Night Out

We had a welcome back party for teachers at a swanky hotel where it was fun to eat some Western food for a change. The bread is still super sweet since there is sugar added to all of it here but it was still delicious. 

From Bag To Table

Okay, did a better job tonight and we were not eating chicken carcass. The best I could understand today is that people like to cut the carcass up for their dogs...great! We are going to start cooking more at home but the only real way to get used to the different foods here is by eating "street food". It's very health and very cheap so easy to justify.
On the note of food, the kids at RIS (my school) have the choice of around 15 different "take out" food places for lunch. It's amazing how healthy takeout can actually be. No fries, limited deep fried....they drink lots of water and eat lots of noodle, veg, rice and good stuff.

From bag....

To plate....delicious. The salad is an amazing meal in itself: lettuce, flower petals, barley, egg, kidney beans, all kinds of shredded veggies.

Proof That I am Actually Working

First day of class with orientation for grade 7. Yup, that's me!

Our Middle  School quad is open air an a lot of stairs. I am on the first floor:)

Weekend in The Big City

We had a long weekend (Queen's Birthday) so we went to Bangkok for the weekend since we had spent no time at all in the city-proper. 

Vince taming the fish.

Had no idea what it was....until I realized it was written on the package. A Moon cake....from China.

Khao San Road  aka Backpackers alley but pretty quiet during the day.

Vince relaxing before his tattoo:) He got the full body art in case you are wondering.

Where the heck are we? Loving GPS and unlimited internet!

Queen's birthday is a huge deal here. .

Sydney Opera House?

The water taxi. You have to be fast getting off or they leave without you. We saw a group of three get split  up but people were helping them figure it out.

Tuk-tuk which apparently can drive on either side of the road and have no rules. We used a few and had the "textbook" experience (scams) of Taxis not using meters and tuk-tuks trying to charge 2-3 the regular rate. Pretty funny.  The little experience we have gave us the confidence to know what the cost should be.

We tried the City Express train that only opened in Jan 2012 and is a fast route to/from the airport. We tried it and got off 2 stops early planning to take a taxi home from there thinking it might be faster and we are near the airport. Well, this was the stop where we got off......deserted. Hopped back on and went all the way to the airport where we wanted to check the bus info for weekend getaways.

View from the station. They told us that there is always one taxi but it was a little deserted for us.

We made rice in the new rice cooker which is really big and can cook for an army. I went to the market  in the promising storm and bought dinner. Thought I'd try something different and I bought a fried chicken...like KFC. Figured we'd see what it was like. Okay, so what I really bought was a deep-fried chicken carcass.....but I remembered the hot sauce.....so funny and when I realized, it was too late. That story should get a few laughs tomorrow. I'll bet we were supposed to eat the bones. So dinner was like this:
Hors d'ouvres-Chicken batter picked from carcass.
Entre-salad.
Main dish-rice.
Dessert: mango

Will do better next time.

A Local Market Lesson

We have been really lucky to have met a couple of Thai people who work at RIS and are willing to help out with the language and introducing us to the many different foods (cooked and not) at the market. Joy, is one such person and she was kind enough to take 3 of us to show us where she gets pedicures and to walk the market again. We have done it before but there are so many things that we do not recognize and ways of life that are unfamiliar to us that it is great to go periodically.As for the pedicure, living in sandals all of the time takes its toll on the feet and it may become one of life's little pleasures here. 

You can, by the way, live a pretty Western life and buy food at the big supermarkets but it's not really what we moved here for. It's not to say that we don't have peanut butter etc but for the most part we eat the Thai food from the stalls or food carts. I learned tonight that when you buy a big nasty fish from a  grill that the vendor actually skins it and prepares it for immediate eating. The division of labour here is amazing and many people have "takeout" and either cook the rice at home or buy it with the meal-I was warned but still cannot believe the way they bag everything. 

With Joy's help we bought oil and oyster sauce so that we can now cook at home a bit.

Pineapple from the market...comes with dipping salt which is amazing

My dinner....noodles, soup and vegetables. I even ate the bad-boy fish ball that was in it. Working the microwave was not obvious but it all got done.

We were walking up to the motorcycle store to buy a thicker rain jacket and came across this crane that had collapse across the building 2 hours before. No-one was hurt but pretty spectacular.

More Bangkok markets

Three of us went to the local market the other day, each market is quite different but all of them have food and more food. The local MinBuri market did not disappoint, lots of plants, more clothes and local furniture, plus great treats for the palate. We first tried a latte to sample the coffee makers ability and we each had to try one from a different vendor. We also tried some fried pork, chicken and tuna pastry,  a sausage and fresh pineapple. That was lunch! Here is a view of the corridor in the market, quite amazing what Thai people can push into a small space!!

I came across these buckets my Oom Jan has made a living off for years. They look very similar to the ones he made for decades, but am sure the quality is not quite the same... or did he export these?
It seems everything is 'made in Thailand!'

Once we left the market we hailed  a taxi to take us home. It took awhile as several taxis waved us off... I guess three white guys scared them off!

Who Turned the Sky Tap On?

Had the first day of school with the "old" teachers so it was nice to see all of the faces and meet some new people. I had planned to meet Vince the gym, go for a run, then cool of in the swimming pool. Not worried by the grey skies, I pedalled home, grabbed my shorts and headed back to the gym. By the time I had changed there was a torrential downpour which lasted about 45 min. We keep having these so I shouldn't really be surprised especially since it is the rainy season. I am however, recognizing the when the wind picks up I have about 5 min to take cover.

Raining harder than hard for longer than I thought possible

The rain eventually slowed so we eventually road home and somehow Vince took this picture. That's me up ahead getting pushed sideways every time a car came by.

Dinner sometimes depends on how far you can ride and tonight we made it to the intersection that was flooded earlier it the week-this time I had a camera. We ate on the platform on the left...same place as last night where I took a picture of Vince with the beer if you want a comparison.

Looking the other direction on the street. This seems to be a common occurance.