Turkey Dinner. Monkey Business.

After teaching the kids about Thanksgiving, Thursday arrived and it was Thanksgiving! Jenny and I left and decided to take a day off on Friday because we decided we should.  :)  We headed to Suphanburi to have a Thai style Thanksgiving dinner with several of our friends who are from the program. Super excited to see Liz and C!! We had our dinner at Lin's Place where we brought our own "appeteasers, KFC mashed potatoes, and pineapples" but had the chicken and rice prepared by LIn's. Nothing like the roast beef, the yams, the mixed veggies, mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy, and plentiful desserts at home, but it was more than I expected. I am pretty thankful for the meal I had. Followed by dinner, we took a trip to a Cowboy Bar where one of my friends took it upon himself to get up and sing with the locals, and where we got to dance to a few good songs. I would say this was a pretty successful celebration.

                                                     "Fried Donuts"
                    

                                                  "mashed potatoes"

                                            "Cowboy Bar Sing-a-long"

Because we decided to take Friday off to celebrate Thanksgiving without worry about teaching the next day, Jenny and I headed to Bangkok. We did a little Xmas shopping which was strange because it wasn't done when I was running in and out of buildings trying to hide from the rain (like I do in SF or SC), and because it was freakishly hot that day (high 80s). After spending more than I should of, we decided to treat ourselves to some wizardly-goodness. Harry Potter here I come!!!!

I got to say watching a movie in another country is always different and unique. I recommend it if not just to do a comparison to home. In HK, we had assigned seats. In Thailand, we got up to honor the King before the film started. 

After the film, we left Siam Sq via the SkyTrain to Victory Monument . The metro system is just as easy to use as HK's. woot! We then hopped onto a van and went to Lopburi. Early Saturday we got up to venture round.  We bought the usual cha yen (I think I'm getting addicted), and ended up by the famous ruins Phra-Prang Sam Yot.  It was a former Hindu shrine that has three spires created to represent the HIndu Trimurti - Brahman (the creator), Vishnu (the preserver), and Shiva (the destroyer).

Now it is the famous landmark for where the monkeys roam. With our drinks, we stopped to take pictures of both the ruin and the famous residents. However, less than a minute, a monkey ran towards me. Cute.... and then not so much. It climbed my leg like a dog wanting a treat, and went for my drink. Although I contemplated holding on to it for like a millisecond so I could get a picture of it up close, once it opened it's mouth I gave my drink up fast! Right as I surrendered my drink, a group of monkeys went towards Jenny. She was smart to drop her drink to avoid the "attack." And so on their way they went without a thought of us, drinking our cha yen…

Drinking a Juice Box

I'm kind of glad we were there a day before the Lopburi Monkey festival. This festival is a monkey buffet honoring Rama, a hero of the Ramayana. Just a little scary thinking there are supposed to be over 500 monkeys swarming.

After our encounter, we decided to go visit the famous sunflower fields "nearby." What is "nearby" is an hour bus ride outside the city. It was worth it though. The sunflower fields were spectacular. And there were sunflower seeds we got to try and buy. ------ Oh the memories of warmish days when the Giants played… Shout out to my World Series Champs!! -----

Anyway, we left that afternoon, and what an adventure it was. We left round 3, but found there were no more buses to Suphanburi. Whatt??? It was mid day. What's up with this? Eventually we figured we can go to Ang Thong and then get to Suphanburi from there. We took a rickety old slow bus which got us to Ang Thong, and the driver and his wife were kind enough to wait with us until we got on a van. We arrived round 6 in Suphanburi only to find AGAIN there were no more buses or vans. Seriously?? We only attempted to come back early because we had to go to this English "exhibition" with our school on Sunday morning. (Found out Wednesday and this last minute business is typical).

So we were stranded. A song-taw driver offered to bring us back for about 500 baht as he heard our plight, but we refused. Definitely not. At the same time we refused, Tu called. She of course checked to see where we were, what we were doing, and if we wanted to go somewhere with her tomorrow and have dinner. We said yes, and then when I told her where we were, and our situation, she ended up calling around and getting the school van to pick us up. This only happened after I got a kind Thai mother at the Shell gas station to speak on the phone and talk to Tu to tell her where we were in Thai. Apparently saying we were at a Shell gas station by the only way to U-Thong on the main road wasn't good enough.  I felt guilty Tu had to do that, I felt bad I had to get a random stranger to help us, and I felt uncomfortable that someone had to drive to get us…but if there really was no other way…..sigh... But man oh man how I truly truly appreciate the kindness Thai strangers and friends have shown us. <3

As we were waiting, we thought it would take about 30 minutes for them to get us, but the wait was less than 10 minutes. The van that came to get us was filled with teachers and students from our school who just left the "exhibition."The "exhibition" wasn't just a one day thing as I thought, but a Friday to Sunday thing. EMBARRASSING to say the least to enter the van full of colleagues. It was then promptly filled with laughter for a good 5 minutes when we got in. If you can't stand the situation…solution: Laugh! Jenny and I laughed at the situation if only to ease the embarassment a little. Only in Thailand it seems… 

Note- Thailand is all about having fun or "sanuk," and so if you aren't, find a way or take yourself out of the situation.