Author: admin

The last week

The past week was pretty emotional. I woke up in China to news that my dad had passed away. I was able to get a flight within 4 hours which my school pays for bereavement.

It was good to see my kids, brother and sister in law, and my mom. It is hard to believe he is gone.

Helping my brother move his shop equipment, I remembered so much about the vise on his bench. I used to help him with work or when he was helping me fix something of mine.

While I was home I ran a 5k with my daughter as that is how we work through things.

In time the regrets and the good things I remember will be worked through.

Toilets in southeast Asia

My apartment has a Japanese toilet which is a bidet. However, it is variable about what you will be using when you are out. I learned quickly that you carry wipes or a pack of tissue to use. They do not flush paper as it clogs systems. Many toilets are squatty potties. A large hole in the floor where you squat to do your business. Then you flush. Handicapped bathrooms have Western toilets.

Here in Thailand they have squatty potties you but you use buckets of water to flush. Where there are Western toilets you will see this sign :

Funny.

At the hotel the western toilets have a spray hose for the bidet.

I am sure I have yet more to see.

More from Bangkok…

Went on a run this morning which is pretty hairy. Ended up on a back road and made eye contact with a street dog. It belongs to a family but I attracted the attention of 3 other dogs and that one growled and followed me. The owners were really nice and came out to yell at the dog. They stayed out until I was gone. I definitely attract more attention here than in guangzhou since this is not an expat community.

Passing a wet Market I saw a Buddhist monk giving prayers. I watched and it seems very ritualistic and respectful.

Back at the hotel we ran a boot camp style workout with the kids then let them swim for while. Here is the view from the swimming pool.

And through the bushes there is another great view of Bangkok.

We just got word we have a flight out this afternoon. Yeah. We are running out of clothes! There has been a lot of wind and rain there and students were sending video of glass subdued shattered from flying debris. I am sure there is probably school tomorrow.

The Thai night market

If you are looking for Street food there is plenty around but at the night Market it is amazing. Rows of vendors serving all kinds of dishes.

I really wanted to get the whole fish cooked on a spit but not enough time to eat it and see other things.

The mango sticky rice was amazing and something I will try to make myself. Glutinous rice, coconut milk, mango, and crispy rice on top.

We ate baby octopus.

We also ate Cooked quail eggs with mussels on top. They poach them on cast iron molds on skewers.

We also ate sweet potato balls. These were delicious.

I snapped a few other pictures of octopus balls, grasshoppers (yes we all tried one though the kids bet money on making the captain eat one), rainbow cheese sandwiches (did not try this but cheese is very different here.)

One of the students bought cheese fries. The cheese was sweet almost as if it was made from sweetened condensed milk. It had some hot spice in it though.

In the end we went back to the hotel and no surprise that the kids were silk hungry. I guess the market was just an appetiser for them. The mall is a couple blocks walk then across a pedestrian bridge. It is huge. 5 stories with any kind of shop you would need including a grocery store at the bottom. I bought more seaweed snacks as they are more expensive in China.

So we are going to hear about when we will fly out. Flights are now resuming but still delayed. The school is paying our stay at this hotel for a long as we need including the breakfast buffet which is the best that I have ever had hands down.

Back in Bangkok

After the 10k I had time to shower and eat breakfast at the pung-waan resort. The bus ride takes 4.5 hours to get back to Bangkok. The thought of 13 teenagers cooped up in a hotel or going to the mall is not the best option since we have no idea when our flight will be. Instead we rented vans that we had at our disposal for up to 9 hours. They took us to the canal boat tours to see different sights of Bangkok.

There is some fascinating street art outside of where we purchased the ride.

This is what the boat looked like.

The water was pretty choppy and difficult to get good pictures. Much like other areas you have really poor housing and a nicer house will appear next to it.

I was taking a picture of this bird (people who know me understand this) when I noticed the alligator next to it. A little hard to see in the picture and again tough to get a good picture in that type of boat.

Locals selling merchandise will approach the boat. Unfortunately it started pouring though we had some cover on the boat. I had exchanged numbers with the driver and let him know we were done with the boat tour. We were originally going to go to the grand Palace and the temples but their are strict dress code rules. As we had not planned on that sine if the students did not have long enough shorts. We took a car tour of the area instead and headed to a local market.

Thailand has the highest fatality of drivers and mostly of motorbike. I snapped this picture of a little dog on his owners shoulder (and is with the police). This is taken looking out or front windshield.

From here we went to the Night Market which opens at 5 and has food and clothes. I’ll write another post about that.

The driver was fairly decent with English and had a great sense of humour with the students. I had all of the girls with me. We asked questions and he taught them she Thai phrases.

This is the best explanation of hello and how to bow for respect. It is important in their culture. So is calling me madame much like the English would.

