Red Cross Snake Farm!

 The Red Cross in Thailand is pretty awesome.  I mean, aside from doing blood stuff like most places, they also have the task of maintaining a supply of snake anti-venom.

 The site in downtown Bangkok is beautiful, an oasis of calm like so many parks and temples are.  There are several dozen species of snake on display, both inside and outside the main building.

 Here, Coryn is cheering on the Burmese python as it appears to be trying to escape.

 They also have two shows daily to display the awesomeness of snakes.  The first showing, which starts at 11 am now, is a snake milking display.

 Performed in English and Thai, they give a lot of anatomical information about glands and teeth.

 Lets not forget the actual milking, they did 8 cobras of different species, with several close calls in terms of bites.  The snake handlers got away this time!

 With this much venom!

Snakes!  (some of them are pretty too)

Christmas Shenanigans pt 2

 I got all creative too... aside from making my advent calender out of paper, I also made stockings for the kids.  Jackson says "look like casts"

 Christmas Eve tradition lets the kids open one gift of my choice... (pjs of course)

 We were given a complimentary dinner at the restaurant in our buildings which we decided to make our special Christmas Eve dinner.  A delicious four course meal, and fancy... just look at the beautiful smoked salmon appetizer

 Pumpkin soup in a bread bowl, Jovey's favorite, followed by a turkey dinner with all the fixings

 and Christmas stollen to finish it off.  we were so full we took it home for Christmas breakfast!

 We followed dinner with the Studio C Christmas episode in our new pjs

 And enjoyed opening presents in front of the dual 'fireplaces' (thanks netflix!)

 Lego minifigures and hot chocolate all around!

and Coryn with his binoculars from Santa (he spent all day carrying them around in the accompanying satchel)

Christmas Shenanigans in Thailand pt 1

 They have a love of Snoopy... at least at the Central mall chains...

 Coryn is chatting with a few new friends from church at a Christmas party

 Jovey and Carter are freaking out over the abundance of toys they have been missing...

 And we sang some Christmas carols with our new friends.

 Unfortunately our shipment of household goods is too late for Christmas, so we had to get a 2 ft tree to supplement.  I already know where I'm going to put it next year if we are still here.

 As part of our advent calendar the kids got to do some winter crafts, like make snowflakes.  Carter's phrase of the night: "wow, its prettier than I thought it would be"

 Our new home had a caroling and hot chocolate get together, we were able to get to know some neighbors

and as far as I can tell, they didn't have any santas to talk to, but the malls all had fancy setups like they would if they could find a santa to sit there... elderly bearded gentlemen of the world might be able to find a job here...

Jovey loves and misses her friends

Song for Mina

A video recap of Ayutthaya

In case the wordy telling of my Ayutthaya misadventure scared you off, here is the video recap.

Jovey's 4th!

 Jovey got a year older, and started the day with a walk to A&W for lunch (we found a short cut across the highway too!)  Good fries, good beer. Did you know that they do waffles in Thailand?  with ice cream?

 Then we headed to the mall for some fun, and happened across a roving performance group of kids show or mascots.  No idea what they are, but Jovey tells me "hehe, they are people in costumes!"

 Then Jovey got to choose between bowling and ice skating, because thats what malls have here, and because theater in the mall didn't have any kids shows at the time.

 She had an awesome time and only got bored and started running around at the 7th frame because she had to use the bathroom.  Finished a whole game.  Jackson got several strikes (though I got the first), and the boys started bowling in normal styling.

 Then Jovey got to pick out a cake at the cake store in the mall (we chose at random where to purchase from, went with S&P, not getting a butter cake again... they really mean butter, with a basically straight up butter frosting, salted butter) and chose Doraemon.

and finished with her present, a Hello Kitty home with furnishings and Hello Kitty and her mom.  "Just like the one I saw in the store mom!"

Loy Krathong

Loy Krathong is a Thai holiday in which people make boats to float down the river carrying prayers to the river gods.  like any good party, it started with some food

 Then we got to try our hand at making a boat, or krathong.  the circle is a section of bamboo and we added banana leaves for decoration followed by flowers and candles and incense.

 They had some traditional costumes on display and had some dance performances as well.

Here are the boys' finished floats, Coryn had some help from some Thai ladies and they didn't have any flowers left when Carter was finished.  We didn't feel up to floating them that evening, so they ended up as table decorations for a week or so.  Next year I plan to be up in Chiang Mai for their version which includes lantern floating akin to what you see in Tangled.

So we moved again....

 alright, you guys already know we moved.  here is the swimming pool on the 25th floor of the hotel.  its pretty sweet.

 first day of walking around exploring and we mistook that statue for a gorilla... nope, just a buff horse.  slap a couple of tiny wings on him and he'd be Buff Biceps (MLP reference)

 We heard there was a Halloween party happening the day after we arrived at our local church, and we figured it was the perfect time to get acquainted with the river taxi.  exciting!

 see... I told you there was a Halloween party.  We never did end up trick-or-treating on the actual date, the only place we knew about that was doing it was pretty far away and people didn't feel well that day anyway.  But here you have a Jedi, Mike Trout, and a purple princess. Jovey has never seen Sophia the First, she just saw the purple dress and fell in love because its her favorite color.

we already know where to find some crazy food, and no I didn't buy or try these particularly crazy items.  Ew.

