Welcome to Phuket.

(Updated: Dunno why all the pictures went missing. For those who didn't see the pictures, next time come regularly to my site before things get disappearing. Eek! got ghost err...)

For a change, I did not need to start packing my whole family of 5's luggage the night before for our vacation. Usually, I would start packing after they slept (as they would keep sabotage my work) and it would drag until the wee hours of the morning. Then I would be too tired to sleep a wink and the next day, I would be too tired with the lack of sleep and the travelling hours and stress to enjoy my well deserved break.

This time round, it was such a refreshing change. I only wake up when my system told me to, without any alarm clock scaring the wits out of me. Then, we leisurely take our breakfast at our favorite hakka mee stall and leisurely go back home to only start packing.

That was when we realized I only had one hour to do that, and it was a mad rush again. Gosh! What a stressful time it was! I knew I would forget something, and true enough, I missed out packing diapers for the little girl. Never mind, it's the hotel beds she would be wetting la.

We took the kids for a ride on the RM9 per head's ride on the big red bus. 10 mins before we were to arrive at LCCT, little girl wanted desperately to pee, and I was desperately looking for solution. Records showed she would pee in her pants if not taken seriously at her request. Lucky for her (and for me), a kind lady offered me a plastic bag to contain the liquid disposal. Whew! That was really a close call, I would never ever leave without the diapers again in public transportation with them. Learnt the lesson well.

So, we arrived in pretty good time, and had time to lunch at McD. Really pissed me off, it's so-not-me to buy the happy meal just for the promotional made-in-china toys, but I was really out of my mind that moment and bought one, eager to make the children happy, only to be told they ran out of stock and I get a lousy ruler as a replacement. I so wanted to return the not-so-happy meal, but seeing the sorry look on that waiter's face, sigh, "suan-le"!

After lunch, we then boarded the plane and was off to our destination. The children were really well behaved, such a big difference compared to the just few years ago. I kept pestering them to nap for awhile, but they were all too excited to be flying in the plane. In the end, little girl fell asleep while we were landing. Sigh!

We rented a car at the airport, and I laid out the map to navigate papa to our beach resort. With a little time wasted on a little lost on the way, we made it to the hotel lobby finally and it was already dark. That was the disadvantage of travelling in the afternoon, one whole day wasted just like that. Anyway, I can't complain for I appreciated the non-stressful day.

The room turned out to be quite spacious and pleasant. Elder son was too happy to find out there was cartoon network on tv and not missing his favorite Ben 10 series.

We quickly made a move to have our dinner, and highly recommended from my friend, MY, on Dino Park, we straight away went there without thinking twice.

Yes, it was pretty lovely, but we were too late to get any tables in the open air. The food was good, though not really cheap, and frankly speaking, I suppose we were all too tired to enjoy the mood of dining that moment. I myself wanted so much to get on back to the hotel room to have a good shower. Didn't take many photos of it too, my friend did a good job on that, perhaps you guys can check it out here.

After which, we walked back to the car, and me walking along with little girl, suddenly lost papa and the 2 boys. Can't see them at the car, and I retraced back my steps to see if they were anywhere to be found. I would expect papa to be checking out the tours, and true enough, I found them just across the street outside the restaurant.

There, I saw with wide-disbelief eyes that papa was busy talking to the young girl behind the desk while the 2 boys were running around to the shop next door and back, on the narrow pedestrian walkway which lies just right beside the busy street. I was so darn shocked! Papa would be getting another long lecture from me that night.

So, eventually, after I let him decide on the tour and settled it, which took like eternity, I was so glad we were returning to the hotel finally. In the car, I gave him a few conditions he had to agree to, else the family vacation would be meaningless. He knew he wouldn't be able to object, as he agreed without any hesitation (or should I say, I was just being fair and logical, eh?).

Well, so that was the first day of our vacation. I was just praying deep inside that nothing would happen to them, as it's kinda stressful for me to keep an eye on the handful.

The next day, we woke up to a beautiful sunny day and only then, we can see the actual view from our room's balcony. The hotel design really is quite special, with the pool weaving around in a circle, and every room at the ground floor actually has direct access to it just right outside their balcony as shown in the picture below.



Breakfast is served at the open area in front of the beach. Fancy having breakfast like that? It was just awesome.



The Karon beach is just right outside of the hotel, separated by a road. Waves were roaring inviting us to play, I was really tempted to jump inside if not for the absurd heat though. So, that would have to wait until evening.





We found out on the last day that those lazy chairs were charged 100 Baht for each usage! And I was earlier amazed with the kind of "free" amenities lined up on the shore for us tourists. So, it wasn't free as I thought it to be, and I wasn't very happy with that after all. Deng! Not cheap at all, those buggers really make a handsome income just by collecting "protection money" like that, yeah?


Well, then we went on to explore Phuket island itself with our rented car. Where we went? That would be in the next post. Hope you are not too bored with the wordy post this one is yet.