Spring Break Malaysia, baby!

For Spring Break 08', we traveled down to Malaysia for a mini-family reunion. Unfortunately, Annie and the boys couldn't make it and Mom got sick and couldn't fly, but we still met up with Cork, Dad, Ann, Kevin, Vince and Gigi. Jen and I flew in late Friday night and slept near the airport. In the morning, we met up with the India Krembs' back at the airport to fly to Langkawi. We arrived at the hotel on the beach by midday and found Dad in the lobby. Cork arrived later that night. Unfortunately, we all were too tired to stay up to welcome him. What a welcome party, eh? We really liked our room, as it was in the first row on the beach. The sunsets were incredible! One thing I love about tropical climates is the thunderstorms. So, after we checked in, we swam at the pool with the kids, had lunch and a beer poolside and settled nicely into vacation mode. Ah... We spent 2 nights at the beachside place and moved to another more secluded spot for the next two nights. The second place had huge rooms and a neat little crescent moon beach. Very few people and great swimming. Wednesday we packed up and flew off to Kuala Lumpur together to visit the city. We stayed in the heart of downtown and enjoyed a very diverse city. Malaysia is so interesting because of all the mixed heritages...and great food! Anyway, we had a great trip but missed Mom and Annie and the boys. Check out the pictures below-

The Petronas Towers. This pic is for you, Vinnie. Vincent told us everything we needed to know about the towers before we got there. He is really fun to travel with because he knows what he's looking at and gets really excited.

At the KL Convention Center

Cocktail hour at some groovy restaurant in KL














Special drinks with the ladies


















The Eye on Malaysia. So called world's biggest ferris wheel. Vincent's response to going around again on the wheel, "YES! YES! YES!"


















Sunset in the city


















Butterfly farm in the city.

My butterfly


















Jen found the Coach purse she's been after! She was pretty fired up!














Petronas at night



















Cruising in the van

Kev sporting his new bag


















The Shah Sultan Ahmad building in KL

How about another tower shot?

Inside the tower on the 41st floor

Gigi at the butterfly farm. She has fish food in her hands. They had huge fish in the ponds.

Jen at our beach at the 2nd place in Langkawi

Sunset

Swimming at sunset

The pool at the 2nd place - Tanjung Sanctuary

Vinnie V with his Korea shirt and soccer ball

The beach at the 1st place on Langkawi - Frangipani Resort

Watch out for monkeys!

A cable car ride up to the top of the island

Incredible sunset at the 1st place

AH! Cheese Curls. Yummy! They seem to always show up on warm tropical beaches. See the warm glow!

Jen loved this outdoor shower. It was very cool.

Jen and Ann enjoying the sunset show

Gigi posing for us. Read her t-shirt.

A few sunset shots

Dad and Gigi. The sky is on fire!

Well, we really loved Malaysia and can't wait to return. It's got it all...jungles, beaches, city, culture, good food, hot weather and more.

Next trip will be back to the US of A. We are looking at our calendar and plans for the summer...and whoa it is packed! It'll be super busy but all fun stuff, so we are excited to see family and friends.

Until then...

Thailand for Jen's 29th Bday

Happy 29th Birthday Jen! We took our Lunar New Year holiday in Thailand. It ended up being a perfectly relaxing and lazy vacation. We decided to take it easy and go to Koh Samet which requires very little travel time from Bangkok. We arrived about 2 AM Saturday the 2nd and stayed near the airport. Then next morning we took a public bus down to Rayong, then hired a private car to take us to the Ban Phe pier. From there we hopped in a speedboat for a bumpy ride out the Koh Samet. The weather was nasty when we got there. But cleared up through the week. We stayed at Sang Thian Beach for 5 nights and then hopped in a minivan back to Bangkok for the last 3 days.


Coffee and Thai food for breakfast on Jen's birthday.















This is Wong Duean Beach just a ten minute walk from our beach. It was more crowded but had more amenities too, of course.















Birthday dinner for two on the beach















The next day we found a swing to play on for awhile.















This guy was really taking it easy.

Dr. Phil, you creepy fool. How did you follow us to Thailand? After reading the article, I learned that Dr. Phil used to own a Grecian Spa but got busted for dirty business practices. Philthy Phil.

Ah, now that's a perfect lunch.

A swim at Wai beach

Having a Singha and playing cards. It doesn't get much better than that.

This was our place to stay. It was neat because it was almost like a treehouse.

This is back in Bangkok. We stayed out in Sukhumvit this time which was nice because our hotel was on the Skytrain line. One day we ventured out on the river up to Wat Arun. This was a place me missed on our last visit. It was pretty darn awesome, so I am glad we made time for it.

The building across the river is where the Reclining Buddha lives.


































The monastery behind the Wat.

On our last day, we went to the weekend market which was was far larger and more impressive than we expected. You could find anything...I mean anything you need here. We only made it through a small fraction of the market in 3 hours. After that, we went to another crazy place, MBK Mall. That place was seriously overwhelming.

Well, it was a fun and relaxing vacation. Our next travels will take us to Malaysia to meet up with some family. Then, Mom and Dad will visit for a week. Should be a fun time to spend with them.