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| This is on my street! An elephant walking down my street! |
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| It's actually quite sad... clearly they are just paraded around as a source of income... you can buy sugar cane for 20 baht and feed them... this one is clearly walking next to cars, etc. just in the middle of the road. |
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| So there are 7-11s EVERYWHERE! This is the one at the top of my street. There are four within walking distance of my house. |
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| I come here at least once a day... and so does everyone else! 7-Eleven is making bank in Surat |
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| Soooo this is an advertisement for the Obama pub (apparently)... there are a few of these signs around town. I wonder if Barry knows about this? |
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| They LOVE love love KFC. And Pizza Hut too actually. The Colonel has made it to Thailand. |
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| Maybe I've mentioned how much these people love corn? Have I? Well, they loooooove corn. KFC sells this corn sundae, which has been an object of interest to me for weeks now.... |
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| ....so I bought one. There are normal corn kernels in the middle there, but then creamed corn on top! It is totally and completely bogus. Anneliese accurately described it as tasting like baby throw up. |
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| This is an awesome huuuuuge statue in the middle of town at one of the Buddhist temples. I need to get a daytime photo of this as well so you can really see how big and amazing it is. |
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| A view of the night market with one of the Buddhist temples in the background... |
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| Even (some of) the street lights in Surat Thani are beautiful! |
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| This is a picture of the market down by the river |
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| It was really crowded last night because of Loy Krathong... |
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| So Loy Krathong is this really cool Buddhist holiday where people are asking for forgiveness and starting over. Some of them release these floating lanterns into the sky... |
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| .... this guy was having a little trouble getting his to take off... |
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| ..... but it was so cool once they did take off; in the sky were dozens and dozens of floating lanterns... like beautiful stars. |
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| These are some of the very special flower floats you can buy to float down the river for Loy Krathong. |
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| This is my flower float! You are supposed to clip your fingernails and trim your hair, then light the candle and incense and float the whole thing down the river. |
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| So all of us took one of the crazy motorized river canoes out into the middle of the river to release our floats... it was a little frightening but I love how genuinely excited Chris is in this photo! Amazing. |
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| This was the candle we all used to light our incense and candles... |
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| My Loy Krathong float ready to go! |
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| Awww, my candle went out! But my incense are still burning! |
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| A view of the town along the river from inside the boat. |
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| It was a pretty great experience. |
Jessica: I know how you feel about being away from home especially at the holidays. I had 3 years of holidays overseas in the army. Of course Christmas in Germany was a lot different than Thailand. Funny thing about the corn. Germans, at least when I was stationed there, thought it odd we eat corn on the cob. They thought it was feed for animals. David.
ReplyDeleteA few things:
ReplyDelete1 - Why does the chicken at KFC have a karate kid headband on? That is some badass chicken.
2 - Does the 7-11 in Thailand have ridiculous items like the ones here in America? I mean can you buy a felt picture of a tiger to hang on your wall as well as a Fanta and a taquito?
3 - Did you ever actually have any doubt that the corn sundae would be anything but terrible?
4 - I was trying to make a joke about an Obama Bar, but its not even 9am on Monday so it's not happening right now. I will work on it.
Is Loy Krathon followed by the tradition of putting out neighborhood fires?
ReplyDeleteHow would you like to live at the end, or along the banks of the river? Dying flower floats with peoples nasty ass fingernails and hair... must be the garden gnomes of Thailand.
Louie, Downs, Charsk, Blonsk, Chasan, Ray, and I got together at Standard Tap on Friday... We missed you! We held an open chair in your honor, but Downs used it as a foot rest...
I posted pics from 3 monkeys from the last day of school..im gonna try to email them to you.
Keep the blogs coming!
Hey, who doesn't like corn and ice cream?
ReplyDeleteElephant! YES!!! Do the Thai people have to parallel park their elephants in the street?
The dragon street lamp is pretty sweet though.
Uhm so I'm a little delayed and the other Downs already got to this but...
ReplyDeleteThat Drumstick has a Karate Bandana and it's wicked awesome!! How did you not note that in the Caption!? Hahaha I miss you tons boo! I missed the boat for the Turkey Day Package (sorry!) So if there's anything you're craving from America! let me know :) xoxoxo
@ David: Thank you for the well wishes! I am missing home, and I know that the holidays will probably be the hardest part. But I am trying to stay positive, because I know it will be a good memory! Thanks for the encouragement! @Both my Downsies: In my original caption for that photograph I actually started to write something like "Check out the amazing Japanese warrior / Samurai / Karate headband on the spicy chicken wing! but then I couldn't think of the right words so I deleted it... I did indeed notice though!!! And Allie, it is quite all right that you did not get a Thanksgiving package to me... I love you a whole lot anyway! And Matt, the 7-11 in Thailand absolutely has many ridiculous things to buy, including but not limited to: hot dogs that are rolling in a hot case just like at home, Doraemon toys, oh my goodness soooo much stuff! You should come check it out.... and Allie, I read earlier about how you saw cheap round-trip tickets... Come visit me!!!! Hehehehehe. And finally, @ Joe: I bet if you visited me and paid em enough baht you could try and parallel park an elephant!
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