Elephants and Tigers and Buddahs, Chiang Mai!

The first thing we did in Chiang Mai after dropping our things off at the hotel was to drive to see an elephant show. The elephants were so sweet and performed some amazing tricks! They played soccer (one elephant was the goalie and another the kicker), they stacked giant logs to make a wall, they played harmonicas, and even painted pictures! After the show, all the elephants reached out with their long trunks towards the crowd to be fed bananas and other snacks. Being at the show made us hope that the elephants were treated kindly, and it also got us excited for our own elephant ride we would be going on later in the trip!We saw the tigers next. We had to chose if we wanted to be with the new borns, cubs, teenagers, or full grown tigers. Our whole group chose the full grown ones. It was mid-day and the trainers all said that they are nocturnal and this is the middle of their slumber and that's why they were so mellow. But we kind of think they were sedated or something because the trainers would pull at their whiskers, hit their faces, and lift their lips (exposing their teeth!) to get them to wake up and they still barely moved. There were three tigers that we got to pet.

Now I can say that I have "spooned" with a TIGER! Crazy!

Look how huge their paws are!
Here's a video of me petting one of the tigers.

(Above) These are the toilets that we used while in Thailand. I don't know about Erik, but I got pretty good at these squattie-potties. When you're done, you have to take the bowl in the orange pot and fill it with the water and pour it down the toilet to flush. No toilet paper.

(Below) These are the steps up to one of the Wats we saw. It is called Doi Suthep. Notice the monk on the right side of the steps on his way up. They are so cute!

Up on Doi Suthep, there was a fortune-buddah area where you have to shake this cylinder full of sticks until one stick falls out. Each stick has a number on it. The number on the stick that falls out corresponds with a number on a sheet of paper that has a fortune on it. It's kind of like a horoscope. It took me a few tries because more than one stick kept falling out- it's harder than it looks! Our tour guide Tee is shaking the sticks in the picture below to show us how it's done.

(Below) Inside one of the temples on Doi Suthep was a monk who was blessing people and tying string around their wrists for good luck. Monks cannot touch women, so there was an assistant next to him (not pictured) where the girls had to go after the blessing to get their string tied. We all got a blessing and our string bracelets.

These bells were constantly ringing while we were up there. They believe that ringing these bells will bring your prayers up to heaven. People were walking down the line and ringing every single one.
Here's a view of Chiang Mai from Doi Suthep.

Explanation

I realized that I wrote all about the fact that we couldn't drink beer for about 28 hours but I forgot to tell you why! There was an election taking place and the people in Thailand were to vote for a new governor. No beer was to be served to try to prevent people from overindulging and then not being in their right mind to cast their vote. Interesting, isn't it? Well, there was nothing stopping anyone from drinking liquor... but still, many pubs were closed on Saturday night.

Tailand- days 1-4 in Bangkok

This incredible structure is the Royal Palace. It is next to the Temple of the Emerald Buddah. There's a lot of hype over the Emerald Buddah... he was a little small and looked just like every other buddah except he is green and sits atop an ornate tower of gold. What was more impressive were the temple grounds and all the structures outside. And then there's the Royal Palace which is simply breathtaking.

There was a change of guard ceremony while we were there. Of course, Kristen and I HAD to get a picture standing rigidly next to the cute little- echem, I mean, intimidating- guard.

After a long morning of walking around we stopped for lunch. Erik ordered a beer, which would be no problem normally, except for this day beer was prohibited from all eating establishments and bars from 6 pm on Saturday till 10 pm on Sunday. And this was Sunday around 12:30 pm. We had tried ordering beers the night before at a some bars and were turned down, but this restaurant had a great idea. When Erik ordered the beer, the waiter basically said, "We cannot serve you beer today, but you can still have it if you drink it out of a tea pot." We looked around, and the table next to us had a couple "tea pots" on their table and were drinking beer out of tea cups! So, Erik had his beer. haha!! Here his is trying to look inconspicuous.

