A video recap of Ayutthaya

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

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.       

Daddy Comes Home

 Jackson came home in March... he's standing directly behind the guy the in middle of the front row... see him?  well... half of his face?  I didn't take the kids because the ceremony was at 3 or 4 in the morning and... well do you really need more of a reason?  So he had a friend spend the night.

The boys were totally overwhelmed by the surprise.  Coryn already had a surprise that morning by a visit from the tooth fairy (lost his first tooth at said friend's house the night before that) and we brought donuts for breakfast.  Both managed a dropped jaw before immediately running their mouths...  Coryn about the tooth and Carter saying "how did you make it in time?"

Jovey wasn't phased in the slightest...

It was a gorgeous day!  Perfect for baseball.







and a nap.  (or 3 :)  )

more R&R

we did a little bit of everything with dad, roller skating, horsing around...

































what happened??













the zoo... generally kept busy

R&R

R&R came before we knew it, tried to surprise the kids with dad's visit, took them to Syracuse to the MOST which is always fun. Then to the airport where I tried to video their response to dad being there but they didn't react like other kids would, Coryn fake stuttered a 'd-d-dad?' followed by mild hugs and a constant stream of chatter :D

Day one of dad being home always entails Rock Band...
















and horseplay

October birthday...

For Jackson's b-day we went to Canada. Started off with a fall foliage train ride, pretty awesome... pretty and the kids loved riding the train.



Next day we went for a walk all around Ottawa, capital of Canada, it seems like a very nice place. This made our fourth world capital within the last year we were able to visit... China, Japan, US, and Canada. Its crazy where you end up when you travel in the military! Of course, we also happened to visit Canada during their thanksgiving, which apparently they celebrate much like America does.
There are tons of statues around the parliament building, founders, recognition of important events, etc. This was the kids' favorite... I'm sure it has nothing to do with the sword.









It was a long walk and involved a stop at the museum of natural history. Tons of cool stuff there.

Play Ball

Shortly after we arrived in New York I got one of those four day weekends that the military likes to hand out and took Carter for some one on one time with dad. Our destination? The quaint village of Cooperstown, NY, about 110 miles south of us. Odds are, when you hear Cooperstown you either are not a sports fan and have no idea what one would find there or you immediately know that it is home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. I love baseball and have always wanted to go to Cooperstown and while I didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have liked I still spent four hours there, which is about the max limit of a two year old who didn't really care for the exhibits so much as running around like a crazy person while dad kept one eye on him and one eye on everything else. Now, I left the camera at home so all I had was my cell phone, and while the camera on the phone itself is actually better than my actual camera I'm still getting used to it so not all the pictures are of the same quality. With that being said, here is a small sampling of what we saw that fun September day.

These seats are part of the "Diamond Dreams: Women in Baseball" exhibit commemorating the All American Girls Professional Baseball league that started up during WWII and lasted for about 12 seasons. This league gained widespread notoriety with the 1992 Tom Hanks and Geena Davis film A League of Their Own. The seats came from one of their stadiums and Carter really enjoyed walking up and down the row raising and lowering the seats. It was all I could do to get him to stop and pose for a picture.

I wouldn't say that the seats were his favorite part of the museum though. He was absolutely phascinated by the Philly Phanatic, the mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies. He really wanted to be get inside the display case so he could give the phanatic a "biiiig hug!"

It is no secret that my favorite baseball team is the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim so I had to make sure Carter saw all the awesomeness that was displayed in the team locker in the hall. Something only slightly less awesome was on display in the San Francisco Giants locker, the ball Barry Bonds hit for this Major League record breaking 756th home run. The last several years of Barry's career has been shrouded with allegations that he used "performance enhancing drugs" to achieve several of his historic records including 7 league MVP awards, 14 all star team selections, single season home run record (73 in 2001) and career home run record (762). Home run ball #756 was the ball that broke Hank Aaron's record for most home runs and while it's difficult to make out in the picture (open it at full size and you can see it), the fan who caught the ball turned it over to the hall of fame AFTER he had marked it with a big asterisk signifying that he believed the record to have been set with the help of artificial means.

There is a wall dedicated to every perfect game/no hitter thrown in major league history. The majority of the wall has a ball used in each game, a picture of the pitcher, who they were playing, basic information like that. At the end of the wall is a shrine to Nolan Ryan, who has more no hitters than any other pitcher in the game. The first four of his record setting seven such games were as a member of the Angels.

I think my favorite exhibit at the wall was a display with a World Series ring from pretty much every champion in baseball. Unfortunately the lighting the room and the reflection from the display case didn't equate to good pictures (at least from a Driod) but it was pretty cool to see the evolution of the general size and gaudiness of the rings over the years. There was a lot of bling in that case. My only question is if they were actual complete replicas or if they were cubic zirconia instead of actual diamonds/other gemstones. I was of course drawn to the Angels 2002 ring, they're only one in the case... so far.

The most famous part of the museum is the plaque room where each of the 232 players, 20 managers, 9 umpires, and 31 pioneers and executives inducted into the hall of fame have their likeness and bio immortalized forever in bronze. I thought that I had snagged a picture of the five original inductees from 1936 (Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, Christy Mathewson, Babe Ruth and Honus Wagner [who by the way, is also the face on the most valuable and covited baseball card]). I thought I had taken a picture of the five initial inductee plaques but I did not, I did, however get a shot of this monument in the plaque room recognizing the service of each hall of famer in the armed forces from the Civil War through the Korean War, including two veterans of two wars Larry MacPhail (US Army in WWI and WWII and the father of the only father and son hall of fame team with Lee MacPhail, neither players but executives) and Ted Williams (USMC in WWII and Korea).

Of course, this is not the last time that I will visit the Hall. I plan on taking my dad before I leave Ft Drum, and then again at some time in the future when they let Carter in!