Wat Arun

Walking to the west from Wat Pho down what appears to be a dead-end street lined with hawkers and food stands over a tiny footbridge and through a small open-air market building, one comes to the edge of the Mae Nam Chao Phraya, the big river that runs through Bangkok. Across the river is another small but famous wat, Wat Arun, named after the Indian god of dawn, Aruna. A small rickety ferry will take you across for 3 baht, about a dime.

 
Wat Arun, taken from a ferry like the one in the foreground. From here the structure looks like granite, but when you get close to it you see that it is covered in intricate mosaic tiles.

 
Lonely Planet says "The 82m prang (Khmer-style tower) was constructed during the first half of the 19th century by Rama II and Rama III. The unique design elongates the typical Khmer prang into a distinctly Thai shape. Its brick core has a plaster covering embedded with a mosaic of broken, multihued Chinese porcelain, a common temple ornamentation in the early Ratanokosin period, when Chinese ships calling at Bangkok used tonnes of old porcelain as ballast."

 
The stairs are very steep. The upper parts are closed to the public.

 
Back down on the river, the waters are crowded with small boats, mostly private tourist boats like this one, that are chartered by tourists for more lengthy exploration of Bangkok's extensive river and canal system.

 
As we floated by this one, I notice that it was not a charter boat but rather a floating pub.

Wat Pho

 
Across the street to the south of the Grand Palace complex is another very famous maze of chedi, shrines, and statues. This wat is known as Wat Pho.

 
The most famous monument here is this enormous golden Reclining Buddha.

 
This is the back of him, his head resting on two gold cushions. Check out his corkscrew perm!
 
All along the backside of this Buddha is a row of pots, I'd guess about 200 of them. The faithful walk along the row and drop a coin in each one. You can hear the plink-pli-plink-p-pli-plink-plink well before you come around this corner.

 
Some more 20-foot-high guard figures. Nice top hats, guys!

 
There are hundreds of Buddha figures all around Wat Pho, both inside and outside. This is the largest indoor shrine.

 
The number of colorful chedi here was striking.

Wat Phra Kaew

 
Situated next to the Grand Palace about 15 minutes' walk to the southwest from Khao San Road, Wat Phra Kaew is the most famous temples in Thailand. The weather was cloudy and hazy today, so these pictures are even more insufficient that they normally would be to convey the enormity of this place and the brilliant designs and colors this place has to offer.

 
The grounds are really a maze of statues, chedi (stupas), small shrines, and five larger structures, all surrounded by an ornate outer wall. The Upper Terrace holds four of the large structures, as the brochure says "a reliquary in the shape of a golden chedi; the Mondop, a repository for Buddhist sacred scriptures inscribed on palm leaves, contained within a beautiful mother-of-pearl inlaid cabinet; a miniature Angkor Wat crafted by the order of King Mongkut (Rama IV); and the Royal Pantheon in which statues of past sovereigns of the ruling Chakri dynasty are enshrined."

 
Offerings for sale. For a nominal fee, you can dip one of these lotus blossoms in some water and bonk yourself on the head.

 
There are a lot of these huge guards, of varying color, two at each gate. I come up to about mid-calf on this guy, I guess.

 
The two larger structures are the Phra Mondop (left) and the Royal Pantheon.

 
The Royal Pantheon is surrounded by all kinds of statues of mythological beings.

 
These guys are holding up a golded chedi. Lots of tourists were taking pictures of each others in front of this doing the same pose as the statues.

 
The entire inside surface of the outer wall of the complex is covered in one big mural telling the Thai version of the life of Buddha.

 
These vulture-like statues surround the fifth and most important structure on the site, the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha. You are not allowed to take pictures inside, but I snapped the following photo through the crowded doorway.

 

The brochure says of this site, "North of the royal residence and linked by a connecting gateway lies the Royal Monastery of the Emerald Buddha, one of the most venerated sites in Thailand where people convene to pay respect to the Lord Buddha and His Teachings. The Emerald Buddha is enshrined on a golden traditional Thai-style throne made of gilded-carved wood, known as a Busabok, in the ordination hall of the royal monastery. The sacred image is clad with one of the three seasonal costumes (summer, rainy season, and winter). The costumes are changed three times a year in a ceremony presided over by His Majesty the King.

The Emerald Buddha is in fact carved from a block of green jade and was first discovered in 1434 in a stupa in Chiang Rai (far north Thailand). At that time the image was covered with plaster and was thought to be an ordinary Buddha image. Later, however, the abbot who had found the image noticed that the plaster on the nose had flaked off, revealing the green stone. The abbot initially thought that the stone was emerald and thus the legend of the Emerald Buddha image began.

