Rice Grains

Since Twila arrived here three days ago, we have been doing a bit of sightseeing around Bangkok. But the first day we had some business to attend to. Twila's glasses suffered a fall and were sadly bent out of shape, so we took a trip to Samitivej Hospital (your one-stop medical shopping mall) to get them fixed. Have you ever heard of a hospital with a pianist playing a (baby?) grand piano for people sitting in a very comfortable, spacious waiting area?

I'll skip on to activities of yesterday, since they were more touristy.:) On the way to see a couple famous wats, we visited a little streetside coffee shop where I often had stopped on my way to school. The girl there is very friendly, and it has been fun practicing Thai with her.

From there we took the sky train to the river express boats in order to visit Wat Arun, up and across the river from where we were.

We first visited a little rock garden of sorts.

The detail on the wat itself was amazing. It incorporated broken pieces of china fastened into rock or whatever building material they used.

The steps were extremely steep; the picture doesn't do the steepness justice. We were VERY thankful for the side railings to hold on to.

On our way up, we met 3 young monks, so I asked if I could take their pictures.

As we walked around the edge up on the wat, we had a nice view of the river and of Bangkok.

On our way down, I couldn't resist taking a picture of this cute little guy.:)

From Wat Arun, we took the ferry straight across the Chaopraya River and walked a short distance to Wat Pho, home of the "Reclining Buddha". Wow, this temple basically housed a huge bronze statue of Buddha; there was little room for much else. I believe the dimensions of this statue are 15 meters high by 46 meters long. Following are a few pictures.

This last picture (above) is actually the feet of the Buddha. The soles of his feet are engraved with mother of pearl pictures and designs.

Our final activity for the day was getting foot massages close to the wat. Wat Pho is believed to be the birthplace of traditional Thai massage and houses a Thai massage school on its compound. After a long day of walking in hot, muggy weather, it felt great to relax in air conditioning and getting pampered.:)

Many thanks to the generous folks, whoever you are, who made these excursions possible. We are enjoying our time immensely.