Foooood

Thai girls are so freaking cute! They're all very feminine, and wear heels and dangly earrings to school every day. They're also, however, really weight-obsessed. My Thammasat-assigned buddy, Yeepoon, told me that she very much wants to study in the US but is afraid it will make her fat. I laughed until I realized how serious she was. Fortunately, I don't think that's going to stop her, and I told her to live in a coop so that there are always plenty of vegetables around (which Thailand seems to lack anyway). Thai girls are also right about their skin. They like to be pale here, and they use whitening cream in lieu of tanning oil. They're so beautiful pale, though. Unlike Americans (or Western Europeans, I guess), their "pale" skin is a beautiful shade of ivory. (They don't look sick or on the verge of death like I do in the winter.)

It's bloody hot here, and it's only going to get worse during the "summer" in March and April. There was a nice wind yesterday which made me think I could wear jeans out. Wrong. I was okay until we all decided to walk off our dinners instead of taking a cab home. After 45 minutes in the Bangkok night heat, I had to positively peel my pants off when I got home.

But the meal was fantastic, and on the street I had the best dessert I've had in Thailand yet. It was a piece of thick, heavily-buttered toast with sliced banana, chocolate syrup, and - if we asked for it - a green coconut cream to top it off. Deeelicious. In fact, Meris and I liked it to much we tried to imitate the dish for ourselves last night. Mommy Meris made some for all of us.

Charity with the legendary dessert:

But let's continue to talk about food, since it's my favorite part of Thailand. Other than the banana dish, my favorite dessert is mango and sticky rice, which has coconut milk dribbled on top. Yummy. All of the fruit, but especially the pineapple, which I don't even like in the United States. I eat it every day to and from school. Mm, and the fruit juices, because they're just that: the juice of a fruit. No added sugar, no preservatives. Oh yeah! And this is something I never thought I would say. I had sushi... from KFC. That's right, Kentucky Fried Chicken makes damn good sushi. For 29 baht you can get a whole roll, unsliced and fried. It's not quite a tempura fry, but nothing else here is either, and it's not a chicken fry either. It's filled with yummy crabstick and avocado, like a california roll, and is handed to you in stick form, so you end up biting off chunks and eating with your hands.

Some of the other funny uses of food:
- Corn is always used as a dessert
- Ice cream sandwiches are literally made with bread, a la:

- I miss potatoes, bread (served on anything but ice cream), and cheese
- When I ordered "queso" at a Mexican restaurant, I was served some weird salsa with a tiny blob of mozzarella

When I originally wrote this post I was sitting in class, listening to an i-banker use his supposed excellent "communication skills" to relate fundamental analysis to us. The class is half exchange students and half Thai students, and as Brad put it, we sit on opposite sides of the room like we're players in a warped version of West Side Story. For the record, that isn't our mentality.

Next post: tigers and how I wound up at a Thai biker gang's reggae festival