Author: Justin

Tong Peng

At the beginning of our trip to Hua Hin last week, we boarded a plane for the first time since the pandemic started, and flew into Don Mueang. Nam’s older sister picked us up and we went to see a van we would pick up on the back end of our trip and have lunch. She took us to Tong Peng, a family-oriented Chinese restaurant in the Chok Chai area of Bangkok, south of Lad Prao.

As a sidenote, it feels good to blog about travels again – it’s been too long.

I’m always a sucker for roast ducks and meats on display.
So, no screwing around – the roast duck on rice was good but not great. The sauce/gravy was too sweet and… fruity.
Shu mai, yes! Delicious!
Pork + quail eggs + shiitake = Yes, I ate both.
Included to document the Saran-wrapped chopsticks that were legit a pain to unwrap.
The crispy pork was a visual disaster with the same fruity sauce. It tasted, again, disappointingly good, and not great.
“Tong Peng”
Included for future ordering purposes – we will be here again, but for something else, maybe a family dinner.

Google Maps link: Tong Peng ภัตตาคารตงเพ้ง

Loi Angkarn – Scattering of Ashes at Sea

We just got back from a weeklong trip to the Hua Hin area. We thoroughly enjoyed being at the beach for the first time in a few years, and always love HH, but were there mainly to spread Nam’s grandmother’s ashes and a great uncle’s ashes on the water. This is known in Thai as loi angkarn (ลอยอังคาร ณ ปราณบุรี).

In a weird twist of fate, it was arranged to do this at the very harbor in Pranburi/Pak Nam Pran where we set off on a honeymoon cruise with family and friends who came from overseas to our wedding in Thailand 15 years ago.

I wish to cover this more thoroughly and post pics in upcoming posts, but for now I’ll leave the video that just finished processing (our Osmo Pocket finally got some use since the start of the pandemic).

Linkdump AF 2022

Across the Multiverse: A four chapter story with an epic revelation at the end.

I did not get that far, but I got a lot of chill.

Technicolor Tokyo: Screenshots from CyberPunk or real photos?

Phra Rahu: This week I learned of Rahu worship in Thailand, which is extremely interesting and apparently widespread, and although I’ve seen images and statues of Rahu before, I never really knew his story – it’s interesting!

The Story of Phra Rahu
There are many variations of the story of Rahu, which stem mainly from Hindu, Buddhist, Tamil legend. The most common legend is the Hindu one which describes Rahu as an Asura (demon deity) who was transformed into Rahu after drinking an elixir which would assure his immortality. The legend goes on to say that Rahu stole the elixir from the Hindu Deities, but he was seen by Chandra (the moon god) and Surya (the sun god). Chandra and Surya informed Mohini (the female avatar of Vishnu) who promptly chopped off the Asura’s head.
A small amount of elixir had already been sipped by the Asura before Mohini could chop off his head, so his head and upper body had already attained a state of immortality and became Rahu.
Rahu takes his revenge upon Chandra and Surya by swallowing the moon and the sun every time he sees them, thus causing an eclipse.

https://www.pattayaunlimited.com/thailand-deities-phra-rahu/

Pocket full of shells

We had to take our Mazda 2 Elegance (TH only sedan model) into the new dealer down the highway to fix the most annoying vibration in the world (which will require removing the dash so I’m totally not doing it myself). Anyway, someone cut me off on the way home just as this came up on screen in the windblown (windows open because it’s nice) Kujira:

It was oh so aggro.

~ best RATM cover, evah! ~

Jeff Goldblum – The Future is on LSIs (Rohm)

When I started out as a copywriter in a medium-sized translation office in Miyakojima, Osaka, I had more translation and technical writing jobs than anything very creative… but in that first year, a huge job landed on my desk, unbeknownst to me. The job was simple, the client wanted a rewrite and “native check” from a random gaijin on staff – me. The original headline was a single sentence, roughly worded. Something like, “We can see the future on this LSI.” Of course, nobody knew (and to this day, nobody knows) what an LSI was, so: “Large-scale integration (LSI) is the process of integrating or embedding thousands of transistors on a single silicon semiconductor microchip.” In semiconductor manufacturing circles, it refers to a specific kind of microchip.

I tried to convince the client to replace “LSI” with “microchip” for a few hours, but to no avail – the nomenclature was set in stone. So I suggested “The Future is on LSIs,” and promptly moved onto the next job. I was used to knocking out several quick jobs a day, so I didn’t really give it a second thought. Until I was watching TV one day half a year later and saw Jeff Goldblum, in the desert, with a spiky haircut, speaking words I had written:

It was my proudest day as a copywriter.

Later in my career, I would work with advertising legends like Leo Burnett on hot accounts like Sony Vaio, Virgin Records, and the Honda Insight, but I would always be drawn back to that hot day in the translation office in Osaka.