Adventures in Asia

Hey my name is Tiffany, and I'll be posting everyday about my adventures in Asia. We're starting in Tokyo, Japan. Follow me to see where we go next!

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This was the view from Sunshine City where there was the sky circus.

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More optical illusions in Hua Hin

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Japan has these really nice pothole covers that they've painted into different traditional images all over the city and in the suburbs

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The Grand Palace area at night

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Grand Palace

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When we went on a traditional boat tour we saw lots more temples and unfortunately the shacks where the under privileged lived. It makes sense why things are so cheap in Thailand because of that. We also saw one of the river gators, which apparently can often show up in your home and is a sign of good fortune if you see one.

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On day 18 we went to the Tiger Kingdom where they let you go in and pet and play with the Tigers.

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Elephants! We did this on day 19, our last day in Thailand. It was nice to go to the elephant show again and watch them get even better at painting and all the other tricks they do. They even seem like they're enjoying themselves which is nice. Then we rode an elephant for about a half hour. It's a bumpier ride than I remember but it was still lots of fun.

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Day 16

Sorry I haven't blogged the past couple days! We've had a busy schedule going out really early and coming back super late. Anyway just a quick summary now, I'll try to have a longer more detailed on tonight. On Day 14 we went to the Grand Palace and a couple temples. We also went on a traditional boat tour through the river and canals of Bangkok. Then that night we watched X-Men Apocalypse (it hasn't been released in America yet) in 4DX which I've never seen available in the US. It was definitely and experience even if I'll probably never do it again. On Day 15 we went to JJ mall/market and Aortorkor (probably spelled that wrong). JJ is a market that is indoors and outdoors and sells everything from food to a mailbox to clothes. The other is a fresh foods market that has lots of fruit and dried fish and other snacks along with some cooked food and fresh fish and vegetables. Then that night we flew to Chiang Mai On Day 16 we went to Doi Sutep which is like a holy mountain with a temple at the top. And then we went to a treehouse cafe which was really cool to just go climb around even if it wasn't open. Then finally we went Ziplining! It was so much fun going through the trees in Thailand. Alright were caught up. More details and pictures later today.

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Day 13

So today we ran errands, and went to downtown Bangkok. Its a big hospital/business/shopping district. We walked a bit outside but not much because it was so hot. We did go to Siam Paragon however, its one of the most popular and biggest malls in Thailand. The shopping malls in Thailand are like novelties. They have big water fountain displays, lots of fancy shops, and even an aquarium in the basement. It’s pretty cool.

Then we walked over to MBK (the name in thai sounds cooler but I have no idea how to spell it so well just go with an acronym. It’s like a big indoor market with tons of little gadgets amongst other things where you can bargain for pretty decent things. It was like a toy store with all the cheap iphone gadgets. 

Afterwards we went to dinner, we’re eating so much good food here, and then drove around Bangkok at night. We circled the Grand Palace and Wat Pakrow with the lights up. It was pretty. 

Finally we went to this little shop called Nom Nom Sot (I tried the thai spelling there and failed) It’s this little snack place that sells 10 different kinds of sweet milk and toast with different delicious toppings. I love it. I will post a gif of the shop later, its always busy everyday, in fact today seemed like a slow day for them. 

Early night in today. But as always, we’ll be up bright and early tomorrow. 

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Day 12

Second day in Hua Hin! I’ll have pictures from the first day here too since I didn’t have them yesterday. 

So first is the cute little beach town:

We ate at this restaurant outside. Most of the restaurants are served outside here under big awning like things. Like walless rooms. 

Then we went to the beach, it was beautiful of course. We rode on a jetski and went on a banana boat. I’ve got several bruises from falling off the banana boat. The water was super warm though! Like warm bath kind of warm, it was weird but it was also kind of nice. I do wish it was a little bit colder though, just to help balance out the hot weather. 

After we spent a lot of time at the beach we cleaned up and went to the night markets which I posted pictures of earlier today.

Okay so now moving on to today. We had a late morning since we were out at the night markets for awhile last night. We enjoyed the beach a bit more before we had to leave, and then after lunch we went to a water/theme park. Apparently they’ve become the new big thing in Hua Hin, a lot has changed since I was last there I guess. It was so much fun, the park was almost empty so there were no lines for anything. 

Something weird I noticed is that for some rides that seem slightly dangerous, they had guests wear life jackets to ride the slide or sometimes even helmets. I never saw that before. 

