animals

We've been taking advantage of Rangi and Sara and family being in town to break out of our routine and do some more adventurous stuff in Bangkok. Mostly that has involved close encounters with animals. 

 We missed the elephant show at Ayutthaya but ran into the elephants on their way home. Vi was originally cooing with excitement--but that quickly turned to horror.

 We did a hike up Erawan falls to seven different waterfalls you can swim in. I kept wondering why all the reviewers on tripadvisor mentioned the fish. How you shouldn't worry too much about them biting you, it was just a free fishy foot massage (a real thing here). Then I got in and immediately 10-20 twelve inch fish started biting my feet. 

Elie was a good sport and jumped in only to have a panic attack halfway to the waterfall. I finally reached the waterfall and lifted her up behind it and she informed me she would just be living there as she was not getting back in to let the fish tickle her feet. Please address all her letters to Erawan Falls, Waterfall level 2. 

 We also headed out to a crocodile farm where, to the best of our knowledge, they do not feed the animals and instead depend on visitors to buy the food provided and feed them. So...the lions were pretty active. And super creepy. We were so mesmerized by they way they were trying to get through the fence to eat us, we didn't even realize there were hippos a few feet away.  But really just a few feet, no fence only a short wall.  

Did you know hippopotamuses are responsible for more deaths, per year, than lions? I'm not sure this zoo does.  

 We fed them some green beans. 

 And then they ate Caroline. 

 We saved the bananas for the monkeys but learned after they repeatedly handed them back, that they preferred the beans. Too late. They finally took the bananas with their tiny hands. Some more aggressively than others. 

 Vi refuses to acknowledge anything that goes on when there's no air conditioning. 

After E wrestled a crocodile we called it a day and went home. 

updates.

We were talking about her freckles and somehow started talking about skin...
E: You know my dad has the most magical skin.
Me: Uh, why?
E: Because him have so much fur, it makes him super strong.

We were on a bike ride through some neighborhoods in Bangkok...
E: Me love Thai babies.
Rocky: You do?
E: Me wish I was a Thai baby.
Rocky: You know what you have to have to be a Thai baby?
E: What?
Rocky: Thai parents.
E: Maybe you guys should learn Thai.

She threw a coin into a well and made a wish and we asked her what her wish was...
E: Me wished I was a fairy.
Rocky: Why?
E: So I could fly.
Rocky: Where would you fly to?
E: To the BTS. (the above ground subway in Bangkok)

E: Me wish Violet was a kid.
Me: She is a kid.
E: No, she's a baby.
Me: When will she be a kid?
E: When she's two or maybe if she could talk.

The other night she started praying that Violet would start talking.

Violet is in her comfort zone when she's causing trouble. She takes several clandestine showers a day in our easy to use, walk in showers. She loves making messes and disassembling the contents of the fridge.

She had learned a word at one point (mama) but it has since disappeared from her vocabulary  She prefers to communicate through a series of tongue clicks and Indian chants (made by making a noise while moving her hand back and forth in front of her mouth). She's happiest when she's swimming in the pool and climbing anything precarious.

Vi and I also, I believe, hold a quite unfortunate record of ruining two iphones in less than a week. The first one we ruined when Vi dug it out of my swim bag and brought it to me in the pool. I didn't catch it and was instead forced to fish it from the bottom of the pool. A week later with a four day old phone in my pocket, I jumped in the pool after Violet who had decided to take a swim in her clothes. I have since renounced all forms of technology. Or course, except my blog. Until Vi destroys that too.

mountain get away

 Last weekend we had a three day weekend and thought we would spend it relaxing at home. I slept in (pregnancy perk or the usual, you decide) and by the time I woke up Rocky had had enough of home and was perusing Agoda.com for cheap hotel rooms close by. 

Now that Vi has reach 15 months and is entering her year long phase as a sociopathic tornado, it's just better if we are outside with her. It's still over 100 degrees in Bangkok, so we booked a room in the mountains a couple hours away and within 30 minutes we were loaded and on the road.

The hotel we stayed at had everything from dune buggies to a mountain luge. All were designed for the excitement level of a 4 year old. 

 This is E doing a thumbs up. 

