Quan Ba Ke

Here's a shot of us at lunch today. Hung and Khuong on the left are Vietnamese-French and Vietnamese-Belgian, respectively. David and Huyen are friends of ours in Bangkok as well; David is a former Vietnam hand and Huyen is Vietnamese, too, of course, from Nha Trang.

Little Vietnam?

We had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant in a Vietnamese part of Bangkok, then strolled around the neighborhood. There have been several waves of Vietnamese immigration to Thailand over the past couple centuries, many settled in the northeast, but some came to Bangkok as well. The church in the picture was originally built in the 1830s when over a thousand Vietnamese came to Thailand fleeing religious persecution. The Thais gave them funds to build the church, though the current one was built in 1903 after the first one was destroyed in a storm. The surrounding area was given to the Vietnamese and many of their descendants still live in the neighborhood.

Protests in Bangkok

The political opposition called for a two-day rally this weekend, on the heels of weeks of other protests. We went down to the area around Government House to take a look around. Lots of people camping out overnight, everybody selling and wearing T-shirts, hats, buttons, etc., anti-Thaksin. Looked like an interesting crowd. On the way over our taxi driver told us how much he disliked the protestors and how they're ruining the country, a common view outside of Bangkok. We walked through for about an hour, but couldn't take the heat. Not sure how all these guys can take it all day for two days.

Temple 1K Fun Run

After the half marathon, the kids did a 1K run. A few started off a couple seconds early and got a head start, the rest came piling on behind them, quite literally. We saw about five kids go down and the crowd jam up behind them, but everyone made it out of the starting gate intact.

ING Temple Run

On Sunday we ran a half-marathon, the longest we've run since the Chicago Marathon in 2004. The run was about an hour outside of Bangkok and is called the Temple Run as the route passes by about a dozen Buddhist temples. Dung was, of course, in great shape since she runs a 10K on the treadmill practically every other day. For me this was an experiment. I hadn't run any distance at all in almost a year, but put in plenty of time on the elliptical machine and bicycle at the gym, and play Ultimate on the weekend. I was in good shape, but it turns out my legs weren't. Dung almost broke two hours and got her personal best for the half marathon. I made it to the 16km point before my legs started to give out and I hobbled in at 2:22. Next run may be the half marathon in Kanchanaburi in September, but this time I'm training.

Picture from Astra

Dung's friend Karuna from Bangkok Recorder happened to be at Club Astra last week, too, and shot this picture, now up on www.bangkokrecorder.com. The shot's a little arty and therefore blurry, but still got some of our friends in the frame.

Club Astra

Last night we ended up at quite possibly the best club we've ever been to. Club Astra is on RCA, or Royal City Avenue, a strip of clubs that's actually not too far from where we live. Not horribly packed like every other place, but still full to capacity. Remixed versions of the latest songs, plus lots of classics. A 2am closing time, unfortunately, just like the rest of Bangkok.....

Image by www.bangkokrecorder.com

Sopranos

A few weeks back Dung popped in Episode 1, Season 1 of the Sopranos. She'd bought the box set a couple years ago for me, though I'd already seen them all. One episode and she was hooked, we spent the next few weeks burning through five seasons. Just one more to go on the fifth season, but season six starts next week!

Out with a shoulder

A couple weeks ago Bangkok hosted its annual Ultimate Hat Tournament, hosting Ultimate Frisbee players from around the region. We got about 200 people to pay about $50 to put their name in the hat (hence the name), be randomly assigned to a team and play disc for two full days. The first game on the first day I laid out for a pass in the end zone, caught it, hit the dirt and my defender fell right on top of me and sprained my shoulder. Missed the whole tournament. Almost healed now, but it took a while.