The Elusive Garden

So today I thought it would be nice to kick back and relax... but of course I have little practice in that area and turned out not to be any good at it. I decided to go looking for some butterfly gardens that were supposed to be across the street from the King's palace... shouldn't be too hard to find right?! Well I found the King's palace no problem but after wandering around in circles and asking people, who tried their best to be helpful, I decided it was a lost cause. The King's palace is heavily guarded and there is supposed to be a viewing area for tourists... I couldn't find that either, or the supposed temple nearby. Hot and bothered I stopped at a nearby shop for some cold pineapple-guava juice.
I then began the long walk back into town. I knew I had managed to sweat off most of my sunscreen and was burning but the sun was nearly directly overhead and there was nowhere to go to hide from it. When I finally got back into town I was starving and needed to find somewhere cool and shady to sit. I also needed to replace some salt so I headed for the local McDonalds. Now normally I don't condone eating at McDonalds, even in North America but it was an air conditioned building and I wanted to take a picture of the wai-ing Ronald McDonald. In Thailand a wai is a sign of respect. There are huge etiquette rules about who wais first and how low, etc.
In the afternoon I walked down to a used bookstore. The owner is a Kiwi and he is quite an interesting gentleman. Being the intellectual sort we hit it off well and he invited me to join him for sushi after he closed up. I was very sad to decline because I already had another dinner obligation.
At 6pm a group of students from my University headed down to the pier for what turned out to be an absolutely wonderful meal. My mouth is burning just thinking about the spicy squid and sea mimosa salad I ate. It came in a little bit spicy, medium spicy, or too spicy. I really like spicy foods but the medium spicy was even a bit much for me. I thought the roof of my mouth would break out in blisters any moment. After dinner we road up the glass elevator to the 17th floor of the Hilton hotel, the fanciest hotel in Hua Hin. There we sat in the outdoor bar overlooking the city. The view was spectacular. The margaritas were okay, but not their specialty. There was a weird guy walking around performing some sort of acrobatic stunts with a teapot... the teapot had the longest spout I have ever seen. He then poured tea out of the pot he had practically been juggling! It was something to see.
Finally, we finished off the evening at a little gelato bar. The lady did not like my 500 Baht bill even though she clearly had enough change in her cash register. I did not have any smaller change so she took it grudgingly. The coffee flavoured gelato was truly excellent but I think nothing can beat the goat's milk gelato I had in Kelowna when I went on the wine tour with my friends. Tomorrow afternoon we head back to Bangkok and Wednesday I will meet my class!