I'm finally home, but I've had a little flu plus some serious jetlag recovering to do (lots of sleeping). I started this post yesterday, and am now finishing it up at 6am (which is the time I woke up). I got back Sunday afternoon, and I have been so very cold. IT'S UNBEARABLE, especially since sometimes we keep the heater off to save money. Which makes me wonder if feeling hot or cold is partly psychological. What if I keep telling myself, "I'm not cold, I'm not cold, really I'm not cold.." could I train myself to adapt to colder temperatures?

Alright onto the pictures. I figure I'm allowed a large picture post this once without feeling too guilty or self-centered.




 

This is the most clear recent picture I could find of all three my cousins plus my aunt. From left to right: Tuff (Fai's boyfriend), Fai wearing black (youngest cousin who's turning 18 this December), Moss who is the boy in the pink shirt (19-year old cousin), Prae is the girl in the black-and-white headband (20-year-old cousin), and Aunt Ampha (far-right woman with gold necklace). No idea who those three kids are. Uncle Ming I have nearly zero pictures of as he's never really around (like my dad), but he basically looks like your average Chinese guy.



Homer and me. THE CUTEST PUPPY EVER. He was only 3 months old. Oh gosh. I was so addicted to him. Here is more photos of Homer.


Poor puppy. It looks like I'm squishing him, but he was so tiny. He was fine I promise. I think.


Sleeping Homer with his little sailor shirt.




Awww puppy!!


I don't think his eyes were blue. I'm thinking they were black and just reflected light a lot or something.


About the second week I was there, it was some kind of Thai holiday. So we took these round things (from some kind of plant... I'd look it up for you, but I'm being lazy).


We wrapped banana leaves (if I remember correctly) around them along with pinning flowers to them. Since Fai, Fai's boyfriend Tuff, and I decided to make them ourselves we thought it would turn out pretty pathetic. To our surprise however, we were pleased with our creations. This one is mine.


Side. You can see the candle along with a few incense sticks stuck on top of it.


This one is Fai's.


Side.


This one is Tuff's.


Side.


These ones are more professionally done by people selling them on the streets by the temples.










After entering the temple.


Fireworks for sale just inside the entrance of the temple.


The view inside.


Selling stuff.


We stick these into our floaty flower things.


Tuff and 2/3 of me.


"Uh.... are you taking the picture? Hurry up these spark things are gonna get me."


Once it's lit, you put it in the river, make a wish, and watch it float away (along with a ton of other people's).


This is what the sky (all over Chiang Mai!!!) looked like, and you're about to see why.


"What's goin' on?" I think.


Some Japanese family lighting their whatever-it's-called-again.


A lot of people are doing this. It was crowded.


We light ours with the help of a Buddhist monk.


As you can see. We hold it down to the ground so that it gains momentum.


And into the sky it goes. Ours actually went into the sky pretty far and fast, which is supposed to be a good thing.


Bursts of firework fall out of it. A little bit scary.


Afterward we get a snack. Some kind of crape-thing wrapped up, I'm not sure how Thai it is. I seriously have all my Asian foods/culture aspects mixed up, I often forget what's Thai or what's Chinese or sometimes even what's American. Fai and Tuff were telling me the name of everything, but I've forgotten all of that by now. I could've done a better job of remembering if I wanted, but I was still too busy constantly psychoanalyzing everything. "How can this idea contribute to my benefit? How can I better live in the moment? How can the creation of this crape symbolize how I create my life? Do I create my life? Do I allow it to be created?" I've gone in circles so much, that I don't know that I'm being productive anymore with my perpetual restless thoughts. Anyway moving on.


A few swirls of chocolate sauce.


Sprinkles.


Round jelly cherry things.


Then he wraps it up and hands it to me.


That's what it looks like. It tasted like, well, like you'd think it would. It was good.


Top view.


This one is Fai's. I know that pink stuff is bits of meat, but I forgot what the other stuff is.


"Okay.. Fai can I have the camera back?" I say. Fai says, "Here Tuff you take the camera." 


Wow, we look really young.


Fai is giving the thumbs up. This is the extent of our attempt to add spontaneity to our photos.


Tuff looks for a snack.


