Sunday, Tawn went to his parents and spent a few hours with them, eating dinner and visiting.  One topic of discussion was Tawn’s mother’s upcoming birthday (Tuesday the 24th) and what to do to celebrate.  After dinner, Tawn’s mother told him that if she couldn’t have both her sons with her to celebrate, then she would just as soon not celebrate at all.

This is a positive sign.  Now if I can just get my father-in-law feeling that way!

Sunday evening I reduced the stock to about half its original volume, making it easier to store.  I can add water later and reconstitute it.  Half of it went into the freezer, and the other half was used to cook chicken and mushroom risotto Monday night, accompanied by a mixed greens salad with balsamic vinaigrette and tomoato-mango salsa.  Very tasty.  I also prepared some broccoli, which I steamed in the rice cooker.  Being a rice cooker, I am used to the “set it and forget it” way of cooking.  It didn’t occur to me that brocolli really shouldn’t be forgotten while steaming.  By the time I remembered, it was Midwest-style.  Tasty, as I had steamed it with sliced garlic and Tawn tossed it with EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) and salt.  But really soft.

Reminds me of a time when Tawn and I took my grandparents to a Thai restaurant in Kansas City and my Grandmother Schultz, who passed away last July, complained afterwards that the vegetables were raw.  Of course they were cooked, but just to al dente not mush.

On Saturday Tawn and I did some shopping and finally purchased a stock pot and saucepan – two items that didn’t get moved over from the US because the ones I had there weren’t really of enough quality to be worth moving.  For our first three months here, we had only a skillet.  Tawn tried to boil water and make noodles in the skillet but it was largely a mess and smally successful.

So at the new Index Living Mall on Tong Lor (sort of an IKEA but a bit more human-scale) we reviewed our options.  The local brand, Seagull (and an even cheaper competitor, Zebra) makes aluminum pots and pans that have thin bottoms and are at risk of scorching your food when used on these old-style cast iron electric burners that are slow to heat up and slow to cool down. 

A higher end line, Bella Classico by Meyer, has nicer stainless steel pots and pans but they only sell in sets, not open stock.  There was a nice set of three saucepans, a saute pan and a stock pot for B5500 – about US$135.  A bit pricier than we wanted.

So we decided to go ahead and suffer the inexpensive Seagull ware and headed to the register with a large stock pot and a medium sized saucepan.   The wait was long because the price sticker on the stock pot was incorrect – we were charged only B300 instead of B899.  Catching the mistake resulted in four different people being needed to refund the original charge.  While waiting, I was browsing the Index catalog and noticed that the same set of Bella Classico cookware that we had looked at was listed as being on sale for only B2900, even though no signs were up at the display.

Tawn pointed that out to the manager and she checked into it, confirmed that the price was in fact correct, and started the second correction to our charge as we decided to swap out our two Seagull pans for the nicer set.

To celebrate our new stock pot, last night I made about 12 quarts of chicken stock, staying up until 1:20 am to do it.  The pot isn’t large enough to do it all in one batch, so I went ahead and made two.  On Monday night, we’ll have chicken and pea risotto so it should all be worth the effort.  Plus, freeze some.  Or, freeze lots.

Picture time.  I failed to get these pictures balanced and included with last Sunday’s posting  about seafood at Pim’s.  So here they are today.  You can scroll down to read the related story if you haven’t already.

Upper left: Pim’s mother-in-law prepares the river prawns – truly as large as I had claimed!  Upper right: Tara bonding with her only farang friend.  Lower: Arm, Tara, Pim, and Uncle Tawn.  Click for larger views.

Yesterday I also spent some time chatting with Otto down in Singapore.  Always nice to hear from friends and it sounds like he is finding some time to continue his drawing.  While a mild mannered (well, maybe not so) school teacher during the day, he is an accomplished comic strip artist.  His first book, Sir Fong, recounts his experiences as a new teacher.  Born in the year of the Monkey, the title character is in the shape of a monkey.  The students, who during Otto’s first year of teaching were all born in the year of the Rabbit, are aptly drawn as cute minimalist bunnies that as all teachers will tell you, bare their hidden fangs when you aren’t looking. 

