spent a great few days in Bangkok ... fantastic city with great food, wonderful people and beautiful scenery. here are a few things i learned during the short time we were there...



-- there is a fine line between massage and torture

-- the food there IS as good as you imagine it would be

-- ping pong ball shows don't necessarily involve paddles

-- no ... i DONT want to buy something

-- when they say spicy ... they mean it

-- no ... i STILL don't want to buy something

we learned an important lesson this week ... check your rice closely before you stick it in the pot.

we have noticed an increasing number of moths flying around the kitchen recently ... we began to zero in on the source, as most of them were flying around the food cabinet. getting tired of constantly smashing moths everywhere, we decided to do a mass inspection of our dry food. after combing through cereal, crackers, beer boxes, etc., we came to a few boxes of rice & grits. bingo. moths & moth-worm-babies all over the inside of the boxes. as the ladies man would say ... "now thats disgustin'"

lets just say we'll be inspecting and bagging dry food from now on

Spotted by Harmony the other day ...

Man on moped ... swerving through traffic ... woman on back ... talking on mobile phone ... baby sitting on her lap ... breast feeding

yeap

last weekend was our 5th anniversary, so we decided to go somewhere ... found a good deal to go to singapore ... sounded nice so off we went ... had no idea it so far away. five hours after takeoff we landed about 100 miles north of the equator in a bizzaroworld ... an odd mixture of the US and tropical SE Asia ... singapore was great ... very diverse country/city so food was great ... indian, chinese, thai, etc. the people were great ... must be the nicest cab drivers in the world ... always seemed to be chatty old men ..we wanted to put them in our pockets and bring them home. hotel was fantastic ... surrounded by tropical gardens ... walking distance to downtown. great relaxing weekend

so we were given a package of Jellyfish today ... its a popular local food, so we were told we should try it ... what follows is the english language description on the package ... i have not altered it in any way......

The jiuxianfang instant jellyfish is precisely made with the traditionary craft and the advanced technique. Only we can keep the jellyfish's unique refreshing and crisp, and tender and smooth natural taste of11y! Our produ it's own successfuct contains indispensable trace elements, iodine, iron and calcium to human being. It is eatable directly, and it is highgrade health care in the cafe or in the family meal.

there is a whole new area next to our apartment building that is going to house restaurants, retail, etc ... first store just put its sign up ... looks to be called 'ma' ... look 'ma' up in the chinese dictionary and it can mean one of several things depending on the tone you pronounce it in ... could mean 'mother', 'horse', 'scold' or 'marijuana' ... wondering what kind of store this is gonna be ... i'll be sure to let you know

happy 4th everyone!

traveled to Beijing for the first time over the weekend ... meetings on Saturday while Harmony explored town ... had time to walk the Great Wall on Sunday ... it was .... er ... great! weather was sunny & 90 ... lots of steps ... amazing views ... centuries of history.

lunch today was an experience ... started off with eel and moved to turtle soup ... there were literally chunks of turtle in my bowl ... i kid you not ... fished out an entire turtle leg complete with little turtle claws.

one of my favorite times of the day is the drive into work ... shanghai at 7:00 am is full of morning markets, guys cleaning & gutting fish and construction workers slurping down noodles before headin up 60 stories to build another one ... something I find really cool is the morning exercises you see people doing ... tai chi, dancing, stretching & singing ... its really fun to watch. my favorite ... and what must be the most obscure ... walking backwards. i kid you not ... many people like to get up early and go for a stroll down the sidewalk ... backwards. i love it

well ... things have been going in fast forward lately ... finshed my class before the end of the year ... now starting a new one .... Christmas came & went ... friends Craig & Renee came to visit ... spent a week in southern Spain with them ... now enjoying a breath of warm spring air ... in January.

we look forward to our friends Chuck & Beth coming out in Feb ... planning to drink some beer and show them some sights ... will take some time off and do some traveling through the spring ... not sure how much longer we'll be here, so have to take advantage of the time we have.

i don't have the patience to write a few thousand words right now ... and since a picture is worth as much, i figured i would give you an update that way ... cheers, t



Christmas in Germany





Seville, Spain





Grenada, Spain





Gibralter





Tangier, Morocco





Ronda, Spain





New Year's Eve in Wiesbaden





Saturday in Colmar, France