Yoga. Green curry. Pizza.

These are three of my faaaaa-vorite things. And while I normally do my best to incorporate them regularly into my life, last week I managed to get them all into a one-block radius.

1. I brought yoga to school in the form of a rotating class for our kindergarten sports block (not sure how it will progress, so stay tuned). See the first one-on-one session below (one student was sick and the other sleeping at the scheduled time). We turned the practice into a story that helped the poses flow. The main character was a dog who liked to look at trees, climb mountains, observe cobras/eagles/etc and eat pretzels for a snack (enter seated spinal twist a.k.a the yoga pretzel).

This girl is already a pro.

2. Sam and I tried out a new restaurant near school for a great happy hour deal and got the owner to give us a discount on food so we opted for this green curry chicken pizza. Quite possibly the best decision of the month.

It was just SO good.

Love you!

Postcards + Packages

This weekend was a throwback to the days of care packages and letters at summer camp. We were doubly lucky to get a sweet note from Dan, Bea and Eneko and some specialty candies (read: Twizzlers) from Jon, Sarah and Anna - all in the span of 12 hours! Thank you for being so sweet (pun intended).

Great memories from d+b 2007 with this postcard!

One word: candy.

In addition to these special deliveries, we had a wonderful weekend exploring new parts of the city and relishing in the comfort of home. On Friday, we wandered to embassy row and rang the doorbell of JUSMAG, the Joint United States Military Advisory Group Thailand. After having our photo taken by the security cameras, going through some steel doors and putting our names on a list, we were transported to a land of free popcorn, cheap beer (tax free because it's technically US soil) and grandma's dining room furniture. I didn't want to cause a security breach, so rather than take photos, I indulged in ฿50 Miller Lite bottles.

To end the weekend, we found a gorgeous rooftop restaurant which gives an amazing 360-degree view of the city and bird's eye look at our neighborhood.

Loving our city.

After our Sunday stroll, we came home to watch a lovely sunset and be serenaded by The Beach Boys courtesy of a man called Taxi, who is apparently the former face of Marlboro in Australia. Yes, he lives in our building and no, I haven't seen the evidence but have heard several confirmed reports.

My favorite time of day.

It's here that I wanted to show the juxtaposition of life in Bangkok. We have this sprawling urban metropolis as far as the eye can see and directly below are the people who make it happen. Many migrant laborers from Myanmar and Cambodia live right outside our building in these tin-roofed, dorm-like structures. An attempt to comment on this contrast tends to leave me speechless as I contemplate the similarities: we're all immigrants here, we walk on the same streets and buy vegetables at the same stalls, beer at the same corner store. But at the same time our lives couldn't seem more different.

The varied worlds of BKK.

Koh Samet: A Quick Trip to the Beach

We finally made it to the highly praised and popular weekend getaway from Bangkok: Koh Samet. An island off the eastern seaboard in the Gulf of Thailand, it's about a 3-hour drive from Bangkok to the pier and a 30-minute ferry or 15-minute speedboat ride to the island itself. It's risky to take a beach trip during rainy season, but we got lucky on Saturday and had a wonderful day being lazy in the sun. Sunday was overcast so we had breakfast on the beach and came home to finish the weekend in sunny Bangkok and prep for the new week ahead.

A very rainy drive to begin with.

We left Friday from work at 3:30pm, hopped into a minivan and drove away in what was a surprisingly smooth departure. 3 hours and 160baht later, we arrived in Rayong city where we planned to spend the night. We wandered around the vicinity of our hotel which was just like any other Thai town - lots of street food, minimarts, karaoke clubs, salons and plenty of dogs and cats to keep you company along the way.

View from our hotel in Rayong City.

We got up early to enjoy the hotel breakfast and made the journey to the pier where we had been instructed to "go to the right." If you go to the left pier, they charge you double and put you on a boat that drives around to the right pier and puts you on the same boat you would have boarded if you went right to begin with. Oh, how I love tourist scams.

Seen at the ferry pier.

We are at the little blue dot in the
bottom right corner.

Here are some photos from our quick first trip there. We're hoping to visit again soon and see more of what the island and surrounding area has to offer. Cheers!

Taking a walk on the island.

I love the beach.

Wrestling ring at the Naga Bar.

Supply delivery to the beach (water/beer) from the speedboat.

Sleeping beauty and his new best bud.

Fresh coconut is so wonderful!

Candlelight barracuda BBQ on the beach.

Elephant Polo

The minute I heard there would be an elephant polo tournament in Bangkok, I had my mind set on attending. Having never witnessed a traditional polo match, I fully intended to have no idea what was going on, but just looked forward to seeing a bunch of elephants play around.

Cheeky elephants.

Due to the match being scheduled in the height of rainy season, it was of course raining all weekend for the tournament. Everyone came away with muddy shoes and legs, having drank more than expected as we sought shelter in the booze tents and without getting to actually see them play a game. The rain drove all scheduled matches to be decided by shoot-outs, which were sometimes exciting, but mostly painstakingly slow as the 'players' were quite unaccustomed to playing their sport on an elephant and took quite a long time to adjust their shots.

Buddies.

Each elephant has a mahout, trainer, who guides the elephant and in this case uses the prodder to get them to perform. The tournament claims to be benefiting elephants in Thailand and chooses elephants that would otherwise work in camps or on the street and provides them medical care and decent wages for the mahout. The tournament also claims not to force elephants to play - the thought is that most elephants like to play games and many catch on. Those that resist and seem unhappy are supposedly taken out without a problem. Again, we didn't have an opportunity to watch a game, so I can't speak too much about how that all works.

When in Rome...

At the end of the day, it was a nice adventure to the outskirts of town and I'm glad we were able to go. Not sure I'd be too concerned with going again, but maybe I just need to learn more about it all.
Here's a link to the tournament page: http://www.anantaraelephantpolo.com/ and here are some more photos from the day. Cheers!

This sums up my life here pretty nicely.

Behind the scenes.

Elephant polo strategy session.

Getting on the field.

Representative of H.M. the King (yellow is the King's color).

An elephant buffet.

I wonder what's going through all of their minds.

I could watch elephants for hours.

This Week's Inspiration

I heard this quote yesterday and really felt it ring true for me. I was at yoga, feeling strong and ready to face anything the world could offer. It was a beautiful moment. Now I'll share it with you and hope it inspires you to remember to believe in yourself, too!

A bird sitting in a tree is 

never afraid of the branch breaking 

because its trust is not on the branch 

but on its own wings.

How convenient.
Some cute bird street art from our neighborhood.