Next on our agenda was the Temple of Dawn. We climbed these steep steps to get a nice veiw over Bangkok.


That's me sitting down half way up the steps. I am wearing a sarong. You are supposed to have long pants on or a long skirt and have your shoulders covered in order to enter any Wat. It was pretty warm outside so Kristen and I both carried around a sarong to drape around our waists right before we went in. Shoes didn't matter b/c you always take your shoes off before you step into a Wat.

At the top of the Temple of Dawn. Well, at least as far as you could climb. The highest point was still a ways up.
The next day (Monday) was the first day with our tour group. We decided to go to the floating market which is about an hour or so outside of Bangkok. About half an hour of the trip we spent in these banana boats while a drive maneuvered them through the canal. Here are Kristen, Giff, and Erik about to get in the boat. The guy on the right is T, our tour guide.
The floating market is a busy and colorful place. You can buy anything from food, to underwear, to wall hangings, to black market designer purses.

Back in Bangkok, we found a vendor with some fried delights! GAG!! The top left are giant cockroaches! I almost ate a cricket, but no one would do it with me so I chickened out. One guy saw me contemplating and said, "I just ate one- it's really not that bad. Tastes like popcorn. You can do it!" And I said, "I don't believe that you just ate one, nice try!"


Massage number TWO out of a total of THREE while in Thailand.

Later that afternoon, we and our tour group had to get all our things together and head to the train station. We were taking an overnighter to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand. We had fun on the ride, until 10 pm when the quiet hours began and we were forced to go to sleep in the beds the train official had made for us. It was surprisingly comfortable. We woke up the next morning around dawn to see the thick layer of mist resting over the mountains and Chiang Mai. More to come on our trekking and other adventures in the north. :)

Thailand- days 1-4 in Bangkok

One of the coolest things we saw in Thailand was the Reclining Buddah at Wat Po in Bangkok. "Wat" means temple. Whenever we saw a temple off the side of the road or something, Kristen and I never got tired of saying, "WAAAT's that?" The following four pictures are all of the Reclining Buddah. It is enormous!

This next picture is outside the main temple at Wat Po. The statue in the picture can be seen in different poses all over the temple grounds.

At every Wat, there seems to be the main Buddah inside one of the temples and then outside there are always smaller buddahs where people can worship as well, lighting incense and donating flowers. Giff, Kristen, Erik and I pose for a picture while we wait for the water taxi. I was playing with the color functions on my camera.
On the water taxi...

There are street vendors everywhere!!! Sometimes you can get better food at their stands than at a sit-down restaurant. Thai food is D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S!!!!

Giant pictures of the king and queen (or just the king) are displayed all over Thailand.

Erik and I at one of the Wats.

Some monks worshipping. Their chants could be heard outside the Wat through speakers.

Yet another Buddah at yet another Wat. I don't really know why there are seven buddahs. I guess the more the better.

Fresh produce is easy to come by in Thailand. We ate lots of fresh mango, pineapple, and watermelon- YUM!! My favorite dessert there is fresh mango with sweet, sticky rice made with coconut cream.

Here is a picture of our tuktuk driver and then a picture of us 4 crammed in the back seat. 3 people can sit in the back, but we made it work. At one point on the trip we squeezed 6 people back there!

Motor bikes are very common there. It was also common to see a small child riding in the front. We saw two adults riding on one bike with a kid in the front and the woman holding an infant on her side! This family was kind enough to smile for the picture :) They must've forgotten the kid's helmet...

