Thailand Adventure-Day 3

Before I begin our new day in Bangkok, I have to go back a few hours to yesterday afternoon. After our tour of Wot Po, the Golden Buddha and temple area there, we went back to our hotel. The extreme heat had really taken it out of us so we cleaned up and took a quick nap. At about 4:30, refreshed and ready to go again we got an expected phone call that my friend and long-time colleague, Lisa Monson, who now teaches in an international school in Bangkok, was waiting for us in the lobby.

We had arranged to go out for dinner with her. She took us on our first ride on the Sky Train and on a wild Tuk Tuk ride. These little three-wheeled motorcycles have a seat behind the driver that accommodates three passengers under a canopy with open sides. It gets its name from the sound the engine makes. It's a high-speed, hair-raising ride through the streets. Fun!
Lisa took us to a lovely Thai restaurant where we got caught up on each other's lives. She popped us into a taxi at about 10 and grabbed one herself that whisked us all back to our places. It was nice to spend some time with her.

The next day we had an excursion to The Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew or Temple of the Emerald Buddha and they were just that, Grand. Spired towers laminated with gold leaf and colorful ceramic tiles fashioned into flowers and geometric patterns dotted the hundred acre site.

The Emerald Buddha was the only disappointment for me due to its diminutive size. It was, however, sitting on an elevated platform 30 feet high and covered in gold leaf. The Emerald Buddha is, also, not emerald. It is jade. It's size and elevated location make it nearly

unidentifiable and with no photos allowed, I couldn't use my zoom to get a good look at it. Oh weel,everything else was fabulous.

I will admit that I am and will most likely return to topic of the weather throughout this narrative.

But it is damned hot here. No other way to describe it. If you don't love heat and humidity I can't imagine a time of year when it would be good to visit Bangkok. It just wears you down being in it all day.

So, anyway, enough of that. We finished the tour of this site with a walk past the Grand

Palace and visited the reception room where a stunning boat-shaped, gold-leafed throne looked out over the crowd. Used only twice in the sovereign's life, once when crowned prince and again when made king, the room itself is famed as the place where King Rama IV received Anna of the King and I story.

By the time we returned to the bus, our driver and his assistant had a bottle of ice-cold water and a wet wipe for us, something they do quite frequently. It is always so welcome and appreciated. Our modern, clean bus is also air conditioned which helps give us a break from the extreme heat.

We were driven back across town in the bumper to bumper traffic. It's bad! Finally, only the divided four lane was between us and Soi 18, the street our hotel was on. Our courier, Anil, offered to have us get out and use the pedestrian walkway over the road and eliminate another 15 minutes on the bus. We were ready to scream after so much time stuck in that insane traffic and readily agreed. Our hotel is a lovely place. Very classy, but comfortable. The room was well appointed and decorated. A great buffet breakfast was included every morning with great coffee and a diverse menu of options for both eastern and western tastes.

In the evening a car was sent for by the ISB, the International school where Leslie had taught the day before. Anthony Giles who is the choir director there had taught in the Seattle area where Leslie had gotten to know him originally. He sent the car to pick us

up and whisk us out to the school where we met his lovely wife, Jackie and family and then went to dinner at the most romantic and delicious spot you can imagine. It was at the River Tree House Restaurant along the Chao Phraya River. We ordered Papaya Salad, Pomelo Salad and a Curry. Fabulous and the setting was so amazing.

The driver returned our hosts to their home and then drove us back across Bangkok, yes, through that crazy traffic, and back to our hotel where we crawled happily into bed. What a day!

Thailand Adventure--Day 2

sa watdee, hello from Thailand

Leslie needed to be up at 6:00 to get ready for her day with the choir at the International School she had been invited to work with. I know she was exhausted but she is a trooper and she was looking forward to it. So after a good breakfast, she was whisked off by a driver who had been sent to pick her up at 7.

I decided to get up, have breakfast with her and see her off. I am sitting here at breakfast now waiting for the 10:00 orientation meeting and then I will step outside into the street for the first time here in Bangkok. This afternoon we visit Wot Po, site of a temple and the Golden and Reclining Buddhas.

I went to the eighth floor of the hotel where I found a beautiful swimming pool, gym, spa and bar with techno-music thudding loudly out of the speakers. I wonder which demographic they are aiming for? It is all outdoors with towering skyscrapers looking down from all around. Definitely a destination later in the day.

The sky is cloudy, not with clouds but with smog. It is warm already at 9:30 in the morning and a bit muggy. Aside from the smoggy smell that stings your nose, there is also a distinctively tropical smell in the air. Sort of a cross between sandalwood and jasmine flower?

