With only four weeks to go before the English program at Bangkhonthiinai School comes to an end, Ajarn Yai decided that this week Kobfa and I should join the teachers at an annual educational fair in Chonburi province.  Chonburi is located on the way to Pattaya, about an hour’s drive southeast of Khrungthep.

The educational fair brings together all of the provincial educational offices from central Thailand so they can show off the programs and projects they have undertaken. 

This year the fair was held outdoors at the Chonburi provincial offices and it was hot!  So much so that after about thirty minutes of walking around (even with umbrellas), Kobfa and I retired to a adjacent park and sat in some plastic chairs in the shade of a tree.  With the breeze, it wasn’t uncomfortable.

Right: The Chonburi provincial headquarters building, which is a very odd mix of styles.

Most of the displays were of vocational programs that are in place at the schools.  There were also various competitions in things like spelling and public speaking, as well as tables set up where students made sculptures and other crafts.

Above: Putting down my umbrella for a brief moment, I’m posing in front of the main stage which is decked out to celebrate His Majesty the King’s 80th birthday, which we’ll celebrate on December 5th.

Below: The crowds of educators and students in the sweltering sun, going from tent to tent, listening to information about the different educational programs.

One of the most interesting things was a school district that was promoting its AIDS and STD education program.  This is very timely as there was an article about AIDS education in schools in Wednesday’s Bangkok Post. 

Left: Students get more information about AIDS education.

Asking Ajarn Yai about this, she explained that the education is done in the secondary school (equivalent to US grades 7-12) but that the content of the program and whether or not it is delivered is up to the individual schools.

The educational booth included some very direct banners that can be displayed to educate students.  They are much more explicit than I would have expected and am very glad to see that this type of education is being made available to at least some of the students.

Left: General explanation that AIDS, TB, and other diseases can affect all of us.  Center: The symptoms of different STDs, listing in red the different types of symptoms and what diseases might cause them.  Right: A rather explicit explanation of how to use a condom.  Most interest at the bottom: a little cartoon tube of KY Jelly is slathering some lubricant on top of the little cartoon penis!  The caption is explaining that before putting the condom on, adding some lubricant will enhance the enjoyment of intercourse.

Some of the crafts activities, below.  Left: I’m not sure why this boy is making a huge carrot, but he was rather intently making little scallops along the outside of it.  Right: This being Thailand, it is no surprise that a favorite sculpture subject is elephants.

After about 90 minutes there, an hour of which was spent enjoying the breezy shade as Ajarn Yai and the teachers continued to wander about, we packed back into the van and continued to a nearby gulf-front restaurant for an early lunch of seafood.  On the top of each page of the menu was written “No Pork, No Beef, No Chicken” and they had more different types of fish than I have ever seen on a menu.

The restaurant was located on a small cove filled with many mussel farms.  The tide was out so the mussels were sitting out in the bright sun while fishing boats were left resting on the mud as their crews did repairs and worked on the underside of the boat.

After lunch we stopped at a Chinese temple of Quan Yin, the Buddhist Bodhisattva of Compassion.  It was a very colourful, gaudy temple with lots of monkeys running around and eating the fruit offerings left out at the altars.

Finally, about 2:30 we headed back home to Khrungthep.  It was a tiring day and while the lunch was good, I didn’t get much from the educational fair.  I’m looking forward to getting back to teaching next week for the final of three weeks of English.

Another interesting photo I snapped this weekend: a man sitting on the back of a motorbike was holding some aluminum beams vertically while riding along.  Tough to see in the picture, so I’ve circled and added an arrow.  Talk about dangerous: beware low overpasses!

It is still stone fruit season in Thailand even though we don’t have a stone fruit season.  I’ve frozen about 4 kilos of bing cherries and made a half-dozen small cherry tarts and frozen those, too. 

Left: Cherry tarts, fresh from the oven.

Along the way, my cherry pitter broke.  Over the past decade, I’ve gone through three or four pitters and can’t figure out what it takes to find a really good quality one.

I’ve had some metal ones where the rod that pokes out the pit has broken due to metal fatique.  My most recent one was plastic and one of the two finger rests (it looks a bit like a syringe) snapped off.  I have my fingers crossed that the model from OXO Good Grips will last longer.  It isn’t like I have a lot of cherries to pit so I shouldn’t have to buy a new one every other year!

