L.J. Popp's World adventures!

Texas State Fair and Gardens!

2012-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

After traveling throughout Asia for two years, one of my biggest fears coming back to the States was that I’d be bored silly. Fortunately, I’ve discovered that Oklahoma and the surrounding areas have some excellent sightseeing destinations, only a few hours away.

During fall break, Mom and I took a road trip to visit my brother in the Austin area. On the way, we stopped by the Dallas State Fair. While my hometown Tulsa State Fair is famous for food, livestock, rides, and animal shows, the Dallas version also features international performances. We got there about noon, and first enjoyed the Kenya acrobats.

Here’s a human pyramid:

Balancing on a bunch of chairs:

Crazy low limbo (he actually went even lower than that):

Flipping while jumping rope:

Next we saw the Shanghai circus with its delicate dances and body bending beauty, every bit as good as I’d seen in China.

A couple did an interesting ballet rendition of swan lake where the girl stood on the guy’s head. But this was my favorite act:

Circ du Sole has a similar dance, only with a guy and girl. I don’t know why I like it so much, only that I think it’s a very beautiful expression of love. This is how my Terrian characters dance in one of the novels I’m writing now, An Honest Assassin.

After that we took a break for food. Turkey leg for me, nachos for Mom, cotton candy, caramel popcorn and nutty ice cream to share. Man, it was so bad for us, but so good.

I’ve got an acute interest in birds, thanks to my novel series Bird Girl, so after that we went to a bird show. Here’s an albino hawk. Don’t see them everyday.

Mom had never watched a pig race, and squealed right along with the little hogs as they ran around the track. The night ended with the spectacular Illumination Sensation, a multi-media presentation of lasers, water, pyrotechnics, and fireworks, lighting up the night sky with images and songs of American pride.

The next day, the Dallas Arboretum came alive with colorful mums, fall foliage, and cascading streams:

Our favorite attraction was the Cinderella pumpkin village. Over twenty varieties of 50,000 pumpkins and gourds had been donated by farmers to create cottages, coaches, and transform the entire park into an autumn fairytale. Sadly, I only got a picture of the arboretum entrance with pumpkins, then I ran out of battery power.

Finally on Thursday evening, we got to Benjamin and Raina’s (my brother and sister-in-law’s) house. Here’s a picture of us all together, taken by a neighbor:

We played games most of the time (settlers of Catan, dominion, and Benjamin’s card game that he invented, swords and soldiers, based on the video game). Ben had to go to work on Friday and showed us his cubical and all the cool stuff in his new company, National Instruments. He says he’s “arrived.” I’m a bit jealous, since my chances as an artist of “arriving” are very slim, but then, I would probably die in a “cubical.” I always have to be doing something new and fresh to keep from getting bored. Saturday morning we had breakfast at I-hop, then Mom and I had to go home so she could be at work (church, to play the organ) on Sunday. But it was a great trip, and I look forward to many more!

Until next time, keep loving and praying,

L.J. Popp

Home Sweet Home

2012-01-10T12:44:00.000-08:00

After two years of teaching and missionary work in Japan and exciting adventures there as well as in China, India, South Korea, Singapore, and Thailand, it’s good to be home! But life in the U.S. has taken some readjustment. When I landed in Minneapolis, I ordered mouth-watering pot roast, but I couldn’t eat it! After consuming mostly rice, fish, and seaweed for so long, American meat seemed too greasy and dessert too sweet. I’m still confused when someone addresses me as “ya’ll” when I’m by myself, and sometimes answer the phone “moshi moshi” only to hear stunned silence. But the benefits of old friends, family, and Oklahoma food (now that I’m used to it again) far outweigh the frustrations of trying to remember certain English phrases and how to drive a car.

I’ve had several pleasant surprises since returning. Tulsa, my hometown, seems more “green friendly,” with added recycling programs, oil made partly from plants, and some homes with solar paneling. The price of gas hasn’t gone up as much as I feared and the economy seems to be improving (though not enough to help me get a job).

One thing I knew for sure was that I wanted to stay in touch with other cultures and keep teaching, even if just as a volunteer. So I went to a missions luncheon at Christ Presbyterian and announced that I wanted to help. Immediately afterward, a small woman from India ran up to me, speaking so fast I barely understood her. She said there were some refugees in Tulsa, Oklahoma who just lost their instructor and they desperately needed a new one. It didn’t take me long to say yes, and the following week I found myself before a handful of Burmese teaching them how to introduce themselves in English.

Here they are:

From the left: Tung Pi, Nelly, me, Lulu, and John.

Over the past few months, I’ve had the privilege to get to know many of these gentle people and their amazing stories. They are all Christians, many from the Zomi or Chin tribe in Myanmar (former Burma), escaping genocide from the corrupt military government. The dominant Buddhist and ethnic group has decided the country must be “purified” of all minorities. Some of the refugees were smuggled into Thailand in crates. Many died during the passage. A few told me their entire family was shot before their eyes. One man described how he tried to sneak Bibles across the boarder into India, was caught, and nearly beaten to death by a soldier.

There are about 2,000 Burmese refugees in Tulsa, and more coming. “Why here?” I asked them. They said Chingdo Kham, a Burmese doctor, paved the way and helped with their United Nations refugee status VISAs. Also, since they are Christian, they wanted to come to the Bible Belt to study scripture. I’m so thankful God called me back to the United States to help these people begin their new lives in a safe, free country. Many of them work at the Aaon factory making air conditioners. Others are still looking for jobs. Every Monday and Tuesday we study English and the Bible together.

Besides volunteering to teach English, I also tutor Japanese. I’m always looking for more pupils. If you are interested in learning Japanese, you can call me at 918-272-1433, or email laurapopp@ymail.com. I even do lessons over skype!

So people are asking me, do you plan on staying in Tulsa? Well, for now. I’m taking a class called “Perspectives in World Missions” starting tomorrow that will run until May. After that, who knows? Honestly, I would like to get involved in world missions, particularly children. I feel called in many ways to return to Malawi, Africa, where I worked before to work with Ministry of Hope or a similar organization there to help AIDs orphans.

Prayers: Please pray for the Burmese refugees coming to Tulsa, that they will adjust well to their new life. Please pray for those who are still coming to arrive safely and that the persecution and genocide in Myanmar will stop. Finally, please pray for God’s guidance in my life and that all the pieces will fall in place!

My final week in Japan

2012-01-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

Following our three-week escapade in Thailand, Mom and I returned to Japan in the middle of August to finish some business and final sightseeing. The girl who’s taking over for me as native English teacher at the school, Thapelo, graciously allowed Mom and me to stay with her.

On the fourteenth we met my host mother Kazuko (from the weekend I spent in Komono) at the Nagoya night zoo around 2:30. Mom was starved from not eating much on the plane or for breakfast that morning, but we couldn’t find an open restaurant! The famous sky tower café only served “tea” in the afternoon, and they said there were no other restaurants in the zoo. We were afraid we’d have to leave the zoo and come back, but fortunately we found some snacks like popcorn and chicken on a stick to hold Mom over until the super buffet in the evening. Man, that was good, but expensive! Japanese buffets, called “Vikingu,” after the original Viking themed buffet in Tokyo, are upwards of $30 per person! But we had a gorgeous view of most of downtown Nagoya as we ate, including the harbor and lit-up Ferris wheel.

Here are some pictures from the zoo. Me with Kazuko in the cactus room:

The cactus room itself (the roots look cool to me):

And a Mickey mouse flower:

The arboretums were very nice, though Mom was annoyed by the Japanese pop music playing on the nearby stage with Japanese girls prancing around with their chests and rears sticking out (not really dancing). You get used to that after awhile. If you ask them about it, they say it’s “cute.” Disturbing…

It was interesting getting to see all the animals out at night, (I’m not talking about the girls now), but it was too dark to get good pictures. We left about 7:30, since it takes about two and a half hours to get from there back to my apartment.

Monday morning we went over the my friend Kae’s house to do laundry and for me to apply online for a job at Tulsa Community College teaching English as a Second Language. (The application was due the next day and it was my first chance to get to a computer after leaving for Thailand.) We invited Kae to come with us to Akame Taki 48 waterfalls the next day, and she accepted. (I couldn’t leave Japan without seeing my favorite place one last time.)

Here are some pictures:

Rice fields on the car ride back:

Wednesday, Mom and I took the four-hour train journey to the world-famous Kumano hanabi takai, one of the largest fireworks displays in all Japan. (I had to get train reservations a month in advance, and even then only the earliest train out was available.) On the way we had to change trains in Matsusaka, where Mom wanted to sample the famous Matsusaka beef. It came in a cow-head container that mooed at us when we opened it! Underneath the lid we found about a pound of rice, some pickled radish, and two tablespoons of beef. We kept the container as a souvenir.

We got into Kumano about 2:00 and the fireworks didn’t start until 7:00, so we decided to spend the first few hours on the gorgeous Kumano beach. Only most of it was blocked off for the fireworks! We spent an hour winding our way through the streets until we ran into a pair of Japanese girls.

“Excuse me,” I asked them in Japanese. “Do you know how to get to the beach?”

“We’re going there too,” one said. “Why don’t you come with us?”

“By the way, where are you from?” the other asked.

“Nabari city in Mie,” I replied, thinking they had probably never heard of it.

“Oh, we’re from Iga!” they exclaimed, which is just the next town over. “Come meet our friends!”

Much to my surprise, several of my students and my students' parents were there! They gave us water and offered to watch our stuff while we went swimming. How nice!

Here’s a view of the beautiful beach:

Just before the fireworks we followed the huge crowd back to the display beach, where we found the other JETs who had staked out one of the best spots with a big blue tarp. We spent the next two hours in total awe as over 10,000 explosions lit up the night sky. Here are some videos. Please ignore the rude language of the other JETs. Some of them were very drunk by this time.

Spectacular, huh? There were other even better ones, like fireworks that turned into mushrooms and flowers and umbrellas, but my camera battery ran dead.

We spent the night with my writer buddy Melissa, who has a huge house (by Japanese standards) and a very cute cat. The next morning she took us to breakfast overlooking lion rock. Here’s Mom and me in front of it:

Then Melissa drove us to onigajo, demon castle rock. Here’s me inside the “castle:”

Melissa had stuff to do after that, and Mom and I were at a loss for what to do. (I should have planned better.) We ended up walking to the rundown train station, which exhausted us, and when we got there, we weren’t even sure it was a train station. It was just a platform, like something you might see in an old Wild West movie. There was no place to buy a ticket. We saw a man standing on the platform, so I asked him in Japanese, “Is this a train station?”

He muttered something in a dialect I couldn’t understand.

“Sorry, slowly please?” I asked.

He muttered something else, chewing on his cigarette.

“I don’t think he’s…normal,” Mom whispered to me. “I think you’re wasting your time trying to talk to him.”

But I was determined to communicate. I told him we wanted to go to the longest waterfall on Honshu Island. I finally got out of him that the train would come about 4:15. But when we tried to get on the train, he yelled at us and waved his arms as if it were the wrong train.

“Whatever,” I told Mom. “Let’s just stay on.”

Turns out the guy was right. It would have been the right train, as Melissa had told us, only being after 4:00, the train no longer went to the waterfall. So Mom and I gave up, called Melissa, and told her we were going home to Nabari. We might have stayed another night, but it was just so blasted hot. Kumano is considered the “south” of Japan, and really more subtropical than temperate.

Friday we ran my final errands in Japan, like closing my bank account, closing my cell phone account (which took four hours for some reason) and other such things. Unfortunately, I got kicked out of Thapelo’s apartment (not her fault, the school insisted), but my friend Shino took us in for the night. (She and her boyfriend Daiki are so nice, and they also have a really cute cat.)

Saturday morning we left around 7:00am on the shinkansen (bullet train) for Hiroshima. This requires some explanation. In 1971, a man named Kazuo visited my grandparents in Michigan on a cultural tour with his company, Mazda, to study car manufacturing in the United States. Now, forty years later, he returned the favor to Mom and me. He greeted us at Hiroshima station around 10:00 and took us in a taxi to the quaint little apartment he shares with his wife Hiroko (who speaks no English). We rested a bit, then Kazuo took us to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and Museum, built to commemorate the dropping of the first atomic bomb.

To say it was horrifying would be an immense understatement. Displays revealed charred remains of children’s lunch boxes, torn and burned clothes, and smashed watches, all stopped at 8:15am. Plastic mannequins and photographs showed skin melting from bones, shards of shattered glass slicing through flesh, and curtains permanently stained from nuclear fallout called “black rain.” We stood before the A-Bomb Dome, the former Hiroshima city hall, which was directly under the epicenter of the blast. Because it was made of steel, it was the only building left standing for two miles. Only its shell remained:

On the morning of August 6, 1945, thousands of students were demolishing old buildings to create fire lanes in case of conventional bombing. They had no warning and no idea what hit them. The bomb exploded like a small sun, about 4,500,000 Fahrenheit at the detonation a quarter mile high, and 5,500 to 7,250 degrees on the ground. Survivors who staggered home were so thirsty that many died from drinking the “black rain.” Others died of cancer a few years later. The total deaths were about 200,000, mostly civilians.

Far from blaming the U.S., the museum had an entire section on Japan’s war atrocities, as well as information about current nuclear warfare. Since that day, Hiroshima has dedicated itself to the cause of peace and end of nuclear weapons. Every time a nuclear weapons test is conducted anywhere in the world, the mayor of Hiroshima and many citizens write letters pleading for that country to stop.

Seeing all this of course sparked many conversations about our personal feelings towards that particular historic decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima. It’s hard to say how I feel aside from being appalled at the sheer number of lives lost. I honestly think I don’t have the right to judge. War is war. I wasn’t alive then and even if I was could I critique fairly? All I can say is I’m sure glad I wasn’t President Harry Truman in 1945. It’s not like he could stand by and accurately compare numbers of casualties or predict the future. (“Let’s see, if I drop the bomb, this many people will probably die. If I don’t drop the bomb, this many people or more will probably die anyway in the long, drawn out battles and conventional bombings. Will the dropping of this bomb ensure that the war will stay ended, frightening any future war-makers into peace, or will it spur them on to also desire this weapon of massive destruction and power?”) Any statistics or future projections he had were purely guess work. It’s hardly relevant what I think anyway because there’s nothing I can do to change the past even if I wanted to. There is only one true Fair Judge of the Universe, and that’s God. Only He has an accurate depiction of all that has happened, both in reality and in the hearts and minds of men.

Though I must say, for a nation that had two cities blown to bits by nuclear energy, you'd think they would be far more wary of nuclear power. Why do they keep insisting nuclear reactors are safe, even after the earthquake and meltdown and disaster? Why weren't people evacuated sooner and faster? Why did the government lie? Why are they still selling crops from the affected area? Why hasn't Tokyo electric been sued and put out of business for obviously cutting corners and safety? Stupid, stupid, stupid...

After the museum, we went back to Kazuo’s house for dinner, where our conversation included Hiroko, and transitioned to general feelings toward war and peace. Kazuo and his wife, of course, stated simply and emphatically that everyone should seek world peace above all else, and questioned us (politely) as to why the United States does not do this. This is what I said, in not so many words (and far less articulately, since I was struggling to speak in broken Japanese or have Kazuo with his good but imperfect English at least understand me).

World peace is beautiful to think and talk about, but it gets messy in the real world. This is something Japan does not always understand, for Japan has no military and no one at war with them, essentially because the United States protects them now. (That seems only fair, after all.) But America has many enemies. So we build up troops and weapons to detour war. Does it work? Sometimes it does, sometimes not. The fear, of course, is that the minute we destroy all our weapons and send our troops home, someone will attack us again. Various countries have even sworn that they would. The problem with being the biggest kid on the block is you kind of have to stay the biggest kid on the block because there’s always someone else who will take that spot by blowing you to smithereens if you let them. You’re also expected, from time to time, to protect the littelest kids. If you don’t, people hate you for that. Thus, the biggest kid is always the most hated kid, no matter what he (or she, as the United States is usually personified) does. So perhaps the solution is simply to never let yourself be the biggest kid, to be one of those small, unassuming European countries that rarely anyone picks on. They don’t really need a military these days. But it’s a bit too late for the United States on this issue, perhaps. We’re already big and assuming. To change that, we’d have to break up all the states and destroy our economy, which is also not a smart move.

This all bugs me very much as a Christian, because you honestly wonder what Christ would want the United States to do. Does “turn the other cheek” apply to nations as well as individuals? Should we just trust in God to protect us and become a one hundred percent pacifist nation? Or should we follow the biblical example of Israel and continue as we are, fighting all our enemies and even conquering them? The Bible is not clear on this issue, so again I must defer judgment on all of my country’s military exploits and expenditures. Boy, am I glad I’m not a politician!

Finally, we discussed the only way there ever could be peace on Earth. Mom and I shared our faith in the Prince of Peace. Our hosts were fascinated by the Christian concept that humans are tainted by sin and incapable of complete peace on our own, and that we need Jesus to save us and the Holy Spirit to help us. One day, we told them, there will be peace, but it won’t be on this world, and it won’t be by our doing. At first they thought our faith sounded “just like Buddhism,” but when I explained grace and God becoming human and dying for us, Kazuo nodded, eyes wide. “Yes,” he said, “that is different, and very beautiful.”

The following day was not so weighty. Rain fell torrentially, but didn’t dissuade us from taking the ferry to the famous torii gate and shrine of Miyajima island. It’s ranked one of the top three scenic spots in Japan, and it’s easy to see why!

The 52.5-foot red gate seemed to float in the ocean, shrouded in mist and forested mountains. In ancient times, pilgrims passed their boats through the gate before entering the shrine to “leave the profane and enter the sacred.” The shrine’s main structure is also built on stilts over the water. Wild deer followed us, hoping to nibble our maps or clothes as we enjoyed the gorgeous vistas. We saw some raccoon dogs that belonged to the priests or something, very cute animals that look just like their name, some of them albino. We ended with a lovely aquarium featuring life from the Seto Inland Sea.

Monday we caught the bus for Osaka, saw one of the largest aquariums in the world (the Kaiyukan) and finally got our plane for America on Tuesday, August 23rd. Sadly, my Asian adventure is over. For now…

Prayers Requests: That God direct the next path in my life concerning a job, relationships, writing, and further missions!

The Inauspicious Purple Train & Siam Ocean World

2011-12-02T20:07:00.001-08:00

The following day, Thursday, August 11th, we had a relaxing morning to pack our things. During a leisurely breakfast, I met a couple from Las Vegas, the wife a teacher and husband a card dealer at a casino. I had just finished the book Mom brought me (Wyrms, by Orson Scott Card), and wanted something to do for the upcoming long plane trips, so the man gave me some of the books he and his wife had brought but finished. I really liked Pirates! about privateers in the British Jamaican colonies of the 1600s, but the others weren’t my style.

A driver picked us up at 10:30 for a cruise along the Mae Ping River. Our guide pointed out various peasant huts as well as the U.S. embassy, the teakwood residence of the former Thai Prime Minister, and the Thai Bible Society and school. Here’s a really big, four hundred year old bodhi tree, the kind that’s so prominent in Buddhist mythology. (At least, I think this is a bodhi tree):

After an hour, we arrived at a “farmer’s house,” not really a functioning farm, but a place to show tourists what rural Thai life is like:

We saw fruit trees (including star fruit and bananas), herbs and spices, jasmine rice, (which is simply a variety of Thai rice with a sweet smell, not rice mixed with jasmine) and some vegetables, pheasants, chickens and ducks all with their eggs, pigs and guinea pigs. Frogs, crabs, shrimp, and small fish live in the rice paddies, and Thai farmers harvest those too. The guide/boat pilot served us watermelon, pineapple, and logan juice (very sweat and tasty). We also saw the inside of a small hut where the movie Rocky IV was filmed:

The dress I’m wearing in the picture is the one I bought at the hot spring town I mentioned last time. Thai dresses are so cool, light, and cheap! We got back on the boat, followed by a van, and arrived at our hotel around 1:30. We wondered if we should go see a monkey show or something, but we didn’t want to be rushed. And it’s a good thing we got some rest! You’ll see why in a minute…

About 3:30 we got picked up for our night train back to Bangkok, which left about 5:00. When we first arrived at the station and saw our train, we thought it looked very nice. Purple:

“That’s an ‘auspicious’ color, right?” I asked, using one of the favorite words of our first Thai guide, Chiya.

Boy, was I wrong! We were soon calling it the “inauspicious purple train.” First of all, our compartment was near the bathroom, so it stank. Really bad. The toilets were simply pits, and it was almost impossible to use them with the train bouncing and clanging every which way. (This was a very old train, very clicketly clack, not a relatively smooth ride like those in Japan.) No one on the entire train spoke English. Our compartment mates were a French couple, and though they were nice enough, they made it pretty clear that they couldn’t communicate with us. The staff didn’t feed us. It was pretty hard to sleep with all the bumping. We stopped for a really long time during the night. Turns out, the train broke down. We were supposed to arrive in Bangkok around 7:00am, but it got to be 8:00, then 9:00, and we still weren’t there. Mom and I both tried to ask when we would arrive at our destination, but no one could tell us in English. The guide to the French couple came in and tried to explain the situation in broken French, but when we asked them what he said, the man just shrugged and said in the little English he knew, “I didn’t understand.”

To top it all off, we didn’t know what stop to get off at. On all trains I had ridden before, the train staff called out the name of the station as we pulled in. These guys didn’t. Our tickets simply said, “Bangkok,” but it turns out there were multiple stations in Bangkok. A train staff member looked at our ticket, puzzled, and told us the name of the station he thought we should get off at. We finally came in around 11:30am, our supposedly fourteen-hour overnight ride turning into 18 ½ hours on that literally stinking train, and to the wrong station. No one was waiting for us. We had to take a taxi to our hotel and hope that this time the taxi driver would know where it was (unlike our first two nights in Bangkok). Fortunately, he did, though it cost a pretty penny since it was clear on the other side of town.

In summery, don’t ever take the night train! I thought it would save us time and money, but it didn’t. The worst part is, I should have known better! I’ve taken the night train in India and the night bus in Japan, and those were terrible too. Night travel just isn’t for me.

But here’s a picture of the view outside, a flooded rice field:

Our consolation prize was that our hotel (the Royal View again) upgraded us to a suite for free, though I don’t know why. Maybe they forgot we were coming and booked our previous room to someone else, so to make up for that they gave us a suite. Whatever the reason, we sure appreciated spending our last two Thai nights in style. Just as we got into our room, the people who were supposed to pick us up five hours ago called, very worried, and we assured them we had made it all right.

Once we settled in, we hired a driver to take us to the “largest aquarium in Southeast Asia,” Siam Ocean World. The guide was very nice, led us through the huge mall to the aquarium, and got our tickets so we didn’t have to wait in the ridiculously long line. At first we were surprised by all the people (there must have been thousands) and most of them Thai. She explained it was a national holiday, the Queen’s birthday, and Mother’s Day. She suggested I take my mother out to eat, since there were so many mother daughter specials. But first we enjoyed the aquarium.

