Legal nonsense... finished! I'm now on a semi-permanent visa in Thailand, and the American Embassy has started the process on renewing my passport. After waiting 5.5 hours (not a typo) at Thailand Immigration, the 25 minute process at the American Embassy was totally awesome. They were friendly, fast, helpful, and just all around great. Way to go, America.

Because it's the Queen's birthday, we all got some extra time off this week for nonsense. It started out pretty typical, drinking, and carrying on. Also with all you can eat tacos. I'm up to 13 and a piece of pie, because Mexican food? Please.

So with some of that time off Ella and I decided to take a Thai cooking class. I feel bad for these people, as I've booked with them twice before and cancelled. I hate being flakey. But, the first time I recently discovered I had free time and ran off to Chiang Mai. And the 2nd time, I got hit by a taxi. So, I feel they were legitimate excuses. Regardless, it was pretty cool. I understand they want to condense the time so you spend it cooking and eating, but I felt it was pretty light on the prep part. It was either rushed or semi-prepared so you did the token last step. The food then, all came out totally delicious, and despite having everything done for us, Ella and I had a contest to see who's food was better. My pad thai was superior, but her tom yum and curry won the day. Darn. She still has yet to decide on my punishment. After you get a cool book to take home with idiot proof instructions. I want to make a pad thai from scratch, but man is it a lot of prep and a very short cooking time. After all that, we stopped by an Indian temple (so colorful!) and took a paddle boat ride around the newly vacated Lumphini Park (from all the government protesters)

The next day, we had no idea what to do, and Sandra suggested we go to Hua Hin. Why not? So off to the south of Thailand. We had dinner at a nice place overlooking the ocean, and then around a night market for some browsing. We got some beer, and found a nice spot on a beach that was pretty much to ourselves. We had some impromptu pushing people into the water and drinking under the stars, interrupted with my collision into a boat anchor. Who put that there?!

The next morning we weren't able to see the royal palace, since the King was currently staying there. Instead we went to an elephant farm. We got to see a very friendly elephant eat giant bunches of bananas and sugar cane, as well as taking a bath. We hitchhiked back to town, took a look at the railway station, and then started our journey to Santorini. A weird sort of shopping area/park just north of Cha-am, it's like a combination of a Greek pedestrian zone with an Atlantis decor in Thailand. We browsed and played around on the slides, and eventually got a ride back to Bangkok in a very crowded minivan. I think the 5 hours on the middle front seat was perhaps the most uncomfortable of my life, though I'm sure that record will be broken at some point. And back to work tomorrow, to start a now (shorter!) week.

Thailand, your attitude is really starting to grate on me. Not everything in the world can be "No problem." Sometimes there are problems. And your lack of common sense, nipping things in the bud, or any sort of forward thinking causes these problems to be bigger - only causing more work for yourself and everyone else down the road. I'm not saying I can fix an entire country in one blog post, but seriously Thai folk...

Think more than 10 seconds into the future.

Seriously.

With that nonsense out of the way, let us return to our regularly scheduled program. The excursion on deck this week was to the island of Koh Kret. It's an island in only the strictest sense of the word, because its right in the middle of the massive river running through the middle of the city. What surprised me though, is that Koh Kret is amazingly rural for being just a short jaunt from the hustle and bustle of downtown Bangkok. There are like, farms. With chickens and stuff. Actually, chickens aren't exactly a rare sight in Bangkok either. But my point is that it's rural, and is a super cool hidden gem of the city. After taking the wrong boat, Ella and I eventually got turned around and headed back to the right place. We rented a bike to circle the 6km long path on the outskirts. There was a break in the middle of that to stop at an honest-to-god brewery, as recommended by a coworker. At only 100 baht a bottle, they could and should charge a hell of a lot more. Thai beer is actually pretty decent, especially compared to China and Taiwan. But still, taking in a microbrew Heffeweisen on the porch, watching fishing boats go about their day - a little slice of heaven I wish was closer to the city. The market had a snack I've never had before, fried flowers. I didn't know you could really eat flowers. I was surprised, as I found them to be quite good. I'm sure the frying pretty much kills any nutritious quality they have, but I'd be interested in something like baked flowers. And there was this puppeteer with a dinosaur. You might as well stop reading now, because the coolness of this blog is all downhill from there.

Now for the rest of the miserable, non-dinosaur filled day, we went to see the temple on the back of the 5 baht coin. I want to type out the name of this place, and I swear I am not making this up - Wat Benchamabopit Dusitwanaram Ratchaworawihan. That is really the name. We were going to get a taxi, and I looked it up to tell the driver. A big cup of NOPE to that. I showed him the phone, and pointed at this "War and Peace" of a name. We had met up with Heather by this point, and yeah, it's a cool temple. The scene on the back of the 5 baht coin is right inside, and other than that, a very chill, serene place. On the way back, we stopped for dinner to get the best fried rice in the city. At least in my opinion, this place I found my first week in Bangkok. Apparently she only does lunch, much to my disappointment. BUT, we found another street vendor place that had a portable hot pot, and an English menu! We ordered "Burned Beef" "Rasted Pork" and "Rasted Cockburn" The cockburn was some sort of oysters, and the rest was pretty much Chinese style hotpot - a big departure from the rest of the stuff I'm used to having. Seriously, the street food by that 7-11. It's the best place to eat in the city. Where else can you get such heavenly fried rice and genuine Rasted Cockburn?

We took the last canal boat back towards downtown, stopping off at the jazz bar. I had never been here before, but Ella was a regular. The cocktail menu was quite extensive, and a little high but not excessive at about 180 baht each. ($5) The music was also great. The act they get are really talented, and they really sound like an old blues singer from New Orleans, despite being Thai. Unfortunately the drinks, while lovingly prepared, are a bit weak. Maybe the bartender for the night had a light touch, but it'd be a nice place to spend all night if it were possible to get a buzz.

Also, I have a bigger mouth than Ella, so she had to shove saxophone-shaped stir sticks up her nose. Suck it, Ella.