Rice Grains

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:)