Adventures in Lifestyle Design from a Path Less Traveled
Travel Around Thailand 2 – More Preparation
Life has been pretty crazy the past few weeks. I’ve been struggling to finish up some writing commitments and I’ve barely had any time to work on my own projects. But things are cooling down now and before we leave next week (!) I just need to do as much last-minute work on my own websites as I can.
Anyway, this post isn’t about IM stuff though, so I should cut it out.
My trip to Thailand is creeping up fast and I’m starting to feel a little under-prepared. Thankfully I learned Thai numbers on Thursday, so now I feel at least somewhat prepared to handle buying things.
On Sunday my girlfriend and I went to a Thai wat (temple) in Auburn, Washington. Some people from the Seattle Thai Meetup invited us to come for Thai language classes. After a few weeks of casually flipping through self-made flash cards, I’ve managed to get the the point where I can sort of fumble through reading words. Don’t get me wrong, I still suck. I have no clue what the things I’m reading mean, but I can sort of read it. This at least gives me the feeling that I have some kind of power to handle things (sort of like reading katakana in Japanese).
Overall, the wat was very big and it looked more traditional than the kind of thing you’d expect to find in a place like Auburn (no offense to any Auburnites out there).
Afterward we learned about an informal dinner gathering that was happening that night at some other members’ house. We had to improvise a dessert to bring since we only had 2 hours to prepare. We stopped by Uwajimaya, a local Asian grocery store chain and picked up some exotic fruits. Mango, star fruit, and a durian.
The size and prickly-ness of the durian intimidated my girlfriend, but I thought it would be too much fun not to do it. We took it home and cut it open on some newspaper. Definitely one of the more memorable things we’ve done lately. Personally, I was disappointed by how mild the taste was, but I guess they have to freeze these things and transport them to the US, so a lot of the flavor is lost. Maybe a fresh durian will live up to the taste (and smell) I’ve heard about.
Anyway, in one week, I’ll be up in the air en-route to Asia. Good grief, I’m getting nervous here! This will be fun though.
Other Popular Posts:
Comments
Leave a Reply
Hey Clayton,
Didn’t know your side has Durian too. One of my favourite fruits and it’s great. Seems you are having a lot of fun learning the new languages. cool
Cheers
Javier
@Javier, We can get stuff like durians on the west coast where there’s a big Asian population (especially in cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles), but in places like Kansas or Arizona, probably not…
They had to freeze the durian to import it over here. I’ll have to try a fresh one in Asia!
Yeah, I’m a bit of a language geek. I think learning new language is loads of fun!
I also remember durians were banned on the trains in Singapore – big signs. A friend here in Auckland who grew up in Singapore also had a fondness for them but the imported ones are not as tasty apparently. Enjoy the preparation and anticipation.
@Harry, Yeah, my girlfriend read that the other day. It’s kind of a strange law, but when you consider how potentially dangerous they could be it makes sense.