A Birthday Adventure - Genie

It's official, guys. I am over 1/4 of the way to 100!

My birthday was a raging success. Have I mentioned that I have fantastic friends? Amanda, Roxi, and I blew this day out of the park - literally and metaphorically. We went to a park.

My birthday fell on the same day it usually does, July 16th. However, the largest Buddhist holiday of the year managed to rotate itself onto my birthday. Many people think the holiday was Buddha's birthday. However, those people are wrong. If you do your research, you'll find that the holiday is the anniversary of the first sermon after the Buddha's enlightenment. July 16th was this holiday and July 17th was the start of Buddhist Lent.

This made my birthday Buddhist Mardi Gras.

School was cancelled.

Everyone was celebrating.

Unlike Mardi Gras, there was no alcohol (unless you were smart like us and pre-bought it!).

We started the morning bright and shining by picking up Roxi and heading out for an English breakfast. We all ordered Thai breakfasts. Oops? During breakfast, Roxi gave me an adorable card, chocolate Ritz crackers, an adorable rainbow pen, and a new personal menthol dispenser. (They're a staple in Thailand for when it smells bad, you uncap it and smell the lovely smells of peppermint and menthol.)

Iced coffees in hand, we headed off for the first real adventure of the day: Sala Kaew Ku. (Pronounced sah-lah kay-oh-koo). I linked to it so you can read all about the history on your own if you'd like.

It's a giant park that is also a sculpture garden. The sculptures are enormous and gorgeous. They're made of cement blocks and concrete and were carved by a man starting in the 1960's. He originally started the project in Laos, but moved to Thailand when the Lao War for Independence started.

During this time, the temperature rose to 108F (feels like 120F) and by the time we had been there for three hours, all three of us were in various states of melting. We headed into the main museum building (all open-air, don't even dream about air conditioning) to see the MUMMY OF THE MAN WHO MADE THIS PLACE.

Now, if I said we were heading in to see a mummy and you didn't know this man started this project in the 1960's, you'd think this mummy was ancient? Right? I kind of forgot that it was 1996 when he died and was mummified. Linnea was alive when this happened.

Roxi wasn't though. She's still an infant.

This is as close as we could get to the mummy. He was decked out in Christmas's Finest Lights.

This is what the artist looked like pre-mummy.

Onto less morbid things, here are some pictures of the actual sculpture garden:

Yes, that is a dog riding a moped.

A seven-headed naga.

You can hardly tell it felt like 120 degrees!

Ok, so maybe you can tell.

IT WAS REALLY HOT WE ARE DOING OUR BEST.

There were also a number of fish ponds where we could buy a loaf of old bread for 25B and feed it to fish and turtles. This might have been my favorite part... 

After we were done sweating our body weight at the sculpture garden, we got back on the moped and headed back off for the Nong Khai Aquarium!

For some reference, this is what we look like when we go on adventures. We put three adults on my tiny little moped. This moped is a CHAMP. We consistently call this "three girls; one moped". Yes, I am always driving (I'm the only one who knows how to drive a moped.). 

We max out on the bike around 25-30kph with all of us on there and this is how far we went over the course of the day. 

1/5: Our Apartment

2: Sculpture Garden

3: Aquarium

4: PP's Restaurant

Nothing says exciting like taking a selfie while driving on a highway going way slower than the rest of traffic being 19/10 a tourist.

In total, we spent a couple hours simply driving around. I have no complaints about it. I had a very sore butt and I believe both Roxi and Amanda's feet fell asleep because there aren't convenient foot rests when we're sitting like this. However, we feel we've about mastered Three Girls; One Moped.

The aquarium was fantastic. I definitely understand why my students all said to go once and that's all you'll need. It was small and very well laid out. It had many fishes that were native to the MeKong river and a selection of endangered species from the area. It was very Thailand-centric and that was delightful. We weren't there to see the fish we've all seen before and the selection of fish that were there looked like things I've never seen before. (And some looked like they came right out of a horror movie.)

We got there just in time for a feeding and we got a fantastic vantage point for it. A man in full scuba gear jumped into the largest tank and fed bananas to fish for about 30 minutes. 

You can't tell in this picture, but for reference, this fish is about as big as Amanda.

This fish and I are best friends now. We had a moment and ended up spending like 5 minutes talking.

This was the main tank during feeding time. The man is making the bubbles.

After we got done at the aquarium, we headed off for dinner. 

Ok. I won't lie. We all headed back to the apartment real quick for a shower and a change of clothes. 

AND THEN WE WENT TO DINNER.

It was the three of us and another teacher from PTK named Sean. We've mentioned him before, but he's the English teacher for the other program at PTK. And as we were discussing it was my birthday that day, he dropped the bomb that IT WAS ALSO HIS BIRTHDAY.

We decided against BBQ as it was still outrageously hot even at 7pm. We all got our favorites from the menu and I ate my weight in fish salad! We also got fried fish, kaogee (rice patties dipped in egg and then lightly fried until the egg is cooked), and the PP surprised us all by getting Sean and me a traditionally Thai birthday cake. 

A Thai birthday cake is like no birthday cake you've ever had.

Note the spelling of Genie's name to Genee...I think it's adorable.

It's essentially layers of very thick jello. The white tastes like coconut and the other slices taste like mystery almost fruit? 

This was one of those times where all four of us agreed that it was the sentiment that mattered. It was one of the sweetest gestures I've seen in Thailand. PP was so excited to bring us this birthday cake that none of us complained about eating a large slice each.

And PP had no objections when I gave him a second large slice.

I don't think his mother appreciated this. But I'm the fun friend and don't have to put him to bed. ;)

After dinner we dropped Roxi back off at her apartment and headed back to ours. After another shower, I think we were both asleep before our heads hit the pillow (but after we turned on the air conditioning!). 

I think this birthday constituted as a solid 26/10.