Week 1, Friday: still Bangkok!

Hello from the land of smiles.

I realize that yesterdays blog was very long and I'll try to keep them more entertaining and to the point.

Yesterday after I got home and had been working a bit in the afternoon I realized I shouldn't stay in my hotel room all day so I went to go for a jog in Lumpini Park, near good old Charlie House. When I got there, I discovered a lot of other joggers! It was exciting. Also exciting was the fact that my run happened to coincide with the 6:00 national anthem which was played across the park on loudspeakers (as it is across the country). Typically, when the national anthem is played, you stand straight with your arms straight and face the flag.





But there was no flag! So what direction did people face you ask? They just faced whatever direction they were facing. Needless to say, it's really something when you're jogging along in a park with a group of other joggers and walkers and suddenly everyone just stops at the same time, perfectly still, then resumes jogging after the anthem. I also witnessed, on the jog (which was hot) some nice group aerobics and a nice little exercise station type course deal, which I did some pull-ups at. I also think I found a mini little free outdoor climbing gym...



I had an appointment this morning with Acarn K., the head of the Chula ling. department who I met last time I was here. She's really great. We talked for a while about what I was doing and the department here, and so on. She then took me on a walk around the farmer's market that meets at Chula every Friday where there were all sorts of things being sold. Sadly I didn't have my camera with me, but I got some lychee and some little coconutmilk-stickyrice-sweetcoconutfilling-wrapedinbananaleavesandsteamed confection which was delicious. She then took me to lunch at the faculty club, which was really good traditional Thai cooking, where we stayed and chatted for over an hour. We then came back to the department where I worked a bit more and met a graduate student here who presented a paper at the same conference as me in March at Cornell. It was all very good, and I feel really comfortable with the people in the department here now, which is great.

I also think when I come back to Bangkok in August I'm going to stay in the visiting scholar dorms, which are only 600B a night and evidently in a nice garden compound which would be much nicer than the cramped street I'm on right now. Also, the location of the University is great. So all of that was good to learn. Acarn K. told me that I just have to let her know when I'm coming and she'll reserve a room for me.

I'm going to go to the Indra hotel this evening to look around a bit. They have nice old Thai touristy stuff and an old jewelry shop my mom used to go to all the time that might have some nice gifts or something. It's just kind of nice to get out, too. Tomorrow I'm going with the friend from the department here to see some temples which I haven't seen since I was a kid downtown, so that should be fun too. Hopefully I'll be on the bus to Ranong tomorrow night and (gulp!) will begin my fieldwork on Monday.