..SouthAsiaRocks..

So, a couple of days ago, our neighbor had a parade go down the street. They did this last year also but on Krishna's birthday. Krishna's birthday isn't unil Aug 14th, so I'm not sure what they were celebrating. They parade went on for a while and then people started lining up in front of our neighbor's house. Ends up they were lined up to see people dressed up as Arjuna (L) & Krishna (R). The two of them are together and in a Chariot like this one in one of the stories in the Hindu holy book - The Bhagavad Gita. Arjuna is supposed to be the best bowman in the world. Well... this guy definitely was not. he was shooting dull-tipped aarows out at the crowd and hit a few people... it didn't look like it felt good! There were a few bands that came through. This one was fun because they had these huge drums on wheels that they pulled along on strings. They were also playing Pungi s (the snake-charmer flutes). Next came the ISKCON / Hare Krishna followers. ISK...

Our upstairs neighbors came over the other day and invited us to a party. It was a party for the people of their P Grp in our neighborhood and was in a temple down the street. It was very entertaining and we had a lot of fun :) They had dancers/performers from a state below us, and it was really fun to watch. Aashini wasn't so sure about it at first. She was tired and ready for bed when they came over to invite us, and the party didn't even start until 8:00 pm, so she was tired :) It was also pretty warm (you can see her sweaty curls in the pic below)... ... but after a few minutes, she LOVED it and ran all around, played with other kids and watched all the performers. There was one performer that was pretty interesting. He balanced clay pots on his head while he danced and did tricks. After he performed a trick, he would add another pot to his head. In this picture (below) he is dancing on glass. This part was weird... he danced around while he pulled a needle an...

Well, the rats have struck again... When we came back from our time in the states, we found that rats had made a home in our bathroom , but yesterday we had a new experience... The last few days we thought we had heard some random rustling in the night, and thought we might have seen some droppings... so we thought that MAYBE we might have a mouse or something... Well.... last night at about 1:30 AM, Adam and I were both woken up to a rustling... we both heard it and laid very still... Adam got out his cell phone and shone a light on my bedside table and thought he saw something. He then thought it was just a shadow or something, so we laid back down - only to hear another sound. I got up to go to the bathroom, and that's when Adam starting searching a little bit where he thought he heard the rat and he SAW it! He ran to the kitchen to get some sort of "weapon" to get the rat. I wasn't sure what he'd come back with, but he came back with our wiper (a big, long-han...

No matter where we are, we always seem to see funny things :) This year in Thailand a few things stuck out to us :) First.... Who lives in a Pineapple on a Thai Beach?.... Not sure, but it's a pretty cool pineapple house :) haha! It had electricity and AC! It was fancy :) haha! I really wanted to go inside and check it out! I wonder if they had curved furniture or if everything was square inside of the round house... hmm... :) The day we went into town (Hua Hin) and went to the mall, we saw this boy all over the mall. The reason we noticed him was that he had a bird with him all over the mall. You can't see very well in this pic (we didn't want to use the flash and the lighting was crazy) but on the boy's lap you can see his bird. This picture was taken in Sizzler - a restrauant!! Most of the time while he was eating, the bird stayed in his lap, but at one point it was on his head, or his mom's head or arm... and they didn't even seem to notice! It ...

Ahhh.... Vacation!! This year we went to Prachaubkrikhan! again and stayed at the same place we stayed at last year (Dolphin Bay). It's a great family friendly place and a lot of fun :) Here's Aashini all suited up and ready for her first day at the pool/beach. This picture is a little out of focus, but I still thought it was cute :) We found a inflatable ring that was just her size and she actually liked that better than her "swimmies" but she looks so cute in them :) haha! One night as the sun was going down, we tried to take a family picture or two... we weren't very successful :) haha! Oh well, here's one of the attempts :) The resort is cheap and really great. We stayed in a little bungalow that was right next to the pool and we were right on the beach. We ate outside for our meals and it was great! On our 2nd day, Aashini was starting to get sick, so we went with some friends into the closest town (Hua Hin) for most of the day and got medici...

We've been in Chaing Mai for the last week or so, and left this afternoon for Bangkok. We head out to Hua Hin area for our vacation tomorrow and we're excited!! The pic above is from our hotel room. Chiang Mai is up North, so there are mountains and it looks really cool ;) Here's Adam & I goofing off ;) One thing that is cool about Thailand is there are a lot of breakers. They dance everywhere - and a lot of the times they dance in malls. These guys were dancing in the mall and it was fun to watch :) They were doing some really crazy moves!! And just for fun... I thought this little Thai boy was really cute :)

We're enjoying our last couple of days at our meetings ;) Tomorrow (Thursday) is our last day of meetings, and then we will hang out in Chiang Mai for a couple of days before heading off on our vacation :) Just thought I'd post a couple pictures... one very Thai picture, and one picture of me... someone snuck this picture with my camera ;) haha!!