There were some beautiful fish and nice feeding shows with divers in the tanks, though all the spoken explanations were entirely in Thai. The plaques were in English besides Thai, and that was enough. Here’s a beautiful blue wrasse:

We got a “behind the scenes” tour to see some baby fish, and a glass bottom boat ride. There was also an interesting children’s area with these exhibits:

Refrigerator fish tank:

Microwave fish tank:

A “fish car”:

We enjoyed some cotton candy and popcorn, snacks I haven’t had in a long time, while watching the playful Asian small clawed river otters and adorable river rats. (I never thought I’d ever write “adorable rat,” but these guys were pretty cute.) We stayed from about 1:30 to 6:30, then had dinner at the food court. Shrimp wantons and roasted duck soup for me, Kentucky Fried Chicken sandwich for Mom. (But she couldn’t handle that either; the Thai version is too spicy for her. I think if it weren’t for cashew chicken and stir-fry, Mom would have starved in Thailand.)

I figured out how to use the sky train (similar to the Singapore system) to get to Victory Monument Station, then we walked about thirty minutes to our hotel (we got lost a few times and ended up showing our hotel card a lot). Several guys offered to take us there on the back of their motorcycles for a small fee, which I would have probably done if it were just me, but Mom didn’t like that idea so much, so we just walked. I’m glad we did, because I enjoyed seeing the streets of Bangkok at night. If it were just me, I probably would have used public transportation a lot more too, but I know Mom doesn’t like it so much. You get used to it after living in a small, crowded country for two years. I like adventure, Mom likes stress-free vacations, though I know she stretched herself a lot on this trip. I have to admit, it was nice not to have to worry about how to get here and there, instead having someone to pick us up and drop us off everywhere and guide us around and answer all our questions. I got to have my scuba diving adventure and pet a full-grown tiger and figure out the Bangkok subway. So I think we had a good balance of adventure and other people taking care of us.

We got back to our hotel about 9:00 and watched a little Thai TV for the first time. About 1/3 of it was American with Thai dubbing, ¼ was Japanese, and another ¼ was Korean and Chinese. There were only one or two channels originally made in Thailand. It was funny to see Americans and Japanese speaking Thai.

The next morning, we got picked up for the airport about 8:00am. We arrived pretty early for our 11:30 flight, so we walked around and enjoyed the airport again. Here’s a beautiful statue at the entrance of international departures:

An explanation from the plaque: "Scene of The Churning of The Milk Ocean: This scene depicts the Vishnu Kurmavatara and the churning of the Milk Ocean. The naga (the king of serpents), Vasuki, is curled around the mountain Mandara. Vishnu (the god who preserves and sustains the universe in Hinduism) incarnated in the form of a great turtle, supports the mountain on his back. Devas (demigods) and Asuras (demons) pull on the naga's body to churn the water of the ocean for thousands of years in order to produce the nectar of immortality, Amrita. From the churning, numerous opulent items are produced, including Dhanvantari carrying the pot of Amrita. In the end, the cooperation between Devas and Asuras is shattered. The Devas, fulfill their plan of acquiring all Amrita and disperse the Asuras out of Heaven to the Underworld."

Those are the kind of stories you get from India and Southeast Asia, and come to think of it, all mythology in general. They really don't make a whole lot of sense to someone outside the culture, and even those who grew up with the stories find them strange and inexplicable. Those who believe them accept them purely on faith, realizing that there is more out there than we mere mortals can possibly understand. So I have a far bigger tiff with people who deny any sort of supernatural at all than I do with people who at least admit that, logically speaking, there is no way finite beings such as ourselves can possibly measure, test, and otherwise comprehend an infinite universe and the Being that created it, especially since He, by definition, would exist outside the perimeters of His creation, just as an animator or novelist exists outside the rules and boundaries of his or her own work of art. Completely incomprehensible, that is, short of God "writing Himself into the story" or otherwise revealing himself to us, which is what I believe He did through the Bible and Jesus Christ.

This picture’s actually from our first time in Bangkok airport. Ronald McDonald, Thai style:

We enjoyed buying some last-minute souvenirs with our remaining Baht, then exchanged the rest. Our Thai Airways flight (“smooth as silk”) had a pretty cheesy safety video that made us laugh, though not quite as cheesy as the Delta one. I think airline videos are almost a genre in and of themselves. Just how cheesy can we be about giving these safety instructions, with soothing background music and smiling, sexy flight attendants as we play out these emergency situations and talk about all the ways you could die if something goes wrong with the aircraft?

It was about a five and a half hour flight, with all announcements done in Thai, English, and Japanese (since it was a flight bound for Japan). I spent the time watching movies, reading, sleeping, cracking jokes about the safety videos, and translating the Japanese announcements before they were said in English, proud of myself when I almost got them word-perfect (once).

Descending over Honshu island (the main island), we saw the most gorgeous cloud formations, with mountains poking through like islands in a foaming sea, and a rosette sunset. This isn’t Mt. Fuji, but it’s some really tall peak:

After customs, baggage, train, bus, (yes, plane, train, and bus all in one day), we got into Nabari about 10:30pm. We grabbed food at the combini (convenience store), dragged our suitcases up to the third floor, and got in with the spare key. Thapello (pronounced Tapello) arrived a few minutes later. She’s the new Assistant Language Teacher at Kikyogaoka High School to replace me, and she agreed we could stay in her apartment (which used to be mine) for a few days. She’s from South Africa, but I don’t remember the name of her tribe, maybe Zulu. She speaks something like five or more languages, and her English is perfect. I knew a few words of Zulu (or maybe it’s Swahili; I really need to brush up on my African cultures) from my high school choir days, and sang them for her. She was able to sing the song with me and was surprised that I knew it. We performed it for Kuwanza during the Christmas Spectacular at the Tulsa Performing Arts Center with all those amazing artists when I was a junior, in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the end of apartheid.

Anyway, she and I hit it off pretty good at first, which is nice because I was afraid we wouldn’t. I had been hoping she would take over my Christian class at the church and Jet Christian fellowship library, but she’s Muslim. I almost wonder if the school chose a Muslim from South Africa on purpose, because they were so annoyed with my “American ways” and talking about my faith with the students, especially when the band kids played at the Easter service at our church to raise money for the Tohoku disaster victims. I gave my testimony in front of them. We tried to pass out Japanese comic book Bibles to the kids afterwards, but the teachers forbade it. At my going away speech, I even told them that Jesus loved them and died for them. I still think the school probably chose Thapello partly for those reasons (not wanting a Christian or an American again), but she’s nice. I think she’ll do really well with my kids, and I found someone else to take over the other positions.

Anyway, that was our entire adventure in Thailand! Stay tuned for our week in Japan!

Laos, Golden Triangle, and Hill Tribes

2011-12-02T15:44:00.000-08:00

Oops, I mixed up these two blogs! The previous post, about the elephants, orchids, and tigers, was actually Wednesday, Aug 10th. This day was actually before then, on Tuesday, August 9th. Oh, well. Mistake fixed!

The following day was our big trip up north from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai to visit the Golden Triangle, Laos, and hill tribe villages. We were picked up at our hotel around 7:30 in a big van. Our guide, Nam, was a Thai woman who’s English wasn’t quite as good as Chiya’s, but still understandable. Along the way, we stopped at a beautiful hot springs.

Here’s some of the mountains you can see in the north:

And the hot spring:

I bought a really pretty pink dress in that town. I bought a total of three summer dresses in Thailand, all very nice and cheap. The dress I’m wearing in the picture is from Japan, a present from Pastor Toshi and Kumi for my two years of service at the church.

Next we stopped by the famous “white temple,” a very strange, contemporary structure designed more as a tourist attraction than a place of worship, I think. Here’s Mom and me in front:

And here are the hands before the entrance supposedly “reaching up from hell.” That was really creepy.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the inside, but right alongside the pictures of people in modern dress from all nations being flown on magic carpets to meet the Buddha in heaven, were images of spider man, the Hulk, Superman, Neo from the Matrix, even Japanese cartoon characters. Modern-day superheroes painted all over the walls. I asked Nam what that was all about. I assumed it had something to do with “karma” or heroism or something semi-intelligent like that, but she said no, the temple designer simply liked those characters so he included them inside the temple. Talk about irreverent. Who could possibly take their religion seriously when they’ve got anpan man (red bean paste bread man), Snoopy, and violent video game characters right alongside Buddha, who preached against violence and worldliness? They were still working on the mural too. It’ll be a sight to see when it’s finished.

Even creepier was the full-sized figure of a monk meditating in the middle of the temple in front of the Buddha statue. He looked like a real man, right down to the wrinkles in his skin and robe, but he turned out just to be a wax statue. Nearly fooled me!

The creepiness didn’t end there. There were demon heads hanging from all the trees with mossy plants growing from them like hair and beards, and weird statues sticking up from the ground, designed after the creature from Alien and other horror movies:

If they’re trying to freak people out, they got what they wanted!

Of course, if you visit the white temple, you’ve got to visit its golden bathroom. It’s gold on the inside too!

From there we took a river cruise to the golden triangle. Our guide explained that this was a triangle-shaped area of sandbars between Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos in the Mekong River. In the old days, that’s the only place where trader were allowed to buy and sell opium, and since the currencies of the three countries were all different, everyone had to use gold.

“You want opium?” Nam asked. “I can arrange for you. You buy drug, then get free stay in jail. Good deal, no?”

The river is also a major form of transportation. Boats can sail down it from as far away as China, and we saw some bearing the red five-star flag. We passed a lot of casinos, fancy hotels, and famous residences. Here’s some photos:

We finally got off at Laos. The difference in wealth was immediately obvious, even more striking than when you cross over from the United States into Mexico. In contrast to Thailand’s constitutional monarchy, extremely consumerist, tourist, capitalist society, Laos is communist, and it shows.

As soon as we arrived, some of the children got onto the boat, road it for a few seconds, and then jumped off to swim back to the pier, probably the only fun they ever got. But most immediately started begging for money. I gave them each a little something, and then said, “photo, photo!” Even though they spoke little English, they sure knew that word!

Some more pictures:

Sorry my finger’s partly in the way of this one:

Apparently we were in one of the richest parts of the country too, right on the boarder with Thailand, one of the few areas allowed to sell products to tourists. The big attraction in Laos is the super cheap fake name brand goods, but Mom and I weren’t interested in that, so we went for about a twenty minute walk, since we only had thirty minutes in Laos. Here’s what we saw.

Mother and daughter shrimp fishing:

Kids watching over their cattle:

Some huts for who knows what:

Mom and I wondered if the proper adjective for everything from Laos was “Lousy.” We joked about that for awhile. Laos sure does have a “Lousy” economy. Here are some “Lousy” ducks:

Here’s “Lousy” snake whiskey. Yes, that’s a real cobra biting its own tail, and “Lousy” doctors prescribe that you drink a small cup twice a day before meals to cure “rheumatism, lumbago, and sweat of limbs.” It’s supposed to make you stronger too.

Nam told us the proper term is “Laotian,” not to be confused with the term “Laodicean” used to describe the church in the city of Laodicea in the New Testament. I sure hope things improve for the Laotians.

After that, we had a nice buffet lunch, then headed to a bustling market street on the boarder of Myanmar (former Burma) and Thailand.

Here’s a strange sight in front of a modern clock shop:

Ethnic dolls from the hill tribe peoples:

Woman with an umbrella hat:

Mom and me in front of the border crossing:

We didn’t cross, because that would have cost 500 Baht, or about $16.21 per person. It also takes time off your Thailand VISA because Thailand and Burma have never been on the best of terms. It’s like how India cuts your time in India or denies you all together if you’ve been to Pakistan or have relatives in Pakistan or any connection with Pakistan whatsoever. Israel does that for some places too.

Here’s a peak at Myanmar:

Next, we stopped by some of the hill tribe villages. I felt like we had stepped into a national geographic special:

The bridge into the long neck and long eared villages. Quite wobbly!

Some pictures of the long neck ladies and their weaving:

These were a nomadic or aboriginal people (many of them Christian) who got kicked out of Myanmar, much like the Myanmar refugees I now teach in Oklahoma. At first Thailand didn’t want them either, but now they’re making quite a pretty penny from tourists as a novelty, so the Thai “let them stay.” But they don’t have any legal rights and none of them are allowed citizen cards, even those who were born in Thailand to families who have been living there for a few generations.

We asked why they put those long brass coils around their necks. Some suspect it used to be to protect from tiger bites. Others think it’s just considered beautiful. It looks awfully painful. Some think it’s a symbol of “women’s oppression,” since only women wear them, but in recent years it’s actually helped their status. While the men are out working in the fields (or in many cases are unemployed), the women make scarves and other weavings and look beautiful and exotic for the tourists, bringing in most of the village income. So women are more valued in their culture than ever before. Kind of strange how that works.

Here’s a “long-eared” woman. The tribes are related, but not the same:

Here’s a little tribal girl who hasn’t started wearing the bronze coil yet:

We stopped by a little store on the way back and bought some dried papaya. It was OK, not nearly as good as the kind from the Philippines I bought while I was in the airport there last year. But the chocolate and sesame coconut was really good!

Then we had the long drive back to Chiang Mai and arrived at our hotel about 9:00pm. What a wonderful day!

Orchids, Elephants, and Tigers!

2011-11-10T14:26:00.000-08:00

On our free day in Chiang Mai, our hired driver first took us to an orchid garden. Here are some of the beautiful flowers:

They grew in long, tidy rows inside hanging planters. At the gift shop they sold orchid perfume (which they must use in extract form, since orchids don’t have much smell), orchids dipped in gold to pin to your shirt, and other orchid jewelry.

After the orchid farm, we visited Mae Sae Elephant Park. First, we saw the trainers bathing the elephants and washing their tusks:

Afterwards, during the show, they didn’t talk about the elephants, which was fine because we’d already heard several talks on them. Here are a few tricks:

An elephant “giving a message” to a trainer:

Elephants playing soccer:

And an elephant painting!

The trainer just gives the elephant the brush with the right color and the elephant paints. Most animal psychologists think the elephants simply remember the order of the right strokes. They don’t really know they’re painting a tree or a landscape or a trainer. Each elephant has a set number of pictures it is trained to paint, and depending on which color the elephant gets first, or some other cue from the trainer, it knows which image the trainer wants it to paint. So the saying proves true once more. Elephants never forget!

Elephant paintings sell pretty high! I think the most expensive on record was several million dollars, which was then donated (both money and painting) to the park. So people don’t just buy the paintings for the novelty of them. The profits support conversation.

Some other interesting facts about elephants. They live in small, matriarchal herds and have a primitive form of communication. Besides not forgetting what they paint, they also don’t need constant reinforcement with food like other, more hyperactive trained animals (such as sea lions, otters, dogs, and parrots). Elephants are capable of doing a whole show without getting a treat until the very end. They are more focused and remember when they will be fed. (You can tell because as soon as they finish the finale, they run to the fence where the audience sits with newly purchased bananas and sugar cane. Sometimes the elephants come so fast they scare the children.) If you tried to wait until the end with the other above animals, they would lose interest in doing tricks pretty quick.

Speaking of the finale, here it is:

After the show, Mom and I rode a big, twenty-year-old male elephant through the jungle for over an hour. A trainer rode on its head, guiding it. Sometimes he got off and took our picture in a good spot. He often gave a command for the elephant to raise its trunk. Here’s what that looks like:

And here’s us in the middle of the river. The trainer stood on a stone to take our picture.

Here’s a picture of the jungle.

That house you see is where they’re keeping the dominate male elephant who likes to fight with the others. (You can see him beside it, with HUGE tusks!) In general, all ungelded males have to be kept separate from the others.

After the ride, we bought a coconut to drink the water and eat some of the soft flesh inside, and then gave the empty shell to our elephant. What a hefty crunch!

Next, we went to tiger kingdom. We debated for awhile if we wanted to play with the baby tigers (3 months) or the newborn tigers (1 month). The latter cost more (about $40 per person for 10 minutes versus $30) but we finally decided that’s what we wanted, and it was worth it! About three pairs were allowed in at a time to play with the six tiger cubs. While we stood outside the glass cage waiting for our number to be called, I took this video of a cub getting cleaned:

Finally, it was our turn! They were really frisky just before we went in, but when we had them the poor things were so tired they wouldn’t climb on our laps or even open their eyes. (They have to play with people for 8 hours straight everyday. The trainers don’t change them out or give them any rest!) We weren’t allowed to pick them up. But here’s two pictures of me petting one:

Mom thought I was nuts, but I really wanted to go in with the big tigers too, and she went with me. We had to sign a release form first saying if the tiger mauled us we wouldn’t sue. I have no idea if that’s ever happened to anyone at Tiger Kingdom or not. Anyway, a trainer went in with Mom and me and instructed us on how to approach the tiger from behind, which is not what I would have thought. I expected to approach them from the front so they could see me coming and not get spooked. Turns out, the back is better because they don’t have as much power in their hind legs as in their front. I saw one trainer get kicked a little while the tiger was sleeping and it didn’t leave a scratch, whereas the front claws are used for hunting and tearing. The front is also where the teeth are.

Our big tiger was pretty tired too. Here’s us with him:

And here’s some weird, red ants I saw on a tree who found some kind of food. I thought I was in a National Geographic special!

There were some other tigers sitting up with the patrons, but they all looked pretty lazy. I hope the keepers don’t drug the tigers. Maybe they were only like that because it was the middle of the day. We saw lots of grown tigers in cages who were not being petted, especially ones with nasty tempers. One of them sprayed and hissed at the tiger in the neighboring cage, who just lay down like she didn’t care, so I assumed the mean tiger was a male who wanted to get at the female and couldn’t, so he was mad. Turned out, the trainer said, it was a female tiger in heat! I knew female house cats can get territorial and hormonal with other females, but I didn’t know female tigers did that too. I learn something knew every day!

When we finished with the big tigers, we spent the last remaining open hours of the park watching the baby tigers again (though only from afar; inside the cage would have cost more money). I got some cute videos:

And here’s a Japanese father with his son. The little boy was afraid of the baby tigers, so he kept climbing all over his daddy to get away from them!

Then we headed back to our hotel to get cleaned up for a Kantoke dinner and show at 7:30, featuring northern Thai and hill tribe food and performing arts. We were seated on the floor with reclining cushions around a circular, rotating tray of eight dishes. Here’s all the food:

Starting from my left shoulder: spicy curry soup, vegetable stir-fry (cabbage based), some kind of fried, crunchy vegetable, the appetizer fried banana (so good!) fried sweet potato, fried chicken, tomato paste, raw vegetables in the middle (celery, cucumber, carrot tomato), plus a bowl of clear chicken soup next to me, and rice! Anytime we ran out of something, they came back to refill it. We had to ask them to stop. It was all so good! I ate way too much.

Here’s Mom and me with one of our waitresses, who’s dressed in a traditional hill tribe costume.

About five minutes into dinner, the musicians started playing. It was repetitious and not very melodic (what melodies did exist were all pentatonic, based on the five-note Chinese scale), though less repetitive and atonal than Japanese music.

About thirty minutes into dinner, the show started. It was about an hour long and consisted mostly of dances similar to those we’d seen in the previous cultural show near Bangkok, but we were closer to the stage, so that was nice. Here’s the beginning procession:

Here’s the lion dance, which we hadn’t seen in the previous cultural show. (I believe it’s originally of Chinese origin.)

Each Asian country seems to have their own version. There are actual world competitions in the art of dragon dance. Last year, America won, believe it or not, though all participants were Chinese immigrants.

And the sword dance, which we also hadn’t seen before:

We left the theater around 9:30, but our van went back after ten minutes because someone must have called that I had left my black backpack. I hadn’t even realized it was missing! How they knew it was mine and what van I was in I’ll never know. What service!

And that was our free day in Chiang Mai! Stay tuned for Laos and the Golden Triangle!

Chiang Mai Tour

2011-11-06T13:44:00.000-08:00

The next day, we drove from Sukhothai to Lampang, the centre of the northern teak industry. We visited the walled temple of Wat Phrathat Lampang Luang, considered the most beautiful temple in Thailand. Its central chedi was made of old teak, and exquisite carvings graced the facades of many of its buildings. Here’s an interesting altar:

Another fine example of northern temple architecture was Wat Phra Kaew Don Tao. As I recall, both of these were under construction, with scaffolding and debris everywhere, so despite the fine descriptions I just gave from the brochure, I wasn’t that impressed, except for this small, Chinese temple near the exit:

Lampang is also famous for its brightly colored horse-drawn carriages, a popular form of transport. We had the option to take a ride, but didn’t. We were already paying enough money!

In the afternoon we visited the Thai Elephant Conservation Center. We saw an elephant show put on by professional trainers and tourists who paid to be part of a one or two week elephant camp. First we saw them bathing:

Here’s a super cute baby, only two and a half years old (elephants take about fifteen years to reach full-size, same as people, and live about sixty years).

Here’s some tricks during the show:

Yes, the elephant really is painting! No help from the trainer (except he gives her the brush with the right color). I'll show you a video and discuss it more in my next post about our free day.

Mom and me petting a baby elephant:

Several of the Thai conservationists taught us how to make elephant dung paper, dissolving the dung in water, covering a screen with it, and letting it dry in the sun. From these they made calendars, notebooks, and scrapbooks to sell in support of the elephants. That would be a good gift for your boss…I mean someone you don’t like. Kind of reminds me of the deer poop cookies in Japan (made of chocolate, not poop, of course).

Last we visited the elephant hospital and nursery. Here we are feeding the baby elephant:

Oh, no, it’s got me! (Those trunks are surprisingly strong!)

From there we drove on to Chiang Mai. The streets were flooded, even then:

There were no damns or walls to keep the water from the rice fields from getting up into the roads. Lately, Mom and I have been listening to the news about the flood. There’s been very little talk of Chiang Mai where the flood started. All anybody seems to care about is that the water doesn’t get to Bankok’s central business district. What about the people up north? I hope they’re all right!

We stayed the night in another hotel, and the next morning visited Wat Prathat on Doi Suthep Mountain. We took the tram to the top, 1,000 meters, took off our shoes, put formal wraps around our pants, and admired the giant golden pagoda with our guide Chiya in front:

Here’s the spectacular panoramic view over the surrounding countryside. Reminds me of that Carpenter’s song “On Top of the World” or a castle in the sky:

The gorgeous bougainvillea:

We found a statue of a mythical monster called a “mom.” I couldn’t resist getting this picture:

I think I prefer the mom on the left.

We heard so many Hindu and Buddhist legends that they all started running together in our heads, and we weren’t the only ones. As we walked back down the mountain, about 300 stairs or so, we noticed the railings were shaped like the giant mythical serpents called “naga.” Another group passed us, and one of the guys, imitating a thick Thai accent, said,

“And dis is da naga. He so big because he eat all da mythical creatures, which now exist in various places in his digestive tract.”

Mom and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about until we reached the bottom and saw this:

It’s hard to see, but they’re mouths are wide and they’re eating about seven mythical creatures each, those things with heads at the end. After that, we couldn’t stop laughing.

From there we drove to the neighboring villages of Sankampaeng and Borsarng to see the various cottages industries including silk weaving, wood carving, lacquer ware and umbrellas making. According to legend, silk was discovered when the Chinese emperor told the empress to investigate some worms that were eating the mulberry trees. Later, the empress was carrying some of the cocoons and dropped them in hot water, either by accident or to kill the worms inside. When she took them out of the water, soft thread unraveled from the cocoon. She soon began using it to make her own clothes, and its popularity spread throughout the palace. The secret to making silk was kept within the royal courts of China for many generations, giving China a monopoly on the trade and propelling its golden age of culture, exploration, and conquest, until the secret was either told, stolen, or simply figured out by the Japanese, Indians, and eventually others. China is still the world’s leading silk producer, about 50% of the total world output.

