J&M got Maui'd!

We got picked up by our taxi at 0400 so that we could make our 0640 flight back home. Getting up was not as annoying as I thought it would be and I was surprisingly awake, until I sat down on the plane and my eyes started to droop. I think I passed out a couple of times on our three hour trip to Hong Kong. I wanted to stay up until our long haul flight back to Toronto so that I could get my body in sync with Toronto time and hopefully minimize the effects of jet lag. I only have a day to recover before going back to work and I do not want to doze off on my first day back. At least we had the entertainment system working on the way back, so I was finally able to watch Avengers 2: The Rise of Ultron, as well as Interstellar. The first movie was a little disappointing, while the second was enjoyable, but did require paying attention. I did seem to fall asleep for most of the flight back, although it did not feel like I got a lot of sleep. I did feel a lot less jet lagged than Maggie w...

We got up late today and went straight to Terminal 21 to try out Tim Ho Wan, the Michelin Star dim sum restaurant in the mall. The mall opened at 1000 and we wanted to get there early to get a seat. When we got there at 1030, there was already a long line, and the restaurant did not open until 1130. When the restaurant opened, we were not lucky enough to be one of the first wave of customers to sit down, so we had to wait another forty minutes before we got a seat. Fortunately we were able to take a look at the menu and set up our order before we got our table. The food came really quick, and it was all tasty, although considering the prices we were paying, most of it was fairly standard dim sum fare. Just the BBQ buns really stuck out as interesting and worthwhile. Tim Ho Wan's version of BBQ pork buns. We went to our last massage session at Health Land, which was kind of sad because we had gotten used to getting cheap hour long therapeutic massages each day we were in Ba...

We got up late (as usual now) and went to Chu for breakfast. I had been meaning to go there for a little while because the hot chocolate was apparently really good. We both had very western breakfasts, me a eggs Benedict and her a standard eggs, bacon, sausage, potatoes, bread, etc. The mushrooms were interesting though. Oh yeah, the hot chocolate was really good. Really chocolaty. After our meal, we headed to Health Land for a two hour therapeutic massage. After all of the walking we did the day before, getting my calves massaged was good for me, although quite a painful one. I think I had huge knots in both of my calves, although I think they were probably there for months if not years now. I really should stretch them out more now. After getting cleaned up at the hotel, we went to MBK to do some exploring and shopping. I wanted to get post cards and a clean shirt. This mall was the largest one in Bangkok, but it was older, had lower ceilings, and definitely more crowded than Ter...

We booked our third and final cooking class with Chef Leez. Her lessons were billed as one of the top ones on Trip Advisor so we Decided to check it out for ourselves.  Some interesting things you can not do in a taxi.   The website had very specific instructions on how to get to the location and how much it would cost. Taxis in Bangkok have a tendency of overcharging tourists because they don't know any better. We were lucky enough to have our hotel book the taxi for us and we did not get shafted. Another thing we noticed was how locations were not always address driven as numbers and street names were really difficult to find. Sometimes you just had to go by a displayed name or landmark.    Maggie making Pad Thai at Chef Leez. In any case, the lesson started like the others with the chef walking us down to the local market to check out the produce and pick out some ingredients for the dishes we were to make later that day. She gave us a bit of history abou...

I was feeling a little better this morning despite getting a call on my phone after midnight and my alarm going off at 0330. We found a laundromat that would clean our clothes by the kilo (rather than by the article at our hotel) and went to drop off our laundry before getting a shoulder and neck massage at Health Land. We will probably go back there later. Afterward, we had lunch at Madam Saranair. The food was a mix of Thai and Italian, and our dishes were spaghetti dishes using Thai ingredients in a crock covered by a pita and baked. The flavors were tasty and the fusion of the styles came up with and interesting dish. We then spent some time setting up the events for the rest of the week and decided on watching Muay Thai Live tonight. I was going to book online, but had to delay - and when I went back to the website, the tickets were no longer available for the day despite having plenty of seats available! So we sent in e-mail and they were able to accommodate us. On top of that,...

My original plan was to take a bus from Siem Reap back to Thailand. Maggie had wanted to spend some time on the beach to rest and relax and I was looking at Ko Chang island as a potential stopping point on our way back to Bangkok. However, Maggie was a little hesitant about taking the bus, or any land route after reading the reviews and stories. After a short discussion, I relented and started looking for flights from Siem Reap to Bangkok. I had looked earlier and found the flights costing $400+ per person unless I was willing to go with a really cheap airline for the bargain basement price of $200. Amazingly enough, when I started looking at flights again, tickets appeared for the boutique airline Bangkok Air, which was a much better rated airline with prices close to beating the bargain prices of the cheaper airlines. One drawback was that our flight was early in the morning so we had to get up early. I was feeling better than yesterday, but still was not all that well. I did wa...

We got up even earlier (0430) to catch the sun rise at Angkor Wat. It was already starting to get light out when we arrived at the entrance of the temple.  Maggie and I in front of the main temple of Angkor Wat at sunrise. We could see the streams of tourists and tourist guides heading to the one pond known for it's excellent shots of the main temple complex during the sunrise. The place got packed fairly quickly, but there were still many spots to get a good shot of the temple. The throng of tourists watching the sun rise. Because of the jungle cover, we had to wait quite some time before the sun's disk was visible. Until then, we were able to capture some nice photos of Angkor Wat with the clouds illuminated by the red and yellow hues of the rising sun. Angkor Wat in the sunrise. We stood there watching the sun rise for abouth an hour before having a boxed breakfast that we got from the hotel. Since we had already explored the temple, we left Angkor Wat...