It sounds like Otto’s sequel to Sir Fong is pretty much completed and he is working on a third project that will branch out thematically from the first.  I suggested that a good title for the sequel would be “To Sir Fong With Love” and he laughed a lot so perhaps in a few months or years I’ll be able to proudly claim some hand in contributing to great literature!

Yesterday morning while working around the house, we heard chanting and singing.  Opening our sliding glass door and stepping out onto the balcony we saw that there was some religious temple – decidedly not Buddhist – going on behind the neighboring office tower.  The commotion ended with a very large string of firecrackers being ignited: rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-bang!

So far Sunday has been pretty low key: a trip to Carrefour to load up on bottled water and attendance at yoga.  Tawn’s back at his parents’ for dinner and to play with the puppies, and I’m writing this blog entry.

Friday evening has arrived.  A planned dinner party to celebrate Ja’s birthday was cancelled because of some odd breakdown in communication.  Tawn made all of the basic arrangements with friends but had to confirm details today.  Since his friends couldn’t get hold of him on Thursday (busy day for Tawn) they panicked and decided they’d best cancel the dinner.

Not sure I really understand why a group of college-educated people were unable to organize making a reservation at a restaurant, but perhaps there is more to it than that.

Tail lights

I’ve been meaning to share this story for a few weeks:

The back-story is that with significant restrictions imposed on Teak wood logging operations in the past few years because of over-logging, literally tens of thousands of Thai elephants have been put out of work.  Their kwanchang (literally, “elephant guide”) who are their lifelong companions, cannot afford the expense of feeding them but of course you can’t just flush an elephant down the toilet like an unwanted goldfish.

So the kwanchang bring their elephants to the big city, looking for any way to earn a baht.  On a weekend down at Siam Square, it is not unusual to see a few elephants, with tourists posing for pictures and paying a hundred baht for the opportunity.  While I don’t have any elephant pictures, they are amazing creatures, and I really respect the kwanchang for their dedication to their pachyderm companions. 

Anyhow, one evening shortly after returning from the United States, we were driving north on Soi Asoke, stuck in traffic, and I noticed a pair of elephants walking down the sidewalk into town.  There was a mother and her calf, who couldn’t have been more than a meter and a half high. 

As the elephants passed us, I noticed one of those Velcro strap-on flashing red lights that bicyclists use strapped to the tail of the mother elephant.  Now, it isn’t unusual for the kwanchang to tie a string of compact discs hanging from the back of the elephant to serve as defacto reflectors, but this was the first time I have ever seen a literal tail light!

Khun Yoichi

Shocking cross-cultural news that may shock and offend some readers of this blog.  As Thai language classes have continued, I’ve come to know two of my Japanese classmates better:

Yoichi is one month younger than me and as he’s studied Thai a bit before, he’s been at the head of the class for the whole time we’ve been studying at Union Language School.  The curve is leveling a bit, though.  He’s a nice guy, funny sense of humor, and into Kickboxing, Judo, and other martial arts.  He’s fairly fluent in English, but we use a lot Thai to communicate. 

Chihiro is a few years younger than me and comes across as your typically shy, demure Japanese woman.  She wears colorful “ethnic” skirts, Birkenstock-type sandals, and large necklaces made of polished stones.  Her reticence is probably more a perception on my part because she does not speak much English, so our communication is cobbled together using Thai, English, Japanese and Gesture. 

Chihiro’s boyfriend, whom she met while working in Japan, is Thai.  And as we’ve talked, we’ve discovered that we have that in common.  Yoichi, on the other hand, is a bit of an enigma.  He’s developed the reputation in class as a heavy drinker, one that may not be accurate but when constructing sentences we’ll say thing like “What did Khun Yoichi do last night?  Khun Yoichi drank sake mak-mak (a lot)!” to practice our Thai.  Out of classroom conversation, we know that he doesn’t have a faan, the gender-neutral word used to describe a non-married significant other. 

Anyhow, on Tuesday after class, Chihiro, Yoichi and I were walking from school to the SkyTrain station.  Along the way, Chihiro asked me (in English), “Your faan, is she from Bangkok?” 

