Lumpini Festival 2017

Another school year is coming to an end, and another calendar year is beginning. I'm once again reminded of how many amazing places in this amazing country that I haven't visited, and inspired to see more of our beautiful world.

This weekend was the annual Lumpini Park Thailand Tourism Festival!

Lumpini Park Thailand Tourism Festival

 Lumpini Park is a big beautiful park in downtown Bangkok, and each year in January the Ministry of Tourism and the five different regions of Thailand hold a travel festival to encourage tourism and travel throughout the kingdom.

The five regions were each represented by crafts, products, and food. The first one we visited was The North, which I've hardly seen in real life (except for my visits each year to Mae Sot). I have plans to head north in the next few months though!

Each of Thailand's regions are quite different from the rest, in food, art, and culture! Pinky has trained in classical Thai dance, and explained to me how the dance in the Central region is the slowest and most reserved, while the Northeast and Southern regions have a faster and more energetic dance style.

Next up was "Spicy Isan"! Issan is the Northeast region of Thailand, and maybe the most culturally unique. I know the least about Issan, and have barely been that way. Most recently I spent a short weekend in Pak Chong, and a few years ago I visited Jim Thompson's farm in Korat, but that's all.

The Northeast

 Every region has its own unique art style. I was very impressed by the Northeastern weaving. One workshop was displaying impressive weavings of the old king, the new king, and the princess.

royal family woven into the mats

Then there were the scary ghost masks that I had encountered before in Korat! I really ought to go to the northeast and learn more of the culture! It's very different from Bangkok.

ghost masks

Next we visited the East! I know this region fairly well. It's the coastal region east of Bangkok that includes places like Pattaya, Koh Samet, and Chanthaburi.

The East

The South might be Thailand's most famous region, at least with foreign tourists! It includes beautiful places like Krabi and Phuket. I've been south a few times, but it's not so easy to get down that way in a weekend without flying, and since it's so popular it can be expensive. Maybe at a long holiday I'll try to spend more time in the south.

The South

There was so much delicious food at Lumpini Park from all over the country! We couldn't resist the delicious fried softshell crab that was for sale in the southern section. It was so cheap too! Pinky and I each had two big crabs for only 100 baht each! So good! I love good seafood!

delicious crab

Then of course there's Central Region. "Happiness Within Reach". Central includes Bangkok and nearby places like Kanchanaburi and Ayutthaya. Even if it's nearby, there are tons of amazing things to see around here too!

Central

And since yesterday was the actual first day of the Lunar New Year, an entire section was dedicated to celebrating Chinese New Year at the festival as well! So many people were wearing traditional Chinese silk shirts and enjoying all the amazing Thai-Chinese Chinatown food for sale.

Chinese New Year

Happy Year of the Rooster! My Chinese New Year resolution is to see more places in Thailand, specifically in the north! I can't believe I've been in Thailand for four years and have hardly been to the famous northern cities like Chinag Mai or Chiang Rai. I say that every year, but I really hope that this year is the one that I make it up that way.

Wat Hua Lampong

Today I went with my boss to meet with our travel agent to begin making the arrangements to send this year's batch of temporary foreign teachers back home to the USA.

I'll be getting my ticket home soon as well!

The travel agency was downtown, on the other side of Chulalongkorn University, Thailand's oldest and most prestigious. Leaving the office, Wat Hua Lampong across the street caught my attention. I've been once before with Pinky, but thought I've got some time now, since I'm here, I'll go look around.

the temple

Wat Hua Lampong is a third-grade royal temple, but it's not a big popular tourist spot like the Emerald Buddha or any of the big river temples. It's popular and busy, but not so well-known with foreigners. It's really more a neighborhood temple.

downtown

What seems so odd about it though is how it's right in the middle of downtown surrounded by skyscrapers! I'm sure the temple was definitely there first; the contrast is just quite noticeable.