Ayutthaya

Siam - present day Thailand - has had three capitals during its history. Prior to the current Bangkok era, the capital was located about 50 miles to the north in Ayutthaya. The city itself is an island with the Chao Phraya river on its west and south sides, the Pa Sak on the east, and the Klong Muan on the north. I recently had a chance to spend the day in Ayutthaya with my friend Jay who went through the Thai course with me back in Monterey. The day itself turned into a huge misadventure but I had a good time regardless. Since we only had one day to see the sites, we rented a couple of scooters and also used some local transportation, because elephants! There is a local elephant sanctuary and these rides are one of the revenue generating ventures to support the feeding and caring for the pachyderms. Our particular elephants have even been trained to extort tourists for tips!  

Pictured above, a cheapskate

                                     

Following the elephants, we went to see a nearby wat, or Buddhist temple, called Wat Prah Mongkhon Bophit, which houses a Buddha statue over 30 feet high and 40 feet wide, that originally built in 1538. Though badly damaged by fire after a lightning strike in the early 18th century, and again when Ayutthaya was sacked by Burma in 1767. the Buddha was restored through various restorations between 1921 and 1957.

The Queen had this Buddha gold plated in the 1996

Adjacent to the wat were the ruins of Wat Phra Si Sanphet, parts of which predate the nearby Buddha by a few hundred years. 

Of the temple's three main chedis (the central pillars), at least two were built to house the ashes of a king

More ruins

Should I do it?

Yeah, I did it

This is the remains of a 600 year old Buddha wrapped in the orange robes of a monk

Following this wat, we visited a reclining Buddha. The reclining Buddhas are supposed to represent the Buddha right before he attained nirvana.

Our next stop was Wat Chaiwatthanaram, the sight I always picture when I think of Ayutthaya. Built in 1630 by King Prasat Thong, this temple was constructed to celebrate his coronation and incorporated Khmer architecture to commemorate a recent military victory over the Khmer empire in present day Cambodia.

This giant complex had a 115 foot central pillar surrounded by eight chedi-shaped chaples, connected by a surrounding walkway featuring 120 Buddha statues of varying sizes. Destroyed by the Burmese in 1767, the site was abandoned and looted of bricks, Buddha heads, and carved reliefs over the centuries. Restoration of the wat began in 1987 and was finally opened to the public in 1992.

A partially intact carved relief

Remains of looted Buddhas

Wrapped in robes and guano

The view from the central spire 

                                                                                                                                                              After Wat Chaiwatthanaram it was time to see the head of the sandstone Buddha, something I had seen in photos many times before. From the photographs I had seen, I had always pictured the head as being much larger than it actually is. I have to admit that since it didn't match what I imagined I was a little underwhelmed. I guess there's no accounting for taste in some people!

This is me looking underwhelmed, though it might just be the blood loss (stay tuned for more about that, coming up next)

It looks bigger when it's zoomed in on, maybe that is how all the photos I saw were taken

 So I mentioned earlier that this trip was a bit of a misadventure. Around the sandstone Buddha, I managed to get a nice cut in my left shin. After bleeding on my sock for a little while I found a pharmacy and proceeded to preform a little street surgery. Jay decided he needed to photograph it for posterity.

I hope you're not squeamish

The are around the wound turned some amazing colors in the coming days and weeks, too.

I'm really glad iodine cleans without burning

Jay finished taking these picture before I was done wrapping my leg so he slipped my phone into the pocket on my shirt. When I was all patched up we hopped on to our scooters to head over to another temple - Wat Phanan Choeng - which I have no pictures of. As we were riding along I hit a small bump and my phone, which I had forgotten to take out of my shirt pocket and put in a more secure location, flew out and hit the road behind me; the phone, battery, and rear case went in three different directions. I immediately pulled over and while there were no vehicles in front of us, it seemed like the entire city was driving behind us. I approached the phone watching cars and scooters going all around it, and right when I thought the phone might actually make it, a van drove right over the it. *CRUNCH*

This is the actual last picture on the phone's memory card

And this is the actual first picture of my phone after I got home that night

After I collected the remains of my phone, Jay and I continued on towards the wat and passed a few street stalls with inflated plastic bags containing water. Wondering what exactly they were we pulled over and discovered each bag had anywhere from 3 - 5 small fish in them. It turns out that one of the ways Buddhists can make merit (aka earn some good karma points) is to buy these fish and release them. The final wat on our Tour d'Ayutthaya just happened to be right up against the river, a great place to reverse my luck, so Jay bought me a bag of fish - I picked out the one with the most fish in it - and when I when I went to release them, they were immediately eaten by much larger river fish. Apparently, so many people come to release fish at this spot that the river fish have learned it's a great location to grab a free meal. At least I can take some solace in the fact that it wasn't a fluke. Jay released two bags of fish (they were being sold three bags for 100 baht) and they were devoured as well. In the not too distant future I should be able to post a video of freeing the fish, I just need to get the video from Jay's phone since mine was a little smashed at the time.