happy (belated) independence day
4th of July fireworks over the sunday market at Thapae (the east side) gate.
WHENBESSATTACKSblog
wowee!
kad suan kaew mall is having some sort of festival or something and there’s all these workers building a massive undersea scene out of bamboo and paper mache. it’s soooo cool! and it’s all crafted by hand, which is incredible. i love crafty things! i’m not sure when this festival thing happens, but i hope i can see the finished results. they’re building a lot of it into the mall, with octopuses wrapped around pillars and whatnot. plus it looks like they’re building a lot of it so people can climb around inside of the creations.
some finished creatures and anemone:
octopus tendril taking hold of a beam of wood:
a better view of the giant octopus
a shark mouth with walkways in it:
some people working on the bamboo frame of a submarine:
here’s a panoramic view of the whole thing, view it at full size!!!!
junkfootz
there was this really cool breakdancing contest thing at kad suan kaew mall the other day.
i didn’t really get any good pictures, but there was this temporary wall set up and some people were doing some graffiti-style painting. shaun got some video, i’ll probably post it later.
the warehouse
there’s a store in kad suan kaew central mall that has massive amounts of clothing in it, i think it’s called warehouse or something. everything’s under $10USD, even the jeans… i’ve been searching for some sneakers and corduroy pants but unfortunately i haven’t had much luck with the pants… i bought some men’s low top converses that are pretty rad, black with white pin dots with a black sole and toe cap.
here’s shaun digging through the piles of pants in the men’s section:
kad suan kaew central mall
me and shaun get our groceries from the tops grocery store in one of the huge malls in chiang mai, the kad suan kaew central mall. it’s just outside of the north-western corner of the old city wall and has a bajillion stores in it. the stores range from some pretty cool, trendy boutiques to venues where you can buy rip-off levis for like $5USD. we passed by a place selling ultra cheap dvds and saw two seasons of one tree hill for $2USD apiece! one tree hill is shot in wilmington, nc, which is where we just moved from.
we took a tuk-tuk there (i’m looking a little cockeyed here, and i think shaun’s trying to play it cool):
the mall is huge!
right inside the entrance is a shrine to (i think) the three kings – king mengrai, the founder of chiang mai, king ramkamhaeng of sukothai, and king ngam muang of payao. according to legend, they worked together to lay out the city of chiang mai:
we then ate at the pizza company, which is pretty much pizza hut in the states, except they have some exotic toppings that i’m too chicken to try. this particular pizza company has a bitchin’ view of the street in front of the mall:
kad suan kaew has a really cool outdoor area:
there’s this crazy dragon fountain… usually it’s shooting water out of it’s mouth but today it was off. there’s some big koi fish in the water, too:
the phra phom (thai representation of the hindu god brahma) shrine is freaking huge! big enough for a children’s playhouse:
the spirit house itself isn’t as huge, but still fancy as far as spirit houses go (i’m not so sure that these are specifically for the landlords, i think that spirit houses are just used to house spirits that might cause problems if they’re not appeased):
