All I want for Christmas

The pink one! Yeah, that's what Haylie wants for Christmas this year so she can..



...do this...
















...and this!

The "Grand" Palace

Really guys, it WAS a "grand" palace!...they're ALL grand. ;)
Anyway, here's us at the GP doing our best to not look like tourists. I think we blend in pretty well.
These guys are supposed to be demon gods in Buddhist/Hindu teachings. We think they're getting tired.







These are the monks doing their thing at the Grand Palace. Right behind them you can see the scale model of "Angkor Wat" in Cambodia, a very famous huge temple. (It's about 1000x800 m)





Each one of the thousands of tiny glass pieces inlaid in the clay was hand cut a couple hundred years ago. Stu's counting them here...he's still counting.













This guy is known as the "emerald" buddha, even though our tour guide informed us that he's actually made out of jade. At 45 cm tall, he's a big hunk of Jade! Right now he's wearing his summer outfit. Pretty soon the King will climb up behind him and change him into his winter getup. Thailand has three seasons; summer, winter and rainy.




It was impossible to snap a picture that gave a good perspective of the Grand Palace. This one's in one of the many courtyards.

Wat Pho

Otherwise known as Wat Phra Chetuphon, but Wat Pho is easier to remember :) It's right down town Bangkok and is the Temple of the Reclining Buddha, as you can see by the pictures.



This Buddha is forty-six meters long and fifteen meters high. He's gold plated with mother of pearl for decoration on his eyes and bottoms of his feet.









We also think that he may be the inspiration behind Marg Simpson's hair...this is his head from behind

Urban Jungle!

This was taken just outside of Lumphini Park, a small Oasis of quiet in the middle of HUGE Bangkok! This is the kind of infrastructure that surprised us as we began to explore the city. It moves over 15 million people around every day, and for the most part, it DOES move. You can see the sky train on the top layer here. We like the sky train.


This one is from the newest skytrain station close to the Chao Phraya River. Haylie risked the whistle of the guard as she crossed the yellow line to snap this shot.









This is the 12 lane "street" two blocks from our apartment. If it weren't for this foot path over the highway, we'd probably almost die every day. We're pretty positive that pedestrians DO NOT have the right of way here.





This is how we walk home. We're not sure how many lanes there are, it depends on the size of the vehicles and how many street vendors there are at the time. These guys pulling carriages on bicycles are called "rickshaws." Our apartment's just around the corner.

Pokey Fruit

Something should be said for the variety (and quantity) of pokey fruit to be found in Thailand. All of these pictures were taken within a block of our apartment. Most of the pokey fruits resemble some sort of alien spawn. This one is called "dragon fruit". What a great name :) It looks something like a kiwi on the inside.




This one wasn't so surprising to us. We came across it a lot in Central America. No idea what it's called here. The texture is beyond weird, but the taste is sweet and very refreshing :)



This is actually part of the flower type thing that is on the end of a bunch of bananas. They cut it up and put it in phat thai. It kind of has the texture of bamboo shoots.









This is durian. It has such an offensive odour when cut into that we have heard it is actually illegal to open in several cities! It's really popular around here, but we haven't gotten around to trying any of it yet.








No idea what this is...beyond the fact that it was in the fruit section of the market :) Pretty sure it's home planet is Mars.

Catch and Release

This was our pet, Squishy ...for about 5 minutes. We bought him at one of the stops on the river. We're not quite sure what the deal was, but it looked like you were supposed to buy one of these eel things and release it. I don't think we'll invest in another one.
These are some of Squishy's friends. Even grosser to see in real life.

Chao Phraya River Express

We took a boat ride around on the Chao Phraya River yesterday. It's a great way to see Bangkok. You get a day pass and they stop at all sorts of places to let you off and explore.



This is one of the stops we got off at. Wat Arun.
















This is what Hayie looks like on her way to go see Wat Arun :)













Just a little video of the temple.



Us in front of ANOTHER temple with some giant scary guy they put up to protect the entrance.

Good Night, Friends...

...but good morning to you :) This was the beautiful sunset from our apt this evening. And We realized that we have been neglecting to tell you the apt's kitty. He's mostly great at expressing how tired one can feel at the end of a day in Bangkok.

Some more School Shots

No Thai school is complete without their Budda. This is the big, gold Budda courtyard Lertlah has just after entering the building. Usually there's fountains going, but today was very rainy and they had them turned off.


This is one of the ponds in the Kindergarten building. And, YES! It does have huge Japanese gold fish swimming around in there.

















Stu with some of his favorite Lertlah staff. The lovely lunch ladies :)













Haylie sipping her joe on the way to the Kindergarten building. That's where she gets to learn how to teach little Thai kids to speak English :)











The swimming pools. The close one is for nursery kids and the other is for primary...and teachers after hours :)

A Bit About Our Work Day

WELCOME to Lertlah School! This is what we see every morning right after we stop at the fruit guy for some fresh papaya, pineapple or guava for breakfast. Mmmmmm. It's a pretty snazzy school!



This here is how we clock in every day...very James Bond! It recognizes EITHER ONE of our index fingers!








Kanchanapisek. It's quite the mouthful, but it's the street where our school is. Looks prettier in Thai.








This is the 147 we look forward to seeing at 4:30 every day to take us back home to our stinkin' cute apartment!

Sorry we don't have more pictures from inside the campus. We'll put them up tomorrow. Promise. The students start school Monday. We're super excited to finally meet them after the past couple weeks of lesson planning and prep.

Whole Lota Monk!

This is Monk Huay. He's a nice guy, but not too talkative. When we first saw him from the front seat of our double decker bus, we must admit that he was very imposing and we almost turned and ran! After minutes of discussion, we braved the 40 plus degree heat (that's 100 and suck in farhenheit) and met the biggest monk any of us will ever see.







We're not quite sure what he's thinking about. Maybe wondering why he doesn't have a gigantic umbrella for shade.

This was a busy day at Huay's place. Apparently on May 8, Buddha was born, enlightened and died!

The 5th Wedding

We decided to carry on with the tradition of getting hitched in every country we go to! These are our new beautiful Thai wedding rings (coconut for Stu and shell for Haylie )




The guest list was limited to those who happened to be walking by at Chatuchak Market. These people even dressed up.













A toast of iced coffee samples to the Bride and Groom!

Haylie vs. Monkeys

Finally! Haylie found iced coffee in Thailand...too bad it was the same day that we went to see King Rama V old palace. The monkeys have taken over and now run the place.


After a grueling battle of strength and wits the monkeys outnumbered Haylie 11,000 to 1, she never had a chance.

Luphini Park, Bangkok

This is a clip of some water creature in Luphini Park...we're still not sure what it is :)




Us with the ducky paddle boat. Pretty sure it's the ONLY safe way to get in the water with those strange creatures!










It's an amazingly peaceful park in the middle of the very busy city.

The Apartment at "Kornkarn"

Welcome to the open house at apt #1011 :) Please enjoy while Mrs. Koslowsky and her very professional camera crew gives you the official tour.

Friday Night Food!

Dinner on a stick! Yup, that says it. Within half a block of our apartment there are roughly 30 "restaurants" with menus close to what you're looking at right now. This works great for people who have to point and nod to order food...



Haylie, peachy keen about her Pad Thai from "Mem's" (the sweet little lady down the street who specializes in noodles and fun stuff)











Stu is more than peachy keen with his version of Pad Thai complete with tentacles of some sea creatures that we are sure Ariel is missing right now.

Dinner for Two