"And Then the Fish Eat the Skin..."

The day after Phang Nga Bay was a little rainy, so we decided to head to Patong to see what was going on there.  We got some lunch at Caffe Nero.  I enjoyed mine, but I don't know if Mark even tasted his, because he couldn't take his eyes off of the big showcase of cake off to one side.  Sure enough, before KT and I had even finished eating, Mark was up at the cake case, ordering two slices of hilariously labeled cake (the labels were in English...sort of.  Marble cake was "Ma Ble").

OMNOMNOMNOMNOM

After lunch we perused the mall awhile, and KT and I decided to catch a matinee of Sex and the City 2, which was everything I thought it would be- entertaining, irreverent, silly, and full of expensive clothes and unrealistic situations.  The strangest part was before the movie started, when a message on the screen instructed us to stand up to honor the king.  KT and I were in the front row, so I awkwardly looked behind us to see what everyone else was doing.  We joined everyone else as the whole theater rose and stood through a montage of images of the king, accompanied by Thailand's national anthem.  It was a bizarre beginning to an afternoon at the movies.

Mark met up with us when the movie was over, and Mark and I decided to do something we'd been talking about since he'd arrived in southeast Asia.  We decided to go to a fish spa, where you stick your feet in a tank full of fish, and the fish nibble the dead skin off of your feet.  It's supposed to leave them silky smooth.  KT wasn't interested, but Mark and I threw down our $2 for 15 minutes.  While slathering our feet with lotion and putting tape over any nicks or cuts, the lady assured us that it wouldn't hurt when the fish nibbled.

What the woman failed to mention is that when the fish nibble IT TICKLES SO MUCH!!!!  I spent the first few minutes twitching and giggling and rocking back and forth while passersby stared at me.

AHHH!!!  IT TICKLES!!

Yum...those fish love the taste of Mark feet!

The laughter finally subsides

After being munched on by fishies for a few minutes, our feet were indeed silky smooth.  We headed for souvenir shopping in the market in the basement of the mall.  The market was full of handcrafted local goods, and KT picked up a hilarious painting- a fluorescent yellow dragonboat scene on a classy black velvet canvas.  Apparently her brother collects these things, which I think is awesome.  I found an amazing Yoda made completely out of recycled metal scraps, but it was insanely expensive, so Bryan missed out on that gift.  I did try on a pretty sweet kimono, but let me tell you, those things are not tailored for busty ladies.  We finally emerged from the basement to explore the town a little more.

The posses of masseuses were really cracking us up.  Each massage parlor has a gaggle of women standing outside, and they were all wearing matching wrap skirts.  One parlor had orange skirts, one had purple, one had turquoise, etc. and they were ALL wearing white shirts and standing outside, haranguing every foreigner who passed by.  "Hello!  Welcome to Thailan'!  You wan' massage?!" was their unending chant.  They really loved Mark, and as we walked through one horde, an arm reached out and smacked him squarely on the butt.  KT and I were behind him and we couldn't control our gales of laughter.

As we wandered the streets, we stumbled upon an awesome place to eat, a little Indian restaurant with delicious food.  We chowed down then went shopping for a painting to hang in KT's living room.  It took a lot of digging and a little bargaining, but we got it done, and KT got a lovely painting to go over her couch.  We could only wander the streets of Patong so long, and eventually we hopped into a rockin' tuktuk to get back to the Karon Sunshine.  It was a loud, bumpin' ride- the bass was cranked, and we danced most of the way home.  Pretty silly.

When we got back to Karon, against all odds, Mark was hungry and he decided to try out a stall we'd been eyeing since we got there- a place hilariously named Pancae Forget K.  Yup.  Here's the sign.

As we watched the street vendor whip up Mark's pancake, KT and I couldn't help but be horrified by the big scoop of what was obviously some type of saturated fat that the guy globbed into the pan to cook the pancake in.  It was this bizarre orange color, so KT asked, "Uhhh...what IS that?!" to which the guy smirked and snidely replied, "Mustard."

About two days later, we were walking along the street and Mark said, "Gee, that pancake with the mango ice cream the other day was SO good," to which KT and I busted up laughing, then spent about 10 minutes convincing Mark that it was, in fact, straight-up fat and not ice cream.  So much for that.