Left: the OXO model that I’m hoping will work better.  Right: If I’m really serious about pitting cherries, I should go for this $56 model that can pit 30+ pounds of cherries an hour!

Plums are also on sale at the market.  I bought a pack of six white-fleshed plums and made a claufoutis with it using the recipe from Julia’s Childs’ “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”.  Most recipes I’ve made have some melted butter in them, but not this one.  The resulting custard is quite dense and rich.  Tasty, of course, but it would benefit from a little lightness.

Right: Stepping in from the balcony (our outdoor kitchen) with a fresh plum claufoutis.

Tawn returned home from Beijing with some peaches, so I’ll have to make a peach cobbler or peach crisp within the next few days.  The peaches look really good but I think they’re not actually ripe.  Genetic modifications and cross-breeding these days allow fruits and vegetables to look so amazing, even if they don’t taste that way.

Anyone want to stop by for dessert?

Khrungthep has no shortages of new cinemas: every mall has one and all of them feature digital sound, stadium seating, and all of the amenities you would expect from any megaplex cinema in the United States.  In fact, there is a shortage of grand old cinemas here even though the city used to be full of them.

These days there are just three cinemas, all owned by the Tansacha family as part of the Apex Cinemas, that are holdovers from the days before multiplexes.  Of those, the Siam and the Scala are the two “grand” cinemas whereas the Lido is a series of three smaller auditoriums.

The Scala opened in 1967 in Siam Square.  In those days, Siam Square was the only shopping center in Khrungthep, and today it is still the hub of shopping in the city, around which has sprung up an impressive (and seemingly endless) number of malls including MBK, Siam Discovery, Siam Center, and Paragon.

The 900-seat Scala has one of the most beautiful lobbies: it is done in a Moorish style, featuring twin grand staircases, a large chandelier, and a sculptural relief along one of the ways.  It also features a hand-painted movie poster – one of the last in the Kingdom.  It is changed every few weeks to advertise whatever big picture is coming out soon.

Best of all, the Scala along with its Apex Cinema siblings show a combination of foreign and art films.  This weekend, Todd and I went to see Paris j’taime and well as Woody Allen’s Scoop.  Not only does the Scala offer one of the largest cinemas, but the tickets are cheaper than at the malls (100 baht versus 120 to 160) and good seats are available even at showtime.

Tawn returned home from his company trip to Beijing on Monday evening.  The flight was supposed to arrive about 9:35 but Tawn SMS’d from Beijing saying they were sitting on the tarmac and would probably arrive about 10:15.  Checking the THAI Airways site before leaving home, they were showing an on-time arrival which I knew wasn’t possible.

Sure enough, the flight was delayed.  Initially it was showing a 12:15 am arrival and eventually that was pushed to 12:50.  Normally I’d be thrilled to spend three hours at the airport but Suvarnabhumi at night isn’t very interesting.  To top it off, the two observation areas have been closed ostensibly for remodel.

This morning when Tawn took a look at my Simpsons entry, he was amused and said his avatar is a striking similarity to him, but that the stubble-headed me doesn’t quite capture my essence.  We went back in and he selected the completely bald head.  Comparative thoughts?  New one is on the right.

Well, I wanted to resist the marketing and not write anything about The Simpsons Movie.  But then Sheldon posted a picture of his Simpsons avatar and being a Simpsons fan, I thought it would be funny to see what Tawn and I would look like as Simpsons characters.  Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

The picture I based the characters on:

Oh, the film festival is almost over.  Thank goodness.  As much as I enjoy watching films, the films I’ve watched have been about 40% “ho-hum”, 30% “okay” and 30% “oh, that was pleasant”.  It is hard to say if it is just the selection of films I saw or a reflection of the festival’s programming.

One film that really caught my attention was Nia Dinata’s Love for Share.  About polygamy in Indonesia, the three loosely interconnected stories tell of three women from three different backgrounds and places in life.  Yet all three are tied together by the common experience of being one of their husbands’ multiple wives.  The first story is about a doctor who must reconcile her devotion to her religion and her only son with her discontent at her husband’s many surprises.  The second story takes place in an over-crowded slum as the new third wife chafes at her situation and forms a tight bond with the second wife.  The final story is of a self-involved young waitress who vows to make her status as a second wife work to her advantage.

While Dinata stakes out an anti-polygamy perspective, the film is surprising in that it doesn’t come to quite so clear-cut an opinion, reflecting the complexities and intricacies of feelings, circumstances, and relationships.

