day.  It was the only way to stay cool.

These were Popsicles.  She had them in ice water in a metal container.  Not as good as in America.  The flavors were off a bit but still fun to experience.

People were obsessed with Paige in Thailand also.  They would just grab her and love on her.  You can see how hot it was by her hair.  

The tuk tuks waiting for passengers.  We rode in one only twice as I felt like our six people were too much for one cart.  The drivers felt like we could squish in and were constantly trying to convince us.  

We were more than ready to leave by 4pm.  On to the next adventure!

Day one continued... - Play Place at mall

Before I move on, I forgot that the evening before we stopped at a play place that was inside the mall.  China has similar play areas but this one was quite extensive.  It also allowed our older kids to play (in China only Will and Paige are small enough to enter).  The kids had a great time.

Autumn Moon Festival = Holiday in Thailand

The holiday school schedule is much different in Asia then in the western world.  There are less 1/2 days or part weeks and more full week breaks.  This past week was the first big holiday break.  It was to celebrate the Autumn Moon Festival.  For the ex-pats it is a time to go on holiday (vacation).

We decided we should take the opportunity to go somewhere because it is the last chance I will have to travel before the baby comes and also, we will stay home for the Christmas break because we will have a newborn.

Sidenote: One of the reasons I agreed to live in China was to travel.  I am rolling my eyes writing this because I don't enjoy traveling.  I am content to be at home.  Travel is stressful to me.  I do not enjoy flying, at all.  I am also very content to read about places in a book.  Most people will think this is crazy (unless they hate traveling also).  However, I do feel there is value in experiencing different cultures and seeing how others live.  I want that for my children.  So part of the "deal" of me coming to China was that we would travel nearby locations (plus I have a sister in Japan that I am very excited to visit).

Thailand hit the top of our list early on because we have considered having the baby in Thailand.  We have decided against that option now but at the time we figured it would give us a chance to check it out and visit the hospital if that was the route we chose.

Marcus has a customer in Bangkok so we flew into Bangkok so he could do a visit.  We flew in Thursday night.  Our hotel was awesome (you can tell because I took pictures of how clean it was - minus our mess:)). We had two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room for about 100 USD.  We were thrilled.  The breakfast was great (Asian food is always a risk) and the kids and I went swimming while Marcus worked.  In the afternoon we walked down the street and had smoothies and then went to the mall.

The kids were thrilled to watch TV even if they couldn't understand a single word.  I guess a cartoon is a cartoon.

The swimming pool was on the second floor and wasn't heated.  It was cold water but the outside was hot and the kids had a blast.  It was a little harder on Paige but she had fun also.

 It was really cool to see the food vendors at the mall.  The smells were amazing.  Marcus was trying to find a petting zoo that we had been told about and had asked someone but she didn't speak English.  She asked a woman walking by (that she apparently knew) and the woman stopped to help Marcus.  It turns out she is from Thailand but lives in St. George Utah.  She owns a Thai restaurant there but had come back to Thailand for a month or so.  She is also a Mormon.  She stayed with our family for the next hour showing us around.  We hope to show up at her restaurant sometime in the future when we are back home.  

This was like a crepe and then filled with the strings (in the bags) and they called it cotton candy.  It did taste like cotton candy.  

trying coconut water and fresh coconut (none of them liked it)

Coconut ice cream, they all loved that.

The sweet lady that owns the restaurant in St George.

The kids were patient with my sore body.  The flight took its toll and the hot weather in Thailand was also difficult.  The first flight caused my body to swell (I was really bummed about this) and I was moving pretty slowly.  We didn't bring a stroller and realized right away that we should have.  We ended up purchasing one at the mall and were SO GLAD that we did.  Day one of our adventure was a success (mostly) and we crashed in our comfy hotel beds.