Partying in Patong

After a few days in Chiang Mai (more about that later), we flew through Bangkok (more about that later too) down to Phuket in the Southern part of Thailand. We spent two nights in a place near Karon Beach. This is outside of the crazy Patong area, though we did go check it out one day and evening. During the day, there's tons of shopping for cheap T-shirts, fake brand name items, and souvenirs. The vendors are pretty aggressive with their sales tactics; they really want your business! In fact, they are kind of mean. The beach itself was busy, but the water was rather dirty looking. We spent the afternoon boogie boarding and hanging out on nearby Kata beach instead, which was much prettier.

Busy Patong Beach

People in Thailand often travel by scooter or motorcycle. They weave in and out of traffic, and I don't know how they survive. The streets are crazy; traffic lanes apparently mean nothing.












At night, Patong is insane! Bangla Road is the main street, and there are hundreds of clubs, bars, pubs, etc. Each one tries to lure you in with drink specials, dancing girls (or lady boys), or the promise of ping pong shows. Luckily, we knew not to check out a ping pong show. If you don't know why, I don't suggest Googling it at work or school! You can't walk down the street without somebody stopping you every five feet to try to get you into their place. We went to a couple of the much tamer bars and enjoyed some live music and people-watching. It was interesting to witness the partying in Patong for one night, but that was enough for me!

Hanging out on Bangla Road in Patong

Acting Irish Down Under

For St. Patrick's Day in Australia, we put on our green shirts and met up with some fellow American expats at an Irish bar in the early afternoon. We enjoyed some drinks, and with the purchase of a Guinness beer, you got these fun hats (Zack gave me his-I hate beer!).

Me, Alena, Emily, Adam, and Todd (Zack took the picture).

After leaving PJ O'Brien's, we went to a nearby restaurant with some Irish food and drink specials and live music. I enjoyed my beef and Guinness pie (it didn't taste like beer) with chips (fries), and we taught the others how to play six-handed euchre. The girls won!

Outside on the sidewalk (for $10) you could try to win $50 by riding this bike from one line to the other. The trick was that the handlebars were backward, so when you turned one way, it went the opposite way. We chipped in to let Adam give it a go, but sadly he only won some stickers. Oh well!

This shot was taken a few days before St. Patrick's Day, but I thought it was appropriate to include at the end of this post. Hopefully you all had a good Irish celebration and found your pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! 

Stay tuned for upcoming posts about more fun in the Grampians and our day at the Grand Prix!

Sunny Sydney

We enjoyed Sydney much more this time around. Maybe it was the warm, sunny weather. Maybe it was the liveliness we saw in the streets (we were here on a Sunday-Tuesday last time). Maybe it was because we were able to explore things at a more leisurely pace and not spend all our time on the normal tourist attractions. Whatever it was, it was nice. We like Sydney a lot, but we're ready to head home to Melbourne tonight. Zack probably has to come back here next week, but maybe only for a day or two.

I spent my days exploring various parts of the city. You've already seen some pictures from Watson's Bay. But I also walked around the CBD, taking pictures in the Royal Botanic Gardens and at Hyde Park. At Hyde Park, there is the Anzac Memorial. It's basically like a miniature Washington D.C. with a reflecting pool, monuments and statues, and an eternal flame in tribute to fallen soldiers. Zack and I met for lunch a few times this week and enjoyed our picnics in the park.

Since we were here over the weekend, we went out on Friday night and pretended we were still young. We hung out at an Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy's and saw some live music by a group called Elevation. They were a U2 cover band, and they didn't exactly make up for us missing the real U2 concert in Denver this summer, but we had a good time nonetheless. We even went downstairs to the club for awhile and stopped by the Marble Bar at the Hilton to see all the "pretty people." I don't think we got to bed until about 2am, which is very late for us!


I'm at a McDonald's using their free internet right now to write this blog entry. We're in the process of switching internet companies, because we hate Vodaphone, so it may be a few days before I'm able to write again. We'll see! In the meanwhile, you can look forward to the entry on the Blue Mountains hike, from which our legs are STILL recovering!