Catching up on tourist things I should have done months ago

My friend Rob Samborn, who I've known since he came to Stuyvesant H.S. as an incoming sophomore (incomings will never live down that they weren't in Stuy as freshmen). He came to town on business and brought his special lady friend, Angie, with him.


Of course it was great to see them, as it was great to see my friends Stew and Chuck Lee who also recently were in town, although I have no photos to show for it.

So I had a chance, or the excuse, to do things that most travelers do in the first two or three days after coming here. Like going to the Grand Palace, which the king doesn't stay at anymore, but it's still grand.




Rob and Angie enjoyed it:


And you can see from my toothy smile that I did too:


Although I got a bit of a beef with this statue:


But I was kind of chill with this one:


The Grand Palace also houses the legendary Emerald Buddha, which is kind of ancient. It was discovered hidden away under some floorboards or something like that in the 14th century, was brought to Laos and then reclaimed by the Thais in some war or another. It's actually made of jade, and people love it and pray to it. They also change the clothes on it for each of the three Thai seasons (winter, summer and rainy). As you can see though, it's small and aloft so it's actually hard to see.


I also recently checked out Muay Thai, or Thai kickboxing at the behest of Stew, who is an aspiring kickboxer and convince me to check it out from ringside which was totally worth it (especially since he paid for half of my ticket since I was willing to sit in the cheap seats where shady Thais gamble).





It was fun but a little brutal. I saw two Thais get knocked out, and I mean knocked out. One was carried off in a stretcher and no one thought much of it.

Haven't been going too nuts going-out wise, maybe I'm still recovering from my night out a two weeks ago when I got home at 11am. Working six days a week can make you pay for that. Maybe it's because I ran out of my Yerba Mate supply, a coffee alternative that I'm a little too dependent on, that gives me energy like Popeye gets from spinach.

Tomorrow's my day off though so I think it's time to rock this town.

Without further adieu then ... I'm gonna rock it inside out as if I was Brian Setzer (I never expected to make a Stray Cats reference on this ol' blog).

SAWATDEE!!!