the new year

it seems like we are always celebrating a new year around here. every august we have a new school year. january 1st we get the day off for the new year. and then last week east asia rang in the lunar calendar new year. the new year, also called the spring festival here, happened to be the day before we got back from thailand, which in my mind was a great thing. last year was great celebrating the new year here by ourselves with school out and our friends gone, but i wasn't sad to miss the fireworks display commencing at midnight and continuing until 7 am. so coming home the day after worked out great. and the past week has been so wonderful for multiple reasons.

1. the weather has seemed like spring for the past week and a half. its been down to the 30s and 40s but the sun has been out every day making the afternoons in the high 60s. beautiful. i love where we live, especially when norfolk had 4 inches of snow last week. i don't think i ever had a snow day in february.

2. construction. i know, i know. i am normally complaining about the construction that surrounds us, but the project managers have made some good decisions and done some good work recently. the most beneficial has been opening an intersection on the main road near us that has been closed for A YEAR working on the subway underneath. and this now opened up for us a road that makes it a 10-minute walk to this awesome park near us where max can go run. its great.

3. howard johnson. walking to said park a few days ago jarred and i stopped in to see the howard johnson that is right next to the park. true to east asian form, the hotel was supposed to open (per the security guards' words) in august, then october, then "whenever the big man says we're going to open." and its still not open. but the main revolving doors were in action that day so i decided to go get a peak of the inside. and just as i walked in, a man was walking up to the door and started speaking ENGLISH to me. perfect, fluent english. that doesn't happen here. turns out, low and behold, he is the general manager of the hotel. from hong kong. it was awesome. he was so excited to meet americans and about fell over from shock when i told him we lived out here. he says they should open by the end of march. wonderful. then he told me the hotel will have a western restaurant. amazing. and then when i asked him, half holding my breath, if the restaurant would have western breakfast he said the most wonderful words i have heard since we moved here a year and a half ago- "yes, it will have breakfast buffet and a la carte." best. news. ever. if i have ever wanted guanxi (beneficial business relationship) with a person in this country. i have his business card, and we'll be inviting him over for dinner soon.

4. it may seem confusing to have this probably 5-star hotel now planted 5 minutes from us in the middle of nowhere. this is because of the new government moving out here to the government complex that has been sitting empty for months. we heard rumors that the government was supposed to move out right before the new year celebration, but we have heard that for a year and a half. and while we still aren't completely sure whether they are here or not since many people haven't gone back to work yet after the holiday, the police are at least convinced the government has moved. there are now 3-4 big intersections opened near the park, hotel, and government, and there is a big pedestal in the middle of them with a policeman directing traffic (in addition to the working stoplights, mind you). and this is even when there are no cars around. it's insane. they look straight out of north korea where those things are par for the course. with all that they seem to do organizationally with traffic (cops directing traffic perfectly in sync with the working lights) you think traffic would actually have organization here. makes me wonder what they do for 2.5 years at the traffic university.

5. fireworks. or lack of them. for some unknown reason, the fireworks have been SIGNIFICANTLY less this year. i really can't figure out why there has been such a drop from last year, but everyone in the city agrees too. i'm not complaining. uninterrupted sleep in the middle of the night is glorious. and after one of our friends almost shooting his head off (seriously) last year, we might even refrain all together.

6. and with all of the things that have gotten so much better where we live in the past few weeks, one thing has gotten worse. asia has water trucks here that drive down the road and (per their name) water the plants on the side, or wash the road with high powered streams. since it is so dirty and dusty here from the construction, the water trucks cleaning the roads could only push the dirt so far, resulting in a right lane of mud all last year. and so this year (maybe thanks for those traffic engineers), someone with a water truck came up with the ingenious idea to put 3-4 water trucks together in a diagonal row so that the 2nd truck could push the dirt a little farther than the first, all the way down the line until it was completely off the road. ingenious. except for one small problem- these trucks play incredibly loud music to announce their approach to scooter riders and pedestrians. and their songs of choice are happy birthday and it's a small world in awful 1-pitch beeps. i'm not kidding. the sounds blare into our house. and the genius who thought up the plan of the teams of water trucks, must have thought it too difficult to synchronize the screeching noise that masquerades as music. so now once or twice a day piercing round robin renditions shake our house for 5 or so minutes. its insane.

