Thailand Honeymoon Recap Part IV: Paradise on the Beach, Days 1-2

So, when I last left us we had just landed on the island of Koh Pha Ngan. After this, the days started to sort of blur together in a beautiful haze of sunshine, curry, and reading by the pool, so apologies if I skip or gloss over everything.

Before I put up a bajillion photos of the amazing villa we stayed in, I should explain how we were able to swing such an awesome deal. Last May when we were in India, we discovered Small Luxury Hotels of the World. Basically, SLH is a club that is totally free to join but gives you amazing rates on fantastic hotels, plus complimentary continental breakfast and free upgrades upon availability. And did I mention it's FREE to join?

Anyways, the point of all of this is, for less than half of what we should have paid, we landed our own villa with a private pool and view of the sea (courtesy of a free upgrade). We stayed at Santhiya Resort and Spa, which I would highly recommend. Koh Pha Ngan is known for its Full Moon Parties that take place every month, but those are held on the southwest beach, and Santhiya is in the northeast. Since the island isn't very big you can definitely get to the parties if you want to, but you can also have peace and quiet on the beach, so it was exactly what we wanted for a relaxing getaway.

Villa from the outside

We spent most of our time lounging in these chairs and reading

Ocean View

Living Room

Hallway into the bedroom

But I think my favorite thing about the room was the open air bathroom. I felt like I was at a spa every time I took a shower!

I was in love with all of the little details in their decor - even the soap dishes added to the whole feel of the resort

For dinner, we ventured away from the hotel and grabbed dinner on the next beach. Right over the rocks we found a great place right on the beach that had a BBQ every night where you could pick your own meat and tell them exactly how much you wanted. They had tons of amazing, fresh seafood to choose from, but I couldn't resist getting the King Prawn.

Prawn - actual size

...and a great view of the ocean

night falls and the candles come out...

We started the next day off right - with coffee overlooking the ocean :)

Ben's candid camera prowess strikes again!

I think I forgot to mention that while we were in Bangkok, Ben was sick for a couple of days (a cold, nothing to do with anything we ate). As tends to happen when two people who just got married are traveling together, it took almost no time for me to catch up to him and by the end of our second island day I pretty much felt like death. We stayed at the resort for lunch and even ordered room service that night (chicken soup!) instead of going out for dinner.

My illness was made even more hilarious by the fact that Ben had a potential work-related Skype call that night and there was basically no place in the Villa where I wouldn't have to stumble past the computer to get to the bathroom. Luckily, the call was pushed back! I'm not sure my husband's future employers would have appreciated seeing me repeatedly lurch through the background like a zombie.

But no illness could curb my excitement for our special bathroom visitor! One side-effect of an open air bathroom is that there is no mechanism to keep little guests from finding their way in there:

I had never seen a mantis in person before so I basically freaked out with excitement and took multiple pictures before my body finally rebelled against me and I went back to bed.

That's it for now - stay tuned for more island adventures!

Honeymoon Recap Part III

Honeymoon Recap Part II

Honeymoon Recap Part I

Road Trip Recap Part 3: I solemnly swear that I am up to no good

One thing you should probably know about me and Ben is that we are both more than a little bit obsessed with Harry Potter. Somewhere during the course of planning our trip down to see Nick, we discovered that Savannah was a mere five hours from Orlando Florida and the Magical Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Only 5 hours each way?? Surely we must go.

And so that is why, on our second day in Savannah, we left Nick's apartment at 6am to drive to Orlando. I really needed coffee. But I was also freakishly excited. This combination resulted in strangeness.

...you'll be seeing that face a lot over the course of this post. I apologize in advance.

The drive was relatively painless, and we were very entertained by the Deejays of Jacksonville, FL's morning show... and Jacksonville in general. Every time we stopped there, something strange happened, such as a catfight at a gas station and the woman who spent 5 minutes telling Ben about her digestive problems and wondering if maybe she should eat something today other than ice cream. But those are other stories for another time.

We wandered through the park for a bit - and I had to take a picture of all these Evil Eyes because they made me feel like I was back in Istanbul. Finally... we reached Hogsmeade! Hooray!!!

... there's the face again....

Personally I thought it was a bit much to have the buildings permanently covered in fake snow, even when it was 97 degrees... but the Hogsmeade buildings were adorable, and thanks to the overly-warm weather, nothing was overly crowded. We immediately hit up the Three Broomsticks for a delicious lunch of turkey leg, cornish pasties and butterbeer!




The turkey leg was delicious - actually all of the food beat most theme park food I've had. Butterbeer was cold unfortunately (I always felt it should be warm, like hot buttered rum... but I get that in Florida probably not a lot of people want hot buttered rum...), but it still tasted great - it was very rich though - Ben and I shared one and still didn't quite finish it.

Pretty sure this leg came from some crazy mutant turkey.

