good bye snow...

how many farangs can you fit in a tuk tuk?

Four and two guitars...

So, as promised to many, I am here with the official weekend update. My brain is feeling highly uncreative right now... so I'm going to try to prove that a picture is truly worth a thousand words.

So this picture is taken from my first experience on the Klong, which is the dirty, dirty river that runs through the city. We hopped on the Oriental express, which is a fancy boat that carts rich tourists to thier hotel on the river... so pretending to be one of those tourist, we got a free ride to check out the Oriental Hotel. This hotel was absolutely incredible, lavish, ridiculously expensive...

From there we headed back to the Klong, and took a much less fancy river taxi to Chinatown. Now, Chinatown in Bangkok is chaos. Because Bangkok itself is crazy, busy, polluted, cramped... then mix that with the usual congestion of any Chinatown and you can only imagine what you get! It was great. I found the most amazing bead store... I was in heaven. Anita, if you need some cheap Aisian goods for your business, let me know! We had lunch at this little roadside stand. The pic shows Emily (left) and Lisa (right) enjoying the very hot soup on a very hot day. Mmmmm.


Next, we went guitar shopping. We ending up in this random location that was once called the Thieves Market... we were told by some Thai vendors that this term was very out of date. However, there were some sweet guitars that they were selling. I got a nice cheap one, so I can stop borrowing Jeff's. Emily and Daniel bought one also. Maybe we can start up a band. The pic with this paragraph is the guit that Jess would have if she were a rockstar.



Then we decided to leave Chinatown to head to Lumpini Park for dinner. We couldn't find a cab so the four of us squeezed into a tuk tuk, literally. I was sitting on the floor of the tuk tuk. Most uncomfortable and hilarious ride of my life!

Then we had dinner at this cute little restaurant, where they actually had a vegetarian section in the menu! Ya ya! It was good. Then we let Daniel go and rest, while the girls went shopping. We went to this night bizarre... which is kinda like the weekend market, but cooler - because it's night time, has nicer stuff, and is not as busy. It is just fun checking out all the Thai knick knacks, and fabrics, and jewelry... oh the jewelry.



We ended the evening at a little street side bar called Cheap Charlies... it was all Farangs and the beer was crazy cheap. Lisa and I then caught a cab back home to Thana City. What a wonderful Saturday. Sunday was not quite as eventful... a little swimming, a little grocery shopping, a lot of guitaring. Life is good. And now - it's hard to believe I am at the end of another work week! Time flies. I actually had a pretty active night life this week, which I will report on in my next blog.

This weekend, Jeff, Lisa and I are heading back to Koh Samet, for a brief break from city living. We are doing it for the first time on our own, without Bobbi, our trusty tour guide (a teacher who was here last year... an insane Floridian... she's crazy but we love her!) Hopefully, we will have a nice, sunny and Jellyfish free weekend at the beach.

Sidebar from the homefront. Three cheers for my Mommy. Today is her LAST day of Chemo. Horrah! Her incredible strength has been such an inspiration to me. She keeps me proud, and focused and adventurous. What a wonderful woman... I'm so lucky to be a product of her support and love. Congratulations Mom, even though I'm a few continents away - you are right beside me always.

I'll be back after a weekend of sunning!

Miss you. Love to all.

posted by Crystal @ 3:55 AM