The Answers to the fruit game

Alright, I've left you waiting long enough; I'll give you the answers to the name that fruit and you can see how well you did...

1. The King of the Tropics: coconut. It has so many wonderful uses: a refreshing drink, a tasty snack, delicious milk (used in so many Thai dishes), a topic for desserts, and many uses around the house (such as bowls, utensils, decorations, and jewelry).

2. Dragonfruit: There are two varieties, one is white on the inside with tons of tiny black seeds, my favorite is the bright fuchsia inside. Tasty and juicy.

3. Rambutans: I first knew them as mamon chinos in Costa Rica, but apparently they are called rambutans. For those of you who watch veggie tales, I'm pretty sure that the dancing aliens in "Where's God when I'm scared" are rambutans. You crack them open to reveal a white, semi see-through inside.

4. I actually don't know the English name for this fruit. They are called "salat" in Thai. They are really sour!

5. Pomelo: the mother of all grapefruit. I don't know if I can ever go back to regular grapefruit again. Pomelos are huge, for one thing, but they're sweet and fun to eat. I will miss pomelo when we leave Thailand.

6. Longans are my new favorite fruit. They look like oversized, brown grapes, but you actually have to peel them individually. It's another white fruit, but they are sweet and tangy and they melt in your mouth. Yum!

7. Mangosteens are possibly the most exotic fruit here. Also white on the inside (what a surprise), they are so rich that you can eat them by themselves for dessert.

8. And last, but certainly not least, durian, the Thai national fruit. As Jack from small group says: "If you can get past the smell, texture, and flavor, it's not so bad." But the Thais love it, for some reason. It's funny that they would choose the durian as their national fruit, but they actually will not allow you to take it to school, on buses or in taxis, and in most public places....

There you go! There are many more, some of which we still haven't tried, but at least now you get a feel for what we see every time we walk out the door or go to the market.

Name that Fruit

Let's play a game of "Name that Tropical Fruit." Test your knowledge of all things random and see how many you can recognize... if any. If not, you can use the Internet and try to find the answers. I'll post them in a few days. Have fun!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Birthday Week

It's official: I'm 24 years old. And believe it or not, this was my very first birthday away from my family (except for my dear hubby, of course). Most people experience this in college or something, but I have been fortunate enough to always see my family on my birthday until now, so that was pretty sad for me, but thanks to John, we made it through. Since my actual birthday fell on a school night, we didn't really do much until this weekend.

On Saturday, after work, we got together with two couples and had a fondue party. Three of them are our co-workers, and one is the husband of a co-worker. Us three girls have been planning this for a while. Shooka (the other Kindergarten 2 teacher) and I are both lovers of everything French. In fact, I have started giving her private French lessons once a week after school. So we thought the idea of fondue was wonderful. Ruth and Ricky (the Christian couple from school) loved the idea as well. So, we had cheese fondue with potatoes, chicken, bread, broccoli and cauliflower, followed much later by chocolate fondue with tons of fruit and cookies. It was awesome!! Shooka is from Iran, and is married to a Thai man who worked in Iran for several years, so their house is beautifully decorated with Persian things; it was a fun night.

Shooka and her awesome Persian cat

Clockwise: Ruth, Shooka's husband, Shooka, and I hope you know who the two on the right are. Ricky was taking the picture.

Then today, we went to church in the morning, and then John took me into downtown Bangkok for a surprise date. After kind of a struggle following the GPS' directions on the motorbike, we arrived at our destination: Crepes and Co.! What a treat!!! It's a real creperie run by a Swiss-Bulgarian restauranteur, and it is totally authentic. It took me back to my childhood memories of crepes in Paris. John and I shared two savory crepes: Ham, Cheese, and Egg,

and Bacon, Mushrooms, and Gruyere.

