close up picture of my partially eaten mooncake

In celebration of Mid-Autumn festival, I was given two boxes of mooncakes(4perbox). I cannot read the packaging so I had no idea what was inside each one. The night of the full moon my roommate and I decided to have a taste testing party. These are the remains after the party. As you can probably tell, we didn't really like them. The varities included; egg yolk, white sesame seed with some kind of fruit and nut, some other kind of fruit and nut with meat I think, chocolate and fig, and honey cream. I will just have to say that though they look pretty, I will pass next year.

Close up view of the mooncakes sold in the market.

September 18th this year is Mid-Autumn Festival centered around the full moon. Because the celebration is about the moon, everything moon-shaped is used to celebrate this occasion. Though the people say it is about the moon, it seems that it is rather about the moon-shaped cake. Every street is lined with people selling boxes of mooncakes (very dense biscuits with a wide assortment of fillings). It is tradition to give mooncakes to people for this holiday and then you give away the ones you get. I really wonder how many billion mooncakes are bought and given during the month of September, and how many are thrown away uneated. This picture is in the market, selling individually wrapped mooncakes.

Chicken Anatomy

I made a very fun discovery today that was two-fold. An American friend had shown me a place to buy boneless chicken breasts, so I set out early this morning to buy some. This particular market is far from my apartment so I decided to try a closer market on the way. To my glee, just past the tables where dogs were being sold, was a table of freshly harvested chicken breasts. Nice plump ones too! They still had a little bit of skin on them and a little bit of bone, but other than that, beautiful! No more pork! Ok, so here is the second part of my discovery. . . As I was cleaning and deboning the chicken I noticed that there was an extra part that kind of resembled a chicken tender, you know, with the white tissue running through. Now many of you may already know this, but I always thought that they just cut up the breast to make the tenders. But, as I examined it more closely, I discovered that the tender is a separate part that comes off easily when you cut away the remaining bone. So, I ended up buying breasts and tenders for the price of one. (Acutaly I paid by the kg so I paid for the tenders, but that is not the point). I am so thankful for chicken! I As I write this my Italian Chicken is baking in the oven :))

You Know You've Been in Asia Too Long When. . .

I'm sure that there are many things that could go under this title, but I have to talk about the one that I never would have imagined myself doing. It is a common expectation of mine that when I enter a public restroom I will find a squatty, but since moving to a larger city, I have found that I sometimes have a choice. A few months ago I was presented with the choice of using a squatty or a Western. After considering the benefits of both, sanitary reasons won out and I used the squatty. A few weeks later I chose to wait in line for the squatty instead of using the available Western. Now if my nose hasn't gone flat in your mind already, the real climax came when I went to McDonald's last week. There was a long line for the squatty and two open stalls with Western toilets. So, as my Western duty, I walked into the Western stall only to find footprints on the seat (people here stand on toilets because they don't like to sit on them). Naturally my first reaction was, "I'm not going to sit on that!" So, I died my hair black, squinted my eyes, and stood on the toilet seat. Ok, so I still look American (or Russian from the perspective of many Asian people), but I had to laught at myself. It turned out not to be too difficult, but don't worry, I don't plan to be standing on any toilets when I am back in the USA.

With the family infront of their house. They have one more little girl but she didn't get to skip school.

The women in their villages make all of their own clothing. The mother here is making fabric for a shirt similar to the one she is wearing.

Thailand is a no platform culture, everyone sleeps and sits on the floor. You take your shoes off before you go inside and it is very clean. In this picture she is wearing her traditional outfit, cool and simple. She is shy, so no smile yet.

I had the oppotunity to visit my sponsored child who lives in a village in the mountains of Thailand. This is a picture with some of her classmates. I got to see her school and then she skipped class so that she could spend time with me.