Clearly, I'm not a girly girl

After a buying a gorgeous outfit from a shop called Fashion Paris in what is becoming my favourite mall ever (the older, ugly sibling of Siam Paragon of which I don't even know the name), I headed out on a quest to find the perfect set of shoes to finish my look.

We were supposed to go to Tesco at On Nut to look for joggers for Josiah but I hijacked that shopping trip when I saw this night market from the sky train. I told him we'd only have a quick look. You could say I lied, but I would suggest that "quick" is subjective depending on whether you're the shopper or the unfortunate sod tagging behind.

I used my expert bargaining skills and got these shoes for a whole 29 baht less than the original price. That's almost ONE dollar folks. Clearly I should write a "how to" guide on bargaining because I that good.

The offending shoe - looks innocent enough right?
Keep reading.

The next morning I got up extra early so I had plenty of time to properly beautify myself. Sadly the "laws of diminishing returns" were in play and I only looked slightly better than usual even though I spent 3 times as long.

"Do I look any different?" I asked my husband.

"Um..." he looked very uncertain.

I raised my eyebrows and blinked furiously.

"Your eyes...look great...?" he offered.

"Thanks! Do you want to know what I did differently? I put eyeliner on and then I like, smudged it a bit. And then I smudge the other eye but then they looked uneven so I had to smudge my left eye again, but then I looked like I got into a bar fight with one of those lady-boys down the road so I had to take it all off and start again."

Josiah nodded. He was clearly overwhelmed by my intelligence.

Anyway, I got my new heels on, and off we went (Josiah walks down to the train station with me every morning). I noticed the back of my heel was rubbing just a little but I told myself I just had to make it to class, then I'd be able to take them off.

Well, I didn't even get 20 meters down the soi before the rubbing got so bad the pain shooting up my leg at every step made me stagger like a pirate with a stump and an empty bottle of rum.

I persevered another 500m or so, all the while completely convinced that I must be doing something wrong since left, right and center there were Thai women wearing heels as high as my eyeballs looking as graceful as ever. 

In the end I gave up. Being the drama queen I am and taking my cue from a facebook group I like, I waved Josiah forward, "Go on without me!" and slumped against the bonnet of a vacant taxi. With no reason to walk to the station if I wasn't going, Josiah looked at me like I'd lost my mind.

After removing the offending shoes and ditching Josiah in favour of a taxi bike back to the hotel, I vowed to never, ever feel the need to be lady like again.

I'll stick to flip flops and jeans from now on

Caption This!

I burst out laughing when I saw this sign for a high class spa last night.
I don't know what I find harder to understand - what the owners were thinking when they designed this or how the hell this picture is suppose to induce a desperate urge to get a massage by rich tourists?

Seriously, it looks like a torture scene from a WWII movie.

And why is the bottom guy covering his mouth? To muffle his screams of horror?

Thai creativity at its finest

Thai fashion

So very, um...
Sparkly.

Creative ways to save money while travelling

I don’t know why, but we've had the strangest sleeping patterns since arriving in Thailand. Last night for example, we were both really tired at about 5pm and decided we'd have “a short nap” before heading out to the markets to grab some dinner. Fast forward 10 hours and I wake up to complete blackness – it was 2.59am!

Oh man, I missed dinner :(

I couldn't get back to sleep because I was so nervous about going to my very first Thai language class this morning.
"Are you sleeping?" I asked J.
No reply. He obviously didn't hear me.
"I saaiid, are you sleeping?!".
I gave him a nudge. Gosh I can be so annoying.

We (I) decided to get up. As I got ready, I noticed that I have quite the collection of hotel toiletries and that's when I got the idea for this post:

My creative (& possibly slightly dishonest) tips to save money while travelling.

NB: If you’re looking for intelligent tips, you’re going to be sorely disappointed. I’m not going to rehash the usual ones like ‘travel in the low season’ (you can bet there’s a good reason no one else is going, folks) or ‘get off the beaten road’ (that’s where tourists get kidnapped, and western toilets become squat ones).

Let's get into it:

1. If you stay in any nice hotels – collect all the toiletries every time they make up the room. I haven’t had to buy a single bottle of shampoo yet!

And that's only HALF my stash.
I've also kept stuff I don't even use (shower caps, loafers, shaving gel...) in case I ever change my mind

2. Don’t dress expensive-looking, especially in countries where bargaining is the norm. They’ll think you’re loaded and it will be almost impossible to get a fair price on anything.

3. A certain coffee chain in the US had membership cards where you got a free cup of coffee each time you activated one of their cards. As a bonus, if your birthday was coming up they'd give you a free pastry!

I got a card for each of my multiple personalities, and what do you know - they all had birthdays in February!

4. Free breakfasts = jackpot! Go early, stuff yourself until you think you're going to die, then stuff yourself some more! You'll be so full you won't need to buy any more food. Worked for us when we were staying in Goa. We’d only eat breakfast and that was it. Warning - you may not be able to move for a few hours after eating.

5. Here's a serious one! Learn the numbers in the language of the place you’re going so that you can hear if the seller is giving you the same price they’re giving locals.

So that's it folks. Useless info as always. That's my speciality.

