Pictures: Mae Sa Elephant Camp

One day (back in Jan) we left early in the morning and drive north of Chiang Mai to Mae Sa Elephant Camp. We got to feed the elephants--they eat bananas and bamboo--watch an elephant show--they've trained elephants to kick balls, paint, play the harmonica, and throw darts--and ride the elephants up and down trails. Going to the camp is the kind of thing you should really do if you come to Chiang Mai, and then having done it once, you'll probably satisfy all desire to do it again.

Jacen feeding bamboo to an elephant:



An elephant putting a hat on Emmy:



An elephant painting (they sold the picture for $30):



Emmy petting a very large elephant:



A trainer walking a small elephant:

Myself a Mandarin

I just finished a delightful bibliography entitled "Myself a Mandarin" by Austin Coates. It's the story of a British man sent to Hong Kong in the 50's to be a judge. He recounts his struggles to hear cases of the Chinese people whose culture is very different from his own. It's an old book, first printed in '68, but well worth reading.

Pictures: Doi Suthep

We went back to Doi Suthep with my folks (in Jan 2010). No change. Here are some pictures of people we saw at this Buddhist wat:

Video: Jezzy

Here's Jacen's first video of Jezzy with the new video camera get for Christmas.

Pictures: Silk

While my folks were here we visited a silk shop. Before they took us to their showroom to buy their products, they gave us a little tour of their demo factory, where they showed the various stages of harvesting silk, making silk thread, and creating silk fabric. It was quite the interesting process.

Silkworms process the silk:



The balls of silk are heated in water and 1 thread at a time is extracted and spooled:



The threads are woven together on a big loom to create the fabric:



Bonus points if you can answer this question: How can you tell genuine silk from fake silk? Put your best guess in the comments.

Picture: Knife-making

When my father was visiting us here in Chiang Mai he bought a hand-made knife from a knife shop east of town. When we went back to pick up the knife, the makers took us down to their shop and showed us a few of their tools.



BTW, if you believe the pictures on the wall, Stallone himself purchased a knife at this shop while he was in Thailand to film a movie.

1 King 15-16b

I backtracked and filled in a hole I had left previously. Chapters 15 and 16 are now complete and can be found here.

Cups from 7-11

The best cups in our house are from the Slurpies we buy at 7-11. Do I complain because we have cheap dishes? Or do I rejoice because we have Slurpies? I choose to rejoice. Thank you, God, for the little things.