Leslie returned from her time working with Anthony Giles's choir at the ISB, a very ritzy, top-drawer international school here in Bangkok. Just in time to get on the bus for our afternoon tour of Wot Po.

The drive across town was tedious due to the near constant bumper to bumper traffic in Bangkok. It is maddeningly slow and yet, according to our courier, Anil,pronounced Ah-nil, no one seems to have a solution for it.

Wot Po is amazing! Stunning, breath-taking, a masterpiece. Spires tower over this World Heritage site that are covered with colorful ceramics or gold leaf. In one of the buildings a giant reclining

Buddha lying on his side fills the entire room. Taking a photograph that gave you any sense of the size was impossible. I tried. The Buddha was some 75-100 feet in length and 30 feet high, nearly completely covered in gold leaf.

In another building sat the Golden Buddha. This Buddha sat in the more familiar cross-legged style.

His beatific smile beamed down at theconstantly moving crowds that circulated through the room. The statue is a good 30 feet tall and weighs some 5 tons including a great deal of gold.

Some people sat on the floor before the Buddha and meditated a while before moving on. The removal of shoes is a must in these shrines and racks are provided so that the faithful and the curious can adhere to this rule.

Next door, an open-air school was filled with saffron-robed Buddhist monks who concentrated on their studies despite the near constant snapping of camera shutters. We continued on our way through the Wat Po complex of temples and shrines. Wat Po is also a well-known training center for Thai message.

The long bus ride back to the hotel was frustrating but can't be helped. So it became an opportunity to take a lot of photos through the windshield of the bus. They aren't great photos but do gather a lot of the day to day of busy Bangkok.

Thailand Adventure--Day 1

Yin dee dton rap or welcome to our Thailand Adventure

We slept very well last night. After showers we headed over to the breakfast room. Our chain of preference is Choice Hotels and they, like a lot of places these days, offer a free breakfast. It's nothing fancy, but it's free so one can't complain much.

We stopped at the office on our way back to the room and got put on the 10:00 shuttle back to the airport. Back in the room we finished packing and after one last long look around, headed out the door. The shuttle got us back to the international terminal at LAX in about 15 minutes. As we walked through the doors into the cavernous ticket counter area, I realized we were in the same room we walked into in 1976 when Leslie and I went to Europe for the first time together with our college choir at California State College, Stanislaus. Was that really over 35 years ago?

We waited another 15 minutes for the check-in windows to open, got our boarding passes and made our way through security. As usual, with all the check in and security taken care of we had way more than enough time to sit and wait. Leslie used the time to walk around, get our air miles into the system and, hunter gatherer that she is, found us food and water.

She had discovered a Pink's hot dog stand in the food court. Kate and I made a pilgrimage to this LA hot dog hot spot years ago. Great hot dogs. This

wasn't the same quality as the real joint but it was pretty good just the same. We split a dog smothered in kraut, pastrami and cheese. Our last taste of American food for a couple of weeks.

The call came and we boarded a China Airlines 747 at about 1:45 pm. I am thinking our seats may not be anything special except that they would recline a little more than your average domestic flight's seat. With a 14 hour flight I didn't think that would be too much to ask. Boy, was I wrong. Luckily we had asked for and got seats in an emergency row, three seats across with no one in the third seat. Unfortunately, the seats were the narrowest things I have ever sat in with the exception of a Wujan Airlines short hop we once took between cities in China. I literally sat on the arms of the chair when I sat down. I had to force myself into the seat.

The seats also didn't recline even as much as seats on a domestic American flight.

On a positive note, the TV monitors in front of us displayed the entire taxi and take off of the flight which I thought was pretty cool. At least it took my mind off my poor bruised and aching hips for a while.

The staff aboard couldn't be more polite or accommodating. Of course, that accommodation didn't extend to moving us to more spacious quarters. Oh, we'll.

14 hours later, having crossed the International Date Line, we finally arrived in Taipei, Taiwan. A new country? Technically we don't count it being in another country or state unless we have at least had a meal there or stayed the night. So I guess we shouldn't actually count Taiwan, but we agreed between us that we would since the likelihood that we would ever go there is pretty slim and, let's face it, we're not getting any younger.

The airport was just a transfer to another China Airlines flight in a terminal all the way across the airport. A modern, clean train shuttled us quickly to Terminal 1 and spit us out along with a couple hundred others. We made our way to the gate where we had only a 20 minute wait. Another 747 awaited us.

This time we had 3-across seating though it was the same type aircraft. I fit into this seat just fine. Hmmm! At the last minute a foreign exchange student from The Netherlands was seated next to us making it more crowded. We noticed that there were plenty of vacant seats toward the back and the flight attendants allowed us to move when all the passengers were aboard. We quickly moved to a bulkhead 4-across row and spread ourselves out. Much better.

