parents visit their favorite son, part i (joking, Chris!)

Yes, my parents came to visit me! I was extremely happy to have them here, and I'm sure they were glad to see a part of the world that is so hard to get to. We got to see quite a bit, and I think they got a pretty good feel for all the craziness of Thailand, that I've been working on documenting through this blog for the last five months (has it been that long!?!?).

Here are my beautiful parents in front of the two-tiered sky-train lines at Siam Square:


I took them to all the major sights (Wat Phra Kaew, Royal Palace, etc...) and showed them wonderful Thammasat and the surrounding amulet markets on Tha Phra Chan. One interesting place that I hadn't seen before their coming was the Vimanmek Mansion, reportedly the largest golden teak building in the world. It was a very beautiful building and had a very uncharacteristic (for Thailand) tour, in English, that was pretty decent!

The building itself was really beautiful and had an interesting architectural style.

Mom and I:

Dad and I:

I also finally made it to Wat Arun. Lord knows I should have made it there long ago as it is located off of the same street I live on! It is still one of the most confusing buildings in Bangkok to me. From a distance it looks very old, but up-close the bits of porcelain and ceramic that construct it make it look like it was cobbled together yesterday. It has to be old, one of the temple buildings housed the Emerald Buddha for a time before it was moved to Wat Phra Kaew. If anyone knows anything about this building don't hesitate to post a comment please! Dad and mom remarked that it was reminiscent of the Grotto of the Redemption in our own Iowa. Speaking of which... I need to see the Grotto of the Redemption.

Wat Arun is nice because you can climb it. Its fun. The stairs are steep... really steep:

Here is mom clinging to the banister (a wise decision):

And myself:

On our way out, dad inspected the bamboo scaffolding erected to work on a surrounding building. He was very impressed with that unique blend of Thai resourcefulness and danger:


More tomorrow!