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.