Close-up.


Tuff buys this.


We get ready to leave, and I snap a picture of Buddhist monks walking just outside the entrance.


Sitting in the backseat of Tuff's car. The reason why my rosary is hanging around his mirror is because the night before Fai and Tuff were trying to scare me with stories about...


..this. "Whenever you see those scarves wrapped around trees on some of the streets of Chiang Mai, that means there are ancient spirits in them. And if you don't want to see the ghost, you will see it. Even Jesus can't save you.." I freaked out and threw my rosary on the mirror thing, and insisted I was safe. Then when I tried to take a picture of the tree, I told Tuff to row the window up and yet the window only inched down further. "I can't... it's.. it's.. not going up!!!!" says Tuff. I said, "WHAAT??!!!" and nearly jumped into the front seat. "Hey you're hitting me!" said Fai. Tuff is laughing with amusement -_-.


I snap a picture of this as we are leaving the temple. Thai people sort of worship their king. Once I casually said to Fai, "Hey so who's going to be king next if this king dies?" She gasped and with a semi-whisper said, "Don't say that! If he dies then his bad rebel son will take over and we don't want that. We want this king to stay alive as long as possible so his grandson will become king." While I was there I tried to look the king up on wiki, but I'd get an "ACCESS DENIED". Hm. How easy it is to take for granted in the U.S. the ability to attain credible and accessible information. I have to admit I've been complacent, but that's another story in itself. Even if that story doesn't necessarily altogether justify my complacency. Oh well, for now.


The next night we play with fireworks outside the house. That whole week (the second week I was there) consisted of festival celebrations involving fireworks. Their dog Tuffy kept going near the fireworks which freaked me out, I was afraid his fur was going to catch on fire. (Note: I forgot to ask if they named their dog after Fai's boyfriend Tuff? Especially since Tuff has been buying dogs for Fai lately? Or if it's just a coincidence that their dog is named Tuffy and Fai's boyfriend is named Tuff?). Anyway, moving on.



Tuff and Fai. We light candles around the house.


Lovely fireworks which we lit.


Very cool and fun.


Hill tribe ladies selling stuff at the night market.


What's this lady carrying on her back?


A baby! Wow look at how snug he/she is tucked in, I almost missed it.


Hungry anyone?


These things were huge, somewhere around 3-5 times the size of my thumb if I remember correctly. FYI I considered trying one, tried to convince myself to, but could not bring myself to. I'm sure if I was with a friend who said, "I DARE YOU" then I would have, but I was with my mom here. I was just about to take a picture of the crunchy silkworms and the bamboo worms, but immediately after this picture my camera battery died.


So I googled up this picture of cooked silk worms.


Mom and I took these in the photobooth at the mall a few days before we left. We didn't know what to do, so we just kept smiling. I'd have loved to make faces, but you know. Didn't want to give Mom a heartattack.


 

Documentary attempts.


 

Be forewarned: Fai uses a curse word here (you can tell I'm paranoid because I just went to confession). Notice the firework spark actually falls on Fai, and she caught it on camera. Wow, she could work for the National Geographic someday.


 

This is me being a coward.









These are old, old, photos. I didn't get to take a picture of Popo or my aunt before I left, so you can see that's Popo on the left. I'm in the green dress, and my older sister Suenee is on my right. I'm sure I was 5, and my older sister was 6. We are in Chiang Mai waiting for a taxi to go home, and I actually faintly remember this.


Popo's house before she moved in with Aunt Ampha recently. That's my aunt's old car parked there. My dad bought this house for Popo when he married my mom, and it was kind of a big deal in my mom's family.


Popo is in pink, I forget who that lady in the middle is, and Gong Gong (Grandpa) is the man on the right. He's actually my step grandpa, but you know. He is the closest to father that my mom and older sister had, even though my mom said he barely talked. He was a Taiwanese soldier, so I guess he had to be tough.


I'm preeeeetty sure my uncle is the guy in the gray suit inbetween those black-suit guys with flowers, but I could be wrong.


This is a photo inside a temple in Bangkok that I think I took when I was a kid. 


I'm pretty sure I took this one too. Those are wax figures of the previous 8 kings of Thailand.