7. and if all of those adventures weren't enough to entertain us around here, all of our foreign neighbors just came back!

going meatless

My favorite food in the world is spaghetti. More specifically, the southern style spaghetti in which the sauce comes from a can, the meat is ground, the meat to sauce ratio is something close to 1:1, and the sauce to noodle ratio is like 3:1 (at least when I served my own plate). It is more or less taking chili with italian seasoning and putting it on noodles. Public school cafeterias have this down to an artform. I couldn 't wait for spaghetti day. I can't remember the first time I saw spaghetti marinara on a menu (probably at an Italian chain), but the idea of a tomato sauce with no meat was disgusting to me. The only time I think I have chosen to eat marinara was as a side to chicken parmesan, and even then it was only made decent by the double d of a steroid laden hen that was smothered in more sauce and had a block of mozerella melted on top. My main complaint about marinara- it doesn't have any substance. Every time I eat it, all I can think of is how little flavor is in the sauce and how I want more sauce on top, but the more sauce I put on top, the more it runs to the bottom of the noodles leaving more bland noodles.

This all changed in Thailand, when at a lunch buffet at our conference, I went all Golden Corral and scooped a dollop of marinara on my plate to go along with my green curry chicken and shrimp glass noodles. I love Thai food, but that day, the best thing on my plate was surprisingly the spaghetti marinara. It wasn't runny, and it had a taste unlike any other marinara I had ever had, that is, it had flavor. It just so happens that at the same time, I was reading a Men's Journal magazine when I came across an article about this famous NYC chef who apparently makes famous spaghetti marinara, and he explains how to do it. Also subsequent was the fact that I was increasingly shirtless in Thailand and recognized that the winter had not been good to my stomach area, and I needed to cut back on some things, meat being one of them. At that time, I ripped the recipe for this marinara out of the magazine and determined that I would try to make it when I got home. So last night I gave it a shot, and invited Josh and Danielle over to test run it with Shelley and I. It turned out to be great marinara sauce, and a recipe I will do again. The best part of it was that it was simple, not a can was opened, and I was full after eating it without ever browning meat. I thought I would pass it on for anyone who wants to use it.

20 roma tomatoes peeled with seeds removed (for those of you in East Asia who can't get romas like me, i just used 17 regular tomatoes from the market).
Put them in a big frying pan with 1/3 cup olive oil, a pinch of red pepper flakes, and a teaspoon each of salt and pepper. (I didn't have a big enough frying pan, so I just cranked up both burners and divided everything in half between 2 frying pans.)
Let them cook on medium high heat until the tomatoes are soft, then mash them into a rough puree with a potatio masher. If you are using 2 frying pans, at this point you should be able to combine them both into 1.
Let them cook for about 45 more minutes, stirring every once in a while. If the sauce sticks or gets too thick, add a little water. At 15 minutes into it, start boiling the water for cooking the pasta.
If after 45 minutes they haven't reduced enough to a sauce, mash them some more.
When the pasta is just shy of done, drain it and combine it with the sauce in the pan. Mix them both together.
Turn the heat off the pan. Add a tablespoon of butter and either 6 shredded fresh basil leaves or 1-2 teaspoons of dried basil. The recipe calls for parmesan here too, but we didn't have any so I left it out. Mix it all together until the butter is melted in. The pasta will turn a bright orange at this point. This is how you know that it won't have that marinara runny bland.
Serve it immediately.

If I had to do anything different, I would choose riper, softer tomatoes and let them sit out a couple of days before making the pasta. I had to add more salt because the tomatoes I used were still firm and pretty flavorless (which seems to be the preference in East Asia).

If you want the meat, you can serve it with meatballs. Just preserve some of the sauce before you mix in the pasta to serve over the meatballs.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

More pictures from vacation

We're back home with internet again. There was plenty of internet access in Thailand, but none of it was free, so we have been behind in updating everyone on our vacation. Here are some pictures of our week and a half in Koh Lanta.

This is the Summer House, the place where we stay

One of my wife's favorite treats in Thailand, a 7-11 Slurpee with our friends Leeann and Amy who went on vacation with us.

