Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Lovely Ladies


I have the joy of being accountability partners with Holly and Catherine. These two lovely ladies are such an encouragement to me in so many ways. We meet on Fridays after school for a few hours to talk, catch up, encourage one another, and pray for one another. I look forward to it every week. They are certainly a blessing! :)

**We put Catherine in the middle so that she would be surrounded by Asians. :)

Monday, December 14, 2009

12 ways to seriously injure yourself on a Bangkok sidewalk

I didn't write this, but thought I would post it since it is a) funny and
b) all too true!

You think Bangkok is dangerous because of political unrest or bad Nicholas Cage films? Think again – what’s most likely to get you is the everyday assault course known as taking a walk on a Bangkok sidewalk.

Bangkok is a not a city built for pedestrians. While the infamous traffic gridlock has eased off since the arrival of the futuristic Skytrain and Underground public transport systems, Bangkok’s pavements remain an urban minefield that require you to be hyper alert lest you trip over, electrocute yourself or fall down a hole. This perpetual pedestrian obstacle course gets particularly interesting at night. Here, then, are 12 ways to seriously injure yourself on a Bangkok sidewalk.

Bag Flag

Bag Flag

The Bag Flag is a thoughtful warning to pedestrians to not break their neck falling down the hole left by random collapsing paving stones.

Hidden Cable Of Electro Death

Hidden Cable Of Electro Death

Almost invisible to the eye until you trip over it, this cunningly placed electrical cable powers a large advertising sign just out of shot. I wonder how many times the sign has been pulled over by pedestrians crashing to the pavement…

Clearly Obvious Cables Of Electro Death

Clearly Obvious Cables Of Electro Death

On the other hand, this is one of Bangkok’s Low Flying Spaghetti Monsters Of Death – these cables hang down to about 4 feet off the ground, perfect to entrap unwitting passersby.

The Hidden Bronze Nub Of Toe Stubbing

Hidden Bronze Nub Of Toe Stubbing

Looking straight ahead when walking down a Bangkok street? Be prepared for something hard and invisible to send you flying. This lump of metal is the remnant of some previous installation, but no one could be bothered to file it down to the ground.

Motorcycles On The Sidewalk

The Sneaking Up Behind You Motorcycles On The Sidewalk

When you hit a wide, empty, blissfully flat expanse of pavement in Bangkok, you really need to start worrying. That’s because motorcylists (and this is the city of a million motorcycles) will also spot it and use it to escape the bumper to bumper traffic, with scant regard for traffic regulations or pedestrian safety. It’s not unusual to have a motorbike appear right beside you from behind, at speed, and not to have heard anything before it scared the crap out of you. Try not to jump in front of its wheels.

The Almost Impossible To See Steel Support Wire

The Almost Impossible To See Support Wire

Some street signs in Bangkok are held up by steel hawser wires, triangulated from the sign to the sidewalk. The only problem is that the support wire is almost impossible to see until you walk straight into it. Ouch.

The Sharped Edged Steel Wire Cover

The Sharped Edged Steel Wire Cover

Sometimes the steel support wires are covered with a steel sheath to make them more visible – and provide a whole new set of sharp edges to hurt you.

The Thoughtful Cheesecutter Flag Bag

The Thoughtful Cheesecutter Flag Bag

However, sometimes thoughtful shop owners will provide a different version of the Flag Bag to warn oncoming pedestrians about the steel support wire, probably because they’re tired of having to pick up hapless strollers from the ground after colliding with it. This one is particularly nasty, a real cheesecutter right slap in the middle of the sidewalk.

The Telephone Box That Stops Pedestrians Walking On The Sidewalk

The Telephone Box That Stops Pedestrians Walking On The Sidewalk

Let’s put the telephone box in a place where it takes up the entire sidewalk so there’s nowhere to actually walk. Brilliant!

The Ankle Breaking Tree Sidewalk

The Ankle Breaking Tree Sidewalk

To be fair, many cities have this problem, but Bangkok seems to have it with every tree that’s been planted

The "Descent Into Hades" Loose Manhole Cover

The Descent Into Hades Loose Manhole Cover

You remember when you were a kid and you wouldn’t walk on iron grates set into the sidewalk for fear it might give way underneath you and you’d plunge down the hole? Well, in Bangkok, if you step on a grate or a manhole, it really might just give way. Hapless Bangkokians regularly fall down poorly sealed manholes, so much so a special taskforce was set up a couple of years ago to try and stop the problem.

The Complete Absence Of Sidewalk

The Complete Absence Of Sidewalk

And finally, the biggest problem for walking the sidewalk in Bangkok is when there is no sidewalk. Sometimes it just collapses into a big hole and gets left there for people to pick their way around.

On the upside, walking in Bangkok is never dull…

Taken from www.travelhappy.info/bangkok

Thursday, December 10, 2009

It's beginning...

... to look a lot like Christmas.


Well, it certainly doesn't LOOK like Christmas around here... at least a MN Christmas with a lot of snow. And it most certainly does not FEEL like Christmas around here with it being in the 90's every day. So we've been rockin' out to Christmas music and put up this little tree, stockings and nativity dolls to remind us that it TRULY IS December and we're just 15 days away from the day that our Savior was born.


Not quite like at "home" in the states, but we're thankful for what we have. We're thankful that we can celebrate Christmas so openly and freely here, that we can find little things that make it feel more like Christmas, that English Christmas music can be heard in all of the malls, and that there are Christmas decorations up in major areas. However, we're most thankful for the birth of Jesus, our Savior, whom God graciously sent to us that we might believe in Him and have eternal life. What a gift. What a God. What a Savior.