my new roommate

Utterly lacking company in my little house here, I concluded this would be the ideal opportunity to focus on improving my near nonexistant guitar skills. Yesterday I made my purchase and came home with my new friend, Ote (the guitar). He's a great roommate, there's plenty of room for the both of us here. He never leaves dishes in the sink and he's the first roommate I've had who doesn't recoil in horror when i pull out my guitar to practice.

hanging out with Ote.

This evening I wandered through market stalls teeming with thais and flies and brimming with all manner of strange new edibles. As I still can't say much in thai and certainly don't understand 99% of what's being said around me, I tend to just smile broadly and point at things and nod and take whatever people give me. My presence seems to be something of a novelty here and people seem eager to share and have me try new things. It's wonderful working on my miserable thai language skills and getting to try all sorts of new, striking, unusual, tasty, sometimes questionable, little morsels. so far it's working out well for me. I can't remember (or even pronounce) a lot of what I'm trying. Too bad, guess it means I have to keep coming back and eating it all again.

The dinner I returned home with ended up being more of a dessert, really. largely dominated by tropical fruits, that's my kind of meal.

startlingly colorful dinner

Rambutans, mangosteens, lychees, mango and some sweet chewy purple sticky rice topped with a layer of a bright orange mixture of sugar and coconut and some pieces of a very familiar but unidentifiable leaf/herb that has a strong lemon (and maybe basil?) flavor.

sweet, fleshy insides of my mangosteen and rambutan

after 30 minutes of peeling, slicing, seeding - finally, dinner time.

the kiddos

I've been writing letters with my kids to send to students in the US (my mum's 2nd grade class in Portland) and brought my camera along today to take photos of my classes to send along with the letters. Despite being normally shy and coy during class time, most of them were pros at hamming it up for the camera...

The most serious shot I was able to get from my grade 6 class

Playing hangman with grade 6

beating up on noodle boy.


rowdy grade 5 class


two little grade 5 terrors


posing for a shot, while the rest of the boys are throwing a ball at each others' faces.
lovely group.


grade 4 - my favorites


Nut (yup, that's his name) gives Pookao a wedgie

shopping excursion at Big C

After school today I hopped a motorbike to Big C, the shopping center nearest to my house. I think the C stands for either chaos, claustrophobia or carve my eyes out with a spoon before i'd come back here again. It's what I imagine a Walmart built in Thailand would be like. But despite the way it raises my blood pressure, it's a handy place to pick up essentials. I bought a shirt and a skirt (I'm rapidly running out of work appropriate attire), a plunger (more on this later), a week's worth of groceries, some cleaning supplies and toiletries and a set of art supplies all for under $18 USD. what a deal!

tricked out pickup trucks in front of Big C
...they serve as public transport along the main roads - a cheap, easy way to get around, if you don't mind noxious fumes

dinner at a street stand nearby

I decided on what to eat for dinner this evening the way I often make my menu decisions here - I walked around a cluster of street stands looking for the one that looked most popular. This particular stand had a long picnic table out in front, covered with an array of bowls filled with all manner of goodies.. green beans, basil leaves, sliced cucumbers, sprouts, greenish pickled somethings, cabbage and, of course, the obligatory 4 seasonings. Perched along the sides of the table were families with little kids, taxi drivers, women in hairdressing smocks, decrepit old men, all slurping bowls of something that smelled spicy - this was the place. For 20 baht I got a bowlful of thin rice noodles covered with a creamy, red curry and some of the pallid, spongy pork balls that are ubiquitous here. With the addition of a pinch of everything from the condiment table, the meal was a spicy, sweet, lemongrassy, creamy, crunchy, chewy, slightly tart bowl of utter tastiness.

**6/10: I have since discovered that the name for this dish is khanom jeen nam yaa

Mango and green sticky rice blizzard at the Big C Dairy Queen

a little dessert I picked up..