This leg of our journey was only 3 hours and much more comfortable. The flight seemed to go much more quickly. They fed us dinner though I must say it was THEE worst airline meal I have ever had. I can and will eat just about anything and I tried to eat this, but the pork over the rice looked like it had been boiled. Turns out it was. It was rubbery and the flavor was just horrid. So was everything else on the tray and so for one of the few times in my life I just set the entire meal aside and went to sleep. We both managed to get some sleep awakening only when the pilot announced we were descending into Bangkok.

Bangkok airport is super modern and clean. Both Taipei and Bangkok airports made LAX look like a dump. America, get with it! We made our way through immigration and to the luggage carousel without a hitch. The immigration lines were lengthy but not horribly so considering it was 1:00 in the morning. Folks that we had met along our journey so far greeted each other again in the line and others approached us taking a chance and asking if we were with the Gate 1 tour. They weren't taking much of a chance really. We were one of only a few Caucasian folks in the line, we spoke English and probably looked as lost as they felt.

By the time we had gathered our luggage we were a little gaggle of Gate 1 Tour groupies who had found each other and gathered for the walk to the exit where a Gate 1 courier was supposed to be waiting for us. Sure enough, a lady was holding up a sign indicating her employer and with what must have been a rather relieved look on our faces, we approached her. She wasn't unfriendly but she did lack that Thai smile we had read so much about. No, "hello". No greeting. She just checked our papers against her list and then led us out the front door and across the parking lot to a waiting van.

The drive to our hotel took about 30 minutes over a toll road as modern as any American freeway which was deceivingly deserted at this early morning hour. It wasn't until we turned off onto Sukhumvit Street, near where our hotel was located, that we got our first taste of Thailand.

Almost 3:00 in the morning and the streets were packed with crowds of folks shopping, eating at one of numerous street food vendors, wandering a night market. Traffic seemed to make no sense with cars, trucks, motor scooters and the famous three-wheeled tuk-tuks going in all directions including straight at us. Our driver was unperturbed by it all and we all chattered away about

the colors, sounds, smells and general craziness of it all. It was just like we'd seen in so many movies and travelogues. It was perfect! Warm, muggy, but perfect!

Or hotel room at the Park Plaza was a welcome sight, beautiful and the bed

was so comfortable. Nothing like I had expected from my experiences in China ten years ago where the beds were all like sleeping on a board. We sank right into bed and went off to sleep dreaming of our first real encounter with Thailand.

Thailand Adventure

This is episode #1 of our Thailand Adventure from which we recently returned. We were gone for about 15 days total leaving Bellingham January 23rd on an Allegiant Airlines flight to Los Angles' LAX. Allegiant is a regional airline operating out of smaller markets and taking people to popular locations like Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco but sometimes flying into secondary airports. For example, they fly to Oakland instead of San Francisco. The prices are great, services are simple and they don't fly to any particular city everyday. So we had to fly the day before we actually needed to go and when we returned we had to wait an extra day and a half before flying home. If you can deal with that you can save a lot of money.

We arrived at LAX and had pre-booked a room at an area hotel. They picked us up and we were in our room within an hour of landing. Because we were without an automobile, we had to hoof it to get to a restaurant for dinner. There wasn't much right around our hotel and walking in LA is an experience. We had to cross 8 lanes of traffic at one point to get to the side of the street our restaurant was on. The pedestrian green guy came on and we stepped off the sidewalk, got across two lanes and the light turned red. Yikes! Very car-centric city.

We didn't fare any better when it came to dinner. We spotted an El Torito restaurant, a part of a chain we used to enjoy many years ago when we lived in California. Either we changed or the restaurant has. I rather imagine it was the former. I had their famous taco salad with this enormous tortilla shell that fans out and is great to snap off a piece of to scoop into the salad. Well, it was edible. Let's just leave it at that.

After dinner we walked off a few of those frijoles and chips by wandering through the Ralph's grocery store, a southern California chain that's been around a long time. As I wandered up one aisle I spied packaging on a bakery product that brought back an instant memory from my growing up. Van de Kamps label has a blue windmill on it. They make sweet rolls, donuts and danish. It really isn't that great but back when I would visit my great grandmother, who lived in the LA suburb of Norwalk, we could always expect that she'd have some Van de Kamps danish for breakfast one day. Hadn't seen it in years. Sweet memory. We left them on the shelf and headed

back to our room.

We hustled back across the 8 lanes of traffic nervously expecting to be a windshield ornament any moment but made it safely to the other side. Back at the room we watched a little local news and then turned out the light. We had a big day in store tomorrow.

