Day 1 -- Koh Samui, Thailand

Day 1.

First order of business -- breakfast. Pad Thai, spinach lasagna, fresh watermelon, and an omelet bar. I think Thailand may be one of the only countries where I actually LIKE the breakfast. Plus, it doesn't hurt when breakfast is served overlooking the blue-green ocean.

Ian's find of the morning: a mini-frog! I couldn't tell what in the world he was looking at...until I saw the little speck hop. Check out how small it is! It's the upper speck next to the camera's lens cap:

After inquiring at the front desk and renting a motorbike, we are officially off for our first day of adventures. We drove for about 20 minutes and arrive at the "Viewpoint" -- lovely view of the water and the horizon, as well as this cute white gazebo like thing where we enjoy some much-needed rest. The shot below is one of my favorites of the trip thus far -- can't you just feel the relaxation? After all the hustle and bustle (no pun intended! hehe) of the wedding and the reception(s), I was definitely ready for some blue skies.

The true highlight of the day though? The cooking class. Many thanks to Lee Stuart for purchasing us cooking classes through our honeyfund! 3 hours of pounding, smashing, cutting, boiling, frying, and tasting. Emphasis on the tasting. :) The woman in charge of the class (of which there were 10 participants...none of which were from the US -- that is a recurring trend on this trip so far -- no Americans...but I digress) -- the woman was very much a comic-in-training... many mentions were made to ingredients that were "good for your bottom."

Those who (unlike us!) are big into spices and peppers will get a kick out of these colorful ingredients:

The woman actually had us bite off the tip of these to try out the level of spiciness --- cue to the Thai iced tea!! In the end though, everything we made was suprisingly good. This was probably due to the fact that they always had the perfect ingredients and tools laid out for us before-hand. A little bit of mashing turns this...

into this...

Ian actually said at one point: "Wow...I am SUCH a good cook." We did some deep fried fish, some yellow curry with chicken, and a soup with meatballs and tofu.

Long story short, we came away with full stomachs and a book of recipes. Can't wait to try making some of those again back in Boston!

After our huge lunch, we went down to visit the "Grandmother and Grandfather Rocks."
Hopefully we don't offend any Thai people...but we had NO idea what the fuss was about.

Back at the hotel, we arrived in time to take a quick dip in the pool and then head on out to the Manager's Reception -- where we enjoyed a few quick drinks -- Ian's double-fisting the punch! (it was the only way I could convince him to do a little dancing)

There were also some munchies -- including some really cool watermelon carvings!

There were even fireworks at the end!

Best resort ever.

We had to call it a somewhat early night so that we could get up early to catch our snorkeling trip.