About christao408

An expat American who moved to Bangkok in 2005 with his partner (now husband). Life is a grand adventure and each experience is worth having if for no other reason than to remind us that we are alive.

Food in BKK: Le Normandie

Posted on 25 August 2010 by christao408

The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, which traces its history to 1876 as the first hotel in the Kingdom of Siam, remains one of the finest hotels in Asia. Its legendary service and refined elegance leaves you half-expecting to find such famous visitors of years past as Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward sitting in the lobby or the colonial-style Authors’ Lounge.

Sitting atop the 10-story Garden Wing, which was home to Thailand’s first elevator (1958), is the most famous French restaurant in town: Le Normandie. It was there that we gathered for lunch Sunday afternoon to celebrate the marriage of one of Tawn’s university friends, Ko. She and her husband Per were married in a civil ceremony in Sweden a few weeks back. He will move here later this year and their Thai wedding celebration, certain to be much more lavish, will be held in December.

Photo courtesy of the Mandarin Oriental Group

Joining Ko, Tawn, and me was their other university friend, Bim. Both Bim and Ko are foodies, so this seemed as good a place as any to indulge and celebrate. Le Normandie, which is elegantly appointed in buttery yellow silks, mirrors, and fine chandeliers, has a view and a price tag to suit. What isn’t widely known is that each summer, which is low season here in Thailand, Le Normandie offers a summer prix fixe menu – this summer only 1100 baht ($35) for three courses.

In addition to the beautiful wall treatments and lighting fixtures, both sides of the room have floor-to-ceiling windows offering spectacular views of the city on one side and the Chao Phraya River on the other. The dining room is decorated with beautiful arrangements of fresh flowers, too.

Something that you are paying for at Le Normandie is the service, which is every bit as prompt and attentive as you would expect in a fine restaurant in Paris. The roast is carved tableside, plates are placed at the table simultaneously by the waiters, the proper utensils are discreetly placed on the table between courses, etc. Living in a city where most of the fine dining restaurants struggle to get the diners’ main courses to the table within ten minutes of each other, having the plates gently placed on the table at the same moment is a thrill!

Fresh breads of all sorts were brought before and throughout the meal, a variety of brioche, whole grain bread, sourdough, baguette, etc. that were freshly baked that morning and served warm. The butter was molded with a italicized “N” on top, served in a proper glass dish with silver lid.

After ordering, the chef sent an amuse bouche to tease our appetite. Sorry that the focus on the right isn’t sharp. The shot glass is a tomato jelly with avocado soup and a passion fruit foam. On the left is a slice of squash mousse with broccoli salad topped with a roll of chicken mousse wrapped in thinly sliced duck breast. Yummy!

Entrées

Tawn and I both ordered this beautiful dish: buisson d’asperges vertes, crème aux graines de pavot, œuf de poule prise en gelée, tartare de légumes safranés , which is a “buisson” or pile of green asparagus with poached egg, poppy seed cream, and saffron scented vegetable tartar.

Translating that further, that base was formed of asparagus spears set upright in an aspic, or gelatin, base. The poached egg, served cool but with a runny yolk, was inside the “crown” of asparagus and held into place with a little more aspic. The vegetables around the base were mostly tomatoes and pepper and had a nice saffron aroma. Once the plate was served, the waiter came over with a sauce dish of warm poppy seed cream and spooned it into the center of the crown.

When I cut into it, the cream and egg yolk came running out in what was both an amazing, and an amazingly beautiful, mess. The dish was really nicely prepared and what was especially pleasing about it was the amount of effort and technique that had gone into it. It was a good example of the elevation of food to art.

Ko ordered esquinade d’araignée, courgette et salicoque e la vapeur, émulsion au chorizo, which was a spider sea crab meat with poached prawn and zucchini, served with chorizo sausage sauce. I didn’t try it but she said it was very nice. Beautiful plating, too.

