Thai Society/Culture
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Bad juju days
The past 48 hours have been so trying, it would be easier to just forget about them. It is for that very reason that I now attempt to document them. Two nights ago, I fell asleep with a high fever and covered up with a heavy blanket when the chills started an hour later. I woke up a couple hours later hearing my wife’s voice telling me to do something, but I was drenched in my own sweat and feverish again. I somehow sensed there was a blackout, because the room was completely dark – no flashing LEDs from electronics or nightlights for the babies could be seen. I kicked…
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Songkran 2010
Although I went to work on Friday, most people here have the whole week off to celebrate Thai New Year – I’m probably the only blogger in Thailand not posting photos of water fights and drunken merriment, but that’s only because I have a two kids who love playing with water every single day, so it’s not that special… And since I’m in no particular hurry to see people get hurt in horrible traffic accidents in the name of water fight shits and giggles,we mostly stay at home. Bah, humbug. /////////// Something exciting did happen last weekend, though. Our booming housing development’s manager called us up to let us know…
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Bangkok chaos continues…
Graphic photo set from two nights ago. n People Dead is just a headline until it’s there in front of you. Khao San Road is barricaded. These two twitter feeds are key: newley, Journotopia MORE: Tourists party on Khao San Rd near shrines for Bangkok protest dead
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Thai Beef Meets US Beef
Taco night
“…credible and meaningful in foreign cultures.”
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Thai Red Shirts
The Big Picture covers the red shirts clashing with police and military. This is the unrest I referred to when we visited the US embassy two weeks ago. And yes, the consulate was again chosen as a protest site after we left, so… Baby luck was on our side. UPDATE: Some people have asked me if the reds are paid to gather. Yes, we know of people from around here who went to Bangkok to make money demonstrating both this time and the last time when the yellow shirts overran the airport. (thx Mark)
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Khon Kaen Passport Office
We spent this morning getting Max and Mina’s Thai passports. The only reason this is remarkable is that the passport office, located at city hall in Khon Kaen was the most clean and efficient government office I have seen in a long time. There was ample staff, and they were friendly and helpful. The offices were well-equipped and modern, and they completely obliterate the usual Thai bureaucratic need for duplicate signed copies and other such nonsense – it’s a totally paper-free operation (well, except for the end product, of course)! The passports take about a week to get to you by mail and cost a thousand baht ($30 US).
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What Mina Thinks of Bangkok (Daddy Concurs)
Quite predictably, the long car ride to and from Bangkok was not appreciated by either baby, which they were quite vocal about. This was a kind of test run; do we really want to unleash these two on a plane full of innocents for the cumulative nineteen or so hours it takes to get back to Cali (w/one stopover)? The answer might just be children’s cold medicine… Mina’s birth abroad has been duly reported, and her passport is in the works. Legally, she’s not a citizen exactly but has all the same rights as a citizen when she gets the passport. Say what? Yeah, it’s kind of a funny thing…
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We Against the World
I have a master’s class to teach this morning, then our whole family + nanny are off to Bangkok. We have an appointment tomorrow morning at the embassy’s ACS building to report Mina’s birth abroad and apply for a passport. The problem? There are 100,000 demonstrators trying to get noticed at high profile venues such as, say, in the front of the US embassy. So I’m in my crowd-dodging mode and have hardened my forearms just in case. I would have waited for the demonstrators to go home, but last year it took them months just to give up their hold on the airport, and we really need this passport…
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Doctor Fish Foot Spa
In the true spirit of Christmas, we visited the biggest shopping mall in this part of Thailand, Central Plaza Khon Kaen, that just opened a few weeks ago. We were mostly there to buy Max a new booster seat for the car so Mina could inherit his old one, but we stumbled across a very recently opened foot spa featuring 15 minute doctor fish treatments for 99 baht. We’ve seen doctor fish spas on TV for the past ten years or so, and we always wanted to try them out… I mean, a stupid fish willing to gnaw on my stinky dogs? I had to try that! The verdict: It’s…
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Props to Kris
This Hainan Chicken recipe vid that my cousin Kris made yielded a meal so good, we won’t eat it outside anymore (there are tons of these chicken rice vendors in Thailand, but I’ve never had one as good as we made a few nights ago). I tried making a couple different sauces and they both turned out really well. Thanks, Kris!
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Thais are freezing
It is currently 14.6°C (58.64°F). The news is reporting that many people have died in their beds overnight because they were unprepared for the cold.
