Bollywood, brides and other everyday events

In previous posts we have mentioned the MANY brides that we see at our condo complex on a daily basis. The European inspired architecture is all the rage for wedding photos, as well as magazine shoots and the actual weddings themselves. Often we have to dodge a photoshoot on our way to the gym or the 7-11 and occasionally they close the pool or gym altogether for a big event!

We have seen commercials and other short film sequences shot at our complex before as well, but never a bollywood movie! Last Monday we came home from work to find the street blocked off for a full song and dance number. We watched them move around the complex shooting in different locations all evening, the stars even had their own trailers near our building.

Getting ready for the shoot... the dancers in the background are wearing clocks on their faces.

We aren't sure why, but they had two buffalo in a truck (mum and baby). They must have used these while we were away at work. They seemed quite happy, munching away in their truck.

Ladyboy Dance Off

This weekend we went to one of the big shopping centres around here to do a little birthday shopping... little did we know that by walking into the mall this Saturday we were walking into a Ladyboy dance off. There was a huge crowd gathered around a stage in the middle of the mall, watching group after group of Thai teenagers dance and lip-sync their little hearts out. Here is a transcript of a conversation we had while watching:
Shane: "This group of girls is really tall, wait, I think that one in the front is a ladyboy"
Hannah: "Um, I think they're all ladyboys... yup definitely ladyboys."
Shane: "Those ladyboys have way more feminine sex appeal than that girl group." 

Unfortunately we did not bring a camera!!!! So no fabulous pictures. Some of the groups had a lot of fabulous teenage attitude and some of them were great dancers, overall a very entertaining way to spend part of our afternoon... eating gelati and watching the dancers. So very Thailand :)

Doreamon Day

The bowl-plate (with the fork and spoon in it) is perfect for Som Tam (Thai Papaya Salad), while the plate with Doreamon shrugging is perfect for dipping sauces. You can put your ketchup in one of his hands and it doesn't touch all of your food, ingenious!

I bet everyone is super jealous...  : )

Just saw these pictures in my photo file and remembered that we forgot to post after getting our 7-11 reward! We mentioned in our Doreamon post that we were collecting stickers as part of a program run by 7-11 here, this is the fabulous reward we have earned! We have also redeemed some stickers for a set of cups and a juice pitcher, but there is some kind of back order situation so we are still waiting on those to come in. These are definitely things we will have to bring home from Thailand... I don't know how we got by without our Doreamon flatware set.

Our house

Welcome to our humble abode! We have been slowly gathering bits and pieces to put together our apartment and it is finally ready for viewing. Property is much cheaper here (unless you are trying to get a place right in Bangkok) so we are paying around $300 a month for this 7th (top) floor "penthouse" apartment with a seperate bedroom. Each building here has a theme from around the world. This picture shows you our hall in the "Africa" building at Champs Elysees. The green tusks really give it that little something extra :)

Home sweet home. Sort of. This is actually our neighbours' door. When they moved our mattress in they broke one of our elephant's tusks! We thought you would want to see the elephant intact. This is what all the doorways in this building look like.

Welcome inside! This is our front hall. Bathroom is on the right :) it looks much the same except for the addition of the ass blaster by the toilet.

Our "kitchen". You can see our oven on the counter, our hot plate is put away in the drawer. On the fridge we have pictures of all our friends, family and pets who we miss back home! Notice the lack of kitchen sink. We have to do all our dishes in the shower... kind of awkward.

The living room. We aren't huge fans of the sofa, it looks a bit like the back seat of a van. However, it does fold down into a somewhat short bed... perfect for watching movies on lazy Sunday mornings. Also perfect for anyone who wants to come and visit! The apartments come mostly furnished. All we had to buy was: TV, fridge, hot plate & oven, dining table & chairs.

Entertainment :) Some electronics are fairly cheap here, such as TVs. Our plan is to try to tote this giant thing back with us when we come home... wish us luck!  ; )

The curtains are covering the french doors out to our little balcony. It has a big ugly air conditioner but is nice for sitting in the evening (if the mosquitoes aren't too bad) and is handy for drying the laundry! You can also see our little dining table in the corner; excellent for games, cards or dinner with friends.