In this next picture, you can see silk worms eating mulberry leaves on the right, and larger ones spinning their cocoons on the left. Some produce white, and others yellow. They’re simply different varieties of worm:

So how do you tell the difference between real silk and fake silk? Here’s a short article on the subject: http://www.siamese-style.com/RecognizingSilk.html

The gist of it is weave, cost, sheen, print, and whether it stops or keeps burning once you light it and then take the flame away (kind of expensive, this last test, so I don’t recommend it).

Here’s a video of a woman weaving silk using a hand shuttle. A “shuttle” is the device that holds the new thread, and the weaver passes it back and forth across the tapestry to add the new threads. A “beater” then presses them into place. (That's what she's pulling on after she passes the shuttle through each time.):

The noise you hear in the background is from a foot shuttle, the dominate form of weaving apparatus used today. The weaver simply presses a peddle to make the shuttle go back and forth across the threads.

I’m particularly fascinated by the art of weaving because of my stories. One of my shorts, “Tapestry of Time” is based on the idea that people’s lives are threads in the space-time continuum. Lives can be cut and sewn to other lives to make each one shorter or longer. In my novel series, the characters use “shuttles,” portal like devices, to travel from place to place through the fabric of space-time. Thus they can travel through outer space to other planets without having to use a spaceship.

Next we saw the lacquer ware. Artisans get the lacquer from tree sap, which they paint on wooden or ceramic objects. Then they paint on gold and other designs. Other times, they coat the surface in gold paint, brush on the lacquer, and then scratch away the lacquer to reveal the gold underneath and create designs. This is typically the better method, and lasts longer, though it is quite a bit more expensive.

Here’s Mom with a large lacquer gold fish that cost several hundred dollars:

The last place we stopped was the fan/umbrella making shop, for which Chiang Mai is particularly famous. Mom and I both bought fans because they were cheap and useful in the heat. (Mom also got one depicting a beautiful Thai village, waterfall, and jungle to mount in the living room for decoration.) Here is a large umbrella on display:

And some gorgeous paintings:

Each item is hand painted by artists, so you get a lot for the price you pay. Many of the designs are repeated and used by several artists, but you can request an original, unique one, though they cost more.

After we finished there, Chiya had to run and catch a plane for his next tour. We got back to our hotel about 5:00 to talk and make plans for our free day. We checked out some Thai TV and Mom noted that many of the shows were either American or Japanese in origin. There were lots of Japanese cartoons in particular. I explained to her the growing fandom with Japanese “anime” (short for animation) since the 1980s that is sweeping across the world, particularly in Asia and America.

“Lots of people are totally obsessed,” I said. “They dress up as the characters, go to conventions. You’ve seen the T-shirts around Thailand, even. People who are obsessed like that are called ‘otaku.’ ”

After that, we went downstairs in the hotel to check out what kind of tours they offered. The woman who worked the tour desk was in her early thirties, very pretty and proper. She asked why we were in Thailand. I told her I was living in Japan and had just finished my contract.

“Oh, Japan? I love Japan!” she exclaimed. “I want to go there some day.”

“Why?” I asked, a little confused. Most Southeast Asians I knew either disliked Japan or had an indifferent attitude about it, on account that Japan took over so much of Asia with brutal force during World War II.

The woman looked very shy all of a sudden. “Because,” she whispered, as if she didn’t want anyone to hear, “I love Kitty.”

“You mean Hello Kitty, the character?” I asked.

“Yes!” she exclaimed. “I love all things Kitty!”

“Well,” I told the woman, “in Osaka, the big city near where I live, you can actually get a Hello Kitty wedding.”

Her eyes got real big. “Oh, how romantic!”

I smiled, though I actually thought it was the most unromantic thing I’d ever heard of. A Hello Kitty wedding? While I visited Universal Studios Japan and saw the sign advertising them, I thought I might gag. Where has the sanctity of marriage gone?

“See?” I told Mom later. “You never know who might be ‘otaku.’ ”

The following day was our best day on the entire 12-day tour, so stay tuned to find out about that next time!

Ayuthaya and Sukhothai

2011-10-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

Our third day in Thailand, we traveled with our guide Chaiya to the ancient ruins of Ayuthaya. On the way, we visited Bang Pa-in (also known as the "summer palace" near Ayuthaya. It was begun in 1632 by King Prasart Thong, the illegitimate son of King Ekathotsarot and an island woman when he shipwrecked there. (The "island" is in the middle of Chao Phraya River.) Prasart usurped the throne and built up the island where he was born. The palace was greatly expanded between 1872 and 1889 by King Chulalongkorn. He wanted to give the impression of Thailand as a modern country that Western nations “had no need of colonizing,” so he built it largely in a Western style:

A Greek goddess statue:

The pavilion where the king could paddle his boat and rest alone, enjoying the cool summer breezes:

Hedges shaped like elephants (I think that’s a modern addition):

A watchtower (where people can now get a view of the entire palace grounds:

Golden shower, the national flower of Thailand:

A Chinese temple dedicated by Chinese merchants:

A Buddhist temple shaped like a church:

For lunch, we stopped at a local restaurant and I got to try star fruit Here is the whole fruit:

Here’s what it looks like when cut:

You can see how it gets its name. My friend James once told me that they grow star fruit where he lives, in Hawaii. But you can’t find it in an Oklahoma supermarket!

Next, we drove a long way to the ancient ruins of Ayutthaya. Edited from the brochure:

From the 16th to 18th century, Ayutthaya was the capital and cultural center of the central Thai kingdom. It was a delicate blend of Dvaravati, Khmer, Mon and Lawa cultures. The reigns of 33 kings gave Ayutthaya a great number of fine buildings, monuments and works of art. In 1767, the city was completely destroyed by the Burmese. The remains of the island city are now of extreme archaeological importance and the extensively restored historical park of Ayutthaya was selected as a UNESCO world heritage site in 1994. There is ample time to admire the countless ruins of palaces, temples and monuments scattered over the park.

Here’s my favorite picture I took of Ayutthaya:

Reminds me of a video game I used to play as a child, Breath of Fire III. I wonder if the designers modeled some of those ruins off the ruins in Ayutthaya.

From there we went on to Sukhothai and spent the night in a museum-style hotel there. Here’s me in front of a strange palm tree:

The next morning we rode rented bicycles around the one-square-mile Sukhothai Historical park. Edited from the brochure:

Shkhothai was the first capital of Thailand (then Siam-- the land of smiles) which enjoyed a golden age under King Ramkhamhaeng, credited with creating the Thai alphabet (we saw his statue). The superb palaces, temples and monuments of this great city have been lovingly restored in Sukhothai Historical Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a must-see for all travelers. The Ramkhamhaeng National Museum in Sukhothai city contains an outstanding collection of statues, Buddha images and old celadon found within the old city. Many of Sukhothai's important sites are included inside the old city walls.

Most interesting about the museum were the many Buddhist, Hindu, and folk stories written on ancient tablets and translated into English. We learned how in a small village in Thailand, once a year they still see "Naga fire" from the ancient mythological snakes in the lake. No one, not even scientists, know what causes the phenomenon.

Here’s some of my favorite pictures of Sukhothai:

Hindu, traditional Thai, Cambodian, Burmese, Indian, Hindu, Chinese, and Buddhist architecture all blended together. It was really something to see!

The following day, we went up North to Lampang and Chiang Mai. More on that later!

Bangkok: Day 2

2011-10-13T07:36:00.000-07:00

Our second day in Bangkok, we went on a special joint-tour of the city. Our guide, Sammy, picked us up around 8:00. He looked different from other Thai, less dark and more Eastern Asian in appearance, so I asked him about it. He said his grandfather was Chinese, and that about 10% of the Thai population is Chinese.

On the way to the next pick up point and throughout the day, Sammy told us a lot. He had only been educated through elementary school and at about 14 had started off as a bellhop at a hotel. He learned to speak English through self-study and conversing with the tourists, so he was promoted and promoted until he was finally reached hotel manager. Then he decided he wanted to be a tour guide so he could travel and see what the tourists saw. He had a very skeptical impression of the Buddhist priests and religion. He told us criminals could become priests and then the government couldn’t touch them. They also relied entirely on alms from the people and did very little in terms of good works and charity themselves. Though they do serve the purpose of preserving traditional Thai culture such as message, cooking, history, and festivals, old literature and manuscripts. Sort of like the monks in Ireland.

He also told us that every morning and evening, Thai people have to sing the national anthem. Even though the royalty no longer rules Thailand, no one is allowed to say anything bad against them. Thai people can be thrown in jail for it, and subversive movies and literature from other countries are banned, like the book Anna and the King of Siam and the musical version The King and I. The royal family believes these make fun of the royal family and subvert their authority. (What authority? They’re not supposed to rule, right?) I got from Sammy that the king is highly respected, but is very sick. No one much likes the eldest son, but of course Sammy didn’t say this out loud. “The walls have ears,” he said, so he just said the Prince’s name and made a face. The King has played a crucial war in keeping political decent in check. When the red shirts and yellow shirts fight, all he has to do is say stop, and they stop. But now that he’s so sick, they aren’t stopping, and every few months there seems to be a demand for re-elections or even a military qu. Many people seem to be worried that when the king dies and his playboy son takes over, politics will get even worse in Thailand.

We were a little late because we had to stop by and pick up another family who hadn’t quite finished their breakfast at their hotel.

“All Indians are like that,” Sammy complained. “I tell you, I see tourists from all over the world, and Indians are the worst. Americans on the other hand, I always like Americans. You don’t make people wait and you always ask lots of good questions. If I had my way, I’d only tour Americans.”

I couldn’t help wondering if he said the same to every nationality he came across. Personally, I found the Indians very polite and interesting. They were living in London (like the Hindi characters in the Bollywood film The Brave Heart Gets the Bride,) and spoke perfect English. They were visiting some family in India and swinging by Thailand for a short visit. We talked about our various travels, and they gave us some good advice about what to see in Chiang Mai.

We took a restroom break at a small orchid farm, pottery center, and coconut product demonstration. We only had fifteen minutes there, but we could have spent hours!

That’s where we learned to make sugar from a coconut flower. They boil the flower sap in a big pot until it becomes paste, then form it into balls like this:

It’s very sweet and creamy! I asked why this kind of sugar-making isn’t more popular, because unlike sugar cane, it doesn’t deplete the soil, and it’s better for you. ( ) said it’s because you have to cut the whole flower to get just a little sap, and a cut flower can’t produce any coconuts. You make more money from selling the coconuts, and you don’t have to process them. Only a few places make sugar out of coconut flower sap, and because of that, it stays a novelty.

Next we took a trip down the river again, this time to visit the floating market. People sold everything from fruit to fans right out of boats along the river! Here’s some pictures:

Mom bought a “fan hat,” a hat that you can fold into something like a Japanese “sensu,” with bamboo ridges. I bought some small purses to give out to my friends as souvenirs. I also got Mom some durian fruit because she had become so curious about it throughout the trip.

OK, time for the durian story. I first tried it in Singapore with my Chinese friend Ying-Ying, where I ate so much I threw up. It’s so popular in Singapore it’s considered the “national fruit,” even though they can’t grow it and have to import them from Malaysia and Thailand. They even have an art museum modeled after the durian!

In Thailand, everywhere we went there were “no durian,” signs. In the hotel, on the elevator. Even in the airport! On our way from Phuket to Bangkok, right next to the “no guns” sign, there was a sign that said, “No durian in the cabin! If you have durian, you must report them to the flight attendant, who will put them in baggage for you.” So we asked a flight attendant, “What so terrible about this fruit?”

“It smells awful!” she said. “If you eat it, it’s on your breath for hours! Everything you eat for the rest of the day smells like durian. You belch, smells like durians. You fart, smells like durian. It spreads like a disease, so even if others don’t eat it, it’s all they can smell, so it’s all they can taste! It’s disgusting!”

So we came up with a song about the forbidden fruit based on the 50’s song “Du-ron-ron-ron, a du-ron-ron. Went something like this:

Let me tell you ‘bout a fruit, it’s really grand.
The du-ran-ran-ran, the du-rian.
But everything you try to do you no can-can.
‘Cause of the du-ran-ran-ran, the du-rian.

Like I met a guy, and he was the man.
Adu-ran-ran-ran, a du-rian.
But then he smelled my breath, and he ran
‘Cause of the du-ran-ran-ran, the du-rian.

Took it on the elevator, but it was contraband.
Adu-ran-ran-ran, a du-rian.
So I smuggled it back to my homeland.
Adu-ran-ran-ran, a du-rian.

There were a couple of other verses, but they’re about equally ridiculous. Anyway, after all this fuss over a fruit, Mom decided she really wanted to try one. We bought it at the floating market, and the woman warned us.

“Now, you can’t take that in the bus! Or a van! Or on the public transportation! The smell will get in the air conditioning and the whole thing will smell like durian for the rest of the day!”

We assured her we planned to eat it outside and did just that. Mom tried a bite, made a face, took another bite.

“Like it?” I asked.

“It’s…different,” she noted. “Not bad. Not good. Just…strange.”

Which is true. The durian is like no other fruit I’ve seen. The closest thing I can compare it to is pineapple on the outside, and sweet avocado mixed with honey on the inside. I ate the rest. They’re OK. Our breath did smell like durian for the rest of the day. But I don’t see why people make such a big deal out of it.

We also tried mangosteins, dongons, and jackfruit, all fruit I’ve never seen, and didn’t try another ten or so unique things. We have a surprisingly small variety of fruit in the U.S. Very interesting.

But the most interesting was probably the tiger balm lady who followed us around for awhile, begging us to buy. I made the mistake of turning to Mom when we passed her and asked, “Don’t you use tiger balm?” After that she wouldn’t leave us alone, insisting that hers was better than the stuff you can buy in America. We finally gave in and let her do a demonstration on us. She did a mini-Thai message on both of us using the balm, and then we felt obligated into buying it. She pulled a fast one when I gave her a large bill and expected change. Instead of giving change, she just gave us another jar of balm.

“Special price, special price, only for you!” she was practically crying. So we bought two jars.

After the floating market, we visited the wood carver’s market. They carve mostly from teak wood and pass down their skill from generation to generation. First they cut the wood, then paint a layer of white on it, draw on the design, carve out the design, then paint and finish. Here is some of the amazing work they do:

That took a year, they said. And this one will take a total of two years:

That guy’s world-famous. Can you see the white and the penciled design where he still has to carve?

The also carve all kinds of intricate furniture. And unfortunately idols. The Buddha images are usually made of teak wood, then covered in gold paint before taken to the temple and dedicated. How could anyone worship something they made with their own hands? How could you possibly think the thing you fashioned has any power to create or destroy? Now, that’s a sci-fi question for you. I suppose a robot or computer fashioned could somehow evolve power and intelligence of its own, but again, only because it was designed to do so. How can anyone who creates not be drawn to the Ultimate Creator? You would think that they more than anyone else would understand our need of Him and be drawn.

At this point, our Indian friends, who only had the half-day tour, had to go back to their hotel, and Sammy had to accompany them. (He was not happy about this, grumbling that he’d rather stay with the Americans than go with the Indians, but we assured him we’d be all right with his friend.)

We went to a lovely buffet place for lunch, were we visited with some Americans from Boston, who were quite the travelers themselves. Then we headed on to a place called the rose garden for an elephant and cultural show. Before the shows started, we had some time to wander around. We found out that “rose garden” was really a misnomer. There was only a small garden, and we couldn’t walk among the flowers because it was gated off. But here’s a woman spinning silk:

I’ll talk more about that process for tomorrow, when we learned about all the traditional crafts.

Here’s the elephant show:

And someone after the show, taking a picture with the elephant

The cultural show was about an hour long, accompanied by a traditional Thai “orchestra” of mostly drums, xylophone, nasally horn, and cymbals. The music was extremely repetitive. Anyway, it’s Thailand’s longest running show, with over sixteen thousand consecutive performances for the past four decades. Here’s what we saw, described straight from the brochure (with a few edits). I wish I could show videos, but alas, no...

1. Glong Sabatchai: traditional drum dance used to celebrate victory. A simpler form of Japanese taiko drumming.

2. For Lep: Fingernail dance from the ancient Lanna Kingdom in Northern Thailand. They wear long silver things on the end of their fingers. Used for welcoming guests:

3.Ordination into Monkhood: As a predominantly Buddhist nation, most males enter into monkhood to learn the Dharma and to practice abstinence. A procession of family and friends, bearing all the meager possessions he will need during his monkhood, with the to-be monk on elephant back, marched around the stage made to look like a village square. Before this the boy studied for two months as an apprentice and is then a monk for about three months.

4. Muay Thai: Thai Boxing is an ancient form of martial arts where fists, elbows, knees, and especially feet are used in hand-to-hand combat. Nowadays, matches are fought in a boxing ring. Normally there are 5 two-minute rounds in a regular fight. Today, it is an international sport that holds world championship fights in many weight classes. (While in Thailand, we saw many fliers for upcoming boxing matches with competitors from New Zealand, Australia, and various Europeans nations.)

5.) Traditional Self Defenses: Ploles and armguards were used in ancient battles. It originates from Ramayana where the two combatants are actually monkeys.

6.) Sword fighting: Ancient Thai swords are relatively short and worn strapped to the back. Legends abound where male and female warriors fought side by side. Thailand was never conquered until the Japanese briefly took over in World War II. (For this scene, a girl fought a boy. He struck the sword from her hand, but then she slapped him, kicked him down, retrieved her sword, and beat him. That was pretty funny.)

7.)Thai Wedding: Starts at sunrise when the groom’s party parades to the bride’s house, singing and dancing. The procession bears gifts of food, fruits, sweetmeats, and the dowry which is traditionally in gold. At the bride’s house the groom must pass ‘gates’ of chains set up by the bride’s relatives to gain access to the bride’s house. Once there, his elders discuss the dowry with the bride’s parents and gifts and brought forward. The wedding ceremony itself is a simple affair where a special flower garland is placed on the heads of the bride and groom, connecting them together. Then all the relatives and friends bless their union by pouring holy water over their hands and wishing them a long and happy marriage. The newly weds join in the wedding party with singing and dancing. (No Buddhist monk presiding or anything. No vows.)

8.) Kala Dance: comes from the South where dancers use coconut shells to create a lively rhythm after the rice harvest and other festive occasions.

9.) Forn Tien: the Candle Dance originates from the ancient capital of Sukhotai and is used to celebrate the end of the harvest.

10. The Harvest Dance: Comes from the Central Plains and depicts the harvest of rice.

11. The Bamboo Dance: There are many versions throughout Thailand and other countries, but this one comes from the Northeast. The steps and speed get more complicated and faster as the dance progresses:

12. The last dance was a combination of dances from all over Thailand, and ended with the “Flag Dance,” with flags from all over the world and was rendered to a very cheesy xylophone version of “it’s a small world after all.” Finally, anyone who wanted to could join in the Ramwong or Circle Dance, which of course I did. It was fun, but too short.

We got back to the hotel about 5:30. It was fairly early, so despite our exhaustion we took a walk around the park across the street. We saw some people doing Tai chi, some students walking around, a small orchid garden, and a lovely fountain.

And that was our second day in Bangkok!

Bangkok: day 1

2011-09-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

After our week adventure in Phuket, Mom and I took a 12-day customized tour of the rest of Thailand through Asia Adventure Tours. In Bangkok we were set to stay at the Royal View Hotel, but our ride from the airport had trouble finding the place. Apparently it was new, but we got there around midnight. There was a rather interesting coincidence that our flight was 222 and our room was 222, which we took to be an “auspicious” sign (more on that word later). The Royal View had an even better breakfast buffet! Besides the pancakes, French toast, cereal, fruit, salad, and eggs and other stuff the Ibis Phuket had, there were omelets made to order, bacon and ice cream! It was amazing. Our guide, Chiya, picked us up at 8:30. He was a native Thai and had his masters in religion, so he was extremely knowledgeable and spoke English very well. Besides him, we had our own private driver in an air conditioned van to take us everywhere, so it was basically one-on-one, and we could come and go anywhere as we liked!

Our first day was jam-packed. First, Chiya took us to Wat Traimit, or the Temple of the Golden Buddha. (“Wat” means Temple in Thai.)

Out front there was a huge portrait of the King. Even though he doesn't rule anymore (they have a constitutional monarchy like England) and he has officially proclaimed that he is not a god as was supposed of his grandfather, he is considered the "father of the nation." Pictures of him hang everywhere, and people worship him by bowing down before the huge portraits and offering incense and gifts. The do the same for the queen, only less so, (there is a small portrait of her in the hotel lobby) and I noticed that nearly all her portraits make her no older than forty. We arrived during her birthday month, so everyone was flying her blue flag, though the king's yellow flag was also prominently displayed everywhere. It's all very strange to me.

The statue is made of solid 18 karat gold, 3 meters high (9.9 feet) and weighs 5.5 tons. It was probably made in the 13th century during the Sukhothai period in the ancient capital of Ayutthaya. When the Burmese besieged the city, the statue was covered in plaster so they wouldn’t know it was gold and steal it. For two hundred years everyone forgot that it was really made of gold. But after World War II when the statue was being moved, the workers accidentally dropped it in the mud and damaged it. A monk discovered that there was gold under the plaster:

So who exactly is it depicting? This is what I learned through many conversations with Chiya and online research: “The Buddha” is a historical figure born in present day Nepal with the name Prince Siddhartha Gautana. His father, king of their territory, sheltered him from every pain and showered luxury on him. He married young and had a son, but early on in life he began to see pain and suffering and shunned his wealthy life to pursue a career as a traveling monk. At first he fasted into starvation and tortured his body as was the custom of Hindu monks in that day, but realized that was pointless too. So he came up with the concept of the “middle way,” saying you shouldn’t enjoy too much luxury at the expense of others, but you shouldn’t punish your body either. Shortly after that at the age of thirty-five, he was sitting under a bodhi tree and “attained enlightenment.” He then traveled throughout India and taught others to do the same. There are hundreds of stories about him stopping wars, ending famine, and performing other miracles. He eventually went home, his wife became a Buddhist nun and his son a priest (same as a monk), so there are no descendents of Buddha today. (However, some modern-day sects of Buddhist monks, such as a few in Japan, allow intercourse within marriage and children. But most sects do not have nuns. We saw one nun at a Thai temple but they are rare and almost unheard of in some countries like Japan. In the old Hindu system which leaked into Buddhism despite the Buddha's teachings of everyone as equal, women were seen as dirty. Those who are allowed to be nuns must live even stricter lives than the monks.)

Anyway, there are twelve different traditional statue poses depicting various stories of the Buddha after enlightenment. The golden Buddha pose is the story of him meditating under the bodhi tree when the king of the demons came to attack him. He lifted one hand to stop him and reached down with his other hand to touch the ground. The goddess of the earth came up, wrung out her hair and the demons were all swept away in a vast flood. Various attributes of the statues also remind worshipers of various aspects of the Buddha. In all statues, the coiled curls on top of the head represent wisdom and suffering, and the big ears “all hearing” (he knows what others are thinking). The eyes are cast downward to show self-reflection, which does not seem to be a strong point in many Buddhists (explanation later).

No matter how many questions I asked, I couldn’t figure out what “enlightenment” was, though apparently the Buddha taught others to do it after he did it.

“He knew all that is important to know,” Chiya explained. “How to end all war and stop all hunger and pain and suffering.”