We head back to LAX where we will board a China Airlines flight to Bangkok, Thailand. It will be a 13 hour flight stopping in Taipei, Taiwan before heading on to Bangkok. Stay with me. It gets way better.

Let It Snow!

We've no place to go thank heaven, because here in Bellingham, we have about 8-10 inches of snow on the ground. Depending, of course, on where in town you live. Up here on the hill, Alabama Hill, we have about 10 inches sitting on top of our hot tub. And more is coming! Yikes!

By tomorrow night they are saying we have a REAL storm coming through that could potentially double the amount we already have and then some.

We're fine huddled up in our home. We have plenty of provisions since we have learned to go to the the grocery store ahead of these predicted storms. We have plenty of de-icer to throw

down on the driveway and walks. With our rather steep driveway it is important to have the de-icer so we can drive down and back up the driveway if we did need to get out in the car.

I missed a day of subbing today as a result of the snow. All the schools in the area are closed for obvious reasons and I seriously doubt they will reopen tomorrow. So I guess I am done

subbing until we get back from our upcoming trip to Thailand. That ought to be a bit of an improvement on the weather here!

Here are some photos of what it looks like outside my windows.

By the way, I will be reporting from Thailand with photos and blog entries soon so check back for my reviews of our trip to this exotic place.

Pozole, Ah Caramba!

I have made my Pozole many times before but until this weekend I had never tried making it with pork. It has always been with the meat in the original recipe which was chicken, a nod, I am sure, to the lower calorie, more "good-for-you" nature of that meat.

But as I prepared this version of this delicious Latin stew I realized early in the process what I had been missing all this time. It's the pork!

We had some very good friends from Canada down for dinner last night and the consensus was that this stuff was amazing! We have more friends coming tonight to finish off the couple of gallons I made in my largest enameled dutch oven. I promised our friends I would post this recipe so here goes...

Quick Chicken Pozole
(Don't panic, the pork version is below)

Makes 3-4 servings

3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
1 teaspoon salad oil
1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch pieces
1 can (10 ounces) red enchilada sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
2 cups chicken broth
2 cans (15 ounces each) hominy (1 white, 1 yellow), rinsed and drained

For the garnish: lime wedges, chopped cilantro, sour cream, chunks of avocado, shredded lettuce, cheese and or chopped red onion

In a 3-4 quart pan combine garlic, onion, oregano and oil. Cook stirring often over medium-high heat until the onion is lightly browned. When the onion is browned, add the chicken pieces. Cook until browned. Add enchilada sauce and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer until chicken is tender and cooked through. Add hominy and reheat to simmering. Serve. Garnish!

In this version there are 362 calories per serving and 5.4 grams of fat. Good for you, right?

Now for the pork version. Replace the chicken for an equal amount of pork shoulder. Cut as much fat from the meat as you can to help the cause but remember that fat is where the flavor comes from so don't get too carried away!

I pre-heat the oil in a dutch oven. Toss in the pork chunks and let them caramelize. In another pan brown off the onion, garlic and oregano. Add that to the pork. Add the enchilada sauce and chicken broth. Use a good quality broth. Bring to a boil then lower to a simmer and cook until the pork chunks are tender. Add in the hominy and heat them through. Serve topped with your choice of garnishes.

Curried Brown Rice Chicken Salad

Oh, this salad is so good! It was served at a luncheon for the staff at my former school during my recent "re-employment". One of the student's mothers in my classroom brought this salad in and everyone raved about it.

She kindly gave me the recipe and I have made it several times since. In fact I am eating a small bowl of it as I write this.

So hear it is. You MUST try it. So simple and there are lots of options for how to prepare it. I have included a few possibilities at the end of the recipe.

2 cups of cooked long grain brown rice, cooled and tossed in a little oil
1/3 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup each celery, carrots, red pepper
1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley
1/3 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped roasted nuts

Dressing: whisk together

2-3 t sweet curry powder
1-2 T sweet or hot mango chutney (chopped if lumpy)
4 T (1/4 cup) mayonnaise
1-2 T vegetable oil
1/4 t salt
1/2 t black pepper

Toss all ingredients in a medium bowl with the rice. Pour dressing over mixture and toss until well blended.

Now for the options!

Add in 1 cup of cooked, chopped chicken. OR, 1 cup of cooked salad shrimp. OR, leave the meat out for a wonderful vegetarian salad. Try different veggies like cucumber, radish, cilantro instead of the parsley, etc. Try chopped, dried apricot pieces or dried cranberries instead of or with the raisins.

Try different types of nuts. Hazelenuts, almonds, cashews, walnuts. Get the idea? It all works with this salad. And did I mention it is SO good!

Bon appetit