A Japanese restaurant was recommended to us a few weeks ago and last night we finally had the opportunity to check it out.
The name of the restaurant is "In the Mood for Love" and it's located in an area called Ekkamai, alley (soi) 1, across from Health Land, down the alley about 50 yards (50 meters).
The decor is artsy, yet classy. These bird cages and red pom-pons hang from the top of the second floor down through a hole in the center of the restaurant:
Our favorite dish that night was "The Caterpillar", a visually impressive maki sushi roll made of shrimp (ebi tempura), unagi (fresh water eel), rice, and avocado slices. Two fish eggs (roe) make the eyes, and little sprouts make the antennae.
The meal was a bit pricey for Bangkok, but the food was excellent!
About a week ago, as part of Just for Fun* tours, I organized a group of teacher friends to go north to Thailand's second capital city. It was the capital for over 400 years and was finally sacked by Burma in the late 18th century. Many of the ruins are in good shape and you can walk among the stupas, statues, and temple complexes!
Stunning Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol.
It was super bright and sunny when we visited Wat Yai Chaya Mongkol, about 5K from Ayuttayah.
There is a Buddha statue head in the roots of this tree. The head must have fallen off and the roots grew around it. It is considered a sacred site.
You don't always see the profile of this statue, just the close up of the front.
This brick and stone structure is about 700 years old.
I took some time to do a watercolor sketch of Wat Chaiwatthanaram You can see it below. By taking a few moments to really look at the structure, I noticed birds who had made nests in the towers, small bushes growing in the crevices, and the details above the entry.
It's hard to judge the scale, but just imagine that the doorway in the center is twice as tall as a regular door.
These are entrance halls where marriage ceremonies or religious rites are performed.
The staircase looks Mayan, no?
By showing a postcard of this reclining Buddha to our driver, he was able to find it (after asking a few people on the side of the road). It is a stone carving and about 50 yards long (about 45.72 meters).
I sketched this with a pen at the site, then painted it on the van ride back to Bangkok. I'll do another version of it in oil, perhaps.
The specks are the birds. While I was painting this, a 5-year-old boy was fanning me. I pretended to be blown back by the wind, almost broke the chair I was sitting on, and he spit all over himself from a burst of laughter. This went on for about 5 minutes, so excuse the unfinished sky. Thanks, kid.
*Just for Fun Tours was the name we came up with and some day we will have a fleet of buses, ships, tuk tuks, and a helicopter. We are working on a logo with the help from Krave of Kraveart.com
Bangkok has given me lots of opportunities recently to practice my sketching and painting skills. I sketched the band "Deadtown Trash" at a club called Harmonica here in Bangkok while they were playing. You can feel the energy von Rock. They posted the drawing on their FB page. The bass player, Aaron, is my colleague at school and he invited me to paint at their next show at a club called Fatty's. I accepted, of course.
Then I attended a life drawing session with some friends of mine, and I'll be going back until we get out of school in June. I'm also thinking of renting a space at the studio to work on a series of paintings. It's good to put brush to canvas and panel again after such a long time, and to get my hands dirty!
This picture shows lead vocalist, Brittany, belting out her tunes, while Steve on guitar rocks the house. Aaron von Rock keeps us afloat with the bass, and Keith on drums doesn't miss a beat.
This watercolor is from a 20-minute pose at Attic Studios in Bangkok. I haven't been to a life drawing session for over 4 years. It's good to be back.
This five minute warm-up was made by painting the negative space. Not the model, but everything around her.
A five minute study in texture and shadow -- and composition.
While taking a short river cruise, I painted my trip mates. There was a lot of wind. I used the river water.
This is a cartoon I drew for an article I wrote for school titled, "If Students Don't Learn How We Teach, Then We Need to Teach How They Learn." The color version appears in the article.
This is mixed media. The background is an oil painting I did at a 2.5 hour session, then I used ProCreate on my iPad to add in the electrical pole and wiring (inversed colors). I'm still working on it.
Finally, I created a website for art instruction for teachers. It's called teachingyoutosee.weebly.com and it will make it easier to teach, and continue teaching, teachers how to draw and paint. I'm still building it, but you can check it out.
On our way home one evening, we noticed something different in the corner of the parking lot of the local supermarket. Loud, fast-paced music could be heard a block away. As we got closer, we saw over a hundred people exercising together led by an aerobics/dance instructor who was standing on top of a large storage unit.
We have never visited a floating market in Thailand so we hired a driver and packed for a day of adventure. A floating market is like a farmer's market on the water.