Random picture of China I found. Never been there, but apparently someone around here has.


Don't know who most of these people are, but I know my dad is the white guy second from left. My grandma (Popo) is in the middle in the short-sleeved white shirt, my grandpa (Gong Gong) is on the far right in the blue shirt. I'm almost positive the baby is my older sister, but I think there is a possible chance I could be wrong. I do know for a fact that I am not that baby.


This picture consists of: my dad, my mom, both my sisters and me, and only two of my cousins (Fai is missing). I'm in the yellow dress. 


I'm really sad I didn't get a picture of Jie Ing before I left, but anyway. Jie Ing is the one with my youngest sister (kid in overalls) on her lap. I'm on Popo's lap, and oldest sister is in the middle. Jie Ing is my mom's niece, and she has two boys now (one is 5, the other is about 1 currently). Jie Ing almost came with my mom to the U.S., but my aunt didn't want her to. She even had to drop out of school when she was 15 because my aunt made her, so that Jie Ing could take care of Fai after Fai was born. That really sucks. Mom was telling me that maybe if I did well enough in the next decade, Jie Ing's sons could stay with me and go to high school in the U.S.? Then she told Jie Ing about it, and before I left Jie Ing was telling me in Chinese or Thai "study hard, okay?" Yeah. If you live in Thailand and you're poor, you're pretty much screwed. I hope I'm capable, because I love Jie Ing and I would so let her sons visit me in the U.S. I have my own little plan going on right now, on how to help myself.


Oh gosh. This is proof of how excessively cute my little sister was when she was a kid. She's worn glasses ever since she could walk, and they used to always be too big or heavy for her little nose.


Oops, see what I mean.


You can see my aunt is in the beige coat. All 6 of us kids are in front of her, I'm the one with the missing front teeth. 


One of the best Christmases for us ever, left to right: Suevanna (little sister), Moss (middle cousin), me (I was 8), Prae (oldest cousin), Suenee (oldest sister), and Fai (youngest cousin). We used to be such best friends, but I think my aunt eventually instilled into her children a serious drive for almost constant competition. I know I'm a little excessively reminiscent or self-dwelling, but have I had a good reason for it? Oh well, even if so it's entirely limited to my journal. Anyway while browsing for these pictures to scan, I found this tidbit I wrote for school during this very period to go with the picture: 

"This year my cousins from Thailand are coming over to our house to celebrate Christmas with us. They are coming on December 4th. I don't think that they have ever celebrated Christmas before. Last year I had a strange feeling. I felt the Christmas spirit somehow. The year before I didn't feel anything. I guess I was too young. This year I guess I will have the strange feeling again. It seems like I was really going to see Santa Claus.

On Tuesday Nov. 28, 1995 we bought a Christmas tree. I saw a big stuffed Santa Claus and Mrs. Claus. I thought for a moment, "What was Mrs. Claus' first name? Santa Claus and Mary Claus," I said. We stand the Christmas tree in the living room. We wouldn't decorate it until our cousins came!"

I've always had a weird infatuation with Christmas.


Getting older, I was 11. We're at a restaurant in Chiang Mai, and this is an attempted serious picture.


Silly picture.


This is in the same summer, and I'm pretty sure that's Bangkok. This picture makes me feel so guilty, because my little sister and I were fighting and fighting and fighting over who could have the black hat. Obviously I won, but she being two years younger than me should have had it. Not sure if you could tell from the pictures, but around my sisters/cousins I tended to be the center of attention. Ironic because whenever I went back to school it was a major contrast, and I was super shy. Center-of-attention people, they have so much energy and I don't understand it anymore. If I ever regain that energy though, I would probably distribute it rather than keep it to myself. Wouldn't really want it for myself anymore. 


Oh yeah. And this is Joe.


Random, but this is a picture of Eugenia and Jack I found on this computer (my mom must have taken their photo). They are some of the residents I used to help take care of. These two loved to sit next to each other and joke around. 


This is our adopted cat, Angel. She only shows up early morning to late afternoon or whenever she's hungry, so I guess she's a big outdoor cat.


I think I'll end this post with a Christmas tree picture. This is the Christmas the year after the one spent with our cousins.