Temple Time

     The other day after work two of the physical therapists took me to their temple to make offerings. Before heading down to the Buddhist temple we stopped to eat some rice and shrimp soup (this is important because during this story I consider it dinner number 1). At the temple we made a donation and recieved flowers, incense, and some gold in return. After lighting the incense we were praying and I almost lit the flower on fire...opps. after lighting a candle, some inecnse, and praying we pressed the gold flakes onto different statues that were around the temple. If you had somethinhg that was troubling you or that you needed advice about then you went into this seperate room in the middle of the temple. The whole building was very ornate but this center room was especially so. Upon entering the "advice room" you kneeled and bowed three times. There were red tubes filled with sticks around the room. While praying you would shake up the sticks. After two fell out you added up the numbers on them and went to the wall. There you selected the fortune that your sticks corresponded with. The whole process was a bit to complicated for me to understand enough to participate in at the time. So I can not say whether or not the fortune held true for me, but maybe I will try it next time.

     After this we went to another restaurant for dinner. I wasn't very hungry but I thought I ate a good amount of food. I had been out to eat with these ladies a few times in the past. On this occasion they inquired as to why I never eat very much. They heard Americans eat a lot so they were surprised by my eating habits. Now anybody who knows me knows that I do more than my fair share of eating, so this comment surprised me quite a bit. Truth be told, I think Thai people eat just as much if not more than Americans. Sure their portions are little smaller, but they eat all the time! I didn't know how to break the news to them so I just told them that I snacked a lot. Sorry if I am making a bad impression but at this point I am pretty sure that they think most Americans don't eat eat, are often red faced, sniffle frequently, and drink tons of water.

    Everybody here is really nice though. The hardest part about meeting people is definitely remmebering their names and the correct pronunciation. Nobody has middle names here and on my ID it has my full name, Amanda Rose Lazaro, so now a lot of Thai people call me Amanda Rose because they think that is just my first name. I guess it could be worse. All Thai people have nicknames that they predominantly go by. These are given at birth by the parents and are usually random English words like Candy, View, Placebo, Pig, or Fat.

   As a side note there are a lot of very talented female motorcyle passengers. I saw one earlier today sitting side saddle, holding a baby, talking on the phone, and drinking a tea! 

One of the physical therapists stopped on the way to the temple to get this fruit for me to try. I think that it is called Tembruat. It tasted like a combination between a mango and a raisin.