Bangkok Week 137 February 10, 2011 Alias: Jakarta Week 5 View fullsize Marouy is bright and chipper on Saturday morning. View fullsize Who are you again, and what are you doing on my bench? View fullsize The wind chime from Canada-- even Marouy is interested. View fullsize Final resting place -- near the house, where it won't be stolen. View fullsize The jackfruit tree in the back yard is on some serious steroids. View fullsize The new Pretty-in-Pink house. View fullsize Suits the tropical countryside, no? View fullsize So much for being bright and awake. Heavy eyelids and an even heavier chin. View fullsize And down he goes. View fullsize Mr. Melodramatic knows he's about to be left home alone for a few hours. View fullsize An intricate dragon at the Chinese New Year festivities in town. View fullsize Before making merit, you have to assemble a complicated kit of paper, thread, a needle... and of course money. View fullsize At the entrance: the gold tree. View fullsize An all-natural serpent inside the central pavilion. View fullsize Three colorful Buddha images, all in a row. The strings are special for this merit-making event (I think). View fullsize Everyone's gathered around a ball, suspended over a hole. You press a leaf of gold foil onto the ball, then drop a needle-thread-paper jumble into the hole below. View fullsize Am I getting this right? View fullsize The pavilion has rather elaborate chandeliers! View fullsize Outside, surrounding the pavilion are another 8 suspended balls, where you repeat the same ritual: press the gold, sprinkle some coins, wai. View fullsize I have to say, my gold-pressing skills had improved by the end of this exercise. View fullsize Which ball is this? I've lost count. View fullsize Where's Waldo Buddha? View fullsize We found Russell from UP (Disney-Pixar) at the temple that afternoon, too. View fullsize Anybody inside this giant gold ball? View fullsize Sign it, before it gets buried. View fullsize 360 degrees of home-made cooking. What did we do to merit this? View fullsize Obviously this guy thinks he's earned some, too. View fullsize Well then, can I at least have some of your orange? View fullsize Someone's feeling a little grumpy after his Sunday morning bath. View fullsize Brushing a grumpy dog requires appropriate cranial protection. View fullsize He refuses to even look at the camera! View fullsize Looking through photos from Christmas. Remember Christmas? View fullsize Underage driver. View fullsize Pineapples on their way to the Big City... value added by the minute. View fullsize A new face of the hotel provides a new view, too. View fullsize Later in the week, though, there's barely any view at all!
