Rice Grains

When I did my Malaysia entry back in December, I forgot to include the above picture of a popular dessert sold many places and decided to experience for ourselves. It's fascinating what various cultures determine mix well together. The dessert in the picture turned out to be a mixture of shaved ice, ice cream, corn, kidney beans, jellies, syrups, jimmies, peanuts and lynches (a tropical fruit). It really wasn't so bad--kinda refreshing, actually, though I think it would have been equally refreshing minus the corn and kidney beans!

Food in Thailand happens to include some of those same kinds of surprises. Recently a friend and I ordered a veggie pizza. It was really delicious, but we both could've done without the corn smothering the rest of the veggies. And last week one evening I bought a Thai sweet that turned out to be cooked pumpkin served in warm sweetened coconut milk. That was VERY tasty; I hate to think how fattening it was.

This coming week is the last week of module 4 of language learning. Then we have a long weekend (Friday through Monday) after which school starts up again. I will be taking module 4 again. Hopefully this time through I will be able to remember all the tiny little spelling rules and exceptions that are a part of Thai. When we complain, our teacher says that English is just as bad. She threw out the example of the words "do" and "go", saying, "How are we supposed to know which way a word gets pronounced?" OK, point made!:)

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WELL, I just found out that my parents now have a computer to use and can look at my blogs! So welcome to cyberspace, Mom and Dad! I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to post a couple pictures for the rest of my readers to see who raised me right! Here goes!

The apple routine:)

At Emil's Restaurant--great food, great prices!

The next pictures are the farm where I grew up (and where Mom and Dad still live!) and, across the fields, Deep Run Mennonite East, http://www.deepruneast.org/, the church I attended growing up (and where it still feels like home:).

This is quite a departure from journaling about Thailand, but I owe much to my parents, so I think it's a permissible change!:) Thanks a bunch, Mom and Dad! Love you lots!

Posted by Sharon Rice at 06:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I met Michelle at a Thai church in Bankok. This church is another church that has English translation via headphones, so I decided to take advantage of that today. Sometimes I like to try to figure out what I can with no translation, though so far, when I try that, I get virtually nothing out of the service, just a word here and there. I like the feel of this church, but there are several others I would like to try out yet as well.

After the service, Michelle and I ate lunch at a little restaurant in a hotel on one of the quieter streets in
Bangkok. The hotel has an older feel to it, and Michelle and I chose a booth that sat up rather high. In fact our legs dangled. Michelle decided to take a picture of the booth with me as the subject (oh my, what a sad choice!:). Below is that picture--sorry you have to bear with another pose of yours truly!:)

When I got back to my apartment, Jack and Noy, the owner and his wife, came out to say hi. So we tried to speak Thai, and they told me I am "doing well" at learning (all the Thai people say that if you can say one or two things in Thai:). But it did feel good to recognize progress from zero on day one to knowing a few words to carry on a tiny conversation 5 months later.:)

Then, when I got to my room, I looked at my phone, which I had put on "silent" mode for church, and discovered I had something like 8 missed calls--all from two Thai friends. I was unable to get ahold of Dang, the woman who gave me the shirt; but I did get to talk to Aoo. She is a girl that I met early on, but we have not been in contact for the past 2 months, so I was excited to hear from her again.

Conversations with Thai people are always a bit interesting because of the language barrier. But we stumble along and can usually carry on a conversation of sorts by using English and Thai together.

Now it is about bedtime; I will try to go early to be ready for another week of language study. :)

Posted by Sharon Rice at 08:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, I am not sure at all what is going on with my internet access. Today the manager and his son told me I need to buy a card to use internet. I tried to tell them that I am still getting free wireless, and according to the message on my screen the company is still in the testing stages. I don't think they got it. So I told them I would think about which card to buy and get back to them.

Later this afternoon, Luk was cleaning on 5th floor, so I had him come to my apartment in order to show him what I meant. Well, he sat down at the controls and played around for a while, then acknowledged that everything is OK. When I checked to see if he had deactivated my free service, I found that he had not. But a different screen appeared when I hit the internet button.

Then I was scared that he thought I wanted him to illegally wire me up for free. So I went downstairs and said I wanted to buy a card, which I now have, but am not using because I can still get online without any special code! AHHH! What to do??? Appreciate free internet as long as I have it, maybe???? I just don't want to be cheating anyone of anything.

Well, I wrote more on the internet issue than anyone really wants to know, I suppose. But I looked for a few pictures in my collection that I could post. Since I haven't taken any recent ones, I sorted through some earlier pictures that I think are worth showing. So following are some of those pictures.

A common sight along the street--cooked chicken heads, anyone??

Pictures of a much younger king are found all over the place.

Visiting a teak palace in Bangkok

Soon after I arrived in Thailand, I looked out my window to see a beautiful rainbow, that wonderful sign of promise.

