Sepak Takraw, Bang Lamung, Thailand

Here is a nice shot from the other night at takraw. These guys were pretty dream team. But, I was pretty much the best white guy out there.

It’s a complete toss up, this Miike Snow album or Phoenix’s ‘Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix‘. I could ride out 2009 on these 2 albums alone. If Velveteen put out a new album right now, my head would explode.

And I leave you with nice picture of food taken by Lorraine. We tried to take the motobike over to Koh Larn which is a small island just off the gulf. We were denied for the noon ferry. As we were about to leave the pier we were treated to a nice moto-on-moto crash. I looked away at the last second but, Lorraine had to see how it ended. Jeb! Meh, we wound up at Jomtien Beach.

Food vendor on Jomtien

One year in Bang Lamung is coming up. We did a lot this year. In fact, if you take a closer look at the picture above, we were having lunch on this inauspicious occasion.

We now have our own Thai Premier League team, Pattaya United FC!

What a view! The Nong Prue Municipality Stadium is less than a 5 minute motorbike ride from our house. Lorraine and I took off about 10 minutes before the game. We arrived, she hopped off the bike, bought 2 tickets, hopped back on the bike, handed the tickets to the ticket taker (who I think was a police officer) and drove on in. In another 10 minutes, I had my new jersey and we had beers in hand. Now we just needed to find a place to sit.

I threw on my jersey and a fellow jersey wearing fan called to us and said “Pattaya!” and pointed to the stands across the other side of the field and led us to where the serious fans were. We took off in his direction and he kept looking back to us to make sure we were following him. He must’ve been the foreign ambassador because he brought us over to the packed stands and he introduced us as ‘new fans’ in Thai to everybody. Next thing you know, the obvious happens. They made room for 2 more seats in the front row for us. Just another one of those “man, I love Thailand’. The usual local hospitality was waiting for us. I think Lorraine and I will become a fixture for the home games.

Ticket to get in: 50baht ($1.38)
4 Leo beers: 120baht ($3.32)
1 Loaded home jersey: 780baht ($21.59)
Living in Thailand: Pretty f’in cool

More pics…

I took this photograph from the backyard last night. What you are seeing is the earth’s reflection on the moon with Jupiter and Venus creating the eyes forming a very pleasant smiley face. This is particularly fantastic during such a dramatic moment in time here in Thailand.

Our flight home for the holidays is on December 12th. Cross your fingers for us!

First and foremost, I have to give a congratulations to the Kovacs family on the birth of their twins! We can’t wait to visit everyone back home during the holidays, especially the new additions.

We’re back home in Bang Lamoong after a pretty awesome trip to Beijing and a nice Sunday to ground us back to the heat.  With the humidity, it’s close to 100 degrees again. Beijing was a cool 45-55 degrees but Lorraine and I both agreed that getting a taste of fall was nice (and normal). I posted some pics over at flickr. I took a total of 732 pictures and chose 72 that I thought were interesting enough to show. Beijing is beautiful. Even without the Great Wall and the Forbidden City and the Peking duck, Beijing is soft on the eyes while just walking around the neighborhoods and parks.

I’ve also started to shoot HDR photography and have started a flickr set. I still can’t justify the merit of HDR as an honest photography medium. To me, the purpose of photography is to capture reality, not distort it. For now though, HDR is just a good excuse to spend more time with my camera.

It’s always nice to hear from everyone be it from comments here or on flickr and facebook. If you stop by, please say hi! Lorraine and I are always starving for contact from the western world