Vacation Planning

Plane Tickets: Check

Now...time for everything else. At first I thought we would stay in Phi Phi Don which is about 2 hours from Phuket but then I decided that this choice meant being a 2 hour ferry way from the main island and the airport and meant paying higher prices for everything with no increase (in fact an evident decrease) in the quality of most hotels.

So, we will now be staying in main Phuket and are looking at hotels on Kata Beach

Based on the amount that we want to spend and various views from TripAdvisor, we have decided on The Andaman Cannacia Resort.

It's hard for me to choose hotels from websites like this because I have a tendency to want to read all of the negative reviews. Thankfully, although this hotel did have some negative reviews, most of them were a few years old...and lets be honest, the fact that you could stay in that hotel the years after the tsunami was a blessing anyway...so be real. Almost all of the recent reviews were good and the majority of the reviews were very good (excellent would have been better but we are not really wanting to spend the excellent dollars).

Just a note to anyone looking to travel to Asia, before you book something with any of the regular sites you may visit, look into AsiaWebDirect (where you can also book tickets to anywhere else in the world I just discovered). The prices from this website are SO much better than what I found with Agoda, Booking.com, Hotels.com etc.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the hotel and the room that we booked

View from the room

We went for the more expensive villa section of the resort and chose the Garden Spa room for the precise reason that it has a terrace complete with an outdoor Jacuzzi. We don't take too many vacations, so we feel good about this little splurge because we stayed in Asia.

Excited doesn't even begin to describe how I feel about this vacation

Now all that's left is booking our excursions. We know we want to see Phi Phi Don and James Bond Island and I definitely want to go water skiing (I miss it so much). Hubs also wants to get some surfing lessons so we have a decent amount left to book. Anyone with any excursion ideas for Phuket, please feel free to share!

Shanghai

This post is two weeks old, but better late than never...

I am a bad blogger. I love to read other peoples blogs and I love to write mine but it is getting harder and harder to find the time. Right now we are on a little mini vacation and I am sick, with hubs out and about with some friends of ours. So... now seems like a good a time as any to write. We are in Shanghai for the Tombs Sweeping holiday, here to visit our friends who recently moved from Beijing to Shanghai. You get conflicting information about Shanghai depending on who you ask…its great or it’s not so great and the people are snobs. That is mostly from Beijingers though as apparently the Shanghaineze have quite the superiority complex with regards to the rest of the mainland. After exploring for a few days I can say that while the sites to see are quite different, most things are similar. Shanghai is warmer and less dry and instead of Tiananmen, the Summer Palace and Great Wall they have...

The Bund

The French Concession

The cutest little café area called Food Street

Yu (Fish) Garden

I have found slightly more English spoken here, although still not to the degree that we found in Tianjin. The buildings in certain areas are very European looking and that has been a change. Yet, for the most part, when you leave the Western areas, the only difference between Shanghai and Beijing is proximity to a body of water. We are staying at the Courtyard Marriot and the hotel is very nice. The rooms are pretty and the bed is comfortable. Unfortunately, our aircon is a little broken so to keep the room even a little cool, you have to blast the AC all night making the room SUPER dry. Neither one of us has gotten a full nights sleep yet without a 2am/4am/6am wakeup pattern. That and something in bloom here that I seem to be allergic to equals….I have a cold/ The flu and finally have the opportunity to blog. Silver lining. 

View from our hotel

 The view of the ghetto 

On that note, I hope everyone had a great Easter! We went to church here for the first time in China and had awesome warm weather!

Convention in Singapore

     Work trip #2 is right around the corner. This time I am going to Singapore for 6 days. Sadly, with not enough notice, I won't be able to bring hubs with me, but I plan to bring him back some gifts instead. Singapore is said to have the cleanest air in Asia and is from my memory most definitely one of the cleanest places on earth. I haven't been to Singapore since I was 14 or 15 years old, so I can't wait to go back.
     I am excited for all of those reasons plus the fact that I am staying here...

The Marina Bay Sands Hotel and Casino! The most amazing pool in Singapore overlooking the city! Yay! 

Places to visit 2012

Barbara made New Year's resolutions this year and so I decided I could do a fun version for myself...since I can say I will exercise more and eat better but talk is just talk when it comes to my motivations so...

Places I plan to visit in 2012:

New cities:

Tianjin, China

Shanghai, China

Hong Kong (hopefully…its expensive)

Yeah...I miss the sea

Beijing:

Forbidden City

Beijing Duck Restaurant

Temple of Heaven

Wangfujing (Snack street)

Tokyo trip!

Tokyo was great...from what my husband tells me ;). I found out last Monday that my boss wanted me to go to Tokyo in his place for DIA (pharma) conference. He said he would know for sure if I could go on Tuesday. So Tuesday afternoon my boss bought my ticket and I bought hubs a ticket to go to Japan! He has always wanted to go to Japan, and since his birthday was November 1^st, what better time to “surprise” him. We woke up at 4:30am Wednesday and by 5 were on our way to the airport. We had quite a bit of time to kill at the Starbucks so we chatted a little and drank some coffee. Then we got in the security check line next to one of the many families in China leaving with a new Chinese daughter. The inspection that this infant got would rival any TSA rubdown. Then we taxied forever and 3 hours later we were in Japan. Nice, clean, beautiful Japan!

Everyone we dealt with was so polite. Holding doors open, smiling at us while taking our order...etc etc. Plus the streets were clean, no one felt it necessary to honk (ever) and people let you cross the street when you had the “Ok to walk” signal.

I worked all day Thursday and then went out to a work dinner with some clients and didn't arrive back at the hotel until around 11. Friday was a little better, since I got back at 5. That night we went out to Shibuya, got a VERY expensive tiny dinner and then just wandered around seeing the district. Shibuya is the shopping district (or one of them) of Tokyo. The main street is supposed to be one of the most crossed streets in the world. It's where the Tokyo “Time Square” is...complete with a HUGE 2 story Starbucks. Later that night we got a wonderful apple pie crepe that was delicious! The next day we wandered some more and then headed back to Beijing. 3 days of clean fresh air, quiet and orderly people was just what I needed. The only downfall...it is extremely expensive in Tokyo. A 30 minute taxi ride that would have cost me $8 in Beijing cost me $80! Overall though, if you have money to spend and want a cool place to visit, I recommend Tokyo.

Now for the photo dump Part 1: Camera edition...iPhone edition is to come 

View from our hotel room

So pretty and refreshing

Buildings...

Very popular donut shop

Looks awesome...I LOVE Starbucks...its almost sad

See the trend...line out the door for donuts

First course at Will and Yuki's dinner...I know...who orders vomit on purpose...it was supposedly good 

Yuki cooking up the second course

Nice clean subway :)

A building that everyone was taking pictures of...so Will did too


Ask your kids to look away
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REALLY
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Entrance to one of the many sex shops...this one was 4 stories high...

Mount Fuji in the distance

Shibuya aka Japan's Time Square 

Pretty park wedding

First and only couple picture in Japan...might be more on the phone

Loved it! Sad to come back!