I Ate Jellyfish This Week

In my first weeks here I tried desperately to fill every waking moment of my weekends with sightseeing. Now that work is in full swing and I have been here nearly two months, my desire to relax has overtaken my desire to maximize my potential as a tourist. So, I've spent the past two weekends in Bangkok, traveling no further than the National Stadium skytrain stop (not even twenty minutes from my stop, Ekamai).

(Walking down from the National Stadium BTS stop to the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center)

Last weekend my roommates decided to go with some other coworkers to see the Emerald Buddha. I didn't really care too much about seeing the Emerald Buddha again so soon. I'll go back to the Grand Palace if I have visitors, but until then I'd rather not face the crowds and the obnoxious people trying to scam me. So, I decided to head to the Siam area to shop a bit. Siam is one of the main shopping centers in Bangkok. You can find the Siam Paragon (luxury), MBK (more like an indoor market with tons of super cheap stalls), and the Siam Center and Siam Discovery (geared to the young adult/teen set). Outside of the shopping malls you can find a ton of small stalls and boutiques selling clothes and shoes for a fraction of the price (and the quality) of what you can find inside. As I was planning on buying a jacket I realized that I had only 120 baht on me... about $4. Although that is more than enough to buy some things they have for sale, I decided to save my money and come back another day.

At this point I was hot and tired from walking and decided to search for a cheaper, air conditioned activity. I've become enamored with the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center and it's located right across the street from all those malls, so I decided to pay it a visit. When heading up the escalators to the floors with galleries, I was sidetracked by the 14th Thai Short Film and Video Festival. Fortunately for me, I had arrived right at the beginning of a session and was able to see five of the entrants in the competition. The first film I saw was an Indian film called "Vilay" (Umesh Kulkarni). I was not impressed and pondering sneaking out of the theater when the German film "Times Up" (Marie-Catherine Theiler, Jan Peters) began. This film had more of a point to it and I enjoyed it a bit more. The last three films were really great, making the whole thing very much worthwhile. The third and fourth films were Spanish: "A Box of Buttons" (Maria Reyes Arias) and "Voltereta" (Alexis Morante). The final film was Finnish, "Over the Fence" (Hamy Ramezan), it was the longest and darkest but also very good. I just went and checked the film festival website and found out the winner of their international competition-- Vilay-- the one I couldn't stand! Apparently we have different taste. For the ones I've linked you should be able to download the movies if you are interested. Voltereta will bring a smile to your face. While I didn't end up looking at any of the galleries last week, I actually ended up there yesterday for a little bit and was able to explore. If it's free and convenient, there is no reason why I shouldn't go there frequently!

Also last weekend, I nearly went to see a Thai boxing match. Ultimately, I ended up spending an hour outside of a muay thai stadium, waiting for a friend from Chicago and some of his traveling buddies. They all got stuck in terrible traffic and by the time they arrived none of us had any desire to spend $60 to see only half of the show. On the bright side, I spent a good deal of time talking to the promoters at the area and now will have a better idea of what to expect when I DO go. In lieu of muay thai, we went out for cheap (read: under $4) all-you-can eat barbecue buffet. This was pretty fun. We got to choose from a huge array of premarinated meats and fill our plates with appetizers, veggies, and sauces.


Then we cooked them on this thing:


You grill your meat on the top and throw the veggies into the moat surrounding the grill. That "moat" is actually soup that you eat as well. Though I ate mostly chicken and beef, I also grilled up some jellyfish. Very chewy and salty. There are tons of similar barbecues in Bangkok, many of them are much nicer than this one and charge you an arm and a leg (read: $10-15). Honestly though, as long as the food is good and the place is clean, I see no reason not to go to the cheap option!

Yesterday I went with my roommates to an expat fair. The expat fair was a bunch of booths set up in a hospital conference room. We got many free samples of food and oodles of brochures. There were representatives from schools, insurance companies, banks, restaurants, social groups, tour services, and other organizations of note for recently arrived expats. I didn't find it to be as helpful as I would were I 20 years older, but I'm still glad I went. I may try and get involved in Bangkok community theater if I can manage to fit it into my schedule. The people were nice and encouraging, so we'll see if it pans out. As there are no auditions till January, I'm thinking of trying out an international choir in the meantime. (Aren't you pleased, mom?).

The last exciting thing that I've done was the California Wow mini-marathon. This morning, I woke up before five in order to make it to Lumpini Park to pick up our t-shirts and bags. The race began at six am. When my roommate advertised this race to me, she told me it started at 4:30am to beat the heat. I thought that this was so ridiculous that I had to participate. It turns out that just registration opened at 4:30 am, but still 6 is earlier than any other race I've done! Apparently they do actually have other races that start that early, and another one in October that is done at midnight. It's just too hot in the day to do it any later. Also, the park is already getting crowded by 6, making it difficult to run. I ended up running the 5k... which you were supposed to walk... so I was one of the first people done. They looked at me kinda weirdly, but handed over my prize for participating-- a medal and what appears to be a voucher for a free head and neck massage! The letter is half in Thai, but I figure I'll show up at the place and figure it out. I'm not passing up a free massage.

Finally, I'm starting to plan a trip for my vacation next month. Right now, it looks like I'll be heading with one of my roommates to Vietnam! I'm kinda leaning towards doing just the north, she wants to do north and south... not sure how to fit than into seven days. If you have been to Vietnam and have any comments about what the must-sees are, I would really love it if you could send me an email! I want to buy plane tickets soon and we need all the advice we can get!