Thailand

I am not really being a tourist on vacation as I am here in a school trip. So far in the cross country invitational trip we stayed one night in Bangkok. We then had a 4.5 hr bus trip to the pung-waan resort in kanchanaburi. The river kwai runs through here.

Before we left we went grocery shopping for lunch on the bus, drinks, and snacks. I bought these items. Some are to bring back for later. Afterall, how often do we get to try dried cuttlefish (like a squid). The red bean and matcha kit kats are also for later. I picked two fruits that I don’t know what they are. All the groceries totaled 12 USD. The apples are pink lady. I did resist buying the oreo moon cakes. The red pear shaped fruit was not very sweet and had the consistency of a pepper without the idea taste of the pepper. It is called a wax apple. The green fruit is actually a guava.

Dinner at night was crazy cheap and breakfast at the Best Western Wanda was excellent.

The rooms were beautiful. It is funny to read the reviews that say the beds are too hard. All the beds in southeast Asia are hard and are a thin layer of padding over wood. It was actually one of the more comfortable places I have slept.

I am intrigued by all of the temples for prayer.

The countryside is beautiful and looks much like any rural area even in the States with little shops and houses.

The resort is cabins and common areas. They set up a 4k course to run which we did when we arrived. The team has their race bibs and chips. After dinner tonight will be the coaches meeting. Here is the entrance to the dining terrace.

This is the river kwai. There is a dam up steam and unfortunately they had to open it to let water go due to lots of rain. This is part of their housing that is now under water.

Outside one of the cabins.

Inside the cabin.

View from the patio outside the cabin.

So far there has been more rain but it has been a great trip with these kids. They are still teenagers but very mature for their age and really nice people. Tomorrow is the race followed by challenge courses to compete in. All the students are mixed with other teams in new groups. In Sunday we have a 10k fun run. We leave to go back to Bangkok and will then know whether we can get in a plane or whether the flight week be delayed due to the super typhoon making landfall in China on Sunday morning.

Grocery shopping

There are many funny things you see in the grocery stores here. Of course to outsiders in the US that is also true. Mostly is the combination of flavours or how the original title is translated.

This was just a stroll down the chip aisle. I actually did buy the seaweed flavour. What I haven’t bought is the bags of dried shrimp mixed with nuts. But I probably will in the future.

Occasionally someone on we chat will share a picture from translator where the English translation is written over top of the Chinese symbols. These are hilarious and end up with everyone sharing from wherever they are. If I can figure out where these are saved I will share them.

Biking around Guangzhou

I have been biking to school and taking a trip on most weekends since I bought my bike. There are bike paths along the river and beside some major roads, but where I bike to school does not always have that. It can be a little dicey but riding with others brings safety in numbers. It is actually tougher to get around the other bikers and pedestrians as it seems that anything goes with them and they don’t follow any rule.

Here are a few images from the bike rides. Exercise classes (usually Qi Gong) and dancing you can see in the parks and under the bridges.

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To get on the bridges you need to sometime take stairs. They have a ramp on part of the stairs where you push your bike up as you walk. Sometimes it is in the middle and others it is on both sides. Here you can see the not very wide ramp along the side. It actually is pretty ingenous, does not take much space, and is efficient. You can see the ramps both on the left and the right.

Since I bought my bike I also had them put on a rack over the rear tire and bought one pannier messenger bag that can clip to the side or be tied down on top which gives me better options than to put everything in a backpack on my back. It was incredibly cheap with both costing a total of $40 USD.

The Plant Market

A few weeks ago I went to the plant market with one of the seasoned teachers. It is easy to find someone who will help you here when you are looking for something. You pass on your information. Since I had never taken long metro rides this was something I also wanted to do. This is a big place and any tips for getting around is great.

On the way to the market we saw a fruit stall that had fresh coconut. They crack open the top so you can drink (I took it home to scrape out the coconut later).

rpt

There is a market for everything here. The plant market is huge and took hours to only look at a small amount of it. I went with three others and we were each looking for something specific. For me, I wanted a few succulents for my apartment but also wanted to grow leafy vegetables. I looked around for some time and found the places I wanted to buy from then set out to get those items at the last minute as they were pretty heavy.

Here are the succulents and planter I bought:

ptr

It seemed that we would not be getting on the metro with everything as it all had to go through an xray before we could enter so we called a DIDI (like Uber here). We manage to fill the trunk and also fit the tree that one person bought in the back seat with us. That person in the front seat bought some of the most beautiful orchids I have seen.

btf

My plants are starting to grow. I am not sure exactly what I planted but have seen these greens at the wet market and eventually will translate the packages (though translations are never exact).

I have a second planter and those are taking a little longer to come up. As a capricorn, we love to dig our hands in dirt!