While living overseas we had hoped to do some traveling since any trip we took would be a vacation of a lifetime. It was intimidating to think about traveling (7 hours of flight time each way) with toddlers but we couldn’t pass on this opportunity. We took forever figuring out where to go because the possibilities were endless; finally deciding on Bangkok, Thailand!
The warm weather and love of Thai food finally won us over. We found a kid friendly resort and started our research on things to do as a family; we found plenty to do! I would have been happy to leave the cold weather of mainland Japan to sit poolside with a cold mojito by my side but thankfully the hubby had bigger plans for us.
On our first outing we rode on a tuk tuk – if you are not familiar, which I was not, it is a converted motorcycle that has two rear wheels and the passengers have an open air ride on the back carriage. I was grateful that I was wearing my one year old in a carrier and my three year old had her listening ears on because this “seat belt loving” mama was nervous, but I have to say it was FUN! Racing through the back streets and tearing through busy intersections, I quickly was aware we were far from home. We made it to our destination after a few minutes and doing the math, I realized that this experience cost us less than $2/US.
We visited Siam Ocean World that was located in a touristy part of the city, inside a mall. The aquarium was a great experience but I have to say that my favorite part was the 5D movie. While we watched the 3D movie “Little Prince” our seats rocked and shook. Just as the movie was coming to an end the scent of roses hit us as the 5th dimension. Both of our daughters were thoroughly entertained!
The movie was in English and it really made me feel so fortunate. It is especially helpful while traveling, I have yet to be uncomfortable communicating because so many people during our travels speak at least some basic English. We have also learned how to be creative, use body language and when all else fails, be polite, smile, nod, say thank you and ask someone else.
The following day we woke up bright and early to meet with our tour guide for a Safari experience. The first part of the experience was driving through the zoo. It was insane to think that we were in a Camry driving right up next to lions and tigers and bear…oh my! Seriously, there were animals everywhere, along with signs that stating to stay in your car – if your car breaks down, you’re supposed to honk the horn for help but stay in your car! I don’t know if I would really need a sign to tell me to stay in my car while there are tigers and rhinos wandering the grounds.
The other part of “Safari World” was the attractions/shows.We caught most of the shows but with the heat and the little girls, we left a couple shows early and skipped others. We were sure to catch the elephant show and afterwards the hubby and our 3 year old rode on an elephant. Prior to lunch we stopped for a picture with a 6 month old tiger….Brad held the ~150 lbs tiger while I made sure that I held on tight to our two girls. We also had the opportunity to feed some bananas and sweet potatoes to some snacking giraffes. All in all it was a super exciting and thrilling day!
On our last full day of our vacation we decided to hit up the local open air markets for haggling and treasures. Well, we had intended to but after giving it some thought we had a better plan to visit MBK center. The mall has a supermarket, a couple pharmacies, beauty salons, lots of regular retail stores, eateries and best of all a souvenir/market booths where you can haggle to your hearts content! We decided that this was our best option because we could be in air conditioning while finding bargain souvenirs. MBK is truly a mecca of authentic name brand items as well as finding some very good knock-offs – although, I don’t know if I would pay “real” brand name prices for anything knowing that it could very possibly be a fantastic looking knock-off!
Sadly our vacation came to an end but we were happy to be going home. The girls did really well in the cab ride, on the flights, racing through the airports and finally the bus from Narita airport to Yokosuka. We truly had a trip of a lifetime and were able to experience most everything we wanted and more!