Bangkok - the place to be (for a little while, at least)

My favourite thing about Thailand is (of course) the food. In fact, I'm in the process of eating my way through as many different types of the most mouth watering Thai street food in the name of "research" for a future post on it. Don't be jealous.
Ok, go ahead.
Anyway, my second favourite thing is how cheap everything is! For less than what we were paying for one week's rent in Brisbane, we have this serviced studio for a whole month. How ridiculous is that! I mean it's nothing fancy but it has a balcony, A/C, cable TV, own bathroom (which horrifyingly, has a hose where the toilet paper should be located. Man, I thought I'd left that "who needs toilet paper, just use your fingers" mentality back in India!), kitchenette & wi-fi all included. It doesn't have a stove though so we'll just have to contend with eating out. (Cue happy grin from Josiah).

Here's a shot of our room. Would you believe I actually tidied up a little before taking it?
To be fair, by "tidied" I mean I shoved as much into the cupboard as I could and dragged the suitcases to the corners of the room.
Mum taught me well.

Ta-Da!!

My Bridesmaid Dress

We've had a lot of new experiences during our first year of marriage but being asked to be a bridesmaid and a groomsman for hubby's sister's upcoming wedding was one of the most exciting! The best part is the dress code - any floor length blue gown for me & a black suit for him - which means more flexibility for us since we'll be overseas until 2 weeks before the big day! Plus blue is totally my colour so I was delighted.

Before leaving New York, I dragged Josiah along to some formal dress stores. They were HUGE! Even their smallest stores were bigger than any bridal shop I went to in Brisbane. There were thousands and thousands of the most gorgeous dresses, grouped by colour. It was like walking through the most luscious rainbow. Dresses to me are like shoes to other women - an expensive compulsion.

Anyway, here's the dress we chose!

Sorry about the background

I've collected so much stuff, my suitcase practically EXPLODES open at the slightest touch

We're in Thailand!

In the 10 days since my last post, we've moved to Thailand! During our month in the US we went to 16 states and even popped over into Canada for a bit. We really enjoyed ourselves and we will be definitely be back! 


Here’s a brief summary of my thoughts on America.

If you drink coffee, you gotta read this: 
 http://theoatmeal.com/comics/caffeine 

What I loved:

1. Cheap-as coffee. Like $1 for a gigantic, gives-you-the-shakes, makes-you-desperate-to-pee, diarrhoea-inducing, size. 

2. The scenery. 90% of America was more beautiful than the most beautiful 10% of India. It's a fact!! Ok, more like just my opinion. But seriously, after being in India for so long, I didn't realise how much I'd miss seeing trees and grass and roads that weren’t covered with the garbage of a billion people who just can’t be arsed putting their rubbish in the bin. 

3. The food! Americans know how to put on a good buffet. After reading this hilarious article a while back (http://www.punny.org/money/eat-your-moneys-worth-at-any-all-you-can-eat-buffet/) Josiah and I put those tips to good use at the Golden Corral. I can confirm that we indeed got our money's worth! We were in absolute, stomach-splitting, agony when we got home.  Job well done I'd say. 

4. The weather. I had always hated the cold – chilblains on fingers, wind burn on your cheeks, your face turning into one giant, dried flake of skin  – no thank you! But after this trip I am a converted snow bunny! I adore winter fashion. I love everything from the stylish boots to the big coats that mean you can let your gut hang over your jeans. No sucking in needed. Oh yeah.

5. The people. Americans are so much friendlier than I’d expected! Although it would have been hard to disappoint me - I went over totally convinced that they were all arrogant, obnoxious, gun wielding fatties. So delighted I was wrong!

Now for the stuff I wasn’t so keen on:

1. The waitresses. Oh my goodness. When I’m at a restaurant eating my food, I don’t want someone hovering around, please. It spoils a romantic mood faster than a fart.

2. You never know how much anything will actually cost because they don’t include the long list of fees and taxes in their advertised price. What you think is a $3 burger ends up twice as much once you eat it and are presented with the bill. 


3. Hearing “how you doin?” by males of various ages and stages of inebriation. 
Seriously, guys? Come on. Even Matt LeBlanc had trouble pulling that one off.

4. I didn't spot any flying deer crossing the highway. Why advertise them if you don't really have them?

False advertising by the US government.

5. The dairy situation in the US. Why on earth do they dye their cheese orange?! I'm serious, food colouring was one of the ingredients on all of the packets of cheddar we bought. What's wrong with natural, cream coloured cheese? Why must it be fluoro orange? And don’t get me started on the yoghurt. Unless we went specifically to a wholefood type store, we could only get low fat or 0% yoghurt. And 0% yoghurt is truly an abomination to mankind.


I've started my post on DisneyWorld so hopefully I'll get it finished soon. I'll leave you with a few pictures of our USA adventure.

Josiah and I would fight over who got to brush the snow off the car

Fireworks at DisneyWorld's Epcot Park

If I get married again, I'll be wearing this FOR SURE

An upside down building, on purpose.
Those crazy Americans

Central Park.

  

I lost a few fingers to frost bite to get this shot.

It's snowing!!

A "Southern Style" buffet.
They bring all the food to you, and then roll you out to your car.
No walking required.

We met this lovely couple on the plane and even after getting to know us,
they still invited us to stay with them

cape cod - one of my favourite places in the world
I love how the snow is clinging to the grass (middle of the pic)

Tree branches covered in thick white ice.
It was stunning! More so than Niagara falls even (very blasphemous of me, I know)

 

a winter wonderland!

Niagara Falls from the Canadian side