Songkhla

Our Hotel from the beach across the street

Hello Everyone! Monday morning (local time) we finally woke up, and started our day.  The breakfast at the hotel was great, WIDE variety of choices; pancakes, french toast, fried eggs, thai omlette station, saffron rice, curried egg noodles, toast, fresh preserves, well you get the point, we were very happy campers!  From there we set out for a day on the town.  Walked to the top of the beach, saw the golden mermaid statue, took a blantant tourist photo, then just wandered around. 

Found a 7-11, learned how to say band-aid in Thai (very important as they do not come packaged like what we are used to in the States and they are kept up front by the mints, not in the bathroom supply section...obviously!) then walked around the market for a bit and finally found a restaurant we had been looking for. It is called the Buzz Stop and it is an Irish pub that serves both Irish and Thai food with some fusion options as well, mainly it is frequented by Irish ex-pats, but the point of this story is that they do a lot of fundraising work for the Songkhla Children's Home - the orphanage that Wi (pronouced like the video game thing Wii) lives in. The owner, George, came out and started chatting asking if we were on holiday and we told him that John had found his website and saw the Christmas party that they threw for the children last year and we were planning on finding them to thank them for all that they do for the children. He brought his wife out, chatted with her for a bit and then were on our way. For future families heading down there, you really should check this place out, really incredible people that have enlisted the help of other bars, restaurants and stores into donating time, money and goods to raise money for our children and their friends. Really great, down to earth people, I have their email and phone number for those of you heading down here soon if you would like.

After that, the sun came out and we headed on back to this side of town, took some covert photos of entrances to Wats and perhaps a school...not a whole lot is translated in English down here but thank goodness Sharon had sent us the handiest map ever that stayed clutched in my hand all day, thank you so much Sharon!

We returned back to the room, and don't judge us, but we took another nap, got up, had dinner, packed up everything for the orphanage, made arrangements for a cab to pick us up in the morning, and then tried to sleep...it lasted for about 4 hours and then I was awake. Our son is going to be sitting on our laps tomorrow, standing in front of us in real life, we will have no idea what is goin on in his head and all that we have to communicate with is our smiles and body language...so I can't sleep and if I can't sleep neither can John. I am like a kid on Christmas Eve, John is a little grumpier - he will get over it. So I will leave you with some photos of the day and try to get some rest myself and the next time we write, we will have met our son!!! Hope everything is going well with everyone and we will talk to you soon!

Love,

Nancy and John

ps. our hotel makes animals out of the towels when they clean up the room, this elephant had me giggling for ages! Sometimes it is the small things right?