Once again it's been a while since I've posted. Many things have happened since the last post: A great and wonderful trip to Tokyo, Japan; My mom injuring her knee (though on the mend now and with great speed); plans for more trips; and a week vacation in Koh Samui, Thailand. So many events to write about.
Instead of trying to catch up with everything that we've had the great opportunity to enjoy, and the hardships that have balanced the joy, I'll just jump into the present and start with the most recent event: Thailand!

After moving to Nanjing, we heard from many other expats living in this city that Koh Samui, an island off of mainland Thailand in the Gulf of Thailand, was one of the most beautiful places to vacation. After our move across the Pacific, we all decided that a relaxing vacation on a beach would be much appreciated. Not to mention the Thai massages offered by the spa beside our hotel (every since our visit to Chiang Mai, Thailand, we've fallen in love with Thai massage)! Thai massage was one of the reasons we decided on Thailand for this trip. Of course, though, as we understood from the research we did before booking our trip to Thai, it was the hottest time of year on the island, and it truly was blistering hot!
Despite the heat, we had a great time! We relaxed, played on the beac and in the water when we weren't hiding from the sun's rays, played cards by the beach at the beach bar, laughed and daydreamed. I think we all rested up on this trip. We'll remember it fondly :)

Now for pictures!

This was the beach we stayed on! Gorgeous ocean and the water was as warm as bath water! Probably around low 80s to 90 degrees F (26-32 degrees C). It was like swimming in a giant bath tube :)

Our favorite pool! It was fresh water, so a break from the salt water, and it got shaded around 4pm so when we were hiding from the sun we could still swim!

We went on two excursions during our trip, a zip-lining trip and a snorkeling trip. This was the base for the zip-line course, just a shack and a few benches. But the people were very nice and got us all geared for the 500 meters of zip-line.

We had to hike up a few hundred meters until we got to the first platform of the zip-line, fighting mosquitoes and the heat along the way, but once we got to the platform, the view was amazing! We were in the mountains of Thailand.

The most unexpected part of the trip was the ride there and back to the hotel. We were sitting in the back of a pick-up truck with no seat belts–just a bar to hold on to. And the driver liked to drive at a pretty fast speed through the town, and then along narrow dirt roads. The funniest part was the part of our ride to the zip-line course in the picture. The sign beside the road says "No vehicles beyond this point!". But we went anyway! It felt like a 45 degree angle as the driver slowly started to drive up the slope. We were all amazed, and had a lot of fun, on the car ride!

On the way back to the hotel, we drove back through town and this is what the town looked like. A quaint town.

The next excursion we went on was the snorkeling trip. This was where we waited to our boat to take us to two places for snorkeling.

Waiting for our boat!

And then we were off! We packed onto our boat and settled down for the hour and a half journey to the first destination.

All of the pictures of fish and coral are from the first place that we snorkeled. We forgot to charge the camera's battery and so the battery only lasted for the first part of our trip. But the firs stop was our favorite and we got some goods pictures, so oh well!

A few different kinds of fish swam in groups, schools. These yellow ones were always together.

An Angel fish! The only one we saw.

There was many different colored coral the fish darted in and out of. On this large rock, the yellow and blues parts are coral! 

The tiny blue fish were hard to take pictures of, so we tried video!

After a week of island life, we got back on a plane and flew back to Nanjing. It was a great vacation and so much fun! Maybe someday we'll go back to Koh Samui, Thailand, but then again, there are so many other places to see and try–on to the next adventure!

じゃあね！