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Photos by MJ Klein

This is part one of the series Thailand, Fall 2008.  See also our series on Ubon Ratchathani.

We went back to Thailand after being away for one year, seven months!  It was a nice reunion with old friends, and an opportunity to meet new friends too.

We took a KLM flight out of Taoyuan International Airport in the evening.

Taoyuan International is truly a beautiful, world-class airport.  Hui-chen and I love shopping and we enjoy browsing the shops and duty-free shopping on the ground as well as in the air.

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Photos by MJ Klein & Hui-chen

Now that we’re back in Taiwan we can get back to regular posting.  Internet connections in northeastern Thailand are what nightmares are made of.  It took me literally all day to upload some photos to use in this blog post.  I didn’t dare try to actually publish another post from there.  The last time I did publish something from Thailand I had to start over once my connection droppped out and never returned - which is exactly why I’m not a big fan of offloading my local tasks to online services - you can’t use what you can’t connect to.

The old name for the temple is Wat Ban Na Muang (still called that on Google maps).  The new name is Wat Sa Prasan Suk and while the outside was breathtaking, I had no idea was was in store for us on the inside.

There are too many photos to show you here, so you should visit our flickr album and view the rest of them.

Brunty explained to us that these are gods that correspond to the days of the week.  We didn’t know why there were 8 of them though.  This photo was taken near the entrance to the inside of the temple.

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Photos by MJ Klein and Hui-chen

Recently, Hui-chen and I went to Ubon Ratchathani to visit our long-time blogger friend Brunty.  In our last article I broke down our trip into a summation and this article is the first point of the summary.

Driving Under A Statue of A Giant, 3-Headed Elephant

I want to begin by telling what happened when we arrived in Ubon.  After a grueling 5+ hour ride on what Brunty calls “a cattle car” we arrived at the bus station.  Brunty and Noot came and picked us up.  I had talked with Brunty beforehand via email about our impending visit and he found us a really nice room for only 400b per night.  We stayed there for 2 nights and it was just great.  Also, Brunty offered himself to be our personal taxi service, and we cannot thank him enough.  All I had to do was send him a text message and he would arrive no less than 15 minutes later.  If only the local services were as good!

We checked into our room and went to the food court in Tesco for some quick fare.  Then we went to Brunty’s home and had some drinks and relaxed a bit after our long bus ride.  Brunty invited his friend Barry to join us, and we had a great time chatting about old music and bands.  I don’t know what’s going on with my batteries lately, but when we got to Ubon, both my video camera and still camera batteries were dead.  I got only a couple of shots in the food court and then nothing for the entire evening.  Brunty has written an excellent article about the first night’s events and fortunately he got some great photos.  We were drinking amaretto (which I haven’t had for ages!) and after much conversation we went to a place called The Terrace. I just hope that Barry and I didn’t bore Brunty to death as we talked about music that existed before he did!  In the photos of me at The Terrace, I am soaking wet due to the rain.

If you haven’t seen Brunty’s article, you must give it a read!

The next day was gorgeous.  I sent Brunty a text message and we were off.

First order of business was food.

This is Brunty and Noot checking out the menu at the nana coffee & steak restaurant.  Again, Brunty’s photos of the food are a lot better than mine, and he wrote in detail about the place, so I recommend you read his article.

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Photos by MJ Klein

Before I forget, my Nikon D-80 just came back from the shop on Thursday, and all seems very good.  I used it to take the shots for the Ghost Month piece over the weekend.

In our last installment, I left you with this photo:

We spent some time photographing this bridge before we took off to head back home.

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Photos by MJ Klein, including FOOD PHOTOS

After a very pleasant drive of a few hours, we arrived at our hotel.  We wanted to check out Dongpu because of the many hot springs resorts in the area.  All the hotels feature hot spring water.

We had to park underground in the basement parking garage.  To get there, we had to ride in a car elevator.  I’ve had the pleasure of taking several such elevators in Taiwan.

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Photos by MJ Klein

Recently Hui-chen and I took a trip to the hot-springs town of Dongpu.  I posted all the photos on flickr, but I haven’t had time to blog on the trip yet.  We had a great time, driving through mountains shrouded in mist.  It was a nice relaxing weekend for us.  We began our trek in Nantou….

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Photos by MJ Klein - A Few Food Photos….

The Carolina Theatre hosted a nice program for Veterans of World War II, featuring the film The Longest Day, on June 6, 2008. June 6th is better known as “D-Day.” From Wikipedia:

“D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. “D-Day” often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar terms. The initial D in D-Day has had various meanings in the past, while more recently it has obtained the connotation of “Day” itself, thereby creating the phrase “Day-Day”, or “Day of Days”.^[1]“

So even though D-Day is a generic term used in Military Science as time variable, D-Day term has since become synonymous with the invasion of Normandy. Wikipedia has more:

“Normandy Landings were the first operations of the Allied Powers‘ invasion of Normandy, also known as Operation Neptune and Operation Overlord, during World War II. D-Day for the operation, postponed 24 hours, became June 6, 1944, H-Hour was 6:30 am. The assault was conducted in two phases: an air assault landing of American and British airborne divisions shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armoured divisions on the coast of France commencing at 06:30 British Double Summer Time. It required the transport of soldiers and materiel from England and Wales by troop carrying aeroplanes and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. There were also subsidiary operations to distract the Kriegsmarine and prevent its interference in the landing areas.^[1]“

Everyone thought that Dad would like to see this program. The only problem with taking Dad was the fact that it conflicted with Elliot’s High School graduation. After deliberation, my sister felt that we should take Dad to the movie and I agreed.

L to R: Janet (sister), Dad, Elliot (Janet’s son) and Wanda (Dad’s wife)

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Photos by MJ Klein and Hui-chen - ATTENTION: FOOD PHOTOS!

This series is a bit out of order.  It doesn’t really matter because we did write about some things just as they occurred, such as our 2 trips to Cabela’s.  So, to set the timeline straight, now would be when we went on the road trip up to West (by God) Virginia and to Cabela’s.

After we returned to North Carolina, Hui-chen and I relaxed for awhile before my brother John arrived from Florida.  Hui-chen decided to make some more Taiwanese style food, since we were really missing home.

This is Hui-chen’s famous stew, with pork and vegetables.  It’s as good as it looks and even better!

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We spend months under cloud cover, winds, humidity and cool temperatures only to be thrust into the middle of a heat wave! Yup, that’s Taiwan for you! How do you deal with the heat?

The sun in Taiwan can burn you to a crisp. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even 6 degrees off the equator in Malaysian Borneo wasn’t as intense. Readers of this blog know what we’ve been in Thailand many times and yes, that place is hot! But there is something very deceptive about the sun in Taiwan. It seems like you are OK walking around and suddenly, you feel sick to your stomach - a sign of sun poisoning.

Fortunately there are things that you can do to beat the heat!

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Photos by MJ Klein

“Getting there is half the fun” as they say, but I for one am not so enamored with air travel. As much as Hui-chen and I have traveled, and as much as we do enjoy going to other countries and experiencing different cultures, the actual flights are long and boring. One good factor in favor of going Northwest to the US from Taiwan is that I get to see Kansai, my favorite airport in the world.

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