 They also had a sky-chair ride. By "sky" they meant it was about 15 feet off the ground. Our kids are really easy to please. 

 Elie had a melt down about something, I don't remember what, and to pacify her I gave her this really cool hat I found. She wore it all day. 

 The inside turned foggy from the humidity of her sweaty head. 

 The weather was fantastic, at least 10 degrees cooler and we even had a breeze (pretty non existant in Bangkok). 

 Vi loved the mountain luge (it was about 10 meters long). Every time we reached the bottom she would refuse to get out of the cart. Don't worry, she's wearing an invisible helmet. We're all about safety first around here. 

Not us (our friends). We took Eliot on all sorts of things and at the end we asked her what our favorite thing she did was and she said playing in the pool. The pool was neat. It was a foot deep which is perfect for us--but it was also free and we paid (albiet not much) for almost everything else. I guess we've learned our lesson. We will no longer spend money on our children. 

girls' room

 One of the great things about having all girls is that you can throw them together in one room and call it, "the girls' room". It's fun to decorate and fun to play in.  It's been one of my favorite things to do while I've been sick--to lay on the ground in their room while they play. 

 Who knows, maybe come November 17th, we will have another girl to add to this crazy girls' room.

Although, Eliot is fervently hanging onto the idea that I'm having a boy. She constantly says, "We already have too many girls in this family." We actually just made a bet. (That's right, I'm teaching my four year old how to bet.) If it's a girl she has to set the table for a week by herself. If it's a boy I have to buy her a new toy. 

We'll be happy either way. Even Eliot. She told me the other day that she will be happy even if it's a girl as long as we get to name it Scooter. (The name she had picked out for Vi.) We'll see. 

great wall

The real reason we went to China was to compete in the Great Wall Marathon. I use the word "compete" very loosely as I was doing the 10k. After finding out I was pregnant 4 weeks before (surprise, I'm pregnant), my training had pretty much dropped off completely. I would occasionally run 5k on the treadmill at 0 incline and sometimes take the stairs. I figured I would run on all the flat parts, walk when it got too steep and still finish pretty quickly. It was only a 10k, right?

If you've been to the Great Wall or know anything about the geography of the area, you are laughing, probably a little condescendingly, at my complete ignorance.

There were no flat parts. None.

There was on the other had a lot of uphill, a lot of stairs and, considering that the 10 k route was a loop, a surprising lack of downhill. 

Here I am at the start feeling awesome. I, of course, broke out into a sweat and had to take a sitting break just walking from the bus to the starting line. Don't worry, I'm an athlete. 

Besides being brutally hard, it was amazing. Really, probably the most incredible man made structure I have ever seen. It goes on and on, as far as you can see. All built at the top of a mountain ridge. I've only watched Bob the Builder a few times, so I'm not expert, but I know that's not easy building terrain.  I was a history major, so I do know there were no major building machines around in 13th-15th centuries.

The part on the wall we were running on (it starting with a J, and may or may not have had an x in it, and I'm pretty sure it ending in a ing) was almost completely unrestored. 

Every 100 meters or so there were guard towers with narrow stairs you had to drop down. 

It's probably a miracle I didn't fall down any stairs, I was going very slowly and holding on tightly to anything I could. I have a history of falling down stairs.

During the first half I pushed myself and passed some people, but after I got to the turn around point and realized that the first 5 k had taken me over an hour, I decided I wasn't going to set any records and besides I was 12 weeks pregnant. So, I cut all running out and finished at just over 3 hours. You know, your average 10 k finishing time. 

I was just glad to be finishing at 3 hours. I had a friend who did the 1/2 marathon (what I had originally signed up for) and she finished after 6 hours. The 1/2 marathon course was roughly the same route as the 10k, but two laps and a little more wall. The marathon was 4 laps. We left after 7 hours to head back to the hotel (and to refuel at Pizza Hut) and no marathoners had finished. There were plenty who had stopped and were looking like they were in pretty rough shape. We heard the next morning that they ended up having to change the course to make in humanly possible and it took people up to 12 hours to finish. 

Here I am pretending to sleep but really just willing myself not to throw up. In fact, I didn't throw up during the drive up, the race, or the drive home. I was pretty proud of myself. 

