Guangzhou, China and Our Arrival in Bangkok (Tuesday, November 3rd, 2015)

We really enjoyed our flight from Los Angeles to Guangzhou, China on China Southern Airlines. They were very professional, and made our flight very comfortable with never ending drinks, and a midnight meal as well as breakfast. They offered both western and Chinese style food. 

We arrived in China at 5:40 am for a 3-hour layover. The airport in Guangzhou was very easy to navigate. There were signs very often that directed us to “International Transfers”. There were also representatives with China Southern Airlines directing traffic and making sure that everyone knew where to go, and when we got to the end of the “International Transfer” signs, there was a large electronic board with connecting flights and gate numbers on it. Given the time of day the airport was very quiet with very few travelers.

The Guangzhou, China Airport was very clean and beautiful!

Very modern with nice restrooms and drinking water facilities

There were enough english instructions to make the airport easy to navigate

The flight attendants for China Southern were very professional!

We found our gate number, and looked around, and our gate was right there, so we made ourselves comfortable while we waited and then took off again at 8:50 am for a short three-hour flight.  We landed in Bangkok at 10:50 am. and picked up our luggage, we then followed our Gate-1 directions that had been provided prior to our departure for getting to our hotel transfer. 

There was a representative waiting for us outside of customs who took us to our driver. We drove through the streets of Bangkok at a very rapid pace enjoying the sights of the city, and within about 30 minutes we were at our hotel. The airport transfer was very smooth and comfortable and was included in our tour, even though we arrived three days early.  We thought that was a pretty great deal!

Our hotel is very close to Victory Monument. We chose to come in two day’s early, so we will have a chance to explore Bangkok for two day’s on our own before the actual tour starts. We are hoping that this will give us a chance to get over our jetlag and enjoy seeing Bangkok up close and personal on our own. We want to be able to enjoy every moment of Bangkok.

Our trip (for the most part) is all-inclusive. There are some meals where we are on our own, and a few optional excursions, which are so inexpensive that we couldn’t pass them up. As part of our Gate-1 package, we are staying at the Century Park Hotel, Bangkok, which is a superior class hotel located in Pratunam, a shopping and commercial area in the heart of Bangkok. This hotel provides free WiFi (for Gate-1 travelers) and all of the amenities that you would expect in any nice western style hotel. It is absolutely beautiful, and the staff are extremely helpful. We were greeted at the front desk, and asked to wait in the beautiful lobby for a few minutes while they finished up our room. They served us complimentary punch while we were waiting, and within a few minutes our room was ready. 

We think the punch was compliments of Gate-1 since we were the only ones that seemed to have it.

Our room is beautiful!

The view out our window on the 12th floor

After 13,000 miles and about 20 hours of flying, all Steve and I could think about was getting a shower, but once that was done, we were out and about seeing Bangkok. Our first impression was “WOW”, this is the most bustling city we have ever seen. It’s even crazier than New York City! 

The traffic is really crazy!

But once we got used to it, we loved the charm and convenience of being in this thriving metropolis. It has more traffic, motorcycles and pedestrians than we had ever seen, and the vibe of the town was very exhilarating. 

We enjoyed lunch at a little food court in the middle of the shopping district, and had dinner in a nicer restaurant in the same area. The food is quite different than we are used to, even though we often eat Thai food in the US,  but very good and very cheap.  Our lunch was less then $3 for the both of us. So far the public restrooms we have used are either free or cost 1 or 2 baht (~35 baht to 1 US dollar) and so far they are all western style.  They don't always have paper though, so come prepared.  

The people are all so kind, but very few speak any English at all, so it has been a very fun challenge.

A few street views as we walk around.  Check out the power lines.  They are like this everywhere.

Another view of the crazy busy streets.

Just a couple of blocks from our hotel is a mall called Center-One.  It has food for the locals in the basement, and more touristy options upstairs like Swenson's ice cream, Chester Chicken and Mister Donut, although we saw a lot of Thai's eating these as well.

The mall where we had lunch, although we ate downstairs with the locals.  We had to use a little sign language to get what we wanted because we can't read or speak Thai.