Bim ordered the vibrant green cuisses de grenouilles en fricassée, raviole Provençale, parmesan et sherry Tio-Pepe – a frog leg fricassee with Provençale ravioli, parmesan and Tio-Pepe sherry sauce. She really enjoyed this dish.

Between courses, here are the beautiful and intelligent Bim (left) and Ko (right). While there were many other friends who couldn’t make it, I can’t imagine anyone who would have been better to enjoy this meal with.

Plat Principal

The main courses were just as artful and tasty as the entrées. Bim and Ko both had the filet de Saint-Pierre confit, croustillant de lard Ibérique a l’abricot et jus a la vanille, which was a John Dory fillet with apricot wrapped in Iberico ham and a vanilla-berry essence.

Tawn had the cabillaud à la Boulangère, vin de Jura, cappuccino des sous-bois et sauce au café , which was cod fish Boulangere style with Jura wine, forest mushroom cappuccino and a coffee sauce. The fish was beautifully prepared, moist and flaky. The sauce was interesting as it had just the faintest hint of coffee to it.

I didn’t stray far from convention, enjoying a flavorful pièce de bœuf rôti, gratin de tomates cerise, échalote en chemise et sauce au poivre, or roasted beef with cherry tomato gratin, shallot and pepper corn sauce. It was very tasty.

Desserts

After the main course, the dessert cart was rolled over, featuring a half-dozen types of cakes and four stewed fruit compotes including fig and rhubarb. We could choose two selections and the waiter prepared each plate, saucing and decorating it differently. It took about five minutes per plate but the results, as you can see below, were beautiful.

A cappuccino cake that was calling to me from the dessert cart, although I settled on this one instead:

My marscapone cheese cake with vanilla sauce and rhubarb compote.

A raspberry mousse cake and a chocolate cake – Tawn’s selections.

While tea and coffee were served, two trays of beautiful and tasty macarons were served: chocolate-raspberry, caramel, chocolate-orange, and green tea.

While we didn’t partake of them, there was a cart loaded with fine after dinner drinks. I’m not a brandy drinker, but there is something about an after-dinner drink that seems very refined.

After an enjoyable, nearly three hour dining experience above the banks of the Chao Phraya River. What an elegant and pleasant way to celebrate a friend’s wedding. If only her new husband had been there to enjoy it, too!

Burma Shave Jingles

Posted on 24 August 2010 by christao408

While brainstorming ideas with colleagues for an internal contest at my company, I thought it might be fun to ask employees to come up with an advertising jingle for one of our programs, done in the style of Burma Shave. Many of you may not know of Burma Shave. It was an American brand of brushless shaving cream that came about in the 1920s and was known for its clever roadside advertising.

In the days before huge billboards, Burma Shave jingles were usually five rhyming lines that were arranged on sequential roadside signs. The red signs with white lettering would conclude with the name of the product: Burma Shave. They were clever and are a staple of mid 20th Century Americana.

My colleagues liked the idea and we’ve sent it up the flagpole to see if those higher up approve it. If so, I’ll have to figure out how to announce the contest in a way that clearly explains to our employees, the vast majority of whom are too young to have heard of Burma Shave, what the objective is.

Browsing an online collection of the entirety of their jingles, arranged by year, I thought I would share some of my favorites with you.

Tho stiff The beard That Nature gave It shaves like down With Burma-Shave	Are your whiskers When you wake Tougher than A two-bit steak? Try Burma-Shave	Your beauty, boys Is just Skin deep What skin you’ve got You ought to keep Burma-Shave
College boys! Your courage muster Shave off That fuzzy Cookie duster Burma-Shave	If you think She likes Your bristles Walk bare-footed Through some thistles Burma-Shave	Riot at Drug store Calling all cars 100 customers 99 jars Burma-Shave
His tenor voice She thought divine Till whiskers Scratched Sweet Adeline Burma-Shave	Cooties love Bewhiskered places Cuties love the Smoothest faces Shaved by Burma-Shave	A peach Looks good With lots of fuzz But man’s no peach And never wuz Burma-Shave
Prickly pears Are picked For pickles No peach picks A face that prickles Burma-Shave	Said Farmer Brown Who’s bald on top ”Wish I could Rotate the crop” Burma-Shave	If you Don’t know Whose signs these are You can’t have Driven very far Burma-Shave

Maybe we should have a Xanga Blog jingle contest?