They were incredible!! I don't even like mushrooms and I was savoring every bite. After a while, we got a dessert crepe as well: pears, chocolate ice cream, and pear sauce, followed by the best coffee we've had in Thailand. Thanks to my wonderful husband for such a thoughtful Birthday present!! :)

Oh, and here's a photo of my class. Keep in mind that half of my class (literally, I counted) was sick this week, so there were six kids absent this day.

And a cute picture of some of the boys.

The boy on the left is Ikkyu (try to pronounce that), he is a cute boy but already prone to peer pressure. Number 2 is Top: he's a trouble-maker, maybe you can tell from the picture. :) The third one is Kong: a great kid who is being trained to be the class leader. I call him "my little man" because he looks and acts like a grown-up already. And the one of the right is Film (pronounced Feem). I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but he is. Hands down. He was in uniform that day because he was sick and joined us half-way through the day.

The Kingdom of Cambodia

Due to a very unpleasant mistake on the part of our old school, we had visa issues and had to quickly leave the country this week. We flew to Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Tuesday afternoon, and flew back to Bangkok on Wednesday. It was a very expensive day off, that's for sure, and sadly we had to foot the bill (Thanks a lot, Saint Francis School), but it was nice to get away for a night (and cool to get the Cambodia stamp in our Passports.)

After a half-day of work on Tuesday, we got to the airport, boarded the plane, and after an hour, we landed in Cambodia. We booked a random hotel on expedia, which turned out to be really nice. Right off the bat, we were amazed at how well everyone speaks English in Phnom Penh. Although it is a poorer, less developed country than Thailand, the amount of people who speak at least passable English is much higher. People were very helpful and kind, and we really enjoyed our night there. Our hotel happened to be connected with a French restaurant, so on Tuesday night, we had a wonderful French dinner on the roof: French onion soup, red snapper and crepe Suzette. Yum! We loved how much quieter and darker this city was compared to Bangkok.

The next morning, we slept in (a novelty now that we work six days a week and go to church on the seventh), and went for a nice walk around the neighborhood. Our hotel was in what appeared to be the Korean district of town, so we naturally stopped in for a Korean lunch, made by real Koreans. Nikki would be very proud of us for using our three Korean phrases: Anyeonghaseyo, Kamsa hamnida, and Mashisoyo (Hello, Thank you, and It's delicious). I could even read a couple of items from the menu thanks to my self-taught Korean alphabet lesson back in May 2010.

We also found an awesome, very Portland-ish style coffee shop to chill for a couple of hours. I got a spiced Indian tea, and John got a coffee brewed with beans from Lao.

We enjoyed walking through the city. There are a ton of parks, and a lot less pollution than we are used to in Bangkok.

Prayer Request: Please pray for John. Over the past weeks, he has had three random, non-connected foot injuries. Today, while playing football with some teachers from school, he completely ripped off his big toe nail, and he's in a lot of pain. Don't worry, I won't post pictures, but if you could pray for a quick recovery, that would be great!

Our New Friends

Here are the pictures that I promised in the last post... Since last year, we didn't post very many pictures of our friends (granted, we didn't have that many, except for our small group and a few people at school), so this year, we have resolved to do better and so far, I think we have succeeded.

First things first, here is a picture of our small group. We have been with them for almost the whole time we've been here, and they have truly been a lifeline. We thank God for sending them to us! A couple of guys are missing in this pic.

Next, we have our friends Ruth and Ricky. They are a Christian couple at our new school; Ruth is from the US, but grew up all over the place, like me, and Ricky is from the Philippines. We had them over for dinner and introduced Ricky to his first ever fajitas (which he loved, BTW).

Here is Alan, the Spanish boy we tutor.

And here are three of our co-workers. We had them over for dinner the weekend before last, and had a fun time and some great conversation. The one on the right, Tiffany, then went with us last Sunday to our church and to a food exhibition in the neighborhood where we used to live. Oh yeah, and here's the motorcycle.

PS: I love how this post makes us look like social people which, uncharacteristically, we have been recently...