Plastic food replicas in the window of one of the restaurants in the mall make it easy for us english speakers to order, but you also pay more for your food if you eat at a restaurant like this.  We didn't eat here, but it looked like a pretty easy option.  

Another view of the mall from upstairs

My handsome husband risking his life under the power/phone lines!

Victory Monument very near our hotel

A view from the pedestrian walkway by the Victory Monument and the Sky Train

Another view from the pedestrian walkway.  You can see our hotel in the top right corner.  The busy sidewalk on the right is how we get to the mall.

Street vendors on the walkway.  Street vendors are very common.

The evening view from our hotel window as the traffic is picking up.  Notice the apartment buildings right behind the billboards.  Their view is totally blocked by the signs.

A beautiful sunset, and now traffic is really heavy.

There is also a beautiful park right near our hotel.  It is busy day and night with locals out getting their exercise.

After a relaxing stroll through the park, we decided to call it a night as we had been awake many hours at this point!

Leaving for Thailand (Sunday, November 1st, 2015)

We both got a great nights sleep!!!!  So our first big hurdle is tackled and we feel great!  We had coffee by the swimming pool this morning at the hotel. 

A very nice man from Jordan was kind enough to take this picture for us

And then ate our complimentary breakfast and went for a walk (in the opposite direction from last night). We ended up in a neighborhood park where the local kids were playing soccer.  

Then we took a soak in the hot tub to prepare our poor bodies for the 20+ hours of travel ahead of us.  

On our walk last night we discovered a tiny little Ethopean restaurant, so we went back there for lunch.

They offered Ethopian and Mediterranean Food

There was a large outdoor patio, surrounded by this beautiful vine.  Indoors was very hot, so we opted for patio seating, but it was the smoking area, so we sat way off by ourselves.

It was a fabulous lunch, although the atmosphere left a little to be desired.

We left Los Angeles, California (LAX) on November 1st at 10:30 pm on China Southern Airlines, and will arrive at 5:40 am on November 3rd in Guangzhou, China (CAN), where we will have a 3-hour layover.

Our ride (Airbus 380) to Guangzhou, China.  Quite comfortable and very professional staff.

Los Angeles - Getting to Thailand (Saturday, October 31st, 2015)

We have found that we struggle with sleep the night before we leave, every time we travel internationally, partly because we’re excited for the trip, and partly because we can’t turn our minds off. We spend the entire night trying to think of something we might have forgotten. Then you are awake for an extended number of hours as you travel.  Upon arriving you are exhausted and trying to make decisions and navigate in your new surroundings.  Not a good way to start your trip.....we know from past experiences!

So we’ve decided that we are going to do it a little different this time. We are traveling into Los Angeles the day before our flight leaves for Thailand, in hopes that it will help us turn our brains off so we can sleep.  

In general the basic flights offered by Gate-1 to Thailand leave from Los Angeles, and Gate-1 will either book your flights from Los Angeles, or they will book your flights from your place of origin.  For us, the flights that Gate-1 was going to put us on from Denver to Los Angeles were very expensive, so we decided to find our own flights from Denver to Los Angeles.  By flying into Los Angeles a day early and staying at the Holiday Inn Express overnight, we were able to travel much cheaper than if we had needed to fly into Los Angeles on Sunday.  Again, these are the perks of being retired.  Flexibility in travel will save you a lot of money and may even add a fun extra day of vacation to your trip.

A picture out the airplane window as we flew over.  Winter is definitely making an appearance in the Colorado mountains

The top of the picture is the Flagstaff, AZ Mountain bottom is the start of the Grand Canyon

Bad picture, but we flew over Lake Havasu City.  You can see the river, lake and island.

We left Denver at 2:25 p.m. and landed in Los Angeles at about 3:30 (one-hour time change), in time for a nice evening.  We caught the hotel shuttle at LAX, and were at the hotel in no time.  Since we have been part of the hotel perks program for some time, we are always offered the best available room at our time of check-in.  This time we were give a top floor suit.  It definitely met our expectations and will make our stay very comfortable.  

