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A Glimpse of Thailand September, 2001 - things beautiful, strange, odd, and interesting - Back to A Glimpse of Thailand main page Back to cityrain.com main page If you like "A Glimpse of Thailand," you might also like 2Bangkok.com.

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I Like Lightning September 21, 2001 Here are some photos I took of the lightning storm on September 21, 2001. The faint horizontal line in the photo below is an airplane passing by. More of my Bangkok weather shots are here.

Dispatch from China: Unnecessary Touching & Smokizg Yoom September 24, 2001 China is beginning to have as much wonderfully tortured English as Japan. The "Unnecessary Touching" signs are in the restrooms at the Beijing International Airport. "The Smokizg Yoom" is in the departure lounge at Changchun airport.

WTC on our minds September 17, 2001 My first glimpse of the New York skyline.

In October, 1992, I drove into Manhattan for the first time, taking snapshots out of my car window as I gasped at the sprawling skyline of New York City. I'd been to Vietnam and Cambodia, but never to New York City in my own country. The scale of the skyscrapers there is like 100 Hong Kongs. These are true canyons of concrete where highrises first started growing nearly 100 years ago. The vibrant city has an almost ancient feel. No wonder it figures as an awesome future ruin in so many science-fiction books and films. The quick destruction of the towers is a shocking blow to the permanence that New York (and the U.S.) seems to embody.

Every Thai I know has been telling me how bad they feel about the attack while also being anxious about the possibility of a future war. I have also received emails from friends and acquaintances around the world expressing solidarity. I never dreamt that in my lifetime, my nation would be clamoring for war. That seemed like a sentiment from an earlier, more innocent time, when doughboys lined up to fight the evil Kaiser. It will take some time to answer all the questions this attack has raised and it is hard not to say something that has not been said already...

Rama VIII Bridge extends out over the river September 17, 2001

Here in Bangkok, the Rama VIII Bridge construction is extending out from the west side of the Chao Phraya River. It should be completed by the end of the year. Below is an enlargement of part of the photo on the left showing two workers sitting on scaffolding. For more on the Rama VIII Bridge see my Unofficial Rama VIII Bridge site on 2Bangkok.com.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! September 12, 2001 The news arrived here like it did everywhere--with banner headlines, amazement, denunciations, and beefed-up security. The Mental Health Department finally urged TV stations not to continually show the sensational footage over and over "to avoid stress among local people." When any major international incident occurs, everyone wonders "what will the U.S. do?" It has always been a mistake to awake the sleeping giant. I have no doubt that nations will be made to realize they are risking their own destruction by abetting terrorism against the U.S. When websites like CNN are down during times like this, turn to slashdot.org. Normally a tech site, during the crisis it became a repository of news stories copied and posted by readers. It also passed along obscure links to online feeds of police broadcasts, websites with up-to-the-minute photos by people in the area, and tons of background material. There were also firsthand accounts from people near the State Department denying car bombs had gone off in the area. While the rest of the net was reeling, slashdot kept the news flowing.

Dispatch from Changchun, China: Fried scorpions (yum!) and cooked silkworm pupa (yuck!) September 10, 2001 On the top left are little fried scorpions which were delicious. If you ever have a chance to eat one, don't pass it up. I wish I had some right now. They taste like salty fried pig skins. Frying them neutralizes their poison (I was told). On the bottom left are plump cooked silkworm pupa--decidedly yucky. They have a tangy insecty aftertaste. In the same restaurant as the silkworm they offered pig snouts, duck tongues, and goose feet--none of it was very appetizing. Another unusual and delicious food from Glimpse of Thailand: Ki Mot Dang--Delicious Ant Larvae.

Thai Disneyland September 3, 2001 Left: Just north of Central Lat Prae on Phahonyothin Road is the former Magic Land (rendered variously in English from Thai as Dan Neramitr, Danneramid, Danneramit, or Dan Neramit). It was Thailand's first stand-alone amusement park (as opposed to amusement parks in shopping center complexes). It closed on May 28, 2000, ostensibly because the 25-year lease on the land expired. It is on valuable land, but is ringed by failed, half-completed highrises. One might assume that since the company that ran this and other local parks (such as the impressive, world-class Dream World) has been reportedly negotiating with Disney for years to bring a real Disney park to Thailand, it was only good manners for them to close their Disney copy park. UPDATE: Bill Thompson informs us that Magic Land might not have been the first stand-alone amusement park in Thailand: ...in Sep 1979, HappyLand Amusement Park, KlangChan, Bangkapi, was already a closed rusting hulk. I don't know when it originally opened. Below are some Chinese Disney-esque Lands. Above left: Park of the World in Fengtai District, Beijing Above middle: Shijingshan Recreation Ground, "an ideal amusing area for the mass of visitors." (Both from Beijing Scenes: Chinese Landscape Storehouse, no publication info.) Above right: Side view of the uncompleted theme-park Wonderful World outside of Beijing. Construction was halted in 1998 due to lack of funds.