Raising a family in Thailand // Documenting Issan food, culture, music, and people
Mina and I saw this place from the mall across the street and wanted to go thrifting. After talking about it in the mall for a couple hours, she looked it up and it turned out to be a bar, which was pretty disappointing. In retrospect, the RED HOT POLE DANCE STRIPPER advertised in the window may have been a clue.
Sitting on a fence post in front of our house, soaking up the sun.
This is a solar-lighted walking path at my university. I’m very happy they renewed them, since the old ones were not lighted and were a constant tetanus hazard, but, this type of shoddiness really bothers me. I’m pretty sure they will wither leave it as is or attempt a cosmetic fix, but I will check again soon to see if they’ve done anything.
The reason this bothers me is that I’ve seen the result of an improperly support column coming loose from its anchors. It killed some unlucky guy buying groceries and injured several others at a covered market right near our house, during a fierce windstorm. The support columns were pulled completely out by the wind, and the roof they supported acted as a sail and carried the entire steel and plexiglass structure into the adjacent highway. The structure was actually shaped just like this – just a long roof supported on one side, but on a much larger scale.
I took this photo in an open area of my university in January, but it feels so long ago… It’s hot season now. The temp yesterday got up to 41C, and it was miserable being outside. Today it’s supposed to rain and it feels a bit cooler.
I bought this off a retiring colleague a couple years ago and used it a few times. The last time I tried, though, it was broken. This amp actually sounds pretty good, so I want to get it repaired. The crusty tinker shops that used to fix this kind of thing are scarce now, so I need to keep my eye open for somewhere that can do it cheaply.
“Potak” apparently means “shipwreck,” although I haven’t confirmed it beyond a Google search.
This may be considered a variant of Tom Yum Goong, although it really depends on who’s making it. Some online recipes describe it as Tom Yum soup with nam phrik pao (roasted chili paste) added, but every version I’ve had has been much more than that – some are more sour, some have a pinkish stock, some are clear, and some, as above, are packed with herbs. Either way, when we find versions we like, they are usually superior to Tom Yum Goong (which also comes in many versions, the most popular overseas version being the creamy style with coconut milk). Just looking at this photo makes my mouth water with anticipated sour garlic spice explosions – we will visit this place (near Nam’s uni) again, soon.
When we built our house in Thailand 17 years ago, we had a Japanese-style name plate carved in granite. When we were thinking of selling our house and moving back to the states last year after the floods, we painted it it over and put an artsy plastic address number over it. Then, when we decided not to move back after all, I eventually scraped all the paint off it… No harm, no foul, I guess.
These particular fields (next to a needle shop and art village) have lain fallow for so long, I’m not sure if there’s actually any rice left.
They were nice enough to put a nappy on it.
This is most entertaining for at least 15 seconds: Viola the Bird (Google Labs Experiment)