Rainbow after an afternoon shower. We saw this on our way to dinner one night.

One of my favorite things in Koh Lanta is hopping on a boat to go snorkeling around the many surrounding islands. This is the beach at a national park where we went snorkeling this year.

When we had lunch on our snorkeling trip, a water monitor showed up to pick up the chicken bones.

The boats waiting to take us to our next snorkeling destination.

Thailand has rebuilt since the tsunami, but on many beaches, remnants of the destruction can still be found.

Our friends Aaron and Stacy joined us and when we returned from snorkeling, we were surprised to find that they had gone to the markets to get all the ingredients for Stacy to make her famous guacamole, which happens to be Shelley's favorite guacamole in the world.

Another of our favorite things about vacation at Koh Lanta is the daily games of beach volleyball. This year, we found a place called Slow Down that had a great beach front restaurant and a volleyball court. We ended up playing volleyball and eating at the restaurant afterwards, still in swimsuits and barefoot.

This is after our final volleyball game as the sun finally set. The sunset skies in Koh Lanta are beautiful.

Watching the sunset before dinner.

On our last night, we went on a date. On the walk back to the Summer House, we passed a fire twirler performing on the beach.

As you can see, we love Koh Lanta, and we were sad to leave, but we are hoping to go back in 2 years. For now, its Happy Spring Festival back here in East Asia!

Catching up on the news

As Shelley told you all , I got the itis when we were in Bangkok that left me bedridden for a day with a high fever. While I hate being sick, I have to say that getting sick in Thailand is much better than getting sick in East Asia. For one, all you have to do is turn off the a/c and it is 80 degrees in your room in 10 minutes. No better way to deal with fever chills. Also, my wife found Ritz crackers. Ritz! I haven't seen Ritz crackers in so long. But by far, the best part of being sick in Bangkok is the satellite television in the hotels that give me access to plenty of English channels to watch on TV. For those of you reading this in America in front of your movie screens with 780 channels in 3d while you surf lightning fast 4G internet on your i-things while a free-range capuchean monkey feeds you organic dates and macadamia nuts, let me put this in perspective. In East Asia, I bought cable last year for the World Cup. Why? Because it is the one thing on East Asian television that I would ever care to watch. I had to pay for a year of it to use it for 3 weeks, but I had no problem with that. And after those 3 weeks, I haven't used it since then. Why you ask? Because apart from communist news, national propaganda movies against the Japanese, and badminton tournaments, there is nothing else on my cable. That makes satellite TV in Bangkok a delight. Although ESPN was ESPN Asia broadcast out of Hong Kong, I was still able to watch the Washington-Arizona game (no I'm not a Pac-10 fan, but it was college basketball nonetheless), 2 British Premier League soccer matches, NFL highlights, and an Australian Open match (I don't care too much about soccer or tennis, but I care about them much more than badminton). When Shelley came in the room, I got kind of tired of sports, and so we decided to start watching the available news channels. I learned so much from watching news channels from outside of the US. For example, I learned that Al Jazeera is not a terrorist network that Osama Bin Laden uses to broadcast his threats. It is actually a legitimate, and very well balanced news station. It just turns out that when Bin Laden wants to get a message to the world, he sends it to Al Jazeera, the same way any criminal who wants to send out a crazy ransom message would send it to the largest news media outlet available. The "Russia Today" channel however, hates America, and it is obvious from their broadcasting. Meanwhile, the BBC hates Tony Blair, CNN also joined in the Blair hatred, probably because it was connected to Bush hatred, and Fox News... well lets just say Fox News isn't allowed on Bangkok television. I imagine that is because at some point Sarah Palin said that Des Moines is the capitol of Thailand and Glenn Beck said something about how eating chicken pad thai led to the godless-Darwinist-democratic-Communist-Obamasamuslim state of America today.

Who would've thought that of all the things to enjoy while being sick, Al Jazeera and Ritz crackers would have joined the list. Either way, I'm better now and at the beach, and I thought I would share with you other great things about Thailand:

1. Sunsets- They are always impressive over the ocean here. We face west, so it is great because on the Atlantic, you have to wake up early to catch a beautiful sunrise. Here you just have to be outside and you won't miss the sunset.

