Dad and Debby in Thailand!!

I had been waiting for this day since they booked their tickets! I was so excited to finally show someone my life in Thailand instead of trying to explain it over the phone. I couldn't sleep the night before and was at the airport earlier than I needed to be, but I did not want to miss that moment when they came walking from the luggage claim. My eyes were starting to hurt from not moving from the crowds of people coming towards me looking for a familiar face. Once I saw them it still didn't feel real. It had felt like no time had passed but at the same time like I hadn't seen them in forever. Obviously the tears started to pool in my eyes, because I'm Melissa and I cry a lot :) That was such a special moment I will cherish forever seeing them arriving in the country I currently call home. We took the airport rail link and then the BTS to their hotel. We caught up and shared stories during the ride. I taught them the basic hello and thank you phrases in Thai. It was so surreal to have them here! I had never been to the On Nut stop before so was not sure of the area. Once we arrived I used GPS to help us find their hotel. After a nice long hot walk we finally arrived! Later we found a shorter way to get to the hotel from the BTS, but we got there and that's all that mattered! We celebrated with pony tails and beers because it was deathly hot. Probably one of the hotter weeks I had experienced was the one while they were here. They got settled and we chatted some more, then took a trip to the Big C. This is slightly the same as a Walmart, but this one was one of the biggest I had ever seen! We walked around and finally found some food. We had some fun looking down the aisles at the different foods and products. Dad and Debby were a little turned off by some of the displays, like the raw chicken just sitting out for people to bag up themselves. Yes it was pretty gross but I'm used to it now and it almost seems normal. We got some snacks and drinks (but not beer because it was between the hours of 2-5 and you can't buy booze then) to bring back to the hotel. Dad and Debby then took a nap because it is a super exhausting flight and I chilled and watched some TV and dozed off a bit myself. Then I took them to one of my favourite spots for dinner. We went to W District, which is pretty much a beer garden. We had some beers and ordered some food to share. We got Pad Thai, Quesadillas, and Sushi. After we headed back to the hotel and discussed what we would be doing for the next couple of days in BKK. We called it an earlier night, which I'm never opposed to, because I love my sleep! Day 2 in Bangkok started off with breakfast at the hotel, it was a standard breakfast for a hotel (eggs, toast, fruit, and coffee). Then we went to my apartment to show them the new place I have been calling home. It seemed so much smaller with three people in it, but it works :) Then we did my daily walk to the school. Dad and Debby got to meet some of the kiddies I teach and Debby fell in love with the nursery kids just as I knew she would. We played a little and I showed them around! Debby had brought stickers for the kids and key chains for the teachers and Dad made some maple fudge for them to try. As we were walking back to my apartment we realized we forgot to hand everything out!!! (I brought the key chains and fudge to them the following week when I can back to work and they were so happy and loved it!). The Grand Palace was next on our list! I had been before but knew the beauty of the buildings was something D&D (Dad and Debby) needed to see! We took the water taxi over to the Palace. It's always nice to be near the water because it's something I don't see a lot in the city. The Grand Palace was packed as it usually is, and boy was it hot!!! After doing some walking around and taking pictures and sweating I checked the temperature and it was around 40 degrees with 80% humidity. This was one of the hottest days I had felt in Thailand, so poor D&D having to endure this their second day in! Because we were in the area we then went to a place called Asiatique. I had never been myself but the coordinator at my school suggested we go. It was a huge outdoor shopping centre with restaurants, theatres and everything you could possibly thing of. We had some dinner and beers to quench our thirst. D&D also experienced their first ever mango sticky rice, which is always a heavenly experience for me. Because it was a day of firsts I also thought they needed to have a legendary tuktuk ride!!! Our driver was fun and had his music on and lights on in the back! It was a fun and breezy ride to Lebua Sky Bar! We took the trip up the 64th floor to get one of the best possible views of downtown Bangkok. We paid ridiculous prices for our drinks but the view speaks for itself. A very busy day filled with sweat drenched clothes but lots of family fun. Our next adventure in Bangkok was a cooking class! We took the morning easy and lounged in the room before we headed to the BTS to Silom Cooking School! We were told to meet at the corner of a street to meet the group before we walked over to the market to learn about the ingredients we would be cooking with today. We all got baskets filled with ingredients to then bring back to the cooking school. Our group consisted of 9 people and our teacher for the day. We prepared, cooked and ate all of our dishes which included pad thai, spring rolls, papaya salad, massaman curry and mango sticky rice. We would prepare and chop downstairs on the main level and then our hotplates were upstairs to cook. Most of the dishes were a lot easier