Watching Thai Pro Wrestling is absolutely hilarious. For one thing, the guys tend to be horribly out of shape, for another thing, they're a whole lot worse at faking it than American pro wrestlers are. Though the two I'm watching right now are head and shoulders above the guys last night. They were horrible.

I realized I didn't do a travel or hotel report from before today, so, here's that. Nothing too interesting on travel. I watched Sideways, slept a lot, read a bit, laptop died, watched the second half or so of Finding Nemo, had to go through security again in Narita airport, everyone freaked out (excitedly) over the bidets in Narita, slept a lot on the second plane (which had far worse radio, sadly), whatever. We didn't have to get visas, which was nice, but going through immigration involved a very long line. When we got to the hotel at some ridiculous hour, 1:30 I think, we had to give them our passports to get the room keys. We got to our room, Allen sat on the bed and... I don't even remember his exact reaction, but it was funny. See, this bed is FIRM. I mean, ridiculously firm. I actually think it's probably good for my back, and it's not a problem to sleep on it, it's just kind of funny. We flipped channels for a bit, I was amused by Thai Pro Wrestling, and then we watched Scooby-Doo and went to bed.

So, today, after my last entry. Anh, Swaffy, Allen, Nate, John and I went out for dinner. Swaffy had noticed some place earlier in the day he wanted to try out and we went there. It was this restaurant that was open to the street, not too big. They pulled together two tables, we sat down, ordered food. The place was kind of chaotic, we got the wrong food first. Then when the right food came, we mixed it up ourselves. I ended up with someone else's duck, which was absolutely delicious, then we got it all sorted out and I ate the pork spare rib that I had actually ordered. I think I could eat Thai pork and Hawaiian pineapple every day for the rest of my life and be happy. Or maybe Thai duck. I had a beer with a dinner, local (Singha), it was pretty good. John, Allen, Nate and I were all amused when we ordered a 70 baht (just over $2) beer and got a 40 oz. We toasted “to Thailand.” After we ate we paid and headed out to explore a bit, walked past a bunch of scenes similar to what I've reported already. Crowded streets, edging around trucks, dodging motorcycles, ignoring street vendors. Eventually we went past two guys, one playing some sort of instrument that looked like a harmonica with reeds coming out of it and the other dancing. The dancing guy grabbed Swaffy and they danced together, Nate and Allen joined, we got some pictures, then tried to pay. They were a little more insistent than American street performers, Allen didn't have any small bills, I was going for my coins and a 20 baht bill fell out of my pocket, which they took. What I was going to pay anyway, so it worked out. I have to give them props, actually: Allen offered a 50 and they turned it down. I also managed to burn my forearm watching the performance, not noticing the cart behind me. Minor burn, but irritating. After that we walked some more, stopped in a 7-11 (not kidding), and came back to the hotel. Allen gave some money to a beggar en route, which is good in its way, but at the same time I'm a little worried about him. Based on what I heard from Carver about India, it's just not an option in a lot of places. We had class, the literature course, wrapped up Measuring the World (very, very sparsely) and talked about the plans for tomorrow, and due dates for the rest of the trip. It's so hard to work on homework during this trip, there's so much going on and so much amazing stuff we do every day that we get back to the hotel room and it feels like we've already done a full day of work (or more). Enjoyable, awesome stuff, to be sure, but there's a lot less sitting-in-my-room time than there was at Hiram. As it should be, obviously, but the essays and blogs and prompts are starting to catch up to me.

One interesting thing about currency. There's nothing below a full baht, no cents. In addition, similar to the Euro, smaller denominations are coins, not bills. But while the Euro is just 1 and 2, if I remember correctly (5 euro is a bill, right?), the baht in coins goes up to 10 baht. I just found that interesting.

Anyway, I'm pretty conked out. Some people are heading out to the bar but I'm in my room, writing this, going to read a bit and then crash. Tomorrow morning will be breakfast, essay and journal work with exploring if I have time, lunch on the street, and then we have the afternoon out with Denny before we take a train to Koh Tao.

Saturday, January 23rd, roughly 9:55-10:05 PM local time