2. Seafood- Actually Shelley loves this much more than I having grown up in Norfolk. There is a restaurant that we love called Lanta Seafood. You walk up to the front of the restaurant, whatever they've caught that day is on ice, you choose which one you want, what flavoring you want, and they throw it on the grill and bring it to your table. Shel and I opted for seabass with garlic pepper last night.

3. Lime soda- Josh introduced me to these a few years back. They are called Manao, and they are made by Schweppes, the same company that makes ginger ale and tonic water, but so far I can only find them in Thailand. Do you remember the Fresca craze in America? Everyone loved Fresca. But the first time you tasted Fresca, you thought to yourself "They like this stuff? It is lacking something. It is kind of sweet, and kind of lemon-lime like, but also kind of cough-syrup like." Fresca was a lot like the sticky hard ribbon candy that sat for years at your grandma's house. Yet, you still said you loved it because everyone else was loving it. Well Schweppes Manao is all that was missing in Fresca (mostly because it isn't a sugar free diet soda). It is a really good lime soda. Now I drink one a day. I have introduced them to other people who like them as well. I just hope they aren't really bad like Fresca and other people are saying "this is terrible, but he really loves them, so maybe its just me. I'll keep drinking them and say I love them too." If that is the case, Josh started it.

4. Fruit shakes- Who knew that cutting up watermelon, a banana, or pineapple, adding ice and a little sugar water and blending for 15 seconds could lead to the most refreshing drink of all time? I order at least 3 of these a day here. So many, that when we got to the beach, Lon, the lady who runs the place remembered me from three years ago and said "shake boy back! Tomorrow I must go buy more banana!"

5. Siam Center- This is a giant mall in the heart of Bangkok that sells nothing at all that I can afford. Literally, on the 7th floor there is an Aston Martin showroom, with an Aston Martin that you can touch. However, it does have a foodcourt with a Burger King, a Dairy Queen, and this little addition: Yes. Krispy Kreme has come straight from North Carolina all the way to Bangkok. What this picture doesn't show is the wrap around line to order your doughnuts. Either way, we waited and paid the international premium of 8 dollars a dozen for glazed. They were hot and put us into a diabetic ecstasy the likes of which we haven't experienced in quite a while. The biggest bonus was that we got to introduce some of our East Asian friends to this hometown treat. After eating one, one of my friends put his head in his hands and said "I'm dizzy. Too much sugar." They were giggling likes drunks on the tram back to the hotel from the sugar high. There is nothing in East Asia that has the sugar content of a Krispy Kreme doughnut.

6. Riots- No we haven't seen any since we've been here thank goodness. It seems that all has calmed down in Bangkok for now. But last year they totally ruined the tourist industry, which is a large part of the Thai economy. That means that in order to draw tourists back a year later, every thing has remained about the same price as the last time we were here 3 years ago. This is awesome when you consider how the dollar has fallen and prices have risen everywhere else. Our first year here, it was approximately 40 baht to the dollar and a room at the beach was about 2100 baht a night (a little more than 50 dollars US to divide by 3 people back when we were single). A year later, the baht was 30 to the dollar and a room was 2300 (a little less than 75 dollars US). That was a 50 percent increase in one year. At that rate, we wouldn't be able to come to Thailand much longer. Throw in a couple of coup d'etats and some violent rioting in the nation's capitol, and here we are 3 years later, the exchange rate and prices are the same as when we left. And, the riots seemed to have left the Aston Martins in tact.

