Thailand Here I Come!

I've been spending most of the past week getting ready for my upcoming trip to Singapore and Thailand. I've picked out the clothes and pulled out the suitcase. My kitty is even giving me the evil-eye as I type since she's knows I'm leaving in a couple of days. She will be well taken care of by my boyfriend and my Mom, but she still doesn't like it when I'm gone. I will miss cuddling with her at night too!

That hasn't left a lot of free time for any of my knitting or other crafting projects. Because of that, I have been taking my Silk Shrug to work with me in the mornings so I can pull it out on my lunch break and get a couple of rows done. The body is starting to come along. It's at the point where I keep knitting, but it doesn't look like much is getting done. It's only when I take a picture every couple of weeks that I can see how much it's grown from the last picture. I'll only be able to work on it for three more days before I leave so this is what it's going to look like for awhile :)

I talked about my travel project in the last post, and as promised, I haven't touched it since. I'm excited to see how the cabled scarf, Elbac, will turn out. Hopefully, I'll come home from my trip with a completed (or near completed) scarf!

I will post about my overseas adventures when I return. I'm hoping to come home with some awesome pictures and some funny stories. In the meantime, I wanted to say a special "hello" to my friend Dave in Rome who, I just found out, reads the blog every week. I'm looking forward to having you back in the USA later this year.

The Travel Project

In exactly nine days, I will be sitting at the San Francisco Airport waiting for my extremely long plane ride to Singapore. I'll be making my first adventure into Asia with a two and a half week long trip to Singapore and Thailand.

The journey starts in Singapore where I'll be joining a friend from work who has family over there. Her family has generously offered to let me stay with them so I will be getting a real "insider" look at how life in Singapore really is. Of course, we will take the time to do some touristy things, the nocturnal zoo and orchid nurseries being some of the ones I'm most excited about. There was even some talk of going to a traditional tea house.

After that it's on to Thailand, Bangkok to be exact, where both my friend from Singapore and I will be staying with another friend who now lives in Thailand. We will be staying at her house and enjoying the sights of the capital. I really want to see the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha, especially since I've been reading a book that takes place right there! Hopefully, we'll also get some elephant riding in since it looks so fun in the pictures :)

After a few days there, it's off to Phuket (an island of Thailand). This will be the most relaxing part of the trip and we're hoping to visit at least one other island, Ko Phi Phi, on a day trip. They might even have monkeys there! I think this is the place my Mom is worried about the most since it was one of the places that got hit hard by the tsunami a few years ago. I told her everything was going to be fine. I will return in one piece.

With six airplane trips total, most of them being short hops except for the 18-19 hour USA to Singapore leg, I will have some time to knit. I had originally debated about bringing a project, but finally decided that I would probably go insane with boredom on the plane if I didn't. So, I chose Elbac. It's a cabled scarf pattern from the Winter 2006 Knitty that I thought would be small enough for travel, yet involved enough to keep me occupied and make the time fly. I'm making it with Nashua Handknits Create Focus Worsted in soft sage. It's my first attempt at cables, but I think it's looking good so far. I've promised myself that I won't work on it anymore until I'm at least at the airport :)