McPherson Marathon: A week in Thailand with Kaitlin

I got the privilege of traveling to Thailand to hang out with Jon's little sister Kaitlin last week. She is going to be there for a little bit and her family wasn't going to join her for a few weeks. I saw this as a great opportunity to travel and be with someone I really enjoy being around and added bonus a week without any major responsibilities. With no kids the both of us took leisurely mornings drinking coffee having long devotionals and then heading out each day when we would be figuring out how to work in naptimes for kids normally. Kaitlin was such a fun travel buddy! We ate at tons of street vendors, rode in taxis - cabs - the train - tuk tuks - and a khlong (water taxi) and went shopping at some fun places.

highlights of the week:

Geocaching and King Rama IX park - we thought this was the park that was a pit stop on Amazing Race but after further research when we got home realized the real park was in Phuket not Bangkok.

Cooking Class Shilom - we met at a ticket counter of the train stop watching for a short enthusiastic Asian women. That was the description in our email confirmation, standing there laughing about how we probably wouldn't be getting to do this a short enthusiastic Asian came bounding up the stairs and we knew she was the one! As the class we went to the market with our chef then went to the cooking school and got to prepare our five course meal with ladies from Argentina, Korea and France. It was so fun and it tasted amazing!!

Royal Palace and the Khlong - To get to the royal palace we rode a khlong which is a water taxi. It was quiet an adventure and seeing the water everywhere it made sense to ride them. The royal palace was AMAZING!!! In America you see tons of white marble for "royal" places, in Japan it is all red and stone but in Thailand it was the most colorful display I had ever seen. There was so much gold everywhere along with tons of colored glass in all the displays. It was pretty amazing to walk around and take it all in. We were able to see a changing of the guard at the palace and well lets just say it wasn't quiet what I was expecting. I was thinking like the tomb of the unknown solider but it was more like a leisurely look at each other then randomly change places and mess with their uniforms.

Chinatown - we rode a tuk tuk threw the streets going to Chinatown after going to the flower market. It was tons of vendors selling lots of fun knick knacks and some amazing fruits

JJ Market - the largest market in the world covering over 30 acres. I walked around for hours, bought the girls some souvenirs, ate some pad thai and laughed at some of the stores with Kaitlin

Thai Massage - since Kaitlin was pregnant we had to have an hour foot massage at some point or maybe it was because this is on every web site and travel book of things you must do while there.

Most amazing part of the trip was being in a place that was melting pot. While we were in the trains I just kept thinking about how amazing heaven is going to be. People would open their mouths and almost any language could come out. It gets me so excited to see people from every tribe, nation and tongue get together to worship God!!!