I was struck by how different this was from Christianity. The Buddhists actually believe human beings can attain those things on their own, versus needing God and grace. If Chiya’s right, I wondered, then why do Buddhists fight just as many wars and suffer just as much as other people? I think over 6,000 years of human history has proved that we’re way beyond self-help when it comes to ending all war and suffering. But aloud I simply asked, “So, is this enlightenment a sudden flash of lightening “aha!’ moment, when suddenly all the secrets of the universe are laid bare before you?”

He struggled to find the right words. “No, it’s…gradual. Enlightenment can only come after much study and meditation.”

“So…anyone who studies and meditates will sort of slowly grow into enlightenment?”

“Well, certain people, yes. The Buddha said people are like lotus flowers. Some live on the surface of the pond and all they need is a little sunlight to make them bloom. Others are under the water and need more light. And some are in the mud and need to be cleaned and purified and given lots of light to blossom.”

“So when does a person know when they have become ‘enlightened?’ ” I insisted. “How do you know ‘This is it! I have now attained all the secrets of the universe.’ ”

“Um…you just know,” he said. “And other enlightened people know by looking at you. You are very peaceful, content. Miracles are one sign. Jesus was probably enlightened.”

As if any ‘enlightened’ person ever raised themselves from the dead. I kept my sarcasm to myself.

“Most Buddhists aren’t,” he clarified, probably able to read the skepticism on my face. “It’s rather rare, actually. Anyone who attains enlightenment also becomes a Buddha and is worshiped, but ‘The Buddha’ was the first, the great teacher.”

”You worship Buddha?” I asked, already knowing that they did. “But didn’t Buddha say he wasn’t a god and not to worship him?”

“Well, yes, but it’s deviated a lot since then and people have to worship something. So they worship his footprint, his shadow, his statues, his relics.”

Even though I don’t understand this mentality, there was no point in questioning further since he had simply stated a fact, so I asked a different question. “How is Thai Buddhism different from Japanese Buddhism?”

Chiya explained the different denominations to me, but I couldn’t quite get it all. The first major division seemed to come around after the Buddha died and the different monks who knew him came together to compile all his sayings and teachings into sacred scriptures or “sutra” which are still chanted in the original Sanskrit that few understand anymore. If I remember correctly, forty monks got together and had their own little council apart from the others, so they were shunned. That is the smaller main sect in Japan and some other places. The sect in Thailand comes from the council of the larger body of monks. Something like that. Now there are dozens of sects.

There are very few Buddhists in India now, since they were uprooted by the Muslims. There were too many Hindus for them to do that with them. Thailand I would say is a mixture of India and Chinese culture. This is evident in their architecture, food, performing arts, and even their religion. In addition to Buddhism, they have all the Hindu gods plus there own local deities. Each building, park, forest, and river has its guardian spirit. There were shrines everywhere.

Next, we visited the flower market on our way to Wat Pho. Hundreds of craftsmen lined the streets making garlands, bouquets, and other offerings that tourists and locals could buy to present at the Buddhist alters. They have a whole industry out of it! There were all kinds of fruits and foods too, most of which we didn’t recognize. Mom said she never knew so many fruits existed! Duran, mangosteen, longon, and jack fruit, just to name a few.

Before we went to Wat Pho, the temple of the reclining Buddha, the largest and oldest temple in Bangkok, we stopped for lunch at a small local restaurant. We took a boat across the river to the temple and here’s what we saw:

If I look disgusted in the picture, that’s because I am. That is the biggest idol I’d ever seen. It’s 15 meters, or about 50 feet high, and 46 meters, or about 150 feet long. This image depicts the story of Buddha’s death, when he lay down, surrounded by his family and followers, to “pass into nirvana.” Buddhism retained the reincarnation cycle of Hinduism, with the ultimate goal being complete oneness with the universe or being absorbed into it, thus becoming free of all joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure. Basically it’s a total loss of individuality and conscious thought, or ceasing to exist. No, thank you!

Here’s the feet, made from mother of pearl:

The hall was lined with bowls. People buy fake coins and put them in each of the bronze bowls to improve their karma, or chance of being reincarnated as something better in the next life. So the temple was full of the sound of tinking coins.

I asked what they did with the coins at the end of the day and Chiya said they get them out of the bowls and resell them. That’s a way to make money! Similarly you can pay to put a layer of shimmering cloth over the reclining Buddha. At the end of the day, the priests take it off and someone buys it again the next day. Now that’s a way to make money. No wonder the temples are so filthy rich and coat everything with gold. It’s disgusting. They should give that money to the poor in Thailand. There are plenty.

Next, we took an hour long-tail boat trip down the Chao Phraya river. The people lived in houses built on rotting stilts in the water and tin roofs:

I asked Chiya what happens when the river floods.

He shrugged. “The houses flood too.”

“Why don’t they move?” Mom asked. “Isn’t it dangerous to live along the river?”

“Sure, but they’ve been living here for generations. Why should they move?”

Locals paddled up to us in little boats and presented wares to sell, but we didn’t want anything. Chiya gave us some bread to feed to the fish. They swarmed us! So the tourists feed the fish and the locals catch and eat the fish. Very efficient system.

Then we stopped by Wat Arun, or Temple of the Dawn, named for the way the sun glows behind it when it rises. For reason I didn’t catch it was an extra special temple, so ladies had to wear long skirts over their pants. I had on a skirt. I told Mom she should have worn one, but she hadn’t so she had to rent a cloth to wrap around her and tuck into her pants like a skirt. The temple consisted mostly of giant stone carved stupas.

“What’s a stupa?” I asked.

“A stoopa,” Chiya explained, pronouncing it funny, “is a Buddhist tower that houses relics of the Buddha, like a lock of hair or piece of bone.”

“Oh, kind of like a pagoda in Japan,” I reasoned. “Or a chedi.” I glanced around the place. There had to be dozens of them, and I had seen hundreds of similar structures in Japan, China, and India. “There sure are a lot of them, all over the world.”

Chiya laughed. “Yes, the Buddha must have been very big, don’t you think? I wonder how they could possibly have enough of him to fill all the millions of pagodas and chedies and stoopas, whatever architectural style they prefer.”

I realized then that Chiya didn’t really believe the myths and stories himself, as with most “Buddhists” in Japan. Yet he still offered incense before every statue and prostrated himself. I asked what that was about.

“If you don’t think Buddha is a god, then why do you worship his statue?”

“I’m a modern, educated man,” he said seriously. “I believe in evolution and all that, not these gods. But I worship out of respect for my culture and for the Buddha as a great teacher.”

I found out later the Chiya was actually a Buddhist monk for seventeen years. Seventeen years of performing rituals you don’t even believe in! Reminds me of the Japanese argument, which goes something like this: “we don’t really believe in these ten thousand gods and goddesses we bow before each year, but we’re Japanese. It’s just what we do.”

Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living,” and I’m inclined to agree. But Socrates was a Western philosopher and maybe I’m just failing to understand Eastern mentality. (Interestingly enough, I learned recently that Japanese and perhaps other Asians too have no idea what you mean when you talk about “Eastern” and “Western” mentality. There is “European” and “Asian,” but Jerusalem is not the center of the globe for them, so “East” and “West” doesn’t make sense. When they use a globe, China is the starting point. They also don’t have a concept of Euro-centricm. Just as Asia plays a manor part in America history books, America and Europe play a lesser roll in Japanese textbooks. Thailand doesn’t even use A.D. all the time, since that’s Christian era. They use BE, which is Buddhist era, starting from the time the Buddha died. They add about 545 years to the A.D. year, so this year would be 2556 to them. So instead of using “East” and “West,” Asians more often use “us” and “outsiders.” In Japanese, the proper term for foreigner is “outside country person,” but people more often than not use the ruder slang form, which is simply “outside person.”)

Buddhists just think totally different from the way I was raised, so it’s very difficult to wrap my head around anything they say or believe. Even after hundreds of questions, I don’t think I’m any closer to understanding it, and I would bet that most of them don’t understand it either, but their religion does not emphasize understanding. The ritual matters more. Just give your offerings, say your prayers, do your good deeds, and you’ll be a good Buddhist. Forget the fact that you’re a “modern man” and know these statues are made of lifeless stone and metal and have no power to do what you ask. What seems like a waste of time to me, given their true beliefs, is meaningful to them. They just don’t stop to think about it. In their defense, however, I think some Christians do the same, and certainly most modern Americans do, at least in terms of religion. Essentially, that’s what an agnostic is. Is there more value in going through religious rituals you don’t believe or understand to “honor your culture” or to simply practice no religion at all? Well, if Truth is real, then that’s a moot question. If there is absolute Truth, then any belief that isn’t True, religious or otherwise, is a waste of time. Unless it can lead to the Truth.

Anyway, Mom and I climbed to the top of the highest stupa. Here’s what it looks like at a distance:

The statue beneath it is of the fat Buddha. The story goes that the Buddha was very thin and handsome, so he worried that people only listened to his teachings because of his good looks. So he transformed himself into a fat man. People continued to flock to him, so he realized it must truly be his teachings that drew them.

And here’s the view from the top:

It was decorated with bits of broken pottery. Story goes a bunch of expensive porcelain plates were shipped from China for use at the temple, but smashed during the long voyage, so they were formed into flowers and plastered onto the temple like this:

By the end of the hour, we were in a stuper from stupas.

After that, we went to the Grand Palace and Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Here is the entrance to the three main structures:

The royal family no longer lives in the palace but uses it for ceremony. Therefore, portions were blocked off for one of the princess’s funeral rites. They last several months for royalty. The Thai royal family is the richest in the world and one of the largest, again, something that rather disgusts me considering how many of the people are impoverished. The King used to have many wives, up until the recent one, who only has one. I wasn’t able to get a clear answer out of Chiya as to whether polygamy is technically illegal or not. From research I found out that it has been since 1935, but only in law. From what I gathered from the comments of various men, including Chiya and our other guides, many men have several mistresses or even wives without telling the others.

Here’s a closer look of the three main structures in the royal compounds:

Here some interesting mythological beasts, lion women:

Wouldn’t want to get in a cat fight with them!

Speaking of myths, there was a room in one of the temples that had a lot of murals depicting the Hindu Prince Rama and Princess Sita. Story goes she was kidnapped by the demon king, who sent back the body of his own daughter in Sita’s image floating down the river to make it look like Sita died. The bereaved Prince was about to bury the body, and the demon king’s daughter planned to return to the underworld once she was in the ground. But Prince Rama had a very clever monkey king for a friend, who suggested the burn the body on a funeral pier. Sure enough, the demon princess couldn’t take the heat, and started to fly off, but the monkey king caught her and made her his wife, forcing her to tell them where princess Sita was. (They had a half monkey, half person baby, by the way.) The monkey king and Rama led their armies to the demon’s layer, but along the way, the had to ford a stream. They piled up rocks, but the demon king’s mermaid daughter kept taking the stones away. So the monkey caught her and made her his second wife, forcing her to stop taking away the stones. (They later had a half money, half fish baby.) In one of the battles, they fought late into the night, and it was getting dark and dangerous in the demon king’s layer, so the the monkey king swallowed Rama’s army to keep them safe until dawn. Here is that mural:

Finally, Prince Rama won and Sita was returned to them. In some versions, they lived happily ever after, in others, Rama cast her away because she had been violated by the demon king, and in others they went into exile together. Chiya told me the stories. I suppose it made about as much sense as most myths.

Here’s an entrance with two demon/monkey guardian things. The gold is covered with cut colored glass to make it sparkle different colors:

The entrance to the emerald Buddha looked rather similar, but no pictures allowed there, since it’s the most sacred relic in Thailand. Thousands have fought and died over that idol; churned my stomach just watching all the people prostrating themselves before it. It’s not even really emerald but a single piece of carved green jade 45 centimeters (18 inches) tall and clothed in gold cloth, in the same pose as the golden Buddha. Very beautiful to be sure, but not worth blood. Of course, I don’t understand why Christians killed each other over some pretty cup they claimed was the “Holy Grail” either. It’s really scary when human beings give more value to a physical object than it was ever meant to have.

Here’s a link to pictures of the emerald Buddha:

http://www.google.com/search?q=emerald+buddha+images&hl=en&client=firefox&hs=cCX&rls=com.yahoo:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=8hV-ToX3DsnFsQLDlqQT&ved=0CCwQsAQ&biw=1067&bih=673

After all that, we went to the teak wood palace. No pictures allowed there, but it is what is sounds like, a palace made entirely out of extremely expensive wood, the largest in the world.

We got back to our hotel about 5:00. Back in Puhket, Mom was only able to exchange $200 of her dollars for Baht, and boy am I glad now! She had just barely enough to pay for the rest of our tour, since they wanted it in USD. God was lookin’ out for us. We were exhausted, so we took a nap and accidentally slept right up until someone was supposed to pick us up for the evening cabaret show. We rushed to get ready and ran downstairs, but no one came. I called the tour company but no answer. Fortunately, the hotel staff was very helpful. Someone drove us there and we got there just as the show was starting before our front row seats.

That was the one and only performance I’ve been to where I wished I didn’t have front row seats. They told us it was a family show. Ha, ha. I’ve never seen anything so racy in my life, at least not live. And so cheesy! Most of it was in English, but everything was lip sinked. Lady boys galore! Now, a little cross dressing I can handle. There was one guy who dressed like a Japanese geisha and did a really funny dance in full kimono. In another song stuff kept going wrong with the music (on purpose), and that was cute. But the “fantasy of calypso” number went way over the top! The men stripped on stage down to bra and underwear and then you didn’t know whether they were guys or girls. A very obviously man turned woman danced to a song called “you’re so beautiful” and made out with a guy on stage. Talk about your culture shock! A lot of people think I’m totally biased, but in truth, I don’t mind gay people as long as they don’t flaunt it, and I’m the same way with heterosexuals. I don’t like sex being thrown in my face regardless or gender or leanings!

In another song that told a story, and woman in a wedding dress danced with a man only to have him leave her to dance with other women in terribly revealing underwear. The wife got angry and pulled a gun on him, then threatened to shoot herself, then stripped out of her wedding gown (with the help of some men) to reveal a very riskea dress, danced with them, and then her husband came over and kissed her, only so he could take the gun out of her hand, and she was forced to get back in the wedding dress. Weird. I think the caveat in the middle, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are about to witness a story of murder, theft, adultery, and treachery, all the things we hold near and dear to our hearts,” about summed up the whole show.

The only beautiful number was a Korean dance performed in traditional hanbok and glow-in-the-dark fans. Why couldn’t they all be like that?

I couldn’t wait to get out of that joint, but of course we had to find a ride back to the hotel. We got a tuk-tuk (a motorcycle with two seats and a canopy attached that gets its name from the “tuk-tuk” sound it’s exhaust makes). But like the guy who brought us from the airport the day before, the driver didn’t know where our hotel was. This became apparent after we drove around in several circles for far too long. I tried to talk to him but he didn’t understand me. Finally he stopped.

Oh, no! I worried. This isn’t our hotel. Why are we stopped? There are some big guys over there. Are they going to rob us?

Our driver, who was maybe only sixteen or seventeen, went over and talked to the guys. The big burley one came over to me.

“Where you hotel?” he asked in broken English.

“Um…I don’t know. It’s called the Royal View.” (I had the phone number and email of our tour company on me but not the hotel, and the company wasn’t answering the phone since it was 10:00 at night.)

“Ok, you follow me.” He started down a dark alley.

I glanced back at Mom. “Um…you wait here.” I figure if he tried something, I could scream and she could then scream out in the street where there were more people.

But he led me right to a nice hotel and told me to ask the clerk at the desk where the Royal View was. The clerk got on the internet and printed me off a map, which I then brought back to our tuk-tuk driver, who was still waiting. Then he brought us right there. Thai people are so nice! Did I mention Chiya was nice too, answering all my dozens of questions so easily? They really bend over backwards for you, and I think it’s more than just money, because nobody asked me for a tip. I gave it anyway, of course, but I really think they want to please the tourists, just because they’re nice. But also, I think God was looking out for us. That’s the third time! I didn’t sit on the lion fish, Mom had just enough to pay for the rest of our tour because she hadn’t been able to exchange all her USD to Baht, and we were safe wandering around at night with strangers. God is good, but I will endeavor not to put Him to the test. From now on I will always carry all addresses and phone numbers of the places I am staying on my person!

Only then, upon arriving at the hotel, did we learn that our driver had come to pick us up for the cabaret five minutes after we left. He was late due to traffic.

So that was our first day in Bangkok!

scuba diving!

2011-09-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

Saturday, July 29th, Mom caught up on her rest and went to get the laundry done while I had my first day of open water scuba diver training! I’d been wanting to get it ever since I went scuba diving last summer in Japan. I thought I would be really scared. I’ve always been afraid of going under water since my baby brother drowned when I was almost ten, but for some reason it doesn’t bother me when my face and nose is in a mask and I have a regulator in my mouth. The air is cold, but I can always count on it to be there. Some people just can’t do scuba diving. I love it.

It basically allows the certified person to dive in any open water (lake, river, ocean) with a buddy who is also certified up to 16 meters, or about 60 feet. I had done the book training online prior. There’s a lot more to it than I thought, and just the online portion took ten hours. The major skills were nitrogen calculation, depressurization, equipment types and uses, different types of diving environments, various tides and how to handle them, underwater hand signals, basic safety, emergency procedures for helping yourself and other divers, what to do if something goes wrong with your equipment under water (rare), and other such things. I had to take a bunch of online tests and quizzes.

As far as nitrogen goes, the deeper I dive and the longer I stay under, the more nitrogen builds up in my system, which can cause nitrogen narcosis and various other nasty medical problems. There’s also depressurization sickness, which one can get from rising too fast (nitrogen bubbles get caught between bones or even organs and then burst). I have to worry about these things even more than air supply, since nitrogen levels usually force me to go up before the air tank is even half empty. I also had to learn what to do if I see different kinds of animals, such as dangerous fish, sharks, sting rays, etc. Basic policy: don’t run. Just bypass it slowly. Don’t touch ANYTHING if it can be helped. Even if it looks safe, there’s more danger of me harming it than it harming me, and ocean ecosystems are very fragile.

In Thailand, I had to take a quick test to ensure it was me that did the online training before we went to the pool with my instructor, Danny, who was from England. He had a rather thick cockney accent, which I’m not familiar with, so sometimes, especially when my ears were all clogged after a dive, I had trouble understanding him, which made me feel rather slow and stupid. The first day is called “confined water” I had to demonstrate basic swimming skills, learn how to put my equipment together, take it apart, store it, make sure it’s working properly, etc. I demonstrated “neutral buoyancy,” which is the ability to stay completely level on the bottom of the pool, which is a lot harder than it sounds. I had to compensate for a weight belt, buoyancy control device, and my own breathing, which made me rise about two feet every time I breathed in, and sink two feet when I exhaled. I learned how to lose and recover my regulator, “sip” air from the regulator (in case it malfunctions), emergency buddy regulator breathing and “buddy breathing,” clear my mask underwater, use the hand signals to communicate with my instructor, swim to one side of the pool to the other while exhaling slowly the entire time, among other things. All of this would have been no problem, if I didn’t keep have problem with my ears. They wouldn’t equalize. The further I went down, the more they felt like they were going to pop. I’ve always had trouble with my ears, (had tubes as a kid and they still get clogged quite often) and my dad actually ruptured his ear drum once. This made everything take forever. It took me ten minutes just to get to a decent depth every time we went under.

We’d only gotten halfway through the skills when I had to run to catch the sunset cruise. I was too late to catch the free shuttle from the hotel, so I caught a cab. I arrived and ran down the pier just as the ship was pulling out. I ran back to the office.

“That’s my boat!” I cried, pointing to the Chinese June Bahtra as it sailed into the open ocean.

Without saying a word to me, the woman pulled out her cell phone and gestured for me to follow. She spoke to the harbor gate guard in Thai, who opened the gate for me. Then a young man appeared and pointed to a small boat. Boat isn’t the right word. It was a large inertube with an engine on the back.

“You want me to get in that?” I asked.

He just smiled.

Well, why not? So I jumped in and he jumped in after me. Before I knew it we were whizzing toward the cruise ship, my hair whipping in the wind, the blue green ocean rushing under us. We reached the ship in about five minutes. I handed the young man a tip, climbed up the rope ladder and jumped on deck.

“All right, the party can start now!” I cried.

Boy was Mom glad to see me! “I asked our guide if we could wait a little longer but she said we had to leave at 5:00. I saw you waving as we were leaving. I asked if we could turn back but there was no way. But being Miss Drama Queen you had to go James Bond and arrive in style! Typical.”

While I had been away, a woman from South Africa who lived in Australia with her husband kept telling Mom “ ‘Tis a pity ‘bout your daughter.” Mom couldn’t understand her until she’d said it several times. I don’t think we met a single American on the entire trip. But I could understand her just fine (I have two friends from South Africa) so I could translate while we had a nice conversation.

We enjoyed a nice buffet dinner while chatting with our guide/captain, Jenny. There was something…strange about her. She wore the clothes and make up of a girl, but had a man’s voice. I finally got up the courage to ask her,

“Are you a lady boy?”

Mom about slugged me, but Jenny said, “I’m not offended. I am a lady boy.”

A “lady boy,” is a boy/man who’s had a sex change. They’re apparently quite common in Thailand and there is little to no discrimination against them. But if you ask me…it’s disgusting! They have to take hormone supplements their whole lives and end up being neither man nor woman, but something monstrous in the middle. I know that many people disagree with me, including many Thai who say lady boys are beautiful. That’s fine. If they’re entitled to their opinion, then I’m entitled to mine. The basic liberal philosophy is “it’s their body so they can do what they want to it” but I believe our bodies and our lives belong to God. More on that later.

Apart from being disturbing, Jenny was fun to talk to, very smart and informative. The cruise was lovely. Here are some pictures:

The next day was my first day scuba diving from a boat. Mom came too just to snorkel, since she’d discovered she loved that on the Phi Phi islands by speedboat tour. First we took two shuttles to the dive site. There was a Japanese family I chatted with until our second transport arrived. One Chinese kid (he had a name but I’m not putting it here) who sat next to me was from America (the first!) but he was living in Singapore. He told me he was flying back that evening.

“Uh…then you probably can’t dive,” I told him. “You shouldn’t dive if you’re going on a plane in the next eighteen hours. Depressurization sickness.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” he said, “but I’ll ask.” Sure enough, the captain and his guide wouldn’t let him. I feel a little guilty. They would have let him go if I hadn’t mentioned it to him. He raised a stink for about an hour, he was so mad. But I think it’s good that I told him. Depressurization sickness can be pretty severe. He ended up having a good time snorkeling anyway.

It took half an hour to get to the dive site, so I spent the time up top deck feeling the wind and sun on my face. After a while, the captain, who was from Ireland, came out and talked to me. He was a very stereotypical captain, grumbling about the Chinese guy giving him trouble, complaining about his various aches and pains. He started telling me about his life and mentioned he’d been thinking a lot about death lately. He talked about how he saw so many horrible things when he fought in some South American war, killed a lot of people. He wondered how life could be so beautiful but human beings could be so rotten, and wondered how any “supreme being” could let it happen that way.

Wow, here’s the perfect opportunity. For several days I’d been praying that God would open up a way for me to witness to someone. So I said,

“You know, I believe God didn’t make the world this way. I think He made it perfect, but human beings screwed it up. But if we earnestly seek God, we can still find Him. He’s not far off from any of us.”