Then in the theme park we went to this odd illusion museum/event/exhibit. It was really cool, it was like you could be part of a painting. There were so many possible things we could be a part of, it was pretty amazing. 

Tomorrow we’ll be back in Bangkok. Errands in the morning and then exploring some of the main district downtown. It’ll be fun!

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Hua Hin night markets! They're so much fun and there's lots of cool little handmade things that they're selling and local food. I was going to get Nikita to try fried insects (I'm definitely not going to) but we didn't get a chance. Next time. The guy in the lower left hand corner is hand blowing glass. It was pretty cool. Note: I'm so glad to be in a country where I can speak the language. It makes my life so much easier.

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Our hotel in Hua Hin. It's so beautiful here.

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Day 12

Today we went to Hua Hin! It's one of my favorite beach towns in Thailand, and in addition to that its one of the most common residences of the Royal Family. The King currently resides in an estate on the edge of Hua Hin, which is about 2 hours from Bangkok. (I'll have pictures in another post because I didn't bring my laptop with me and mobile devices do not allow me to post pictures and text at the same time, at least, not much text. We spent the day driving to the town, getting lunch then spending a lot of time at the beach. It was a great relaxing day compared to the craziness and busyness we had in Japan. On the beach Nikita and I went jet skiing! It was our first time driving a Jet Ski and we didn't fall over once! It was a lot of fun I'm glad that I had the opportunity to do so. The other thing we did was ride a banana boat. We were dragged around by a man on another jet ski who made it his goal to flip us over as many times as possible. We tried really hard to stay on the banana but ultimately we all failed. After dinner today, where Nikita tried lots of traditional Thai foods, we went to one of Hua Hin's famous night markets. I mean, they aren't as big and famous as the one's in Chiang Mai but its pretty big for a beach town. Night markets are always fun. I love looking around and seeing all these beautiful handmade items, but also some quality items and tourist things as well. We ended up going to two markets, one big and one smaller a couple blocks away. I promise I'll have pictures later!

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Day 11

So we left Japan. We're in Bangkok, Thailand now. The flight felt like nothing compared to the one to Japan, then again I like long flights. We flew Thai Airways, so an experience for Nikita, not so much for me. Interesting tidbit is that the females have to wear the traditional outfits as flight attendants but the men only have to wear suits. When we got to Thailand it was so incredibly hot and humid. Huge difference from Japan where the weather, for the most part, was beautiful. At least here we'll be in a lot of cars and not doing too much walking and public transportation. I'm really going to miss Tokyo. I loved it there, the food, the land, and I'm not going to lie the shopping was wonderful. I hope I get to return soon and explore the rest of Japan. I can't believe there's only 9 days of this trip left!

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Day 10

Well today was our last full day in Japan. Tomorrow our flight for Bangkok leaves at 5:25 pm so we won’t get to do much of anything tomorrow other than pack. 

We went to Mt. Fuji today! Or more specifically the town next to it, Kawaguchiko, which consists of Lake Kawaguchiko (one of Fuji’s five lakes surrounding it) and little woodsy areas. 

We woke up early, much earlier than we usually do, and took a train ride that was a total of three hours. We switched trains twice, and even took two express trains on the way there. One of the trains was super fancy, we had reserved seats and got served drinks. It was nice. 

When we got to Kawaguchiko, the first thing we did was take a lift up to the top of one of the neighboring smaller mountains (about 1000m up) and take in the view from there. It was beautiful, at first I thought we wouldn’t be able to tell which mountain was Fuji because of the vegetation but you can clearly see it. 

Then we hiked up to the very peak of the mountain we took the lift up to find a shrine, we really should have invested in hiking shoes for this kind of trip. 

For the rest of the day, we just walked around the town and the lake, enjoying the view. We went to their local art museums and even tried to go to a couple hot springs. Turns out none of the hot springs there allowed you to wear any form of clothing so we decided to forgo the hot springs on this trip. Maybe next time.

On the way back we took the regular train to Shinjuku station and then transferred to Shibuya to have dinner at a Japanese BBQ place for our last night. It was great, the food was delicious. It was a little hard to order because it was all electronic and in Japanese and there were no pictures but we made do. Everything we ordered was good to eat and delicious. 

Last note of the night, we passed these really cool street performers on the way back to the train station.