Buddhas

There was some sort of Chinese New Year celebration going on. An old monk was talking into a microphone which was playing around the temple grounds. The only words I could make out were "Chinese New Year" in English. That's odd too, because Thai has it's own name for this festival!

a golden chedi

There isn't anything really that unique about the temple. It's not as memorable as the Golden Mount, or Temple of the Dawn, but it's huge; big and impressive and imposing!

traditional Thai temple architecture

And it's busy! The last time I visited was with Pinky to buy coffins for poor and homeless people. It's a very popular temple for charitable or merit-making acts. That part, a Chinese-style hall, is open 24-hours, and I assume it's always fairly busy with late-night merit-makers.

beautiful temple building

Sometimes I don't have much to say on my blog, but I just want to show interesting pictures of beautiful places in Bangkok! If I'm not traveling, my daily life in Bangkok is more or less a routine, but I know it still might be interesting for people back home to see some of the places in my adopted city!

temple eaves

Like at Loi Krathong a few years ago, there was a moving pool where people could float a candle of their color of the day and say a prayer. I'm not sure if this was related to the Chinese New Year temple fair or not, but it's a beautiful tradition either way.

Buddha

Not so much to say today. Enjoy the pictures! We are coming up on final exams! Hopefully I'll get one more trip out of Bangkok to the Thai countryside before I come back to the US.

The Year of the Rooster - 鸡年

 恭喜发财  
Gong Xi Fai Cai

Year of the Rooster

It's almost New Year... again!

In Bangkok, we celebrate three New Year holidays; First of January, Lunar (Chinese) New Year, and Songkran (Thai New Year).

As the Year of the Monkey comes to a close, it's nearly time to enter the Year of the Rooster!

giant lantern at Siam Paragon mall

Specifically, this year is the Year of the Fire Rooster, which last happened in 1957!

According to Chinese tradition, this year should be an auspicious one financially! I certainly hope that's true!

Like the Year of the Goat (my year!) which could be translated to the Year of the Sheep, this year is also called the Year of the Chicken. In fact, I have been calling it the Year of the Chicken, but I think officially in English it should be "rooster".

Chinese shrine at school

 And as always, my school set up a Chinese shrine for the students and teachers to pay their respects. It's fairly subdued this year though, as we are still in mourning. There was no big Chinese show as in the past and even the teachers who did wear silk Chinese shirts today wore black instead of the common bright reds, pinks, and golds as in years past.

Past Rooster Years include 1957 (fire), 1969 (earth), 1981 (gold), 1993 (water), and 2005 (wood)

Photo Gallery: New Year Train to Kanchanaburi (Fujica Test Roll)

Original Post: New Year Train to Kanchanaburi

I am so excited!

For Christmas, my wonderful girlfriend surprised me with a 1970 Fujica Compact 35! She knows I've been having fun with film photography lately, and now I have a "real" camera (not a plastic toy camera) to use!

This camera is retro and awesome!

To test out the camera, she also gave me a roll of Kodak 200 Color Plus film. I took it to Kanchanaburi, where I tried to think back to my high school photography class to remember how things like f-stops work.

Shot on Fujica Compact 35 using Kodak Color Plus ISO 200 film.

I started shooting photos really early in the morning, before our 7:45 train departed from Bangkok along the Death Railway to Kanchanaburi. I was amazed that even in low-light and with a low-speed film like 200, the pictures turned out really well!

train to Kanchanaburi

As we sped west from Bangkok, I snapped a few pictures out the window. We were moving quickly, but I guess this shutter is much faster than the Diana Mini, and the photos didn't blur. In fact, they look really quite crisp!

riding the Death Railway

I carried the Fujica to the Chinese temple in Kanchanaburi too. This shot of the black Buddha may be my favorite from this roll of film. I love how the colors look.

Buddha

I took this picture of the Bridge on the River Kwai from the Chinese temple on the far banks.

Bridge on the River Kwai

This camera seems to take really sharp closeup photos. I am so excited to try it out with some other types of film. I've been thinking of buying a roll of Lomochrome Turquoise to play with.

