Author: Justin

Curtain

We were really busy running around to our schools and searching for the perfect set of tiles in a dusty warehouse all day, so the rain was most welcome when we pulled up to a roadside stand to buy take out. We sat down as the old couple chopped veggies and ground herbs and performed frying pan magic, and witnessed a most curious phenomenon: To the left of the shop it was raining down in sheets, as if the angry monkey in the sky was throwing buckets of water down at the earth, while on the right, it was merely sprinkling. The shop seemed to be situated right on the edge of the curtain of heavy rain, so to speak, and although it veered about twenty feet to the right of the shop a couple times, it always returned to center so we had a split view of the weather.
In other news, I saw a buffalo bird perched on top of a cow today, and I wondered if it knew it was a cow and just couldn’t be bothered to look for a buffalo, or if lice and ticks and other yummies are all the same to a buffalo bird.

Nam Nuong

Nam Nuong are the little grilled sausages on sticks shown below, but it’s also the name of this dish. It’s Vietnamese in origin, but I don’t know what it’s called there.

All of the ingredients are laid out on a rice wrapper and rolled up before eating, like a fajita.

The sauce is sweet and spicy, and full of roasted peanuts – the combination of all the fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs (including lettuce, cukes, green bananas, starfruit, mint, kaffir lime leaves, green chilies, and everything else in the photo that I don’t know the names for yet) is something that cannot be described, but must be experienced.

First Glimpses of Posterity

Here is little Fetus swimming about like a tadpole at six weeks:

And here’s another shot, as well as a closeup at 8 weeks:

The doctor couldn’t get the right angle for the latter shots and at first thought Fetus was actually a pair… TWINS!!! What a scary thought! The world is not ready for Yoshida twins! (The doctor was wrong, though.)
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If Fetus grows up and is freaked out by reading this blogpost, please remember Daddy did this with you in mind. This whole blog, in fact, is a record of who made you. It is only natural that you become the centerpiece.

D&D

Meet thine foe:

The Giant Centipede

These things just look evil, and Nam insisted I dispatch it when we found it in her university’s parking lot. “Dangerous for students walking around,” she said. I tried to kill it with a rock, but it wouldn’t die, so I pried a brick loose from a nearby footpath and ground its head into the hard-packed dirt. The whole time, my skin was crawling.
This was probably the biggest one I’ve ever seen (around 8 inches long, and fatter than your finger), much bigger than the ones in Japan.
Fucking nasty creatures.

Book Recommendation for Thailand

I just finished reading Narrative of a Residence in Siam, a book written by a chap named Fred Arthur Neale in the 1850s. It was, in a word, excellent. The author voices many opinions about Thailand that I can relate to 150 years later, and was a skilled writer.
Actually, the full name of the book is Narrative of a Residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam; With a Description of The Manners, Customs, and Laws of the Modern Siamese by Fred Arthur Neale, Formerly in the Service of his Siamese Majesty; Author of “Eight Years in Syria, Palestine, and Asia Minor.”
It was originally published in 1852 and the version I found at Nam’s university library is the second reprint, which was retypeset as well. For a paperback, this book is gorgeous:


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One of the many passages that struck a chord (although these are not the author’s own words, he is quoting another):
SIAMESE LOVE OF GAMBLING
The Siamese love gaming to such an excess as to ruin themselves and lose their liberty, or that of their children; for, in this country, whoever has not wherewith to satisfy his creditor, sells his children to discharge his debt; and if this is insufficient, he himself becomes a slave.
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I can’t recommend this book to people interested in the history and culture of Thailand enough; if you want a taste, it seems that Cornell has a complete scan of the book online although their servers are a bit slow at the moment.