Thanksgiving in Phuket,Thailand

Faced with the prospect of having Katie and I spend our first Thanksgiving in Hong Kong away from family and friends in an empty apartment ,we decided go to Phuket, Thailand for a bit of sun, some diving, and some exploring. After a hectic 6 months, I was in desparate need of a vacation.

The trip got off to a rough start when we spent about 2 hours hunting around Phuket's tourist trap, Patong Beach, looking for the dive shop where we booked our overnight dive trip. It was humid and the locals were hassling us to look at whatever they were trying to sell (t-shirts, sunglasses, swimsuits, the usual). Not exactly the paradise we had been hoping for.















However, once we found the dive shop, everything got much better. After a relaxing evening at our hotel, we left very early the next morning (before sunrise)to begin our trip up to the Similan Islands, considered by many to have the best diving in Thailand.

To get there, we took an hour in half bus-ride followed by an hour speed boat trip to the live-aboard boat. Some of the most interesting highlights of that trip included seeing rubber tree farms (they extract rubber from the trees in much the same way they do maple syrup from maple trees) and watching families of up to 4 or 5 people riding down the highway on one motorbike.

The 2 days on the dive boat were great. There were about 20 other divers, some from England, Japan, Sweden and a number of other countries. Our dive guide was a Spanish guy named Fran.

The picture below is of the island where we had our first 2 dives, Ko Bon.

The diving was amazing; we saw loads of beautiful coral, sea turtles, eels and tons of fish. The visibility was awesome and we couldn't have asked for better weather on the boat. Below is a picture of one of the 9 Similan Islands.

One of my favorite moments on the trip was when I was completely surrounded by a huge school of glowing neon blue and yellow fish. It was visually stunning and one of those amazing moments that happen from time to time as a diver. Its why I love diving and can't enough of the sport.

Katie and I just before going under on one of our dives.

Between dives, the boat had a great roof deck with beach chairs where we could go to get some sun and relax. At night, the temperatures were beautiful and a we spent a few hours looking up at the stars and talking to other travelers from different corners of the globe (Singapore, Dublin, California).

Just before sunset, a sea turtle took interest in our boat and circled a few times. Later that night, on my first ever night dive, I was able get reacquainted to our friend as he joined us for about 15 minutes.

Overall, the 2 days diving were great. The diving was amazing, the weather was perfect and we also got to meet some great people. At this point, we were definitely ready for some beach time and spent most of the rest of our trip relaxing. I did unfortunately have a small bout of food poisoning on the last day, but it did nothing to ruin the great time we had on our first trip to Thailand and the South East Asia region.

Some other pictures from our trip:

Sunset from the diveboat:

The beach where our hotel was located:

A picture of the King of Thailand outside of our hotel. There are pictures of him everywhere.

London & Dublin

Once we were back from Tokyo, I had about 5 days rest before I was off to London and Dublin. My friend Brenda has been living in London since Oct '05 and I've been meaning to get out there, my sister was also studying in London for the semester so it worked out perfectly that I could see her as well as Brenda. My mom and aunt Nancy also decided to make the trip, so it was a big reunion in the UK.

This is a picture of Brenda and me at the London Eye. The story goes like this --- Brenda, Kim, Bill and I were driving from Detroit to Chicago after Kim's bridal shower (so this was in 2003 sometime) and because it was a 5 hour drive, we began to play 20 questions to pass the time. Now, Kim and I would play 20 questions when we were bored at work at Ernst & Young (we didn't bill any clients during this time) and we got so good that we would only have to ask 4-5 questions before we could figure out what the other was thinking. So, we're in the car and it's Brenda's turn to think of something and between the other three of us in the car, we go through all 20 questions and then some other hints before we all give up and Brenda's like "It's the London Eye!!!" None of us had any idea what she was talking about even after she told us -- so here is a picture of Brenda and I at the London Eye.

Then Christine and I went to Dublin for the weekend and had a great time. Here are some pictures of Dublin

We also went on a musical pub crawl - here is a video clip of some of the music. The music is good enough, but what I really wanted to capture was the rockin' mullet one of the guys had

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7EJHy-f7IE

Once back in London, we saw some great sights and ate some great meals

Next we were off to Thanksgiving in Thailand...