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.

I went back to my old city with my parents. This is the sunset from our hotel window. Isn't it beautiful? I could never see the sunset from my house.