Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Ending Blog Questions Part 1 of 2 - Food and Excursions

Food

Compare meals abroad to meals in the U.S.  (meal times, structure, etiquette, portion size, etc). 

There weren't many scheduled group meals to hold us to a local time - for the most part, Gabe and I ate at the same times we were used to, and food was available pretty much whenever we wanted it. As for etiquette, the program director did warn us that tipping was standard, but at a much lower rate than in the U.S. Sharing is more common, something I noticed especially with desserts and lighter dishes, which, even though we never asked for it, would often come with a second utensil for whichever of us - Gabe or me - hadn't ordered it. I didn't note anything too different about portion sizes, which really just seemed to depend on the type of dish and mostly fit within the range I was used to.

Where do you eat most of your meals?

There was a cafe in the hostel where we ate for most of the first couple weeks, since it was right downstairs and we were still getting settled in. After we got used to our surroundings some, though, we turned to the long, long line of restaurants just a street away, and went to several of them. Between and before classes on campus, there were two cafeterias for us to choose from - one in the social sciences department and one in the biology department, if I remember correctly? - and several littler cafes, two of which were right next to the humanities building that we had our classes in.

Describe the most interesting or delicious local food you have tried thus far.

Pretty much everything was absolutely delicious, even the spicy things I ended up trying - and anyone who knows me will tell you that I don't do spicy at all. As for a favorite, though, I have to go with roti (or rotee, or however one decides to transliterate it). We had it both from vendors at the walking streets and from one of the restaurants near the hostel, and every different iteration of it was amazing. I can't put enough stress on amazing by just italicizing it, because if I tried it would become a flat line. It was a very thin sort of fried dough, either rolled up (from one of the walking street vendors) or cut into small squares for eating, and there were a whole host of toppings available. At the restaurant, there were even more variations - caramel, ham and cheese, egg... all sorts of things. Every single one we tried was just... yes.

Places

Describe your favorite museum or landmark in your city and explain why it’s your favorite place.

Wat Srisuphan, the silver temple, was definitely my favorite place. I've always had a personal preference for silver over gold, so the concept itself was interesting enough to me - most everything of that sort is made of gold, of course, since it's more precious. I didn't expect to actually get to see the works shaping silver pieces in their open work area off to the side, so that was a really neat surprise. The temple was even more intricate than a lot of the others, and the ordination hall was entirely covered in carvings and embellishments made of silver. The landscaping around it was done in detail, too, and there were trees with thin gold and silver leaves - these were available for purchase, for one to press one's name and a wish into, and were to be melted down and incorporated into the temple as it's built up further.

Tell us about any class field trips or excursions you’ve experienced.

We went to a lot of temples. A lot of temples. Our first week, the program directors took us to a temple. Then, for our Thai Civilization class, we visited three other temples. Some time after that, we went to the temple at Doi Suthep. Then, when the group trip to Chiang Rai came around, we visited two more temples there. It is nearly impossible to over-exaggerate the number of temple trips that happened. The architecture was grand, the details were staggering, and it was all very, very beautiful... but wow, did we visit a lot of temples.

As such, the trips that didn't involve temples ended up being more memorable. Thai Civilization class also took us to a primary school, where we visited the children during some of their lessons and passed out snacks to them. In the oldest class, we were pulled into a set of games that involved motions and introducing ourselves in Thai, and the kids got a good laugh out of seeing us bumble in trying to follow them.

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