Category: Photos

Photos (and Video) from the Korat Zoo

Yesterday we got home from a trip to Nakhon Ratchasima, more commonly known as Korat. The city is famous for being the gateway to the Northeast region (where we live) of Thailand, and is at just about the halfway point when we go to/from Bangkok. We were only there for one reason, though. Max wanted to see animals…

The zoo is medium-sized, and unremarkable from a technology standpoint. However, some thought has gone into the layout, premium services, and a few of the exhibits really stand out. In addition, the cost of things including admission (50 Baht for Thais, 100 Baht for foreigners, free for small children) is very reasonable. We went from 9:00AM and rented a golf cart for a couple of hours (500 Baht) after seeing the lines for the trams and figuring it would be too hot by noon. Two hours turned out to be just enough time to see almost everything including the obligatory pinniped (why isn’t “pinniped” in the Chrome spell checker dictionary?) show, which if you’ve been to Sea World looks like Retarded Animal Training for Dummies, but kept the kids entertained until they, too, got tired of seeing finned marine mammals playing in the water and doing horribly easy tricks for piscine (why isn’t “piscine” in the Chrome spell checker dictionary?) rewards.

We missed seeing some of the exhibits; it would probably take another hour to cover everything, but then again if you don’t have kids you don’t lose time on diaper changes and meltdown control when they are both convinced that the other has something in their hand that they want.

The highlight of the zoo for us: The giraffes! I have never been so close to a giraffe in my life, and it was a really cool experience. Now I have one less reason to go on safari.

Some pics:

 


 
 

Pool days

Max loves fishing; Mina loves laughing

You can tell this is from a couple months ago because my car is still in the driveway (hopefully out of the shop soon), and our front lawn still exists (a month after this it was a rock garden for two weeks, then a weed bed, and now it’s a mud puddle we are waiting to line with plastic so we can replace the rocks and confound the weeds).

Tiger Joker 120S

Since my Crown is being worked on for another month or so, I really needed to find a cheap motorcycle. It took some looking (thx Yon) and trying (thx Matt) and bargaining (thx Nam), but I finally found the perfect ride for my needs, for which there is a serious lack of information on the net.

The ride I picked up was manufactured by Tiger Motor Company of Thailand (website is hosed as of writing this). The Model is the Joker 120S. I have no idea what the S stands for, or what the different grades were. It’s a 120cc carbureted 4-stroke, front disc – rear drum, four speed autoclutch, extremely ugly bike that I would have hated to buy new, but I picked it up for a good price used. The equivalent Honda or Yamaha would have cost three times as much (Honda is the only overvalued brand of both cars and motorcycles in Thailand; for cars it shares company with Toyota and Isuzu in this regard, and with motorcycles, Yamaha). Plus, I fell in love with its Mad Maxed muffler ( I call it a ghetto supertrapp) and getthefuckouttamyway exhaust pitch.

Of course, the trade off for not buying Japanese is that the electronics are Chinese-inspired level cheesy and most were probably broken beyond repair a couple months after it rolled out of the dealer. So I have to do without an electric starter and fuel indicator, which isn’t a big deal.

The big plus is that this bike has loads of torque, which I’m going to attempt to convert to power with an after-market rear sprocket. Anyway, here’s a few photos of this increasingly rare motorbike, which surely looks better slighty rusted and beat up than it did new:

Landscaping Our House – Before and After

We are on summer break and not lacking for things to do, but decided that it was time to put some effort into redoing our front yard.

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

We have since learned a few things regarding landscaping rocks:

  1. Rocks are low-maintenance when done right
  2. Rocks are expensive
  3. Babies inexplicably like throwing rocks at nearby cars

Of course, the muppets we got to do the work decided to use plastic netting instead of plastic sheets (stating that only a few weeds could possibly grow though thick cover and could be controlled in other ways), so a couple weeks later, there are already thick beds of weeds growing out of control. I will probably have to do it right myself (big surprise), and eventually found out that the magic “other ways” alluded to above was spraying Roundup (on rocks my babies play with every day? I think not.).

Note: Row of sansevieria (aka mother-in-law’s tongue, devil’s tongue, jinn’s tongue, Bow String Hemp, snake plant) inspired by a relative from Kyushu

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Our New Thai House entries:
Our New Thai House Part 1 – Picking a Plot
Our New Thai House Part 2 – Foundations
Our New Thai House Part 3 – Groundwork
Our New Thai House Part 4 – Roof and Walls
Our New Thai House Part 5 – The Blessing Way
Landscaping Our House – Before and After

potty time

We didn’t force toilet training on Max, and one day he just decided that he was tired of using diapers. From then on, we only put him in one at night and on long trips. Mina, the Ultimate Emulator, also sits on the training potty, usually just for fun and not actually depositing anything.

Mina is developing so fast, it’s scary. Whereas Max built up a vocabulary a few words at a time, Mina copies everything anyone says to her. She can’t make most of the sounds well, but the rhythm is there. And she can understand most anything you would say to a small kid. The other day, Nam told her to clean up a room when she and her brother and another kid were done playing, and she dutifully put away all the toys in sight (a lot).

One of the scary things she can do is get out of her car seat restraints – I saw this just last night, after she had been strapped down fairly securely.