A comment
Smiley
Or a rec
Make me as happy
As all heck
Xanga

What do you think?

Exploring Bangkok – the Old Market in Yaoworat

Posted on 23 August 2010 by christao408

Like so many cities around the world, Bangkok has a sizeable Chinatown. Over the past few hundred years, the Chinese has become very integrated into Thai culture and many Thais, including His Majesty the King, have Chinese blood in their veins. This is especially true of the merchant families, as a trip to Yaoworat – Bangkok’s teeming Chinatown – illustrates. I had the opportunity this past weekend to join Tawn and his boss for a early morning shopping trip to talat gao – the old market.

We parked in a gutted theatre that used to stage Chinese operas. It is interesting as the arches mark the boundaries of the original hall and the backstage area would have been where the white car is parked. The walls have been removed for ventilation, leaving only the columns and beams. The neighboring balconies and windows now look in on the car park.

There are two main streets in Yaoworat, both one-way and both very crowded even early in the morning. Yaworat is located on Rattanakosin Island, the historic center of Bangkok. When the police officer finally does stop traffic for pedestrians he admonishes them: “Raew, raew, raew!” – “Quickly, quickly, quickly!”

The old market area is a wet market – meat, seafood, and vegetables – located off the street. It is crowded early in the morning but by 8:00 when this picture was taken, the customers are clearing out and the vendors are shutting down. This is where Tawn bought a lot of seafood including fresh lump crab meat for one-quarter the price we would pay at our local market.

There was still a large selection of fresh fish around, including what I believe are baracuda in a basket.

The knives used in the market show their age, having been sharpened thousands of times. Reminds me of the show Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

The market has vibrant colors and interesting openings where natural light comes flooding in. It is a place where you need to be paying attention, with lots of people passing through carrying boxes, pushing carts, and riding motorcycles stacked high with deliveries.

On the opposite side of the street, we explored some of the new market, which focuses more on dry goods and prepared foods. Any guess what are in all those bags? Fried fish swim bladders, also known as fish maw.

Tight quarters in some sections as motorbikes and pedestrians create traffic jams.

A mad rush for fresh cherries! The vendor also sells toilet bowl brushes in a variety of colors.

Ginko nuts on ice. Very nice sweetened in a little sugar syrup and added to my morning oatmeal. Plus, they are supposed to be very good for your kidneys.

Freshly shaved pig’s head. You don’t want any bristles before serving this to guests.

Chinese buns are stacked as part of a good-luck offering.

Small, very sweet pineapple.

A Chinese shrine located in the car park with tea and water left for the gods. Note the mound of incense stick ash that has built up at the base of the shrine.

Outside the new market, makeshift vendors line the sidewalks in front of shops that have not yet opened for business, selling whatever items are from their farms (of their relatives’ farms) in the nearby provinces.

On a nearby street, a shop sells all things steel, from containers for burnt offerings (far left with holes in them) to stools to buckets, to huge stock pots, to funnels, to an oil lamp for use at shrines (far right, wrapped in plastic). Regarding my earlier comment that many of the merchant families in Bangkok are Chinese, you see signs of this all the time – literally! Notice that the shop’s name appears both in Thai letters (left) and Chinese characters (right). Very interesting is that right between the two are some markings made by Buddhist monks to bless the shop. I’ll have to do a close-up of that one of these days and explain it in more detail.

These three-wheel tuk-tuks, when not gouging tourists, haul bulk goods (usually with their purchaser, although not in this case) around the city.

