Feel Good

Today was generally solid. I saw some temples this morning (including a 53m golden, reclining Buddha), went to a couple classes this afternoon, ate some wonderful ice cream this afternoon, and headed down to Siam Square tonight, with one destination in mind:

The Hard Rock Cafe, Bangkok.

(sorry about the terrible picture… one of these days, I swear, I’ll buy a tripod!)

And mmm. After eating a LOT of Thai food, I can’t tell you how good it was to sink my teeth into something. Almost all Thai food takes the form of various small pieces– chicken, vegetables, etc– stir-fried together. It’s tasty and all that, but there’s nothing like the sensation of actually using those pretty front teeth for something other than smiling for the random pictures that random Thai students have been taking of me (yeah… how about that). A bacon-cheeseburger. Cooked medium-rare. a thick, juicy beef patty, cooked to amazing pink perfection…

God, it was good.

Since we were in the area, we walked through the nearby shopping center, and ended up going to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory again.

On balance, it’s a fine movie. To be honest, I’ve never been that taken with the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and a second viewing re-affirmed my original impression: like candy, there’s no point to the movie, other than simply being enjoyable. Maybe there’s something about the importance of family, somehow tied into that sappy, imaginary little ending where father and son exchange an awkward hug and suddenly birds are singing and Oompa Loompas are dancing and the world is suddenly free of violence and famine and civil wars and aids and separatist factions and stampedes and floods… Sorry cousin, doesn’t happen. If you eat too much candy, you just end up with a stomach-ache.

The filmmaking was typical of Tim Burton– outstanding art direction, the characters quirky but flat, hit and miss acting, hit and miss Elfman orchestration, and a generally well-crafted atmosphere.

But enough of that. I did see a couple of beautiful cars tonight, such as this Lotus:

Mmm. Yeah. That’s what I thought!

This is fun. After a month or so of being here, I speak about as much Thai as the average Thai speaks English. Which is to say that I hardly speak it at all– enough to know my numbers, ask and give me name, and proudly announce “phom phuut paa-sah thay nit-noy”– I speak a little Thai. This language itself amazes me for its simplicity. English is a language of rules and for every rule there’s at least ten exceptions, and even for native speakers its often difficult to speak proper, iodmatic English. I can only imagine what a monumental task it is for Thais. Why? Simply because Thai, like Thailand’s roadways, has very few rules. There is no future tense or past tense. You want to say that you will do something in the future, you add the word “will” before your verb. No conjugation. No sentense structure change. Just add the word. Same thing for past tense. You just add “already” to the end of your sentense. There are no plurals. The word for a country is the same word as for its language. The comparative simplicities abound. Of course, the tonal aspect is difficult for me, as a westerner, to grasp and pick up on– most difficult, I think is to force myself to remove emotion, or inflection rather, from my voice– important when dog, horse, and the verb “to come” are all the same word, only each with a different tone.

But really, I already know everything that I need to know how to say. Sure, I’m excited to keep learning more Thai, but we all laugh in the same language when a Thai convinces his friend to try my slackline, and he takes two shaky steps, and then tumbles off in a genuinely Chaplin-esque manner, and then gets up, barely able to stand for his laughing, and runs away. More quality Thai moments with my slackline. Thanks, Sagar. =)

Slowly but surely, I’m starting to find some outlets to be a part of my school community and my community as a whole, which does wonders to help set aside my feelings of displacement and listlessness.

As much as things speed up, though, they’re slowing down as I settle into the pace of life over here. Mid-terms, it’s hard to believe, are only a month away for me. This morning I’m headed off to go see another temple, then it’s too campus for a few hours, and then I’m free for the weekend!

Kho Kret

On Monday I went up to Ko Kret (Kho Kred)– a small island (in the technical sense of the word– surrounded by river on all sides) on the northern side of Bangkok. The region is known for its pottery, and rightfully so– never before have I seen pottery of such skilled craftsmanship or in such staggering quantities. It was also fun to go some place a little off the beaten tourist path– Josh and I were the only tourists we saw on the island. Additionally, it was almost like being outside of Bangkok for the few hours we were on the island– no cars (or roads, for that matter) and lots of trees.

I took a bunch of photos, which you can find here: http://www.eateggs.com/photos/bkk/2005.08.28.Kho.Kred/

I used Picasa to generate the photo album, and, well, I don’t like it at all. It’s really a shame, since it’s exceedingly easy to add comments in Picasa, which helps makes the photo albums searchable later. If, for example, two years from now, I think to myself “gee, what was that one island with the pottery that I went to in Bangkok?,” I can just go to Picasa and type in “island” or “pottery” and it will search through the picture captions and album descriptions.

Sheesh. Rain! When I left campus at 7:45PM, it was raining. Three hours later, uploading the aforementioned photos, it’s still raining.

Saxophone

I have a pet. A lizard. And a plant, but that’s a different story. But about my pet lizard… it’s a wonderful arrangement. He’s about two inches long, and has the uncanny ability to stick to the wall much in the same way that I stick to the ground. I don’t feed him, I don’t give him water, I don’t watch after, and I definitely don’t clean up after him. He just lives behind the picture frame outside my door. Every night, when I come home, there he is: hanging out on the wall a few feet from his home. I say hello, and he acknowledges me by quickly running back behind his picture frame. The next time I come out, there he is again. This has been going on for a few weeks now, to the point where I look forward to getting to see him when I come home. Maybe, if he’s not to camera shy, I’ll snag a picture.

Tonight Josh and I went out to a restaurant/pub called Saxophone– recommended by my Lonely Planet and by another traveler I met in Tokyo. I walked through the door, and suddenly felt as though I was in New Orleans– the atmosphere the decor were quintessentially Cajun, and a Thai jazz band was warming up on a small stage in the middle. We were seated at a table close to the stage, and over dinner and a few drinks we were treated to some surprisingly talented and soul-ful jazz and blues. Although the rest of the band was of mediocre talent, the lead singer drawled out the blues and burned up licks on his guitar as though he had been born black with a guitar in his hands.

Yeah. It rocked.

In other news, I think I’m becoming partially nocturnal. I haven’t been up before noon for some days now. Fortunately, my schedule allows for it: Wednesday is the only day of the week that I need to be out of the apartment before 12:00 to make it to class. Of course, I also feel like I’m living a lot more in the dark than in the ‘States, owing to the 6:30PM sunsets. But Bangkok’s like that– partially nocturnal. The sidewalks restaurants don’t close down till the wee hours of the morning, and it seems that there are just as many people up at 1:00AM as 1:00PM. I went to the mall the other morning to pick up a couple things before class. I arrived around 10:30AM, and was quite shocked to find that nothing was open. Finally, around 11:00, the mall lethargically started to come to life with vendors turning on their lights and departments stores raising their gates…