(Since this is my third pregnancy, I'm starting to consider myself an expert on morning sickness. Sometimes you can will away the vomit and sometimes you can't and it comes out your nose. Though, Vi finds it all very amusing and E always runs and grabs me a big glass of water and says, "Me sorry you threw up again, Mommy.)

Luckily we'd been supplied with some quality food. Besides water, this was the only thing the race provided. In case you can't read it it's a, New Orleans Real Chicken Hamburger. And it's good for 3 days. At room temperature. I got hungry enough to eat it and unfortunately kept it down. It was surprisingly delicious.

The run was a blast. Definitely a once in a lifetime opportunity. As in, if I never see that wall again, I'm cool with it. 

beijing

I have a couple friends who have to leave Thailand every 90 days for their visa. They used to spend a day driving to the Cambodian border and back, but after they had 3 kids (one had them in three years and another in 18 months), they started making their trips a little longer and a little more exotic. They recruited Amy and I for this trip. I've been dying to go to mainland China, so I was a pretty easy recruit--especially with Rocky pushing me out the door. Suspicious?

Beijing is a lot cleaner and bigger and has a lot better infrastructure than Bangkok. We were there during their three day holiday (they worked a straight seven day work week the week before to earn an extra two days off) so the skys were clear and the pollution and traffic weren't too bad. 

While Chinese food is a lot better in China than in Bangkok, it's still not up to par with American Chinese food. I kept asking people where the nearest Panda Express was and getting no helpful response.

Our first stop was, at my request, an antique market. My guidebook suggested most of the items were not actual antiques but they were still really neat. 

I considered bring home this wolf for Rocky, but then I remembered our no taxidermy rule. 

I had this man write out our family name in Chinese characters. I asked some passing tourists for the Chinese name for 'smart.' After some back and forth between them and the calligraphist, I believe we are now the "Clever" family. I'm okay with that. 

Tienamen Square is the largest public city square in the world. It played host to a lot of important events. During Imperial China is was the gate to the Forbidden City, in 1919 it housed a students protest and in 1949, it was where Mao Zedong announced the founding of the Peoples Republic of China. And that was all our guide would tell us. Most of the people here don't know what happened in 1989.

This screen was built for the Olympics in 2008, so the people could come down and watch the events. It is so big.

There are a lot of cameras. 

Also, not a lot of light haired people. I enjoyed my five minutes of fame, taking pictures with all the people who came up to ask me for photos. I also casually mentioned that I am a huge star in America and may have asked to autograph their camera bags. 

 There are a lot of people in China. A lot.

This is the girl lion--it is holding a lion cub under its left paw. 

But not a lot of diapers. The babies wear these pants with slits in the bum (yes, I do have a lot of baby  bum pictures now). When the baby needed to go to the bathroom they would either throw on a diaper or hold them over a trash can or a near by tree. 

This of course solves the diaper rash problem, but I'm not nearly an intuitive enough parent and I'm sure I would either be cleaning poop off myself or my floors. 

 You can rub these door knobs for good luck...or bird flu. I passed. 

From our visits to the Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven and Summer Palace we learned a lot. First, Pogs are not dead. They live on in in the alleyways of the Hutongs. 

We also learned the Emperor had a lot of power and a lot of money. Enough to build a city for only he and his 3,000 concubines with floors 15 layers thick so that no enemy could tunnel in. He could build and maintain a temple complex, bigger than his palace complex, only he was allowed to enter, and only twice a year. He could also commission a summer palace with a gigantic man made lake, all designed to look like a town he once saw in the south of China. 

Though Imperial China created many beautiful things,  I went ahead and added it to one of the time periods I am glad I wasn't born in to. After seeing so much excess, I can better understand why communism sounded so great. 

Eliot requested I bring her back a Mulan dress and a Mulan sword. The sword lasted less than twenty four hours. Luckily it was $2 and looked awesome on the flight home in my carryon.

(Even though the temperature in the 70's I am incapable of imagining a climate that is less than 100 degrees right now. So I only packed shorts. Also, after realizing I live in the hottest city in the world, I cut off all my pants into shorts--which might have influenced my packing decisions. At least I still own one sweater.)

She told me she missed me only a little because she was busy having so much fun.