Shopping

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I'm feeling a lot better this afternoon. The hangover is gone and I've spent a good hour at the beach followed by a lunch of chicken with cashew, spicy Thai salad with beef, sweet & sour chicken, and basil beef. The dishes are smaller and much cheaper here allowing us to try a number of different things for lunch rather than one huge dish like in the USA.

The travel agent refunded our entire cost of the unused Full Moon Party tickets and apologized over and over for the failure of the minibus/speedboat service. We found out that hundreds of people suffered the same fate we did. That would explain why there were still so many young people hanging out in the bars on Chaweng Beach with us last night. We bought our full day tours passes for the marine park. We will be there tomorrow until about 4:00 p.m., so there won't be another blog entry until later tomorrow. I suppose it doesn't matter, since you're all sleeping during our day here anyway.

Colin and I are both doing very well with our budgets. I'm doing particularly well, about $300 ahead, which is a fortune here in Thailand. Consequently, I'm going out shopping now to buy gifts. I already have Josh and Mike taken care of and I have some good ideas for Tim, Matt, Reyen, and Maggie. Christina, Joel, and my family will be a bit more difficult. I hate bargaining over prices everywhere, but it does produce some great deals. Thailand is a shoppers paradise, but for me it can be a pain in the rear. I'm not all that into shopping. I'll let Colin do it for me where possible. Then it's back to the beach and the bars. It's cooler today, but still sunny.

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