4th of July on the Beach

Well, there's always something different about celebrating the 4th of July in a foreign country...it's just not quite the same as being in America...So I told Andrea we would have to at least go to the beach since I associate 4th of July with being at the beach (maybe just from growing up in California...I don't know...I just like being by the water for the holidays)...So we headed for Pattaya Beach today. It was interesting getting there at first but ended up being a fun day...

We decided we would take one of the minivans from the airport (they travel to Pattaya every couple hours)...But when we got to the airport, they told us they didn't have any minivans going...just a bus...we went to the counter to get our bus tickets but no one was there to help us..just a sign that said "Pattaya." It was still another hour an a half before the next bus would leave anyway. We went up to the counter just as a group of three others were going up...So, since there were 5 of us standing together, we were all of a sudden bombarded with all these drivers telling us they could take 5 and quoting us prices...we bartered with them for a good price and the other 3 people (who were from Indonesia) decided they would be in on the deal too, so we started walking out with this driver....

Well, he takes us all the way to the parking garage and opens the door to his taxi...We all looked at each other with confused looks on our faces and were like "No, where is the minivan" to which he replied "we take taxi"....Ha ha, ya right....there was no way we were paying more money than the bus to be crammed into a little taxi with 4 people in the backseat...Thankfully he didn't give us a hard time about it and just gave us our money back...So, we went back in for the bus and ended up getting on one that was leaving earlier than expected! So it all worked out in the end.

Once we got to Pattaya, we decided to just walk down to the beach instead of taking a taxi..It was a nice day and it felt good to go for a walk...As we were walking along, Andrea was like "You know, we should get a massage while we're here...maybe we can find a place" and as the words were out of her mouth, we turned the corner and there was "Health World"...this really big spa...It was perfect timing...I was like "Andrea, it must be a sign. Let's go in here" so we went in and ended up getting an hour and a half aromatherapy massage! One awesome thing about Thailand is that everything is super cheap...Andrea and I never go to the spa back in the states so every time we come to Thailand, we decided we have to have one little pampering day to get massages at the day spa..it's our splurge day....which is funny of course because Thai prices are still ten times cheaper than the states! Anyway, it felt really nice after my 27 hours of traveling the day before and way too much time in the same position sitting on an airplane!

After our massages, we went to a little Indian restaraunt and got some lunch...we had Thai food for breakfast so we figured we'd try something else since we have the rest of our trip to eat Thai food...Then we headed down to the beach and layed out and relaxed...It was really nice...We stayed until sunset and then headed over to the shops to do some shopping...which wasn't too successful for me...Andrea found a cute dress though and I enjoyed seeing all the stuff they had at the little shops...

While we were walking along, we came to Hard Rock Cafe where they were having a little 4th of July celebration...So we took a picture with their little statue of liberty and proceeded on singing "And I'm proud to be an American"...yes, we are dorks..and we're not ashamed of it...I know people probably don't think we're very patriotic since we leave our own country for independence day but really we're here helping the rest of the world see how wonderful Americans really can be :)

After awhile, we went back over to this place where it had looked like they were doing karaoke...it turned out to just be a live band with a singer who liked going out into the crowd, but it was fun to go back and enjoy the music...There were a couple people dancing, so I decided to take the opportunity to try to teach Andrea some swing dancing and we danced a little...it was fun....Andrea and I have decided that we can make fools of ourselves singing in the street and dancing around because we're in a foreign country and we're never gonna see these people again (that's what she tells me anyway....there will probably be a YouTube video of us singing on the street by the end of the week ha ha)...I'm having so much fun traveling with her though because we can just be goofy together and we don't think anything of it...not to mention we are both last minute and spontaneous so we just decide what we're doing as we go along and it all works out....

So we didn't see any fireworks today or hear the national anthem (although I'm sure people would've appreciated it if we'd sung that one as we were walking down the street!) but we had a really fun time...and how many time can you say that you celebrated 4th of July in Thailand...it's probably a once in a lifetime thing so we thought we'd make the most of it! Tomorrow we leave Bangkok and will head up to Mae Sot to stay with Terra and Teep and see the kids! It should be a fun week!