Ground Control to Major Tom!

Last week Caleb's glasses were broken and so we were on the hunt for some new specs. One thing about medical care in Asia is that normally you just ask for what you want and you get it with no middle man. Want an antibiotic? Just go to the pharmacy, pony up the cash and say, "One Z-Pack, please."

When Craig needed new contacts, he just took the old box to the store and they asked, "How many boxes you want?" No need to worry about RXs! So we were a bit surprised when the eyeglass store that was just set up in the mall center court had a real eye doctor ("real" at least to some degree).

When Caleb sat down the doc broke out these cool glasses that did the job of the big machine and we got to watch him manually preform the "Which one is better ... A or B? A or B? A or B?" test. Pretty exciting. Plus Caleb looked awesome in the glasses.

I thought we should just buy those glasses. Sort of like how everyone wants a pair of bowling shoes after rolling a few games. Those glasses would be the talk of the town! Very space age and futuristic!!

Instead we just settled on these which look the same as his old glasses, really. Nothing too ground-breaking but I guess that is OK for now.

Its Gettin Hot in Here...

Its always pretty hot here but this week has seemed kind of intense. Its gotten into the upper 90s a few days and it hasn't rained at our house for a couple of weeks. So its not just hot but dry. Well the ground is dry anyway.

But Hudson is like his Dad and is nearly always sweaty. If he plays just a little bit, all his hair is soaking wet. For example, look at him while drinking a root beer float. Even the coolest treats can still make him overheated!

Odd Photo Mix

Todd loved these guys who were hanging out in a store playing soccer on PS3 or Wii or something. Its pretty normal here to have people sending text messages or playing PSP or something while working. They get so into it that they do not interact with the customers.

Peek-a-boo!

The happy couple in front of the home we picked out for them. Break it easy to them that most people here do not like dogs. That does not bode well for Paco.

The kids get their picture made every time we go to this place. Which is every time visitors come.
Hanging with some friends. It was nice to see this lady and hear her say, "Oh, I've been sick with a fever. Come on in and sit down!" Um, yes, a fever. nice.

Maria Fancies Herself a Foodie

Well, I guess I should welcome myself back to the blog after a lot of laziness. I'll try to make up for a week of no posting with a hugely long post that has lots of pictures in it. Hope that makes up for my absence...

People normally go one way or another when they come see us. Love the food or hate it. Nothing Western at all or nothing at all but Western food (that is what they call it here "Western food" its nothing from Tumbleweed, though).
This is our awesome breakfast. Its a flat bread that is generously dosed in ghee and cooked on a griddle. Its served with curry and is a family favorite around here. The first thing we normally give people.

Of course, we ate some ice cream while they were here. This is a Pakistani guy selling ice cream from his motorcycle. There is a picture on the "freezer" and when he stops he points at various things and says, "Don't have. Don't have. Don't have." for most things. Then he asks, "What do you want?"
The polar opposite of the motorcycle ice cream guy is Starbucks.

Maria got introduced to the Chocolate Cream Chip Frappucino. Its Angie's favorite thing there (has neither coffee nor fruit).

We ate some pizza from a new local joint. Our review: Don't Quit Your Day Job!
A waffle with some ice cream at A & W. Maybe the only thing worse than plain rootbeer is the rootbeer float. Why do that to ice cream?!?
Everyone diving into Ann's favorite ... something called "coffee bread" in the generic but Ann pronounced the brand name like "Papa Roady" which is just far enough from accurate that no local person would ever understand her!
McDonald's! You'll just have to take my word for it.

Subway is a treat for us since we don't actually have one in our town. Bethany and Hudson can each power through a 6 inch sub, even if sometimes they leave some of the bread.

This is a place we found that has great juice. These huge watermelon juices cost $1.75 each. This juice is ordered by asking for "the big one" because if you ask for a large, they'll just ask if you want "the big one." Its like taking a bite of fruit. Its wonderful to live somewhere that has watermelon all year long.
Just for scale, here is the juice with Bethany's head.
McDonald's again. Though this time we didn't buy anything we were jut sitting inside this one in a mall. Squatters, if you will.
Some wonderful Chinese food. On this table you can see the fish curry that didn't stay in my mom's mouth for one whole second and the awesome chap chai mixed vegetables that feature squid.
The very brave Todd hammering down some squid. His review: Not A Huge Fan.

The best? Seems their very favorite thing was mangoes. Not much to disagree with there, the fruit around here is pretty awesome.

Day trip with the Belchers

I still remember this comedy routine George Carlin used to do about people going on a trip and they pack some stuff. Then when they get there they take a side trip, so they just need stuff for three days. Then on that side trip they decide to go somewhere just overnight. After that maybe they even just go out for the day and each time they take less and less stuff.

I was going to put a link in to the bit if you'd never heard it but he cusses, so don't listen to it. Just take my word for it. Todd and Maria have a bunch of stuff and they whittled it down to what they had to have for two weeks here. Then they had to bring less for the short trip. Then even less to go out for a day climbing hundreds of stairs in the heat and humidity. Water is about the only stuff you need in that moment.

