Avast!

ahoy, mateys!

ye best be preparin' yer poop deck... it be TLAPD next week! ready the grog, scalywags and wenches, or ye be walkin' the plank!

iron ethel.

news you can use

groundbreaking science here

nasty #2

today at lunch i picked up what looked like a tasty dessert, sticky rice with what i thought was some spice and coconut milk. turned out the spice was powdered fish. who comes up with these ideas for desserts????? and why does anyone need to eat powdered fish??? luckily i could just remove the top layer of rice that was contaminated, and the rest tasted just fine. sticky rice and coconut milk, can't go wrong.

on a completely different note, i'm watching a movie called "vampire bats" at the moment. who i imagine will be the heroes of this bad horror movie are both biology professors. the man is teaching ecosystem ecology (he used the phrase 'ecosystem structure and function' and i almost swooned), and she teaches animal behavior and evolutionary biology. how can this be a bad movie?? i can't possibly imagine! i can't tear myself away! i can't predict what is going to happen, especially since a student already got drunk and disappeared! you need to go out and get a copy of this movie right away, move it to the top of your netflix list.

i give up

update on the workshop last week: went ok, better than i expected i guess. the teachers didn't talk when i was talking, but i tried really hard to make it so i never talked more than 5 minutes without asking them some kind of question so they could talk. i was assimilating their cultural ways and all into the structure of the whole thing. how considerate of me. it did go like 30 minutes over time, but it wasn't my fault. and i think they learned something, even though they seemed utterly shocked at my suggestion that they should focus their teaching on scientific processes (e.g., basics of experimental design, how to draw a graph) rather than on the minute details of specific methodology.

then this weekend was camp. i was cautiously optimistic about camp. they asked me to design two "experiments" but gave me absolutely no idea of how camp was structured or what sorts of things are typical "experiments" for such a camp. so i came up with 4 ideas, presented them to the boss, and she said they all look fine so i should just write up 2 of them. so i wrote them up, directions, data sheets, questions for the students to answer, the whole shebang. gave them to the boss to look over, said she should change things or have me change them if they didn't fit with the plan. to my knowledge, nothing was changed.

so we left at 6am on saturday morning for the 3 hour drive, which was followed by a full day of activity with like 30 minutes of rest scheduled. holy crap, that was brutal. because of course we were running late. so my first experiment was scheduled for 2pm. we started that part i think at about 3:30. this experiment was supposed to look at ant diversity in different habitats. each group was supposed to get pork balls and some jelly to put out to attract ants (or whatever) and then the students were supposed to collect whatever came, compare and contrast among the different habitats. well, they were given 4 sugar cubes and i think told to put them wherever they wanted. pork balls are not hard to come by!!! and i gave you a weeks notice that i wanted them for this!!!

my second experiment was basically an excuse for me to hopefully see some cool insects. we set up a blacklight after dark. but my understanding was we didn't have an extension cord, so our options for placement were extremely limited. so i put the lamp in a crappy place and crossed my fingers. it totally sucked, basically nothing came. there was better stuff out by a huge floodlight on the field across from the cabins. so mostly we collected stuff there. then i found out, low and behold, we had several extension cords! oh i was so pissed, why did they tell me i could only plug the lamp into the outlet???

so it was a totally crappy time. it could have been so interesting. but like so many other things here, it seems to me that they like to just do things for the hell of it, with no real plan for what the learning goals are or anything. and totally inconsiderate of whatever i planned or asked them to do or anything. sooooo frustrating. not to mention that someone's alarm started going off at 5:30 in the morning and they just kept hitting snooze. oh, they just ooze the respect for other people that they pride themselves on.

i won't even go into what we did on sunday. suffice it to say, it was perhaps the most boring morning in my life. absolutely dreadful. the whole time, i couldn't keep myself from thinking, "i should be watching elephant polo right now." because i could have been. i was supposed to be. and how could it not be interesting???

i'm ready for this to be over. only 18 more days.

