I finally managed to book our vacation to Thailand in February 2015. I know, I know, it's eleven months out. We thought about going this year, but our schedules didn't work out. I really need something like this to look forward to, since I've been feeling slightly burned out recently.

I also confirmed every detail with the hotel to make sure our stay will be comfortable and there won't be any surprises. (Some hotels can be a bit…fickle… coughcoughWestinChosuncoughcough.)

The below is the hotel we're going to stay at. Hero Material and I stayed there in 2010 for our honeymoon, and we loved it. (Which is why I was inspired to set Gavin and Amandine's second honeymoon in Thailand in Redemption in Love…) We're not going to Chiang Mai since The Boy's still too young for tigers and elephants and the like.

So now I'm totally dreaming of next February. LOL.

If you could go anywhere for your dream vacation, where would you go?

I'm finally getting around to posting a few pics from Korea.

So here's the 1st one — Kyobo Books. I went to the main one in the basement of the Kyobo Building. This particular bookstore has over 2.3 million books.

Kyobo building — it's a big building, though the one that's even bigger (the bluish one) is owned by Dong-Ah News (newspaper company).

Entrance:

Kyobo ereader display —

Closeup of Kyobo ereaders —

Kyobo v. Kindle —

Kyobo keyboard — its keys are so small, I don't know if I can really use it

Kyobo ereader screen — it's not bad, but I didn't find the display good enough for Korean text (I do read Korean pretty well)

Kyobo book displays — BTW, there are lots of this kind of displays to showcase select titles.

Kyobo display of JKR's Harry Potter series —

Kyobo book slip to help you find any title you want — it tells you exactly how many copies are in the store, plus the exact location in the store plus a small map so you can find it easily (sorry it's wrinkly b/c it got crushed in my bag)

Kyobo has one of the most amazing inventory tracking system. I bought two books entitled The Woman Who Made a King.

I'll post more photos of downtown Seoul later. :)

I must start this month's note by saying I'm sorry for missing last month's update. May was just too hectic. The Boy got bronchitis at the end of April, and with our trip to Korea and all, he had to basically stay out of daycare until May 18th, while we were planning our trip and getting our paperwork, etc. ready. Meanwhile Hero Material was really sick — high fever and so on — and there just wasn't any time for me to do everything I needed to do.

By the time we returned from the trip, it was too late to post an update. So that's how I ended up with nothing for May.

Now you may be wondering, “Why did you go to Korea, Nadia? Isn't your baby a little too young for an international trip?”

The Boy was exactly 11 months old when we flew out. So he was a bit young, and to be honest, Hero Material and I were not planning to travel overseas until The Boy was at least 3 years old. But my younger brother was getting married, so we had to go. And we are so glad we went. The wedding was stunning, and it was great to see my family and relatives. The Boy was a superstar; he did very well on the plane and at the wedding. And he got hugged by everyone, which he adored. :) I posted a few pictures of The Boy in Korea here if you want to see.

On the writing front — I finally sent off a new novel to Agent. It's a futuristic romance set (mostly) in Tokyo. I like the project, and I hope Agent likes it too.

As for the sequel to The Last Slayer — I'm doing another revision, which is about 75% done. Once I hit the 100% mark, I plan to send it off to a pair of fresh eyes for input. The plot and basic structure probably won't change at this point unless people tell me I messed up something really bad.

With the Boy back in daycare and my having recovered somewhat from the trip, I'm hoping that June will be more productive (and less sleep-deprived). I hope all of you have a lovely month. :)

P.S. Don't forget — A Happily Ever After of Her Own and Carnal Secrets are still on sale on Amazon, BN and All Romance eBooks!

Manop thought we ought to go to Tiger Kingdom after Maesa Elephant Camp. We weren't sure at first, but since it was on the way back to the city, we decided to stop by. Besides we were getting hungry, and Tiger Kingdom has a restaurant.

It's a bit pricey to get inside Tiger Kingdom. I think it's because it costs so much to keep the tigers well-fed. None of the tourists want to end up as tiger meat, you know…

The first cage you see is that of some tropical birds. I was confused at first because I was expecting TIGERS!

But you see…they were around…just hidden…

We went to the younger tigers' cage first. That's me rubbing a seven month-old tiger. He was in bliss. (Stay that way…good kitty!)