This picture is looking up from our living room at our bedroom. On the right hand side you can see the stairs up to the bedroom. It looks like there is a  big window in the bedroom but it is actually a skylight over the living room, reflected in the window. The seperate bedroom makes for a nice quiet sleep, or some privacy for any guests who come to visit!

The bedroom, with the HUGE bed! What you can't see is the big closet (lots of room for new clothes) and vanity. 

Wine and Wild Animals Weekend

Well, it was definitely a different sort of holiday from the island retreats we have been on recently! This weekend we headed northeast to the National Park, Khao Yai. We started off the weekend by waking up at "sparrow's fart" (a term introduced to us by our friends) and taking the first bus up to Pak Chong where we rented motorbikes. Then the fun could begin! We biked up into the mountains and immediately noticed the cooler temperatures and the clean jungle air, as well as the monkeys hanging out on the road! For our Friday in the park we rented tents, blankets and a "mattress" from the park office. Unfortunately the "mattress" was just a THIN woven straw mat, more useful for laying out on the grass for a picnic than cushioning your rest!

Once we had our tents set up we enjoyed some lunch, and got to see what Thai people do in a national park. Unlike National parks at home, where you would get fined for so much as THINKING about feeding the animals or dropping garbage, the national parks here are a little more relaxed. This picture is of some Thai people taking pictures of a deer, they then proceded to bring it all kinds of treats, including ice cream and bananas.

These kids thought that they wanted to feed the deer, but then they got scared.

We had a great day, hiking around following traces of elephants (elephant poop). In the evening we went out on a night safari. This seemed like something that we should do as tourists in Thailand, but we weren't expecting much. We boarded the noisy old truck and headed off with a Thai man holding a spotlight as our guide. Although we didn't expect to see many animals, we saw a ton! We saw: 3 kinds of deer (including a tiny baby barking deer, about the size of a cat! so cute) 2 civets, 3 porcupines, a wild dog called a Dhole and for the finale... 8 wild elephants at a salt lick! It was so amazing to see elephants in the wild, especially since there were quite a few resorts on the way up which has some pretty sad looking elephants that they were using for tourism... sad elephants are a really hard thing to see. It was amazing to see them in their natural habitat.

That night was a bit rough, since it was a long weekend the place was packed and there were people talking ALL NIGHT LONG! We woke up groggily in the morning and headed out on a long jungle hike. We were hoping to see some gibbons (another kind of monkey) but unfortunately they seemed to be hiding. No matter where we walked we always heard them 1 km or so behind us! However, we did have a great hike and saw some more signs of the elephants, although no luck seeing an actual elephant.

This second photo is from the observation tower at the end of our walk!

That night we headed out to a hotel, needing a little more comfort. After a much needed night's sleep we went for a tour around Thai wine country. We had no idea that this place even existed! We went to two different wineries, one of which had some really good wine! Hannah even took a turn driving the motorbike. We bought a bottle and then had to head back to check out and get back to reality... a great weekend overall!

Things Made in Our Oven -Part 1

I say part 1 because I hope that we will cook more things in the oven in the next 8 months that we are here.

As we have mentioned before, our Thai apartment does not really have a kitchen. When we moved in we bought a fridge, a hot plate, and the little convection oven that could. It looks like a giant glass bowl with a robot helmet on top, and we were both skeptical about how effective it would be... for comparables see the "flavour wave" of infomercial fame. Boy, were we wrong! So far in our oven we have cooked cheese bread, a roast chicken, pork tenderloin, cookies, a pumpkin pie AND hamburger rolls! Here are some quick pictures of some of the things we've made... here's hoping that our successes in the kitchen continue!

It was one of those, "yup, I'm in Thailand" days...

I was sitting in the office, getting ready for KG this morning when one of the staff members came in with a puppy. Apparently it is one of the litter across the street who was nearly hit by a car. She was worried about it so decided to bring it over to the office where she plonked it on my lap saying she was off to get it something to eat.

Only in Thailand does someone put a stray puppy on your lap at work. Here is a picture of me at my desk with said puppy! Cutest inconvenience ever...