The image was later taken to Lampang where it remained until King Tilok of Lannathai moved it to Chiang Mai, his capital, where it was fittingly enshrined. In 1552 an interruption occurred in the Lannathai line of succession. King Chaichettha of Luang Prabang, who was the son of a Chiang Mai princess and a Laotian king was invited to fill the gap. However, after a relatively short reign he returned to Laos to succeed his father's throne, taking with him the Emerald Buddha. The image remained in Laos for 226 years until 1779 when a Thai army under the command of Chao Phraya Chakri, who later became King Rama I, captured Vientiane, the Laotian capital, and the image was brought back to Thailand. When King Rama I had built the city of Bangkok, the Emerald Buddha was housed within the Royal Monastery with due pomp and ceremony.

 

Outside the front of the monastery there were a lot of offerings for sale, candles and incense being burned, and people praying.

Wat Phra Kaew is on the same grounds as the Grand Palace, which also has a great deal of interesting Thai architecture, but as most of it was under roof restoration, I didn't get any outstanding pictures there.

Thanon Khao San

 
Street vendors setting up their carts for the morning.

 
A row of tuk-tuks lining up to hassle tourist for the day. They taxi people around town at rip-off prices, unless you speak Thai, of course. They are also quite apt to change your destination midway because they would rather drop you off at a jeweler's shop or a tailor who will pay them a commision for delivering tourists there.

 
A noodle vendor. Her spring rolls were delicious.

Krung Thep

Well, after having my flight out of Nagoya canceled because of snow and sleeping the night on the floor in the airport, I finally arrived in Thailand and got checked into a hotel, took a shower, and all that stuff. No pictures yet, since I literally just got here, but I'll post them when I have them. For now I'm staying in an old hotel in the backpacker's haven known as Khao San Road, located in the Banglamphu district of a modern metropolis, the real name of which is, in Thai, Krungthep mahanakhon amonratanokosin mahintara ayuthaya mahadilok popnopparat ratchathani burirom udomratchaniwet mahasathan amonpiman avatansathit sakkathattiya witsanukamprasit.

According to my Lonely Planet book the name means, roughly, "Great City of Angels, Repository of Divine Gems, Great Land Unconquerable, Grand and Prominent Realm, Royal and Delightful Capital City Full of Nine Noble Gems, Highest Royal Dwelling and Grand Palace, Divine Shelter and Living Place of Reincarnated Spirits." Quite a mouthful. Luckily, in everyday speech, the Thais shorten it to Krung Thep, "City of Angels." For some reason foreigners always refer to this city by mispronouncing the name of a very small old neighborhood within the city known as "The Place of Olive Plums" , or Bang Makok, which of course you and I know as Bangkok.

From the makers of Black Black comes...

 

Seiko SR-M4000

 So after losing my electronic Japanese dictionary and going a month without one, I have bought a new one and recommenced my studies. It is maddening how quickly you can forget a kanji if you don't use it all the time... Also, the Japanese class that I keep talking about joining has now been put off until after New Year's because the others are taking a break. I'm looking forward to that, but it's just a grammar class. I also really need more speaking practice. The 2-minute-long conversations I have at school are not really getting me anywhere, so I need to find some good conversation partners...

PC Danado

Sorry to keep you waiting. My computer had some kind of nervous breakdown, but it seems to be marginally okay now, albeit slower than it was. Time to reinstall Windows, perhaps.

Seldom Asked Questions about Japan, here.

Sankyuu

 
The new Thank You building has gone up behind Zaza City East. In Japanese, the numbers 3 and 9 are pronounced san and kyuu, which together sound exactly the same way many Japanese prounounce Thank You when trying to speak English. I've recently heard rumor that there is a chain of grocery stores in Kagoshima called Sankyuu with affiliated liquor stores called Berry Machi. (Very much = berry town)

Groovy Gravy

Cold outside. Tejano Christmas music in a pub that sells square sesame-mango-cashew pizza. A small Christmas tree with french fry, catsup, & Mickey Mouse ornaments. A functional Mr. Peanut nutcracker underneath, with a can of diced tomatos sitting on its top hat. A lava lamp is still warming up. About 5 bucks for a bowl of imitation Doritos. Same for a beer. An electric ET doll holding a tiny box of cereal. Maybe that one guy is eastern European. Looks bored. A special machine that jiggles poured glasses of canned Guinness to make them look like draughts. A talking clock. A Japanese guy is talking about aviation. Another Friday in the neighborhood...