We went to the weekend market one morning. There were isles and isles that seemed to go on forever just like this one in the picture. The shopkeepers all said the same thing, "For you, special price! One time sale price!" haha, yeah right.

suh-wha-di-krap

Hi, writing this currently from Bangkok, Thailand. we arrived here two days ago and since then we have seen alot of the sights of the city. we saw the reclining Budda, the emrald Budda, and thousands and thousands of other Buddas. we have been getting around by river taxi, by regular taxi, by the underground train and elevated train and also by these thing called tuk tuks. the tuktuk is a tricycle vehicle that can cram four people on. its like a covered motorcycle...sort of. the drivers are nuts, which makes it even cooler. today we took a trip to a floating market, the first hour was by van, then we got in little banana shaped boats with four cylinder engines-on-a-stick on the back of them. it was about a half hour by those boats to the market. the market had floating vendors and customers were on the dock. I got a really good eggroll and a nice meal of fried rice for 50 baht (about $1.20). I've decided that I'm most interested in the food of thailand, and audrey can spend the time looking at the trinkets and other awesome clothing, wallhangings etc. etc. etc. (The King and I reference... anyone?... anyone?). anyways, soon we are heading to the north, to chang mai where we will do some trekking around and things like that. should be awesome. I really want to come back sometime and ride motorcycles all around thing place, but it might be a little dangerous, the traffic is way way way nuttier here than it is in Okinawa. ight, we'll write more later, and yes, Alaska is best in the summer, Fairbanks is best in September/May I hear because it actually gets really hot in the summer, Anchorage is always awesome i hear from my buddy clint since it is on the ocean it has a milder climate. but heather, since you're from minnesota you could deal with it any time of year I'm sure. -Erik

The frozen north

As some of you know Audrey and I spent Christmas somewhere that was quite snowy. I was given the option of going to Fairbanks, Alaska and I jumped on the offer. Then they suggested that I take Audrey along, and I didn't think she would be interested, but I asked anyway. I prefaced it with the fact that it would be very cold and dark the entire time, but she was ecstatic. She was a little surprised to find out that we would be leaving in 12 hours, but she wasn't disheartened. We packed up and I went to sleep to see how much I could get before it was time to go (don't worry I got enough to operate the plane).
We took 15 passengers, mostly other air force memebers going up there to do their job, and then also Audrey. Audrey slept for a few hours on the plane (which took off at about 4 AM) and when she woke up she sat in the cockpit. The flight was uneventful, although we went through one of the shorter days I have ever seen. The sun came up right as we were nearing the aleutian island and went down about an hour after we got on the mainland of Alaska; just a taste of things to come. I did the approach and landing into Eielson, which has the longest runway i have ever seen, 14,000 feet. The approach and final weren't very pretty, but luckily everything came together really well about 3 feet above the runway, and we had a really soft touchdown. Sometimes even a blind squirel finds a nut.
It was obviously night when we arrived at eielson. It was night about 85% of the time we were in alaska. We were even there on the shortest day of the year, 21Dec. The sun would generally come up around 10 in the morning and around 2 in the afternoon it would begin to set. It wouldn't be totally down until around 3, so we would have about and hour long sunset, which was usually pretty (save the two days straight that it snowed). This amount of light would confuse anyone, and what we found that we would do is get up with the sunrise and then stay up until around 2 in the morning. It just felt natural to do that because you want to get up with the sunlight and after it is dark its hard to keep track of time. We wouldn't have a clue sometimes whether it was 7 at night or midnight.
It was also cold. they were apparently having a heatwave because it was only about -10 degrees F, normally this time of year it is around -30 to -40. so we were lucky in that respect. We even got to go snowboarding. They have a small hill at the army base there. luckily we are used to snowstar so the short slopes didn't bother us. we wanted to have snowball fights and make snowmen, but the snow wasn't packing snow. it was way too dry.
We went out a few times to eat in the City of Fairbanks, which is fair (banks- haha- this is the first and probably the last time Erik lets me read what he wrote before posting it! haha- I couldn't resist the pun.) sized for how far north it is. Audrey had some good salmon and I had steak. I almost got an elk steak, but it was ground meat, so the regular steak sounded a little better. We pooled our resources with all the other people who were there from Kadena and had a nice Christmas dinner. We had turkey and ham and green bean casserole and pies and cookies and all sorts of other things. One thing I really enjoy about Alaska is that the beer there is really really good. The most northern brewery in the country is called Silver Gulch, and they have some very tasty stuff.
Anyways not to make this too long, we got home before new years and enjoyed the holiday with our friends here on the island. But thats a different story altogether.

