I’m packing again. This time I’m heading back to Big D to spend Father’s Day with my parents. Most people love the heat, but I find it even more challenging to pack for extremely warm climates than cold ones. Layering is my specialty; sun exposure is not. Remember, I’ve been living the life of a vampire for the last decade in an effort to save my skin.
I still have a couple of appointments this morning before my rendezvous with LAX so I can’t gab too long today. I do just have one big shout out to my soon-to-be-17 niece Z who got her driver’s license! I saved her 3:35pm text on my BlackBerry to record her huge milestone. How is it possible that she was 5-years-old just yesterday, barely able to see anything from the sunken passenger seat of my roadster, and now she’s sitting behind the wheels? The picture taken above was from 7 years ago, and she had just come out of the shower, her hair dripping wet. Moments of her life forever in my mind. Time flies when life happens.
See you all in Big D!
Tags: Dallas, driver's license
I wasn’t kidding yesterday about being in Buddha overdrive. If there are a million Buddha statues in Bangkok, I’ve probably seen 999,999 of them. First there’s the colossal reclining golden Buddha at Wat Pho that measures a whopping 46 meters long. His feet alone measure 3 meters long and are inlaid with mother-of-pearl illustrations of laksanas. He is completely covered in gold leaf.
Then there is the world’s largest seated golden Buddha at Wat Traimit. He clocks in at an impressive 5 meters in height and 5.5 tons in weight:
And then more golden Buddhas in various incarnations:
Once in a while there is also the rare walking Buddha:
But my favorite Buddha moments were found at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Ayutthaya, which can be easily reached on a day or even half day trip from Bangkok city center.
Once a thriving cultural, political and religious capital, Ayutthaya now stands in its own shadow as ruins, a sad reminder of defeat at the hands of the Burmese in 1756. Rows of headless Buddhas leave a disturbing, haunting image in my mind:
It is also here in Ayutthaya that you find the mystical Buddha nestled in tree roots:
I’m not a student of religion but this place still moves me to pay homage with the other pilgrims. I’m not really sure what to do so I just follow the ladies who now congregate in this area. First you must take off your shoes then enter the shrine area to prepare some incense…
then you approach the large reclining, smiling Buddha and proceed to scrape the gold leaf off of him…
Hold on a second here, that hardly seems right? I really thought they were just going to pray in front of the statue but I sneak a peak and the ladies are furiously going at it, scraping against the gold leaf. Something is obviously lost in the translation for me, so I slowly back away and go look for my shoes.
And then I ditch my tour group and hitch a ride with the tour guide’s sister’s brother-in-law to go ride elephants on bare back. OK, OK, it turns out to be a baby elephant, but elephant nevertheless.
As I recently confessed, show me anything motorized or half-way fast and I can be entertained for quite some time.
Tags: Ayutthaya, Bangkok, Buddha, UNESCO World Heritage site, Wat Pho, Wat Traimit
When I was at Mayacama we snuck out of the compound for some Thai food and it reminded me of a trip to Bangkok in 2005.
It was actually a very brief two-day breeze through Thailand on the way to a rendezvous with my parents in Vietnam. They had not been back to VN since 1975 so that was quite a heady experience.
Today I’ll share some of the photography from Bangkok. Now I’m not much of a tour group traveler. I’d rather just grab a map and wing it on the road, but given the short amount of time, I decided to book a tour from the hotel.
It turned out to be a pleasant enough tour but I think we all saw more Buddha statues and temples than we ever needed to see in a lifetime, much less in 48 hours. I was on Buddha overdrive in Bangkok. Oddly (or not) enough, each day also ended with a tour of a gem store. I didn’t mind it too much because for once I could say I didn’t go out of my way to find shopping–it came to me!
But the truth of the matter is, whatever I saw at those gem stores paled in comparison to the national treasures on open display at the Grand Palace in the photos above. Another palace that I really enjoyed visiting was the Royal Palace at Bang Pa-In, which appeared to be floating on water:
This palace served many generations of kings and queens and the varied architecture found in each structure on the grounds reflected the royalty’s embrace of the world around them.
As much as I’d like to say the heavily ornate, gilded architecture was what captured my attention in Thailand, it was actually the geniality of the Thai people that made my visit so special. Geographically we are neighbors, but culturally they couldn’t be more different from us Vietnamese. I enjoyed their quiet warmth and gentle demeanor amidst an extremely congested, chaotic daily life. I can’t wait to go back to Thailand and go off road.
In the next blog I’ll show you the Buddhas.
Tags: Bangkok, Buddha, Grand Palace, Royal Palace at Bang Pa-In, Thailand
The GPS in our car takes us from Mayacama to San Francisco via another bridge. This time around we’re crossing the Bay Bridge:
San Francisco is an extremely photogenic city. Very little rivals the sight of the city rising beyond the foot of the bridge, dizzying my vision with a slew of Victorian homes and skyscrapers jockeying for position over the hills.
Once on foot, I can feel the buildings teetering above me as I maneuver around other pedestrians, bike messengers, and cable cars. I try not to use a car inside this city as driving here is a total assault on my motor (pun intended) skills, what with the steep hills and million distractions to cope with while navigating an infinite number of one-way streets.
My senses come to hyper-life mode when I’m in San Franciso; there is no way to sleepwalk your way through this town. If you do, it’s a real shame because look at what’s waiting for you:
Most of my aerial photos in today’s blog are from Macy’s rooftop Cheesecake Factory in Union Square. I only have about three hours in the city before heading back to LA. It is here that I have lunch on a perfectly balmy day. I may not be able to trade LA for this city by the bay, but no matter how many times I’ve been here, I’m always excited to come back.
Tags: cable cars, Cheesecake Factory, Macys, San Francisco, Union Square
Remember when I took you to Harry’s Bar in Venice for a peach bellini? There is something so delectable to me when the bubbly is magically wedded to anything fruity. From the way it shimmers in the glass to the first linger in my mouth, champagne simply delights all my senses. I know full well what it’s doing as the alcohol works its way into my bloodstream, tingling my ears and turning my usually vampire skin to a full blush. Depending on the alcohol or amount of consumption, I can range in shade from a two-degree burn to a fully cooked lobster in no time. For this reason I was never able to lie to my parents too much about underage drinking.
But today, fully of legal age (and then some, sigh) we are at Mumm Napa for champagne tasting.
Before the liquid brunch begins, however, we tour a special George Rose (Hollywood, Beverly Hills & Other Perversities. Pop Culture of the 70s and 80s) and Ansel Adams photography exhibit inside the winery’s gallery:
The minute I walk through the gallery’s door, I can smell the champagne, probably because it sits directly over a cellar. In between the photographs on the wall, there are windows to further entice you to the business at hand:
We don’t have time to take the winery tour so we head out for table service on the terrace:
Then I don’t really remember taking any more pictures. I remember being in the shade gazing out at the sun over the lush landscape and thinking what a magnificent day this is. A few, many sips later and this is the kind of silly picture I find in my camera at the end of the day…am I looking for my brain on the floor perhaps? Hellooo out there, has anyone seen my brain?
Next stop is the Black Stallion Winery, housed inside a former equestrian center, which is honestly the main interest for me to visit. I’m serious. This had once been a huge facility for riding, showing, and breeding horses.
Winetasting eventually leads to a huge appetite buildup so we pop into the V Sattui Winery to check out their popular marketplace and picnic grounds, and wine is flowing everywhere…
In the next blog I detox in the city with another vice: shopping!
Tags: Ansel Adams, Black Stallion Winery, champagne, George Rose, Mumm Napa, V Sattui Winery, wine tasting
