Day 295

These were painted around town.

Day 294

This is what we've been looking at every day for the last week. :-)

It's Kangchenjunga, the highest peak in India and third highest in the world.

Day 293

Went to the Happy Valley Tea Estate today to learn a little about the tea making process. They provide tea for Harrod's and it's an all organic tea plantation. Also, it was beautiful.

Day 292

We've seen lots of dogs up here, and this is not the first one we've seen in this exact position.

Day 291

I thought these 2 ladies and little girl were so cute. This is the Asian Black Bear (a very goofy looking bear, by the way) at the zoo up here, which is the highest altitude zoo in the world!

Day 290

Lots of prayer flags around here, we're right between Nepal and Bhutan.

This is at the monastery that our new Buddhist nun friend, Kay from Scotland, is staying at for the next month doing solitary meditation.

Day 289

Made some hot toddies since we've both been a little sick.

Day 288

Driving around Jaipur seeing the sights with Max our rickshaw driver.

Day 287

Christmas Eve dinner at the hotel!

Day 286

Our train from Agra to Jaipur was 8 hours late so instead of staying at the train station until 2am we took a car to Jaipur. We were happy to arrive at our hotel and get upgraded from a standard room to a deluxe room!

Day 285

Taj Mahal!

Day 284

Close up at Qutb Minar.

Day 283

Red Fort, Old Delhi!

Day 282

India! We're here!

Day 281

Nearly empty BTS! I like how they don't close off each train car, so you can look all the way down.

Day 280

I don't think this has been mentioned yet here, but we have a terribly uncomfortable couch (and bed) in our apartment. This is it, not much cushion. Our chairs also aren't very comfortable so we bought these superman seat cushions and move them between our chairs and the couch. Our bed though, just gives us both sore backs. We're excited about our likely move downtown in the next couple months and finding a place with a comfy bed and furniture (apartments generally come furnished).

Day 279

The walk home on my last day of work!

The park from some of my other pictures is on the other side of that fence on the right.

Day 278

Lunch! Pictures recently have been pretty boring, sorry about that. Not much going on here. We leave for India on Monday though, so they'll get more exciting soon!

A couple notes about lunch today, most of the fac/staff are on a meditation retreat right now, there are only 4 of us on campus. This is chicken pad thai (pad thai gai) I picked up (gin ti baan -- eat at home; there's a different way to say "to go" but I'm not exactly sure what it is, it kind of sounds like the word "cyclone") at the girls dorm. This coffee is from the girls dorm too, as far as I can tell when you order "coffee" here, it's assumed to be iced and with lots of sugar and sweetened condensed milk. I like it, but it is pretty sweet.

Unfortunately, a couple minutes after I started eating my kindle told me it was low on battery and died. No reading with lunch today, so here I am! By the way, the pad thai was 35 baht ($1.12) and the coffee was 8 baht ($0.26). Oh, and that little packet has chili flakes (I use the whole packet!) and sugar. Sugar is always a condiment at tables here, and a lot of people put sugar all over their food. I don't.

Day 277

View of campus from my desk at work.

Day 276

Girls dorm! This is where I eat lunch most days at work.

Also, I counted those planters (from yesterday's post) and there are 91! Way more than 50!

Day 275

These separate the street/driveway of our apartment complex. There must be at least 50 of these running up and down the street. They've all started flowering recently with bougainvillea. This one is the last one (we live on the last street) and only has the one flower, but some of the others have tons of white, light pink, and bright pink branches growing.

Day 274

The cable company thinks my name is CRISTAL (STER) OGLETREE.

Day 273

Beautiful afternoon walking around the park.

Day 272

I wonder what these will become. Also, it was very hot and sunny today, must have been at least 90. I thought December and January were supposed to be the coolest months here!

Day 271

A nice gift from one of the parents at DSIL, they gave one to each teacher.

Commemorative Banknote on the Auspicious Occasion of His Majesty the King's 7th Cycle Birthday Anniversary
5th December 2011

Day 270

I get cold at work, so I drink a lot of tea. Also, I like using the cute mugs.

