Why Everyone Needs to go to Thailand

OK, so I gave you a teaser about this last time, and I figured I should just go ahead and give you the definitive, complete and unabridged version. (Alright, so it's slightly abridged because my kids could read this).
The trip took place over Christmas holidays, and luckily too. I had been told that spending your holidays in Japan as a foreigner is about as depressing as it gets, and I didn't want to stick around to test the theory. On the Thursday school let out, Victoria, Mark, LeeSean and I gathered at Lee's place in Nakatsu, and slept fitfully through a snowstorm as we dreamt of tropical beaches. The next morning (if you could call it that - the sun wasn't up yet) we trudged through snowbanks to the train station, where we got on a train bound for Fukuoka, largest city in Kyushu, and our departure point for flying to Thailand.
A few hours later, after a short flight punctuated by a brief stopover in Taipei, we touched down in Bangkok. We had booked a hostel, the Asha Guest House, and made our way there from the airport. Bangkok, at first glance, was big, bustling, hazy, humid, a blend of tropical green and colorful buildings. I loved it immediately. The Asha was quaint, with a pool, on the upside, and communal bathrooms, on the downside, along with a swarm of cute little geckoes everywhere, leaving cute little gecko turds in their wake.
From there, we got Thai massages, and went drinking, shopping and exploring for 2 days until our tour began. Then we moved shop to the Vieng Thai, a fantastic hotel right near Khao Sun Road, Bangkok's famous entertainment and nightlife hotspot, where Leonardo DiCaprio drinks snake blood in "The Beach". There we met our tour leader Noot, along with the other members of our group. Among them were three fun Australian couples, a lovely British lady named Angela, and Bob, an older man, also British, but who would prove to be a pain in our collective asses the whole trip with his incessant bitching.
That day, our adgenda included a trip by longboat down the river on which Bangkok is built, a trip to the Royal Palace, home of Thailand's king, and the adjoining Grand Palace, the biggest and most famous Buddhist temple in all of Thailand. The picture is of The Grand Palace, with the same view you would see on Thai coins. It's even niftier inside. After that, it was dinner and drinks on Khao Sun Road to celebrate Christmas, since it happened to be the 25th.
The next day we had free, and so we proceeded to shop some more, taking in the neverending circus of Khao Sun, as well as other parts of downtown Bangkok, including the biggest bazaar I have ever seen in my life - literally hundreds upon hundreds of stalls. We capped the evening off with a sumptuous 4-course meal atop one of Bangkok's highest buildings. Then, along with the group we boarded a sleeper train to our next destination, Khao Sok National Park. The next morning we left the train, climbed into a van, and drove to Khao Sok, a lush tropical junglescape blanketing ancient mountains, surrounding a set of pristine lakes. From the park's headquarters we were ferried by longboat across one of these lakes, Chaiw Lan, to a set of floating raft-houses, which was to be our home for the next 3 days.
Stay tuned for next time, there's a lot more to tell, but alas, my fingers are tired.