mental list i made while bored out of my mind--things that make me excited to go home:
-pizza (especially chicago style)
-cornbread with honey (just sounds good right now)
-bread (not the wonderbread style you get here)
-people will talk to me (it sucks when almost everyone you know tries to avoid talking to you because it means they'll have to speak english)
-having a sense of expectations and knowing what is going to happen
-cooking for myself so i'm not surprised when a whole chicken leg appears in my green curry (**clarification--by "whole chicken leg" i mean the whole part from the claws to where the feathers start growing, not the drumstick and thigh**)
-not having to answer the questions "can you eat spicy food?" and "do you like thai food?" (have you ever met anyone who doesn't like thai food?)
-my pillow (why did i not bring it? its awesome.)
i think their are other things i forgot. its hard to remember things when you are soooooo bored.

culture shock 2.0

sometimes i think, "why do i bother?" about my work here. no one else seems to care what i do, so why should i? its somewhat frustrating, especially since they do want me to be in the office all day (they come looking for me if i don't show up). some days are fine, i just entertain myself all day. today is a frustrating day.

a few weeks ago they told me (with less than 2 weeks notice) that i would be presenting a workshop on inquiry teaching. that was all the guidelines i was given, its a workshop on inquiry teaching. in less than 2 weeks. oh, and there would be a second workshop 2 weeks after the first one. so i worked pretty hard the next 10 days to put something together that would be useful and informative and educational and not too boring, etc. 2 days before i was scheduled to give the workshop, it was moved back a week. too bad for me, i was ready and wanted to get it over with! but good for them because i had given the teachers a test to take that assesses their scientific inquiry knowledge (topics like what is an appropriate control, why is replication important, how to interpret a graph and draw conclusions from it). they originally had 5 days to complete this test. i figured that was a decent amount of time since the test is in english and they are not so good at english. (bonus: practice your english reading skills!) so they ended up with 12 days to take this test. it took me about 40 minutes to take the test. 12 days should be no problem for anyone. right? (i won't even go into the disturbance i caused by telling them they had to answer the questions on their own, no copying off each other, but could ask other people for help interpreting the questions/answers.)

well, the workshop is tomorrow (wednesday). they were supposed to turn in their tests on monday. the head teacher wrote a note on the board on friday reminding all the teachers to turn in their test. who wants to place a bet on how many tests i have received?? come on, it will be fun! well, i will just tell you. the answer is 2. 2 out of 12. wow. what the hell do i do with that? sure, its hard. sure, it takes time to take a test and you have other things to do. but give me a break here, folks!! i didn't do this just for my own amusement! YOU TOLD ME I HAVE TO GIVE YOU THIS WORKSHOP AND THE TEST IS PART OF IT. if you can't complete an assignment, what kind of model are you for your students?? (ok, so you can't fail your students, but still.) there is clearly a reason that none of the students has decent critical thinking skills! and i am not going to get started on how poorly they did on this test. holy crap. some of it can be chalked up to poor english, but sure as hell not all of it.

so, i'm totally irritated. but what exactly can i do? nothing. god forbid i freak out on them and embarrass myself. well, i have no problem yelling at them or chastising them, but they'll sure have an opinion of me since its such a sin to "loose face" here by freaking out. but i feel like someone needs to knock some sense into these people. i can't believe that some of them want to go to universities in the states for masters or phds in education. they take zero advantage of me being here to practice and improve their english, they can't follow simple instructions, and they ignore deadlines. boy are they in for a shock if they go to the US.

and do i feel any desire to really help them when they treat me like this? no. especially since thais love to talk about how their culture is so great and so respectful of others, especially those with more training or higher rank, etc. i really just can't get over the amount of hypocrisy here. its unbelievable. so, i'll do the workshop tomorrow but i don't know that i can put any enthusiasm into it. and i'll have to say something about the low test return rate. i can't hold back.