Posted by Sharon Rice at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last Friday after school I explored a different part of Bangkok looking for a western clothing store that a fellow student told me about. I ate lunch at a little street shop and then wandered along the street for a bit. It always amazes me the way vendors stack their various fruits. It looks so perfect, nothing out of line. I wonder if moving one strategic piece of fruit would result in catastrophe....not that I would do such a nasty thing!:)

The red fruit in the foreground has a funny name; I'm not even sure how to write it in English letters. Something like "ngou", with the "ou" being the sound of ought, but without the ending, just cut off short. I don't remember what the fruit in the middle is, and of course, the fruit at the far end is a pile of oranges.

Today I took my midterm test at language school. We all agreed that it was a mentally exhausting couple hours. We had a 4-page written fill in the blank section. Next we each took a turn at reading a story for the teacher (or at least making an attempt to read:). The final part of the test was the typical 10-sentence dictation. I do believe I will need to repeat this module! I am getting the information, but not getting it really fixed in my brain fast enough.

I had tutoring today from 3-5. Juthathip, my teacher, was trying to tell me a bit about Buddhism. It was another couple mentally exhausting hours. I'm not sure how much I really understood, but I did get a couple new words to add to my vocabulary. Talking is what I really need, so if I need to be exhausted, such is life, eh?:)

Posted by Sharon Rice at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I need a break; I just finished my writing homework and decided I needed to take a picture of the Thai script I am learning (or at least making an attempt to learn!:). Two pictures below show my homework I just did plus some dictation from yesterday.

Posted by Sharon Rice at 09:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've had free wireless internet in my apartment this past week, hence the many blogs.:) Tonight I am doing one more quick blog before I need to start paying if I want to keep internet in my apartment.

This morning I arrived at school a little early, so I sat in my classroom studying when Juthathip, my tutor, entered the room. She handed me a bag of salad; since yesterday we had studied fruits and vegetables, and I told her that I don't get enough vegetables here, she decided to show me what is available! Below is a picture; I wish you could see it in person. Wow, what a conglomeration of food I found in that salad. Here are the foods I could identify: cooked items: egg, potato, squash/pumpkin, kidney beans, corn freshly cut off the cob, barley??; raw vegetables: lettuce, tomato, carrots, red pepper; fresh fruits: pineapple and, I think, apple. The dressing Thais use with salad is similar to a coleslaw dressing; since I am not particularly fond of using that on garden salad, I did have to buy a small bottle of Ranch dressing. The salad was actually quite tasty; I think I'll have to find places that sell that so I can get my fill of vegetables.

For dessert I had a couple strawberries, which my tutor tells me are in season right now. They are mostly grown in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand. I paid 40 baht for maybe a pint?? About 35 baht or so equal a dollar, so I paid over a dollar for them. I think that is still cheap in America??

Finally, tonight I ate supper with Dang, a neighbor lady, and a friend of hers. Dang has just recently returned from a trip to Chiang Mai. I don't know if that's where she bought her gifts for her friends or not. But tonight she handed out the famous yellow shirt that many, many Thais wear every Monday. It is worn in honor of the king, who will turn 80 this year. Each day of the week is assigned a color. Not too many of these colors are considered significant; however, since the king was born on a Monday, and yellow is Monday's color, it has become a popular custom for people to wear yellow shirts on that day. Thais think very highly of their current king; he has apparently been a very good king and worked for the good of all people.

Now I have my very own yellow shirt to wear, thanks to Dang! This shirt is a size L that actually seems like a size L, so it hangs on me a bit. Oh well, that's a comfortable change from the norm here! The picture below is not a particularly flattering pose, but oh well. You get to see the shirt! (And a popular style of Thai skirt:)

Posted by Sharon Rice at 07:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Today was a very long day; I will have 2 days per week like this. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I now have a language tutor at the school from 3:00 to 5:00. So, basically my Monday/Wednesday schedule is as follows: 6:15 AM leave my apartment to catch a bus, then the BTS skytrain to get to school in time for 8:00 classes. Class from 8:00 to 12:00 noon; 12:00-1:00 lunch; 1:00-3:00 study/do homework at the school; 3:00-5:00 private tutoring; 5:00-7:00/7:30 supper and ride home. Tonight it was almost 7:30 till I got home. After about 8 hours of studying Thai, I didn't feel up to reviewing more, so took the evening off from that. I am hoping to be in bed early tonight.

I do like my tutor; Juthathip was my teacher last module. She talks very fast, so I have to ask her to repeat quite often, but she is patient and a lot of fun--laughs a lot. So I am at ease with her. We reviewed the names of some fruits and vegetables this afternoon and also did some dictation/reading material that is being taught in my current module (#4). I really need that practice reading and writing as well.

Tomorrow night I think I will be meeting my friend Deng. I had given up on hearing any more from her, but she has simply been too busy to stay in touch. She works for the local government here in the province of Samut Prakan, and she often goes on trips that are work-related. On weekends she goes to law school. It seems that many Thai people work fulltime and then go to school on weekends.