He nodded. “Huh, that’s makes sense. So do you think if we try hard enough, we can be good and reach God?”

I shook my head. “No, I think that when human beings messed up in the beginning, the world became broken. That’s what causes earthquakes and hurricanes. It wasn’t meant to be this way, that’s why natural disasters and disease and death always seem so unfair, you know?”

“Yeah, I do. During the war I saw innocent children get hurt all the time. I always wondered, ‘whatever did they do?’ Human beings just keep screwing up. There’s no hope for us getting better. There’s something…rotten about us, down to our very core. We can’t be good even when we want to be.”

“Exactly,” I agreed. “It’s hopeless for us, but I believe that God, because he knew we were hopeless, came down to Earth and became one of us. To show how much he loves us. And then, He even died for us. He paid the price for all the bad stuff we’ve done, because he knew we couldn’t do it ourselves. All he asks is that we put our trust in Him and try to share the same kind of love He had for us with others.”

“Man, that’s amazing!” he turned to me. “What’s the name of your religion?”

I almost laughed. “Christianity.”

“Really? Protestant? Catholic?”

Knowing this is a particular sensitive point to the Irish, I smiled. “Just Christian.”

He mulled over this a minute, then sure enough began talking about the Protestant and Catholic fighting he’d seen growing up, often leading to loss of life.

“You know what?” I told him honestly. “I don’t think those people you saw killing each other were really Christian at all. “Christian” means “follower of Christ,” and Christ never killed anyone; he saved lives. Real Christianity is about modeling his love for others. I think those people you saw simply wore religion like a political party.”

He nodded. “That’s for sure. What about the crusades?”

I told him about my time in the U.S., Mexico, Africa, India, and Japan and all the Christian good I’d seen while volunteering in those places. “No one ever talks about Christians doing those things, do they?”

He smiled. “Guess not. But you’re right. I saw a lot of Christian missionaries working during the war. They sacrificed their lives, literally, to help everyone they could. But I think it’s too late for me. God doesn’t want me.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s never too late. God loves and wants everyone. All you have to do is put your trust in Him.”

Just then, my instructor Danny called me down to start putting together my equipment. Perfect timing. Come on, God definitely planned for that encounter. It’s easy to evangelize, when you pray for the opportunity.

Here’s me putting my gear together and testing it:

We had two dives scheduled for the day. I loved the first one. It was mostly swimming around getting used to all the gear in the open water, coral reefs, swimming with currents, stuff like that. I took a banana with me again and the beautiful tropical fish swarmed all around! I saw a giant green trigger fish, which you have to watch out for because it will attack if you get in its territory. I don’t think it even noticed us.

The second dive was not so fun. We had to spend a lot of time catching up on skills I didn’t get in the pool. I swallowed a lot of salt water learning how to take on and off my equipment and weight belt in the water, and the waves were really choppy on the surface where I had to learn and demonstrate other skills. I felt really sick when I got back on the boat. I sat next to the Chinese guy, who seemed to have had a good time. He even saw more than I did, a school of baby barracuda. All of a sudden I got even sicker and threw up all over the floor. My instructor came to get me and chastised me for throwing up inside and brought me to the side, where I continued throwing up. He was not very nice about it. He kept saying we had some paper work to fill out. I resisted the urge to throw up all over his lap.

I spent the next hour and a half utterly miserable. Mom never came out to see me, which in addition to her extremely disgusted face and lack of any kindness while I was throwing up inside, made me really mad. I only found out later that she had done the smart thing and taken a seasick pill, which conked her out shortly after I threw up. After awhile my instructor came out again and said tomorrow’s schedule would be even more rigorous with three dives and going out three hours one way to the Phi Phi islands. I knew I couldn’t take that. Finally he let up and suggested something useful, that I downgrade my certification from open water diver to scuba diver. We had already done all the training for that. Tomorrow, if I was up to it, we would come back to the same place and just do two fun dives. By the time we arrived back at the pier the seasick pill had finally kicked in, so I was feeling better and I agreed to his new plan. (I learned that many pills take about 1 ½ hours to kick in, so I have to take them before I get on the boat!)

As a scuba diver I could do everything an open water diver could do, except I always had to have a guide with me and I could only dive to twelve meters, or 40 feet. Because of my ears I don’t think I can dive deeper than that anyway, and I never planned on diving in the same place twice, so having a guide is just smart anyway, since he or she would know all the best places to see beautiful coral and fish.

That evening Mom and I both took a nap because of the medicine. I was hungry from no lunch and throwing up my breakfast, so I went out for some dinner about 7:00. There I met a German woman living in Australia, and we talked about our travels. She was a ER surgeon with a strong passion for Samalia. Very interesting lady. I had pizza (I needed something easy to digest, easier than Thai food, anyway) and fried ice cream, then tried some of her delicious “banana pancake” that she couldn’t finish. Here’s the fried ice cream:

So the second day was just “fun diving” without instruction, and was certainly a lot more fun. I saw eels and pencil fish and giant puffers, baby puffers, urchins, neon fish, and almost sat on a lion fish! They’re so poisonous that they’ll kill you in two hours if you touch them. My instructor pulled me away just in time. Another reason to always go with a guide. I got much better and swimming by myself, though. At the end of the second dive of that day, he didn’t have to hold onto me at all. I could switch my direction in the middle of a current even and keep perfect buoyancy at all times.

Diving is like being in a magical world or an alien planet. You see so much! The fish act so different than they do in aquariums, and everything is much closer and real, rather than artificial. It's one of the few habitats in the world where you can still see tons of native animals roaming around in the wild. I’m hooked! Next I want to go to the Philippines and swim with the whale sharks. They are called “the friendly giants of the sea.” They are sharks but only eat microscopic plankton, hence the name “whale” in front of shark.

I didn't get sick on the second day because I was sure to take the medicine plenty in advance, but others did:

Our final day in Phuket we were planning on taking the Phang Nga Bay 4-in 1 tour, but we were both tired and sick of boats, so I canceled it. Instead we spent the day packing and actually enjoying the beach and hotel. There were some beautiful gardens around. Here's some flowers in the windows of a nearby apartment:

A nearby hotel called the "Austrian garden" where lots of German speakers stay:

Path through the palm trees:

A shrine in the garden. They offered fanta grape to the spirits, that was funny:

We both got a Thai massage:

It hurt! Little did we know that unlike Western messages, Thai messages are not meant to be relaxing, but stretching! The bend and pull you in all kinds of uncomfortable directions! It’s supposed to improve circulation and all that. It was one hour of near torture, but they assured us we would feel better later. Maybe we did, maybe we didn’t. It’s hard to tell.

But the beach was nice:

Someone parasailing. Cost over $30 for five minutes:

The waves were too high to swim in and filled with trash, so we went back to the hotel pool to swim:

For dinner, we ate succulent Thai dishes like coconut pineapple chicken, Thai salad, orange chicken, beef kabobs, and other mouth-watering delights while sipping pinacoladas by the pool in lounge chairs. Not kidding. It was heaven.

We headed for the airport at 6:00 and caught our 8:40pm plane for Bangkok, arriving at 10:05. We got to our hotel at 11:00 and crashed. And that was the end of the Phuket portion of our summer 2011 vacation!

Until next time, keep loving and praying,
L.J. Popp

4-in-1 safari and Phuket Fantase!

2011-09-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

On to my favorite day in Phuket! Friday, July 28th, we enjoyed another excellent buffet breakfast before being picked up at 8:00 for our four-in-one safari! As we neared the little traditional camp with grass huts, we saw elephants walking along the road. The little Dutch girl in our group cried out "oliphant, oliphant!" It was really cute.

First they told us about traditional Thai tea and coffee, and we got to try some, along with the delicious egg pancakes. Coffee used to be imported from Brazil for only the rich people to drink, but in 1979 it started to be grown in Thailand. Now everyone, even the poor farmers, drink it in the morning. They like it really sweat. Whiskey is also popular, but Thai people don’t mix them together. Then we saw how they used water buffalo to plow a rice field:

Some farmers still use water buffalo because they are very ecological, but most use gasoline tractors now. If they can’t afford their own, they rent one. Next we rode in a six-person water buffalo cart! Those are strong animals. While I was waiting for my turn, I played with the cute kittens running around. They were all over the camp.

Then we saw how they harvested the rice and winnowed it:

Winnowed rice (rice with the chaff taken off) can last two years in dry storage. Most grains are like that, which is why they used to make up the majority of the human diet, especially in winter. Vegetables and fruits, apart from being dried, did not keep well until the invention of canning in 1810. Of course in Thailand everything but rice grows year round, but other countries are no so lucky. A pre-industrial non-tropical winter diet might consist of some grain, eggs, milk, dried fruits and vegetables, roots, and whatever meat could be hunted or raised. Subsequently, in nearly all countries that have seasons, the staple grain doubles as their word for “a meal.” This is true for Japan (rice or gohan) Malawi Africa (ensima or corn porridge), South American countries (maize or corn) and even English. The word “meal,” means “ground grain,” as in corn meal, wheat meal, rice meal etc. Waiters often say, “What kind of salad would you like with your meal?” Two hundred year ago, that used to be literal, and in some countries it still is. (Interestingly in Old English, the word “meat,” also doubled as the word for “food,” as in the old Psalm: “My tears have been my meat day and night.” This shows just how important meat was and still is in the British and American diet, and according to historians, King Henry XIII refused to eat anything except meat and bread, which is what eventually did him in. Many historians also attribute the high intake of meat and bread without fruit and vegetables in the Medieval English court to the high number of miscarriages in the royal family, higher than the peasant population.) In China, rice is the meal which is accompanied by several “side dishes” of vegetables or meat. In southern Thailand where it’s warmer and rains more, they can grow two rice crops a year. In northern Thailand in the mountains, only one. Any place that grows rice has to have a rainy season. Wheat requires less rain and cooler climate. Corn (maize) less rain and hotter climate.

Next, we learned about coconuts. There are actually dozens of species and hundreds of varieties. The smaller species that is green upon maturity is good for drinking the coconut water inside, but there isn’t much meat (there’s that word again; see what I mean?) and it’s very soft without much flavor. The larger, brown coconut is good for eating and making coconut milk and oil. They shave the coconut by cracking it open and scraping the meat against a spear or other sharp object stuck point up in the ground. Coconut milk is made by squeezing the shaved coconut meat. So you see, coconut milk and coconut water are not the same. They don’t even come from the same species of coconut!

For coconut oil, you add water to the coconut milk and boil it for a whole day. Something black falls to the bottom of the pot. This is very sweet and used in all kinds of coconut candy. The oil is yellow or white and very good for you. People used to think it was bad because its solid at 70 degrees Fahrenheit. But the body is 98 degrees, so inside you it flows just fine. My doctor actually prescribes for me to eat lots of coconut oil in the winter when my hands and lips get very dry. It’s good for all kinds of skin conditions. It is used in cooking, in lotions, hair products, scented oils, and many other things. They gave us peanuts roasted in coconut oil and they were very tasty. Mom cooks with coconut oil all the time. It adds a sweet flavor.

After getting all these products from the coconut, they use the shell as cups, containers, or as bras for the “lady boys,” our guide joked. Mom could hardly understand a word he said this whole time, even though he spoke English, so I had to translate everything for her.

“Why does he keep saying, “ladies, ladies?” Mom asked. “Is he still talking about those awful lady boys?”

“He’s saying, “like this, like this,” I explained. “He says it every time he demonstrates something.”

You see, totally opposite of the Japanese who always add an extra vowel to the end of their words (it’su hoto today ne?”), the Thai cut off the final consonant. But like the Japanese, the TH sound is hard for them. So “like this,” comes out sounding “Lie dis.”

Next we saw the rubber production:

Rubber trees are also not native to Thailand but are imported from South America, I think Brazil. They cut spiral strips of bark off and catch the dripping sap in coconut cups tied to the tree. They then take that product, boil it, add acid, roll it flat, and sell. The usual rubber farmer owns about fifty trees, which can make one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of rubber every day. Each of those, rolled flat, sell for about five dollars. In Phuket, the number one industry is tourism, followed by rubber, then rice farming.

After that, we saw the Thai cooking demonstration. They passed around some traditional herbs and spices, ground them up, and made pineapple coconut chicken. It was soooo good! I bought a packet of Thai mild spices to try in my cooking at home. Key seasonings in Thai cooking are bay leaves, lemon grass, ginger, and many kinds of peppers. Our guide proclaimed, “We Thai men, we don’t want beautiful or sexy lady. When we walk in girl’s house, we want to hear pestol grinding spices. Hear it? Good cooking, good lady! No spicy, no happy.”

Then we saw a baby elephant show:

So cute! You know how they say elephants never forget? I think I know why. Most animals in shows need constant reinforcements to do tricks. Sealion trainers, for example, keep a bucket of fish on their hip and toss a fish to the sealion every time it does something right, or even just sits there patiently while the trainer explains something to the audience. The same goes for dolphins, river otters, mice, rats, birds, and other hyper animals. They have such short attention spans the trainer has to constantly reward them or they’ll get distracted. Trainers also have to use “targets,” bright objects on poles or their fists as points of reference to show the animals where to stand or that they did something right. The animal does a trick, the trainer puts out the target, animal comes back to touch it, animal gets treat. Elephants don’t need that. The elephants went through the whole show without any treats or targets. They remembered everything perfectly and could stay focused on the task at hand. But you should have seen them run for the guard rail once the show finished. They remembered what was coming! All the audience members lined up and fed them fruit, sugar cane, and coconuts. The elephants were able to imagine that reward and go through the whole show flawlessly in focused anticipation. I don’t any other animal that can do that!

Here’s us with the elephants after we fed them. The elephant on the far right is bobbing its head really fast to say it wants more. Elephants use lots of gestures to communicate between themselves and their trainers:

Then we got to ride an elephant through the jungle:

Here’s a beautiful view of the ocean from on top of the elephant:

So there you go! 4-in-1. Elephants, water buffalo, food production and rubber production, plus a one hour lunch cruise on a Chinese Junk! Again, the buffet was amazing, not to mention the view from the boat:

We met a newly married Egyptian couple. Mom and I wondered if the woman was royalty and the man had somehow married above his station. They said they were Muslim, but the wife must have been liberal because she wore shorts and a tank top, no hijab. She was very beautiful, though chubby. Her husband served her hand and foot and kept taking her picture. She was so aloof, quite snobby, actually. She spoke good English from the few sentences she said to me but mostly ignored my questions. This feeling intensified when we finished the cruise and went with them in the back of a truck to our hotel. The man was very talkative and asked us lots of questions and talked about Egypt, but his wife remained silent and poised like a queen. When it began to rain, the driver pulled down the tarp. The woman laughed a little at getting wet but then she returned to her somber face, giving the general impression that this was all beneath her. They didn’t act like a couple at all. Besides my previous theory, the only other thing I could think of was that they were lying about being newly weds, that she was some kind of princess and he her servant/bodyguard pretending to be her husband for safety purposes? Or maybe I’ve read too many royal scandal novels.

We got back to our hotel about 2:30. Mom and I were hopping to see the Big Buddha statue, supposedly with lots of wild monkeys and cats running around it, but the rain damped our plans so we just too a nap at the hotel. It’s a too thing, too, because the Fantasea show that picked us up at 5:30 kept us out until midnight!

Phuket Fantasea is a theme park open only from 6:00 midnight, but we could have spent all day there! We spent too much time just at the entrance! The ticket booths were gilded in gold and beautifully painted murals. There was also a huge koi pond filled with statues of mythical creatures:

Once inside, there were shops selling everything from local oddities to gorgeously cut glass, street performances, dancing, and several other attractions. We went into the animal adventure, which featured white parrots and crows, white tigers, and hamsters:

Why are they trying to go up those ramps? They have the whole area to play in! But humans are like that too.

We wanted to go into the bird paradise and see the cultural dancing and Prince Kamala magic show, but we didn’t have time. Instead we spent an hour in the MASSIVE buffet! That was the best food and the most food I’ve ever seen in my life! The best was the mushroom chicken, roast beef, barbequed duck, and dark chocolate deserts. So good!

Here’s the buffet hall with its sculpted ceiling and murals:

And one of the statues:

It’s a kinnaree, a mythological woman/bird who sings very beautifully and gives good luck to her possessor. They were said to live in the mystical mythical mountain forest of Himawanta, somewhere in the Himalayan mountains. Evil men try to catch them and make them their lovers, but it is very bad luck to catch a kinnaree.

Wow, three buffets in one day! And all of them so good, but that one was definitely the best. We felt like royalty!

Then it was on to the 9:00 show, the main attraction! There was so much to see and do in the theater. They even had baby elephants you could give fruit to and infant tigers you could hold and feed a bottle to. Talk about a tourist trap!

The show itself was spectacular! The story was about Prince Kamala, his magic elephant, and many adventures. As far as I could research, there was no prince Kamala. Kamala is just the name of the area, but magic elephants are an important part of Thai mythology, and the show featured many other mythical elements. The best scenes were the flying kinnaree women trying to avoid being caught, and the acrobats dressed as glowing stars doing flips from trapezes. Prince Kamala fell in love with a local village girl, and there was a hard-to-get scene somewhat like Curly and Lori’s “People Will Say We’re In Love” from the musical Oklahoma, only Thai style with rice farmers dancing in the background, and chickens, ducks, and goats running across the stage. But the girl was then kidnapped by the demon king, and Prince Kamala had to rescue her. Kind of like the Hindu story of Prince Rama and Sita. All during the battle the elephants were perfect, despite the loud noises, explosions, and other chaos, in perfect time to the music. How do the trainers get them to do that! I wouldn’t want to be around a spooked elephant. Of course Prince Rama won, and in the victory, they brought out a baby elephant, and many children came out to dance with it to the Thai song “Chiang, Chiang, Chiang,” which means elephant. Then, there was a magnificent elephant circus with them balancing on balls and each others backs and such. Wow! As the theme song says, Phuket Fantasea, that’s where I want to be! I highly recommend it.

Here is the theater:

I met another Egyptian woman there, who reminded me of one I met in Japan. Talk about hyper! She spoke a million miles a minute. “Hello where are you from I’ve never been to America but I want to but now I’m here all by myself and my family says I’m crazy to travel alone but I don’t mind because I think it’s fun don’t you?” I don’t even know Americans who talk that fast!

Mom left her bag at the theater, but fortunately when we went back for it, it was still there. I wanted to stay longer but Mom was in a hurry to get back to our hotel since it was late. We got back about midnight. What a day!

Phi Phi islands by speed boat

2011-09-03T18:52:00.001-07:00

Finally, time to write! Now I get to tell you all about my trip to Thailand with my mom! (And Japan too.)

Tuesday, July 26th, I left Nabari at 1:42pm on the train to pick up Mom at Kansai International Airport in Osaka. I arrived at 4:10 and she came through the gate a little later. We embraced and then took the train thirty minutes to Spa World! On the way, who should call but my school! They didn’t trust me to clean up my apartment, so they actually went there to inspect it (for the third time). My supervisor called me to chastise me for leaving three dishes in the sink. What did she expect me to do, go all the way back and wash them? I apologized and explained that I’d been trying to get my book off to a publisher before I left, and that my clock was slow, so I realized last minute that if I didn’t run to catch the train, I would miss it. Yes, I shouldn’t have left the dishes, but she shouldn’t have called me! My contract was over! They weren’t paying me anymore, so they had no right to bug me while I was on vacation with my mother. I then asked her if she’d left the stuff in my apartment. She said she’d thrown most of it away. I got really upset, because I’d told her three times that I was coming back for those things in another month. Finally, I thought I understood that she had only thrown out the food. (The confusion lay in the fact that her English isn’t very good, and my Japanese isn’t very good, and between the two of us, communication just isn’t very good.) Feeling relieved (at the moment), we ended the call. But that story unfolds more later…

As I’ve said before about Spa World, they have an Asian and a European spa. Both allow no clothing, so the men and women switch off spas every month. In July, the women had the European spa, (the better one in my opinion) so we were in luck. Roman bubble bath with statues, Greek herbal bath (rosemary, jasmine, sage, and peppermint) Spanish waterfall, Mediterranean lounge, Atlantis (with fish tanks) blue grotto (milk and honey), gold cold bath, Finland cold, steam sauna, regular and super hot sauna, salt sauna (where you rub salt on yourself for exfoliation), and Dr. oxygen bath. Plus a pool, lazy river, water slides, work out gym, TVs, game room and restaurants, and message places on the other floors where you have to wear a bathing suit or clothes. They even have those Dr. fish that nibble the dead skin off your feet (costs extra, though). We could have spent a week there! Mom loved it. At first she was real self-conscious with everyone being naked, but pretty soon she hardly seemed to notice.

It’s only 1,000 yen ($12) per day if you don’t spend the night, but we decided to and it was only an extra 1,300 ($15.50). That’s cheaper than any hotel you’ll find in Osaka. Originally, we were going to go back to my apartment, but that actually would have cost us more in train tickets just getting there and back to the airport in the morning! Plus we would have had to have gotten up really early to make our plane on time, since it takes about three hours to get from my apartment to the airport. So we slept on the cushy mats on the floor. Much more comfortable than tatami, but bright and noisy. The next morning, we headed back to the airport for Thailand!

The next day was a travel day. It takes 5 1/2 hours to fly from Kansai to Bangkok. Of course we flew Thai airways, “smooth as silk,” with our own personal video screens. I spent the flight watching Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Arthur III. Airplanes are half so bad when you’re distracted. Here’s us at the Bangkok airport. A nice Indian fellow took our picture:

At the Bangkok airport, Mom looked like a little kid staring into the front window of a toy store. Two Muslim ladies in black burqas passed us, and then we saw a Buddhist monk in his orange robe ordering a shake from McDonald's. I had to tell her to stop staring and snapping her camera.

“We’re not in Oklahoma anymore,” she noted.

“Tell me about it,” I replied.

From Bangkok we took another 1 ½ hour plane ride to Phuket. We got in around 7:40 Thailand time, which is about 9:40 Japan time. We walked out of the airport and it was mass chaos. Our tour company, Asia Web tours, promised to have someone to pick us up, but as we pushed our way through the sea of bodies, we didn’t see our names on the signs the various chauffeurs held up. We must have gotten asked, “Taxi, Madam?” a dozen times. Finally I stopped and asked one of the other agency chauffeurs what to do, and he called the company for us. (Good thing I had the number written down and within easy access! ALWAYS have important contact info ready when you’re traveling.) Someone came to pick us up in fifteen minutes.

Our hotel, Ibis, was about forty-five minutes from the airport, but in a nice central location of Phuket city, and only a five minute walk to the beach. We got there around 9:30pm, no time to really do anything except get settled in and sleep. By that time, we were exhausted, especially since it was about 11:30 in Japan.

Our first day in Thailand we woke up around 7:00 and enjoyed a delicious buffet breakfast. They had everything from cereals, breads, eggs, bacon, pancakes, and French toast to more Asian style rice, noodles, vegetable stir-fry, and soup, and of course yogurt, exotic fruits, and juices. We got that every morning for seven days! It was great.