I confirmed that my faan is from Bangkok, but is a he, not a she.  This didn’t seem to phase her and we chatted a bit.  Yoichi made some comment about mai mee faan (I don’t have a faan) and so Chihiro asked him – in Thai – whether he liked boys or girls.

Shocking!  While in the US this would be seen as a pretty forward question, when you look at it in the context of Japanese society, the idea of a woman asking a man whom she has only known as a classmate for a few weeks a question like this is just about unbelievable. 

Yoichi’s joking response – a pretty quick comeback, considering it was in Thai – was that he likes khatoey (Thai lady-boys).  Assuming that he was joking, the question remains unanswered.  Running the scenario by Masakazu, a Japanese friend who lives with his partner here in BKK, he theorizes that if Yoichi were straight, he would have had every incentive to say so and little incentive not to. 

Does it matter?  Not at all.  But it is interesting to watch how cultural norms dissolve when they’re placed in a different environment.

Skype Away

I’ve been experimenting with Skype, the voice over internet phone service, and so far I’m quite happy with it.  Only about another half-dozen friends are currently on it (that I know of – let me know if you’re on it, too!) but I’ve found it useful for dialing out.  Some key features:

• Software is free to download and works like any other IM service.  You need a headset with microphone to talk – these plug into your computer.
  
• Voice calls from one Skype user to another are free.  Calls outside the Skype network are charged at various rates generally competitive with local calls.  For example, when I call a number in the US, I’m paying about 1.7 cents a minute.  Very reasonable.
  
• I’ve set up a local number in the US (in the Kansas City area code since most of my family is there) that people can dial and the call connects to me online through Skype.  If I’m online I can answer.  It not, the call goes to voicemail.  This service costs about $12 a year.
  
• The quality is quite good, especially compared to direct dialing into/out of Thailand.  When Tawn and I were calling twice a day during the 14 months we were apart, prices were closer to 20 cents a minute and calls regularly got dropped or suffered from static.  I’ve had less of a problem with Skype.  Although some evenings when internet traffic is heavy, I’ve had a few calls get dropped.

Anyhow, that’s my testimonial.  All of you need to get on Skype.  It’s the wave of the future.

It is barely Monday evening and already I feel like it’s been a long week.  This probably has more to do with how much or how little rest I got this weekend than anything else.

Sunday was the day of activity for me.  Tawn was feeling under the weather, so he slept in.  But I got up and at 10:00 was at a local spa to take a 90-minute yoga class.  The instructor was a compact Thai woman (reminding me of Edna from the Pixar movie The Incredibles but with a leotard and no glasses) who worked us into a sweat very quickly, reminding me that I really do need to attend yoga classes more frequently. 

I returned home to pick up Tawn and then we went to his friend Pim’s condo for grilled seafood.  Star of the grill were the giant river prawns.  These creatures, minus the extraneous spines, antennae, etc. are about eight inches long.  The cook cleaned them, split them lengthwise, and then grilled them.  They were incredibly good – especially the “custard” in the head area.  Not sure what this is actually called, but it is a fatty substance similar in taste and texture to the marrow in osso bucco bones.

One of the women there also prepared a raw shrimp in a manner similar to the crab in my previous posting.  She pulled out the meat, put a green chili sauce and lime juice on it, then ate it.  I tried some.  It was tasty and the texture was still very soft and chewy – probably because it takes a while for the acid in the lime juice to actually cook the flesh.  See, I’m taking all sorts of gastronomic risks.  That reminds me, I really need to follow up on health insurance offerings for expats in Thailand.

Pim’s husband, Arm, is an avid wine drinker with accomplished taste buds and a wallet to match.  The group (about eight of us, mostly his friends) went through five or six bottles of wine, mostly whites, but concluding with a very nice Australian cabernet sauvignon that took a good half hour to breathe once poured.  But once it opened up, it really opened up.

After Pim’s husband and friends left, Tawn, Pim and I visited and played with her five month old baby, Tara.  It took about an hour, but Tara finally decided she wanted to hang out with me.  After that, we became inseparable friends.  She’s the first child on her block to have a farang to play with. 

