Skip to main content

Sawadee (Again) !

We just returned from our 5th trip to Thailand for some r&r--in a warm climate.  It was our 3rd trip to the island of Samui but we scheduled in a full day in Bangkok on the way, so that was something new!

Bangkok is Huge.  Diverse.  Noisy.  Smelly--both good and bad.  The word teeming totally applies.



This post will be all about Bangkok.

We hit the public transit first thing as traffic is just too grinding to get anywhere in a timely manner.  We began and ended the day on the sky train with a canal taxi in the middle (who knew Bangkok has 3 big canals running through it?).  --and LOTS of walking.






Did I mention the walking?  See if you can find the common denominator in the following pics:





...like, Randy's back???  His daughters have lots and lots of memories of Randy Myer Walking Tours.  Where we only see the back of his head.  For hours.

But we did see some sights!

 A disclaimer here.  This is the Grand Palace where the King still lives.  We got close.  We got in through the front gate that funneled 1,000 people through a little tunnel, 2-3 abreast.  I even rented the required lovely blue polyester button-up shirt to cover up my immodest shoulders.  Alas.  It was VERY hot and VERY humid with crazy LONG lines.  Everywhere.  Don't let the above photo fool you--the place was packed out--that's just the line to get a ticket.  We decided to walk around a bit and then exit.  No regrets.  Not one.

 A bit of contrast


oh, and the markets!  The Indian Market was chock FULL of fabrics!






Next, a visit to Koh Samui !

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Bloggers' Quilt Festival!

I'm so tickled to be a part of this year's Bloggers' Quilt Festival !  My entry was done in Outer Mongolia (literally!  --read on).  This quilt is one of my favorite recent projects that I named "Renegade Geisha's" --renegade because two of the geisha's don't conform to the rest (mainly because I ran out of coordinating fabrics!).  Can you find the two renegades?  ;)  The quilt incorporates fabric origami and the quilt itself is from  Fantastic Fabric Folding  --many projects from this book were a big hit with the Mongolian class pictured below. Due to my husband's work, we live in Mongolia; and I was privileged to teach classes at a local quilting studio.  I've included a picture of the class where we were working on the geisha blocks.  The students spoke almost no English and I speak what I call Monglish--a lot of English sprinkled with Mongolian.  Regardless, we all had a blast!  ...and, I'm very pleased with this quilt of mine!

Much Needed New Winter Robe - Vogue 9232

Last spring I chucked my 20-year-old bathrobe, giving me no choice but to replace it come winter.  Granted, I never took it to Mongolia, so it only got worn when I was home in the US.  But still.  For summer I made several light weight robes, but I knew I liked the style of my old RTW one.   When I saw reviews for Vogue 9232--on PR (all 3 of them), I knew I'd found my pattern.  Interestingly enough, the pattern is actually for a caftan-type dress; but all 3 reviews were done up as a robe.       Sham's review   in particular had great tips.   On a trip to Colorado Fabrics  in early summer I spotted a beeeuuutiful pink sweatshirt type fabric.  The outside is more like a thick knit and inside is dreamy soft.  And it's baby pink!  Which is hard to tell in the pics as we in Colorado have had lots of rain and no sunshine. And OK, I'm no photographer.  But seriously, this is like stepping into a pink cloud.   I made a small through the neck, shoulders and sleeves

A Stitch Sisters Kimono for Dubai

My husband had meetings come up quick in Dubai and of course I tagged along!  We were going to be there a week and I wanted a lightweight kimono-type pullover for the pool and getting out of the shower.  I had snagged a gorgeous white linen/cotton (guessing on this) here in UB that was perfect.  My inspiration came from Lisa's over at  Lisa's Carolina | Handmade .  I'm not good at pattern drafting and this was a quick FREE measure and cut tutorial of Stitch Sisters--find their Patternless Pattern Link  here .   I'm so happy with this!  It basically took me an afternoon.  The directions are great--and they include 5/8" seam allowances--yay!--as I wanted to turn under and top stitch them since I don't have a serger here.  I left off the ties.  Shapeless worked for this.  I also raised the neckline by about 1.5" The neckline was a little trickier as I didn't have any bias on hand and there is no "running out" anywhere here.  So, I used