This is probably my favorite picture from the whole day. It's too bad the train conductor left to take his coffee break right as we got to the Hogwarts Express, but I think it's a pretty good shot anyways :) Then... off to HOGWARTS!!!

OMG HOGWARTS OMG!!!

Ahh the little village of Hogsmeade. Love the crooked chimneys. After our tour of Hogwarts, we waited in line for almost 30 minutes to see Ollivander's wand shop.

It was totally worth it though. "Ollivander" re-enacted the whole wand selection ceremony, and completely made this little girl's day (and her dad's too! He was this big, sweaty muscle-shirted bald dude, but when "Ollivander" picked his daughter for the wand demo he just started beaming from ear to ear...cutest thing ever).

Later in the wand shop I picked out my own wand! Obviously, I wasn't making it out of there without a wand, and I also bought one for my friend Tessa as a birthday present. This pic is when I was trying to decide between two wands, and the shop worker told me to "close your eyes, swish and flick! choose with your heart, not with your head."

And obviously we got a chocolate frog. And then we hit ridiculous traffic on the way home and ended up eating at IHOP because there was nowhere else convenient to stop - I had French Toast for dinner. There is so nothing wrong with that.

Welp, now that you all realize what a HUGE dork I am and probably stop reading my blog... yeah. Next up: Chicago!

Road Trip Recap, Part 2: Savannah!

After we said our goodbyes to Louise and Zingrin, Ben and I hopped back in the car and took off for Savanna, Georgia! Savannah has been near the top of my list of places to visit ever since I read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil about 10 years ago, so when our friend Nick moved there to attend a grad program at Savannah College of Art and Design this spring, we knew it was only a matter of time before we found an excuse to get down there.

The drive from Knoxville to Savannah was absolutely stunning... the Smoky Mountains are beautiful and everything is so green and lush (please ignore the bug-spattered windshield in this photo...don't let it ruin anything for ya... :) ). A quick aside - one of my biggest road trip pet peeves is finding good (i.e. healthy-ish) places to eat... this proved especially true in the south. Any area of the country that would name a restaurant chain "Fatz" is ...yeah. Special.

We arrived in Savannah in the early afternoon, and were greeted by Nick, who had to attend a lecture for school...so after giving us the basic lay of the land, our gracious host went off to get edumacated and Ben and I took some time to explore the city.

Savannah is really a beautiful city - filled with flowers, serene little parks, and trees covered in spanish moss. The arcitechture is also beautiful - I wanted to buy every single one of these houses... someday...when I have millions of dollars to spare...? We stopped in the few of the parks, and I got sassed by this lion:

the little dude clearly has some attitude. So I gave him some attitude right back. Take that, lion statue!

After wandering for a couple of hours we met up with Nick for some sushi!!

The sushi was fan-tastic. I should just mention that we did not eat typical "southern food" once while we were down here - no shrimp, no grits, no biscuts and gravy. And no, we did not go to Paula Deen's restaurant... we heard mixed things about it and decided to stick with places we knew would be excellent.

We spent some more time wandering the lovely streets of Savannah....

Admiring the sunsets...

And of course, eating great food! Ben and I set aside one night for a romantic date at the Local Eleven 10, a restaurant that features local and seasonal ingredients.

Above is a pic of me holding their Lemon Rosemary martini - mixed drinks are super hit-and-miss for me, but this was honestly one of the best drinks I've ever had. Delicious!

...this one I took partly as an excuse to get a shot of Ben looking all James Bond-esque with his martini, and partly to capture this lady behind him who is inexplicably wearing a wedding gown and veil, and who looked like she did not want to be there at ALL. I really want to know what the story is there...

Our entree was a porkchop with apricot chutney and sides of greens and asparagus. Yum! After our fancy dinner we walked over to the local legion to meet Nick for a couple of drinks and pool. $2 happy hours can't be beat!

...wine from a plastic cup. Surely nothing is classier than this.

My favorite lunch spot by far was the Sentient Bean, a coffee shop and cafe that served all number of awesome vegetarian, organic and hippie-ish food. It seemed like a popular local hangout for SCAD students, and was right next to the city's only (from what I could tell) organic foods store.

I ordered a BBQ tofu wrap, which was to die for.

... below, one of the more interesting food combos I've seen. Fried chicken and chinese food? Really???

Ben and I in our favorite park.

For our last night, we went to Leopold's Ice Cream shop...a Savannah institution and another of Nicks favorite places.

Aren't these two adorable?! My favorite thing about their friendship is that occasionally they will start speaking to each other in random accents like it is totally normal, and just go on like that for several minutes while I shake my head in wonderment.

...my cone: lavender ice cream with sprinkles! I'm a sucker for strange and unique ice cream flavors, and also for sprinkles...this was the ideal combination of the two.

Back tomorrow with our most exciting road trip day of ALL TIME... get excited people!!!