Pattaya

Sometimes I think there's an inverse relationship between how much fun a situation is and the number of pictures that are taken.

We took about 8 pictures like this.

Today is the King of Thailand's birthday, and as such we had the day off work. The school put together an outing to Pattaya for the teachers & staff. Although, for the staff it was mandatory, that was the first mar on the day. I think they had fun, at least part of the time... but I'd feel better if I knew they were there because they wanted to be and not because it was part of their job.

First we went to the zoo... although it was much more like a circus. We went from the crocodile show to the tiger show and then to the elephant show... and that was it.

I can now say "Crocodile, don't eat me!" in Thai.

While entertaining, it was all a bit disturbing. The animals did not look content. The crocodiles appeared to be drugged, the tigers looked as though they wanted nothing more than to maul the trainers... but did the tricks out of fear. Having lived with felines I feel moderately familiar with their moods and body language, they were definitely giving off a pissed off vibe. I feel conflicted... it is impressive to see a tiger jump through hoops of fire, but it certainly didn't look like the tiger *wanted* to be jumping through hoops of fire. The elephants seemed to be the happiest of the bunch and one even appeared to be getting into the act a bit - but it's hard to say. I'm not at all familiar with elephant body language.

I also learned to say "Dance baby elephant."

After the zoo we headed up to Pattaya park to have lunch at the restaurant at the top of the tower. I was really hungry by the time we got there, and found myself completely disoriented looking around... it took me a minute to realize that part of my foot was moving and that it was a rotating restaurant. Once I figured that out (and got my blood sugar back to normal) I really enjoyed it. The view of the ocean was spectacular. Oh, and there was western food. I had an actual salad with thousand island dressing and a roll, some kind of beef & gravy dish and a spinach cheese casserole. It was awesome.



From lunch we took the scenic route back down to earth! There was a tram, a rickety looking two person open-elevator type thing, and a zip line. Two people actually picked the zip-line!! Bunny and Bobby went on the elevator thing. I played it safe and went on the tram.

The tram down to the beach & water park.

The rest of the day was spent between the beach and the amusement park. The beach wasn't that great actually, the sand was coarse and there were quite a few rocks hiding in the water, I swam right up onto one and nicked my hands, and nearly sliced my foot on another one. So I gave up on it and went to the water park. The slides were awesome, and I'm glad I went on the really high one first, it was much faster than I was anticipating and I actually caught air at one point. Bobby and I went on the spirally one a few times - two woman luge style. That one was the best because it's a lot of fun but you don't get the mother of all wedgies when it finally spits you out. An important factor to consider when evaluating water slides!! And of course I was entirely too busy having fun on the water slides to get any pictures of them at all.

All told, I got good food, sun and swimming, so I call it a Code Mango kind of day.










* the poor animals on the other hand... probably feeling kind of Durian these days. =(