water ferry and temples

Large temple from the outside, I wasn't wearing long pants, and covered shoes so I couldn't go in.

The path. Brilliant deduction tells me that walking on paths gets you places

      It's a jello dessert contest.

    The college that is having the dessert contest.

      They also have this interesting statue

  I got bored and went on the water ferry back towards my guest house.

They don't charge you until you are sitting down, very polite and then give you a ticket the size of a stamp.

     From the central dock where I disembarked.

    Amazing rice porrage breakfast!

   At the MBK mall. haha

    I got bored and bought clay.

food + clothes shopping

I went to Chatuchak Weekend market on Saturday.

This was my breakfast, the sandwich was not so good, it was warm mayo and crab salad/ham. I took the metro to the market.

There was some great graffiti by the bathrooms! (which charged 3 baht to use!)

Many animals were for sale, these baby bunnies were all panting in the heat, like we were!

Just for Ruthiey! What a great sign, aye?

I bought shoes and a shirt.

And some great Thai baggy pants. which are much cooler then say jeans.

Later, back in Hua Lamphong, I stopped by a bread place, for a fake pizza bread, this thing was so strange, it was both sweet and airy, and had tomoto sauce and dried peas and crab pieces on it!

Rainy day that day...but still very muggy.

All of my worldly possessions, on washing day!

On Monday I went to Lumphini Park, and watched the Tai Chi'ers doing their thing.

Then I had a very healthy breakfast with all the joggers, of pumkin pieces in a soup of hot soya milk.

I found a very large lizard! I still have no idea what it was, but it was as big as a dog!

Second breakfast of a steamed dumpling with pumkin inside and canned coffee

I read a book in the shade for a while.

And used the shockingly free, squat style toilets in Lumphini Park

The floating island.

The city view from just outside Lumphini Park.

I was rather stubborn and didn't listen to the lady at the shop who told me this drink was 'like medicine'. Yeah, really very bitter and strange tasting!

street food/feeding the birds at Chatuchak Park

an awesome pink apple from china.

Rice ball + mystery meat on a stick. tasted like jerky, and i don't think it was suppose to have, but it was pretty decent.

That's what I thought of it.

After a morning out. Back with donut like things, bubble tea sans bubbles, hmmm, forgot what else.

This is cheese bread, but it was not cheese bread, it was light and fluffy, sweet and had some kind of sugary gel on it. tasted a bit like mayo. ^_-

Today I went to Chatuchak Park by way of the underground railway.

It is a very quiet and cold underground, a nice change from the crazy noise and heat outside.

Chatuchak Park has lots of bridges and boats on the water.

Strange mushrooms!

Lunch - street vendor sausages, two varieties: fish, and noodle. Noodle sausages? yeah, they were actually very good! And got served with baby cucumbers.

As I sat in the park eating my lunch I was approached 3 times by various older ladies asking me to rent a mat so I could take a nap under the tree. I said no, but the first one managed to pressure me into buying food for the birds, 3 bags of it! and the other sold me a bottle of water.

Well I was popular for about 5 minutes while the food lasted.

DON'T Pick the FLOWERS, and DON'T smoke, cuz we will slap you with a 2000 baht FINE!

Yeah, stop killing people.

Back home again.

I like this sign. :)

Thailand - a sampling.

From my hotel balcony first morning, 0530.

On the way into the city by way of taxi, first time riding in a taxi, I figured maybe I could walk, obviously not knowing anything about Bangkok, it took the taxi more then an hour to get to Chinatown.

And then...of course, the guest house I had thought I was going to was unavailable so I went for a very long walk looking for other accommodation. And this is what I looked like when I finally arrived.

My room. No sheets, just a cot and chair/table, drying rack for clothes and a fan. Very basic but for 180 baht (about 6 dollars) and it being my own room, it is good.

Street vendor food! A fish, if you can't tell. I am on the roof of the guest house, a very nice little covered area.

Me eating it. :P

This is the bathroom. That one high shower is the shower for showers and that little sprayer is for other things. :P Let's just say there is no toilet paper.

Second morning, again 0530, I am still jetlagged, but getting up that early means I get to see the monks in their funky orange robes on their alms journeys to all the street vendors.

World Cup game at 6am

This morning at 6am, we (Rachel, Carl - both English, Kristine - Norwegian, and Stephenie - German, Jak - very much American :P) headed off to the pub down the road, which was specially open for the live showing of the World Cup game in South Africa. USA vs. England. It was rather hilarious watching people drinking their pints at 6:30 in the morning!

The whole evening mood that watching the game usually brings was rather off set by the sunlight pouring in the windows.

Carl and Rachel with their first pints of the day! They thought it was great fun to be so 'naughty' as to drink first thing in the morning.

 Surprisingly there were lots of people there, it was packed out with crazy English fans, who screamed and yelled excitedly despite the ridiculously early hour. Of course, being England and America they managed to tie the game with 1 point each.

Auckland semi-Asian meals w/ Yutaka

My dinner, which was udon noodles, mushrooms, broccoli, spinach, and sliced fish ball in a spicy sauce.

And my new friend Yutaka cooking up his very un-asian meal of fried sausages and boiled kumura (NZ sweet potato). He is from Japan and wishes he had an American accent, he knows his American bands and American actors much better then I do! and he has a vast knowledge of American geography.

(update)
Joe has gone to the Northland to explore some more, and I am staying in Auckland because I like it so much here. Also I am busy reading my Thailand guide book and planning for my 43 days that I will be there starting on the 15th of June. Just 6 more days!!!! So exciting!