Here’s how our tour worked. My Malaysian friend told me I should really visit Phuket, so early on in the planning process for this trip I knew we would go there. Most of my research online was at http://www.phuket-travel.com/. It had all kinds of information about things to see and do, hotels, tour packages, restaurants, the works. I ended up choosing two three-day packages and a one-day package, because I had no idea that the main industry in Phuket is tourism, and it’s perfectly safe and very easy just to figure out where you want to go and get a taxi service there and get your tickets at the place. I honestly don’t know if that would have been cheaper than the packages, but tours tend to be crammed full of stuff when Mom and I would rather just absorb and enjoy where we are. I would say it’s better to go there, see what’s doable, and just plan each day as it comes. For most places you can’t do that without a lot of hassle (or have to buy tickets in advance), but in Thailand you definitely can.

We got picked up around 8:00am for the Phi Phi islands by speed boat, Phuket’s most popular tour. (It’s pronounced “pee pee.” One of the islands we passed by was "pee pee dung island.) The tour bus goes around to the various hotels and picks people up on a set schedule. They call the hotels if they’re going to be late. Usually they were on time. The driver was nice and let Mom and me stop by a bank to exchange some money, since every place had been closed when we arrived the night before. (Always check current exchange rates before you go anywhere; it wasn’t a problem that time, but it was later. I’ll get back to that.) We got to the boat about 9:00am. We waited for awhile and then climbed aboard. Our guide was French with a very heavy accent. I had to translate everything she and our Australian companions said for Mom. (Everyone on the boat was Australian.) I think a lot of Australians come to Thailand during the summer to escape their winter. For a country of only 20 million people, we couldn’t seem to stop running into them! The Americans go in the spring, I think, when the weather is said to be nicest and less hot. But the weather was great!

We were OK for the first hour, but pretty soon Mom and I got sick. Mom was worse that I was, I think. The guide gave us sea sick tablets, which took a long time to kick in and helped only slightly, but it was better than nothing. (Note: You should take sea sick tablets a good hour before you get on the boat!) I wish we spent more time at only two or three islands instead of spending so much time on the boat and going to five or six. But it was nice.

First we saw Viking cave, where the local people gather swift’s nests for the Chinese delicacy “bird nest soup,” which costs at least $100 a bowl. Too many tourists were going in their, flashing their cameras and scaring the birds, which really hurt the birds and the industry. So tourists aren’t allowed to go in there on pain of death. (There’s a guard who will shoot you if you do.) But we got to see the outside of it:

No one is sure why it’s called “Viking Cave.” There’s no evidence that Vikings ever went there.

Then we went swimming in a beautiful green water of Lho Samah Bay and Phi Leh Cove (I think that’s the place):

The cliffs are limestone, which react to the water to make it a gorgeous emerald/sapphire color.

Next we went to Monkey Island and fed the wild monkeys:

Here’s me feeding them:

Baby hiding behind mama:

Monkey with its tongue out:

Who gave this monkey coke in a bottle? It’s bad for it, but it drank it all right and seemed to love it!

Then we had a buffet lunch on Leamtong Beach at P.P. Erawan Palms Resort beachside restaurant. We moored about a quarter kilometer (1/8 mile) from the beach and walked through the crystal clear water to get to it:

We couldn’t eat much since we were so sick to our stomachs, but the restaurant was beautiful.

You can see that the interior of the island is tropical forest, and that’s something like a tropical myna bird sitting on the chair. They were everywhere, quite opportunistic! And the beach was immaculate white sand:

From there we went to the coral reefs around Hin Klang Island for snorkeling from the boat. Mom and I both took bananas and the fish swarmed around us! They were so beautiful, like gems sparkling in the perfect blue-green waters. Mom said she had a hard time keeping her face in the water at first while she breathed through the snorkel, but once she got the hang of it, she loved it!

Next we passed by bamboo island, named by Chinese traders, but it doesn’t actually have any bamboo on it; they only thought so from a distance. Lastly we stopped at Khai Nai Island. The snorkeling there was not so great because of the bad sedimentation, so I went for a little walk into the interior. I found something rather unusual:

What do you make of that? Toilet bowl garden.

If I were to do it again, I would take the slow boat maybe and ask them to cut out Khai Nai to give us more time at the other places. It was a great tour, but it took another 1 ½ to get us back to Phuket. I got soooo sick! I was hoping sitting in the front would help without the smell of exhaust and with the wind in my face, but it was very bumpy!

We got back to our hotel around 6:30. We watched the sunset on Putang beach. It was mostly covered by clouds, but I thought the clouds made the part we could see extra beautiful. Mom fel asleep with little white sand crabs scuttling all around her. I woke her up when it got dark about 8:00, and we went in search of a swim suit for me, since I forgot it back in Japan. I bought a beautiful purple one-piece with sparkles. The guy kept pressuring me to buy a sun dress, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as China or Africa. When I said no, he left me alone. No one followed us on the streets trying to sell us stuff. We walked down the street to see some of the night life. A car blared by with an advertisement on their loud speakers, “Tomorrow night, tomorrow night, Thai boxing!” There were men on top of the car in their boxing gear. People whizzed by on their motorcycles, three to a seat.

Mom felt really overwhelmed with all the new sights, sounds, and smells, so we headed back to our hotel around 9:00. We weren’t terribly hungry so we just stopped by a seaside café and ordered a coconut, drank the water and ate the meat:

I once saw a rainforest show in Singapore. The lead actress was a Chinese woman with a British accent (as with many Singaporeans), and I’ll never forget how she said, “now I’m going to have some refreshing coconut water!” It was rather funny. (In case you’re wondering the difference between coconut water and coconut milk, that’s tomorrow’s lesson.)

So stay tuned for tomorrow!

Summery of Thailand trip

2011-08-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Swadika! Greetings from Thailand! Actually, I just left Thailand and am now in Japan. Sorry it`s been so long since I wrote; I`ve had very little internet access over the past month. Let me give you a summary of what we`ve been doing before I go into more detail later. Actually, this is pretty much the article I wrote for church. Mom and I have been enjoying a long-awaited vacation (in planning for 2 years!) On Tuesday, July 26th she joined me in Osaka, Japan, and we flew to Phuket, southern Thailand, to start with a week on perfect white sand beaches.

Our first day we journeyed by speedboat over blue-green ocean to the Phi Phi islands where we fed wild monkeys and snorkeled in pristine coral reefs. Hundreds of tropical fish swam around us like gems in the crystal-clear water. The only downside was the ten-foot waves that constantly rocked the boat-- and our stomaches! The second day we took a four-in-one safari. We learned how rice, rubber, and coconut are harvested and processed, saw a baby elephant show and rode one, and took a cruise in a Chinese “junk” ship. We finished with the spectacular Phuket Fantasea show, featuring traditional Thai performing arts and an elephant circus. For the remainder of our Phuket holiday, I earned my scuba license while Mom relaxed on the beach. I was blessed with the opportunity to witness to the captain of the dive boat searching for truth. I was struck how God can use us to touch others, even on vacation!

Then on to Bangkok, where we began a twelve-day customized tour of famous temples, nature, and historical sites with our personal guide, Chaiya. He was a Buddhist monk for seventeen years, so he was very knowledgeable. Highlights were the long-tail boat through the floating market, the Grand Palace where the king lives but no longer rules (Thailand has a parliament now), and the towering stupas that supposedly houses relics of the Buddha. Precious metals and colored glass shimmered over every surface.

Most stunning and disturbing were the giant solid gold Buddha and “emerald Buddha” (actually green jade) idols in the palace center. Chaiya told us how many fought and died over their possession, and we saw thousands throughout Thailand prostrating themselves before them and similar statues. Billions of baht (Thai dollars) maintain and build extravagant new temples and idols every year, while many Thai people go hungry. There are still far more idols than just money and power.

Heading north, we saw the ruins of Ayutthaya and Sukhothai, the first two capitals and UNESCO World Heritage sites. The towering sandstone columns and crumbling monuments revealed an ancient, prosperous civilization. In Chiang Mai, we observed the local cottage industries: silk weaving, lacquer painting, and umbrella making, before visiting Chiang Rai and the Golden Triangle, an area once wealthy from opium trade (now outlawed). Our guide joked, “Want drug? Get cheap, then free stay police station. Good deal!”

We also crossed into Laos and saw local life: ragged children running, skinny chickens scurrying, and copied brands for sale. Laos is communist, a stark contrast with commercialized, touristy Thailand. We were blessed to be able to help some people, but the poverty was heartbreaking. Then we visited the Long Necked and Long Eared mountain tribes from Myanmar (Burma). They were fascinating, lovely people, but can’t get any rights because they are like gypsies, always moving with no country to call home.

We had the following day free to explore. The elephants at Mae Sa elephant camp were amazing. They kicked soccer balls to each other, balanced on logs, even painted pictures from memory! We enjoyed an hour ride through the jungle, but even better than that and the beautiful orchid farm was Tiger Kingdom. We had ten minutes to pet and play with the newborns, and fifteen minutes with the full-growns. What fun! Now we have ten days in Japan to finish some business and final sightseeing. We’ll arrive in Tulsa on August 25th. Can’t wait to see ya’ll!

Prayer: Please pray that the hearts of Thai Buddhists will open to Christ and the tribal people will get their rights, that the Laos economy will improve, and that I will find a new job in America or Japan or wherever God wants me!

I`ll add pictures and details later when I have my own internet again! (I`m using a friend`s now.)

My Spectacular Singapore Sojourn Part IV!

2011-07-12T19:15:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, we got a late start. We were going to head out early for Pulau Ubin island, but it looked like rain, so we slept in. But then the clouds cleared, so we went. We stopped by a hawker center in the village to get a sack lunch of traditional food and some rose milk. Rose milk is crushed rose petals in milk. Very interesting, smells good and tastes kind of sweet.

The only way to Pulau Ubin is by bum boat, a ten minute ride, and you have to have 12 people to go. So we waited about twenty minutes or so for the boat to fill, and we got there around 12:30. We rented bicycles and cycled through the jungle. Here are the pictures:

Giant lizard in the trees, as big as my legs. Can you see him?

Jack fruit:

Not many people live on Pulau Ubin now. They say it’s like main island Singapore back in the 1960s, with pit toilets and electricity only from generators. Here’s an old style jungle house, tin roof and all. Reminds me of India:

After we cycled about five kilometers (3 miles), we came to a mangrove preserve and hiked along a board walk. Here is some wild life:

Mud skeeter or “lung fish:”

Mangrove trees:

The roots sticking high from the ground:

Mongroves grow between the low and hide tide zones of coastal areas and rivers. During high tide, the roots are completely submerged in seawater, but are exposed to the sun during low tide. For this reason, the roots are tall, pencil-like, and stick out above the mud. This allows the tree to breathe above the water-logged soil and have stability in the fine, silty soil. The leaves can pump out access salt, and the fruit germinates while it’s still on the tree so it can take root as soon as it drops. Mangroves are very important because they keep soil near the ocean and brackish rivers from eroding away. Lots of food chains can be traced back to mangroves.

Here’s the coastal boardwalk:

Submerged palms at high tide:

We enjoyed our spicy lunch overlooking the vast ocean. We could see all the way to Malaysia.

I wanted to walk back to enjoy it some more and see if I could find some more of the wild life the pamphlet talked about, but we were on a bit of a tight scheduled, so we cycled back, this time on a different route for more scenery. Here’s a cocoa (chocolate) tree. I didn’t know cocoa beans were so big!

Back at the bicycle rental place, a Chinese temple:

I think Pulau Ubin was my favorite place in Singapore. I hope to go back some day!

After we arrived back from the bum boat, we headed for Arab Street to see some Malay culture. Here’s the mosque:

Here’s an old opium pipe (but people don’t use it to smoke opium now; that’s illegal all over Southeast Asia):

I bought a few souvenirs, then we enjoyed Chinese chicken and rice with Ying-Ying’s parents, the most famous signature Singaporean dish. You take your pyramid of rice and smother it with dark soy sauce, chilly sauce, and chicken with the skin still on. We also had fried tofu with green sauce and coconut water. (They told me coconut milk is from the mashed up nut itself; water is just the liquid inside.) Here’s the whole dinner:

After that, we went to Marina Bay Sands to see the Wonderful show, a light, fire, water, and music spectacular similar to Songs of the Sea, only free.

Here's the finale:

Then we walked around the mall until it was time to leave. Here are the palm trees growing on top of the building:

There was actually a “river” running through the shopping mall, and you could take a French style boat down it for $7. Ying-Ying and I got a good laugh at that. Will people stop at nothing to make a few bucks?

Then, sadly, it was time for me to go home. Here’s Ying-Ying, her mom, and me at the airport. They said I was welcome back anytime:

My plane left at 1:20am on Wednesday morning, and after a long, sleepless plane ride with a wailing baby in the seat in front of me, a bus, and a train, I finally got back to my apartment around 12:30, having gone without sleep for nearly 28 hours. I wanted nothing more than to collapse on my bed, but just then I got a call from my school. They said I had some paper work to do and I had to come in. Ug! But went I did. At least I found this amusing billboard on the way, advertising a very happy gravestone maker:

Only in Japan, right? Smiling gravestones. That’s just morbid.

That evening, I had to teach my Wednesday evening class until 9:15. But then, around 9:45, I finally collapsed into bed, having not slept in over 36 hours.

And that was my trip to Singapore! The only other thing I have to report is that I had a job interview the following Saturday with Altia Central. The interview was for a seven month position, September 1st to April 1st with another Assistant Language Teacher company and I would be working for a public school, most likely elementary.

Here are the pros:
1.) They pay pretty well, though not as well as my current job.
2.) I could come home for about 3 weeks during Christmas
3.) I could attend a really good evangelistic church in Osaka called Jesus Life House.
4.) I could finish up some traveling I want to do (Okinawa, Shikoku, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Guam and New Zealand)
5.) I could come home just in time for my book Treasure Traitor to be published (hopefully by Written Word Communications) and for me to promote it at the Oklahoma Writers Federation Inc. Conference in May 2012 (if all goes well with my current agent).
6.) I could save some more money.
7.) I wouldn’t have to look for a job in the U.S.
8.) I’m able to be very “green” in Japan. No car and mandatory recycling.

Cons:
1.) Like I said, I’ll most likely be teaching elementary, and the job won’t be nearly as easy as what I do now. It might be downright exhausting.
2.) I might not have as much time to write.
3.) I’d forfeit my free plane ticket home
4.) I’m utterly exhausted, and I’ll probably be even more exhausted after Mom and my trip to Thailand. Do I really want to move to a new place, find my own apartment, and start a new job immediately after I get back?
5.) A large part of me just wants to go back on the same plane as my mom.
6.) I might be smarter to be home for the few months before my book is published to spread the word and begin promoting it. If I took the job, I would be trying to do publicity from Japan, and when the book came out, I would hit the ground running without a breath of air.
7.) I really, really, REALLY miss my family. My sister-in-law is having a baby in November. I missed my nephew’s birth. It would be nice to be there for my niece.
8.) My mental health in Japan has not been so good. I suffer from severe bouts of depression, crippling anxiety, loneliness, fatigue, and weight fluctuation. (I often go for days when I can’t eat anything, and then I’m so hungry I eat everything. Sometimes I lose and gain back as much as ten pounds in one week.) It would be nice to get back on some herbal remedies to help combat that, and that will require tests and doctor’s advice. I don’t like to just take stuff that others recommend. When it comes to my brain chemistry, I would rather not do the hit and miss method.

Final thoughts: Oklahoma Christian University just requested my resume. If I get the job with Oklahoma Christian (teaching ESL to Japanese students) then I am, without a doubt, coming home. Teaching Japanese students at a university and full-time writing is the best of both worlds. I would be home with my family too. Problem is, I probably won’t know about the OCU position until AFTER I have to make up my mind about the Osaka job. There is a small chance Altia won’t hire me. They have to speak to two of my supervisors, and that might no go so well, considering recent events. There was quite a bit of confusion over my plane ticket home and my tax forms, which wasn’t my fault or theirs (technically it was the IRS and a misunderstanding with the Board of Education). Maybe they’ll realize that, or maybe they’ll get frustrated and it’ll sound to the Altia person that they’re angry with me. Besides that, my supervisors made it pretty clear that they were unhappy about talking to strangers about me. So who knows? I will find out tomorrow whether or not they want to hire me, and then I must decide by next week Friday.

It all comes down to trust. I’ve prayed a dozen times for discernment, and God does not seem to be sending any clear messages. Maybe He’s leaving it up to me. Whatever I decide, I just have to trust that God will love me and guide me and provide for my needs.

Last thing. I just found out who my successor is. She’s seems very nice, but she’s Muslim, so I have to find someone else to take over the Christian library and my church class. I have no idea who, but I’m attending a Christian conference this coming weekend in Aomori, up north in Tohoku. Hopefully, someone there might volunteer!

Prayer Requests: Wisdom and discernment about my new job. Safe travels as my mother and I head to Thailand in two weeks (we’ll be there for three weeks). Prayers that I find someone to take over my Christian stuff and get everything I need to get done done before I leave. It’s so overwhelming! I also have to make a speech in Japanese on the last day of school. I hope God will give me the right words to say!

Until next time, keep praying and loving, no matter what the cost,
L.J. Popp

Spectacular Singapore Sojourn Part III!

2011-07-12T16:58:00.000-07:00

Monday, we had a traditional Singapore breakfast of pork floss toast, egg, and malted barely milk. Here’s the pork floss toast:

I was surprised when Ying Ying asked me if I had ever eaten peanut butter. “Of course!” I exclaimed. “It was invented in America.”

“Really?” she asked. “I thought it was Singaporean, or maybe British. We can’t live without our peanut butter.”

I laughed at that. “Sounds the same as America. Everyday, I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.”

Oddly enough, she had never heard of jelly. I explained it was like jam, only less healthy, like most American foods. We both got a good laugh out of that one, and she asked what happens to all the fat guys in America.

“Do they just stay single?

“No,” I replied. “They usually marry the fat girls and have very fat children and that’s why the fatness propagates.” That was just one of the many funny conversations we had together. Over the course of my stay, we must have talked about everything from politics, religion, history, culture, arts, and more. I’m so glad I got to stay with her. I learned so much!

Then we went to the zoo. So hot! We about died. We ended up paying for the tram just so we wouldn’t have to walk everywhere in the sun. I felt so sorry for the poor outdoor animals. Some of them may be tropical, true, but there were some deserts ones, and I’m sure they weren’t used to the humidity. Here are some pictures:

White tiger:

Giraffe feeding:

Baby orangutan (orangutan means “man of the jungle” in Malay):

Adjusting baby orangutan for a picture. Neither it or the mother seemed to mind this:

A dominate male African baboon, head of the pack:

It was really fun getting to see the baboons being fed. People could pay $5 for a plate of fruit. The baboons would jump to get your attention, hoping you would throw to them. They also swam for it if it fell in the water, unpeeled the bananas, and often fought over the best fruit. The dominate males had really big, red butts, as did the females. That’s to show they’re ready to mate. The less dominate and not currently ovulating females have normal butts. Just in case you were always wanted to know why baboons have such big, red butts.

Asian zoos do it right, I’ve noticed. The exhibits are so nice and they have so many animals because they make money in every way they possibly can. Any possible animal you could ever want to feed, you can pay to feed. Rides, pictures, souvenirs, food, all overpriced. But people buy them! And then they get more animals. America should learn a thing or two from Asian zoo tactics.

We saw some fun shows, too. The elephant show revealed how elephants can be used in sustainable logging to drag and push and tote logs into, around, and out of the river. There were some funny parts too, like when the trainers dropped their sticks and the elephants retrieved them, then stole a trainer’s hat.

Another elephant lay on her side and refused to get up until the trainer talked to her “like a lady.”

Elephants are actually very kind and gentle. The problem that people had in the past is that they tried to train males together because they thought they would be stronger. They are stronger, but they’re also not meant to work in a group with other elephants; it makes them violent. When a male elephant reaches adulthood, he is actually kicked out of the group and lives a solitary life, coming together with others only to mate. The females, on the other hand, form large family groups with a single matriarch. They are good at working together, like humans, and are not aggressive (except if you endanger their young).

The other show was called “The Rainforest Fights Back” and was about a Western man named “Vamush” who wanted to come and tear down a rainforest to build a giant shopping mall. He was thwarted by a native girl and her animal friends. Kind of funny.

We ran into Jessica and her brother while we were eating our pastry lunches that we bought earlier to avoid the high price of zoo food. Singapore is a VERY small country. I guess it’s not uncommon to randomly run into your friends anywhere and everywhere.

In the evening, we went to the world-famous “night safari.” Here`s a footspa at the entrance where you pay to have little fish eat the dead skin off your feet. I didn`t do it, of course, because it costs about $10 for ten minutes and I can get it for free in Nabari with the local fishes in the waterfall! It tickles:

I had a lamb burger at the bango restaurant. Ground lamb just doesn’t taste as good as ground beef. It has a greenish/yellow color to it too. It tastes much better as a kabob or in strips in a pita pocket.

First, there was a cultural show where men in native costume from some other Southeast Asian country breathed fire.

They all drank from a thermos that seemed to contain some sort of special liquid. I just looked it up, and it appears that it was probably liquid paraffin wax or mineral oil. The liquid is sprayed over an open flame and the flame intensifies. Apparently, if done with the proper technique, it is quite safe, as the direction of the spray, away from you, prevents the flame from coming into your mouth. But the really cool thing was that they could “eat” fire! That’s something I couldn’t get an answer to. I know it has something to do with cutting off the oxygen to the flame in your mouth, that there are no special liquids involved, and fire eaters often have blisters covering their mouth and tongue, but that’s all. There was a girl in the show too, dressed more conservative than the guys, and she juggled fire.

On a side note, I find it very interesting that America, Japan, and Korea are the only countries in the world that I’ve been to so far where I`ve seen women dress less conservatively than men. Usually, it’s the other way around. Even when they don’t wear a lot (like when I was in Africa), the women still tend to wear more than the men. Most Americans (such as my father, for example) seem to think that countries where women cover up are more censorious of women and treat them as second class citizens who have no control over their own bodies, but I wonder if it’s not sometimes the other way around. In cultures where women are so exposed, is it not easy to see them as objects? In Korea, women undergo ridiculous plastic surgery so people will like their faces and bodies. If a woman covers up and tries to look natural, it has the potential to place less emphasis on her appearance and more on her voice, thoughts, and personality. Now that’s an interesting thought.

After that, we saw the creatures of the night show. Very fun. They “lost” their giant anaconda snake and “found” it in a box in the bleachers, and then it ended up around some audience guy’s neck. That was pretty funny.

Then we took the tram to see the animals up close and roaming, then walked just a bit on the separate walking trails. I thought Asian river otters were active during the day, but they’re even more hyper at night! They chirped at us and played with the little laser light someone brought. When do they sleep, I wonder? The safari was open until midnight, but we left around 9:30 because it was still so hot and we were tired.

Ying-Ying’s dad and mom picked us up in the car, and they had a surprise for us. Her dad had bought real durian fruit! Here they are:

Here’s what the fruit on the inside looks like:

And here’s me eating:

They were pretty good, oddly creamy. When I burped, I could smell it on my breath, it was so strong. I think I ate too much, though. I threw up a little. Or maybe it was just all the weird food. I don’t think I ate a single “normal” thing the entire time I was in Singapore, and by “normal” I mean things I had eaten before, except for that McDonalds at Sentosa. I will have to remember for Thailand to try to eat at least one “normal” meal a day to keep my stomach from getting too confused.

Tuesday was my favorite day! Stay tuned for that next time...

Spectacular Singapore Sojourn Part II!