AAARRRRRRRRRRR.

cooking school

this weekend i took 2 cooking courses. if you are ever in bangkok and in need of a cooking school, i highly recommend Silom Thai Cooking School. its owned/taught buy nusi, who is a very nice thai man who started a master's degree in ecology but decided he liked cooking better. who can blame him? not that i've been to other cooking schools (there are many in bangkok), but i imagine the others to be much more institutionalized. this was more like if i went over to your house and you showed me how to cook something. the classes were small, too--6 on saturday and 3 on sunday. the cooking school is actually in his apartment building, on the top floor. we cooked out on the porch using 2-burner propane stoves. it was awesome!

first we went to the market and bought all our ingredients. then we learned how to prepare the different dishes and make curry pastes. we talked about how to cook white rice vs. sticky rice, and learned how to make coconut cream and coconut milk (n.b., coconut milk is just diluted coconut cream!). on saturday we made pad thai, tom yum koong, green curry with chicken, a chicken salad (no mayonnaise here) and rubies in coconut milk (rubies = water chestnuts soaked in a red liquid, you can use water+food coloring or red fanta or anything else you like that is probably made with red #5). we also made our own tamarind paste for the pad thai. on sunday we made chicken with cashew nuts, tom kha gai, red curry with chicken, spicy glass noodle salad, and fried fish cakes. oh, and we ate everything we cooked. i ate so much! it was so good!

so what i learned is that thai cooking is easy as long as you have good ingredients. hopefully i can find fresh things back in the states. i know the chilies shouldn't be a problem! (our friend shu-ching is growing many chili plants) the fresh coconut milk was awesome, let me just say. but i don't know where i can get someone to shred coconut for me right when i want it.....

anyway, below are some pictures of my creations (i didn't take one of everything, i was too busy eating!)

all our ingredients...
tom kha...
chicken with cashew nuts...
fish cakes...

new pics

alright, here are some new pictures for you to gawk at. because they are so awesome. i've been slow with the pictures lately, i know, i appologize. i don't have an excuse. so now, for your entertainment....

the grand palace and temple of the emerald buddha.
buddamonthon.
pattaya.
sirindhorn environmental park (we went there yesterday to check it out, we're taking a bunch of students next weekend for "camp".)


i'm taking some cooking lessons in bangkok this weekend. i better be good at it, because we get to eat our creations! nothing much new other than that. tomorrow is field trip day, but no one has told me what the field trip is. maybe i'll just have my own!

only 6 weeks to go...

watching this video made me really impatient to get back to the US...
http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1772684/

only 31 days left until i'm done with work. i should start answering questions like this miss south carolina.

culture shock

some things i can't get used to, even after 2 months here:
1. saying "toilet" instead of "bathroom".
2. the man purse.
3. the frequency of same-sex displays of affection, some of which seem inappropriately affectionate.
4. the lack of heterosexual displays of affection (i stared at a couple holding hands this weekend).
5. how the money-taker on the bus remembers who paid already.
6. the lack of driving rules.
7. the lack of accidents despite the lack of driving rules.
8. packs of mangy dogs roaming the streets (anyone ever heard of neutering?)
9. feeling conspicuous, even though only a few people usually stare at me.
10. how many high school girls still wear ribbons on their ponytails.

some things i didn't expect to get used to:
1. wearing skirts.
2. being of above-average height.
3. seeing the king everywhere i look.
4. being functionally illiterate. its really not that bad. if they didn't use the arabic numbers most of the time, then i'd be in trouble.

pattaya

i spent our 3-day weekend in pattaya, which is a beach town about 2 hours drive (if no traffic) southeast of bangkok. its a big tourist place for thais and foreigners because its the closest beach to bangkok, and its renowned for its "nightlife". the theme of older western male with younger thai woman (or sometimes man) was common. i learned that more people need to consult mirrors when choosing swimwear. i swear some of those men were wearing women's bikini bottoms! inappropriate!

we went to a cabaret show on saturday night. i was pretty disappointed. there were a few transvestite performers, but i think most were real ladies. and almost all of them were lip-syncing, badly. but it was interesting to see thais dressed up in traditional costumes from other cultures (the belly dancers and geishas, especially). there was no ban on picture-taking or filming during the show, but i wish there had been. all the flashes constantly going off annoyed me, as did the man who stood in front of everyone and filmed the whole show, ignoring the ushers telling him to sit the hell down.

after that we went to the "walking street". it was essentially bourbon st. or key west. a street with no car traffic, lined with bars and go-go clubs and street performers. we stopped at one bar for a drink and there was some amateur muay thai going on. one white guy fought a thai guy about 8 or 10 inches shorter than him. it was a tie in the end. but the white guy was way slow. i don't really think its a sport for westerners, but i'm still going to try to keep up with my lessons.

