July 3, 2010

Went for a walk this morning in nearby Benjakiti Park. There is a large pond with running and cycling tracks all around. Incredibly humid this morning – it was like it was raining, but it wasn’t. The park is on a very busy street with skyscrapers all around. According to the sign, the land was originally the site of a large tobacco processing plant, but was turned into a park in 2006 to provide "the refreshments" to residents in the neighborhood.

Bangkok is not like any American city – it is definitely like nowhere else – but if I had to pick, I would say it most resembles Houston. The coastal setting. The flatness. The heat and humidity. The lushness of the plants and flowers. The modern skyscrapers and high-rise apartment buildings. The dedication to commerce. But even Houston’s traffic can’t compete with the traffic here in Bangkok.



Took the Skytrain back to Siam Square today. Needed to buy a few things, but also wanted to get out of the heat and humidity. Shopping malls are incredibly popular here – probably because of the free air conditioning. The Siam Square station links four separate malls, including Central World – the mall that was burned during the recent political protests. They’ve done a good job of putting up scrims and billboards to hide the destruction, and they are working hard to rebuild quickly.

After a few hours of shopping and hearing Rihanna playing over and over, my blood sugar was low and I was hungry and cranky. So, I caved and ended up at Au Bon Pain. Just didn’t have the energy to wrestle with another menu that I couldn’t read. But, it was worth it just to hear the Thai cashier say “chicken salsa wrap.” Priceless.

Had my first Thai language lesson this afternoon. My instructor’s name is Kamonwan Roemjaroen, but she goes by “Noon.” When we were exchanging emails to set up a time to meet, I had to chuckle each time I wrote “Hi Noon.” Learning Thai will be a real challenge – it’s a tonal language like Chinese, and words mean different things based on the tone you use when you say them. And some of their sounds are ones that Americans don’t learn to say. I don’t expect to master the language and I’m not even going to attempt to learn to write it. But I would like to be able to conduct basic conversations. So, we stuck to the basics like Hello, Thank You, Excuse Me, How Much? Where Is The Toilet? etc. It will be tough, but an interesting challenge.