Getting hungry, we stopped by a fastidiously clean, freshly painted shop known for its muu daeng – literally “red pork”, which is the barbecue pork often known by its Chinese name charshu. This man is the owner. Signs in the building proudly announce that he is now 82 years old and has been in business for 61 years.

There’s not much else he serves but the rice or noodles with barbecue pork on it. This is a plate of “two types pork” – one barbecued and the other roasted with the crispy skin on it. The sauce, unlike that of many competitors/immitators, isn’t super-sweet and has a complex flavor to it. He serves it with a slice of soy sauce boiled egg (not the “100-year old egg”) and some slightly sweet pickled cucumbers. Wonderful, all for about US$1.

So that was my morning trip to the market. We were home by 10:30, a bit exhausted but with a lot of seafood and other good buys. I hope you enjoyed coming along for the ride.

Miso Glazed Fish Fillet and Apple Cobbler

Posted on 22 August 2010 by christao408

When trying to think of what to make for a meal, I often turn to cookbooks. Not so much for the recipes themselves – I have a habit of not following those very closely – but for an idea, an inspiration of something that sounds good and fits the constraints of time, money, and interest. So it was that Thursday afternoon I was flipping through Martha Stewart’s Dinner at Home which Tawn had left out.

“Menu 8: Tofu and Scallions in Mushroom Broth; Miso-Glazed Fish Fillets; Seasame Brown Rice and Cabbage; and Caramelized Persimmons.”

Two words from that over-ambitious menu leapt off the page: Miso-Glazed.

The concept was simple enough: prepare a glaze made of just four ingredients: mirin (Japanese sweet rice cooking wine) or, not having that, sake; rice wine vinegar; miso paste; and sugar. I keep miso paste in the fridge because it lasts pretty much forever and is a handy flavor enhancer. Sake and rice wine vinegar are nice items to keep in the cupboard. And instead of sugar, some maple syrup would add a nice touch.

Salmon would have been a fantastic choice of fish, too, but Martha suggested black cod. I went with her suggestion, taking a single good sized fillet, placing it on a baking sheet. To make clean-up easy, I lined the baking sheet with some parchment paper and lightly oiled it so the fish wouldn’t stick. Brush a generous coating of miso glaze on the fish and then put it under the broiler for about 6-8 minute, or until the top is nicely browned and the fish is opaque throughout.

I served the fish on top of some mashed potatoes with a chopped salad on the side. I make my mashed potatoes with butter, an ingredient that some people like to demonize but I think a little butter will go a long way to making your potatoes nice. I also added some leftover sour cream and some chopped fresh rosemary to give it a tang and a nice piney aroma.

For dessert, an apple cobbler. I used pink lady apples, chopped small with the skin still on. Cooked them in a saucepan for a few minutes with a little bit of sugar, a little bit of water, a little bit of corn starch, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Cook until starting to soften and add a little more water if necessary in order to get a bit of a not-too-thick sauce with the apples.

Put the apples into an over-proof dish. I topped it with a homemade sweet biscuit dough, similar to what I use for shortcake. Flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and a little sugar. Cut in some vegetable shortning (Crisco) to the size of peas, and then add either buttermilk (or, if you don’t have that, milk) and stir just until combined. Put the dough on the top of the fruit leaving a few openings for steam to escape. I put a few slices of butter on top of that and sprinkled on some raw sugar for a nice visual. Bake in a 350 F oven for about 25 minutes or until the juices are bubbling and the crust is golden. Serve once cooled to room temperature with ice cream, whipped cream, or just a little pour of fresh cream. Key word here: cream.

Fish Tacos with Avocado-Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce

Posted on 21 August 2010 by christao408

First, off, this isn’t my recipe. It came from Michael, known variously as Arenadi on Xanga and chow on IReallyLikeFood.com. He’s been AWOL for the last several months, wrapped up working on a congressional campaign in Hawai’i. He took the time a week or two back to post this recipe on his Facebook account and it sounded so good I figured I should do my part to share it with Xangaland.

