Thoughts on Thailand: Part 1

Today and tomorrow we are actually doing a lot of homework (it's true!) in order to be able to head out to Chiang Mai this weekend without having to lug heavy books with us... therefore, we don't have any new exciting stories to share. However, I wanted to list out a few things I've noticed about this place.. and I've named it "Part 1" because I have a feeling the list will continue to grow:

1) Thais are tiny!
This is a no-brainer.. obviously y'all know that Thai people are smaller than Americans. But did you know that they are tiny as in... so tiny I'm struggling to find dresses and skirts here that aren't SUPER short. And so tiny that yesterday in class one of our fellow exchange students literally broke a chair. Kaboom! Right in the middle of class. And he is not a big guy, by US standards! Certainly not heavy in anyway. We are just sitting in class, and then suddenly 2 of the chair legs crack in half and he goes tumbling.

Will, holding up the 2 legs that just snapped right off his chair

2) Thai folks know how to shop
Seriously... the malls in this country are out of control. Gigantic (~8 stories high and spanning multiple city blocks) and everywhere (4 huge malls within a mile of our school).. I'm not sure who actually keeps these places in business. And that is just the malls! The markets and pop up street vendors and little shops tucked here and there and everywhere are just as numerous. This weekend we went to the Chatuchak Weekend Market, which must be one of the largest markets in the world... it was about the size and shape of an NFL stadium with rows and rows and rows of vendors. Naturally, we picked up a few souveniers  a couple of big hand bags for me ($6 each) and an etched map of ~1830s IndoChina for Matt. (yes, they sell EVERYTHING there.) Final point to hammer home how much they shop... I asked one of the Thai students "How big is Chiang Mai?" (a city in Northern Thailand), thinking he would respond with either an answer in terms of population or square kilometers... but instead the response was "Not too big actually.. I think they only have about 4 or 5 malls there." Go figure.

3) Stray. Dogs. Everywhere.
Having been here 1.5 weeks now, we are starting to no longer notice the stray dogs laying all over the streets... which is why I feel compelled to post about it now, while it still seems at least a little weird to me. There is not much to say about this, other than the fact that they are all about the same size (~50 lbs maybe?) and all just lay around in the sun in the middle of parking lots and sidewalks. None seem particularly threatening (they are probably all ill and starving and therefore lethargic). It's like the US equivalent of squirrels I guess... or ants or something.

a few dogs on the sidewalk outside our school