Chinese ornamentation

This is the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai close up. It was very crowded that day, and I had to wait until the crowds were past to get this picture. The curved spans (pictured here) are originals, built by the POWs during the war. There are two straight spans, which were built after the war to replace the ones destroyed during the Allied bombing campaign.

the bridge

I tried to get some good shots of the Allied War Cemetery in town. Some of the wide range photos of the cemetery didn't turn out so well; they were too bright and washed out. I guess my aperture was set too wide. This one of an Australian headstone developed fairly well though. You can still tell that it's a bit too light, but film is much more forgiving than digital.

Australian gravestone

Surprisingly, even with a slow speed film like ISO 200, it even takes some decent low-light evening shots! This one is the view of downtown Bangkok at dusk from my balcony.

downtown Bangkok

The camera is fifty years old, but it takes some great photos! I'm looking forward to learning how to get the most out of my Fujica! It's a great camera, and I think it can have a really good range with some different films. Next, I'll try to shoot more monochrome! Maybe even some night photography, if I can get a tripod.

I definitely plan to participate in Redscale Month this February. Stay tuned!

Photo Gallery: Kanchanaburi Purple (Lomochrome)

Original Post: Kanchanaburi Revisited

I picked up a really odd roll of film a while back.

Lomochrome Purple is a C-41 film with a green color emulsion which gives the prints weird vibrant red, blue, and purple tones. It's meant to be the spiritual successor to the legendary (and legendarily tricky) Kodak Aerochrome infrared aerial surveillance film, which ceased production a few years back.

Lomography produced only 10,000 rolls of this film, and I got my hands on one. I would, however, like to try another roll sometime, now that I'm more familiar with how it works, and I now have a better camera to try it with!

These photos were shot on a roll of Lomochrome Purple XR 100-400 on my Diana Mini camera.

I took my trusty toy camera with me on my New Year's trip to Kanchanaburi. I got some awesome new cameras for Christmas (photo gallery posts coming soon!) but I had already loaded the purple film into my Diana Mini, so I brought that one along as well.

near the river

I took my camera to a Chinese temple in the town. I wanted to try to shoot somewhere with a lot of red, since the emulsion affects greens, turning them purple, but leaves reds. I wanted to try to find a lot of good contrast, and a Chinese temple, of course, has a lot of red! I like how the grass really turned purple here!

Buddha

This is the big temple building. The trees are kind of dark, but they actually turned purple like I was hoping for!

Chinese Temple

I like what this film does to a blue sky as well! it makes it look bright turquoise.

temple building

This dragon had a lot of red, which really looks great on this film. Shooting at a Chinese temple was a great idea.

Dragon 1

The red colors in this dragon didn't show up quite as much as in the last one. Sometimes Diana Mini doesn't do as well with closeup shots, but this one worked. I guess I was shooting in the shadows, and the colors turned more of a muddy blue. This is still one of my favorite shots from this roll of film.

Dragon 2

This image gave me a lot of good purple. It makes up for the kind of unexciting subject... a pond. Lomochrome certainly isn't an everyday sort of film, but it's fun to play with for sure.

near a pond

 This image almost gave more "true" color, with the blue sky and red temple roofs. It almost has a retro feel, like an old photo from the 70's. I think this is more how this film is supposed to feel. I love the purple tree especially. The composition here isn't great, but I think it better captures more of the range of this film.

temple buildings

I tried to take some photos at Erawan National Park, in fact, that was really my plan with this purple film, but it turns out the film is not so sensitive. You have to find a good balance. Too much light, and the rich purple doesn't really show up, but not enough and your image will be too dark to see anything. At Erawan, we were so deep in the jungle, that none of those pictures really turned out.

This was the only low-light image that developed decently. You can see that things look misty and blue, which is cool, but none of the purple tones developed. This picture was taken early on New Year's morning on the River Kwai.