the next day i went snorkeling around on of the offshore islands in the gulf of thailand. i think ko lan, but i don't actually remember what josef told me. josef was my slovakian group leader person. i was the only person snorkeling, so i got to do whatever i wanted while they all went diving. the first stop was about a 30 min boat ride from the pier. the water was choppy. i felt nauseous when we stopped but i figured i'd feel better once i got swimming in the water, after all i've never been seasick from snorkeling before. well i did feel a little better for awhile, then i must have hit a rough patch of sea and started feeling really sick. i was wearing a life jacket (i like to just float around when i snorkel, so what? and i was all by myself, seemed safer.) and i wasn't exactly sure what would happen if i tried throwing up while bobbing around in the life jacket. i'm used to bending over to barf. so i swam back to the boat and barfed in the bathroom. i don't recommend pineapple before a boat trip, just fyi. shortly after that the divers all came back and we headed for the second spot. and it was lunch time. the smell of food made me want to barf again. i just laid on a bench while everyone else ate. then we stopped and i felt a bit better so i tried a few plain spaghetti strands. it was iffy. then i snorkeled at this second place for about 2 hours. i felt pretty fine most of the time, it was a more sheltered site. then back on the boat to go home. i was feeling good so i had a cup of tea to warm up and get some blood sugar. well, that was apparently a bad idea. this time i just barfed over the side of the boat. i don't know what the deal was, i have never been that seasick before. and i felt fine once i got off the boat.

anyway, there were lots of different kinds of corals, in all shapes and sizes! brain corals, ones that looked like fans or shelves. and lots of different colors, red, purple, green, etc. and of course lots of fishes! in lots of colors and sizes! i can't tell you what most of them were because i don't know. i did see one puffer fish. and a million sea urchins and sea cucumbers, and some crabs. no octopus or shark. :(

the other highlight of the trip was a random guy i met on the street. oh, this sounds like a good story, doesn't it. you are thinking, "liz, don't talk to random men on the street!" well, i usually don't. they try to talk to me and i give them my "go away" look and they go away. it works. but this guy pulls up next to me on a motorcycle and asks me for a restaurant recommendation, so i say i have no idea and give him my look. and he's strangely persistent, keeps asking me things, especially since its clear we are both american (not a lot of americans here). finally he says, "do you really not recognize me?" and i'm like, "um, no, should i?" and he starts making fun of me, "don't you ever watch tv? maybe some music channels? mtv, vh1?" and i say, "well, not that much" and i'm thinking why would this 60-year-old man be on vh1?? so finally he tells me he's from the eagles, as in the old band. now reunited. i was thinking, "that's a little old for me" but i didn't say it! be nice to rich people, it can't hurt! and i know he could just be faking it, but he seems pretty genuine so i agree to go have a beer with him at the bar across the street (we rode on his motorcycle for about 50 m, a little honda kind not like the big harley he has at home). so we have a beer and chat for awhile. he hits on my, i turn him down, we chat some more. he was quite interesting to talk to. then he left me for some russian ladies. i wished him luck and went on my merry way. oh, i forgot to say his name. joe walsh. you know him? i didn't. i couldn't even tell you any of the eagles until i googled it (i know the name don henley, but i didn't know he was in that band). i looked at joe's recent pictures and i'm sure it was him, he wasn't pulling my leg. just too bad i didn't have my camera for proof!! i guess joe is used to people recognizing him, but he struck out with me. haha! it was all pretty amusing for me! and a nice story to tell, i met a famous person on the street, etc.

oh, nasty

i accidentally ate durian, the gross fruit i thought might make me puke. well, it didn't make me barf but i didn't enjoy it! it tasted and smelled like a natural gas leak (from the sulfur they put in it) and something else gross and vaguely like garbage. i was not paying attention when the lady asked me what dessert i wanted and i ended up with sticky rice covered with coconut milk and durian. sticky rice and coconut would have been delightful, but the durian ruined it. now i will pay closer attention when i'm getting dessert.

on a brighter note, 2 new foods i quite enjoy:
1. something in the rice krispy treat family, but way better. no marshmallow, something like caramel instead. also has peanuts, sunflower seeds and sesame seeds. its more gooey, not solid like rice krispy treats. delightful! the lady at the market who sells this stuff, she knows me now.

