I have been to Thailand twice. The first time was September 2012, we went to Bangkok and we met my mom’s mother, brother, and her best friend. I will tell more about this trip on another post, because we also went to London, England.

We arrived at Phuket, Thailand in March 2014. It was a very long flight, and we flew out of Orlando, Florida. We had to change planes from Orlando to New York City to Beijing, China then to Phuket, the overall flight took twenty-two hours for three different flights. From the airport to our hotel was an hour drive. We checked in, showered and went to bed.

We stayed at the Dusit D2 Hotel two blocks away to the famous Patong Beach. We stayed in this hotel for six weeks and my dad booked it with breakfast included. Breakfast was the best, it was buffet style. There was lots of food, from made to order omelets, pastries, pancakes, muffins, different kinds of bread and cereals, waffles, baked beans, and a lot more! The hotel also had an Asian breakfast area that consisted of fried rice, noodles, some fried meat and vegetables. It’s a different theme everyday. Sometimes it’s Vietnamese, sometimes it’s Korean and sometimes it’s Chinese and so on. My mom was so happy, because she’s from the Philippines. I stuck with cereal and muffins, and I like white rice. I was in grade one when we were in Thailand. My parents made me skip kindergarten (I have no idea why). After a big breakfast, I worked on my school with my mom.

Six weeks in Thailand is a long time so I had to continue my school. The good thing in homeschooling is you can do it anywhere, the bad thing in homeschooling is you can do it anywhere. You know what I mean! My mom will make me do it when we’re waiting at the airport, and on the plane so that I don’t just watch for hours. I even do it in the car when we are on road trips.

When we arrived in Thailand I found it very hot and sunny, the temperature was 100+ degrees Fahrenheit (37+ degrees Celsius). It was perfect beach weather, but I didn’t swim in ocean, I swam in the hotel pool instead. We had to buy comfy sandals to wear and my dad bought a tank top for himself. It is very important to bring the right clothes for your trip so you don’t have to buy them. My parents went to the beach when I was at the hotel’s Kids club. My dad purposely choose the Dusit D2 Hotel because they could leave me at the Kids Club while they were having time to themselves. I met and played with other kids from different parts of the world, some of them were from Israel and Russia. At the Kids Club, I watched movies, made crafts, and played some games. It was really fun!!!

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Patong Beach is a tourist area. We didn’t rent a car because my dad is good at researching the best locations to stay. So we easily walked to restaurants and shopping malls. One of the modes of transportation for Thai people is a scooter. A lot of people ride scooters in Phuket, even tourists rent scooters to get around. There are a lot of restaurants and shops selling souvenirs along the beach. My Dad said, it was fairly new because Phuket was hit by a tsunami in 2004. It was devastating that they had to rebuild.

Our routine most days was this; eat breakfast, school work, grab a light lunch, then my parents would drop me off at the Kids Club, then swim at the pool, we would walk to the mall and eat dinner somewhere, then get ice cream for dessert. One of our favorite ice cream place is called Swensen’s, a company that started in California. It has lots of delicious ice cream and sundaes. One place we walked by had a pool full of little fish. We went over to ask what it was for and they said you put your feet in the pool and the little fish would clean your feet and they would get a free meal too. We tried it, and it tickles! I kept pulling my feet out of the tub because there was so much tickling.

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Then came April 13th, Songkran Festival. It’s the Thai New Year’s national holiday. This is an amazing experience to be part of! Everyone has a huge water gun and starts to shoot at random people on their way. Some people have a barrel of water at the back of their truck and start scooping water on other people. Its like a huge water gun fight with all of Thailand participating with everybody out on the street celebrating. One time during the festival, my mom and dad were walking and someone from the upstairs floor of a building dumped a whole bucket of ice water right on my mom’s head. Thai people use water to bless each other, but I guess over time it turned into a water gun fight. What better way to bless someone than shooting them with a water gun, right? Some Thai people use baby powder to bless others, because the monks used chalk to mark blessings. So some people walk around covered in white powder.

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One day, my parents went on a day field trip without me. They hired a babysitter to look after me for a whole day. They visited James Bond Island, Phi Phi Island and Phag Nga Bay to see the breathtaking limestone cliffs and sea caves. Of course I can’t write much here because I was too young and partly because I wasn’t there. Base on the pictures that my Mom took, it was so beautiful and the turquoise water looked so inviting to swim in.

While we were in Thailand, we also went to Singapore and Malaysia for a week. I will write more about it in my next post. Thailand is beautiful and the Thai people are very friendly. There’s extreme wealth and extreme poverty in Thailand. There are rich people living in big houses and poor people living close by in their shanties. It’s sad to see beggars on the street when we are out walks, so I gave some money to them. Overall the six weeks vacation to Asia was an amazing experience!

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