Hero Material sorta fell asleep…

Then the tigers fell asleep… It was just, you know, too exciting for words.

We decided to leave them alone and moved to a cage with older tigers. They were almost two years old IIRC.

This one didn't like it that Hero Material kept touching its ass, but I think he gave up on humans leaving him alone.

Satisfied tiger after he ate my hand….

(Just kidding! LOL. No tiger has ever bitten me. Just that darned shark a few years back…!)

And now, preeeeeeesenting….Spicy Sausage! (I kid you not. That's really his name…)

This is Hero Material and me with Meatball. (Yeah…this poor thing got named Meatball…)

And here's one of the cubs from Tiger Kingdom. Isn't he adorable? :wub:

Afterward, we decided to get lunch. This is the view from our table.

Manop asked us if we wanted to do anything else, but after tigers and elephants we were too tired. So we returned to the hotel instead to rest. Ahh….air conditioned room…I miss you so.

At around dinner time we decided to roam the streets around our hotel. We found a guy who made cool decorative hangings with metal.

Then we went to a cashmere store. Everything there was hand-made. Check this beautiful scarf out! I'm not holding two scarves in the picture. It's just one — but folded so you can see how it looks different on each side.

Hero Material bought me a pink one. :wub:

(It's creased in the picture, and that's my fault because I left it folded for too long…)

We also found a hilarious T-shirt shop.

Finally…a seafood restaurant! Look how huge this prawn is! And the lobster too!

That's our dinner. Grilled fresh king prawns. Only $6 for the plate.

Finally our dessert…! We had pineapple & mango smoothies. They were super sweet and delish! I've never had a smoothie this nice before. The largest one was only $2, but I didn't want something that large, so I got a small one, while Hero Material indulged in the super sized version. It's a good thing we don't live in Thailand, because we'd probably become diabetic.

Coming next: Day 7 — temples and wishes…oh my…!

The next morning Hero Material and I got up early for our taxi. We were a little worried that the driver might show up late, but he came on time. And to make it even better, he spoke great English and knew a lot about tourist attractions, etc. The best thing about it was that his rate was very reasonable, and Hero Material and I could do the tour leisurely, on our own schedule.

(FYI — if you want to hire him for a private tour in Chiang Mai, his name is Manop, he works for Chiang Mai Airport Taxi, his car number is 11, and his work contact is 08-1885-1563 [Don't forget to punch in the country code for Thailand first if you're calling from overseas!] or if you prefer, you can email him at nopcm02 at hotmail dot com.)

Our biggest concern — now that the taxi thing was squared away — was that we didn't want to go to an elephant camp that had abused animals. I heard some horror stories from a British couple in Phuket. The wife said the elephants she saw were so abused that they tried to beat their own trainers! Ack.

The elephant camp we chose was Maesa.

There are the pictures from the entrance. The portraits you see below are the king and queen of Thailand from way back when they were still young.

As we walked in, we saw elephants bathing. That's how the show begins, BTW. They looked so happy in the water.

Here, you see people collecting elephant poo. Per Manop, elephant poo is very fibrous, so the camp recycles that into paper. (So the next time you think you're a shitty writer, now you can have the perfect paper! Perfect for shitty first drafts!)

Along the way, you can see an art gallery. It displays paintings by elephants at the camp.

We went to the main arena for the show and waited. It takes a while for all the elephants to show up because they move in a leisurely fashion. They were very quiet though. You don't hear any thuds or anything like that, which was kind of surprising.

The people you see on the elephants are called mahouts. They're trainers and caretakers. Elephants do not like to deal with people they don't know or like, so it takes a while to earn the animals' trust and become a mahout.

Finally the show got started. You see how they march in with a welcome banner and all the elephants are linked, trunk to tail.

This baby was also part of the show.

Here's a very short video clip I made with my digital camera. This is a kind of elephant musical, featuring hoops and harmonicas.

Many elephants were very playful. They sometimes stole their mahouts' hats.

Elephants are also excellent soccer players. Look at this goalie posing!

Here are short video clips of elephant soccer!

And the super goalie!

As you can hear, the Europeans in the audience got REALLY excited during the soccer portion of the show. :D

Afterward the elephants painted some pictures for us.

Then to thank some of their hard-working mahouts, elephants gave a Thai massage…

(No, he wasn't mortally wounded…just bowing LOL)

The dart throwing competition: Who will prevail? An elephant or human children?