I bought this purely because it is so strange and I wanted to take a picture. This little parcel, which is supposed to pass as a sweet treat, contains: whole water chestnuts, a lump of boiled squash/pumpkin, boiled sweet potato chunks, raw corn cut off the cob, nubs of a hard starchy relative of the banana (sort of like a plantain), dried coconut shards and a little package of white sugar. I went in with an open mind, but really, in my estimation, this just is not delicious.

i like noodles

I have a tubby little boy in my grade 5 class who is lovely, bright, well behaved... a jolly little porker, but when given a creative writing assignment (anything from telling me about his family to writing a letter) this is what i get:

EVERY time.
and usually accompanied by this picture (which i love)

Now, I can relate - i love a good plate of phat thai as much as the next guy - but honestly. While the rest of the students are writing sweet notes to their parents or writing about the weather or colors, this little guy is telling me for the 300th time that he digs spaghetti.

brought my camera to the market this time

After class today some of the other teachers and I hopped on motorbikes and visited the local market. I remembered to bring my camera this time, so I got a few shots of the stalls and their strange and wonderful offerings [..ensuring that there was no doubt remaining in anyone's mind there that I was a complete foreigner.]

One edge of the market, with everyone's motorbikes piled up on the left


A stall selling strange fried fishy, vegetable-y jelly

This stuff is probably made out of rice flour and water, i'm thinking, stirred into a gelatinous paste and then mixed up with onion, spices and an unidentifiable chopped green vegetable (the green ones) and some strange orange fishy cubes (the lighter ones). On the bottom right are the uncooked blobs and on the left are the jelly blobs after a good greasy deep fry. I bought three for about 40 cents but, i'm afraid to say, they were the first thing here that i've been unable to finish due to utter disgustingness. Fishy, leafy, slimy jelly dripping with fat - i just couldn't do it.

a vendor presenting her custard filled pumpkins

**6/13: this dessert is called fak thong sang-ka-ya

Storm rolling in over the market
we made it into a taxi just moments before the downpour

What I brought home...

squishy balls of coconut

inside of the squishy coconut ball

The outside of these spherical little treats is a rice flour dough (a lot like the outside of mochi ice cream - buy it at trader joe's) rolled in dried shredded coconut, and on the inside is a mixture of sugar and coconut, - has a sweet, almost burnt flavor.

Fresh lychee for 20 baht/kilo (about 50 USD cents)

Ripe, juicy mangoes -
bought a shopping bag full for 15 baht (40 cents, or so)

Paperthin green crepes filled with "hair"

This crispy filling which looks (and feels a bit) like the hair on my old American Girl doll is similar to cotton candy, but instead of being soft and artificially flavored, this stuff is more like straw made of nothing but sugar - it crunches as you first bite into it, then immediately dissolves. I ate about 10 of these. [they're especially good with some mango slices tucked inside]

Custard stuffed pumpkin

The custard inside reminds me of a stiffer, less smooth version of flan. It's sweet and creamy and is made, I assume with some squash puree. decadent and rich - I'm going to have to learn to make this stuff.

i've moved!

Pictures of the new pad

facade of the new house

I'm ecstatic to say that I haven't found a single rodent or large insect (the small ones are inevitable) in these sheets.

mold free toilet seat!

And now I know what you're thinking - "Oh no, I hope Michelle's mailing address is still the same so that the package I sent will get to her safely..."

Well, don't you worry! My mailing address remains the same.

Into Bangkok this weekend

To get into downtown Bangkok from my province, it takes a motorbike ride to the main road, then a taxi or tuk tuk ride to the place where most buses stop, then a bus ride to the skytrain station, then a skytrain trip into town. and that's what I did with my evening on Saturday.

Went to a swanky (WAY too swanky for me in my dive shop tshirt and sweats) bar overlooking downtown Bangkok

This hurried shot (awkwardly snapped as I was leaving) is, sadly, the only shot i took of this place. though you can't see it in the picture, it's a rooftop bar in the middle of Bangkok serving tapas for about $2/plate and a Bombay Sapphire g&t for under $3 (!).

