I made promises. I am making good on them.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures
For back stories on these photos, please listen to the podcast, which can be found on Itunes or right here:




As for pictures:


The Rainy Day. These covers go the entire length of the school. You never have to walk in the rain... until you get to the bus stop.

I like the low angle of this pic

From the Salaya Market

Like shooting Fish in a barrel... If fish was rice

Fruit, all stacked like ducks in a row.

Organs. I generally avoid these.

Eggs by the... multi-dozen

Green bread implies some kind of added flavor. This lacked that, but was very delicious\

Some pictures of my school

One of the many wonderful ponds

The Architecture Building

Who Knew we had a gym?

My School Building!

There are fish in this pond. I look at them every morning.

Samphram Elephant Grounds and Zoo

The elephant pens. You can walk right up to them.

Krikey!

*Jaws Music

The family that has been so good to me

Monkey Looks Comfy

The Gator Show

We were chillin at the Magic show/ Elephant show

The Magician and his lovely assistant

Part of the show, which was very cool

There was a battle, complete with burning hut. Crazy. Blood Everywhere.

We Went to a Temple, it was awesome

The Roof was Blue Tile. Awesome.

The inside has the story of the temple.

The tablets are Buddhist writings

the inside of the dome... wow.

The sanctuary

A very big Buddha

The trucks are so colorful

Well, I hope that you enjoyed those pics from two weeks ago (sorry about that). It was a fun time for sure.

THIS is the 04 episode of the podcast. Pictures sometime

Here is the player




Follow the intructions on the right if you would rather download and listen on Itunes.

I talk about going to Pattaya, my day with my roommate Waymon and Prof Supatra (Waymon is on it too)going to a temple (tall), a palace (more like a mansion), and a floating market (a ton of food).

I interviewed Professor Supatra, and provide some closing audio which will make many of you jealous (except for the whole Spring Break thing).

Episode 04

Photos soon. Look over on the right side for instructions on downloading this to itunes (it will show up automatically whenever I upload - cool huh?)

I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Sleep now.

Opening The Blog and Podcast to Sponsors

Ladies and Gentlemen.
I am pleased to announce the opening of the althaitrip blog and podcast to sponsors. If you have an online business, I can post an ad on the right side of the blog (or make a special spot for you if you like) or announce your business on each podcast (I will make it sound good, I promise). Please post in the comments section or email me at althaitrippodblog@gmail.com for details.

For anyone else, I will, for the small fee of $5 per message, announce a shout out on the althaitrip.blogspot.com blog or podcast. I will say whatever you want as long as it does not contain profanity or things that are obviously offensive.

Help this guy upgrade equipment a small part at a time (and help to cover the near-approaching necessity to use an online subscription service for the podcast).

A Few Pictures. That's all. No pomp. No Circumstance (I think I butchered that).

I figured that I would take a few minutes to post some photos on the blog here. Tommorrow Diep and Ms. Panom (or PBeem - her nickname is not Nut, sorry), will be taking me to "The Rose Garden." There is an elephant show as well as a lot of other things.

There may be some pictures that have to do with each other (wouldn't that be new).

No more fun talk. Let's get down to viweing pleasure.

The "Pata" or Central Mall. It's Big. It's Legit.

They knew I was coming

OSHA would have a fit

Suprisingly, no loss of electricity yet. I wonder how on earth they add to this. I don't have pictures of it, but sometimes these are bundled together with some kind of metal wire and lashed to metal handrails. If you don't watch where you are walking, sometimes an electrical line will brush your head. It's a scary thing.

The moon looked cool as I got off of the bus one day. I think this picture is framed nicely, eh?

Valentines was celebrated here. I cleaned up in class. Still waiting to eat that Snickers.

Pbeem and Diep took me down Utthayan Road. I will do some more research on this road, but it was really cool.

The road was lined with these awesome light fixtures. It was cool seeing them all in a road.

a cool house on that road

There was a market going on there, complete with Thai Boxing (yeah, I wanted to see, but was not about to take the bus BACK out there at night). It looked to me like the Jockey Lot, mostly because every other little market springs up near bigger buildings, and this one was as close to middle of nowhere as it gets. in Nakhom Pathom.