As is often the case, I managed to vary the recipe a bit. It still turned out quite nicely.

Fish Tacos with Avocado-Cilantro Lime Cream Sauce

You’ll need:

Yellow Corn Tortillas (the 4-5 inch kind)
Red Cabbage
Red Onion
Cilantro
Garlic
Avocado
Mayonnaise
Lime
Tabasco Sauce
Cream or Half-and-Half
Fish (firm white fish – snapper or cod are good)
Panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)
Egg

Prep work:

First thing you want to do is get your mise en place set up for dressing the tacos. This means chopping the red cabbage and mincing the red onion. Chop your cilantro roughly. Slice your avocado about 1/4″ thick and remove the skin.

Put a handful of cilantro, a clove of garlic, about 1/4 of the avocado, a liberal dousing of Tabasco sauce, the juice of 1/4 of a Lime, a small scoop of mayonnaise, and about 2 Tbsp of cream into a blender/ food processor, and combine until you have a nice creamy sauce. Add more or less cream depending on how “loose” you want the sauce. Not being one to follow instructions carefully, I put the entire avocado into the sauce, making it very avocado-y and leaving none left for the taco itself. That’s okay, though.

Optionally, make some salsa.

This wasn’t in Michael’s recipe, but it is easy to make. Chop some tomatoes, onion, chili peppers (to taste), and green pepper and pulse a few times in a blender or food processor. Add some cilantro and a few more chopped tomatoes and then season to taste. A squirt of lime juice is nice. Some salt will work, too.

Make the taco shells:

Note – if you like your tacos soft shell (the way I do) you can skip this step, opting instead just to warm up the tortillas in the microwave or in a skillet.

Heat your oil in a skillet at about 1 to 2 inches depth to about 320 F. Using tongs or chopsticks, hold half of the tortilla into the oil and let it cook for about 30 seconds. Release it, pick up the other side (that was in the oil), and hold the side that wasn’t in the oil down into the oil to cook. Repeat until the desired crispness is achieved.

Cook the fish:

Heat the oil (1 to 2 inches) in a skillet to about 340 F. Cut your fish into strips. Roll in some flour and then shake to remove excess. Then dip the fish into a beaten egg, and then roll it in the panko bread crumbs. Fry fish strips in the skillet for about 3 minutes and then turn over for another 2 minutes. Note that the timing will depend upon the thickness of the fish and could be much shorter. It is a good idea to try one piece first, remove it once browned and cut it open and see if it is cooked through. Increase or lower the heat as necessary to ensure that the fish isn’t browning on the outside before the inside is cooked the way you like it.

To assemble:

Place red cabbage (you’ll notice I used green, which tastes fine) and red onion on the tortillas. Lay avocado slices on top of that. (Whoops – none left thanks to my mistake with the sauce!) Lay the fish on top of that. Put a nice dollop of avocado-cilantro sauce on the fish. Add some salsa (optional), a squeeze of lime, a splash of Tabasco sauce, and you are ready to serve.

Serve with some black beans on the side. I made some homemade beans with some sofrito to flavor them – a combination of onions, red bell peppers, and various spices. Easy and very healthy.

The finished product. Very tasty. Extremely tasty. That avocado sauce is amazing. Deep-frying the fish was an extra step that might be more work than I’d always want to put into it, but I think I could have just pan fried the fish and it would have turned out equally nice.

Thanks to Michael for sharing this recipe with me and I hope he puts it on his Xanga site soon enough.

Bicycle Taxi = BIXI

Posted on 19 August 2010 by christao408

Urban planning, public transportation, and bicycling – three of my interests that are rolled into one in a Montreal-based bicycle sharing program called BIXI, short for BIcycle taXI. BIXI was introduced in June 2009, quickly growing to 5,000 bicycles. The one-millionth ride was taken in the first five months. Perhaps this is a model that we will see gain traction in other cities?