2. imagine something like an elephant ear, a round of fried dough but not super cripsy. then you take that hot fried dough, drizzle it with condensed milk, roll it up like a burrito, and sprinkle on sugar. then eat. oh, its delicious! i think this could be a big hit in the states.

the holiday weekend

it was a busy holiday weekend, let me tell you. ok, so i am exaggerating a bit, but i still did some interesting things.

on saturday, i had a pizza lunch with two other teachers, took a nap, and then we went into bangkok. matthew was looking for presents for people (he leaves at approximately the same time i do, but he's been here for 5 years) so we went to some "handicrafts mall" that had the same stuff you see at a market, but in an air conditioned, uncrowded environment. and some of the things i've seen at markets look better than some of the stuff there, so i think i'll take my chances with the market in the future. then we went to see the simpson's movie, which had funny parts but wasn't fantastic. there was a part where rod/todd flanders ask if buddha will be in heaven with jesus, and flanders yells NO! that made me cringe a little because i don't know if the humor translates in the thai subtitles. there was also a sign with a billboard written in korean. after it was over, mr. kim told us that it said, "i will teach you a texan accent" and wanted to know what texan accent was and why it was funny. the funny part was that only someone who knows korean could tell what it said, and why would a korean know a texan accent? i don't think mr. kim really go it. he also thought arnold schwartzenegar might be offended by them making fun of him. hahaha! then we had dinner at a sushi place and i was not impressed. that was the end of saturday.

i had told yan, a chinese teacher, that i would go with her on sunday morning to some ceremony for the queen's birthday. we were supposed to leave at 7:30. i didn't get out of bed until almost 9. then i saw she had left me a note that they were leaving at 8:30 instead. oh well. i'm glad i missed it, in the end, because yan told me it was a mostly a person or a monk talking (in thai) about the queen and you stand up and sit down and kneel and stand up and curtsy, etc.

but later that day i went to the grand palace and the temple of the emerald buddha. i think these are must-see tourist places. i would have enjoyed it more in different company, that is all i will say. the buildings were impressive, extremely elaborate carvings and enamel-work and paintings. i have seen pictures of the emerald buddha and, i have to say, i was not that impressed. i had imagined it to be much larger, so i was a little let down when we finally got there! it is maybe 3 feet tall, on top of a 30 foot tall pillar deal. so its hard to see it because you can't get even get very close to the pillar, and you aren't allowed to take pictures either, and there are a million sweaty people also trying to see it. and it was past my lunch time, so maybe i was a little grumpy.

today i walked over to a huge buddha park near our school, called buddhamonthon or puttamonthon or puta mon thon or however you feel like spelling it. there is a really tall buddha statue there and the park is gigantic and peaceful. well, maybe buddha statues don't like me, beacuse after i walked all the way over there and finally found this buddha statue (its hard to see past trees, and i'm illiterate) it was almostly completely covered up. they must be resurfacing or cleaning or something, but i could see a sliver of face through the netting. another disappointment. i did see a bunch of turtles, a new bird, some small lizards, and 2 monitor lizards, so it wasn't a total waste of a walk. then i went back to school, had lunch, talked to tim for a bit, took a nap and then got a 2 hour thai massage. that was awesome. it was like a yoga workout, but the lady did it all for me. she stretched muscles i didn't know could be stretched. she used this spearmint/menthol lotion on my arms and legs, so i felt like a peppermint stick when i left. it was sort of like icy hot, it was cool and first and then got hot. the only bad part was that i have a bruise on my foot and it was super painful when she massaged it. oh well, it was worth it. especially since i have thai boxing lessons tomorrow!! well, maybe i should have had the massage after boxing, but at least i'm all limber now.

pictures later, i'm feeling lazy.

surprises

surprises in the past 24 hours:

1. the gym teacher is excited that i'm switching from badminton to thai boxing lessons! first boxing lesson is on tuesday.

