Thai Hot Pot (A Dinning Story)

(Rlyan and Barett)

The other night we went to a Thai
restaurant that specializes in
serving "Hot Pots". A Hot Pot is a
dish that we make ourselves.



First they bring a pan of flaming
charcoal to the table. They use a
big high speed fan to stoke the
charcoal. Its was really cool.



Then we choose from a
humongous selection of foods.
There were raw meats, raw veggies
and all types of seafood including
clams (my favorite: Rylan) shrimp, fish, squid and other weird stuff. One of the weird foods was fish balls. Fish balls are every popular in Thailand, they're at almost every Thai restaurant. They're gross!






The restaurant was really large, loud and smoky. There were over 1600 seats, 400 tables! They were pretty much packed! You had to get there early to get a good seat.

The last picture was our creation of a hot pot. We put both pork and chicken in as well as cabbage, mushrooms and some spicy sauces. We also added rice noddles. It was really good!

if you ever have the chance to go to a hot pot restaurant you should!

Insect Museum

(Barrett)

Today we went to an Insect Museum.It had crystals too. There were Hornets Nests, butterflies,and really huge centipedes a foot long. Some of the insects were scary, others looked like leaves (look closely at the first pic for the leaf shapes). I also saw insect larvae.

The man who owned the museum really loved mosquitoes. He studied them, painted them and drew them.

The crystals were in rocks and were all different colors. Some looked like eggs. Some had spikes. I also saw "fools gold" and old coins.

It was a good day!

(All pictures by Barrett)

The Cave and Longnecks

(Rylan)

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas. I got a remote control Helicopter for Christmas. I flew it at the tennis courts and after 5 minutes it broke. Then we got another and it didn't work. Finally, we got a different type and it works well. I really like flying it.

Recently we went to get our Visa renewed in Burma (Myanmar). On the way we stopped at an enormous cave. The locals go to see the Reclining Buddha inside, but I really liked the features. (Stalagmites and Stalactites). Some of the stalactites went all the way to the floor of the cave.

In the past the Thai's used the cave for protection and safe keeping of their possessions. This was my first cave.
(Barrett)

Merry Christmas to you all. What i like most about Christmas is opening the presents in the morning. The best present I got was a stuffed animal, a dog.The second best was a pen with a laser,flashlight and pointer stick. I also got a mask and snorkel for swimming in the ocean What did you get for Christmas? Hope you had a good Christmas.

I went to see the Karen tribe also know as the Longneck tribe. There is a story about why they wanted long necks. There was a snake that was magical and wanted to marry a human but the human would never love the snake, because it was a snake. So the snake transformed into a woman and she married a man. When she got pregnant she lost her magical powers so when she went to sleep she transformed back into a snake. When her husband woke and saw that she was a snake he ran away. She went back into the forest and had snake eggs but then she died. Then a hermit (man) found the eggs, they hatched but they weren't snakes, they were girls. The hermit told them about their mom. They wanted to look like her so they wore the rings around their neck to look like a snake.

Elephant Adventure

(Ry) Today I went to an elephant village. First we bought some sugarcane and bananas and someone asked me to sit on one of the elephants and feed it. The elephant was really prickly. The elephant grabbed the food with its trunk. Next, an elephant sneaked up behind Barrett and stole her Bananas and Sugarcane. It was funny. Later the elephants did a show. They played soccer, basketball, logging tasks and painted. They also did a weird show where they danced, walked on two legs, stood on one leg and even gave massages to people.

Then we rode the elephants around the villages. At fist, I didn't think the elephant was sturdy enough, because there was about 360lbs on its back. But by the time the ride was over I thought the elephant could carry even more. Our diver was from Myanmar, he had escaped from the government there. They shot at him when he fled.

Next we went bamboo rafting. We got traditional Asian hats for the ride. Overall, I had a lot of fun.



(Bar)

Today we went to an elephant camp. The elephants performed a show where they moved big logs and played soccer. One of the elephants even painted a picture, it was of an elephant.

Then we went on a elephant ride. Its was fun because I went with only my Mom and one "driver." Along the way the elephants got feed with bananas and sugar cane. They also stopped and ate the grasses.



Afterwords, we went bamboo rafting. We put our feet in the water. It was the Mae Ping River. Ry and I got friendship bracelets and bags from a girl that walked into the river to sell them to us. It was different?!



I miss you all very much. Barrett

Thai Money

(Ry)

The Money in Thailand is called Baht (Bht). So I want to explain to you how Baht converts into US Dollars. For example the 100 Baht bill converts to just $3.17. The 20 baht bill coverts to only $0.63!

Some of the foods here are really cheap. Yesterday we got some soup, for lunch that was just 35 baht each. Thats $1.11 per bowl. For the four of us it was $4.44 for lunch! Compare that to lunch at a restaurant in the US!

One US gallon equals 3.8 liters. A liter of gas here costs about 30 baht. So if we multiply 30 by 3.8 we get 114 baht per gallon. In Us dollars that means a gallon costs about $3.45. That's more expensive then in the US.

The smallest brass coin that you see in the picture is just 1/4 baht. That means its .75 of one cent. You couldn't spend it on anything.

If you want to convert some more currencies you can at this site:
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi

The Chiang Mai Zoo

(Rylan and Barrett) Today we went to the Chiang Mai Zoo.

(Ry) I liked the giraffes and the leopards. I got to feed the leopards meat with a metal rod. They all wanted the meat so they attacked each other. They were really powerful.
Other then that I don’t really like zoos. I like to see the animals in the wild.

(Bar) We saw two panda bears. We got to see them eat their lunch, bamboo leaves. They also got a dessert, which was a cookie. One cookie fell down into the mote, which was empty. We were really close to them. They are really cute. I got a little stuffed Panda bear with magnets in its feet.
We also saw alligators and crocodiles. One crocodile had coins on its back, that people had dropped onto it. It was really funny. We also went to see turtles, lots of different types. Some were really cute. We also saw some pretty big snakes.
After walking all day, we had a foot massage. It was a good day.

The Puppet Show

(Rylan)

Yesterday we went to a really cool puppet show that was about the Lunar Eclipse. The characters were Ancient Thai Gods and Demons. One of the characters put a spell on the Gods to make them weak, so they couldn't win battles. The Gods lost everything. My favorite part was when one of the Demons (Rahoo) was cut in half by the Crystal Chakra!!!!

If you want to learn more you can go to this website: http://www.tour.savehotels.com/sightseeing/bangkok/joe_louis_puppet_theatre.html