(Actually they tied…)

Finally the elephants built a wall of sorts. You can see how strong they are! (FYI — they were all fully grown elephants…no babies.)

And look how triumphant they look after they're finished. :wub:

After the show, the elephants came closer to say hello to the audience.

You can see me and Hero Material with the elephants.

This elephant liked us a lot because he got tons of bananas from Hero Material. HM bought a bunch of bananas to give to the elephants, but he held them too close to one, so the closest one got all of them. Oy…

We were a little thirsty and tired, so we had some coconut juice then went off into the jungle on an elephant.

Look at the caravan!

Elephants don't move very fast, so it wasn't unstable or anything, but it can get a little scary if you don't like the height.

As your elephant carries you around, it wants to eat. Well, the problem is that sometimes the grass it wants is on the downhill slope…! Ours actually tried to go down the slope instead of following the trail. So the mahout had to scold him some. (But he never hit the elephant!)

Another pic of us on the trail…

The view of the elephant camp:

The final stop was a stream. That's where elephants can drink water; because it's so hot and humid, they need to cool off, rehydrate…and bathe. But you gotta be careful because they tend not to think about the fact that the humans on their back don't want to get wet!

After we got done with our ride, the elephant lunch time started. Some of them also got a nice cool shower.

We went to the nursery to feed the elephants there.

You can see the mother and the baby. He was so young that he couldn't eat any regular food, so we didn't get to feed him, though his mom ate a lot of bananas.

Afterward, we went to several huts with exhibits. Here you can see the tool that mahouts use to control elephants. It's basically used to tug at the elephants, but some jerks apparently use it to hit them in the head…! Grr.

Then we went to see the record-setting painting by elephants. We weren't allowed to take pictures there (kind of a like an art museum…), but you can read about it here.

We also bought some souvenirs. We don't tend to buy them much, but since Maesa obviously treated its elephants nicely and we wanted them to continue to be cared for in the manner they deserve…

I'm breaking the log for this day into multiple sections because there are too many pictures, etc. After the camp, we went to the Tiger Kingdom, where Spicy Sausage awaits! Coming up next! :)

Hero Material and I made our way to the airport — this time Le Meridien Phuket Beach Resort arranged for it — and got there in one piece and with plenty of time to spare. Phuket airport is one of the worst I've ever been to, alas. It's nowhere near as nice as Bangkok, Incheon or Narita.

One thing I suggest that people do is eat before boarding. This time we flew economy, and the food was horrid. I can't stand mayonnaise — I hate the smell of it, the color, the taste of it, the texture — and it was in all their food. So I couldn't eat anything. By the time we landed in Chiang Mai, I was extremely hungry and was getting a nasty headache from the low blood sugar.

Chiang Mai airport is much better than the one in Phuket. The Airport Taxi company was very good, and we were able to get to Le Meridien Chiang Mai for just 120 baht (less than $4).

I really liked the main entrance.

And the elephant fountain just looks awesome.

The hotel appeared very new and modern.

And of course, our room (the most important thing!):

Le Meridien Chiang Mai also gave us a nice platter of fruit with a memo from the general manager congratulating us on our marriage. I have no idea how they knew I love eating. LOL. Fruit in Thailand tastes awesome. Crisp and juicy and sweet. *bliss*

The hotel also has a lovely pool.

Since I was starving, we decided to go out and walk around and find a place to eat. This is what it looks like outside our hotel.

After we ate something — I think it was some kind of curry or whatever…I can't even remember to be honest because I was that hungry, and my head hurt too much. But afterward, I felt so much better, so Hero Material and I decided to walk around some. We found some interesting street shops.

And look what we found!

He's only four years old. We got to feed him some sugarcane. He wasn't chained, and his owners didn't use sticks or anything to make him move around, and it was obvious that he wasn't being abused. It cost me 20 baht to feed this little sweetie. :wub:

After that, we got a foot massage at a place called Let's Relax, on the second floor of the big McD building you saw above.

Around 9-ish or so, we returned to the hotel and asked our concierge about going to the elephant camp. We thought about doing a group tour, but decided against it because we didn't want to be at the mercy of whatever schedule the tour company decided on. The concierge recommended that we take a taxi out there. He made our reservation and everything. Yay!

Day 6 — (BIG) elephants here we come…! W00t!