Today we took the cooking class with Poo. It started with a tour of the market - not for faint-hearted! The market starts at 2am to 10am. It has fish, sea food, meat, vegetables and fruit. This is not a tourist market and we only met Asians there. It has anything from live chicken and duck, to frogs, eel, ants, beetles, snakes, insects, etc. Then we went to her little cooking studio and prepared a few Thai dishes: Pat Gapow Gai (fried chicken with basil), Phad T...

We left the hotel wanting to go to the Grand Palace. On the way, the driver told us, that the street is closed and he'll bring us to another place where we can take a water taxi. We tried to talk him out of that, but were not successful. The place he dropped us off was a boat tour operation, so we just walked away and went by foot. Close to the Grand Palace, we met a "friendly guy" who told us that the palace is closed for morning prayers and we should go see th...

Today, we arrived in Bangkok and were pleasantly surprised by the friendliness and smiles of the people! We got to our hotel, Grand Hyatt at Erawan, a beautiful hotel at a great, central location. For dinner we went by taxi to the river and then by ferry across the river to a dinner theater. Great Thai food! Unfortunatly, after dinner it was raining cats and dogs and there were no taxis available at the restaurant. We walked to a busier street but were completel...

We left Shanghai this morning... it was a nightmare! First we stood in line for China Eastern Airline, but it was the wrong line (all signs in Chinese). Then we stood in line for half an hour to find out that our suitcases are too heavy and we had to pay before we could get our boarding passes. The only problem was that we had to go to a different line to pay and that line was about 200 yards long. That was at least an hour or more of wait, so I went directly in ...

Today, we had our big professional shopping tour with Claire, our guide. That was Janine's great idea, because we had a chauffeur (transportation takes a lot of time in such a big city) and someone telling us where to shop for the best quality and price. Claire also speaks Chinese and that helps with the very time consuming haggling (Janine is really good at it too - hardcore haggler!). First we went to the Fabric Market where we ordered tailored coats (cashmere)...