On the way to the floating market, we hopped on the local train headed toward a market that is situated right on the train tracks. It's called, "The Train Market." All the vendors have three minutes to clear their stalls from the track before the train passes through.
Here is the view as we approached the end of the line at Maeklong Station. You can see that the locals have pulled their wares off the tracks to let the train pass.
Locals and tourists also step off the tracks to let us pass. Some of them even take photos of us on the train. Look at how close they are to the train as we pass by!
When it's time for the train to head back, the shop owners again quickly pack up their things so the train can use the tracks again. We walked through the market a few minutes after we stopped and the market was fully back to normal.
As we were traveling to the floating market, we stopped at Wat Bang Kung, a temple enveloped by banyan tree roots.
Inside the temple, people were able to buy flakes of gold leaf and affix them to the Buddha statue.
Later, we stopped at a roadside stand to buy some lychee fruit.
A lady sold us a bundle of lychee still attached to the branches.
We also visited Wat Amphawan and saw rows and rows of golden Buddhas.
This image of the wat's stupa looked surreal behind a wire mesh.
When we arrived at the floating market, we boarded a boat and sailed around for about an hour.
I immediately took out my watercolors and began to paint.
We traveled so far that the hectic marketplace turned into miles of tropical jungle.
However, civilization was never too far away as we noticed an ice cream boat cruising nearby.
I bought a chocolate ice cream bar and got a grateful handshake in return.
We were surprised to see this gigantic statue of a Buddhist monkon the side of the river.
A close-up of his face reveals very realistic features and a piercing gaze.
We started to get hungry as we arrived back at the busy marketplace.
Who could resist fresh, barbecued mussels and tasty, jumbo shrimp?
We ate on the dock, but the kitchen and cooks were actually on the boats in front of us on the river.
Fresh, delicious, and very affordable. It was the end of a perfect, day-long adventure!
Over the last few years, we've met a few people from Sri Lanka and many others who have traveled throughout Sri Lanka, so for spring break we thought we'd check it out!
Our first hotel in the capital city of Colombo was a welcome sight as we were surrounded by nature and serenity.
The decor was both cultural and comfortable, designed by a Hong Kong artist who fell in love with Sri Lanka and opened the hotel a few months ago.
We spent a day visiting the National Museum (no photos allowed inside).
Outside the museum was a huge banyan tree that was taller than the three story museum building.
After a couple days in Colombo, we set off by train to the city of Kandy. (Our three-hour train ride turned into five hours after multiple, extended stops for unknown reasons.)
The scenery was beautiful and we saw miles and miles of the Sri Lankan countryside.
Our hotel in Kandy was very large, but it kind of reminded us of the hotel in the movie, The Shining.
In Kandy, we visited the famous Buddha Tooth Relic Temple.
This is a cloud wall outside the temple, which represents the heavens.
I was surprised how similar I looked to the men on the painted walls of the temple.
Of course, we had to take off our shoes and cover our knees to show respect to Buddha.
This is inside the temple where there are several statues of Buddha that have been donated by Thailand, Korea, Japan, and Malaysia. The actual tooth of Buddha is not visible and is only taken out every five years to show people who wait in line for eight to ten hours.
The Sri Lankan cultural show stimulated our senses with colorful costumes and pounding drums!
Our next stop was to the Royal Botanic Gardens.
The palm trees were much bigger than they look in this photo.
Some of the trees looked like they were straight out of a Dr. Seuss story.
And some trees looked like giant candies!
A must-have in Asia is an umbrella, not only for rain, but for sun, too!
We were excited to visit the Elephant Orphanage in Pinnawala, southwest of Kandy where they care for orphaned, injured, and sick elephants.
It was great to see so many elephants roaming freely in their naturally-formed herds.
The baby elephants were gathered for one of their feedings. One was a bit impatient and let everyone know it. I never knew a calf's voice was so strong, like a lion's roar!
After their snack, many of the elephants went for a bath in the refreshing river across from the orphanage.
We joined the elephants in the cool river water. This mama elephant may look like she needs help, but she's actually cooling off in the water. Her trunk would pop up for a breath and also to splash herself with water.
What a nice place for elephants to chillax.
Are they doing the Hokey Pokey? Put your tail in, put your tail out, put your tail in and shake it all about.
"Don't wander too far away, Dumbo."
Did you know that you could make paper out of elephant dung?
Now, that's what I call recycling!
I enjoyed a brief moment of fame when I was interviewed on a live radio show at a mall in Kandy.
These women were drumming just outside of the mall.
Tuk-tuks are the preferred mode of transpiration in Sri Lanka.
They are perfect in the city and in the countryside!
Sri Lanka has introduced me to my new favorite drink, which is EGB: Elephant Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic) made with real ginger.
