Bangkok, Seoul, Honolulu... WHERE am I?

Going to Bangkok's weekend Chatuchak Market wa a piece of cake on the Sky Train, but on the way (you go though and to malls for EVERYTHING in Bangkok) I passed this incredible line that went back into the stores in the next aisle for Auntie Anne's pretzels, the very same pretzels that are sold in Suburban Station in Philadelphia.  Yes, despite the fact that Seoul's Starbuck's IS written in Korean, globalization has taken over and in far too many cases, eradicated the culture that made cities tourist ready.  Now, we all may as well just tumble on down to the local mall (airport if you want upscale) for the global tourist experience!  I mean, do I really want to buy Ferragamo, Coach and Prado when I'm in Bangkok?

So, here is just the edge of the market from the Sky Train's Mo Chit stop;  as I wedged my way down the stairs, trying to push along with the crowd, I noticed a cute German family, mother holding younger child who was holding a raggedy looking stuffed animal.  By the time we all got to the sidewalk, the little boy AND his older brother were both throwing up all over the road...  I dreaded taking those stairs back up to the train!

The market was swarming with people and stuffed with foods, clothes, art, geegaws, etc...  Here are some shrimp, spilling over the table, and then there were the weensy puppies for sale below.  The man selling the pups waved his arms at me in anger when he saw me trying to take a picture of these puppy-milled dogs.  I should have called the SPCA - or PITA!!

Just as I was getting overwhelmed and tired, the rain began to pelt down on the booths and ALL the sellers were dragging their goods inside; meanwhile, the hoards of shoppers had to find cover inside under the steaming tarps, crammed in amongst the sale items.  These two sellers took advantage of the rain to wash their sticky hands.

I was happy that I didn't have to worry anymore about the streets because the rain had washed away all residue of sick children.  When I got to the Siam stop, these youngers were out on the sidewalk, playing their ethnic instruments.

We had a whole day before our plane left at 1 a.m., so several of us went to the movies and saw Red 2, which I suppose is the second movie with these terrific characters.  I must say that we laughed our way through the endless shoot-em-ups and one liners of the all-star cast, and I would see it again in a heart-beat.  Before the movie begins, however, all stand for the playing of the national anthem with sappy photos of the king in acts of compassion and his people in acts of adoration...

Finally back to Bangkok airport where this fellow who is NOT Rama stands atop a display of the longest naga with more rowing sailors on a tumultuous sea - quite a sight!

Once we got to Seoul and checked into our Transit Hotel, I nipped back down through security and customs and caught he FREE tour into the city where we stopped at a temple, saw the big palace, ate lunch and were back by 3.  Here is the first bridge over the Han River.

And these are the soul-less apartment buildings on the way to the city...

Once we got in the city, I noticed these peculiar buildings built with these creases in them.  Odd.

We went to a beautiful green and blue temple (can anyone tell me WHY Korean temples are blues and greens?) out of which came beautiful choral music, harmonies and piano back up.  I'd never experienced that in a temple before, and a woman I got to know on the tour said that in Thailand they don't have three enormous Buddhas perched at the altar; there is always only ONE big one.  She'd never seen three big Buddhas together at a temple before, so this was either an anomaly of a Buddhist temple, or Korean just has a different celebration system.  

The palace was on a grand scale, and this was one of the center pieces in one of the earliest halls, all of which seemed to go on forever.  The building below, I believe, was a building for festivals and parties; my Thai friends photographed me in front of it; you can see that I wear my "travel pants," batik pants I bought in Penang that my colleagues all called my pajamas.  I have to take a sweater with me wherever I go because the air conditioning is SO cold that I need it~

This little fellow was wearing a Chicago Bulls shirt, all written in Korean on the front, but the back had this.  He tried to tell me that this was Michael Jordan's number, but he had no idea WHAT the "FAITH" meant...

J-shaped ice cream cones?  It makes absolute sense!  Nothing can drop out of the bottom, and you have two ends to lick!!

This is the rule in Korea about liquids on board the plane:  "Liquids on board the aircraft can not enter with."  Just one of those things that had to be said.  And had to be said in this way!!!

Do you think I was a little delighted to see the green of the Hawaiian shores?  Oh, yes!  I even splurged and changed my flight home so that I can get there one day early.  Over 5 weeks away is too, too long when I am traveling with people I don't know, and probably too long - if not longer - with people I know!!

Welcome home~!

Phuket old city and a cuckoo day

This was was a delightfully wacky day because we had a guide who was a Nonya, second generation Chinese-Thai with a husband FROM BANGKOK who kept declaring he was Chinese, NOT Peranakan.  We went first to Phuket Thaihua Museum, which we were really getting into when our guide arrived, unable to climb the stairs because she had taken a fall in her kitchen and was in a back brace - albeit covered by her Nonya attire, a sarong, topped by a kobaya.  This bat is carved into the top of the museum - a sign of good fortune.  Looked kind of spooky to me.  As we wandered through, we came to a sign that identified one text of the Ramayana and later one Lu Xun's Ah Q was indicated with a sign and a copy of the text, one that had been used in the Chinese school established in the building which had been used as one of the Chinese Associations and a school. 

Here is our energetic, quirky guide telling us some story or other about the Chinese heritage in Phuket.

On the left of our guide is a young women who recognized me from the international conference in Penang where we both were two years ago!  She was a lovely woman who had a father who is a batik artist, about which you will learn if you read on...  Tantalizing, isn't it?

