Big day in Bangkok

Today was a busy for us! We left the guest house at 5:00am to catch a taxi to a hospital where we met my host sister Toum and her boyfriend Peter. It was so great to see my host sister again and we had such a fun time speaking to one another in "Thanglish" as we call it. We arrived at the floating market well before the hoards of tourists on double -decker buses and enjoyed a ride through the market. We were paddled through the floating stalls by a Thai women and stopped to buy some noodle in soup to eat while we were floating around. Mikayla was tickled with the trip. I was teasing my host sister because when I lived with her family, her mother took my Mum and I to the floating market but, for reasosn I cannot recall, Toum did not go with us. Therefore, today was Toum's first time to the floating market too! After purchasing a few more souvenirs, we headed off for the Rose Garden. We got lost trying to find our way and when we were arrived we were disappointed to see how much it had changed, with few exhibits and expensive entry fees. Nonetheless, we ate a delicious lunch along the river and watched the fish jumping out of the water. The highlight of the day was after lunch when I took Mikayla for an elephant ride. She loved it and got to pet a smaller elephant afterwards and it even gave her a kiss with its trunk. She gleefully squealed, "It was really hairy" when describing what it felt like to touch. We headed back into Bangkok and picked up our luggage from the guest house and took the Sky Train to our new hotel. We are still suffering a bit of sticker shock as one night at the Amari is nearly triple our two night stay at the guest home. In fact, it is cheaper to buy new clothes than have them laundered at the Amari :) The upshoot is perhaps new clothes (wink-wink). They wheeled a crib into our room for Tananya nearly the size of our bathroom so Mikayla is going to sleep in it for now. And best of all . . . WE GET TO MEET OUR DAUGHTER IN 14 HOURS! What could be better than that? We are back at Siam Square to use this computer and there is jewelery store I need to check out for someone before we go back to our hotel thereby concluding today's entry. (HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO JESS TOO! He turned 40 yesterday although I forgot to mention that in yesterday's post)