2. we get 2 3-day weekends in a row! this weekend for the queen's birthday, next weekend for the national vote on the new constitution because people are supposed to go to their hometown to vote on sunday, so they need monday to travel back to the big cities where they work. i, however, plan to take a holiday. i just need to make some plans! hopefully will go away for a few days with yan, a teachers visiting from china. or the other americans.

right now its about time for the class i help out with. today we are going to collect insects. i hope the rain holds off for a couple of hours so we can find some good stuff!

news flash

in case you missed the big news out of thailand today, i suggest you read this. never mind that there's still some political stuff going on here and a vote on the new constitution coming up, or that there's a drought in some areas (all the monsoon rains went to india and bangladesh instead?), or that thailand feels burdened by all the hmong political refugees from laos so they have to go back to laos.

at a loss for a title

been awhile since a post. its been full-time drama here, that's why. about started an international incident. long story short, i had some money stolen. the school is so embarrassed by it, how could this happen at our school?? (answer: it happens everywhere, you are not that special.) but they feel so responsible that they are gonna give me money to make up for what i lost. or, what i estimated i lost since i wasn't actually keeping track of my spending. so that was a good end to a long, dramatic few days.

this weekend i went into bangkok and just wandered around, mostly. yesterday i went to the chinatown area, although it was disoriented so i didn't really even penetrate into the neighborhood. but i did find out where the train station in bangkok is, and got a schedule so i know when i can take the train from or to school (train station 4 blocks away). its cheap, takes about the same as the bus, but isn't air conditioned. it just depends on where i'm going as to what is the better option.

today i went to a weekend market. it was gigantic. i got there early and it wasn't too crowded, but it was pretty packed by noon. it was tiring, walking around and looking at things for hours. plus, it gets hotter and hotter, so that wears me out as well. i have to make sure i eat and drink something regularly or i get totally pooped and irritable. there was some so-so stuff and some pretty amazing stuff, i have to say. lots of clothes, jewelry and art. although it was probably all cheaper than it would be in the US, some of it was expensive.

anyway, that is all for now... this cracked me up:
http://www.comedycentral.com/motherload/index.jhtml?ml_video=90339

khorat

spent yesterday and today (monday and tuesday) in the mountains northeast of bangkok.

see pictures here.

it was quite nice. we drove up through khao yai national park, visted thap lan national park to see a waterfall with no water, saw some cultural sites. i went with sataporn (the head biology teacher, my de facto boss), her husband and her mother. we visited her husband's family, who run a grocery store in wang nam keow. it was all very green. there is a lot of agriculture on the flatter parts of the mountians. papaya, mango, rubber, corn, sugar cane, some rice here and there, banana, jackfruit, watermellon, grapes, all kinds of things. not just corn and soybeans.

i was on the lookout for a rogue elephant raiding a field, but i didn't see anything. i caught a toad at once place. it was just sitting there, waiting to be photographed and caught for closer inspection. it was very obliging. sataporn told me to go show it to her husband because he doesn't like animals, so i took it over and as soon as he looked at it the toad went and peed all over! it was pretty funny! then later we saw a snake swimming in a pond along the road. sataporn's mom said it was a king cobra because they can swim along the surface like that. she knew this because she grew up around a lot of rice paddies and there were a lot of king cobras. i will just assume that is true and not personally verify it, although i may look it up somewhere. (certainly other snakes in the US swim, so maybe other thai snakes do?)

for dinner on monday, various members of the family cooked things and then we took all the food to a family friend's house out on the edge of a mountain. he owns a lot of land out there, grows mango, papaya, and banana. it was very nice, we could see really far off into the distance to the east, south and west. after dark, we could watch the lightening in the rain clouds. it was quite beautiful. when we were getting ready for bed, we heard a tokay gecko. too bad it didn't show itself! then maybe around midnight, after we had gone to bed out there, it started pouring.

