mom is visiting!

hello from chiang mai, north of bangkok. my mom is visiting me! she's been here since october 1st (wow, it's october! it's stillll summer, though!) and we've kept ourselves quite busy. i met her at the airport at midnight on sept. 30... so techincally the 1st, and we spent the first two days of her visit seeing some sights in bangkok and doing some mild shopping. thailand is a lot to take in at first... the heat, the smells, the heat, the culture... but mom took it in stride. she's a trooper.
after two days in bangkok, we took a (public) bus and shuttle ferry to an amazing resort on koh samet (Samet Island), which is a bit southeast from bkk. we spent three days there and really enjoyed the pool, the beach, the food, the service, and the room. everything is very nice there. it's called Samed Club, great place. highly recommend it.
koh samet is a smaller island than the ones i've been to before, so renting motorbikes proved to be a bit boring. we were able to scoot into the little town and a bigger beach, though, so they were nice to have. we had fun! i love motorbiking!

after koh samet, we headed back to bangkok and hung out for two days to recoup and figure out our next move. mom was able to meet my friend anelda and we had fun. mom and i went to the grand palace which is SO hot but so worth it, an amazing place. it's definitely good to be king! (even though he doesn't live there anymore. he lives in a different palace somewhere else in the city.)

we're in chiang mai, now, for three days. the place we're staying isn't quite as nice as koh samet, but it's a good place near plenty of interesting things to do... there's SO much to do and see here! it's amazing! we just wandered around a little bit (to be honest, we were looking for starbucks. i know, i know.) and then headed back to the guesthouse because i was too tired from all that sitting and sleeping on our fourteen hour train ride (which was overnight... but very LONG!). funny, we'll fly home and it will only take an hour and a half. hmpt.
anyway, after my nap, we had a fantastic dinner at a place called art cafe. we ate breakfast there this morning. it's awesome! great food and very clean!
that leaves us here, at the internet cafe. i hope to meet up with my friend angela, who is doing fantastic mission work here, but we'll see... i was ill-prepared with the "hey, we're coming!" email.

next, we're off to the markets!! ha! never fear, father, things are "like, like totally a dollar or something. like it's like so awesome!" (we had the pleasure to be in the presence of some very valley-esque american girls, in their tight shirts, short shorts and giant sunglasses, in the cafe this morning. geez, it had been a while. i had forgotten. and how?)

off we go! more soon....