Mon adventure

As Ben said, we spent Saturday walking around the Mon settlement, Ko Kret. Here's a little history lesson for you--a few hundred years ago, the king put this group of people, the Mons (from Burma), on this piece of land. He didn't want them taking jobs away from the Thais. So they lived on this land making pottery. It eventually flooded and became an island and is now a pretty popular tourist sight for Thais. Now you can all walk away smarter and enriched. So we caught a taxi from our house to Wat Sanam Neua in Pak Kret where we took a ferry over to the island. It was a short trip but really pretty. We ate some amazing pad thai and walked around the entire island. We saw some potters working and bought a few pieces of pottery. The entire walk took about 2 hours. It was beautiful, and it really did feel like a honeymoon for the first time. We highly endorse this island to anyone visiting the city.

The ferry over to the island

The most delicious pad thai we've had yet

A shot of the market where we ate

The making of the pottery

A kiln

Potters carving by hand

These kids were helping out--they were adorable

A couple of old women talked us into buying these treats, which we did. They were disgusting.

Ben's first coconut tree

The path on the back side of the island was much more rural

The biggest temple on the island

I love my wife

We had a great day today, it was the first day that really felt like we were on a honeymoon. We went to a little dilapidated island where the local tribe, the Mon people, made a living by making ceramic pots. We were outside for a number of hours, and when we came home, she slept. I love her. That's all. I'll let her talk about the rest of the day, I just wanted to say that I love her.

Wedding pictures are here!

We got our wedding pictures today! Our wonderful photographer, Andrea Christensen (who we highly endorse to anyone in the Provo/Salt Lake area), just posted a bunch of pictures from our wedding day in Nauvoo. She hasn't finished with the family pictures yet, but these are the ones that she took of Ben and me. Enjoy!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25017151@N06/sets/72157624145128216/show/with/4643905748/

Pictures, pictures, pictures

It's been a busy few days, so I thought I would put up some pictures so everyone can get a glimpse of our day-to-day lives.

Ben, Adele and Alaina working on the fort we built in Adele's room. We watched The Kid inside the fort.

At Villa, a shopping center, for 10 baht you can have a machine spit out fish food and then these huge catfish come up and fight for the food. It's crazy.

The bus/truck thing that I ride to work every day. It's pronounced "Song-Tau" and basically it's just benches and a roof put over the back of a truck bed. And it only costs 6 baht.

Anvida Kindergarten, where I teach English three times a week.

The Pinvises' house, where we are staying. The window at the very top that you can barely see is our room.

Spa Blah

Today we had the pleasure of visiting the Jatujak (or J.J.) weekend market in Bangkok.  It's row after row of shops and stands and restaurants, and it's the biggest market in Thailand. Plus it's attached to the J.J. mall, which is huge in and of itself.  We (meaning us and the entire Pinvises family) spent all day there.  Megan came away with a couple of skirts and Ben bought some lovely ties for only 10 baht apiece. After lunch and more shopping, Ben, Megan, Ariel, Adele, Alaina and Alex visited the foot spa. But this was no ordinary foot spa; you put your feet in large tanks of water and tiny fish nibble the dead skin off of your feet and legs. It was quite an experience; and it worked, our feet were so soft.  An interesting side note--the Thai word for fish is pronounced "blah".

The J.J. market

Megan, Ben and Alaina, feet submerged in flesh-eating fish

A close up

The other tanks had bigger fish--we all took turns putting our feet in there

Life of Luxury

We've had a lot of family and friends worried about us with all this rioting going on. We just wanted to let everyone know that we're perfectly safe.  We're about an hour away from downtown, so we haven't seen any problems firsthand. Church was canceled today though because the church building is downtown. But as long as we stay in this general vicinity we should be fine.  In fact, we are more than fine, because we have been living quite the life here in Thailand. Friday Megan got her hair done and had a pedicure. Such a hard life. Yesterday we went to a fancy Thai restaurant that was beautiful.  It is called Suan Thip, or the garden of Thip (the goddess of water).  Delicious food, beautiful gardens, and they even put your napkin on your lap for you.

The restaurant

another view

our coconut smoothies came in actual coconuts

the view across the river

One night in Bangkok and the world's our oyster

Ben and I arrived in Bangkok last night at 1 am after a day and a half of traveling. We're staying with Ben's old roommate Alex and his family; they've been really nice to us. Today was for recovering from jet lag, so we didn't do a lot, but we did go out to lunch with Alex and then to a mall this evening with his dad and sister, Adele. For those who haven't been to a Thai mall, it was quite large. 8 floors with a grocery store in the basement. That's what I call shopping. We're excited to get to see more of the city. The only complaint I have right now is the jet lag, which is to be expected.  More specifically, I mean the fact that I have been struggling not to fall asleep while Ben is wide awake.  A person should not be allowed to adjust so quickly.  His crazy sleeping habits (or lack of sleeping habits) might have something to do with it.  I knew he was good at almost everything he did, but how can one have a talent for not being tired?

Warrensburg Reception

Part two of the Ben/Megan wedding saga. We had a reception on Tuesday in Warrensburg, MO, Megan's hometown.  A little suggestion for all of those who are planning or will someday plan a wedding: schedule your wedding and reception on separate days.  We had a luncheon on Monday after the wedding that was very low key and had the actual receptions on different days. By the time 3:00 rolled around, we were exhausted and so glad that we did not have anything scheduled for the rest of the day. So keep that in mind.  We actually did little to help with our reception, but luckily Megan's parents had a lot of help from some wonderful people in the ward. Megan's mom made some delicious food and the cake turned out really well. And we got some pretty good presents.

A little shoutout to Kayla Dawson, she did an excellent job on our cake

Wedding Day!

We've been quite busy the past couple of weeks, so we have a few posts to catch up on. Most important of all the many events that have transpired would have to be our wedding on Monday. It was a great day, the weather in Nauvoo was perfect and everything ran smoothly.  We had quite a few people tell us that they had never been to a less stressful wedding. Our sealing was a wonderful experience, but we won't get into the details of who cried more than whom. We have some pictures from Megan's family to tide everyone over until we get our pictures back from our photographer.

With the parents

Both our families

Direct quote from Josh-- "Where can I grab her?!"

Ben's sisters had a bit more trouble

A view of the Nauvoo temple

Ben's siblings were nice enough to decorate our car