Wat Pho: The Reclining Buddha

While she was in town, Chuck and I hopped on a river boat (more on that at the end of the post) and made our way to some of Bangkok's most famous religious sites.  

First on our list: Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha (and birthplace of Thai massage!):

 

While the wat is a large complex, including a working Buddhist monastery and over 400 Buddha statues, the main draw is the Reclining Buddha, a giant, 160 foot long, 50 foot high, gold-leaf-gilded statue of Buddha resting on a pillow of glass mosaics:

Because the building just barely fits the Buddha statue, it's difficult to get a photo that really captures just how big it is...

My favorite part of the Reclining Buddha is the soles of his feet: 3 meters high and 5 meters long (about 10x16 feet), they are covered in crazily intricate inlaid mother-of-pearl images and swirly toeprints:

The images on the bottom of his feet are 108 panels of auspicious symbols associated with Buddha, including white elephants and tigers:

The rest of the Wat Pho temple complex is pretty cool, too.  The temple's gates are guarded by these Chinese statues, which were originally brought to Bangkok as ballast on trading ships from China:

 

Lots of beautiful and elaborately decorated buildings and stupas:

Lots of Buddhas:

Here we are, rocking the river boat taxi on our way to the temples... the Chao Phraya is a large, fast-moving and muddy river with lots of boat action... tourist boats, taxis, commuter boats, hotel shuttle boats, fishermen...:

Chatuchak Market

When Chuck was in town, we hit up Bangkok's (in)famous weekend market, Chatuchak, which is an insane maze of handicrafts, kitsch, clothing of all varieties, furniture, antiques, animals, you name it.  We wandered around a bit, bought some stuff (Chuck bought the requisite tourist genie pants, we bought some lanterns for our balcony and some houseplants), ate some southern Thai food:

I didn't take many photos, but did capture Tim with his coconut ice cream, procured for Tim after he said "Coconut ice cream?!" approximately 76 times:

Served in a coconut cup, complete with kidney beans, jelly things, nuts, and variety of other toppings:

Cooking Class, Silom Style

Back from my epic adventures with Chuck and ready to report on them... here's a start, with my photos.  I may update these posts when Chuck gets her photos up online (ahem, Chuck.)
UPDATE: Chuck's pics added!

First order of business when she got off the plane: Soi Polo for fried chicken and fish with garlic crispies, super spicy chili sauces, other deliciousness and a Thai-style massage to get the kinks out. 

 
A trip to the neighborhood market, then jet lag set in and Chuck was toast:

Our second day: Thai cooking class!  

We took a course with the Silom Thai Cooking School, not too far from my apartment.  Before getting started with the cooking, we hit up the market for ingredients.  I love a good market tour!

Here's our cute cooking instuctor, Goong, showing us how to pick shrimp (comically, the word "goong" means shrimp in Thai.  Har har.):

Here's the guy who uses an industrial strength grater to grind up the coconut for making coconut milk (have I mentioned how much I love the auto-GIFing that Picasa/Google+ does?):

Fish lady:

Chicken dude:

Cooking class attendees (Team America, Team Singapore and Team Korea, as Goong called us), picking up some veggies and herbs:

Pretty flags on the market's street:

 The cooking class itself was pretty great, too.  Down a couple of sois, in an open air kitchen, great instructor and detailed recipe book (complete with photos of the ingredients and potential substitutes)... good stuff!

Here's me and Chuck squeezing the coconut shreds (plus water) to make the coconut milk:

Here's our food prep set-up... veggies and spices and big knives:

Cooking in the open air kitchen:

Here's us in our fancy aprons with our finished products:

Mid-cooking selfie:

The whole class, cooking up the green curry:

Just some of the dishes we made... green curry with chicken, tom yum goong, pad thai, and tub tim grob (aka "rubies in coconut milk"):

 Mmmmmmmmmm...