So by the time we headed home at 4:00, Tawn and I were pretty exhausted.  But that wasn’t the end of our day!  We had dinner scheduled with Jum and Scott.  Jum was one of Tawn’s colleagues at United Airlines.  She and Scott were married in December, the weekend Tawn and I were in Korea.  I hadn’t met Scott before, but he is an American who has lived here two years, teaching secondary school.

So we met Jum and Scott at Bella Napoli, an Italian restaurant that Guido (I kid you not),  my Italian classmate, recommended on Sukhumvit Soi 31.  Specializing in pizza, it is the kind of restaurant that, the minute you walk through the door, you know it’s authentic.  The wood-burning oven is right behind the main dining room, providing a clear view of your pizza’s progress from creation to consumption.

It was nice to meet Scott and see Jum again.  One thing that meeting Scott reinforces for me is that I need to keep up with my Thai studies.  While he’s lived here two years, since he’s worked full time (in a 9-5 type job, not a flexible one like mine) he hasn’t learned much more Thai than I already have.  If I were to get a regular office job, it would be very hard to make much progress on learning Thai.

Of course, the fates like to mess with me.  No sooner had I arrived at that realization than this morning I receive an email from Suyoung Yuu, with whom I’ve worked at various film festivals.  Suyoung now works in international marketing for Intel corporation, based in Beijing.  And it seems that there is an opening in their small Bangkok office for a marketing position that would support Southeast Asia.  So she wanted to make me aware of the position.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should say that I’m aware that my manager does read this blog from time to time.

The idea of settling into a job that would provide me with a work visa is attractive from the standpoint of helping secure my ability to stay here longer-term.  At the same time, the flexibility and earning power I enjoy with my current job is hard to match.

But that doesn’t really explain why it feels like a long week already…

In an effort to prepare for my Thai midterm tomorrow, I’ve been copying all of my notes into a new set of notebooks.  This serves to organize the notes, as I’m separating them into one book for vocabulary and another for phrases and grammar.  It also serves to help me review my learning.  So my hand is severely cramped as I’m been doing too much writing the past few days.  On top of it, I encountered a pair of words – duaygan and diawgan – that are stumping me.  They both mean “together” but they are not interchangeable.  And despite my teacher’s repeated explanations (in Thai) I’m still not clear what the difference is between them.

So this has given me a headache.

But enough Thai for the moment.  I still have quite a bit of work to do for my job, so I’ll focus on that first. 

The more humid it is in Bangkok, the hazier it is.  The hazier it is, the more beautiful are the sunrises.  As I get up about 5:00 or 5:15 most mornings, by the time I begin preparing breakfast I get to watch the sky as it goes from black to indigo to blue to pink to light.

A week of studying has brought me a bit closer to proficiency.  Another student, a half-Thai Canadian who is a few modules ahead of me and is studying classical dance at one of the Arts colleges in Bangkok, turned me onto a secret that I didn’t know about Union Language School:

The kitchen, it seems, is a quasi-buffet with the teachers (and a few students) bringing different food for snacking, much if it from their home villages.  Many of the teachers don’t live in Bangkok proper, and commute from a good distance outside of the city.  So on Friday I was able to enjoy Issan (northeastern Thai) style khao niaw (sticky rice) with a homemade nam prik (chili sauce) as well as these small, quince-like fruits that came from someone’s home.  Quite an exciting discovery.

The teachers who were snacking didn’t quite believe I really liked spicy foods.  This, the Canadian told me, is pretty consistent with Thais: they simply don’t believe that farang really can handle the spicy stuff.  The secret, I’m told, is to never let them see you sweat!

Speaking of chili, last Friday we had dinner at a seafood restaurant in the Victory Monument area with Pim, Ja, and Eddy. 

The specialty of the restaurant is a ceviche-like dish of crab that is marinated in a mixture of garlic, chilis, fish sauce and lime juice.  It is served without further cooking, as the acid in the lime juice cooks the crab.  The taste is, as you might imagine, very spicy.  The flesh remains very soft unlike when it has been cooked by heat, which makes its consistency more solid. 

Here’s a picture of Pim, Ja, Eddy and Tawn at the restaurant.  Notice the empty plates in front of them.  Thais don’t let their food go to waste!