to prepare and cook than I thought! I can't wait to take my new cooking skills back home and make these dishes for the fam. After the cooking class we took our full bellies back to Asiatique for the Ladyboy Cabernet Show!! This show was a hoot!! They did not look like boys at all!!! The hair, makeup, boob jobs and tuck jobs were all on point!! They danced beautifully and knew how to put on a show! Day 4 was St. Patrick's Day!!! I was really excited to celebrate with D&D because I haven't had any family during the holidays so this was special to be able to celebrate with them. The day started with packing our bags because the next day we were leaving Bangkok, so we took the larger suitcases to my apartment to stay there until D&D left. We did some laundry and hung out and then got noodles from my noodle guy at the end of my street! Mary came over as well to drop off her suitcase before she started her travels around Thailand for her last month here. I'm happy they got to meet Mary because she is very important to me and was a main reason why Thailand has been so great! They loved her of course! Since it was St. Patrick's Day we decided to go to an Irish Pub called the Dubliner! Debby wasn't feeling the greatest so she stayed back at the apartment, so Dad and I went to get our party on! We got food and drinks and had a great time! The band that was playing all night was amazing and played Irish songs that were making the crowds dance! The pub became filled with people dressed up in green and it felt like home. Mary and a girl from her hostel joined us and the rest of the night is history! We had a lot of fun and I am glad I got to share that with my Dad :) The next day we were off too Krabi!! I was so excited to finally head down south and check out the beautiful islands of Thailand! We headed to the airport for our 10 am flight. When we got there they told us our flight back would be earlier, whatever we would deal with that later. The flight was quick and smooth and then into a taxi we went to get to our resort. The taxi cabs in Krabi don't use meters so it was a lot more expensive than I was used too and couldn't help but feel ripped off, but I would have to get used to that because that's how it is when you get to more tourist areas. The resort was beautiful!!! It was a hot day so we headed down to the beach, the sand was so hot you had to run to the water! It was a little rocky but the water felt good. We were hungry so we grabbed lunch on the beach from a little hut serving finger foods. Then massages!!! My favourite part of Thailand. All three of us got coconut oil massages and it was fantastic, well mine was, Debby's girl was a little to rough with her. We went back to the room and got ready for a night on the town. We got a ride from our resort to Ao Nang. The streets were filled with more people than our resort and it started to feel more familiar to me. We got dinner and did some shopping for souvenirs for D&D to bring home. We asked the driver to stop at the 7Eleven on the way back so we could grab some beers and snacks. It was a bit of an early night, but the heat sure does take a lot out of you!!! The second day in Krabi was nice and relaxing. I did a walk on my own down the beach and walked across the water (it only came knee deep) to a small little island. I was the only one on it and it felt like my own private island! It started to get hot so I headed back to put on some more sunscreen. We laid by the pool for majority of the day. It was too hot to do anything else!!!! The pool water wasn't even refreshing because the tile of the pool was black so it made the water nice and warm. I sat under the umbrella all day reading my book.... and somehow still got burnt to a crisp!!! My dad did the same and also got burnt!!! So we headed back to the room to shower before dinner and apply lotion to our red lobster skin. We went for dinner off the resort and walked down the street until we found a place that looked good to us. It was as always :) I am really never disappointed by thai food, I love it!! Our third and last day in Krabi Dad and I went on a island boat tour! Debby didn't want to come so she stayed and lounged by the pool. It started bright and early in the morning but was so worth it!! We were on a boat filled with Thai people, all the other tourists were put on a different boat, so Dad really got to experience how I feel on a daily basis! The tour guides were awesome though and explained everything to us in english and made the day a lot of fun! We stopped at a couple different islands and had time to swim and explore and we stopped by an island to do some snorkelling. I saw so many colourful fish and many I have never even seen or heard of before! It was amazing and made me excited to so scuba diving with Dad later on! We stopped on Poda island for lunch and this was my favourite stop! The island was the perfect white sand and the water looked crystal clear! Fish were swimming all around us as we floated in the water and talked. It was such a nice day, except we were burnt from the day before so we stayed covered up for most of the day to prevent more burning!!! We got back in the afternoon and laid by the pool for a bit before heading back to the room to get ready for dinner. We decided to go back into town and check out the restaurant on the top of the hill! It was called Hilltop... hah go figure :) It was a beautiful view and we got to watch the sunset. The food was amazing and it was a great way to end our time in Krabi. The next morning we were off to catch a ferry to Phi Phi Island! ( Part 2 still to come..splitting this into 2 posts).