Feb. 24- We studied Sukumvit very closely today.

Finally, a day we could sleep in!! And we were both awake at 7 am. So much for that idea. We decided that we would just play the day as it comes. We were going to have breakfast with the street vendors, but it turns out the regulars are not out on Sundays. We ended up grabbing something at ol' faithful...7 eleven. This place has everything, and has been a savior to us. We walked around Klong Toey for a bit, exploring some of the side streets. It is incredible how on one side of the street you can have so much poverty, and then across from it, on the other side of the street is a huge mansion with BMWs, or Mercedes. Toyota's are also quite popular here. There is no middle class here, it is either upper class or the poor.
Walking around the slums many people were outside, selling something on the street, or just sitting around. We also saw a few cases where children were searching through their parent's hair for lice. This has become somewhat of a familiar site by now.
We found the sky train, and decided to go for a ride. We randomly picked a place on the map that looked like it would be interesting, and we ended up going downtown towards the center of Bangkok. We got off Chit Lom, and walked a few blocks to a beautiful park (Lumpinipark).

We also saw a mini dinosaur, more commonly known as a monetary lizard. This sucker was huge!! It looked like a cross between a snake and a crocodile. I would say that it was able three feet long.
Walking back towards the train station we also walked past Buddha Worship Sanctuaries. We then went to explore one of the many malls. This mall was 7 stories and had every brand name you could think of from Prada to Louis Vouton, Guess, D &G, and Oakley. They also had a McDonald's and a Subway.
Misty and I went for lunch at a Thai restaurant. The food was absolutely amazing. I had some kind of asparagus dish with shrimp and mushrooms and a strawberry frost. Misty had something with pork.
We hopped on the train to come back home and we got off two stops too early, thanks to advice from someone who obviously didn't know what they were talking about. We walked around and found out that we were not in the right area. After asking 13 people for directions, and walking for hours (no joke!) we finally found an English speaking woman who was a great help. We were prepared to kiss her at this point. I didn't think I would have ever been so happy to be on my way back to the slums. On our way back we also came across a car accident and mild rain. And...RATS!!! They were running out in front of us on the side walk. (Sorry mom, but I had to post these to show how big they were.)
I got quite the sunburn today. The story goes something like this..."Misty, I think I have a sunburn." "No you don't, it's the lighting." Well Misty....I have a huge sunburn.
This morning I made a pretty stupid mistake. I mistook the Beatles for the Thai anthem. We were laying in bed and misty played the Beatles. Knowing the song sounded familiar and being overtired, I jumped out of bed and stood at attention, thinking it was the Thai anthem. Oh sorry, Misty is correcting me and saying no Jodie, it was more like "Misty, get up it's the Thai anthem." Well this Thai anthem was actually 'All We Need Is Love.' I think all I needed was more sleep.
Oh another funny story: So we bought a calling card to call home. As we were walking down one of the side streets, I threw the bag of garbage from the stuff I bought into the garbage. Walking further, I realize I may have just thrown out the calling card. After checking out my bag, I had to go back and dig in the garbage for what I threw out. However, I could not find it. I looked in my bag again and there it was...lovely eh. Misty enjoyed this story.
Misty seems to be magnetically drawn to traffic. Walking down the streets today she almost got hit by cars on numerous occasions. Having called her name so much, I have now been able to perfect the Thai accent on her name.
I have also realized that Misty is not too fond of rats. After seeing a few today on the street we were walking on, every time Misty sees something move in the corner of her eye she gets nervous.
We had supper at the orphanage tonight. We could chose between rice and some kind of fish or chicken fried rice with a spicy sauce. I decided to go for the chicken fried rice. Let's just say it would not be something that I would order at a restaurant.
I am starting to learn some of the names of the boys here now, however I think it is going to be a few more days before I am able to learn them all.
The pictures below are some of the girls from Mercy 4, preparing supper. The children do a lot of the work, from preparing supper, to cleaning up after supper, to washing their own clothes.