Marathon

Erik- Hey all, I've been training for the last four month for the Naha marathon which just happened on December 7th. Audrey was training for it for the first two months until a foot/nerve injury stopped her from training. There was a group that was training for it including giff and kristen bloom, marc and katie austin, mike kerschbaum, leif gilbertson and john lockard, who didn't really train for the marathon, just decided to do it. We really started training in mid August and kept with it through our strange schedules, completing runs in places like misawa, fairbanks, hawaii, san diego, australia, guam, and of course iowa. The furthest i ever ended up running was a 17 mile run right here at kadena. in retrospect I wish i would have trained a little more to avoid some of the pain that i felt in the marathon. The week before the marathon I also started having some pain in my left achilles heel, so i decided to do mostly biking and other types of cardio instead of pounding the ground.
That is another thing that is different here in Okinawa. There is almost a total lack of grass. It is possible to go on base and run on the grass around the flightline, or where ever. but the sidewalks in Okinawa have no grass near them, so you are constantly running on cement, which can start to hurt after about 13 miles or so. I know liz and laura have run a few marathons, and probably have had similar experiences with the pains, but I wonder if it was different at all since I weigh probably 80 pounds more?
Anyway, we went to pickup our race packets the day before, and rode the monorail to get to the park where the start and finish were at. on raceday we left at 6 and parked the cars at kristen's work and again took the monorail. we left some bags on a tarp in the same park so we would have some clothes and things when we finished. the lineup started occurring at about 8 for a 9 o'clock start. everyone lined up in their groups only to see lines of people streaming ahead of them for the half hour before the race. it reminded me of the bix how they did the start, but it only took about three minutes to reach the starting line. after the start i ran with kerschbaum for a while, and we were just dodging all around trying to make our way closer to the front. I had a little collision with a japanese guy dressed up like santa clause and unfortunately spread him all over the street. apparently i wasn't watching ahead of myself very well, and just at that instant this guy decided to cut right in front of where i was running. But we were both okay. One problem during the race is that everything was in kilometers. absolutly no mile markers. So it took some math to figure out where i was. i knew it was around 40 km, but not that it was exactly 42.something, i figured that 16k was 10 miles, and 32k was 20 miles. We also had to figure out what pace we were running since we were used to mile marker pace. we decided that 9 minute mile pace was around 5 minutes 20 sec pace for 1 km, and i think that was about right. So the race went well for the most part. It wasn't until about 15km that i felt like i was running in the clear, without having to pass people every few seconds. right about that time I had to use a bathroom, and luckily found a portapottie. and to my surprise it was the kind with just a hole in the floor, so that was interesting. oddly after that stop my achilles heel started hurting worse and my pace slowed down for a while, until I saw kerschbaum pass me. I caught up with him and ran with him for about the next 10 km. we went through the half marathon at about 1:40-45 we weren't quite sure where it was since it would have been marked in japanese(it wouldn't have said 13.1). the rest of the race was going pretty well, I was noticing that everytime i stopped running for water or something it would hurt more to start running again, so I decided that I should probably just keep running (i was still taking water, dont worry). i noticed alot of people starting to walk around 30km. the real pain didn't start for me until the last 5 km (last 3 miles) i hit that marker and just decided to walk for a while no matter how it felt. i did start running again okay, but i was starting to cramp in my hamstrings so that i needed to take very short choppy steps, or I would cramp worse. i had to stop a bunch to stretch that out, but eventually I made it to the finish. I crossed the lin 3 hour and 33 minutes from when i started and made my way to our tarp area. I saw audrey cheering in the crowd and kate gilbertson was at the finish to take my picture and let me know where our stuff was, since i was a little out of sorts. that first 20 or so minutes after the race was some incredible pain, but it subsided and i got up and walked around a little. the rest of the day we all walked like very old people. stairs were especially hard. we went out to chilis and had very very large meals to celebrate. everyone finished and was happy with their times. but I'm still pretty sore