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Max loves bitter melon (bitter gourd)
How very, very strange. We’ve never heard of a child liking this stuff. Bitter melon is called mara in Thai, and nigauri in Japanese (goya in Okinawan). It’s much the same in both countries, although we’ve found the Japanese variant (the one used in famous Okinawan dishes such as chanpuru) to be more bitter and astringent. The Thai version is a paler green than the Japanese ones. Basically, in all three cultures it is recognized as having beneficial medicinal properties (hypoglycemic effect and antioxidant activities). To be quite honest, the Japanese variety was too astringent for my taste; the ones we are getting here in Thailand (about 16 inches long…
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Getting Musical (Thai Ranat Xylophone & Toy Snare)
The Doraemon snare is a $5 cheapie we bought at the bicycle/toy store in Kalasin where we went to buy a baby seat for the nanny’s bicycle a month ago. The wooden xylophone is called a ranat (or more specifically, a ranat ek) which was donated to the Yoshida Instrument Collection by Tanaka-sensei, a close friend who is leaving Sarakham at the end of the month. The ranat is tuned by placing wax lumps along the underside of each wooden slab; all of these have fallen off and we need to find somebody who knows how to tune it. Hopefully there will be someone at Nam’s university since they have…
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Quick update
I’ve basically dropped off the edge of the world trying to get over this cold. I think I’ll be back full swing tomorrow. In the meantime, I caught this article at the Nation’s website about a graduate of our uni who’s stirring up some things in education over in Buri Ram: The school that sets its own course
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The fever has passed… (Dimetapp flashbacks kick ass)
But I felt strangely drawn to reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez as strongly as I usually feel like watching TV after popping heavy duty cold medicine. I realized that reading 100 Years of Solitude in Spanish is quite manageable after having read it in English before (at university), even not having spoken more than a couple lines of Spanish since high school. But maybe I was just fever-hallucinating, who knows? A kind of trippy thing happened though. After the fever passed this afternoon I went shopping and bought ingredients for chicken soup, including a whole chicken. I bought it at the supermarket so it was cleaned and gutted, but when I…
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RIP Pinky
I was away on a scouting trip for our upcoming International Camp all today and seem to have come down with something nasty, hopefully not the piggy flu. The worst news today, though, is that a stray dog came into our yard, snapped Pinky’s neck, and carried him off. Nam saw the carrying off part and knows which dog it is. Vengeance will be mine…
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Why YouTube is blocked in China
The Family Guy officially approves of this video.
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Hee-larious
Quick! Type “why won’t” into Google and look at the drop-down suggestions…
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The second baby kicks harder
I’m not even sure if I ever really felt Max kick or not when holding my hand up to Nam’s belly. I thought I did, but I can’t be sure. No such thing with the next baby, though – she’s in there jumping up and down every day and night. It seems as though specific poses or actions set her off; when Nam lays on one side, the baby gets really active for some reason. Even Max has felt her kick now, which brings me to my second point: It seems that Max now thinks that all even slightly plump women are PREGNANT. This has turned into something of an…
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Pedobear for Polanski
This is so wrong…. and hilarious! Props to whoever made it. For those that don’t know either of these bad boys: Pedobear, Polanski
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Sunny Day
The view from our front porch.