The last city we visited was Sigirya and I saved the best hotel for last. It opened in January of 2014 using many local materials, and it was designed to be environmentally conscious.
This was the cascading waterfall along the staircase at the entrance of the hotel.
As we entered the open-air lobby, we were greeted with this spectacular view of the infinity pool and Lion's Rock (on the right), a rock citadel dating back to the 5th century.
It was nice to see the rock out there calling to us whenever we took a dip in the pool.
The hotel is called Aliya, which means elephant in Sinhalese, and there were plenty of them everywhere. This colorful painting graced the wall of the lobby.
This is the opposite wall of the hotel lobby. (The children are not always standing there.)
Elephant motifs were everywhere!
This three-headed guy adorned the corner of the front desk.
Our room was large, beautiful, and modern.
I thought this picture in our room was also an abstract elephant, just focus on the white parts.
This was one of the most unique pieces of art in our room. It was made of nine Sri Lankan women forming the shape of, you guessed it, an elephant!
This beautiful, batik elephant decorated our bedspread.
A row of these lamps in the hotel restaurant glowed a golden color at night.
There was no rain and only a bit of distant thunder, but there were lots of lightning bolts.
Almost every night, like clockwork, we were treated to a spectacular lightning show.
These are the hotel grounds at night, romantic and cozy.
All male employees wore these elephant sarongs with matching shirts. They looked so comfortable. I wish I could wear them to school every day.
One of the reasons we went to Sigirya was to climb 1,200 steps to the top of the famous Lion's Rock.
Lion's Rock is even on some of the Sri Lankan money.
In Sigirya this long-tailed macaque was methodically removing leaves to snack on.
It doesn't look too hard to climb from here…but we haven't even taken step number one, yet.
Some steps were pretty easy to climb.
Other steps were a bit scarier.
Some steps were totally unexpected.
On the way up, I was able to demonstrate my Herculean strength.
Painted on the high cliff walls are maidens who float among the clouds.
When we finally got to the top, it was SO worth the climb!
These were the ancient ruins of a monastery, which was later the home of King Kashyapa (477 to 495 CE).
We're on the edge of the world! (Hey, where's the rest of the safety railing?)
It is very peaceful and beautiful up here.
Going down was a little bit easier than climbing up.
Later that night, we enjoyed an authentic Sri Lankan meal at our hotel.
We had to make reservations early so that they could prepare all of the necessary ingredients.
This was our skilled chef in her traditional Sri Lankan kitchen.
April 14 was New Year in Sri Lanka. Our hotel had a big celebration with lots of games, food, and traditions for the guests and staff members.
There is coconut milk in this clay pot. The wood is set on fire and then you wait for it to boil. If the milk boils over, then that means there will be good luck in the new year.
The Sri Lankans (kids and adults) LOVE to play games. This one was Draw-the-Eye-on-the-Elephant, similar to Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey.
I gave it a try!
Mine is the blue mark.
I also tried the Lime-and-Spoon-Race, which is exactly the same as the Egg-and-Spoon-Race.
After they shook hands, these two men proceeded to smack each other with large pillows to see who would be the first to fall over. (No, I did not try this game.)
I got a chance to try my hand at frying some crispy snacks.
Yummy treats, made fresh. (I know because I helped make them!)
Who will be the first to eat the bread off the string?
As you can see by the amount of leftover bread, it's a pretty difficult game.
Not much progress made on this one.
Anyone want to try to feed someone yogurt while blindfolded? The winning team had a pretty good technique of putting the yogurt cup right up to his partner's mouth and scooping it in.
Later that day, we went to Polonnaruva to see more ancient ruins, temples, and Buddha statues.
You are allowed to take pictures but not posing with your back to the statues of Buddha because it is disrespectful.
This was one of the biggest stupas that we had ever seen, but our tour guide said that there are bigger ones in Sri Lanka.
Just strolling through the ruins...
Every dog has his day (to take a nap).
Our last stop was to the three rock-carved Buddhas.
It was the perfect place to do some sketching.
After five nights in Sigirya, we headed towards Negombo to catch our flight back to Thailand. Along the way we saw some fishing boats with hand-sewn sails.
We had a nice dinner with an ocean view and saw the golden sun set on the horizon.
We even dipped our toes in the Indian Ocean, which was our first time in that body of water.
Luckily, I was able to squeeze in a much-needed haircut before we left Sri Lanka.
The barber had an old-school tool belt that looked like it had been used for generations. As soon as I saw it, I knew I was in good hands.
We enjoyed our stay in Sri Lanka and look forward to coming back again one day.
