the final chapter: my christmas vacation by jethan

day 7 [new years eve]

i awoke this morning with a feeling of sadness. not only was it new year's eve but it was also the last night at sea view resort, koh chang island. we started the morning off the same as usual with breakfast at the hotel. as i looked around i realized that this was going to be the last time i saw all these familiar faces. we spent the day relaxing in the sunshine. as i sat in my lounge chair staring off into the water i couldn't help but think how relaxing this trip was. a part of me didn't want to leave. if only we could have a few more days. unfortunately thats not meant to be and before long i'd be back in the cold making my way to school. i did a lot of swimming today. frolicing around like a little fish. playing with seaweed and sand until i got bored. for lunch we strolled down the beach and went to one of the nearby resturants. i had a coconut milkshake which was out of this world. so delicious. i don't think there's been one meal here that i didn't enjoy. after lunch we went back to the beach for some more r&r. i decided i wanted to try to get one last massage or something in so i went up to the spa. unfortunately there weren't any massages available for the day so i opted for a petticure. why not. at least i'd get my feet massaged. my appointment wasn't until 6:30 so i went to the pool and had a beer, watched the sunset, and took a final swim in the pool. the pool water was icy cold but refreshing.around 6pm i went back to the room to shower and start organizing my stuff. i didn't want to have to do it in the morning. the petticure was quite interesting to say the least. all the ladies kept talking about me although i wasn't quite sure what they were saying. i just sat and smiled. at least two of them were trannies. i love that they have trannies working at the resort. it felt like being in san francisco. the foot massage part felt really good but then she dipped my foot into hot wax. that was quite interesting. but in the end it felt really good and my feet were rejuveniated. as i was leaving the spa they asked if i was going to the big party and i said yes. our hotel was putting on a big event for new years. i meet horace and vickie back at the room and we made our way down to the party. as we entered they gave us each a flower to wear. there was tons of food and our table was right in front of the stage. throughout the night they had a lot of different events planned: singers, dancers, and games. overall of it was kind of cheesey but i was enjoying myself. i felt bad for them though because it seemed that after people ate they left. at one point the announcer looked out and said "where are the people. i thought we were going to stay until the new year". of course the quilt set in and i felt like i had to stay. horace wanted to leave but we stayed for a little longer. vickie and i had to participate in one of the games. we had to dance around a piece of newspaper and when the music stopped we had to jump on the newspaper and stay there for a minute. after every time they folded the paper smaller and smaller. we didn't win but we weren't the first ones disqualified which i'm happy about that. a little later there was another game and since there weren't many people left vickie and i had to play again. this time it was musical chairs. there were a lot of little kids for this games so we decided it would be best to throw the game. although i know i couldn't have beat them. at this point horace said he was going up to the room and he left. vickie and i sat around a little longer. then the mc said that there was going to be dancing. vickie and i looked at each other and realized it was time to make our escape. i've already played two games and knew that we'd get picked for dancing and i didn't feel like doing that. we quickly bolted and went back to the room to get horace and head over to the porn bar. horace decided he was going to stay in so vickie and i left for the porn bar. the porn bar was packed with people. there were people dancing on the beach, fireworks, and even people doing fire dancing. it was all very cool. it was such a great way to ring in the new year. we had a quite a few drinks there and were enjoying everything. we even ran into a few of the hotel staff getting their grove on at the porn bar. it was a very festive. finally around 2am we headed back to the hotel. before going up to the room we sat on the beach just looking out at the water. it was a great ending to a great trip.

day 8 + 9 [back to bangkok and home]
we had our final breakfast at sea view this morning. sadness. after we were packed we went back to the hotel to await our taxi to the ferry station. while waiting we saw a monkey in the trees. how cute was that. the rest of the day was spent traveling by ferry, then we got on a bus and went back to bangkok. the shuttle van was packed and we made about three stops along the way. once in bangkok we took a taxi to our hotel, freshened up a bit and then went back to the main shopping market. we spent the rest of the evening buying up everything we possible could. back at the hotel they didn't have an extra bed for us so they gave us two rooms instead. the next morning we got up earlier, had breakfast then went off to the airport. our vacation was now over. we got back to korea where horace and i boarded a bus for ansan and vickie boarded a bus that would take her back to her place. it was on the ansan bound bus that i would later forget and lose most of my purchases. oh well. such is life i guess. at least i was back in korea and was safe. i mean afterall it could have been a lot worse, especially if we had gone to the phucket where the tsumani hit. i look forward to my next trip to thailand which i'll definitely do. i feel like i didn't get to see much of bangkok and would definitely like too. perhaps i'll return next year.