September 30, 2006

We made it back from Singapore. We had such a good time...a lot of r & r but also lots of sightseeing. My favorite was Arab Street. It's more than a street, a whole neighborhood with a mosque in the middle. I had never been inside a mosque before. We bought a picnic basket in the same area (totally cute yellow), ate some killer street food (vegetarian samosas..soo good), and even went rug shopping...way out of our price league though. Getting to the airport was pretty hilarious. Our flight was THE first flight out of the new airport. So it was the first day for all the workers there too. I'm putting up pics so you can see how things run here. Anyway, getting out was okay. Coming back in though is another story. I guess people on the long distance international flights were having to wait 4 hours for their luggage. Yikes! Ours was fine..yeah budget airlines!

It was so nice to be on vacation for a bit. The past few months were really wearing. It's Saturday today and we don't have too much on the agenda. We're taking Cheddar in for his annual vaccinations....oh fun! Oh, the food in Singapore was soo good. We ate Indian food the first few days, ate a whole bunch of Western food too including some serious molten chocolate cake. Oh yeah! Soo good. We drank more beer than we probably have in over a year here and good beer too. So that was fun. We went to the Night Safari, which was sweet. It's a zoo at night and you can't see the fences so it feels like you're right there with the animals. We walked through a bat-sleeping mangrove forest. One almost hit my head. There was also an animal show that we went too. We sat down in the first 3 rows and a woman comes up and asks if we're afraid of anything...I'm like..what do you mean?? She didn't really say but didn't want our section to freak out. Great. So the show goes on and I'm waiting for a bat to jump at my head or something. The seats directly behind us (underneath their feet and at the same level we were sitting) was housing a python. I thought something was going to jump out on my head but the python wasn't scary at all. haha.

Another funny trip we took was to this resevoir that's been preserved sicne the early 20th century as a rainforest. What attracted us was a suspension bridge canopy walk! Well, little did we really know that there was one way in and one way out. We hiked about 7km to get the canopy but couldn't backtrack so we had to make a huge loop to get back to the closest exit. Oh man. We must have walked 11km. It was soo hot too. The suspension bridge was cool. Dave was freaking out a bit on that one. It was a beautiful view, not much flowering this time of year but we saw lots of lizards, monstrous ants, a few birds and loads of macaque monkeys.

Anyway, a great vacation. We got a nice fix and now we're super excited to come home. Nothing is new with the coup. That's fine with me. I just hope they can work on organization at the new airport before we have to fly out again. Sweet. My favorite analysis on the coup situation is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart from September 20th. Sooo funny. Have a happy weekend!

September 21, 2006

Well, everything is back to normal here today. Apparently it only takes one day to overthrow and change the government here! haha. Only in Thailand. The people are so chill here! OK..so here's the latest if anyone is interested:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/20/world/asia/20cnd-thailand.html?ex=1316404800&en=080b4ea13dadd93e&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

September 20, 2006

So we woke up today to nothing really different regarding the military takeover. For now the Thai stations are only showing footage of the King and playing military music. I know they are saying that we're not getting international TV but Dave and I get BBC..CNN has been cut off though. The new government declared a national holiday today. No one knows how long this will last, althought everyone is saying it'll be short lived but no one has said exactly what will need to happen in order for democracy to be restored. I'm so glad we finished juries yesterday so I'm totally finished for the semester...won't get behind on work or anything...so that's good. There's no one on campus today so Dave and I went to the international school hotel..they have a killer set breakfast. Usually the place is swarming with farang (foreigners) but today everyone was Thai and listening and watching the Thai stations waiting for an update. An announcement came on but they just announced that they were the new government and it didn't phase anyone. Soooo different than how we'd react in the U.S. eh??? Nothing to worry about and no violence or anything. We just went grocery shopping the other day so we can camp out and lay low for a while and stay OUT of Bangkok.

Nothing crazy or scary here. No worries for now.

Thailand Instability...

If it's not on the front page...www.cnn.com check http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/09/19/thailand.coup.rumor/index.html

I can't even believe this! Dave was out in Bangkok tonight too. He drove by tanks surrounding the UN building and gov buildings. Freaky dudes.

September 18, 2006

It's Monday today. I had juries to listen to all day and have the same tomorrow. Dave's at a gig tonight so I have the condo to myself...oh yeah. Time to party. Not really. I'm taking a practice break right now..totally lame.

