Scenic Route

Yep, this was our 3rd visit to the island Koh Samui in Thailand.  Every so often we aim for a Mouth-Breathing-On-the-Beach experience somewhere close to Mongolia.  Somehow we always seem to forget that Mongolia is close to nothing.  Well, OK, Beijing and Seoul.  No beaches there. So, off we go.  Two overnight layovers and 3 planes later, we get to the beach.  It's the return trip with a midnight flight in the mix that makes us question our choice. But.  If getting rid of Randy's cough, my red eyes and turning into chubby, tanned and totally relaxed blobs was the goal; we scored big time! Not ours!  The question begs answering... Valentines Day--our 1st date 34 years ago! Randy made reservations for a sea side table at an  amazing  restaurant, the Page (can we talk about lemongrass sorbet?! Yum!) .  Which was attached to an equally amazing resort, The Library.  Check out the...

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! ...

I spent last week in Singapore--not exactly a fun trip as Randy had to check up on a coworker/friend who is hospitalized there in fairly critical condition.  I tagged along for moral support to both Randy and the friend's wife.  Before I continue, said friend is in stable condition but with a lot of surgeries/rehab in his future.  If one is in a bad way, a Singapore hospital is definitely where you want to be as they are some of the worlds absolute  best. Coming from smokey, crazy-cold UB to Singapore is a real shock to the system.  Singapore is like California on steroids.  Every square inch is landscaped, no matter the neighborhood.  It's illegal to even chew gum. On our treks to and from the hospital, something fundamentally Singaporean hit me:  the SHOPPING.  Oh my.  Block after block of the same repeat of lux shops.  It becomes monotonous!  Even though this was my 3rd trip to S'pore, I had sort of avoided al...