This is a photograph of the head of the Chinese School, and he REQUIRED that the students study music.  I think he really GOT it because those kids performed for outsiders and earned money for the school - precisely what I've been arguing about Community College of Philadelphia for years!  If we REQUIRED all males to sign in chorus, we'd have a whiz bang choir we could show-case in the city and beyond; I just KNOW it, and it would also help keep some of our students IN school and engaged in something beyond their neighborhood violence and hanging out.

This is an example of the old French architecture in the old city.

She nipped us into a typical Chinese shophouse that had been remade into a flower shop; these flowers were used by Chinese women to poison their husbands.  Just saying...

This little display to a goddess demonstrates "the right way" of doing things, as our guide assured us the owner of the flower shop understood and did.

This little girl was playing hookey outside her schoolyard where all her classmates were lining up.  There must be a story here.

This is a temple/wat where people were readying for a festival.  Outside were the "Sea Gypsies," about whom our guide warned us over and over again even though they make up less than 1% of the population; she was terribly disgruntled about their asking for money and not doing any work.

This is was temple, the name of which I forget.

These sweets were made from egg yolks, something introduced by the French, as the Thais had not used them for baking before; the sweets are called "tang" something because "tang" means gold.  We bought some sweets from this shop owner whom our guide called "Miss Universe."  

And the two of them posed as though they WERE Miss Universes!

You know how I am about doors, but look at the stenciling or hand painting along the edges...

This funky white circular structure is a symbol of tin mining, and Niche, my friend form Penang conference, said as children they all used to play around it.

This white mask is the sign of "red" protesters who come out in droves on Sundays to protest against the "yellow" government; our guide assured us - sotto voce - that IF the reds take over the country, Thailand is doomed.  It will be the complete ruin of the country, she claims.

This is the view out to the sea where the ships come in and out, and our guide's father used to go out to sea every morning at the same time, no matter what the tide was doing.  We never did get what the hell he DID out there every morning....

Here is an altar to the goddess Mala Po, the same god that the Vietnamese call Tien He, goddess of the sea who kept the Chinese safe on their journey to their new land.  When the Chinese arrived in Malacca, the best half of them (?) went to Penang or Singapore; the second shift had to settle for second best: Phuket or somewhere in Indonesia.

The offerings to the goddess have to be ORANGE so that they are gold; in Vietnam we saw loads of Coke cans offered, but here we saw Fanta because it is orange.  

Here is our proud Peranakan in her frangipani, and she told us that women who wear them on the left side are single; the right side is if you are married.  If you wear the flower on TOP of your head, it means you are available!

At one point our guide said she wanted us to see an old, old shophouse that had not been updated for 100 years, and she paraded us all into the living space of these people who turned out to be HER OWN relatives; she kept saying nasty things like, "Have you ever seen anything so old fashioned?"  "Can you believe how backward these people are?"

At LEAST they had a television - AND an antenna!

Here she is settling right down in the kitchen.

And she was saying all these dreadful things right in front of her relatives, but they clearly had no clue what she was saying because they spoke no English; instead, they looked half stunned, half demented as she carried on and on...  These were the beds, hard flat, raised surfaces with mosquito netting - right in the living room; God only knows what was up the long, long stairs to the second floor, up which we saw one half dressed man skitter from the bath.

THis photo is for Oona because I ran into this glass door, banging my head and marking the glass with the lotion on my nose.  I just wanted her to see that OTHER people DO walk through glass doors...

This was a temple where guide told us about the system for praying for a son who had to travel long distances to make his fortune.  

These pictures on the wall come from a Chinese "novel," she told us but couldn't come up with the NAME of that novel when I asked her.  I will email and ask her...

We went to the Blue Elephant for lunch, a luxurious Thai restaurant that seems to have branches in Bangkok, Dubai, London, 

Brussels, ets... Below are the elephant napkins and list of locations.

Attached is a cooking school to which only one person was attending this afternoon, a nice fellow named Jason from Kansa City.  Afterwards, he got to eat all the food he had prepared and was determined to eat it ALL.

 Here he sits with proud and a big appetite although he did offer me a "golden bag."

 This is the gigantic house where the restaurant and cooking school are located, and the house had been rented for 40 years with no upkeep; when Kim and his family bought it, they had to renovate the whole thing, and they've done an extraordinary job.  Below are the original Italian tile floors, still there and in tact.

Next door is the Chimpraca House, another mansion that serves as a museum, the second floor of which is the only one maintained.  A house has been built right in front of the place, so it is not longer visible from the road.  Several of us went in; I only posed for a photo behind this poster.  You will have to turn your computer sideways because I forgot to change the direction of the photo before I loaded it; check out the hands...  THIS is the reason I was sent to "Charm School," but I never did quite get the knack.  My mother would have LOVED it if I had!

This funny flower has a most incredibly delicious aroma despite its scruffy appearance.

Finally we went to see Niche's father's studio which had this batik hanging in the front window; I and my roommate immediately coveted it and tried to buy it, but he claimed that he needed to take it to a exhibition where he would sell it - probably for more than the $50 he was asking for it.

He is an unbelievable artist who earns his living making the traditional, predictable batik shirts, dresses, skirts, etc..., but what he LOVES to do is make art with his talent and his craft.  What joy to see someone so engaged in his artistry that he can continue to grow and create while still earning a living!  I wish I knew where that exhibition was going to be!