2011-07-12T16:44:00.000-07:00

Sunday, we enjoyed a traditional Singapore breakfast of soft boiled eggs with dark soy sauce, toast sandwiches, and royal milk tea. (What makes it “royal” is that the tea is actually steamed in milk, not in water with milk added.) The sandwiches contained butter and a sweet marmalade that I thought was honey at first, but Ying-Ying said it was made from a special fruit and mashed sugar cane. Interesting.

We went to Ying-Ying`s church for the morning English service. (They offer Mandarin in the afternoon.) It was “Bible Presbyterian,” and since I grew up in the Presbyterian church, I knew when to sit down and stand up and all of that. I was struck, however, by how they always spoke in King James English and used “Christianese.” I asked Ying-Ying later how much a newcomer might be comfortable in that setting or even be able to understand, since English is not the first language of many in Singapore and as a minority, it was particularly important for Christian Singaporians to at least present themselves in an understandable way. She admitted that they rarely got visitors. But there are churches in Singapore, she said, that are really reaching out to young people and non-Christians. The main concern of her church is teaching people to live biblical lives and being set apart from the world. That`s important, of course. One thing that concerns me about the Presbyterian churches back home is that few seem to know the Bible, and some don`t even think it is important. Growing up, I had a Sunday school teacher who taught us that the Bible couldn`t be trusted, and that Jesus was just a great teacher who got exaggerated over the centuries. As a result, one of the girls in my Sunday school converted to Islam. Is that a Christian church? I don`t think so.

I suppose there needs to be a balance. I tend to see denominations as good things actually, because as human beings we have a tendency to overemphasize some points and underemphasize others. So different churches focusing on different things eventually gets you the whole Biblical picture, and the whole spectrum of human experience. Various worship styles reveal creation’s diversity, and different types of people express God’s love in different ways. If we were all Presbyterian or Catholic or Pentecostal, there would most certainly be aspects missing. All that matters is being Christian, and the only thing you need to claim that is faith in Christ.

I met a girl named Jessica at the church. She wants to come visit me in Japan. I hope I can host here before I leave. Everyone at the church was very nice. Lots of people came up to talk to me.

That afternoon, we went to Jurong Bird Park, which has something like 8,000 birds from 600 species. Of course, we started with the penguins:

Here`s Ying-Ying and me with some pretty birds:

I had a light snack at the park (chicken wings and ice cream), then I participated in the “Be a Falconer Program” to provide hands on research for my Bird Girl series. It cost $100 for the hour, but I learned a lot, so I think it was worth it. A zoo keeper showed me various birds and explained them to me. Falconry was invented a long time ago when people noticed how good birds were at catching prey. It was practiced all over the Middle East, Mongolia, China, India, Egypt, and throughout Europe mostly by royalty, but these days many people use it as a sport.

First I handled Priscilla, a Lugger falcon from India, on a leather glove on my left hand. Why the left? Because traditionally, falconers rode horses while they hunted, so they controlled the reigns with their right hand. Ying-Ying took pictures. Here they are:

The thing on the falcon’s head is to keep her from getting scared. Falcons are really high-strung, so just like street horses that have to wear blinders to keep from getting spooked, falcons have to wear “hoods” to keep from flying away in fright of new people and animals. Once the hunting begins, though, they take off the hood. Falcons usually catch small things like song birds and rabbits. This particular hood is a Middle Eastern hood, and they gave me one at the end, along with a picture and a book about falconry as mementoes.

The second bird I handled was Hawk Eye, a Harris Hawk from America. Hawks don`t need hoods because they’re much less nervous, especially if they know the falconer. (I suspect that is because hawks are bigger than falcons and have less predators so they can afford to be more calm, but I`m not sure.) I actually got to release him to go for prey. He went for a fake rabbit covered in meat. He was really protective of his rabbit, but when I offered him some food in my glove he went for that instead and I got to take the “rabbit.” Here are some pictures:

Next I handled Sheela, a Secretary Bird from Africa. They’re called “secretary birds” because they have a lot of funny feathers sticking in all directions on their head, and secretaries used to write with feather quill pens and place them behind their ears, so she looks like she has many extra pens. Nowadays the “secretary” name is even more appropriate because these birds have long legs and long, thick eyelashes like female secretaries in offices. Secretary birds aren’t usually used in falconry. I held her on my arm for only thirty seconds or so; besides being heavy she was wobbly and unstable. She didn`t seem to belong there like a falcon or hawk. But they are sometimes used to kill snakes. The keeper lady showed Sheela a rubber snake and the bird went crazy, stamping on the snake’s head.

Next came Brahminy Kites from South East Asia. They didn’t land on my shoulder; kites also are not usually used in falconry either. They’re pretty small. Their specialty is even smaller birds; they can catch food in mid-air! I tossed them several pieces of meat and they caught them all. One I made extra tricky and the kite spun around and caught it!

Next came the Ruppells Griffon vultures from Africa, my special interest, since Acha in my book is sort of a vulture. They were pretty ugly, and they fought a lot over the food I offered them. Vultures have dominate and non-dominate males in each group. It was clear to see who was dominate and who was not.

Check out this little gal! She`s about the size of Acha and looks a lot like him, only he`s black. Can you imagine something like that on your shoulder all day long? No wonder people avoid Rena!

Nowadays, lost birds are tracked by radar. They have a small device attached to their foot and the closer they are, the louder the radar in your hand beeps. But if they get beyond ten miles, most radars can`t pick that up. In olden days, people had servants who would search for the lost birds. Peasants who found a falconer’s bird (usually marked with colored cords or paper on the feet) could be rewarded.

One should never think that these birds are domesticated or even trained. Even those bred in zoos are nothing of the sort. For sure they can recognize a falconer’s face and voice, but they are still very wild animals. The only reason they come back to the falconer is because the falconer has food. If you don`t have food, no matter how much the bird likes you, it won`t come back to you usually. That`s why the relationship between Rena and Acha in my book is so special.

Also, in Europe, noblemen often hunted with a bird/dog combo. The dog would flush out the pray from the bushes, and the falcon would catch and kill it by squeezing the neck with its talons. Most birds do not hunt with their beak, but they are known to fight with them.

After the falconer program, we saw some more interesting birds. Here they are:

Shoebill stork (it`s beak looks like a Holland wooden shoe):

Doesn`t he look like a puppet/muppet or something? He certainly doesn`t look real. Like something out of a 70s sci-fi movie.

Jurong Bird Park has the largest aviary in the world called the “African Waterfall Aviary” with the tallest manmade waterfall in the world. Here it is:

Here is a lovebird in a coconut nest. Love birds are so called because they mate for life and if one dies, the other will mourn and often die shortly after. They are sometimes seen “nipping” affectionately, a behavior that most zoologists compare to kissing.

Bee eaters are another interesting species, not just because they can remove the stingers of bees and then eat the bee, but because the parents often recruit their adult sons to help them raise a new brood of chicks. They sometimes prevent him from making his own nest and having young by taking away his insects that he has to give the female in order for her to mate with him, and by coming between him and any female he meets. Rather interesting behavior, isn’t it?

There was a bird show, birds and buddies, with a parrot that could count to ten in both English and Chinese, and knew both English and Chinese folk songs. Finally, he sang “Happy Birthday.” Rather off-key, but he got the jist of it.

It was so hot! We left around 6:00 and stopped by an Indian shop in the Hawker center so I could buy some clothes. I got a really nice Punjabi suit. The lady even altered it for me! I wonder where I’ll ever be able to wear it, though…

Then we went to eat Singapore BBQ with Ying-Ying’s friends. We ate red snapper,

squid and a surprise…

Can you guess what that is? Stingray! No, it’s not poisonous. They remove the stinger, of course. A bit spicy, but good, really tender. I also had green sugar cane juice.

For desert, we went out for Udders ice cream. Besides chocolate I had the durian fruit ice cream on a waffle. It was…interesting. Sweet but not in the normal fruit way. Nothing like citrus, not at all juicy. I can’t really describe it. It doesn’t taste like anything else except…durian. Very pungent smell. But the ice cream place itself felt very American. But I just looked it up, and Udders was “born and bred” in Singapore. It’s a very international place. I had fun just chatting with Ying-Ying’s friends too. They mostly speak “Singlish,” which is a combination of English, Chinese, and Malay. For example, they say, “Come on la” and “Ok la.” The “la” is Chinese for emphasis, but it can also mean reluctance, and is only used in certain contexts. Some of her friends were visiting from Hong Kong. I suppose Singapore and Hong Kong have a lot in common, since they were both a British colony, in Asia, with predominantly Chinese ethnicity, and are small city states. I asked them what there is to do in Hong Kong. They said Disney Land. That’s all. I’m sure there’s more than that. I’ll just have to visit there someday.

I`ll write about Monday in a little bit!

Spectacular Singapore Sojourn (part I)

2011-07-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

Last week Wednesday, I got back from five days in Singapore! I had such an amazing time with my friend Ying-Ying! I met her at an English teacher`s Christian conference in Japan last year. She was teaching in Fukushima, but after the earthquake and nuclear disaster she had to go home to Singapore, but she invited me to come for a visit. I stayed with her family, her mom, dad, older brother, and younger brother in their apartment. Here`s something funny. The shortened names of the siblings, in order of oldest to youngest, was Yang, Ying, and Yung. I always thought that was just a stereotype of Chinese, naming their children similar like that. It wasn`t too confusing, though. I knew Ying-Ying, of course, and it was easy to remember that Yung, (pronounced Young), was the youngest. So that just left Yang to be the eldest. The confusing part was their second names, so I didn`t even try to memorize those, except for Ying-Ying, because hers is repetitive. Just remember Ying to the power of 2, Ying-Ying!

A little bit of background. Singapore is a small island nation on the tip of the Malaysian peninsula (which is south of Thailand), and actually contains the southern most point in Asia, so it`s quite tropical. It`s about 710 square kilometers in size, or 441 square miles. Basically, if there was no traffic, you could drive from one end of Singapore to the other in less than an hour. It`s one of the few remaining “city states” left in the world, though it wasn`t always it`s own nation.

As with most Southeast Asian countries, Singapore was a European colony for awhile, specifically a British colony from about 1819 to World War II, so nearly everyone (except the really old folks) speak English. After that, they were taken over by the Japanese from 1942-1945 and treated very badly. After the war, it returned to British control, but in 1963 merged with Malaysia. Due to religious, ethnic, and political unrest, that was pretty short lived. Singapore was predominately Chinese in ethnicity, British in administration/system (school, postal, medical, banks, etc), very diverse in religion (Christianity, Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist), very wealthy and capitalist in its economics and moderate in it`s politics. Malaysia, on the other hand, was predominately Malay in ethnicity, Southeast Asian/Dutch in administration, Muslim in religion, poor and socialist in economics, and conservative in it`s politics. The two countries just couldn`t get along. So Singapore officially became it`s own nation on August 9, 1965.

All young men in Singapore have to serve 2 years in the military. That`s because they only have a population of 3 million, 5 million if you count the foreign workers. They are the richest nation in Southeast Asia with the best natural port, surrounded by poorer militant Muslim nations. That makes them a little nervous. These days when ports aren`t so important, they make most of their money through finance (banking; some call them the Swiss bank of Southeast Asia) though they also have one of the largest airlines in Asia, Singapore Airlines, which flies people all over the world. Also a good portion of their economy is in tourism.

Singapore is called the “garden city” because of all the flowers growing in the streets, and the “fine.” This last has three meanings. 1.) Fine as in “good.” 2.) Fine as in “fine weather.” And 3.) Fine as is “to pay a fine.” You get a heavy fine for littering, driving your car on the wrong day, chewing gum (you actually can`t purchase chewing gum in Singapore), eating in the subway station or train, and many more things. They don`t have room for litter or junk, so they want to stay as clean and beautiful as possible. They also have very strict rules about who can own a car, what kind of car, and when it can be driven. That`s because they are so small and if everyone drove, no one could get anywhere. Fortunately they have an excellent mass transportation system, even better than taxis, because the taxi lines are so long.

I arrived on July 1st, Friday afternoon around 5:00. Like Thailand, (and most of Southeast Asia, I suppose), Singapore is famous for it`s orchids. Here are some at the airport to greet me:

We dropped off my things at Ying-Ying`s apartment. As I mentioned before, they have a population of 3 million citizens and 2 million foreign workers. There is a huge housing shortage problem, particularly for the foreigners. Recently, the government has been trying to improve that by building lots of low-cost high rise apartments. That`s where she lives. It was a nice place, though a bit small for a family of five, maybe. She has her own room but her younger and older brother share. Her older brother is about 32. In America, it would be very strange for a 32-year-old male, even unmarried, to live with his parents still, but in such a small place it is a necessity. Housing and cars are super expensive. Ying-Ying said if you own both, you`re basically in debt your whole life. Her three bedroom apartment cost $400,000, just to give you an idea.

Here`s a funny poster in Ying-Ying`s room. I thought it was really cute. It says, “Don`t worry, I will pray for you.”

First, we grabbed dinner at a “Hawker Center,” the Singapore version of local street food:

At first I thought she was saying “Hooker!” Singaporian`s speak with a British accent. I remember the first time I met a Singaporean in Japan, he was Chinese with a British accent. I honestly can`t think of anything hotter than that.

Here`s what we ate. Chinese rice porridge, some type of fried dumpling covered in sesame seeds that was uniquely Singaporean, a traditional egg and pork Chinese dish I had in China but that was seasoned differently (in Singapore we had two, one with chilly sauce and one with salt) and lime juice:

Next, we went up in the Singapore Flyer, the world`s largest Ferris Wheel, for a nightscape. After that, we tried to catch the free “Wonderful show” in the events plaza, but we were at the wrong angle. But we got to see some beautiful night views. Here`s me sitting in front of the Marina Bay Sands hotel:

See the submarine thing on top? That`s actually a big park with a giant swimming pool. But it costs a lot of money to go up, so we didn`t. Here`s Ying Ying and me in front of the events plaza:

And us in front of the “double helix bridge” (thus named because it looks like a strand of DNA).

Here's a "magic moving building" that has metal tiles on it`s outside that move with the wind, giving it a watery,rippling appearance:

We got back to her apartment about 11:00 and I crashed. I slept on a futon on the floor in her room under the air conditioner. Most Singaporeans sleep on futons. It was quite nice.

Saturday, we had Indian curry with milk tea for breakfast, which upset Ying-Ying and my stomach`s a bit since we weren`t used to that much spice so early. People in Singapore dip flat bread (nan) into the curry with forks instead of their hands like in India (or curry and rice and dahl with their hands), while in Japan they eat it with rice and spoons. (I don`t think you can eat curry with chopsticks.) Then we went to Merlion Park to see the huge Merlion statue. What`s a merlion? Well, the name Singapore actually means “lion city” in Malay, because the legend goes that when a Malaysian prince “discovered” the island in the 1200s, he saw a lion and considered that auspicious. Actually, he probably saw a tiger, since lions have never lived on Singapore. It`s too hot. But before that, the country was a little fishing village。So a “merlion” combines a lion with a fish. It was designed in 1964 by an artist named Fraser Brunner to be Singapore`s mascot.

Here`s me beside the statue:

And here`s me at an interesting angle “drinking” from it:

We met this lady from Vietnam. She`s wearing traditional clothes. Here we are, standing in front of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel:

And me and Ying-Ying standing in front of an art museum shaped like a durian fruit. More about durians later. It`s the national fruit of Singapore, though they grow all over Southeast Asia:

The famous, historic Fullterton hotel from old British colonial days:

We went for a little stroll around the old town. We met some Japanese tourists and snacked on coconut ice cream. After that, we went back to Ying-Ying`s apartment because on Saturdays, her grandmother comes over and cooks a big lunch. Here are the clothes waving from all the apartment windows like flags in the heat of the day:

So much food! Curry and pork and chicken soup and fish and lychee fruit and Chinese herbal tea. Here`s a picture (the fruit is in the glass bowls):

Have I mentioned that Chinese people love to eat? I don`t think the Japanese do. The Japanese only THINK they like food, same for Koreans. They`re definitely not up there with the Italians and Americans and Chinese. You can tell a culture likes to eat if they`re constantly urging you to eat more, putting more food on your plate, saying they`re full but then eating more. Japanese don`t do that. The Japanese always make statements like "How are you so thin when you eat so much? Are you sure you can eat that all by yourself?" The Chinese say, "Oh, you`re so skinny! Don`t you like to eat? Come on, have some more, how about this? I don`t think you`ve tried that yet."

We were planning to go to rural Pula Ubin island that day, but because it was already the middle of the afternoon, we took a gondola to Sentosa island instead. Here`s a picture from the gondola, or ropeway:

Sentosa is called “Asia`s playground” because it has so many attractions, including Universal Studios, beaches, dolphin lagoon, indoor skydiving (hard to explain; basically a giant tube with high-powered fans that make you fly), 4D theaters, and a lot more. First, we went to the butterfly garden:

There was only one room of butterflies. The rest were insects and butterflies tacked to paper, which is beautiful, but kind of sad:

We went on a nature hike, but it was so hot we ended pretty soon and headed for the beach. Here`s the beautiful tropical sunset:

The military was practicing for national day on August 9th. Here are the helicopters flying the Singapore flag, red with a white crescent moon and stars:

The moon symbolizes the rising nation, the stars are the cultures: Chinese, Malay, Indian, and European. Red is for strength, white for purity.

We ended with a show called “Songs of the Sea,” featuring Singapore folk songs, fire, light, and water special effects. I`ve never seen water used as a screen before! It was pretty cool. Here's the opening song:

Here are the words:

Singapura, Singapura,
Sunny island set in the sea.
Singapura, Singapura
Pretty flowers bloom for you and me.

And here's the finale:

Here`s another merlion on Sentosa, lit up for the night:

We took public transportation back to her apartment and got to sleep around midnight. And that was all for Friday and Saturday! I`ll write more later.

25th Birthday Bash!

2011-07-06T23:32:00.000-07:00

Wow, it`s been a long time since I blogged! I`ve been so busy! I just got back from five days in Singapore, and before that I had my 25th birthday on June 26th! Let me tell you about that first.

I can`t believe I`m a quarter of century old! But considering I`ve done more in the last 25 years than most people get to do in their entire lifetimes, I really don`t have anything to complain about. On Saturday, July 25th, I went with my friends Gale, Shino, and Shino`s boyfriend Daiki to the world-famous Toba aquarium, reportedly the second best aquarium in Japan. Shino and Daiki drove me there, and Gale met us at the aquarium.

Here`s my birthday picture at the aquarium, taken by the staff. They didn`t charge us just to take it with my camera:

First we saw a sea lion show, though I don`t like the way the Japanese treat their animals. The show was based on the legend of the “peach boy.” He and his friendly sea lion had to get their giant Toba pearl back from the evil oni (demon) and his sea lion by having a sea lion competition. It was pretty dumb. Why do the Japanese have to have a story for everything? The animals were totally clueless because they weren`t getting the right cues and did everything wrong, and then the trainers got mad and pulled on their flippers and yelled at them. They shut the poor penguin in the pearl box for about 30 minutes as part of the show. And they wonder why the animals don`t behave.

The penguins in the parade weren`t happy either. They were frightened of all the people and kept snapping at each other. It was really hot. Poor penguins! At least the baby in the bucket was cute.

Speaking of poor creatures, the crabs shaped like tanks kept flipping over. I wonder if they do that in nature? Sort of defeats the purpose of having an armored shell. I suspect they flip when trying to climb up the glass.

The trainers did a better job with the walrus show. They were funny and quite playful, blowing on harmonicas, smacking the trainers with their fins and pretending to laugh.

Here`s some baby beavers, though because of the glass you can`t see them so well:

Here`s an interesting goldfish exhibit:

Toba aquarium is probably most famous for their Dugong, an endangered animal somewhat like a manatee. Here he is eating:

The finless dolphin was also cute. He would come right up to the glass to observe us:

And here`s me beside a Harris Hawk. I have no idea what the guy was doing carrying a Harris Hawk around an aquarium, but it was interesting!

Shino bought me a really nice pearl bracelet made of local “reject” pearls. Only 10% of produced peals are considered “jewelry grade,” but these came pretty close. You had to look carefully to notice that each one either wasn`t perfectly round or was slightly discolored. But because they were “reject” pearls, they only cost 500 yen, or about $5.00. I`m glad they were cheap, because I think I lost the bracelet in Singapore!

We left around 4:00 to check out the famous wedded rocks of Ise. In Japan, they symbolize marriage. Lots of people marry there, and there`s no other rocks like that in Japan. Here`s Daiki and Shino beside them:

And all of us together:

For dinner, we ate curry at my favorite Indian restaurant. So good!

On Sunday, I went to church. Pastor Toshi talked about the Lord being our shepherd, since four mysterious sheep suddenly appeared in the cabbage field next to Max Value Supermarket. I fed them a carrot the other day, but I didn`t realize there was an electric fence, so I got shocked a little. They`re cute sheep, but we have no idea where they came from or who owns them. The only place in Japan that I`ve heard of that has sheep is Hokkaido, the northern most island. After church, and they had a little party for me afterwards with sandwiches and regular cake. Here we are all together, Pastor Toshi taking the picture:

In the evening, my Pilipino friend Karen came over and we had ice cream cake. I`ve always wanted ice cream cake for my birthday, but I didn`t think it right of me to ask anyone to buy it, so I bought it for myself from Baskin Robbins, the only good ice cream place in Japan. It was expensive, but really good!

She also got me these clothes because she said I need to start "dressing like a lady." I think she means that I usually dress like a boy. I suppose for the most part, that`s true.

So all in all, it was a pretty great 25th birthday. I have made so many amazing friends in Japan. I will miss them!

Until next time, keep praying and loving, no matter what the cost,
L.J. Popp

Kumano and school taikusai

2011-06-07T02:22:00.000-07:00

Wow, the last few weeks have been crazy! Friday, May 23rd, I left right after school for my Kumano writers’ meeting. (Our group is called MEWS, though I don’t remember what it stands for.) I arrived around 10:30pm at night to be picked up by my friend Marissa, a Kumano local. I stayed with her and her cute kitten Zepher.

The next morning we had breakfast at a café overlooking the famous shi-shi no ishi (lion rock) formation and the beautiful Kumano beach:

Jacinda, also coming from far away, arrived at the café with the other local, Susannah, around 10:00am. Then we enjoyed a lovely sightseeing tour of Dorokyo Gorge. It was raining, so we were lucky that the boat was covered. Here’s some pictures:

The boat:

The gorge:

About halfway through, we took a break on a little pebble beach between Nara and Mie prefectures. Here’s Marissa and me:

A waterfall on the way back:

And turtle rock:

This was the person who took our tickets when we got on the boat and said “arigato gozaimas” as we left:

She’s dressed like an “ohimesama” or daughter/wife of a shogun or samurai. (Imagine the woman from the famous Akirakurasawa film Rashomon and you’ll see what I mean.) They dressed that way when they traveled along the famous Kumano Kodo pilgrimage road that runs from Tokyo to the temple complex on Mt. Koya. The people who owned the boat must have also had some franchise on Kumano Kodo as well, because they kept encouraging us every chance they got to visit that place too.

