I went to Thailand!

I always take selfies with the kids before I go on a trip, so just in case something happens, I have one last picture with them.  Morbid? Perhaps. This time I almost didn't take a photo.  I had to leave at 6pm (for a 9:30pm flight) Wednesday night, and the kids demanded a photo as I walked out the door.  This little gem is the result.  I did get on my late flight and with the two hour time change, landed in Bangkok at 1am-ish.  I was traveling with 8 other women from church and it was pretty awesome. 

 Thursday morning we split into two groups of 5 and my group took tuktuks to get to the Grand Palace.  Except our tuktuk drivers were less than honest.  

We did have a spectacularly fun ride, but they took us to their friend's boat tour place, not where we had asked to go.  So we had to walk away and then walk another few blocks to get to the pier for a water taxi.  It was annoying being scammed (or only half scammed, since we refused to go along?), but it was a fun ride and we didn't entirely regret it. 

 We took the water taxi up the river and it also was a lot of fun!

 We did make it to the Grand Palace.  And it was quite grand!

Selfie with my new friend.

 Photo of the chicken man for Callie.

 We roamed around and admired everything.  But it was so incredibly crowded and so incredibly hot. I think it was 95 degrees and I was sweating non-stop.  Being that hot and sweaty and fighting crowds are two of my least favorite things.  So that took a little away from the experience for me.

But the buildings were amazing. 

And the pictures really do not do them justice.  They were so beautiful! 

And so full of fun stuff like this. 

And so many bright colors and shiny things.   

It really was so much more amazing in real life. 

And you can see that I may be  roasting in the sun, but I am having a good time!

See, shiny and sparkly and colorful and pretty! 

I may be shiny from sweat, but I'm loving it!

Selfie with the golden statue. 

This was the official palace place.  We were disappointed that you couldn't actually go inside.  Merely admire it from outside.

And it was guarded by this guy!