Setting Out

Four of us, John, Carol, Rob, and Bella, departed on Christmas day to visit Asia--planning to return to some places we,ve already visited and to see some new ones.  Jack, we left studying at university, so we,ll have to make our way without his tech support, navigation skills, and cool one liners.   Fortunately, Rob is adeptly taking over in all those areas.

A 12 hour trip brought us to Shanghai for a 16 hour lay over.  We have now had Chinese food in China, only we,re pretty sure they just call it "food". 

  Five more hours brought us to Bangkok, which we visited before and are really just using as a recovery and resting point before continuing on to Viet Nam.  However, it,s pretty hard to turn down the opportunity to shop in Bangkok.  We spent an afternoon at Chatuchak Market with 8000 stalls of things we really don,t need, but who can resist the prices?  And a trip to a mall devoted only to five floors of electronics and technology products provided a few new gizmo accessories and some entertainment too.  A wholesale clothing mall was the last stop.  We really have to leave as we,ve filled a suitcase with purchases and we,ve only just begun our trip.

We did manage to fit in some culture and braved the New Year,s Eve crowd at the king,s palace grounds.  Way too many people to make it very enjoyable.  Time to move on...

After all, we're here for the culture....