Okay, to get on to the story related to this entry’s headline:

As you may know, the movie Brokeback Mountain is causing quite a sensation in the United States.  Known as the “gay cowboy movie” it is director Ang Lee’s interpretation of the short story by E. Annie Proulx.  Critically acclaimed and winning crossover audiences everywhere (as well as awards), the movie has become a source of great humor over the consternation felt by heterosexual men who might eventually be forced to watch the movie.

Our friend Tomas Leal, formerly of Houston but now living comfortably in London, forwarded the link to the MSNBC column written by Dave Wright, titled “The Straight Dude’s Guide to “Brokeback”.  It is just the funniest thing.  Here’s a brief selection of the introduction and you can click the above link to read the whole thing:

“You are a heterosexual man.  and you have no personal beef with gay people.  …  But your girlfriend/wife/common-law/female or whoever loves that adorable Jake Gyllenhaal and has already stated her intentions.  When it’s her turn to pick the Saturday ngith date-movie, you’re seeing “Brokeback Mountain.”

“But I am a heterosexual man,” you’re thinking, “very, very, very, very straight.” And you’re kind of freaking out as the release date quickly approaches …

And yet, you’re still going to see it whether you like it or not. This necessarily presents a dilemma: how to make her happy and endure your first gay-themed movie where guys actually make out on a very big screen right in front of your face?  And that’s where I come in.  I’m a red-blooded American male homosexual movie critic who’s already seen “Brokeback Mountain.”  And I could just tell you how great the film is, that it’s really powerful and moving and all that, but that isn’t what you want to hear.  So I have some viewing tips for you, my straight brothers. I promise I’m only here to help…”

 Happy reading and happy trails!

Leo Tolstoy probably spent less time writing War & Peace (with a much greater result, of course) than I did getting this trip report written.  It covers our entire eight days (ten including travel time) from Bangkok to Singapore, Hong Kong, to San Francisco.  The domestic flights around the United States are only briefly touched upon.  Then the return trip, San Francisco to Bangkok, is detailed.

It took a long time to whittle the photos down to only about 80 or so.  Those of you without broadband access… probably should get it, but that’s another matter.  Photo editing was done using Picasa, Google’s photo manipulation and organizational software.  I’m not sure if I like it.  There’s a lot of control you’re given but, as one reviewer wrote, “it is hard to tame.”

The link to the trip report is here.

Tuesday morning when I showed up at Union Language School for my Thai classes, I exited the elevator only to find the hallway filled with a refugee scene’s worth of students and teachers – standing, sitting, huddled together in small groups.  It was quarter till eight and nobody seemed to have a key for the front door.

The school just moved to a new building operated by the Church of Christ in Thailand, so I thought it unlikely that they had simply ceased operation, unannounced.

About eight o’clock the principal appeared.  She did not have the correct key, either, but explained that they had just rekeyed the building.  The hallways began to get very warm, lacking both air conditioning and ventilation.  The teachers hid in the emergency stairwell trying to stay cool and to avoid and uprising by an angry mob of farang. 

Eventually it was the coffee lady who saved the day.  A kind and robust woman who sells coffee and tea from a folding table for 12 baht and serves as the defacto den mother for the students, the coffee lady went down to security and secured the key for the back emergency exit.  She then climbed up the seven stories, opened the back door, and appeared on the other side of the front door: our saviour. 

By the time classes started it was 8:30.

Since arriving home from the holidays, my eating habits have shifted in two ways:

First, I’m eating less food again.  Despite my best efforts at moderation, I gained at least seven pounds while back in the US.  There simply is just too much food and I think too much of it has excess sugar and fat in it.  Dairy products are a particular concern.  I love them, but they seem to add a lot of calories, quickly.

Second, I’ve started eating regularly at the local vendors for lunch.  Previously, I had stayed away from these vendors who operate small open-front restaurants along the main streets.  Eating at the mall food courts was okay, regular restaurants were okay, but local vendors and street vendors were considered unsafe – at least in my mind.