Thanks to Jordan for letting me use her camera again! Jacob is out of town and he takes our little camera with him so he can show me what he did when he gets back. Also, I just like Jordan's camera. :-)

Day 269

Two pictures today, I know, crazy! I've been playing around with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom so I wanted to show the original picture I took this afternoon and then the same picture after editing in Lightroom. I pretty much never edit photos, but I just got Photoshop and Lightroom so I figured I should probably start playing around with them.

Original:

After Lightroom:

FYI - In Lightroom I used the "Color Creative - Yesteryear 1" Lightroom Preset, then also changed: exposure, fill light, brightness, contrast, clarity, vibrance and saturation settings.

Day 268

Today is the King's birthday! Happy Birthday!

FYI, the King's name is Bhumibol Adulyadej. He's turning 84, which is especially auspicious because it marks the completion of his 7th 12-year cycle. He's reigned for 65 years. Also, his birthday is Father's Day and the Queen's birthday is Mother's Day.

Day 267

Went apartment hunting downtown today... potential future dinner spots?

Day 266

Thai oreos!

Day 265

This is what I see every morning walking down the stairs in my apartment building.

Day 264

Grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner! Not the best I've ever had, but I'll take what I can get.

Day 263

We're going to India! Yay for my passport getting more interesting! :-)

Day 262

Watercolor rainbows with Archana, Joy, Nina and Jordan in our Art Workshop this morning! We also sang songs :-)

I used Jordan's (she's on the right, closest to the camera) nice camera to take this picture, thanks Jordan!

Day 261

This is the stall where we get our bà-mèe nám!

Day 260

We found bagels in Bangkok! And they were delicious! This place seems great, we'll be coming back. It's called BKK Bagel Bakery and just opened up this year.

Day 259

Stanford Professor Paulo Blikstein came to DSIL to give a talk. It was really interesting, about the use of technology in Constructionist education, really good ideas but in my short time at DSIL seem difficult to implement (at least in a bilingual setting with younger children).

Day 258

Learned how to use Google SketchUp yesterday and today at work. Look what I made!

Day 257

Happy Thanksgiving! :-)

Over dinner we calculated what, exactly, made up our dinner. This is what we came up with:
‎3 lbs of cheese, 18 potatoes, 3 lbs of butter, 3 packs of green beans, 1 lb bacon, 1.5 lbs macaroni, .5 gallon milk, 4.5 cups cups flour, 2 boxes stuffing, half a pumpkin, 2 cans cranberry sauce, 2 whole chickens, 1 kilo japanese potatoes, 12 apples, 1 package hidden valley ranch, 1 liter coke, 1 liter fanta, tradition, and 9 food comas.

L-R: Jacob, Cristal, Joy, Matt, Shae, Christina, Nina, Megan

Day 256

Went on a shopping trip downtown with some of the teachers for Thanksgiving supplies for tomorrow, but look what else I got!! Tortillas, extra sharp cheddar, and avocados! These things make me very happy. :-)

Day 255

Looks like our little Tesco Express really likes Heineken. More likely though, they just haven't been able to receive any other shipments.

Day 254

Dorms at KMUTT as seen from the 5th floor of school.

Day 253

Just hanging out at the park again... we had to keep changing benches because the sun kept finding us and it was really hot!

Day 252

Lazy Saturday watching some I Love Lucy!

Day 251

A balcony garden next door.

Day 250

So glad we got these before moving!

Day 249

Learning how to use Scratch at work!

Day 248

Walking around town there are always trees with ribbons tied around them like this. A quick google search told me that they're offerings to the spirits that live there, and that different colors have different meanings.

Along the line of colors, not sure if I've mentioned this before but lots of people wear yellow on Mondays and pink on Tuesdays. This is in honor of the king and queen. Each day has a color associated with it, the queen was born on a Monday and the color for Monday is yellow, so lots of people wear it. Same for pink and Tuesdays, the day the king was born. I like Tuesdays because my work uniform top is pink, and I match with everyone!

Day 247

The two puppies that made me smile today at the park. (And miss Copper!)