Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
MAx and Mina got a real kick out of this. As you can see, the guy performing started out right next to us.
UPDATE: Their floor routines were super tight, too. I think this is one of them performing solo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=C3J1jkYZNwE
I finally found out who taught Mina to (irritatingly) pose for photos like a Japanese gyaru… She works at my wife’s uni, so I won’t say much except that she’ll find out about karma if she ever has kids — I’ll be teaching them to flip off every camera they see. I must admit, this habit Mina has picked up is kind of cute, but she does it in every shot. That’s OK, having the culprit’s baby giving the bird in every photo will be cute as hell, too.
@ Jungceylon, Patong Beach, Phuket
It’s never too rainy to make fun of other people’s rice. Here’s an Isuzu Dragon pickup with multiple rows of covered subwoofers and a rear spoiler worthy of a Red Sun’s RX-7:
Yesterday I bought some fresh honey at a friend’s house. I have different samples from roadside stands all over Thailand; they’re sold in recycled whiskey bottles. The prices generally range from 150 to 200 baht per bottle. Yesterday was the cheapest I’ve seen it in a long time, 120 baht.
Update: Yes, the seller is filtering out debris and drowned bees out with a fish net.
Since we moved to our new house on New Years day, 2008, I haven’t seen any Tokay geckos – there just aren’t any in the neighborhood (I used to hear one down the block until a couple years ago, but it disappeared). I’ve never seen anything this awesome, though:
One of the places we took the kids last week: http://www.phuketbutterfly.com/home.htm
We were growing out Mina’s hair (which only looks cute when put in tails), but it got too nappy so it was time for a cut – A COWBOY CUT!
This guy is famous in Sarakham – he’s the living embodiment of Carabao culture.
Wow.
We have a room near the kiddie pool. Which means we also have a room near 3 adult pools, the inner tube river, the diving pool, five or six waterslides, a big whirlpool hot tub, a stepped plateau of semi-hidden wading pools, plus this big pond called the Andaman Sea.
I took the kids out to play when I was watching them today; Nam went to her conference. I was careful to slather them down with sunscreen which of course meant I forgot to put any on myself. There is nothing worse than being forced into the hot sun when you have kids screaming for you to come in the pool and the sunscreen is back in the room. I took one for the team and got burned a little — it was worth it, though. Taught the little rascals how to close their mouth and nose and dunk their heads underwater, and little things like that are priceless.
Haven’t taken so many photos yet, and I’m frankly sick of seeing tourists take so many photos of their ugly ass selves, but here are a few shots from our balcony.
This place is awesome. Definitely the nicest place we’ve ever paid for by ourselves. And this has got to be the best time to visit Phuket, right at the end of low season. Deserted beaches yet all the businesses are open and gearing up for high season. Also, everything is cheap and can be haggled down.