Add caption

We were also offered a late checkout, which we really appreciated since our flight doesn't leave until 10:30 tomorrow night.  

After getting settled into our room, we decided to take a walk and check out the sights around our hotel.  The weather was beautiful, so we really enjoyed our stroll and were able to find a few places that looked good to eat.  

We came back to the room and got cleaned up a bit and then went back out to a Persian restaurant we found during our stroll.  It was interesting in that it was two restaurants in one.  The first was called Jino's and served Italian, the second was Pars and served Persian food.  They handed us both menus as we walked in, so we could choose which type of food we wanted.  We both chose Persian Kabobs.  They brought them family style, which was nice. We really enjoyed it, but would have preferred a few more vegetables.  

Soup and Salad for starters

Beef and Lamb kabobs with grilled vegetables and rice

 And the view from our room was beautiful, making for a great end to a great day!

Beautiful view from our room, back toward the airport

Preparing for Thailand (Thursday, October 29th, 2015)

Steve and I have been dreaming about going to Thailand for most of our married life.  There is so much about the Thai culture that we really like and want to experience first hand.  We typically travel on our own, and not with tour groups, but we are trying to find the best, easiest way to see as much of Thailand as possible.  

Steve did a lot of research, and came up with an option that we both like; Gate1 Travel (www.gate1travel.com).  Gate 1 offers tours all over the world, and appears to offer a lot for the money.  They have a package that they call "13 Day Classic Thailand" which sounded appealing to both of us.  So after much discussion, and calendar reviews, we booked our first trip to Thailand through Gate1.  But of course, that is just the first small step toward a wonderful travel experience.

We have traveled quite a bit in the past, but most of it has been destination-vacations where we go to a resort and stay for awhile, or on a cruise ship, where we see a lot of places, but basically, we move into our room on the cruise ship, and stay there until the cruise is over. We have not done a lot of traveling where we move ourselves around every few days, which is a lot different, because you never really have a chance to settle into a room, or a city for that matter.

Our trip to Massachusetts and Maine in August was our first trip in a long time where we have moved around almost every day, over a course of about two weeks. And with this trip, we learned a lot. Mostly about packing, or should I say, we learned how not to pack.
We each had one large suitcase, in which we packed all of our worldly belongings (for two weeks at least). And what we learned about ourselves is that we tended to wear the same things over and over because they were on top and easy to find, and if we went searching for something else, we would disturb the entire suitcase, and our entire wardrobe would be wrinkled, unless we took the time to refold everything. And, since we were trying to see and do as much as possible, this just wasn’t going to happen. So…..this trip taught us that we need to figure out a new way to pack.

LUGGAGE
So, as part of our preparations for Thailand, we did our research (or should I say; Steve did his research, since he is the researcher in our family). Many of the reviews say that packing cubes are the way to go. Each different type of clothing and accessories are packed separately, and therefore aren’t disturbed when you are looking for something else.  And there is a folding cube for shirts, that allows you to fold and stack them in their own cube, where they can be easily accessed without disturbing anything else.

We are still struggling with the “little stuff”, like sunscreen, hygiene products, medicines, etc. We found two small bags that seem like they will work well. One is for medicines/first aid related and the other for bathroom products. They are both leak proof, which is a bonus. We’ll let you know how they work once we find out.

COMMUNICATION
We have traveled internationally before, but most of it was with our children, which removes the worry of leaving the country, and our children behind. We took a trip in 2013, where we hosted a trip as a couple. We were gone for 18 days, and our girls stayed behind and went to school. They are very responsible girls, so we really weren’t concerned. Their grandparents and other relatives are very close by, in case they needed any help, but we really hadn’t anticipated any issues.

