Bangkok

February 4-10: For the Chinese New Year we had a few days off of school so I decided to head to Thailand for about a week with 5 other girls!  We spent most of the time in Bangkok and couple days in the cutest little village of Kanchanaburi (which I'll write about separately).

One of the places I was most excited to visit in Bangkok was the Grand Palace. For me when I think of Thailand I imagine the colors of all of the different temples sparkling gold in the sun. Pictures really do not do this temple justice. There's something about walking around a place where everything is so incredibly detailed and beautiful that transports you to another place and mindset.

Sitting in awe beneath the prettiest doors I've ever seen.

Various towers and statues around the grand palace add to the grandeur of the temple. 

The stunning Grand Palace

Wat Pho temple

One interesting thing for me was exactly how many statues were around the temples, we walked through rooms and rooms of Buddha statues similar to these throughout Wat Pho. The different hand positions of the Buddha have different meanings for example this one pictured above is signaling "No fear". 

Wat Pho~ The Temple of the Reclining Buddha. I honestly had no idea the massive size of this buddha, to get an idea of size, you can see the size of the doorway by the elbow of the Buddha.

If you weren't already aware, I am a total foodie. I'm all about discovering new foods in each country I visit and most of the research I do pre-trip is about which foods I want to try. This one however, was no new food to me, mango sticky rice has been my favorite dessert for years and I was beyond ecstatic to get to have some authentic mango sticky rice after a long day of adventures. This stand in particular was at a night market and apparently very highly rated. It was the first of many desserts I enjoyed in Bangkok. 

  

More delicious food I tried, to the left was coconut ice cream in a coconut with sticky rice on top (absolute perfection) and to the left was one long fresh potato chip! Both of these I got and shared with my friend Juliette as we were exploring Chatuchak Market, the biggest market in Bangkok. There were so many stalls of everything from clothes to spices to pets we needed some energy to get through it all. 

We made the great choice later in the day to go explore the Amphawa Floating Market, it was about 2 hours outside of Bangkok but definitely worth the trek. It was so neat to see the intricate system these ladies have to make dishes on their boat passing ingredients back and forth with a little basket on a stick. 

Delicious Pad Thai I enjoyed made by the ladies in the floating boats. 

One of the reasons we were able to spend so long in Bangkok was because it was the Chinese New Year so of course we had to go check out the celebrations in China town. The crowds were insane but luckily we were able to still see some of the parade around the people while we enjoyed dinner. 

I've been thinking about getting a compass tattoo ever since I studied abroad in France,

and I knew coming to SouthEast Asia I wanted to get it so after seeing this sign, my mind

was made up: Bangkok was the perfect place. Hannah has been thinking about getting her

tattoo even longer than I so it was a really exciting day for both of us.

We spent our last night in Bangkok visiting the Sky Bar (where the Hangover 2 was filmed). There's nothing better than an entire view of the city from above to finish the trip.