My 2012 Summer Trip to Bangkok, Thailand!!

Ever since I was small, I had always travelled back to Thailand every summer. My parents wanted to keep the culture in me as a Thai person and they wanted me to always keep in touch with my family since we were the only ones that lived in America.

This year, I came back to Thailand mainly to visit my grandmother since she wanted us here while she was undergoing surgery. Of course we got here as soon as I was done with my Driver's Ed course, but not before sitting on American Airlines' business class for 13 hours to get to Narita Airport in Japan. After a good 3-4 hours there exploring the origami shop and other amazing things Japan has to offer tourists, we got on the 6 hourr flight straight to Bangkok and were finally relieved to be here; picked up by our uncle, aunt, and cousin. 

â–º  QUARTER FINALIST 2012 TEEN TRAVEL WRITING SCHOLARSHIP

First place we went was of course the summer home and found our grandmother and other uncle sitting there waiting for our arrival; it was a great reunion. The days that followed were filled with waking up in the morning at 5 a.m. to go to the local market to buy ingredients for dinner then basically coming back to my grandma's house. My grandma's house is actually a 2 story house where the bottom floor and outside is one of the top famous restaurants in Bangkok called Nongkhai Pa-Su. It's been in several books and TV shows and has been visited by the princess of Thailand which is something to be very proud of as a restaurant owner.

Later on, my Aunt Pom picked my siblings and I up to go and stay over at her house for a while so they could take us places and show us around the new places like they always do. Being at their house, we always went places and the first place we went to was the Prathoo Pi which means 'Ghost Door' in Thai. This area is a really well known place for its famous Pad Thai (the best Pad Thai in the entire area) and is known as the Prathoo Pi because that street was where they would bring the casket of corpses to the funeral home at the end of the street.

There were also other places I got to eat at such as fried rice and other well known and not as well known Thai Food. Usually, after dinner, my uncle and aunt will take us to the mall or across the street to have dessert like ice-cream in a soup bowl with dry ice in the middle where the fire is supposed to be to keep it cool. There's also my favorite Thai dessert where there are a various amount of jellies and fruit you put into a bowl and eat it with shaved rice and syrup.

I also get to go to the temples and learning more about my culture each year which is fun and intriguing to see the beautiful temples and explore my culture and religion more than when I'm home in the U.S.

But I think the best part of coming each year is learning new things from my family; especially my older cousin Pe who's always teaching me how to be a better person. My grandma and aunt who's teaching me how to love and help my mother and father. Then there's my uncle who teaches me the values of life.