Unfortunately, while we were gone, our youngest daughter’s car was hit in the parking lot where she worked (and the insurance company wouldn’t talk to her because she was a few months short of 18), and during the same trip, she contracted mono. Normally, neither of these would be huge issues, but we were on a cruise ship in Europe, so when we were on land during the day, it was night at home, and we couldn’t talk to the insurance company or doctors, and when it was daytime for the girls, we were at sea in the middle of the night. This was certainly not optimal for taking care of business. Luckily, our girls had plenty of wonderful people who helped them work through both of the situations, but it left us feeling like bad parents, and certainly made us want to make sure that nothing like that happens again.

So with that being said, even though our girls are older now, and definitely able to fend for themselves, we do not want to ever leave them high and dry as we pursue our travels. So again, Steve has been doing a lot of research on cell phones and communicating via other devices.

Although we think we know where we are going with cellphones we are not going to make any changes for this trip as we are worried everything will be in place in time….so we will just go without cellphone. We plan to use Facetime (Apple product) voice and/or video and texting via wifi. If necessary we will just pay the exorbitant cellphone rates our carrier charges.

MONEY
Money is always an issue when traveling internationally. The biggest issue being….how much to take in foreign currency, and when we get there, will we be able to get more if we need it. You never want to set yourself up for theft by carrying too much money with you, but you also don’t want to run out, and you certainly don’t want to incur huge ATM fees when you do try to get money. So this week, we made some banking changes to help with this. 

When possible we like to arrive at a country with some local currency. Exchanging money in the airport is not something that we are at all interested in, especially after just getting off a long flight.

We opened a checking account at Charles Schwab, which offers free ATM use anywhere in the world. They will refund all ATM fees, no matter where they are incurred. From all of our research, ATM withdrawals are paid in the currency of the country you are in, and we believe that they are paid at the current exchange rate, with no exchange fees. We did withdrawals this way in 2011 in Barcelona and received Euro’s at the current exchange rate. We will be testing this again on our trip to Thailand.

The other thing that might be a good idea is to have an account at a bank that is an international clearing-house. They do a lot of international banking transactions, and are a bank where you can get currency before leaving for a country. A word of caution, foreign currency has to be ordered in advance. Typically, you can’t just walk into a bank and ask for yen, pesos or baht. They typically have to be ordered three to five working days in advance of when you will be picking them up. There is also usually a fee associated with getting a foreign currency at the bank. We paid about 5% to get the small amount of currency we will be taking with us, which is a lot in terms of a percentage but we don’t take much cash so not a big deal. Again we just like having a little cash when we hit the ground as it has come in very handy on other trips.

If you open new bank accounts for the purpose of international travel, it’s also a good idea to test out your debit and credit cards on small transactions before you leave home. That way if there is any problem it can be fixed while you are still at home.

PACKING
Because part of our trip to Thailand is through a tour group, there is a limit on the luggage that can be taken. Each traveler is allowed one suitcase and one small carry-on (back-pack/purse). On international flights, the weight limit of all checked luggage is 50 pounds, so we are using suitcases that when completely full should weigh in below 50 pounds. This will make it easy to monitor our weight without having to have a scale before our return flight. But another thing to keep in mind is that flights internal to Thailand have a weight limit of 44 pounds total (not per bag).  At the end of our tour, we will be flying from Chiang Mai back to Bangkok before our return to the U.S. Therefore, we have to ensure that our bags remain less than 44 pounds until we arrive back in Bangkok. As we are leaving home, we have one bag that is 35 pounds and one that is 38 pounds, so if we find some things we want in Thailand we will be OK.

BLENDING IN
It is always a good idea to try and blend in when you are in a foreign country. I always laugh at this statement a little bit since I am 5’8” with blonde hair and blue eyes. There are a lot of countries where no matter how hard I try I will just not blend in. But that being said, I do try to choose clothes that don’t stand out too much, and make sure to respect the customs of the country we are visiting, like covering knees and shoulders before entering places of worship, etc. I also have what I call “travel jewelry”. I leave my jewelry at home and wear a plain gold band as my wedding ring. Not that my real jewelry is that expensive, but it certainly makes me less of a target by not having much.

BE PROACTIVE
We are generally very proactive people, and it always seems to pay off for us. When we got our itinerary from Gate-1 Travel, it said that if possible they would reserve the best seats available for us at the time our tour was booked, so we believed them, and continued on with all of our other travel prep.

