The Epic Chicken

First of all, while you are reading this post you must imagine the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey. If you can't imagine it click the link... It is better if you play it at high volume, or imagine it at high volume at least.


He was resplendent. From his dazzling peaked comb to his fearsome talons. His feathers; a beautiful mosaic of reds, greens and blacks, shimmered like precious gems in the morning sunlight. He swaggered about the yard on his long, strong legs, puffing out his muscular chest as though he knew how remarkable he was. Onlookers gathered as time went on, pulling over their motorbikes to look at the chicken. Nobody had ever seen a chicken quite this epic.

In Thailand, there are often chickens running around everywhere. We live in the city mind you, not in a rural area. It isn't rare to see a couple of chickens scratching in the dirt in front of a restaurant or near a shady bush.

Chickens in Thailand would ruin Canadian chickens in any contest. Canadian chickens are soft, with their large breasts and short legs, they have neither the strength, speed, nor stamina of a Thai chicken. Shane and I call them chocobos after the Final Fantasy creatures.

The chicken described above was one Shane saw on the way home from work one day. People were actually pulling over to get a look at this chicken because he was just so handsome. Speaking of handsome, you may be thinking "Wow, look at that chicken picture, it is amazing! It is the best thing anyone has ever drawn!" Yes, that is because we bought a drawing tablet for the computer! No more will the male stick figures in our blog have no hair... with my drawing tablet I can give them hair and even maybe ears! They will still be stick figures though...

This Post May Be Offensive for Some Viewers (Cat lovers, I mean you)

In other news, we have this cat around our neighbourhood lately. Maybe it is in heat? Maybe it is just annoying, but it "meows" ALL NIGHT LONG.

Sitting watching a movie "meow!"
Get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, "mrrrraaawwww"
Trying to fall asleep "REOW!"
This is what I imagine the noisy cat looks like:

The green lines are stink lines. It is probably missing some fur and part of an ear. Sometimes the noisy cat will fight with another noisy cat. This creates even more noise.

We have tried speaking sweetly to the noisy cat, "here lovely kitty, go somewhere else you pretty cat"
and yelling at the noisy cat, "UGH! Go AWAY you stupid cat!". Nothing works. Instead we end up with conversations that go like this:
Hannah: "What do you want for MEOW"
Shane: "What do I want for what?"
Hannah: "for dinner! ugh, stupid cat."

Unfortunately he has chosen a rather obvious bit of cover...

We have many little house geckos, or "jing jok" living in our new apartment. They are shy little critters, coming out when the lights are off and then scurrying to safety as soon as we come in the room. Occasionally you see a tail or a brief flash of movement while one runs into a good hiding spot.

Except for one. We have one gecko who is either old and confused, or else really overestimates his hiding ability. Sometimes he will hide like this:

 ... that is, just sprawled out on the floor, frozen. They can kind of change colour, so maybe he thinks we can't see him? Other times he will choose something to hide behind, but usually it ends up like this:

... with his tail sticking out one side and his nose out the other. Once we even found him on the counter, licking a cutting board like this:

... he was licking up the juice from a pear we had cut there earlier. It is a little known fact that geckos love pear juice. Also, they have cute pink tongues.

Where will he be next? At the foot of the bed? In front of the TV? Under the laundry rack? We never know, but we are always amused by the gecko who isn't very good at hiding.

Lost Island and

Apologies on the long wait for a post... I've been up to my ears in a paper on Learning and Play as well as bidding farewell to Shane's brother and trying to restore order to our lives (remembering we're not on holiday is always unpleasant). So, 
After trying for AGES to find Rayleigh on google maps, and failing, I have decided that it must be like the island from Lost and therefore can only be found if you are meant to get there. Luckily this little peninsula is greedy for your tourist dollars, so as long as you have a couple thousand baht in your pocket you should be able to get there without a problem.

We left from Phuket after work and boarded a bus for the 3 hour drive to Krabi town. Shortly afterwards, two SUPER DRUNK Thai guys got on the bus and sat behind us. They barely had time to crack a "beer leo" before one passed out, sprawled across the entire back 3 seats on the bus. As the bus filled up with school kids (in Thailand a bus is a bus, and space is not to be wasted!) the last seat left was the one where the drunk had his feet.  The guy lying down is passed out, the guy on the right is his friend who was not impressed, which is why I drew him frowning. In real life they had noses and hair but I struggle with details in MS paint. The little boy came to the back of the bus and kind of stared at them, so the less drunk guy (on the right) tried to shake his friend awake so he'd sit up. "Argleph" he replied. There was nothing to do but sit on his feet, so the poor kid rode home having to sit on someone's sneakers.

We stayed in Krabi for the night, and then hopped on a longtail boat with some other friendly tourists in the morning. Even though Raileigh is technically connected to the mainland, it is very mountainous so the only way to get there is by boat. Our new friends informed us that we should go teach in Mexico after we finish here... hmm, new blog idea? lol

Rayleigh is a lovely little spot covered in prehistoric-looking mountains and with Thailand's signature beautiful turquoise bays. We stayed in a fairly fancy (for us) resort and spent a day and a bit soaking up the rays and splashing in the water. The guys even got a chance to do some rock climbing!

 I title this picture: cheesing it hard.

 Can't you just picture a pterodactyl circling those peaks? In case you don't have a good imagination, it would look like this.

 After a lovely weekend we were sad to leave, but luckily we didn't have to take the bus on the way home as there was a ferry leaving for Phuket that day! We got on a longtail boat which took us out to the ferry in deeper water, and then had a lovely ride home. We were so glad that Nick got to come and experience a little bit of Thailand with us!