View from the 17th floor elevator, up to the bar

A spirit house, or san phra phum, with people lighting candles/incense (?)
...at a mall, right in front of Louis Vuitton and Burberry.

The size and number of malls here is staggering. In many places you can walk for an hour in any one direction and be in a mall about 95% of the time. and they're all completely packed with people. always, it seems. I've made a note to pack painkillers the next time i plan to venture into the crazy retail world of bkk.

Dinner at a Singaporean restaurant in the city.
I had the traditional, and deceptively simple, chicken rice (top).

The glowing green thing is a model of the Coliseum built entirely of Heineken cans (aside from the local beers, Heineken is the beer sold everywhere here) in front of, no surprise, a mall.

Couldn't resist taking out my camera in a public restroom to get a shot of
the "Buzz Box - Flushing Sound Machine." seriously.

my neighborhood and dessert last night

Some images from my neighborhood...

The street in front of my unit

One of our friends, the giant snails who come out en masse during rainstorms

A typical residential street in my neighborhood

The "river" behind the school
(actually more like one big long swamp snaking through the neighborhood)

stand where I pick up a treat after work some days...

the woman here sells slushy drinks here made of ice, condensed milk, simple syrup, coconut juice and fresh banana, fresh coconut or chocolate for 15 baht, about 40 cents.

And for dessert tonight I bought myself a big ripe mango...

massive mango

creamy, sweet and juicy. a perfect dessert on a hot night

dinner at Pi Pen's

ate dinner last night at a little place which is essentially just a woman's garage, opened up to the street, filled with a few picnic tables and lawn chairs. despite the rough facade, the place was great - Pi Pen makes a mean Tom Yam Goong (spicy prawn soup).

tom yam goong

The soup is slightly coconut-y, strong lemongrass flavor with some really mild green onion-like things, prawns, tomato slices and, of course, hot chilies.

Enjoying my soup & teacher Mitchie striking the classic asian picture pose

Teacher Mitchie peeling green mangoes for dessert

Fish sauce with lime, garlic and chili slices

On the table of every eatery here there is a set of four condiments which provide the four quintessential flavors in Thai cooking: sour, spicy, salty, sweet. While the condiments themselves vary (usually it's chili powder, sugar, fish sauce and vinegar or lime) they always represent the 4 flavors. In addition, they often also have the sauce in the picture above - salty and spicy, I put it on most everything.

a treat on the way home from school today

On the way home from school today I ran across a woman with a big mysterious tupperware bowl and some styrofoam containers. when i walked up she said "sip baht" (10 baht), with not a clue as to what she was selling i nodded and said "song" (2) and she handed me these..

Buns!

Delicious little steamed parcels of pillowy dough. One was filled with sweet red bean paste and the other with ground pork, onion, some herbs and some slightly sweet, almost cinnamony (?) spice.

back to school

First day of class for the children today. More details to come..

Teacher Ivy and Teacher Michelle after day 1

enjoying coconut and condensed milk smoothies

Out front of the school on day 1

a mango, rice and bean sundae

While I don't frequent my local KFC back home too often, I couldn't resist this purchase from the Bangplee KFC yesterday...

A sundae comprised of:

1. Your standard vanilla soft serve - good start.
2. Thick mango topping with chunks of fresh mango - delicious.
3. A layer of bright green rice - getting stranger..
4. Crunchy brownish topping of some sort of beans - just plain odd.

"Amazing Mango Sundae Treaty Good!"

The mango tasted surprisingly real and mango-y, the sticky rice layer was an excellent chewy texture contrast to the smooth ice cream and the crunchy little bean nuggets on top were just like peanuts, but better - almost smokey, maybe a bit almond-like... Delicious overall, though I'm afraid I don't see it catching on in the states anytime soon.