Second Honeymoon

As I said in the last post, John went back to the US last week for Roman's wedding. He spent 3 days traveling and a little less than 3 days in the US, but he was so happy to be able to see his best friend get married and to see his folks and some of our friends. I stayed here in Bangkok and enjoyed some nice girl time (with friends and also by myself). But 5 days is the longest we've spent apart since we got married, so when John got back at 1 am on Tuesday night, we were VERY VERY happy to see each other! :)

Believe it or not, tomorrow is our three year wedding anniversary. Those of you who were at the wedding are probably wondering where time went, and we are too, but I can honestly say that the past three years have been some of the happiest of my life. John and I have both grown and learned so much, and we have had so many wonderful times together. We have seen God carry us through some really hard times and provide for us financially, emotionally, physically, and spiritually (and mentally, I left that one out). So many people go through life looking for their soulmate, and somehow, God saw fit to bless us with ours at the age of 18. We are so lucky to be married to our best friend, and we look forward to many more joyful, full years together. Anyways, Friday and Monday are Buddhist holidays, so we got a four day weekend to celebrate our three years, so John treated me to a short second honeymoon!!! Here's what we did:

After work on Saturday, we drove into Bangkok to spend two nights in a four star hotel downtown (because where else in the world can we afford to do it?). Here was the surprise: we were staying at the Baiyoke Sky Hotel, the tallest tower in Thailand, in a superior suite on the 65th floor!

The entire wall was windows looking over the Northern part of town. It was amazing to look out and see landmarks we know; we could even see the neighborhood where we lived last year!

Let's see if I can give you a little perspective about how high up we were... The Baiyoke Tower itself has 84 stories and a large portion above the highest story: it's about 10 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower. It's the 48th tallest building in the world. Our room was in the dark blue section on the right. Crazy, right?

We loved going up to the observation deck on the 77th floor and looking at the signs that explained what everything was.

We've been into Bangkok enough times to have a pretty good idea about the city, and we were finally able to connect the dots and put it all together. The 84th floor is a revolving deck outside that was really impressive, especially at night,

but honestly, the view from our window was our favorite!!

God was with us because we showed up without either of our Passports or our credit card. The ladies at the desk were really mad at us and had to call their manager to see if they could accept my US driver's licence and fortunately, they did. On Saturday night, we got dressed up and headed out to one of our favorite restaurants in Bangkok: Beirut. It serves incredible Lebanese food. We came home full and happy and sat on the couch watching the lights move down below.

Breakfast was an International buffet on the 82nd floor. They had everything from bread products, to omelets, to salad, to Indian food, to Thai food, to baked beans and sushi. It was incredible to listen to all the different languages in one room. We shared the elevator with a woman in full burqa and a teenager with a see-through shirt and "underwear" shorts.

We had a relaxing day on Saturday exploring the hotel and enjoying our room. We ordered room service for lunch and although the food wasn't that incredible, the view sure was!!

On Saturday night, we dressed up for a fancy meal at the restaurant on the top floor, only to find out that it was a buffet (and a very expensive one at that).

In a spur of the moment decision, we decided to take a taxi to our other favorite Bangkok restaurant: Crepes and Company. We had an incredible meal that I'm sure was better than the hotel food, and were amazed at the flexibility we have learned since we've been in Thailand.

We woke up Monday morning in the glow of not having to teach on a work day, and enjoyed another amazing breakfast. During our stay, we tried to enjoy as many aspects of the hotel as we could. We got a complimentary 20 minute foot massage, took showers in our really nice bathroom, ordered room service, and had fun in the elevators. These are some smoothies we got at one of the restaurants. This is only the 18th floor, but it's still a great view.

There was a driving range on the 19th floor, and we couldn't resist making fools of ourselves trying to hit some balls...

We had a delicious lunch at an Iranian restaurant on Monday, and then drove home. Neither of us had ever had Iranian food before, but our co-teacher who is from Iran has been telling us about it, and it was really yummy!

Here is a great picture of the streets of Bangkok that we took from our room.

I cannot believe we drive on these on our bike! Mom, try not to think about that too much... :)

It was an amazing weekend of luxury. Now it's time to head back to the real world..