Day 1 - Bangkok and the Reclining Buddha

I arrived in Bangkok after two smooth flights. Here's a view of the plane landing:

Justin gave me some instructions written in Thai so that the taxi driver could find the apartment. Here's the apartment and view from the 18th floor:

We (Atif, Justin, Yuliya, Lindsey, Lauren, and the babies) had some Delicious thai food next door for lunch. 

Amuse bouche:

They like to garnish with artistically carved food. 

No idea what any of this food was, but it was great!

After lunch I rallied enough to join the girls on a trip to Wat Pho to see the giant reclining Buddha. It was in fact giant and reclining. 

Giant Buddha foot:

You can see each toe is the size of  person's head. 

Marigolds on an altar:

We then spent some time exploring the temple complex. 

We had some time before dinner so we went to a nearby park called Saranrom. It seems to be used primarily for a place to jog. It was nice and shaded, and well landscaped. Here are a people jogging behind a monk:

We found these really cool exercise machines in the park. They also had weights you could lift just sitting outside. 

We also saw Komodo dragons swimming in the pond. 

We headed to dinner after (slowly, it took about an hour to go six miles in traffic). There we met up with Justin, Atif and their babies as well as Justin's Thai "family" who were very generous and bought us dinner. We ate at a restaurant in a gigantic mall that was 7 stories tall. At dinner I almost passed out from jet lag, but somehow survived. 

Next day we fly to Phuket!