Already, BIXI has expanded into Melbourne, Australia and Minneapolis, Minnesota – and London, England and Boston, Massachusetts are supposed to be online this summer. A system in parts of Washington, DC is scheduled to be on the way, too. Other cities around the world are installing similar systems.

There is a bicycle rental program here in Bangkok, but it is only in the touristy section of the old city, designed for sightseeing, not transportation. I do ride my bicycle here, but since there are few places to park, I ride it mostly for exercise and not errands.

Bicycling is an ideal way to get around for many of the errands we run or even for some of the distances we commute. Much of the year, the weather is fine, and bicycling is faster than walking. But one of the biggest obstacles is that we don’t want to lug our bicycle all over the place, especially if we need to travel by bus, train, or car for portions of the journey.

Bicycle sharing programs eliminate the hassle. By providing a bicycle when and where you need it, you can easily integrate a bicycle into your overall transportation options. The system allows you to take a bicycle from wherever you are and leave it wherever you are going, without having to worry about bringing it back to your point of origin. A subscription program lets you rent a bike on the fly, free for the first thirty minutes, or you can pay as you go.

The bicycles are durable and designed to keep you from getting messy – chain guards and fenders keep the oil and puddles off you. A handy basket lets you carry your belongings with you and even pick up a bag of groceries or other small items.

Best of all, in my opinion, is their convenience. This map of most of Montreal shows how densely located the BIXI bike stations are. They are everywhere – usually within a block of where you are! Especially when tied into transit systems like bus and train lines and large car parks, the bike sharing system makes it easy to switch to a secondary mode of travel, one that is better for you and for our environment.

If you would like more information about BIXI, you can click here. For more information about bicycle sharing systems in general, here is the Wikipedia article. Sorry if this sounds like a marketing brochure – I just think BIXI sounds like a cool idea that should be the standard rather than the exception in more cities.

Eggs Benedict

Posted on 18 August 2010 by christao408

Tawn and I enjoy poached eggs and find Eggs Benedict to be a nice weekend brunch treat. For some reason, though, we haven’t had a lot of luck learning how to poach eggs. Everyone has a special secret or tip to share – put vinegar in the water, stir the water in a clockwise motion before introducing the eggs, use only the freshest eggs, put the unopened egg in the hot water for ten seconds to firm up the whites – but we still come up with wildly inconsistent results. So we recently bought a non-stick poaching tray and set about learning to make Hollandaise sauce.

The Hollandaise sauce was surprisingly easy, employing a technique similar to making the wonderful French dessert sabayon, also known in Italian as zabagione. You whisk egg yolks with lemon juice (I managed to use a little too much, thanks to eyeballing it rather than measuring) in a baine-marie – a bowl set over a pan of simmering water. The gentle heat of the steam cooks the eggs slowly and as you whisk them, you keep them from scrambling.

Then, once doubled in volume, you add a stream of melted butter, whisking all the while to emulsify, or incorporate, the butter into the egg yolk mixture. This produces a thick, rich sauce that can then be seasoned with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.

On the back burner, the sauce is set to a low heat to keep it warm and I’ll add a few teaspoons of water to thin it out before serving. The egg poacher in on the front burner, with simmering water halfway up its side. In about four minutes, the eggs will be nicely done with firm whites and liquid, but warm, yolks. On the right, Tawn fries some ham slices.

The finished Eggs Benedict, employing a slice of homemade whole grain bread in lieu of an English muffin, accompanied with some fresh papaya. Tasty.

New Pedestrian Bridges at Asoke and Thong Lo

Posted on 17 August 2010 by christao408

For a city of about 8 million people with generally poor mass transit systems, Krungthep (Bangkok) can sometimes surprise you with the usefulness of some of its infrastructure development. A good example of this are the pedestrian bridges built to connect some of the BTS Skytrain (elevated rail) stations to surrounding buildings. In a city with lots of traffic congestion, poor air quality, and even poorer footpath quality, an elevated way to get from the station to the buildings is a big incentive to get out of the car and into the mass transit.