River Kwai Sunrise

It's an experimental film for sure. I wasn't expecting a whole lot, and I can't say I'm disappointed. It's a weird emulsion, but super fun to shoot, and I was very excited to get my prints back from Asia Slide, my neighborhood photo stop.

I might try to shoot another roll sometime in the future, using a different camera with more settings. Diana Mini is fun, but it is a simple toy camera. I would like to experiment more with the range of this weird, weird film.

They also make a Lomochrome Turquoise. I've looked at some samples online, and I don't love all of what I've seen. It looks too alien, but as an experiment it might be fun to pick up a roll  before it's gone.

School Blessings

The school celebrated it's "birthday" last week, or, more accurately, its anniversary. It's 63rd, I believe.

To mark the occasion, a group of monks from Wat Pho (the Temple of the Reclining Buddha) came to the school to chant and offer blessings.

In the morning, the students made merit by giving offerings to the monks, and the monks blessed the school in a long assembly. The abbot sprinkled holy water over the students and teachers.

Big Cleaning Day

It's that time of year. Those weird weeks between the midterms and the final exams when everything kind of slows down a bit. I don't have any adventures any time soon, so I'll write every once in a while about school stuff.

This Monday was the Big Cleaning Day.

Cleaning Day

Big Cleaning Day is a school tradition in Thailand. The students will take a day to clean up and organize the school. We have a cleaning staff, but I think the purpose of this day is really to build teamwork and school pride.

my team

I was assigned with a Thai teacher to moniter a small group of M5 students to clean up a tiny, kind of hidden parking lot. As it turned out, there was very little to do. We picked up a few pieces of litter in the parking lot and by the school pond.

school pond

This really is a beautiful campus! I don't always get much of a chance to leave the school buildings and appreciate the grounds.

cleaning the basketball court

We were finished in under an hour. The other teams had a lot harder work to do, so I guess we got lucky!

I haven't been a part of this before, but now that I'm a full faculty member, I have a few extra duties to carry out. Anyway, it's kind of fun, and it's an interesting look into the Thai school system.

Mammoth Site National Monument (Waco, TX)

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a long time now! It should have been part of the USA Adventure Special, but I couldn't find where I had saved these pictures. I've had a lot more time to update my blog lately, and I'm finally able to catch up on some cool stuff from last year!

arrival at the Mammoth Site

Last spring, while I was in Waco for the annual new teacher orientation, I had a few days between meetings, and took the time to visit some of my favorite places from my years in Waco. I love that city! One day, my future brother-in-law and I drove a few minutes out of town to the Mammoth Site, a dig site and newly made national monument run by the US National Park Service. I wanted to go for years when I was living in Waco, but never made it out there.

mammoth bones

 The City of Waco and Baylor University have been working on the site since its discovery in the 1970s. In 2015 it was designated a National Monument by President Obama, and it now receives federal funding to continue its operation. So far the bones of 24 Columbian mammoths (the largest type of mammoth) from 68,000 years ago have been uncovered, including a nursery.

the dig site

This is the world's largest collection of Columbian mammoth bones. The Columbian mammoth could grow to the size of four elephants, and ate nothing but grass all day long. Besides the mammoths, there is also the remains of a sabertooth cat and an ancient camel.

The site is run by rangers, like a national park, and even has its own national park passport stamp, although I don't have a US park passport... yet!

Columbian Mammoth

Waco really is a cool city. After spending several years there, I really got to know it. I miss Waco, and I'm always glad to go back to visit it every year. Now that my brother and sister are living down there, I'll be glad to have more chances to visit every year when I'm back in the US.

Brazos River from Cameron Park

 And of course, in the springtime, I might get the chance to see some Texas bluebonnets! My girlfriend will be visiting America with me for the first time this spring. I hope we get so lucky as to arrive when the bluebonnets are blooming.

Texas Bluebonnets

Learn more:

http://www.waco-texas.com/cms-waco-mammoth/
https://www.nps.gov/waco/index.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_Mammoth_National_Monument