So that's it. No more for now. Hope that these pictures enriched your lives tenfold.

P.S. I figured out how to make pictures better. Andrew for the Win!

the first installment of : Bangkok: some of the nicest grafitti around

As suggested by Waymon Cassell, I will be doing a somewhat regular post featuring a bunch of the street art (or graffiti) in Bangkok. These guys are really great; they use stencils.

It certainly beats some of the less than aesthetically pleasing messes found all over our places back in the states. Either you like them, or you don't. I do.

Found on the back side of a road sign over the Phra Pinklao bridge

Our favorite villian resides on a communications box on the Phra Pinklao

So, not really grafitti, but I like the unobtrusive way that they posted their address. It's there if you need to see it, but doesn't stand out obnoxiously.

new podcast episode.

next podcast episode.
It should update on Itunes soon, but if you are itching to hear the stuff, then here it is.

I have added some new little features, which should make it a bit more professional sounding.

My exciting day

Yesterday, I administered my first quiz. I have to work on my methods.

On the way home, I can either stop in Salaya and pick up a van, which will take me directly to the "central" (the giant mall to which I have alluded before), or I can go to Saphan Krungthorn on the 515 bus and pick up the 28.

Yesterday, I was hungry when I got off (I am trying to get my portions away from my usual giant meal to a more Thai-like portion), so I walked around one of the billion street market type areas. I will have to take more pictures of these; it's little cart after little cart of people cooking all manner of things; not just meat on a stick. You can get noodle bowls, fried chicken, fresh bread, ice cream, or anything that can be cooked in a wok.

It was definitely an enjoyable experience walking around; I picked up some Bi Bi Goa (yes, I ruined the word; it sounded like bar b q to me but was pork and some dumplings and veg over noodles with some broth), and was on my way to the van stop when I realized; I had no clue where the stinkin vans were! After walking a bit, I stopped to ask some students (they all wear uniforms, so they are easy to pick out - and speak pretty good english). I think that they told me to take the 542 bus, but i took the 547!

Not long in, I was seeing things that I had not seen before (although I was glad to have seen them), and asked the bus attendant. She promptly shooed me off the bus.

I have to say that I do love Thailand for this reason if for no other one.
When I asked one person how on earth to get to pin klao, the, y called someone for help. Then someone else came over. Pretty soon, there were 5 people debating how to get back. They even wrote (in thai and english) the name of the van.

By this time it was dark, which doesn't bother me (I am just usually pooped when I get home - I will be staying up later now that I am more settled), and I was out by the central mall.

I am very thankful to have been provided a job in a place where everyone is so helpful and friendly. I would not have gotten home on my own. The Thai people are wonderful.

Now let me say that during the day the place is full of food carts and street vendors and people eating everywhere.

At night, it's incredible how many people and how much food and how much stuff is happening there. It was awesome.

I had, however, resolved to wait on Waymon for that stuff, so I moved on (plus, I had some lukewarm dinner to nuke).

I do not have a camera that does good night pictures; maybe that will be something I procure soon. This place is completely different at night!

Anyway, allow me to post the pictures of dinner

If you buy stuff at the market, they will either put it into a bowl or plate (not disposeable; it's assumed that they wash them; very environmentally friendly) or into plastic bags. When they put it into plastic bags, it's like our sandwich bags at home, but they just rubber band the top and somehow leave a bunch of air in the bag. It looks like when you buy goldfish at the store! I think it's a good system. Those plastic bags will take much less space than styrofoam in the landfill.

it's more attractive when you unpack it.





Also, I will provide some bonus pictures from my bus stop yesterday. I will definitely get some more artistic ones sometime, but these give you an idea.

Front gate.

my bus stop. It looks far more "country" than it actually is.

This is the end of the line. It is easy for me to keep track. BTW the last stop is called Sood Sai. I tell them that, and then it costs 21 baht!