One more day and three more films to go.

This evening I stopped by the opening night event for Justin’s photo exhibition at Tamarind Cafe.  His photos are really nice and he had done a couple of blow-ups (2 meters wide) highlighting two of his most stunning pictures.  They look really good in the restaurant.  It was nice to visit with him and also with Roka and Ryan, who were there to lend their support.

On display at the surprisingly (or not) empty high-end Gaysorn mall, affectionately called Gay Zone by the local Silom crowd.

A sign I spotted at a nearby construction site this evening which blocked the sidewalk.  I think it really does say what the meant to say.

After attending the homeowner association meeting (see below) we went upstairs to take a look at the progress on the remodel.  As expected, there wasn’t a whole lot accomplished this week. 

Right: An interesting moth on our front door.  An auspicious sign?

Below: The widening of the living room wall had been completed, making the entire wall flush with the structural beam along the ceiling.  The electrical outlet and the door frame going into the master bedroom still have to be pulled forward, but that will be easily accomplished later on.  Additionally, the wall extension between the main entry hall and the living room has been completed, creating more of a visual separation between the two spaces.

Good news on the bathroom doors which, you may recall, were incorrectly installed when we visited last week.  Both have been pulled out and the correct doors have been put in, instead.  Also, the door leading into the master bedroom from the bath has been moved to the left as it was supposed to be.

Below left: Last week Tawn and his mother inspected the door that was taken out and then put back in in the exact same place, not moved to the left as per the blueprints.  Below right: This week we see that the door was taken out, replaced with the new wood door frame, and was moved to the left about 20 cm (8 inches).  

The hardwood floors (we chose ash) are on order and should be installed this coming week.  There is a question over which pattern to use: our designer, Ble, wants us to use a herringbone pattern but I’m inclined towards a standard brick pattern.

Left: Sunday morning we had breakfast at Tamarind Cafe, the vegetarian restaurant on Sukhumvit Soi 20, and went through the draft architectural plans in details to come up with a list of questions and concerns for Ble. 

Afterwards, we went to his shop on Sukhumvit 23 and spent almost two hours pouring through the plans.  At this point, he has enough information to draw up “final” plans and send them to the contractor for a price estimate.

Yes, this may seem a little strange to only be getting to final plans now, considering that we’ve gutted the house already.  But that’s the way it is done here, or so I’m told.  And the areas gutted are all changes we know we are going to make one way or another. 

You’ll notice in some pictures that the kitchen has not been gutted.  That’s because we’re not certain if we can afford to do the kitchen remodel at this time.  The remodel itself wouldn’t be too bad, but the remodel plus new appliances could be very pricey.

Below: Tawn at Ble’s shop, filled with things that he would love to have in the house.

We’ll work it out somehow, right?  (crossed fingers)

This weekend I took some time out from watching films to attend to condominium issues.  Saturday morning there was a homeowner’s association meeting at Raintree Villa.  Wanting to do our civic duty, Tawn and I showed up for this meeting.  We even had an item we wanted on the agenda: a request to consider installing bicycle parking racks in the car park.

What we didn’t realize was that this meeting had been called to address one particular point of business: the embezzlement of about one million baht (about US$31,500 at the ever-worsening exchange rates) over the past year by the complex’s manager.

Scandal!  Below, Tawn and I wait for the meeting to start.  The plastic chairs say “Wat Pasi Ekkamai” on the back and were borrowed from the temple near Tawn’s parents’ house.  Interestingly, “pasi” means “tax” or “duty” so I’m curious whether the temple was built from taxes.  Interesting name.  Can’t quite imagine the First Church of the Value Added Tax on some street corner. 

The property management company, Plus Properties, was there to report on the investigation and to request help from the home owners in gathering further evidence.  It seems that the manager had not always been issuing receipts for water payments and and was using fake receipts for home owner association payments. 

There was a lot of debate amongst meeting participants about Plus Properties’ responsibility for this embezzlement because it seems that the on-site manager had had little oversight and that few checks existed to balance her actions.  Originally there had been two on-site managers, each of whom checked and balanced the other.  But due to cost-cutting, one of the positions was eliminated.  From what I gather, the home owner association’s board had agreed to that change.

Anyhow, reviewing the data that was provided, our unit does not have any outstanding balances and it appears that the former owner was diligent about collecting receipts for her payments.  Good news.