December 31, 2006

It's New Year's eve and we just found out that 4-7 bombs went off in Bangkok (around 7pm). They injured 12, killed 1 but they don't know who is responsible yet. Dave was supposed to play a gig at a popular tourist spot but cancelled. Totally not worth the money. Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that we're NOT going anywhere near Bangkok tonight and we're fine. I'll update my blog as we find out more information. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Leslie

Update 10:15pm
Now they're saying 8 bombs..2 deaths. Looking more serious than we thought.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/12/31/thailand.blasts/index.html

December 30, 2006

It's the end of the year! WHOA! Not doing much for the new year. Dave has a gig but if I go I'll be by myself and that'll suck. I may go out with other friends but we'll see. So things have been great here lately. The weather is sooo cool. Everyone and their mom is sick! It's crazy. One student had bronchitis and was in the hospital for 3 days. Nuts. Speaking of hospitals...some friends of ours had an emergency delivery on Christmas eve. It was really scary at first..the mom was 7 1/2 months pregnant and she was super sick so they had to deliver the baby early. Everyone is healthy but Dave and I were there to help with translations etc. We were planning a dinner out in bangkok and even a church service..but seeing a baby born was a way more special way to spend Christmas eve!

We had a really fun Christmas. Had lots of boxes..I love opening boxes! The funniest thing we got was instant snow. You mix the chemicals with water and it turns to snow! It was awesome. We also were able to successfully open presents with our families on skype with video! Sweet.

What else....we had a fun day today. Went into the rural outskirts of where we live to see our friend's family orchid farm. It started out as a morning event but turned into a whole day affair. It was so fun. I love days where you lose track of time. Anyway, we saw an orchid farm, had more amazing vietnamese food (my new favorite food), and went to see the largest Chedi in Thailand. Chedi's are like pyramids and they also house remains of important people. At this one, some remains of Buddha are kept. So it's an especially holy place. It was sweet. We hung out for hours, eating in the shade. Ahhh.....

I guess all of the people in Bangkok leave the city for New Year's..so we're planning on going in since there will be little traffic. We're going to go to the huge market to do some end of the month shopping. I feel like the vendors always bargain more at the end of the month..but that's my crazy theory. Well, we're having a merry holiday. Still working but since everyone's sick it feels like a holiday..everyone is canceling! haha...p.s. the Taiwan earthquake has disrupted our internet! Crazy huh! I haven't been able to check e-mail or use google since it happened and our connection is mad slow!

I wish for everyone a wonderful New Year and a fabulous 2007..or 2550 if your Thai. :-)

December 15, 2006

Christmas time! YAY! I can't believe it's actually been Christmas time for a while now...seems so weird when you live in a place that doesn't celebrate the holidays. It doesn't end up feeling any different than the rest of the year. We don't get vacation time except a few days after the new year..but that's cool since we end up getting sooo much freakin' vacation time here. Anyway...our little 3 foot Christmas tree is holding up nicely. Cheddar likes to attack it and knock it over but he's not playing with ornaments like he was last year. A slight improvement. haha.

I'm soo excited right now. Today, Dave and I booked a 15 day bike trip in Southern China for next spring! I can't hardly wait. We'll bike for 9 of the days and see what is known to be the most beautiful parts of rural China. We were going to do a habitat for humanity trip in Thailand but they are already full so we decided this would be a fun alternative. The company looks cool..check it out..www.bikeasia.com.

Dave's recital was last Tuesday. He had a great crowd and an awesome concert. His student also just won a big jazz competition here so he's excited about that. Another week has flown by. We have an empty weekend ahead of us and I can't wait. We went back to the Vietnamese place tonight. This dessert we had was killer. It's a deep fried breaded banana, cut up into coins and then each coin has a cashew and honey on top. It's amazing. We're going to try and get a cooking class there. The food is so veggie-oriented and soo fresh. Love it!

Hope everyone has safe travels this season! Have a great weekend.

December 9, 2006

Wow! This is my 76th blog entry since we've been in Thailand. I'll have to have a special celebration on my 100th entry. I'll start planning...

Thailand is flippin' HOT right now. We had some crazy winds from the typhoon that passed through but no rain. Now it's just hot, hot, hot. I'm not complaining. I'd take the sun over snow or rain anyday. December is supposed to be the coolest month of the year too...hmmm.

I'm so excited because we found a new restaurant in Salaya. It's a 5 min walk and it's really good. It's a Vietnamese place and the owner speaks english so he helped us with the thai only menu. This is soo huge! As of now, our restaurants are limited in Salaya. There's the Japanese noodle shop..but honestly I can only do noodle soups about once a week. There's the big Chinese restaurant but we always over order, the service sucks and we only order the same few dishes. Then there's our 2 lunch options, a wannabe (that's a cool word) western cafe style restaurant that thinks mayonnaise is the greatest ingredient ever and our choices vary from pancakes and omlettes, to beef stew...no joke. The other lunch option is more expensive and we only go on Fridays for their set lunch menu. That's pretty much it! So this new place is really a huge find!

Schaubs is on skype....she wins over the blog entry. Peace.