An Aggie's Life...: February 2010

What an interesting 2 days. We got hit by a 7.0 earthquake on Saturday morning at 0530 (~50 miles from Oki). S-C-A-R-Y. Both of us were woken up by the house violently shaking for about 20 seconds. It took us a second to realize what was going on (we had a 5.3 hit about a month ago) and I said "we have to get next to the bed". Now MIchael knows why I said that (I have literature citing the triangle effect created during earthquakes). When it didn't seem to be stopping, we grabbed the dog and headed outside. Michael was supposed to grab the cat, as he walked past her coming down the stairs, but he didn't see her before we got outside. By that time the house stopped shaking. The best description I've read is that the house shook for the first 10-15 seconds and then it swayed for another 5-10 seconds. Our friends in the towers definitely felt all of the swaying!! As soon as we went back inside we turned on Fox News (only news channel on AFN at the time and b/c we thought AFN would have some sort of announcement) and they had breaking news about the earthquake and the tsunami warning that had been issued. Hmm ... hadn't thought about tsunamis until we saw that. So we stayed glued to the news on the tv and the internet (including facebook b/c our friends have good info sources!) to keep on top of what was going on. The tsunami waves were predicted to be about 2 meters, but were then downgraded to about .5 meter. The worst part for me was how bad Bailey freaked out. She went and hid under the bed in the guest room for a good 3 hours. When she finally came downstairs she walked around checking out the house with her tail down for about 30 minutes. I think she was downstairs when it hit and it was really loud. We had cabinets open up and some cans of food fell off the shelves in the pantry. She is back to her sassy self now though :)

Whew. Dodged two big bullets. Thank the Lord that He kept us safe.

Now this morning (Sunday) - I was woken up by loudspeakers announcing we were in another tsunami warning (from the 8.8 earthquake in Chili). I'm SO glad there is a loudspeaker system that base is using. Yesterday we weren't given any announcements (Not enough time? ... don't know.) but out in town they had all sorts of speaker announcements and helicopters out on the coast, etc. We are in a tsunami warning for another 4.5 hours here, but since it didn't affect Hawaii too much, we're hoping it is a minimal surge here.

Is all of this just preparation for our next duty station?!?!

***Update***

We were under the impression we were going to be okay here on the upper portion of Camp Lester, but alas, at 1440 the Marines came knocking on our doors telling us to get to Camp Foster. We loaded the kids up as fast as possible and headed out the door. The wave ended up being minimal (less than 1 meter), but better safe than sorry - right!?

First things first when we got to Thailand - we went and ate Thai food down at Patong Beach! Our driver took us straight from the airport to book our activities and then gave us the scoop on some of the best Thai restaurants. This food was AWESOME!

Tom Yam soup, phad thai, chicken with cashews and chilis, and shrimp with thai chilis:

Our first sunset in Thailand over Patong Beach:
amazing sunset ...
We didn't want to leave the beach ... forever:
This is walking down the Patong shopping area - TONS of bars, restaurants, He-Shes dressed in drag, people trying to get you to go to the "ping-pong" show, etc :)
This was also spotted in that vicinity ... hmmm ...
Tuk tuks were everywhere! This one was all pimped out with blue lights and loud music. Tuk tuks were cheap - so we used them a lot!
Most of the restaurants had their seafood on display so you could pick your dinner and then have them cook it however you wanted it:
Michael in front of the Patong shopping area:
Michael in a tuk tuk:
Our first morning we got up early and headed down to Patong Beach for some excellent people watching (old topless women, couples with matching thongs, leathery skin, etc). One of our drivers gave us some interesting info on the big Tsunami that hit here - see that big cruise ship? That is roughly where the water went out to before the big wave came. The tourists, evidently, went out to take pictures of the fish that were left behind while the locals started running for the hills. About 700 people died in this area when it hit.
It was gorgeous though ... and the waves coming in were pretty decent! Just look at that gorgeous white sand ... no coral, rocks or seaweed in sight!
After a few hours down at Patong, we came back to the resort beach which was even better (hard to imagine, but it was)! We LOVED LOVED LOVED our beach here. We even discussed flying back from the states to visit here in a few years ... it was THAT amazing.
We had to get our beach fix in the morning, because in the afternoon we went on a "jungle" outing. Our first stop was a mangrove kayak ride. Hmmm... we didn't read about this when we signed up for the tour so it was a surprise to us to have to walk across the "monkey" bridge and then get on an inflatable kayak to see some trees.