School is over now for the semester. That flew by soo fast. We've been downloading American tv shows from iTunes whenever possible. Our latest is Survivor Cook Islands. So Dave and I are watching along, pretty surprised that they divided the teams by race. We were both secretly routing for the Asians/Asian Americans! haha. When I finally said something we busted up. It's funny how we now can relate more to a different group of people other than our own. I wonder if I had never lived here or in Mexico if I'd be routing for the white Americans...hmm. Probably not, but isn't that a little weird? Well, the white Americans are kind of annoying. Anyway, kind of interesting. I'm loving that. We've also been watching the daily show, not quite daily but it's a fix whenever we can watch it. Ahhh..seriously funny. And next is def Colbert Report. Love that show!

I'm sooo excited to come home. It's still a month away and we're totally busy until then. We're going on vacation next week. YAY! I love traveling out here. We're going to Singapore...it's soo nice there. I feel like it's the opposite of Bangkok. For real. Bangkok is polluted, crowded, dirty and busy. Singapore is clean, clean and more clean. Such a nice change. They also have Ikea there, which is a major plus! haha. Oh, and the food is soo amazing. Ahh..they're famous for their chilli crab and black pepepr crab. But all the food is amazing. It's a serious mix of Indian, Muslim, and Chinese food. Can't wait.

Well, I've finally set myself up on myspace so look for me there. No one gets on friendster anymore...poor friendster.

September 10, 2006

We're almost finished with the semester. That means we almost get to come home! YAY! I'm so excited for this semester to be over with. It's been crazy to say the least and a much needed vacation is just around the corner.

Our Saturday was another adventure in Bangkok. We went to Chinatown to pickup an order of drinking glasses for our friends in California. The store was a little tiny shop admist a brick alley filled with wholesale shoe vendors. We went in the early morning, when Chinatown is definitely bustling with street vedors and shop owners. It's a cool time to go....and it's not so hot. We looked into ordering some margarita/martini glasses but the minimum order was 720 pieces. hahaha. Don't think we'll be having any parties that large! haha.

So after we picked up the order, we went to fedex and mailed it. Found a wholesale wine store..sweet, and then picked up our wedding proofs. It's way more fun looking at pictures in real life than on a computer screen. Anyway, that was fun to finally receive and then we went to my seamstress. I have this super cute brown wool coat with white plaid lines (I don't use it here), but I've had it for 3 years or so. It's super cute but it's always been too big so I never wear it. So my seamstress rocks and is taking it in. I'm so excited to wear it in October. After all our errands we met up with all the horn players from Bangkok for a lunch meeting. I'm working on an article for the Horn Journal about the Thailand horn scene so I needed to ask them questions about stuff. Exciting. We're also working on future projects together so we discussed that as well. Totally exciting.

Today is lazy. Just practicing. I think we're going to work out in a bit, and we need to clean and grocery shop. we may go into the city for dinner and then do our grocery shopping. OH, I found a Belgium Chocolate shop near our grocery store. We may need to stop in there for a minute tonight. haha.

So one more week of classes, then juries and I'm done on the 19th. Oh yeah. Dave is pretty much finished right now since his jazz band concert is over. Well, can't think of anything else to write about. Have a lazy Sunday!

September 3, 2006

Sooo..we made it through our homesickness and we're doing much better today. I think we hit a low point on Saturday but went on a really long walk to get out of the condo. That helped. We also planned a fun day today...went to brunch in the city, and then ice skating. It was a perfect day too because it was sooo hot outside. The ice skating rink at the mall is under construction. When we got there, we found out it was closed! Dang. So instead we went to Toys R' Us. hahaha. We almost bought the Bangkok version of Monopoly (we totally should have). We ended up getting a card game by the cranium people called "Zigity." We'll see how that goes. After toy shopping we went grocery shopping at our fav grocery store in the city. Sweet. So excited for new groceries...

Now we're munchin on brie and drinking some champagne that was a gift from the wedding..YAY! For dinner we're making falafal pitas! Oh yummmy. It's a first attempt so we'll see what happens.

Mahidol is down to 2 more weeks of school. That's crazy. Then a week for juries and a week for finals. So I'm pretty much done teaching for the semester in 2 weeks. Dave is even closer since he already had his jazz band concert. I think they're doing reading the next 2 weeks but it'll be pretty chill for him. Ok..we're going to play "Zigity." Dave is going to try and beat me b/c he's pissed I whooped on him at tennis today!! hahaha. Have a happy labor day weekend!!

p.s...ZIgity rules(http://store.cranium.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=0_0&products_id=12). It's really fun. It's a combonation of "set" and "uno." p.s.s.Set is the best card game ever (http://www.setgame.com/set/)