Asoke Road

The junction of Asoke and Sukhumvit roads is an example of this bridge building trend. One of the busiest intersections in the city, crossing at street level has long been a hazardous activity for pedestrians. Located at the intersection of the MRTA subway and the BTS Skytrain, this junction houses three high-rise offices each with a few floors of retail, two large hotels, and a nine-story mall that is under construction.

The pedestrian bridge built under the Skytrain viaduct, heading east from the Asoke station.

In the past two years, pedestrian bridges were built to the west of the BTS Skytrain station, connecting the two hotels and one of the three office buildings. Then a large bridge was built to the east under the Skytrain tracks on Sukhumvit, crossing Asoke in a single cantilevered structure. On the east side of the junction the pedestrian bridge connected to the building in the southeast corner, but not to the newer building on the northeast corner.

The northeast corner of the Asoke-Sukhumvit junction.

Before the pedestrian bridge opened across Asoke, you had to descend from the Skytrain station to the subway station, cross under Asoke road in the subway station, and then reemerge at the base of this building. The subway entrance is in the lower left of the photo, near the large umbrellas. The new pedestrian bridge is on the right that connects directly to the building is on the right. What follows are some pictures of the connection under construction over the past two months:

Taken about six weeks ago, you can see in this picture how the new extension of the bridge will connect from the existing pedestrian bridge (shown in the very first picture in this entry) to the third floor of the building. At this point, just a part of the metal framework has been put into place.

A few days later, crossbeams have been added and some of the concrete flooring is in place. You can also see how a stairwell to the street level – a requirement for all the bridges that connect to buildings to allow after-hours access to the pedestrian bridge – fits into the design.

A few days after that, the columns for the roof structure are mostly in place. The following week, the roof itself has been added and most of the side panels are installed.

Finally, about two weeks ago the bridge is finished and is nearly open. Lighting is working, as you can see. This will be much more convenient to access the building and its businesses. Certainly much easier than having to pass through the subway station to get there! Plus, you can now descend to the street and access businesses along this side of the street more easily.

Thong Lo

A second example of new pedestrian bridges is going up on the west side of the Thong Lo Skytrain station. This is my neighborhood station and it lies just to the east of the junction of Thong Lo and Sukhumvit Roads, two stops to the east of the Asoke station.

Looking west from the foot of the Thong Lo Station

The main driver behind this bridge is the Noble Remix condo (the purple building) which will have two floors of retail below about 35 stories of residences. While the retail floors will get traffic from the residents, there’s no hope of anyone else traipsing over there unless it is convenient, and that means a pedestrian bridge.

Looking west from the station’s westbound platform.

Looking from the station platform to the west, you can see the condo on the left and the entrance to my alley on the right, just under the tracks before the first column. The rationale for needing a pedestrian bridge is that someone walking along the sidewalk has to go along the petrol station and then cross a small but busy alley between the petrol station and the condo. By building the bridge, it is safer and more convenient for pedestrians.

At the same time, some stairs will be built on the north (righthand) side of the road in front of the international school – the building that is wrapped in blue construction tarp. This should be safer for students and their parents to access the Skytrain station.

Looking back from in front of the international school towards the BTS Skytrain station, you can see the condo to the right and the first columns of the pedestrian bridge. This is about two months ago.

As of four weeks ago, box frames were built around the train viaduct’s columns.

A few weeks later, the bridgework was added to connect each of the support columns. For the past two weeks, no further work has been done including the connection to the station itself. I’m curious to see how quickly they will finish this project. It seems like it should not be difficult but each step has moved quite slowly. In the end, it won’t benefit me very much but it is another sign of progress in making the Skytrain more accessible to the area surrounding the station and and more user-friendly to potential passengers.

Is America Saudi Arabia?

Posted on 17 August 2010 by christao408

Not to get bogged down in this topic, but I was amused to read this quote in a newspaper article today:

“Ground zero is hallowed ground to Americans,” Elliott Maynard, a Republican trying to unseat Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a Democrat, in West Virginia’s Third District, said in a typical statement. “Do you think the Muslims would allow a Jewish temple or Christian church to be built in Mecca?”