OK, here's another entirely unrelated subject. On my previous blog entitled "Similar Yet Different", I forgot to post one of my favorite pictures. So, here it is! I think...well, I'll just show you the picture. If you can't figure it out, email me!:)

Posted by Sharon Rice at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

OK, that's not even how the words in the title are spelled phonetically, but it gives you a good idea of how to pronounce it. "Geen cow" literally means "eat rice"; however it is the term many Thais use to refer to eating a meal. So tonight I went to "geen cow" (eat supper) at my friend Kai's restaurant. I took some of my homework along because I needed to find a menu and write down 10 menu items in Thai script for my next tutoring session. Kai and I had a fun time talking about what the items were, and now I feel like I have more ordering options the next time I go there--or any little restaurant shop for that matter. Why didn't I think of doing that a long time ago???

On the way home I stopped by the stand of the people who know exactly which apartment I live in because it faces their shop, and they told me they see me hanging out my laundry, etc. They are fun people--very much fit the grandparent role. Tonight they had their grandkids with them. CUTE kids. They came running from the back of the store to see this "farang" and stuck their thumbs up and giggled like crazy when I returned the gesture. Then I asked them their names in Thai, and they answered in English, between the pleased giggling still going on. I asked if I could take their picture, and they were happy to oblige. Below is that picture. What a sweet group of people!

PS I'm guessing that the white stuff on the boy's skin is the "cooling powder" that is found all over shops in Thailand. I think it's supposed to help a person endure the heat better. I haven't heard that it works super well.:)

Posted by Sharon Rice at 08:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Tonight I went to Central Bang Na to meet my new friend Tawan for coffee at Starbucks. (Yes, Thailand has Starbucks and even Auntie Anne's soft pretzels!!) We had a fun time chatting there before we walked to some outside shops close by to browse. Then she informed me that she was hungry, so on the way home we stopped at an outside restaurant for some "kuaytiaw", a type of soup. This particular soup had a fair share of jelled blood in it, which I opted to leave in the bowl.:) But the broth was quite tasty, if a bit spicey. It felt good on my scratchy throat (still fighting off a cold from my cold ride last weekend. Below is our oh so photogenic faces. Well, OK, Tawan is photogenic; I'm not.:)

Other various and sundry news items include the fact that I have just started level 4 of my language classes. This module focuses on reading and writing Thai script. Supposedly by the end of this module a student will have learned all the rules-and exceptions-to read and write in Thai. I'm told it is the hardest module with the heaviest workload. I'm about to find out for myself! Our class is small, only 5 people, so I think that will be a good thing.

I also finally started with a language tutor at the school. I will meet Monday and Wednesday each week from 3:00 to 5:00, so those will be long days in Bangkok. Regular classes meet from 8:00 to 12:00, so I will have 3 hours to kill before my tutoring session starts. I am hoping to use that time to complete the homework given in the morning. But on those two days, I will not get home before 6:30 or 7:00 in the evening.

I think that about catches you up on my life in general!

Posted by Sharon Rice at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last weekend I paid my friend Trish a visit up in Det Udon, an 11-12 hour train ride away. I took the overnight train, and though I had hoped to get a sleeper train, there were no sleepers left; so I ended up in the reclining seat section, non-airconditioned. I had no idea how COLD that trip would be! I absolutely FROZE! In fact, I am still fighting a bit of a cold. I wrapped a T-shirt around my shoulders and curled up in the seat, strategically placing my bags around me to help hold in the heat. It worked only marginally. I don't know when I have had such a long miserably cold ride. Multiply that by two--I had to repeat the adventure Sunday night on the return trip.

The time in between, however, was a really nice time. It was good to see where Trish has been living these past 4 months and to experience a bit of life in a more rural area. Below are a few pictures of my time there.

Trish with her host parents

Saturday we had lunch at the home of Skip and Carol, EMM workers in that area. Carol is my mentor.

After lunch, Skip and Carol's daughters went swimming in this river behind their house. When they were finished, they were covered with yellow dirt!

When the girls jumped into the river, they dived in sync off the side, from where the Thai boys are standing. And they did "only" 8 laps! Oh to be able to swim like that!

Saturday evening, Trish and I happened upon these water buffalo returning to town after a day out (I guess!:).

Sunday morning we boarded a songtaew to head for a big church meeting a couple hours away. About an hour into the journey, the vehicle broke down, so we waited by the side of the road while the men tried to fix the problem. By that time it was 11:00 and too late to go to the meeting. So we ended up driving to the home of one of the women, and we held church there.

This is the home of the woman, and when we drove in, I wondered where in this little house we would have church for 30 people! However, a new house was being built, so we spread out mats on the concrete floor of the new building to hold church there.

I experienced my first Communion in which Fanta and sticky rice were used as the elements. Sorry for the blurriness of the one picture. The little blurry basket is the standard container for sticky rice.

After the service, we had a fellowship meal together. This is a standard custom every Sunday for churches in Thailand. The lady sitting next to me insisted on giving me many different herbs to try, telling me they are good for medicinal purposes. But WHY did they all have to be extremely BITTER?? In fact, the ladies across from me started laughing because they know "farang" don't like bitter tasting things.:)

That's it for the pictures. We got home from church about 3:30 PM, so I had about an hour before needing to leave for my 2nd cold train ride home!

Posted by Sharon Rice at 07:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)