We got back yesterday from a week-long trip to Phuket Thailand. We stayed at the Club Med resort. We thought it must be pretty close to heaven! We left on Friday morning,and went to Shanghai and then left early Saturday morning, arriving at our destination Saturday about 8:00pm. Because the next day was Sunday, we wanted to try to keep the Sabbath day as holy as possible. We weren't sure how the kids would take it, seeing everything there was to do, but we actually had a really nice, restful day. We went on several walks, and played some exciting rounds of Uno. It was a good day to make plans for the rest of the week. There were so many options, we had to plan carefully, so we wouldn't miss one of the fun activities that Club Med had to offer.
Michael, Rachel, Nicole, and me, decided to get our open-water scuba licenses. I don't like to admit this, but I've always had a fear of oceans. I'm ok to play in the shallow waves, but maybe I watched Jaws or National Geographic Specials one too many times. I am so glad that I didn't let my fears stop me! The four dives we went on were some of the most beautiful scenes I have ever seen in my life! One of the days we went to the Phi Phi Islands on a boat, and did our dives there. The coral, and tropical fish were breath-taking. It looked as if everything had been set-up just for us to see, like in a movie. Rachel and Nicole loved it! They worked hard, and we were very proud of them. And Mike, well, he's wanted to do this forever, so you could say it was a dream come true for him! Thanks to a very patient Italian scuba instructor named Lucio, we all did it!
Caitlin, Jay and Eli were excited to join the kid's club. They were able to do things like trapeze, Bungie bouncing, archery, games, swimming at the beach and pool, and many other things. With them in the kid's club, Mike and I were able to do the scuba-diving. We spent four days in all. Three of the days were a couple of hours in the morning, and another couple of hours in the afternoon, and the last day was an all day trip to the island. Between our scuba classes, we were able to lay on the beach, lounge around the pool, and even try out the trapeze and bungie bounce as well. Rachel did so well with the trapeze that she learned two catches! (where she flew in the air and was caught by someone on another trapeze)
There were shows put on by Club Med every night. Two of those nights, the kids performed. They got to wear costumes and had face paint and everything. We were all shocked to see Eli really getting into it! He has never been the performing child. He's always the one hiding behind his mom, in those moments. Shocking, coming from a family of "let's make up a show and perform it" children. But don't worry, I think he's getting ready to take center stage.
Other great things that went on, were playing with monkeys, riding elephants, Thai massages, coconut milk drinks on the beach, the huge fantasia show with over 200 dancers and 30 elephants, a snorkeling trip with Caitlin, the girls getting their hair beaded, hours and hours in the pool (my children couldn't get enough! Jay can swim quite well now, and Eli is an expert doggie paddler!), and of course we got in a bit of shopping as well. The girls made good friends with another family from a different city in China, and that made everything even more fun!
There was a different theme each night, for the dinner and show. The food was incredible (though we weren't sure if it really was incredible, or if we have lowered our expectations on food), we're going with incredible, and all we could eat. I think that Eli pretty much survived the week on ice-cream cones.
Well, I think that you might say, we felt we were in paradise. It was a wonderful vacation! We are all back at school and work today. I think we could all use a rest now after our vacation, but it's time to get back to life. And work of all of that food we ate! So we'll treasure our memory of our vacation in paradise, and get back to real life.
