Bangkok's MBK Center

We arrived in Bangkok with an understanding that we would be pretty fatigued and jet-lagged for several days. At least we would pass this time in the comfort of a new American hotel and in a city we had visited before. For a time, I resolved only to see Bangkok sights we hadn't seen before; but that quickly passed, in view of the spectacular nature of many of the sights, and also in view of our fading memories. Case in point: the MBK Center, Thailand's largest shopping center. We thought we'd visited another, more up-scale, shopping center back in 2008. Maybe the Siam Center? So, hoping to see something new, we headed via the Skytrain (metro) to the MBK and took in all six floors of shops and such, gawking throughout, and finished with lunch at the (Asian) food court. Only then did the neurons begin to dance, and a quick check of the blog confirmed that, yes, we had done the exact same thing in 2008, doing the MBK and then having a Thai lunch at the food court. Well, it seemed like a new experience, all the way to the end. Some may observe this is about aging. In my defense I would observe that, as full-time travelers, we've seen quite a few cities and quite a few malls in the past eleven years. And the MBK did not seem quite so upscale as I had remembered it (or whatever I remembered).

View from the 29th floor of the Aloft hotel, Sukhumvit, Bangkok; 9 million people
live here

Ditto; the haze/smog/whatever limited visibility to a mile or so

The MBK, Asia's largest when it opened way back in 1985; 2,000 shoppes, a
couple anchors, giant food court, usual multiplex of cinemas; Ma Boon Khrong,
parents of the developer; in case you're interested

Clue that you're in the retail zone: an array of ATMs greet you

Took almost the same pic in 2008

New King: Rama X; long live the King!

Maybe another day

Sweet shoppe on the 6th floor

Main course, a real Tom Yum...

Coming to a mall near you

Ditto

Just like back home, except here, they're everywhere

That's E-Bomb (Egg-Bomb)

Possibly not coming to a mall near you

On To Bangkok

Having packed and put Le Sport into storage, we departed January 7 for our next adventure, nearly three months in southeast Asia...21 hours in airplanes, another several at the terminals in San Francisco and Tokyo, and finally arrival at Suvarnabhumi at 1 AM on January 9th. After an initial short night at the At Residence/Suvarnabhumi, we moved to our new temporary home, the 29th floor of the Aloft Bangkok Sukhumvit.

Mothballed, so to speak, until end of March

Traditional departure photo

Traveling light: no trekking/backpacking planned, no RV to
refit/resupply; two carry-ons and a small backpack each

Photo-bombing by Penelope

Adieu, Frisco

Toilet instructions at Narita

Easing into Thai culture

Apart from the utilities, Bangkok is anything but 3rd world; our hotel is behind
the telephone pole on the right...

Anyhow, it's good to be back in this place we so much
enjoyed in 2008

Fun Old-Fashioned Family Christmas, 2019

For the holidays, daughter Rachel and son-in-law Will traveled to Middle California to join the rest of our small extended family, Vicki and me, daughter Rebecca, son-in-law Jeremy, and grand-daughter Penelope. Despite flu, sniffles, cool and wet weather, and the rest, we had a great time.

Pre-Christmas, choir recital at Penelope's school

And at her dance recital

And at the San Francisco Symphony and Choir's holiday sing-along (box seats,
no less, where I could study the double-reeds)

Night-before gift tradition: Penelope and Molly in her new
Harry Potter costume

Christmas morning seating chart (8 year olds are very
organized)

Surprisingly, our 40 year old Christmas pyramid, from
Rothenburg an den Tauber, whizzed as never before

Montana memories (this is about as religious as we get)

Best costumes, Rachel and Will

Continuing the Christmas Vacation motif, sporting my new
Cousin Eddie bobble-head, now proudly displayed on the
dash of Le Sport, our tenement-on-wheels, parked in the
drive-way outside..."shitter was full"

Distributing the goods

Rebecca with her new Jane Austin purse, from Winchester

Setting for Christmas brunch, major ingredients by Master
Baker Vicki (not pictured, alas: the traditional cheese, meat/
shellfish, and chocolate fondues, which we now have the
wisdom to spread over two days)

Rachel arranging the day-after charcuterie and cheese-tasting (note fine CA wine)

Me orchestrating the cheese tasting

Thus: "Cows, Sheep, and Goats, Oh My" which I though quite clever; Star Cheese
was the Aged Mimolette, from Isigny Ste. Mer (Mickey would have loved it)

Christmas decor in Le Sport

More than a couple times I escorted Penelope to the playground and a rendezvous
with friend Conner, a fellow Potterite

Post-Christmas cookie baking and decorating with Grandma; gluten-free

I was called to join in the bake-off; I had just finished
reading Francine Prose's Blue Angel; thus my cookie
decoration

Rebecca and Jeremy in their best Mary Berry/Paul Hollywood
poses

Vicki documents the occasion

And the Star Baker is...Penelope!

Bonus additional shot: early January tea party with Grandma, a tradition

DC Scenes, 2019

Half our fall excursion, after Knoxville, was in DC, visiting daughter Rachel and her husband Will, and house- and pet-sitting during their various excursions. Though there is much of DC we have not seen, we don't regard ourselves as tourists, since we've seen most of it over the years. As in Knoxville, we stayed put, mostly, attending to various projects and interests, but occasionally we got out to see a few old favorites and a few new things. But mostly it was about staying put and working on our projects...and my seeing two wonderful friends of old from the humanities, Edie Manza and Esther Mackintosh.

Rachel and Will at Cantina Republic, the new neighborhood Tex-Mex down the
street

We spent one pleasant day at the National Gallery of Art--
elsewhere in this blog are posts and pix from numerous
previous visits--it's one of our favorites; this visit we did
the 18th and 19th century French paintings tour, which was
outstanding (NGA has lots of Fragonards and the largest
Watteau I have ever seen); most of the permanent collection
and of course the gift shoppe; the above reminds me to
mention we also saw several episodes of the Great British Bake-
off and that we gave Rachel a copy of Mary Berry's baking
cookbook for her birthday

We made it at last to the National Museum of African American History and
Culture--doing just the history part, the first three floors, was all we could
handle; the silence (and inherited guilt) on the first floor was reminiscent of
the Dokumentation Center in Berchtesgaden...

We'll be back sometime to focus on the cultural part...

Sic transit, Gloria...the glorious old Carnegie Library, now the Apple Store

Historic preservation

Jane Fonda's in there somewhere

Yes, let's... 

Scooters lying around everywhere, as in other large cities; this one decapitated

Rachel and Will were off on a road trip, so Vicki and I had a "quiet" Turkey
Day dinner, courtesy of Marie Callender; the Veuve Cliquot was a nice touch,
however (just kidding, Rachel)

Daphne, sweetest dog ever, dressed for a walk in the cold (the Poop Loop)

Desperately hungry house cats of DC...Peter, stupidest cat ever, lapping up
drippings in the dishwasher

"If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now,
yet it will come—the readiness is all"--Bianca's thoughts as she awaits the
automatic cat-feeder's next dump