Day Off

Today was my day off, so I slept in a little and decided to venture out around campus. After breakfast I went to the market/stores area right outside of campus. This area is just a little further from the Faculty of Medicine. Here is a picture of the road I walk along everyday to the Faculty of Medicine.

Here is a picture of the building that I work in everyday.

These are views from the overpass of the main road in Khon Kaen. The overpass sign shows a picture of the Thai royal family (I think).

Most of the stores were closed when I walked by since it was still early (10AM). I was able to take some pictures of the campus and the food stalls. Here is a picture of a fruit stall along the street. Khon Kaen and Thai people in general love their fruit, so you find many of these stalls along the street and in markets. They will cut up the fruit and put them in little clear plastic bags and sometimes serve it with a sugar and chili powder mixture.

Thai people are also very religious, so there are many Buddhist shrines outside of buildings. I even saw a monk today! When people pass by the shrine across my hotel, they wai or bow their head in prayer. Here is a picture of a small shrine outside an apartment complex (I think, but it could have been a hotel).

Here is a larger shrine outside of the hospital.

I was out for maybe an hour or two, and by the time I got back to the hotel, I was dripping in sweat. After I sat in the air conditioning for awhile, I went to the KKU student complex for lunch. It’s about a 10 minute walk to the complex and next to the complex is a small park. Here’s a couple of pictures of the park with little dinosaur statues. The guidebooks say that a dinosaur species was discovered nearby and the people have embraced the dinosaur around the city.
After lunch, I decided to have a little adventure on the KKU shuttle bus. I rode the bus around campus so I could see the different areas of the campus (I think the drivers thought I was crazy, since I think I took three different shuttles). I had to walk and wait around for the bus, so I managed to get a strange tan. As I was waiting/walking along the bus route, I took a picture of the local “buses” to the different areas of town. These are called songtaiw, which are just covered pickup trucks that go different routes. I asked Nongnuch about it yesterday and she said they are kind of scary to ride on. The guide books said the drivers weave in and out of traffic and sometimes they are so packed that people hang off the backs.

Yesterday Dr. Panya bought pizza and chicken wings for everyone working with the collection, which was really nice. I’m never going to go hungry in Thailand since everyone keeps feeding me! Thai pizza was like American pizza but Thai people eat it very differently than we do. The order of pizza came with a giant bag of twenty packets of ketchup and they would put a packet of ketchup on each slice of pizza before they ate it. We finished our impromptu meal with some DQ ice-cream, which was welcome on the hot day. DQ was the only recognizable fast food chain I’ve seen here so far, I wonder if there’s a McDonald’s close by so I can take a picture of it. I also had Pad Thai for the first time here yesterday and it was delicious. Pad Thai is more of a street food, found in markets and stalls. It’s not available at the hotel restaurant, so I have to wait until Nongnuch is around so she can order it for me.

Tomorrow I continue data collection, so I'm spending the rest of the day doing non educational things, like watching World Cup games or reading Harry Potter. Hope you're all having a good weekend and Father's Day!