With CineAfrica cancelling last minute leaving Lexine and I with huge airline credits, Kirk, Dan and I decided we might as well use the credit to visit the CineAsia show in Thailand for the first time this year and since it has been cancelled a few years in a row due to Covid, so Lexine and I luckily found the perfect flights and were off on one more trip this year! Our flights went through Japan, so we had a stop at Japan's Narita airport, then had to take a bus to the Haneda airport 1.5 hours away -- which was no problem since we had a 7 hour delay there. Then it was back on our way to Bangkok!
Bangkok was amazing! As our driver picked us up and drove us to the hotel, we saw the new Bangkok temple under construction to be open in 2023, so that was a pleasant surprise and when we got to our hotel we crash after such a long trip. Later in the afternoon we got up and started walking. We never know what the safe areas are at first and were a little cautious since the area our hotel was in seemed a little older and run down in parts. As we were walking a guy stopped us and told us it wasn't the safest area and said to take a Tuk Tuk motor scooter. We were being careful not to be scammed, but fell right into their trap...for the next hour we would visit gem and clothing factories who pay the drivers to take us there. Eventually we got to the subway, then proceeded to where we wanted to go.
We fell in love with Thailand and I would love to serve a mission here someday or even just to live for several months. We learned it was safe pretty much anywhere we want and were soon taking shortcuts through alley way and taking the boats across the river with the locals. After hours we would visit nearby temples and sights which were amazing!
CineAsia was small, but we had a good time seeing friends which we haven't seen in a long time. We walked the show for the 3 days it ran and enjoyed walking through the Iconsiam mall where it was located. On Thursday evening everyone boarded boats to Pier 55 for the big show event. They showed parts of a Coldplay concert then gave everyone 500 baht to spend on dinner at the malls foodcourt...it was awesome and I was able to make a lot of great contacts and connect lots of attendees.
Friday we spent the day visiting more parts of the city. We saw so many different Buddah's I'm couldn't imagine there being another one we hadn't seen yet, but we visited the largest one in the world which was many stories tall...that was really neat to see on our last day before our long route home once again through Japan and arriving home on Saturday. It was an incredible trip in every way...I look forward to visiting Thailand again!