Here’s a view of the boat and river from the mountain roads:

For lunch, we stopped at a quaint little restaurant. They served really good pasta, pizza and pie. But we were really freaked out, because there was a little girl who kept coming to our table. At first, she looked to be about two or three, but when she came back, we could have sworn she’d grown! We finally figured out that there were two little sisters, about a year apart, dressed identically, and they never came out at the same time! That and the misspelling of “float” as “froat” on the menu gave us a good laugh.

Next, we drove to the famous tiered rice fields. It was very misty and beautiful. Here are some pictures:

Then we finally got around to our writers’ meeting. I brought a submission to a contest, the first 20 pages of Treasure Traitor and the synopsis. Those girls are so helpful! They really made the first chapter more realistic and tactile.

The next day, we got up early and had a second meeting. This time I read the synopsis, and they really helped me work out a better ending and add more tension. Yea!

In the afternoon we went to Onigajo, or demon castle rock. Really beautiful place. Here’re some pictures:

The following Friday, my school had our taikusai, or track and field day. All the different classes compete against each other. (Unlike American high school students, Japanese students don’t get to choose what classes they want. They stay in the same classroom and have the same classmates all day like American elementary schools, and teachers come around to the various classes to teach the different subjects. I really don’t like that system, because it means that a student really good at a certain subject might get stuck in a really dumb class, and a student who might need a little extra help in one subject has to struggle to keep up with everyone else. Also, there’s no freedom of choice.)

And something really hilarious, the warm up. Yes, Japanese students do this same warm up every single day of their lives in P.E. and before sports, and they’ve been doing it for the past 60 years. Some schools require it in the morning before first class. Some companies even do it! I can`t show you the video though, because it shows the students` faces. Can you imagine grown men jumping up and down? It’s funny to see 800 kids all doing it together.

I just wandered around for most of the day, talking to students and taking pictures. The most amazing event was how they could all jump rope together more than twenty times in a row.

At the end of the day, there was the “folk dansu,” performed the third year students, which I also participated in along with a few other teachers. First we did a Russian folk dance, then a modern Japanese dance, then an American modern dance. A student took some videos for me, but of course I can`t show them.

I was planning to stay home the next day, Saturday, and rest, but the weather was so beautiful and I was feeling down, so I went to the beach. I heard of a really nice one about two hours away in Kashgojima called shirohama, which means “white sand,” but by the time I got there around noon, the ferry to the island was already gone. (I assumed the ferry came every hour, but apparently it only went twice a day.) So I went to asogohara beach in Ugata instead. That was interesting, because I didn’t realize it until I got there, but that was the same beach where we had the welcome party when I first arrived in Japan. All things come around. This time, it was nicer too, without the sand blowing everywhere or jelly fish stinging. Here’s a picture of the beach:

There was hardly anyone there, since swimming season doesn’t officially start in Japan until July 1st. Just surfers in wetsuits. But I wasn’t afraid of the water!

Until next time, keep praying and loving, no matter what the cost,
Laura

My maiko experience

2011-06-02T03:11:00.000-07:00

Every girl in Japan`s gotta do this once! So it`s the ultimate in self-indulgence and vanity, but let`s face it: every girl wants to be a maiko for a day. A maiko is a geisha`s apprentice, all decked out with kimono and cherry blossoms and white makeup. A geisha, in contrast, is an older woman who typically wears much more natural and demure clothing and makeup.

Traditionally, the distinction came between unattached virgin students and experienced teachers consorted to a single man or attached to a geisha house or hot spring resort. Basically the Japanese version of courtesans. These days, maiko and geisha just host at parties and dance/play traditional music at festivals, though there might be some other stuff on the side that people don`t talk about. It is true that geisha even today usually don`t marry, and when they do, they usually stop being a geisha. A lot of girls apprentice as maiko but never become geisha. It`s a sort of Japanese charm school for some. They study traditional dance, music, games, Japanese culture, the art of conversation, modeling, sometimes tea ceremony, etc. They`re supposed to be “walking works of art and cultural heritage.”

I won`t go into the whole history of it; two useful books in English are Memoirs of a Geisha for understanding the history and A Geisha`s Journey for the modern practice. They`re two of my favorite books about Japan.

So I went to the shop Aya in Gion Corner in Kyoto with my friends Hisae and Junko from Fukushima. They stayed at my apartment after the earthquake two months ago for about two weeks and are now living in government housing in Kyoto looking for jobs. Great girls! I know you`re just dying for pictures, so here you go:

Putting on makeup and wig. (Usually maiko use their own hair, but for purposes of time they put a frame on my head and simply wrapped my hair around the frame, so that is, technically, my own hair sprayed black.)

Putting on the makeup and kimono took one hour. After that, we had about fifteen minutes with a professional photographer. Here are the best of those pictures:

Then we had ten minutes in the traditional garden to take our own photos:

Here`s a silly video of me trying to dance like the maiko I saw on stage with Mom:

If you want to see more of my maiko pictures, you can check out my facebook page where I have most of them posted. I`ve already taken up too much blog space with my own face for one day.

Then we waited fifteen minutes for the pictures to develop and for the photographer to make a CD. (They say to give the whole maiko experience about two hours.) Minus the CD, it was 120,000 yen, or $147.51. With the CD it was 140,000, or $172.10. Yeah, really expensive, I know, but I`ve been wanting to do it ever since I came to Japan. I`ll have the pictures forever, so I think it was worth it. There are more expensive packages where you can prance around Kyoto for an hour with a photographer following, but I thought that was just toooo much. I can only tolerate so much vanity in myself before I start getting sick of myself.

Next, we debated about whether to see the wisteria or Nijo Castle, and settled on Nijo Castle. I`m glad, because it was a World Heritage Site and really beautiful. Here`s us at the entrance:

And some of the beautiful gold work on the entrance arches:

We went inside but no pictures were allowed there. What beautiful art work! All the sliding doors were painted and the walls inlaid with gold foil. Talk about extravagance, especially by Japanese standards! It was ten times better than the Imperial palace, because guess who lived there? Mr. Infamous Shogun Tokagawa Iesu built it for himself as his secondary headquarters for controlling Japan behind the Emperor`s back. He and his family were the real power in Japan from about 1600-1868, and he wasn`t about to let anyone forget it. In every room there was a raised platform where he stood above everyone else, even the Emperor`s royal messenger! His rooms were painted with tigers and pine trees, symbols of longevity and strength, and the images went all the way to the ceiling, while the paintings in the official`s rooms cut off at face level. All the doorways the other officials had to enter through were very low, so they had to bow as they entered each room, but his doorway was much taller. He had body guard chambers in every room, and I couldn`t help but notice that in all the reconstructed sets his attendants were always female, bowing and scraping.

Also, when he wanted someone else`s home, he just took it. He had an entire ancient castle relocated to Kyoto, nearly destroying it in the process. While he was at his regular home in Tokyo, he required the strongest warrior from each samurai family in Kansai, fifty all together, to defend his palace. That kept the samurai from being able to mount a rebellion against him.

What a jerk. In his lust for taking over Japan, he slaughtered everyone in Osaka and Nagoya Castle, declared himself a deity (descendant of the son goddess), massacred all the Christians, and outlawed any religion except ones that worshiped him (Buddhism and Shinto). He forbid all Japanese from ever leaving Japan, and expelled all foreigners (except the Dutch traders just visiting Nagasaki so that he could have their guns). That was his secret. He was one of the few rulers in Japan who had guns at the time, and that`s why he won all his battles. But you know what? A lot of Japanese think he was a hero because he “unified” Japan under one leader. Well, yeah, dictators tend to do that. I call him the “Japanese Hitler.” Killed about as many people.

His isolationist policy brought about one of the greatest economic depressions in Japanese history, and I think it played a role in Japan`s subsequent Imperialist policy from 1900-1945. The isolationism forced them into a very weak position with the West, being so far behind in technology, and when they finally caught up, they still saw the West as a threat. (Though, admittedly, that`s also largely because the West still treated them like a second-class nation and insisted on colonizing huge chunks of Asia. A lot of what Japan did building up to World War II was to create a “buffer zone” against the expanding communist USSR and a “co-prosperity” sphere to push out European colonial powers such as France and England from places like Vietnam and Hong Kong. But we won`t go into that because it`s a really long story.)

How do I know all this? Some of it I already knew from visiting other castles and reading Japanese history online, but I also splurged and bought the audio commentary for the castle which filled in the details I didn`t know. For instance, the palace wasn`t just used for the Tokagawas. In cases of invasion (which were common during the warring states period of Japan), the people of Kyoto stayed in the fortified castle. He might have been a jerk, but at least Tokagawa Iesu looked after his people.

Here's a nice view of the surrounding mountains from the top parapet of the castle:

And a pretty Japanese garden he kept out back. You can't really see them in this pictures, but in other places in the garden there were lots of pruned pine trees with super long branches:

For dinner, we went to a famous ramen (Chinese noodle) shop in Kyoto. Here`s what I ordered:

On the way back, we saw this pretty kimono on display at the train station. I took a picture of it for Mom, because it has musical notes and butterflies:

And that was my maiko experience in Kyoto!

Last of all, I wanted to share what's going on in my spiritual life this week. Here's something I wrote to my good friend Ying Ying in Singapore. I met her at a Christian conference in Fukushima. She used to teach there but her parents told her to come home after the earthquake. We write back and forth a lot:

"Thank you so much for the Laura Story music recommendation. I literally spent over an hour listening to her songs on youtube, bawling my eyes out. I'm not kidding! I was so starved for English worship music. Her testimony is so powerful too. Her husband has a brain tumor.

Honestly, in my own life, I haven't got anything that bad, but I feel broken right now. I'm so worried about my future and not knowing what I should do. It gnawed on me day and night, so that I couldn't eat and couldn't sleep. I had such a hard time giving it to God. I kept trying, but something still gnawed at me. After hearing that song "Blessings," I knelt on the floor of my living room and just cried and cried out to God. I told him to take the broken pieces of me and do what He wills. I had forgotten that God wants what's best for me, that His love is greater than any love I have for myself or anyone else can ever have for me. I need to spend more time thanking Him for that and praising Him.

I'm so excited! I'm making a new dedication to Christian fellowship. You asked how you can pray for me. Guidance and peace in my life would be good. I feel strongly somehow that God has a big plan for me as a missionary in Japan or another Asian country, but I don't know the how, when, where, or what yet. I also feel the strong pull to publish my Christian writing, but again it's a matter of how, when, where, and what. I also feel a strong pull to marry another missionary, to share the missionary joys and burdens and raise up an international family of adopted children within that Christian environment. Again, how, when, where, what. Waiting is so hard! I try to make a habit of going through the fruits of the Spirit in the morning to see which I need to ask God to help me with. I think, "love, I'm a pretty loving person, joy, I'm a pretty happy person, peace, I'm a pretty peaceful person, patience... yep, that would be it. God, give me patience today! I want it right now!"

I also struggle a lot with depression and anxiety. I always have since childhood. I've always felt unworthy and guilty. Living alone in a foreign country highly aggravates this. But I consider it a "thorn in the flesh," something God has allowed me to suffer through in order to make me more dependent on Him. I ask Him again and again to take it away, but He always says, "My grace is sufficient." Well, Amen. God's will be done."

Prayer Requests for this week: same thing I told Ying Ying! I think that letter about covered it.

Until next time, keep praying and loving, no matter what the cost,
L.J. Popp

Exciting news and Koya-san!

2011-05-23T01:50:00.000-07:00

Let`s talk about something a little less depressing than trips to disasters zones, shall we? I have great news! While I was in Tohoku volunteering, I got an email from an agent I’ve been corresponding with, Normandie Fischer. Originally, she said she couldn’t represent me while I was in Japan. But suddenly she contacted me and said she thought she’d found the perfect publishing company for my young adult fantasy novel, Treasure Traitor. It’s called Written Word Communications. They specialize in “soft” Christian fiction, novels and short stories that allude to the Bible and Christ without being preachy. They just started a fantasy imprint called StarSongs. Normandie knows the head editor very well and has talked to her about my book. They’re both really excited about it! Right now Normandie and I are working on polishing the novel, then she’ll send it to the publisher for them to read through. If all goes well, Treasure Traitor will come out in March! But I’m trying not to get my hopes too high. The publisher could still say no. They could suddenly go bankrupt and have to fold, (which has happened to me with publishers/agents before, quite common in this business). But it’s a step in the right direction!

Now that said, it puts me in a bit of a predicament. I really want to stay in Japan for awhile longer, but I didn’t sign my contract back in February, so I can’t stay at my current school. I’m applying for jobs both in Japan and abroad. It would be ideal if I could work at Ibaraki Christian University with Japanese exchange students, but they won’t know if they have a position open until July. The jobs I’m applying for in Japan have to know whether I’m working for them by June. Tulsa Community College, my backup U.S. plan, isn’t answering my emails. The suspense and uncertainty about what to do is killing me. Well, not killing me, but I’m having a lot a sleepless nights and eating proves a chore because I can’t stop worrying about my future and make up my mind. I have this constant anxiety that sits like an aching hole in my stomach. To stay in Japan or wait for a position in the U.S that I don’t even know is open? It’s making my summer plans super difficult. How can I plan for travel with my mother, something she and I have been looking forward to for a long time, when I don’t know when I have to start my new job, or even what and where that new job is?

Can I really take another lonely winter in Japan? Do I really want to suffer through another sweltering summer? But I still have a year left on my VISA, and I’m already here in Japan, which makes me more attractive to hiring companies. I would have to find a new apartment and get adjusted to life in a new city at a new church. But a new place could also present new opportunities for serving in Japan. Then there’s the issue of the free plane ticket home provided by my current school. If I get another job in the Japan, I forfeit that ticket. And who knows what the new job would be like? It could be really bad. Everyone says JET (the Japanese Exchange Teaching) Programme is the best teaching gig in Japan. I’ve heard horror stories about how other companies use and abuse their teachers, for less pay.

What it all comes down to is my future. Can I publish my books in the U.S. and be a full-time missionary in Japan? Is that what I want? More importantly, is that what God is calling me to do? Do I just need a break from Japan for awhile? Should I take that now or later, after my VISA expires? These are the issues barring me from sleep at night and from really taking much interest in food. In other words, the worry is making me physically sick. Something keeps screaming at me to stay in Japan, stay in Japan. Is that from God? I want to promote my writing before the book comes out, but I’m sure they wouldn’t publish it before I could do proper publicity. If I stayed, I would have to put some of my friends on America on hold who really want me to come back, and cancel my student’s trip to the U.S…for the second time. But lots of folks would be disappointed if a I left Japan too. I have so many places I still want to see in Asia, and doing it from Japan, with a steady income, is much easier than from America.

If anyone knows of a good job opening involving teaching ESL, writing, or library work, either here in Japan or back in the states (preferably Oklahoma), please tell me about it! As it is, my options are slim on both ends and I wouldn't mind expanding them. Might help me make up my mind.

I’ve prayed for guidance and for God to take my fear and worry away. Sometimes He does for a few minutes. But then it always rears it’s ugly head again, like a pimple you’ve popped only to have it regrow, screaming that I should stay in Japan, stay in Japan. It’s infuriating.

Enough of that. May 14th and 15th, I went to a very famous mountain in Wakayama, Koya-san. (“San” in Japanese, besides meaning Mr./Miss/Mrs, means mountain, so I guess in English it would just be “Mt. Koya.” The summit is 820 meters above sea level and pretty much flat, and an entire town flourishes there, complete with schools and a post office. You have to ride a tram or hike to get to the top (we took the tram). It was established over 1150 years ago (around 820) as a Buddhist Mecca by the monk Koba-daishi. There are over one hundred temples and shrines to various deities and Buddhas, so it played a large role in Japanese religion. Even today, about half of the residents are Buddhist priests and their families (this sect allows marriage, wealth, and everything except meat), and the other half are employed in catering to the various pilgrims and tourists who come from all over the world.

These days, there aren`t enough actual pilgrims showing up offering gifts to maintain all these temples, so most have been partially converted into hotels/restaurants. I guess that`s still traditional; as with churches in Europe, temples offered lodging and food to pilgrims on their way to religious sites. I went with a group of about ten other Japanese Exchange Teachers to stay at one of these temples. Here`s what it looked like:

The rooms where we stayed were very traditional and old. Here`s some pictures of the painted sliding doors:

After we checked in and got settled, we went for a long walk around the town to take in the sites. Here`s a beautiful path:

Some tori gates leading up to a shrine:

Tori means “bird” and refers to the roosters that traditionally sat on top of the gates because they were supposed to be messengers of the son goddess, the supreme deity in Japanese mythology.

One of the most interesting temples was a sister temple to the famous Golden Rock temple in Bali. They had a lot of protest art, like a large, adult cow milking from a tiny calf, a gazelle chasing a leopard, weird stuff like that. Probably from when the Japanese invaded that country, or the communist sentiment surging through bankrupt and pillaged nations after World War II. There was also an underground chamber, where we found this:

Yes, millions of people in the world still worship idols of stone and gold. Sad, huh?

Here`s the star attraction temple, the pride of Wakayama prefecture:

Kind of looks Chinese, especially because of the red.

Here`s one of the oldest temples, built in the same architecture style, but in a more Japanese way, no colors, just plain wood:

Here`s a really famous gate leading into Koya-san from the main road, which used to be an ancient pilgrimage path before it was paved:

Then we hiked up this trail to the top of the mountain:

Here`s a view from the top:

Before dinner, we had meditation. There was a word written on the front wall behind an alter, which they told us was Sanskrit for the center of the universe and origin of all things, and it also looked like the Japanese kanji for power, so I just imagined it stood for God. They told us how to meditate, but of course I couldn`t understand a word of their rather technical Japanese explanation. So I just sat there and prayed. I told God all my worries about leaving Japan, what my successor may or may not be willing to do in my place, finding a new job, the Written Word Communications publisher, my students that still aren`t saved. The thirty minute meditation flew right by, before I even got to tell God how thankful I was for my time in Japan! But the nice thing about the Christian God is that He`s always there. I don`t have to have a special “religious experience” to talk to Him. As for everyone elses' "religious experience," quite a few just fell asleep, including the girl in front of me!

For dinner we had priest vegetarian style. Tofu, rice, seaweed, fried vegetables, fresh fruit, and fish soup. (Fish isn`t considered a meat in Japan, it`s a way of life!) Folks could order bear if they wanted to, so apparently these priests could have alcohol too. Their sect is so lax, I heard that some rich people, once they accomplish all they want to, just become priest for the heck of it. (They claim it’s a very relaxing, healthy lifestyle.) They don’t have to go to any special school or even give up their luxury cars. They just apprentice under another priest, meditate twice a day and worship once a day, and eat vegetarian meals with fish.

After dark, we took a walk in a huge, famous graveyard and got spooked by some flying squirrels. Yes, Japan has flying squirrels, but I didn`t know until that night! Imagine being in a dark Buddhist graveyard around midnight, and suddenly something shoots from one tree branch to another, hissing and chattering! As Pillar said, “thems are scary squirrels!” At that point we stopped making zombie jokes and switched to rabid flying squirrels jokes. I'm not really sure which is funnier; they both seem equally morbid to me.

The next morning, we woke up at 6:00 for the 6:30 Buddhist sutra (holy scripture) chanting. Here`s what that looks like:

As the priests chanted, one by one the observers got up, offered incense to the statue, and bowed in front of it. If that`s not idol worship, I don`t know what is. I was debating about what to do when it got to be my turn, thinking I would probably just politely motion for the person next to me to go ahead, but fortunately the priests stopped chanting just before it was my turn. At the end of the chanting we all had to pass in front of the statue and bow again. I just walked without bowing by and nobody said anything.

Then there was a second chanting service, this one with drums and fire. I have a nice video of it, but apparently it's too long to load onto my blog. Oh, well.

Next we had breakfast. Not nearly as good as dinner. If the Japanese can’t cook, then Buddhist priests REALLY can’t cook. We went for a final walk in the graveyard, and were lucky to catch an English tour group of foreign students from Osaka University. This time, the pictures I took actually showed up, and we knew what we were looking at. No rabid flying squirrels this time either; apparently they’re nocturnal.

Here’s some pretty pictures of ancient tombstones, some of them over 1,000 years old:

So who was buried here? Nobody. These are just memorials with maybe a piece of their hair or a bit of bone. Mostly the memorials are to famous people, priests who “attained enlightenment,” feudal lords and their families, Noh and Kabuki actors, a few famous foreigners, including some Christians. People of all ethnicities and religions have memorials there.

Before the mid 1800s, women weren’t allowed in the graveyard, or into most of the areas on Koya-san, but they could be buried there. Here is the largest memorial in the whole graveyard, to the mother of some feudal lord:

Those tombstones, along with all the tombstones in that graveyard, had to be carried up the mountain. Some of them weighed over a ton; can you imagine how many people it must have taken?

Also, notice the unique shapes, repeated in all the monuments. The bottom square represents earth, as in soil and ground, or in the human being, flesh. The circle is water or blood. The weird shape is sky or heart and mind. The two spheres on top are void or spirit, because some Buddhists believe when you die, you cease to exist. Honestly, that’s their idea of ultimate enlightenment and paradise? No thank you!

But speaking of those shapes, here’s our tour guide next to a rather interesting monument belonging to a samurai who was forced to betray his lord. It’s a rather tragic story, and they say that because of the blood he spilled, his blood stone always cracks. He played a big part in the protection of Koya-san during some war, so the priests often replace his blood stone, but it always cracks again. Weird, huh?

This is a small shrine:

I only took that picture because of the “Nazi symbols.” Actually, the Nazis stole that from Buddhism, who took it from Hindu before that, because the Hindi were the original “Aryan” race. At least, that’s my theory. All the facts are true, and the quote by Hitler that “the swastika (is) the mission of the struggle for the victory of the Aryan man” supports my conclusion. I bet he wouldn’t have admitted it came from India and their religions, though.

Everybody and their grandmother seemed to have a shrine there, even the Panasonic corporation. You think I’m joking? Here it is:

It’s for all their workers that died on the job. Hmm, remind me not to work for them. The monument is a nice touch, but I’d rather not work for a company where people are known to die on the job! Maybe they have a bad case of workaholism.

At least once a day, the priests prepare and bring food to Koba-daishi, the founder of the original Koya-san temple and monastery, even though he’s been dead for over 1,000 years. They make a big ritual out of it. Here they are:

They worship him as a sort of god.

There was a big bridge to cross over into the “most holy” part. We couldn’t take pictures after that. Here’s a memorial in the river to people who drowned or babies who were aborted:

And here’s the bridge:

And here’s the inner temple from a distance:

There wasn’t much on the other side. Just a big temple with big idols where lots of pilgrims go to make big offerings, Koba-daishi’s remains, and an underground chamber full of 4,000 tiny Buddha statues. On the way back, we found this giant hill made of Buddha statues:

For lunch/dinner, we ate at a nice organic vegetarian restaurant owned by a Japanese man and his French wife. Very nice! I think I could learn to be vegetarian if I had to. Definitely not vegan, though. That's not even healthy. (Vegans reject all animal products including anything with milk, eggs, leather, or grown using animal dung fertilizer.) I've never really met a healthy vegan. They're always over weight, pale, or sickly. But maybe I just haven't met enough of them.

And that was Koya-san!

Prayer Requests: Praise for the agent and possible publisher for Treasure Traitor! Please pray that I will be able to work out this whole stay/go thing, get a good job, and work out my vacation plans with my mom. Most importantly, please pray that I will have peace so I can eat and sleep again!

Until next time, keep praying and loving, no matter what the cost,
L.J. Popp