today we just visited some cultural sites. a statue of a herine of khorat, thao suranaree. she saved the city by getting the invaders drunk, or something along those lines. now people leave flowers and other offerings for her so that their wishes will come true. we also stopped at The Mall, where there was a display of carved (or molded, not sure) wax floats that were made for asanha puja day and the start of buddhist lent (today). they were huge, like any parade float. they show scenes that are important to buddhists, but i don't know the stories surrounding them. they also, of course, feature some tribute to the king. the floats were very intricately done, it was quite impressive. during the buddhist lent, the monks can't travel and most stay in their wat (temple) so they don't ruin the crops.

after that, we went to a huge wat that is still under construction. it is the largest wat and/or houses the largest statue of a monk. i'm not clear what the correct superlative is, or if its both. the whole thing is funded by a famous thai movie star. they feed whoever shows up for free, but of course its always nice to make a donation. and if you can throw your coin in a cup at the top of a fountain, you'll have good luck.

after that, we went to a dairy farm. they had excellent ice cream. didn't get to taste the cheese. :( we didn't actually see the cows or anything, just had ice cream and looked at the western-themed gift shop. i was so tempted by the large belt buckle featuring texas, let me tell you. there is a good thai souvenier for you.

the saturday adventure

today was the start of a long weekend. there's no work on monday or tuesday pretty much anywhere. its some sort of buddhist holiday, i haven't heard an actual name for it that i could even guess at spelling. but on monday most people will to go temples and make offerings. but most thais are travelling, i hear either to the beach or to their hometown to see family.

my friend kook's family is from the very southern part of thailand, near malayasia. they come up here to visit her and her younger brother, who's at a university in bangkok. today they invited me to come with them for some touristy things. first we went to the don wai floating market, which is not far from here. i didn't really notice anything floating other than the boats in the river. but the market was right next to the river, so maybe it used to be actually people selling stuff from their boats. there was a lot of tasty-looking fruit, but i didn't actually buy any. we had a great lunch there. they ordered a few spicy dishes and i could eat them!

then we went to the samphram elephant ground and zoo. doesn't meet the american standards for zoos, but they seem to treat the elephants well. we got to pet them and such, and take lots of pictures with them. we also saw a show were the elephants danced and played soccer and they re-enacted how elephants were used in wars (like horses were, they rode them around and attacked) and that sort of thing. there was also a race where the elephants had to run along and pick thing up and put them in a basket the mahout was holding. it was pretty fun. there were also about a million crocodiles there and a performer guy who put his head in their mouth. crazy man.

pictures here.

on monday and tuesday i'm going to the khorat area, which is northeast of bangkok 250 km or so. the head biology teacher's in-laws live there and they invited me to go along. its mountainous and there is a large national park (with wild elephants and sun bears and other fun things!) in the area. i hope we have time to walk around in the forest some. supposed to be pretty nice area, very lush, lots of birds and butterflies. and it will be interesting to travel with people i only know a little, and stay at a stranger's house in the country. it will certainly be nice to get away from the city....

cuisine on a stick

i'm sure most of you are somewhat familiar with thai cuisine. pad thai, curries, fiery hot spiciness, etc. there is also a lot of "street food" in thailand, where there's a little stand by the road and the lady (some times a man) makes the food right there for you. its hard for me to eat a lot of those things because i don't know the words. but i can always find something i can point at and ask for, because so many things come on a stick. like a kebab, but its only one thing on the stick. chicken, pork (sidenote, the thai word for pork is moo, so i get it confused with beef), meatballs (these can be made of any kind of meat, including fish, so its a surprise), squid or octopus, shrimp, chunks of various sausages and sometimes they are even wrapped in bacon. these are all roasted on a grill and then you get some kind of sauce with it. the chicken with satay sauce is delicious!

you can also sometimes get roasted plant matter, usually bananas. there is a lady across the street from school who makes some delightful roasted banana slices. then there is the fried things on a stick. those come in all varieties also, but there are more sweets on a stick when its fried instead of roasted.

or say you feel like some fresh fruit. well, you pick out what you want and the lady chops it up for you and puts the pieces in a plastic bag and gives you a stick. then you use the stick to pick up the fruit pieces. or if you get a dumpling or patty sort of thing, the lady chops it up and puts it in the bag and gives you a stick. you can't avoid the stick. its how you eat.