But heading back home each afternoon from class and wanting some quick and easy food that was still healthy and inexpensive, I gave in to the temptation.  What was I waiting for?  It is like a buffet.  The vendor has a dozen different pans of food and you choose one or two items to go with your plate of rice.  The serving size is adequate – portion control is what it is all about – and the food is very fresh and tasty.

Typical: stir-fried fish with sweet-spicy sauce, and fried cabbage and mushrooms with tofu.  Or curried pork and stir-fried morning glory with capsicum.  Or chili pepper chicken with broccoli.  Each plate is only 25 baht, a significant savings over the 45-60 baht I’d pay at one of the shopping center food courts.

So far, I’ve dropped two pounds and am on my way to maxing more progress. 

This afternoon I’m working on a two-page training document to help our employees improve their prioritization skills. 

I’ll get to it after I’ve read the paper and folded my laundry.

A very low-key Sunday here in breezy Khrungthep.  An attempt to Skype my high school friend Ryan was not successful.  He answered but perhaps my microphone was not working and he couldn’t hear me.  So I called back and ended up with voicemail.  See, technology does not yet work perfectly.

We were more successful in getting through to the Prices.  Jennifer and I talked for a few minutes, then she put Emily on the phone.  Emily was in the midst of getting ready for bed and curtly informed me in a mumble that she was going to bed so she could go to church in the morning.  So much for missing her uncle.  And Tawn didn’t even get a chance to say hello.  Maybe a web camera would help her feel more connected?

Tawn and I ran a few errands, doing grocery shopping at Carrefour down on Rama IV and meeting our friend Eddy to hand off some things we had bought for him in the US.  We also stopped at a British pub near Sukhumvit Soi 31 to eat a traditional British Sunday dinner.  I had roast beef with mash, Yorkshire pudding, and veggies.  Tawn had chicken curry with chips.  More of an Indian-flavored curry, with lots of cumin.  Remnants of the formerly-glorious British Empire?  The food was actually quite tasty and satisfied that “every now and then” craving I get for Western food.  For dessert we shared a bread and butter pudding.  Yummy. 

The rest of the afternoon was spent on the computer.  Tawn worked on a proposal for Hewlett Packard and I posted a trip report for our visit to Seoul back in December, then turned my attentions to a document that a British colleague needs on Monday. 

Still full from lunch, we didn’t do much for dinner, opting to snack a bit and finish half a bottle of an Argentine Malbec.

It’s a new year.  And winter in Bangkok might be over.  Yesterday morning it was so humid that, upon looking out my window I mistakenly thought I was still in San Francisco during the summer.  The building next door was partially obscured by the haze and the buildings on the horizon are just grey shadows. 

By seven-thirty everyone on the SkyTrain, including the locals, were wilted.  Thankfully, by mid-day the jet stream shifted and we started to get some of those nice cooling winds from Chiang Mai. 

This morning is a different story entirely: we must have had some rain last night as the horizon is very clear and the only clouds are a high, thin layer.  Buildings within a kilometer appear in vivid resolution.  The temperature isn’t too bad, either: 25 C / 77 F. 

Thai lessons resumed on Wednesday, the day after we returned home.  Module 2 is smaller at eight students than our previous class of thirteen, although the current batch of Module 1 is huge at 15 students.  It is nice to be in a smaller class and studying with people I now know better.  More time speaking Thai.

The only problem is that two of our students regularly get sidetracked into English-language conversations, comparing the merits of sake versus vodka, for example.  I think the khruu (teacher) is getting very frustrated with us.  At the same time, some of the students feel like we’re not getting enough attention from the teacher, including the students who are derailing us!

The first hour of class on Wednesday was a nightmare.  Despite some practising during our travels, my Thai was quite rusty and it took a full hour before my synapses were once again reconnected.  By Thursday, I had a momentary epiphany during which I realised that there were little bits of pieces that I was actually “getting”.  The khruu was asking me questions and I was understanding!

It helps that a Module 4 student let me borrow all of her handouts from Module 2 and make photocopies of them.  We are given a 2-3 page handout each day at the end of class, recapping what we learned.  By reviewing the notes before the start of class, I’m familiar with the vocabulary we’ll be learning and don’t waste any time sitting there stuck in a grey cloud of confusion.  I also come across as more knowledgable to my classmates!  Except for Yoichi, who spent two months previously studying Thai and hangs out almost exclusively with Thai friends – he continues to be at the head of the class.

