Hua-Hin

The resort town of Hua-Hin was about 30 minutes away from where we were staying. We spent a day checking out the sites and beach there.

Cha-am

Cha-am is a small town that attracts a lot of Thais on the weekend due to its close location to Bangkok. We spent about half of our vacation based out of here and really enjoyed the area and found it much nicer than the more popular Hua Hin 30 minutes away. Here are some photos of the town and our lovely hotel.

Phetaburi

Doc and I visited Thailand at the beginning of the month. We spent about half of our time in a place called Cha-am, which is about two hours south of Bangkok and then the rest of the time we were in Bangkok. We went on quite a few excursions during our week-long vacation and took tons of photos. Here are a few photos from our first day-trip. This was to a town called Phetaburi, about 30 minutes north of Cha-am.

We first visited Phra Nakhon Khiri, a former royal palace located on a hill.




This is where the king would disembark from the elephant!

We visited the amazing Tham Khau Luang cave.









We then visited Wat Mahathat Worrawihan.





Our next stop was a walk through the market in Phetaburi.



And we ended with a delicious lunch!

Strasbourg Christmas Market

The day after Christmas we visited the Strasbourg Christmas market.

Christmas Visitor

I can't believe it is already mid-January and I haven't had a chance to post pictures from Christmas time. We were really happy to have my mom visit. She, however, had a nightmare flight to visit us (including two nights at Heathrow airport) before managing to catch a flight to Geneva followed by a three hour train ride to my place. (It was impossible to get into Zürich before Christmas Eve!) Due to the delays we managed to extend mom's flight a few days, but our oh-so-big plans didn't quite materialize as I finally caught the cold everyone around me at work had before Christmas. Still, we went to see the singing Christmas tree in Zürich, enjoyed some Glühwein and warm chestnuts, had great dinners on Christmas Eve and Christmas and visited the Christmas market in Strasbourg. Here are a few photos we took during the week.


Performers getting prepped for their performance on the singing Christmas tree


A yummy cheese fondue dinner


Mom enjoying cheese fondue


Doc lighting the tree on Christmas Eve


All decked out


Christmas Day in Zürich


Enjoying a walk in the snow on Christmas Day


Christmas dinner: fondue chinoise

Jamaica

After Thanksgiving in the U.S., we spent a week in Jamaica and enjoyed the warm weather and some time to simply relax. Here are some of the photos we took:


Montego Bay


Black River


Croccodile in the Black River


Mangroves along the Black River


YS Waterfall


YS Waterfall


Appleton Rum Tour


Appleton Rum Tour

Tallgrass Prairie Preserve

We visited Oklahoma for Thanksgiving this year. While we were there Doc told me that one of his co-workers asked to see photos of the plains when we get back to Switzerland. I was trying to think of where we could take some good plains photos and remembered the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve near Pawhuska. I've always been curious about it, but never visited it. This was a perfect example of not realizing what great stuff lies in your own backyard until you move away. So, for any Okies reading this, head out to Pawhuska and the reserve. It's a nice drive, the tall grass is beautiful, the bison roam free, and it just makes you want to sing, Oklahoma, where the wind come sweepin' down the plain .... Ok, enough with my singing. Here are some of our photos from the preserve.