From my journal 8/3/11

Time to play catch up again. We've had a lot of down time recently, which has been filled with equal amounts of sleeping and shopping. I did document all interesting adventures in my journal and that's what I'll write about here for you to enjoy...


8/3/11

Today was our first full day in Thailand.  We took a bus to a teak wood carving shop and saw the neatest things being made out of coconuts! Lamps, purses, cooking utensils, you name it, they made it.

After we stopped there we went to the largest floating market in Thailand, to get there we had to take long boats over alligator infested waters!

These boats were going at least 35-40+ mph! Each boat had 6 students in it and had to be balanced just right, if one person moved you felt the whole boat shift.


After we shopped for a little bit we went to a buffet for lunch then went to an elephant show.

These elephants may be the worlds most talented animals ever.  They raced, played soccer, danced, attempted head stands and even tried to talk!


It was the coolest thing I have ever seen.
Plus -- I got to ride an elephant. Life goal COMPLETE!
So happy.
I wanted to dance and scream and cry with joy.

Malaysia!

Today was a whirlwind of a day!
We all met up at 8:30am to go on a bus tour through Malaysia.
We first went to a Buddhist temple called Thean Hou. It was absolutely stunning, between the colors, and architecture.



There was a Zodiac garden, with statues of each symbol! There was also a turtle garden! I've never seen so many turtles in one place in my entire life!

Next we went to the Agong's (Malaysian King) palace.  It was guarded by a gate so there aren't any great pictures, but the palace has 26 rooms! It was originally built in the 1920's for a very wealth! man that had 8 wives and 26 children.


After the palace we went to a war memorial called Tugu Negara.  It had a couple monuments recognizing the soldiers that died during WWII.



 It was very humbling.  And quite pretty.
Next we went to a Hindu temple called the Batu Caves. This temple was literally built into the caves.
There is a 140ft statue of Murugan which is a Hindu deity.  This is the largest statue of Murugan in the world!
Next to him is the staircase into the cave -- 272 steps to the top!


On the staircase were wild monkeys.  They'd get within an inch of all the people climbing the steps. I even touched one! It was the wildest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Inside the temple there were stalactites everywhere, and the chanting from the temples made this place seem almost majestic.

After the temple we went to a Batik shop -- Batik is unique to this area, it is a method of dying cloth by using wax to form outlines of shapes.  It was very beautiful.
After that we went to a pewter factory and saw how pewter is formed into many different things!
Our last stop was to try different fruits! We tried Durian which I was looking forward to -- it tasted like onions and had the consistency of cream cheese that you left on the counter for 5 hours. I'm in no rush to try it again.  I did find a fruit here I like though, it's called Mangosteen. It tasted much like an orange.
So today was entirely too long but I loved every minute of it. It will most definitely be one of the biggest highlights of this trip!

I have so many more photos to add, but I don't have the internet connect to support that. Hopefully this gives you all a glimpse of what I saw!