Here is Michael on the kayak in front of me. I made him get on first b/c I was pretty skeptical about this ...

It was in a very indigenous area - people's homes were surrounding the water:
Afterwards we went into a woman's home that she had transformed into a restaurant specifically for this tour. It was superb homemade Thai food!!
Her cat chased this around for a little while:
I couldn't stop smelling the small jasmine centerpieces - they were so fragrant that they filled the air all throughout the restaurant!
This is the monkey bridge I referred to earlier. Safe, huh.
After lunch we went to see elephants! Here I am with a baby elephant - he came right up to me to sniff me :)
so we bought some bananas to feed him - he looks happy when he eats:

I really enjoyed this part!
Then we went to the big elephants - this was our elephant cooling down before coming over to pick us up:
The sign before you get on says "do not let your guide get down or you forfeit all insurance coverage". Sooo... the first thing our (and every other) guide did once we got behind the trees was jump down to take our picture. Of course he did. There was no stopping him either - why would they want to pay out money for insurance? Oh yeah, it was a secret too b/c he wanted us to have "good memories" and if we were happy we could tip him. Thanks. I would have taken the guide staying on the elephant instead - thats why I paid $8 USD to have the photographer take our picture. Anywho - here we are on the big guy:
He also had the elephant walk down a steep slope without his assistance so he could use the rocks to climb back on. Scary stuff - all I could imagine was the elephant going mad and charging through the jungle. But he didn't. We were fine. It was fun :)

You could pay to feed this elephant bananas:
After the elephants we went to a monkey show - this one came and shook hands with everyone:
This one went grocery shopping:
... and rode a bicycle:
This one would dive underwater to fetch a watch:
We also stopped by a temple that was insanely busy. There was a gigantic festival going on throughout the grounds surrounding the temple.
The inside of the temple:
Me on the top of the temple:
Our last stop of the day was at the Big Buddha that is still under construction on top of a mountain. They were asking for donations to help finish it. You could buy a white marble tile to write on for about $5 USD.
You can see the individual tiles better here:
A view of Phuket City at dusk:
The next day we went out to the Phi Phi Islands! Here is me on the boat. No life vests - in the open ocean - on a speed boat :)
The first stop was Maya Beach - we were able to snorkel out in deep water before we went to the beach. I jumped in and immediately realized we were surrounded by little jellyfish (evidently they don't harm you unless you have sensitive skin) ... I got out.

Here is Michael snorkeling: Not sure if you can click on this one or not, but if you can enlarge it you will see a line of small dots in the lower left-hand corner - those are jellyfish! They attach to each other to create long chains. The water is about 10-15 feet deep here:
Michael after snorkeling:
Maya Beach! They filmed "The Beach" here with Leo:
Looking out from the beach:
It was SO beautiful!
Some of the closer locations came by these smaller boats:
This guy wasn't alive anymore - but he was huge!
These signs were posted everywhere in Phuket and the little surrounding islands:
Michael on Maya Beach:
A jellyfish that washed ashore:
Then we went to see Viking Cave. There are drawings in the caves from back in the day of vikings, hence the name. People. Actually. Live. There. Whoa. Hopefully this was high tide. From what we saw, the only access was by boat.
Michael in front of Viking Cave:
Next up - Monkey Island. They pulled the boat right up to the tree and the monkeys would grab stuff from you - bread, water bottles, cups of coke, etc. You could throw it to them too, if they were high in the tree, and they would catch it:
There were lots of baby monkeys:

We ate lunch at Phi Phi Don. I would highly recommend staying here vice Phuket (take a day-trip to Patong) b/c it is much less populated and really laid back. They also have all the little shops to go and barter in:
Our final stop was at an isolated island with 3-4 buildings on it. We rented little chairs and umbrellas and were able to relax for awhile with a pina colada (me) and mai tai (Michael):

Michael kicking back:
The most interesting part of the stop was the The He-She dancing on the bar (video at end of post):

This was our final sunset at Phuket. Michael went to go and play in the waves (I quickly joined him!):

The waves got HUGE!!! We went back out the next morning and they were even bigger! Some were a good 2-3 feet taller than me! I don't think I have ever had that much fun playing in the waves - b/c there was no coral or seaweed to get caught up in. Just amazing white sand.