What the Saudi government would or would not allow in their own country is irrelevant to the question at hand. Saudi Arabia is a theocratic monarchy. The United States is a federal constitutional republic and a representative democracy. Is Mr. Maynard proposing that we change our system of government so that we can meet out religion freedom (or the absence thereof) in the same manner as the Saudi throne?

Oh, brother!

There are a couple of salient points made in an op-ed on NYTimes.com that I want to highlight:

The problem with [Republicans’] claims goes far beyond the fate of a mosque in downtown Manhattan. They show a dangerously inadequate understanding of the many divisions, complexities and nuances within the Islamic world — a failure that hugely hampers Western efforts to fight violent Islamic extremism and to reconcile Americans with peaceful adherents of the world’s second-largest religion.
Most of us are perfectly capable of making distinctions within the Christian world. The fact that someone is a Boston Roman Catholic doesn’t mean he’s in league with Irish Republican Army bomb makers, just as not all Orthodox Christians have ties to Serbian war criminals or Southern Baptists to the murderers of abortion doctors.
Yet many of our leaders have a tendency to see the Islamic world as a single, terrifying monolith. Had the George W. Bush administration been more aware of the irreconcilable differences between the Salafist jihadists of Al Qaeda and the secular Baathists of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the United States might never have blundered into a disastrous war, and instead kept its focus on rebuilding post-Taliban Afghanistan while the hearts and minds of the Afghans were still open to persuasion.

Food for thought…

When Did We Forget the Bill of Rights?

Posted on 15 August 2010 by christao408

There is a great deal of furor going on about the proposed building of an Islamic community center and mosque a short distance away from the World Trade Center site in New York City. On Friday, President Obama made a public statement about the issue, pointing our that “This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are.”

Republicans jumped right on him, accusing the President of “pandering to radical Islam” and saying he “caved in to political correctness.”

I’d like to ask the Republican leaders a simple question: When did you stop supporting the Bill of Rights?

In case there’s any confusion out there, or Americans who didn’t get civics lessons because their teachers were busy ensuring no child got left behind, let’s quickly review what the Bill of Rights is. Namely, the Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, and came into effect in December 1791. They include such “golden oldies” as the First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

The Bill of Rights is about our civil liberties. It is about our freedom, the freedom for which men and women in uniform are fighting and dying. Protecting our civil liberties is not “pandering to radical Islam” or “caving into political correctness.” Denying our civil liberties plays into the hands of terrorists, letting those who would undermine American values, win.

Conservatives go on and on about the importance of upholding the Constitution. Their claim is that President Obama has been “trampling” the Constitution throughout his first 20 months in office. But suddenly, when he explicitly upholds the Constitutional rights of Muslims to build a place of worship on private land, these “staunch defenders” of the Constitution are nowhere to be seen.

Let’s give credit to Flordia Governor Charlie Crist, the former Republican now running as an independent candidate for senator, who supported Obama’s statement. Let’s give even more credit to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg who actually led the way making a powerful speech in favor of religious freedom on August 3rd. The video of this 7-minute speech is here. Here’s the bit that I thought was most important:

“Whatever you may think of the proposed mosque and community center, lost in the heat of the debate has been a basic question: should government attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property, based on their particular religion?”

As we head into the midterm elections in November, before you make a decision about who deserves your vote, I’d ask that you take the time to ask the candidates whether or not they support the Bill of Rights. Use this case of the New York City mosque as a litmus test, because there really is only one way to support the Bill of Rights and the US Constitution. That’s to answer “no” to Mayor Bloomberg’s question: the government should not attempt to deny private citizens the right to build a house of worship on private property, based on their particular religion.

christao408

The adventures of an expat American who moved to Bangkok for his husband.

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When Did We Forget the Bill of Rights?