When we got our final itinerary about 2 weeks before our departure date, we noticed that we didn’t have any seat assignments. So Steve called Gate-1 to see what was up. Unfortunately for us, we should have done this long ago because we are now sitting at the very back of the plane, in the middle of a four-seat section and we aren’t even sitting together for a 15-hour flight. This didn’t make us happy, but we can only blame ourselves. We should have checked into it when we got our initial itinerary instead of believing that they would take care of it for us. Now we know for next time.

And last but not least, before we leave for any type of international travel, we take copies of our passports, our itinerary and all of our foreign contact numbers and send them to our parents and our girls. That way if there is an emergency, they will know exactly where we are and how to get ahold of us even if our cell phone or Ipod isn’t working. We also carry a copy of our passport with us. It makes getting a replacement a whole lot easier if ours is lost or stolen during the trip.

Beautiful Colorado (Sunday, October 25th, 2015)

It's harder than we realized to stay in touch with everyone when we are away, but we've had fun catching up since we've been back.  My first big event (which I've missed out on last month) was coming home to bunco.  It was hosted at a good friends house, and was a Halloween theme.  We had a wonderful dinner, played a couple games of bunco, and of course everyone dressed for the occasion!  I was the underachiever since I had just returned to town, but luckily no one judged me too harshly.  Our group has been doing monthly bunco for eight years now.

Our whole group

Catherine Hepburn, Sonny and Cher and Edward Scissor Hands!!!

Bat Woman, The Devil and Edward again

Our youngest daughter's boy friend plays hockey and last night he had a game in the Denver area, so we (along with our oldest daughter) headed down there to watch his game against another local university. We got to see his parents and many of his grandparents as well while we were there.  It was a very close game, and really fun to watch, and his team ended up winning by one point.

This morning we headed up to Steve's parents cabin in mountains. They are going to close down the cabin for the winter, and we really wanted to help them.  The trip up was really fun.  Since it was a really nice morning, everyone was out enjoying the warmth.

A para-sail up for a morning ride

And a hot air balloon right by the highway

The first signs of winter are appearing in the mountains, but it's still warm in the city.

A grazing deer by the side of the road

The biggest job at the cabin was getting the water shut off and drained.  It's not hard, but just takes some time.  We took the time to write down the instructions, so that if anyone else ever needs to do it nothing will be forgotten.  We also flipped over the outdoor furniture, vacuumed and mopped, closed all the curtains, moved some furniture, and raked up pine needles.

What a great wheel barrow.  A little hard to push though!

Cleaning up pine needles

After all of the work was done, Steve's parents took us for a nice lunch at a little restaurant called the Sportsman.  It's only open four days a week for four-hours per day this time of year, but most of the tables were full, which was really nice to see.  It's hard for businesses in this part of the mountains to succeed through the winter months.  There just aren't many people up here.

Lunch Time!

And then on our way home, we stopped to see our youngest daughter.  We were pretty dirty and sweaty, so we didn't really want to do too much, so we just went over to the local park and hung out for awhile.  The trees were all very beautiful.

Typical kid, she got up easily, but couldn't figure out how to get back down

New York?

We're finding that our time in Colorado is always very busy.  Either I'm catching up on work, or we're catching up with friends, and family or we're once again tackling the never-ending yard work. No matter how much time we plan at home, we feel like we're hurrying through it.  But maybe that's just the nature of this retirement beast!

Girl Time and Band Competition (Saturday, October 17th, 2015)

We flew home this week so that we could spend our weekend with the girls for the CSU Parent and Family weekend.   Things have changed a lot since the last time we were home.  We are really starting to see some beautiful fall colors as the leaves are changing in Colorado.  This is a time of year that we truly love here, but it also reminds us of what is coming next.  Snow.... and this year, being an El Nino year, they are predicting a lot.