This is a huge statue of the god to whom the temple (inside the cave at the top of hundreds of stairs) is dedicated.
Some people inside the temple offering some incense.
Other flames representing prayers. Some people get these and then carry them around the temple. At some point I noticed we were going counter-clockwise around the temple which is a no-no but we didn't encounter any trouble.
After the temple we retreated to the "air con" as we call it. We were near IKEA but Craig and Todd were unable to enter for the negative energy Craig was giving off just being in the vicinity of the place.
This is a LION dance (even though Craig always pronounces its like "LINE dance"). Maybe if you click the photo you can see the guy inside one of them. Each lion has two guys that are awfully impressive. One lion did fall though, which seemed to please the NASCAR fans present since everyone knows NASCAR fans like a good wreck as much as they like seeing Jeff Gordan with a cold drink.
Always photogenic, Hudson hides from the camera.
We wrapped the night at Chili's which is the ultimate in "air con" comfort even if its more than a bit expensive.

Riveting

We gave them a riveting first day today playing some Backyard Football on the Wii (not in the backyard) and skipping a meal. By this time in their trip most people are begging us not to eat again, with Todd and Re we are trying something new: hunger.

Also they got to hang out while some guys cleaned our air conditioners. And we went to the grocery store. How much more exciting can a day be?

One thing we can say is they have had more energy with both of them making it til after 9pm before heading off to bed. Since we had about 5 hours of sleep last night, I think we'll follow!!

Road Weary

But not too bad for halfway 'round the world. We're heading to bed since its 3am...

Swings

Last month, inspired by a local friend, Angie bought a swing from IKEA. Hanging the swing fell to me. One thing Angie knows about her man is that its hard to actually get him to do some stuff. Especially like home-fix-it projects.

So at some point (OK it was January 25th) she started trying to make me feel guilty about the swing we still had in package. It worked, I suppose, as pretty soon (i.e. January 30th) I actually got to work on the project.

So I had to dig out the drill and all sorts of stuff yang saya jarang pakai ("that I rarely use") like a tape measure and the hammer I bent really bad by using it as a crowbar one day. One thing I hate about IKEA worldwide appeal is that you get two books with your purchase: a 20 page warning booklet in 20-odd languages and an picture instruction book in no language but with lots of arrows.
Look at this awesome face as I hammer-drill. Wait ... not just hammer-drill. I am hammer-drilling overhead! Whew sakit (I was really sore later)!
The tension was building after only a few minutes of work.
Finally it was up and the heaviest person gave it a test
Then a test flight. So far its been a huge success (i.e. people use it and the screws have not fallen out and dropped a kid to the ground).
Due to its popularity, a second swing was added as a compliment to the first. For this one I had to go into IKEA alone and buy the swing. Plus I brought it home and had it hung THE NEXT DAY! What a Dad!!

This one has also not fallen. Yet.

Kites (the Ending Part)

So after all the excitement of seeing other people fly kites, we got down to business of flying our own. Caleb went in for the camo-bomber which is pretty cool.

Bethany chose the lady bug which was missing a black tail and has a tendency to favor one side but its still manageable.
Hudson's is Spider-Man and his legs hang off the end acting as a tail of sorts. After we got all the knots tied we were ready to roll!
This part of this particular park is normally filled with people flying kites on late weekend afternoons. No exception this day with a good crowd around when we arrived about 5:30. By just after 6 it was packed. At 7 sharp, the place empties like a kitchen sink with the stopper pulled out.
The wind was really good and so we had none of the issues we experienced when we went out again on Sunday afternoon with the kite going up, swirling, then crashing. On Saturday, they'd stay up as long as you wanted to fly them.
Notice I didn't say, "As long as you wanted to stand up and fly them." You can chill and fly at the same time.
But all good days must come to an end, right? As the sun gets ready to set and the park prepares to close we had to say, "Goodnight!" to the park and head home. Surely a day full of memories we won't soon forget.

Kite Festival '10

Today we attended a kite festival in our town. Since its the first Saturday in February we lathered up with sunscreen and headed out.

The weather can be like this sometimes. Blazing hot and then in a few minutes black cloud cover everything. This is great news and does not necessarily mean it will rain. It does mean it will cool off, though.
When the weather changes rapidly we get to see cool things like this rainbowish thing. Which was much cooler in person I assure you.

One nice thing they did was raise some kind of an object filled with candy on little parachutes and let it all fly. A big hit with the kiddos.
Bethany was plenty excited to get her share even though she reported some kids were tripping her to keep her from getting the sweets. What punks, right?
This is a traditional kite way up in the sky. This photo was cropped and zoomed so you can see the shape. Stuck on the top is something that looks like a cello bow and it will make this great noise as it cuts through the air. We couldn't believe how loud it was even from a long distance.
A close-up of a similar kite.
And finally some other traditional kites. We went to a museum last year and learned all about the complicated process of making these kites. Most areas around here have specific designs as you can see from the picture (well, maybe if its the first time you've seen them you can't tell any difference but you can trust me there is a difference). These kites take months and months to make and they are definitely not child's play; these are serious!
What to do after seeing all the fun?? Well, buy our own kites and get in on the action ourselves. But that, dear reader, is another post.