Jacqui and Richard Abroad: June 2018

Saturday, June 30, 2018

June 9 - 11: Melbourne, Australia

Jacqui finished school on Friday the 8th, her last ever day as a full time teacher. She is now fully retired and has more time to travel! So we boarded a plane that same night, for Australia. Our first stop was in Melbourne, where we had a chance to spend some time with our niece Chantal, who works in a small town three hours away.
The flight was fine and the connection between our two flights (Bangkok-Sydney and Sydney-Melbourne) was amazingly smooth. We landed in Sydney, went through immigration/passport control, collected our luggage and switched terminals by bus, all in about 30 minutes. It was unbelievable!
Chantal picked us up at the airport around 10 am, drove us to our hotel and we then went for lunch. We walked around a bit in the afternoon and visited Federation Square and St-Paul's cathedral, but called it a day by mid-afternoon as both Jacqui and I were walking zombies due to lack of sleep on the plane. We felt much better on Sunday (sleep does wonders!). We did a little bit of shopping after lunch then went to a local market. We spent more time touring the city on Monday, going up the Skytop Building and walking by the river. They have beautiful parks and many outdoor restaurants and bars all along the river; it is really nice.
Chantal left us mid-afternoon on Monday (it was a national holiday). It was very nice spending time with her. We really enjoyed our visit in Melbourne; it is a very nice city!

First picture of Jacqui as a fully retired teacher!!

Having a drink and a game of cards with Chantal

The Yarra River in Melbourne

One of the many quaint side streets in town

Melbourne seen from the Skytop Building

Along the Yarra River

Flinders Street Station

St-Paul's Cathedral

Art on the bridge

Monday, June 4, 2018

May 26 - June 4th - Railay Beach and Vincent's visit

We had a couple of quiet weekends, before the end of school year madness. Jacqui and I went to Chatuchak market one final time, on Saturday May 26th, before we head back home. This time, we got a map of the market (according to Lonely Planet, it is the second largest market in the world) and it made it a lot easier to find what we were looking for, or at least know where we were!

We had a nice brunch with colleagues from school the next day, at a restaurant by the Chao Phraya river; the main river that goes through Bangkok. It was a very nice afternoon!

Vincent arrived on Tuesday May 29th, which just happened to be a national holiday, which means Jacqui didn't have to work that day! We did a few things around the neighbourhood and flew to Krabi on Friday morning, to then take a van to a pier and then hop a longboat to get to our resort at Railay Beach. People say it's one of the most beautiful beaches in Thailand, and they are probably right. The beach itself is not very big, but the sand is very nice and the scenery is incredible. There are no way to get there by car, so it is pretty quiet; all you hear is the sound of the waves, and the longboats coming and going. It was quite a nice weekend. It was also our last weekend in Thailand, which is kinda sad. We really enjoyed this country and will surely return.

For now, Jacqui has school until June 8th, then she will be really retired. We are then heading off to Australia for two weeks then come back to Thailand for two days and finally go back home for good on June 27th.

Our rotee guy; he's not sure where the T-shirt came from (we also don't speak the same language), but it is from Waterloo (indicated by the sponsors on the back)