Fun with Mom

My mom's visits are usually pretty low-key.  She's been to Thailand several times, so she doesn't need to do the sight-seeing thing.  She's happy hanging out with us, and just making our days more fun.  For example, she came with me to Vivian's swimming lesson, but afterwards, instead of a regular snack, Mom upgraded Vivi to ice cream.

Mom really wanted to do some souvenir shopping, so I decided to take her to a place we haven't tried yet, but that sounded like it had what she was looking for, Asiatique.  It's basically a bunch of market stalls and restaurants on the river.  You can get there by boat, but it's also pretty easy to get there off the highway, and there's plenty of parking, so on Sunday (aka, low traffic day) Mom and I gave it a try.  

We actually managed to get there without getting lost!  Even though it's technically farther away than Chatuchak, it took us less time and was easier, since there was minimal driving off the highway.  We found several of the things my mom was looking for at the stands outside of Asiatique proper.  It turned out to be the right place to shop, because we found a beautiful dress for Vivi for 150 baht, and they had the same dress inside for 250 baht.  We also found the perfect gift for Jeff.  His Thai beer of choice is Chang Classic, and this seemed like a great keepsake for our time here.

We also found my mom some elephant pants and a shirt that says "Same, Same" on the front, and "But different" on the back.  "Same, Same" is a very typical expression in Thailand, but same is sometimes a bit different, so it's a fun shirt.  Luckily, we fueled up for shopping and had dinner with a view.

It was nice for sunset, and the whole place looked pretty once it was lit up as a true night market.  I think it would be a fun place to bring guests who want a tourist experience.

Since we hadn't done enough shopping on Sunday, we joined up with some people who were going to the Jim Thompson outlet on Monday.  This is a good place to go if you want fabric.  They have several floors with rooms full of fabric.

I'm thinking it might be a good place to get some nice fabric for curtains for our "real" house, since it will be time for an updated look whenever we get back to living in Virginia.  In addition to the fabric, there's a floor with bags in lots of different sizes.  I got a little one to put jewelry in when we travel.

The final floor had household merchandise, so pillow cases, tablecloths, things like that.  Mom got a few things there.  We weren't sure if we were going to find anything we wanted, but it ended up being a very successful shopping trip.

Tuesday was Mom's last day here, so my friend and I took her out to the Blue Sky cafe for a final lunch with crazy big smoothies.

It was really sad to say goodbye to her early Wednesday morning, but I'm focusing on the fact that she'll be back soon, and she'll bring the rest of the gang with her next time.