Our trip to the United States was truly a whirlwind event.  We have decided that, future trips need to be more limited in scope so that they can be a relaxing holiday for us as well.

We flew Singapore Airlines in economy class, which was a pretty good experience overall.  It necessitated an extra stop en route, but this stop allowed us to visit Singapore and see Otto and Han.  As an added bonus, Stephanie was in town from Melbourne, so the five of us met up for lunch at a well-known Hainanese Chicken Rice shop.

Along the way, I discovered the Chroma setting on my digital camera, which yields some fantastically brililant colors.  Yellows and reds that are practically radioactive!

Picture 1: Stephanie, Chris and Tawn at Wee Nam Kee Chicken Rice in Singapore.

We had only a bit more than five hours in Singapore, but that was enough time not only to enjoy lunch but to browse along Orchard Road, shop at Zara (tawn’s favourite store, supplanting the Louis Vuitton store), and stop for coffee twice.

After about eighteen more hours traveling from Singapore through Hong Kong, we arrived in San Francisco just around sunset on Christmas Eve.  Actually, we arrived almost an hour early, but customs was a mess and it took Tawn nearly an hour to clear.  We rented a fancy PT Cruiser – not my choice – and drove over to Newark for dinner with Dick and Sandy, my uncle and aunt. 

One of the best things about dinner with Dick and Sandy, aside from the joy of being with family, is the good wine.  We had one cabranet sauvignon (the name of which I failed to write down) that was absolutely delicious.  We also tried a bottle of the Thai syrah Tawn and I brought with us.  Decidely one-note and totally lacking in complexity.  But quaffable.

Picture 2: Christmas with the Tebows, Stolls, and Schultzs

Christmas morning we headed out to Kansas City, arriving in time to have dinner with the family at Jennifer’s.  Emily came out to the airport to meet us, and played shy for about the first twenty minutes.  By the time we reached the house, she had thrown shyness to the wind and grabbed Tawn’s hand and led him on a tour of the house, which they moved into this Summer.

On Tuesday evening, we gathered again for dinner, this time at my grandparent’s house.  Pat and Carl, my maternal aunt and uncle from Seattle, had arrived from Nashville where they were visiting my cousins Kari and Scott.  So we had another dinner.  The house, which is modest in size by warm in spirit, was very full. 

Picture 3: Emily’s special gift.

The highlight of the evening was a special gift that Grandpa had hand-made for Emily: three sets of framed letters that spelled out her name, the basic numbers, and alphabet.  Each letter was cut out of the frame like a puzzle piece so she could learn her letters and numbers.  Each piece, even duplicate letters, fit only into one specific place. 

The entire thing was hand-made, taking him several months of work at his brother-in-law’s wood working shop.  Without a doubt, it will be a treasure that Emily will pass down to her own children.

Tuesday for lunch we went to Lidia’s Kitchen, an Italian restaurant in the stockyards of Kansas City belonging to the grandmotherly host of the eponymous public television cooking show.  There we met Pat Goodfriend.  It was so nice to visit with Pat and to finally meet her friend Dean.  We look forward to spending more time with them when they visit in February.  Picture 4: Dean, Pat, Tawn and Chris at Lidia’s Kitchen in Kansas City.

On Wednesday morning, Tawn received his Christmas present, which was an overnight trip from Kansas City to Seattle to watch the group Pink Martini perform.  Jenn and I had watched them in Kansas City several months ago and they were fantastic.  Tawn really likes their music so I thought this would make a nice gift. 

We flew to Seattle without Tawn knowing any of the specifics of why we were flying there.  We checked in to the Hilton hotel and walked around on a brisk but glorious afternoon.  Macy’s department store was offering a special 11% discount for hotel guests, so we took advantage of their already 25%-off sale on Calvin Klein underwear to restock our underwear drawer.

For dinner we went to Dahlia Lounge, one to Tom Douglas’ four Seattle restaurants.  We have previously eaten at Palace Kitchen and enjoyed it so much, so when Chris and Kate Rogers recommended Dahlia Lounge, it sounded great.  Kate and I have worked together for six years and it was very exciting to meet them for dinner. 

