feb, 5th - beach house.....

day 1085 / 184:

Limi's beach house....which is about as big as the Shoebox but with a much better view. i love this playhouse. it was part of the h&m UNICEF range {see day 989 / 88} and Limi opened it on Christmas day......after that, we were all coerced to spend ages in the house even though it felt a bit more like a sauna in the summer heat.

we haven't used it as much since we got home as it starts to feel a bit like a Russian doll house when we put it together in the Shoebox.....

feb, 4th - monkey temple....

day 1084 / 183:

i have a couple of final posts from our Asia trip (i promise to get them out the way before the end of Feb and move on).....

while we were in Thailand, we went to visit Wat Suwan Kuha also known as the Monkey Temple which as the name suggests, has a troupe of monkeys (one of my favourite collective nouns) that play on the hills outside. you can buy bunches of bananas to feed the monkeys. we avoided this as two coaches of visitors were just leaving as we arrived so, we figured that the monkeys needed time to digest.....

the temple is in a cave with a charmingly faded entrance. we obviously timed our visit (not deliberately) between coaches as we almost had the whole place to ourselves.....bliss.

there is a giant, reclining, golden buddha in the cave but personally, i found the seated buddhas arranged along the walls far more beautiful. you can explore the caves but with a buggy and a toddler this was slightly tricky. maybe next time.....

jan, 23rd - rock pools....

day 1072 / 171:

as a child, growing up near the coast, i remember being utterly fascinated by rock pools. i would spend hours trying to catch teeny tiny fish, putting them into a glass jar and then 'releasing' them back into the wild again.

while we were away, one of Limi's favourite things to go down the beach to some rock pools. she charmed the local fishmen who launch their boats from there and they even gave her a gift of a squid (or 'squod' as she called it). if fact she was more excited by her 'squod', that she proudly carried back, than by the calamari it was turned into for lunch. on another day there was a local kids party happening on a beach and we managed to join in for a bit......

on all our visits to the rock pools, we didn't manage to capture any fish (which may have been due to using the world's smallest fishing net) but we did get to spend time completely absorbed in staring at pools of water looking for any darting movement and reliving our own childhoods all over again. 

safe to say, the magic of rock pools hasn't faded over time.....

jan, 18th - another visit to the market....

day 1068 / 167:

while there are flurries of snow outside...actual flurries, i am still reliving the last couple of weeks of our holiday in Asia....there are still so many photos that i'd like to share with you of our time out there....i'll try and mix them up with some usual posting on life back here.....and hopefully it won't be odd to jump between sand and snow......swimming and sleighing......

whenever we spend time at my sister's home in Thailand {see day 794}, we visit the local fresh food market at least once {see our last visit on day 766}. i love that it's not at all touristy but a real market for people who live and work in the area.....it also sells the hottest curry pastes i have ever tasted....they are in a league of their own.

 

there are cafes dotted around the edge of the market that service the market workers. i'd be very keen to try one as they must have some of the freshest ingredients around.....

A and i both love to cook asian food so it's always exciting to go and touch and smell some homegrown ingredients.

apr, 11th - more....

day 795:

more pics from my sister's house to follow this post.......