bangkok - june 13-17

I mentioned to the parents before I left that living in Bangkok for several weeks would be the perfect start to the trip. It has been. Although many people might not enjoy relaxing in an apartment playing Scrabble, Lance and I have embraced it. We have played four times so far, I won once. The last game Lance won 340 to 339. But besides hanging out in or around the apartment, we have also done some fun things around the town.

On Friday we attended May Kaidee's cooking class. We learned how to make about ten Thai dishes including tom yam soup, isaan vegetables, fried vegetables with ginger and cashews, pad thai, peanut sauce, spring rolls, massaman curry, green curry, pumpkin hummus, green papaya salad, and sticky rice (with mango).










Our instructor was a little crazy. She made us dance to songs blasted from her cell phone and sing a silly song which started with the line "sap sap sap sap sap". I'm still not sure what it meant. Anyways, she claimed that the food turns out much better if you are happy and laughing the entire time. Here you can see bowls of vegetables and spices cut up and ready to be used. As we cooked, another girl washed and cut ingredients so that our bowls were always full. When we made green curry in Phil's apartment it took much longer. We took the class with two other girls, one from Chile, and one from France.


On Saturday night we went to "Sabushi" - a sushi conveyor-belt restaurant. Besides eating as much sushi as we wanted, we got to make our own soup with ingredients that passed by. In this shot Lance and I are eating some sushi with roe on the outside. We didn't quite get up the nerve to try octopus. Maybe next time.








On Sabbath afternoon we went to China town to get materials for making journals. We purchased paper, cloth, glue, and other necessities and have been working on creating our own travel journals ever since. Phil has already made two, so he has been showing Lance and I the best way to create them. Lance's will be green with white pages; mine will be red with black pages. After getting the materials, we took a boat down the river a ways and enjoyed the temples around China town.







PS If this post doesn't look right, try adjusting the browser window. I need to change the template so it doesn't vary from one browser to another . . .