Picture 5: Tawn, Chris, Kate, and Chris at Dahlia Lounge.  Where did the desserts go?

One highlight of dinner was the appearance of the chef, Tom Douglas, who stopped by the restaurant while we were deciding what to order.  He chatted with us for about ten minutes, particularly interested in Bangkok as he and his wife are considering going there for a holiday.  After making some recommendations, all of which were fabulous, he autographed some cookbooks that we had been considering buying (we ended up buying them of course!).

The show by Pink Martini was really fun.  Tawn was a bit tired, thanks to jet lag as well as a bottle of sparkling wine and a bottle of 1999 Ridge Lytton Springs Zinfandel, so he rested his eyes during the first half of the show and just listened carefully to the music.  Pink Martini is well-described on their website as “Somewhere between a 1930s Cuban dance orchestra, a classical chamber music ensemble, a Brasilian marching street band and Japanese film noir is the 12-piece Pink Martini.” 

The 13-member group was complemented by an 8-piece local string ensemble and, sure enough, the show was bookended by performances by a local 20-member Brasilian drum corps.  Tawn was definately awake and alert when the drummers marched down the aisle from the back of the house to the stage!

Friday morning we headed back from Kansas City to San Francisco for an over-packed two nights.  Our first stop was lunch with the Roberts: Brad, Anne Marie, and Sydney.  It was clear that Sydney had been excitedly waiting for us all day as she had an agenda laid out for us:

Picture 6: The Roberts family and Tawn on a rainy San Francisco afternoon.

First we were going to play a board game about picking cherries, then we were going to read books, then she was going to dance for us. 

Sure enough, after a very nice and unexpected lunch of chicken enchiladas and a spinach and mango salad that Brad and Anne Marie threw together, we picked plastic cherries, took turns reading books, and then Sydney changed into her toe shoes and tutu and performed a spontaneous overview of all the moves she had learned in ballet class, accompanied by an exposition about the story of Jesus’ birth in which Jesus was recast as a little girl.  All this from a three-year-old who attends daycare at the Jewish Community Center!

We stopped by Dick and Sandy’s again to pick up some things we had left there and then proceeded to San Ramon, about 30 miles east of the bay, to the home of Bruce and Howie.  They graciously offered their guest room to us and Bruce plied us with two great home-cooked dinners while we were there.  With a brand-new $4400 oven and stove that just arrived on Friday, Bruce was ready to turn up the heat!

The rainy weekend simply wasn’t long enough to see everyone and do everything we want to do.  We’ve resolved in the future to spend more time in the San Francisco area as it feels like home to us.  We were fortunately to meet up with Samantha and Jimmy, Anita, and Brad his son Evan for pizza at North Beach Pizza in San Mateo.  Two hours provided a lot of catch-up time and I was sorry that I didn’t bring my camera.

Our return flight departed just after midnight on Sunday night – really Monday morning.  The flight back was good although less so than the flight out.  Our seats on the SFO-HKG-SIN legs were in a windowless row, and even though the long leg was an overnight one, not having a window made the space feel quite claustraphobic.  The service was friendly, though, and the food was good.

Picture 7: Chris is welcomed aboard an SQ flight by one of the legendary Singapore Girls.

When we arrived in Hong Kong there was just enough time to stop at the Singapore Airlines lounge and shower and change clothes.  Our transit time in Singapore was equally short, just long enough for Tawn to run to the other terminal and pick up some Bobby Brown facial cream.  We arrived back in Bangkok on Tuesday afternoon after a 30-minute delay caused by a faulty steering system that occurred just after we pulled off the runway, exhausted and glad to be home.

That evening I met up with Paul Thies for dinner, who was spending his last night in Bangkok before heading back to San Francisco.  Dinner was at Cabbages and Condoms, the Thai restaurant on Sukhumvit Soi 12 that is operated by the nonprofit Population and Community Development Association that Tawn’s father runs.  It was nice to visit with Paul and I hope that he decides to finally try living in Thailand one of these days soon.