All in all, we still love Thailand, and are so thankful to be able to get time off in such a beautiful location.

trouble in paradise

last night jarred went to bed feeling like crap and woke up this morning even worse. bronchitis and the flu have swept through tons of people we know here and today jarred has been throwing up and shivering under the covers with a high fever. if there is anything worse than being sick, it is being sick while you aren't at home. and if it couldn't get any worse, tomorrow we leave here to head to the beach. yuck. the flu while flying to vacation. i am so sad for him.
other than that however, the past few days here have been awesome. great content. great connections with old friends, including my friend morgan that i know from all the way back in high school and her great husband dave. and new meetings, including our good family friends larry and sally's nephew charlie. and did i mention that yesterday i ate a whopper jr. and tacos? delicious.
all for now, off to comfort my sick hubby and hope i don't get it in the process. if only wives and moms could figure out that dilemma...

paradise

saturday it was freezing. jarred and i were in our apartment for the majority of the day and our fingers and toes were numb. ugh. and 24 hours later we landed in bangkok, rode the sky train into the city, and walked out into the mid-80's heat. paradise. most of our friends left friday at the end of our semester to go home for 6 or so weeks and we left home. thailand always comes at the perfect time. talking to friends here, about everyone was ready for a break. the past 2 months have been tiring, so we especially are stoked for the next 2 and a half weeks. internet has been hard to get, so emails will be few and far between. but i know that i have a lot of backblogging to do about christmas (seems like FOREVER ago) and i'll try to get up some pics of us here. all for now, i'm off to eat western food and drink a thai milk tea (a million thanks to michael nunn for the introduction!)...

To the village in a rented lemon

Last Saturday, we made a trip to visit one of our friends in her village. While we have been to East Asian villages before, this was different because I ended up driving to the village. Since I don't own a vehicle, I had to rent one. This was a new East Asian experience. For one thing, East Asian don't take care of rented things like in America. This van was evidence. When we got halfway on the supposed 3 hour journey, I noticed that the temperature gauge was running on hot. So we stopped and let it cool down. Plenty of water in the coolant tank, shouldn't be a problem. Then we started going again, and it heated up just a few miles down the road, so we stopped again. Then we heard a noise. When I finally got to the highway exit, I pulled off, and heard the same noise that I heard in our driver's van the other week before his engine dropped off. I was at this point 4 1/2 hours from home, not planning on staying overnight, broken down in a car that wasn't mine. They don't have 24 hour road service in East Asia. When I called the rental company, the guy said "take it to get it fixed and stay there until it is fixed and drive it back, no problem." I told him "Big problem. I'm coming back tonight and leaving the van here and you can fix it." This was not in his worldview of what actually could happen, and it probably wasn't according to the way business works here, but I was so angry that I didn't care and made it a part of his worldview when I left the van there and he had to come and get it a day later. Here is a picture of some really angry dudes who were rented a lemon and their attack dog:Luckily, Josh had already driven down in his van ahead of us, and it worked fine, so he came to pick us up and take us to our friends village while our friend had the broken down rental towed to a repair shop. It turns out that the village was really beautiful. It is one of the largest vegetable farming villages in all of East Asia. While there, Josh and Daniel got to slaughter chickens, and Max got to eat chicken entrails. We also ate more meat than a Brazilian barbeque restaurant. Here is a picture of the pretty tomato fields.

Max also couldn't figure out how this water buffalo calf wouldn't play like all the other dogs. He could never get in the right position for an appropriate butt sniffing, probably more to his benefit than he could imagine. But it didn't stop him from trying to play. He annoyed this poor calf half to death.

As we approached the end of the day, we ate dinner and enjoyed an amazing sunset.

Here is a picture of all of us with our friend who lives at this village and invited us. We were really thankful for all of her help with the car and her hospitality. They slaughtered a hog for us. That is big deal in East Asia. We missed the hog slaughtering because the car broke down, but at least we got to see the chicken slaughtering.

Luckily, Josh drove us back home so we didn't have to stay overnight in the village and get stuffed with more meat. A couple of days after we got back, I went back to the rental to recoup my deposit from the rental company. The guy said, "you made me go to get the car, so you should have to pay for the trip back." As soon as my brain hemmhorage settled down and the steam finished draining through my ears, I responded "I put in a full tank of gas and only used a half before it broke down, you had enough to get back, so I helped you pay for your trip back." He said "it wasn't enough." So I said "Your problem. Your car broke down, it wasn't my fault." After back and forth arguing with him, I finally got my deposit back. It made me long for Hertz, where 1. The car would't have broken down, 2. If it did they would have sent someone to give me a new car, 3. They wouldn't want me to help pay for their car breaking down. All in all it made what was going to be a fun day more stressful. What Shelley called her least favorite day in East Asia.