Day trip to Pattaya

Today is my parent's 35th wedding anniversary. My mom had planned a wonderful day trip for us to go to Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden and "Art in Paradise" interactive art museum in Pattaya. Pattaya is a little beachtown about 2 hours away from Bangkok. The beaches are really yucky and the town is over-developed. However, I'll always have a special place for Pattaya in my heart because I grew up going to Pattaya every summer for church camps. In fact, we actually drove by the Baptist Convention campsite where I spent all those summers. It's strange because it's been 15 years since I've been on the grounds there and even though not much has changed, everything just seems so much smaller. In my memories, the place was so big and full of adventures, but it's funny how perspectives change once people get older. As for me, I'll always remember the Pattaya camp with a smile on my face as I think of being a kid again.

Our first stop today was Nong Nooch Garden. We arrived just in time to see the Thai cultural show, which consists of traditional Thai dances, forms of Muai Thai (Thai boxing), Thai percussions, and other forms of traditional Thai fighting (including, fighting from an elephant back.)!! After the cultural show, we walked to the next building to see the Smart Elephant show. The elephants did tricks like dancing, painting, playing sports, etc. Here are some pictures:

 Elephant throwing a dart.

 Elephant riding a tricycle.

Elephant playing soccer!

After the elephant show, we walked around the garden for a good while. Did I mention that it is so HOT !?! Still, we thank the Lord that it didn't rain and we had cloud covers most of the day. We had a good time sweating and walking around looking at the plants and exhibits.

 I'm standing between my mom and P'Somsri, who was my babysitter when I was little.

The two guys on the right were our drivers today. They are part of the young leaders at the church!

Feel free to add your own caption for this picture :)

Since the pictures are taking a long time to load. I'm going to load the Art in Paradise pictures in a separate blog. They are quite hilarious. So that's it for this one!