It doesn't get much prettier than this.  Beautiful summer roses, and fall sumac all at once

As we started trying to put the details for CSU Parents Weekend together, it was just not working well. We talked to our youngest daughter (who goes to CSU) and she just didn’t really seem like she was into parents weekend after all. She said that she enjoys it more when the campus is quieter, and we can just enjoy time as a family, so to make a long story short, instead of us going up to Fort Collins, she ended up coming home.

It is such a blessing to be able to talk through things, change our minds at the last minute, change our plans, and do something completely different than we had originally envisioned.  We love the willingness of our children to do this, and our ability to do this because of Steve being retired.

As Steve and I started talking to friends in town, we found out that there was a marching band competition this weekend for our girl’s former high school marching band. Our girls were both drum-majors at their high school, and we all have a great connection with all of the staff and many of the parents, so we all really enjoy going back to see everyone.  When we told the girls about the competition, they both got excited, and we all decided that it would be really fun to go and watch this year’s show. 

For those that aren't familiar with the marching band world, the bands start putting their shows together during the early summer, and then compete throughout the fall in an attempt to make it to the state finals in October.  So they are currently near the end of their season and their show should be polished and should be looking very good.

We all left the house at about 9:30 this morning and headed to Henderson, Colorado for the Prairie View Friendship Cup Marching Band Competition. The band was not there yet when we first arrived, so we just took our time and looked around. Shortly after that, the band trailers pulled in, and then the buses with the kids. None of the kids know our oldest daughter anymore, since she graduated 5+ years ago, but some of the kids still remember our youngest daughter, and both of our girls know all of the staff very well. 

We were all greeted with a very warm welcome by the staff and parents. We had a great time catching up with so many of them, and just reminiscing about our band years. They are all such welcoming people, and make us feel so at home, even though it has been several years since either of our kids went to that school. 

We enjoyed unloading the trailers and getting the equipment ready for the kids, and once the band started warming up, our girls both jumped right in, as if they had never left. They immediately started working on uniforms and polishing shoes, and just having a great time with the kids. They love both of the band directors and other staff and help them out in any way possible.

When the band headed toward the stadium to perform, our girls were right there with them, and went out into the stadium with the band (with lint rollers still in hand). We sat in the stands and watched their incredible show about the composer Aaron Copeland.  

A close up view of their prop, the composer in his house working on his latest composition.  Notice the details of the coat rack, desk and player piano.

The entire band, drum major on the podium, pit in front, band and color guard in the distance

Toward the end of the show, notice new banners coming from the composer's house, signifying his completed composition.

We sat with all of the other parents from our high school and cheered on the kids.  They did such a great job.  It makes us all so proud to see how this program continues to get better every year!

After the competition was over, the four of us went back to the car and ate a picnic lunch we had packed.  Our youngest daughter's boyfriend plays hockey for CSU, so we listened to his hockey game (in Michigan) which was being broadcast on the internet.  It was so relaxing and cool in the shade of the trees. After spending much of the fall in the Arizona heat it was nice to have the cooler temperatures. We then said goodbye to everyone, and headed out as they headed into their final performance of the day. It was such a nice day!

We went home for a few hours to relax, and then went to Bonefish Grill for dinner. It is a family favorite, since they have fairly healthy, great tasting options and great service to match. 

It is always so nice to get together with our girls. It was so much better than fighting the crowds at parents weekend, and just having a special day with the four of us. We also got to talk to our oldest daughter’s husband several times throughout the day, which made everything perfect!

Jet Ski Freestyle World Championships (Friday, October 9th, 2015)

We headed back to the World Jet Ski Finals today because we wanted to see some of the jumping and freestyle classes of riders. It was really hot today, but still definitely worth our time!  The freestyle classes are scored on many different criteria, including complexity of the routine, uniqueness of the stunts, number of consequtive stunts and overall entertainment value.  

This is during warm-ups, that's why you see two competitors at once

A back flip

A one-legged back flip, so cool!

Barrel role!

Another one legged back flip, quite different than the other competitor

You can see this guy spotting his landing

Steve and I were both very impressed with the freestyle riders.  We can't figure out how you try some of these stunts for the first time!!