on a related note, you may have noticed that i said "delightful roasted banana slices". you may or may not know that i have always found bananas rather revolting. something about the texture and the smell combined. but since i've been here, i've had some good banana snacks! banana chips in a variety of flavors, long slices rolled up and covered in honey and baked, battered and with sesame seeds and deep fried... i have to explanations for this newfound like of bananas. (1) i still think raw bananas are gross and haven't eaten one yet, so they are still gross in that form. (2) there's something like 10 varieties of banana cultivated here, each slightly different and i think none of them are the variety we eat in the states. so maybe i just am revolted by that one variety and the rest are ok for whatever reason. regardless, i'm gonna keep eating the banana snacks.

two new fruits i tried today: rambutan and duku. i like the duku a little better than rambutan, but they are both good. they are more common in southern thailand, near malayasia. kook is originally from there, her parents brought them up with them (they are visiting for the weekend). can't hold a candle to mangosteen, though. i need to go eat some mangosteen right now...

bangkok and beyond

i went into bangkok this past weekend to (1) see the harry potter movie and (2) buy the new harry potter book. it was pretty fun, i went early to avoid a long bus trip due to traffic. the movie theater was very fancy. it had assigned seats, so i got to choose where to sit. only about 6 other people were there. they had leather seats. the movie was in english with thai subtitles. i confirmed that, without a doubt, you don't often use spaces between words when writing thai. not that i can read it, but when a whole sentence is one long string of characters, its pretty obvious. shopping is a big national pastime here, so right in downtown bkk there are a lot of huge shopping malls. nestled between 2 of the largest is a temple.

then on monday i went on a trip to a mangrove forest along the gulf of thailand with 2 of the biology teachers and 6 students. the students were working on projects of some sorts, mostly about crabs. i didn't really follow everything that was going on, but i got to see some new areas. there are pictures of that here. while the students were working, i wondered around and looked at whatever i found interesting. i could hear monkeys off in the forest somewhere, but it wasn't until we were getting ready to leave that they came to check us out. first there was just one male, who climbed a tree above the boats. after watching us for awhile, he ran down the tree and onto one of the boats and stole a bag of leaves the students had sampled! one of the boat drivers climbed up the tree and made the monkey give it back. then the monkey pooped and it almost landed on someone. then a few minutes later we were surrounded by an entire troop of monkeys. it was fun. they didn't come very close to us, they were much more wary than the ones at the summer palace. three videos of the monkeys in the picture album. it was a good trip, but kind of tiring because it was super hot and never rained to cool things off.

last night i caught my second amphibian. this time it was Kaloula pulchra. it was very attractive (my book gives the common name as painted burrowing frog) and pretty big. when i grabbed it, it puffed up with air. then i hid it under a bowl while i went to get my camera. it was pretty good for about 5 minutes of picture taking, then it kept hopping around and trying to hide under my foot. a couple pictures of it in the "school" album.

this week is the mid-semester break so most of the students are gone. but there is some sort of camp for kids from southern thailand, so its not like the place is deserted. i'm not sure what they are doing in this camp, but there is a lot of singing and such, so it sounds like fun at least. i don't have anything to do with it other than watching the kids sing and dance from afar. they are only hear til thursday.

we have a long weekend coming up, its some sort of holiday. no work on monday or tuesday! then back to business as usual on wednesday.

wildlife

last night i caught my first amphibian! it was a toad, probably Bufo melanostictus but potentially B. macrotis. of course, i didn't have my camera or my amphibian book anywhere near. it was on the steps outside my room. it was pretty small, maybe 30 cm. it was not an exciting catch, it just sat there and let me grab it. didn't even pee on me. maybe it will be back tonight and i'll be ready with my camera!

i also saw a wierd beetle and a bumblebee-type thing yesterday. the bumblebee was as big as the toad. no pictures of those either. i should just strap my camera to my body...

there is a special market at mahidol university on fridays (tomorrow) that i'm hoping to go to again. i might have to go by myself, the teachers all have to proctor midterm exams tomorrow. it is huge and they have everything. the food section is huge, and last week we got some that was really delicious! i'd like to try some other things... and i can buy more mangosteens!