Grand Palace, Wat Pho, and Mosquitos
My travelling has begun! First stop is Thailand with Rob, Ros, and Daniel.
We got into Bangkok early yesterday morning (1am). After waking up really late, we had lunch with Montira, my brother's friend from college and grad school. Then we went to the Grand Palace. Unfortunately I didn't do any research so I don't know the historical or cultural significance of it. But it is quite grand and ornate (lots and lots of gold). Clearly there is a lot of symbolism in the figures and shapes of buildings, but they are mostly unfamiliar to me. Though I think there is some Chinese influence. There were lions guarding doors that looked a lot like Chinese lions and even had baby cubs and balls by the lions' feet.
Next stop was the nearby Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. It actually looked a lot like the Grand Palace to me (the ignorant tourist), except for the gigantic reclining Buddha. We also got massages there since apparently there is some massage school. This was my first professional massage ever if you discount the ones on my forearms in physical therapy. Other people seemed to enjoy it more than I did though. Of course it didn't help that she kept pressing on my ice slide bruises.
Something I noticed a long time ago in my life is that I seem to be a mosquito magnet. Unfortunately I am also allergic to mosquito bites. True to form, last night at dinner I managed to get 20 some odd bites while other people got about 2. Also true to form, this morning I immediately looked up possible diseases carried by mosquitos in Thailand.
We got into Bangkok early yesterday morning (1am). After waking up really late, we had lunch with Montira, my brother's friend from college and grad school. Then we went to the Grand Palace. Unfortunately I didn't do any research so I don't know the historical or cultural significance of it. But it is quite grand and ornate (lots and lots of gold). Clearly there is a lot of symbolism in the figures and shapes of buildings, but they are mostly unfamiliar to me. Though I think there is some Chinese influence. There were lions guarding doors that looked a lot like Chinese lions and even had baby cubs and balls by the lions' feet.
Next stop was the nearby Wat Pho, the Temple of the Reclining Buddha. It actually looked a lot like the Grand Palace to me (the ignorant tourist), except for the gigantic reclining Buddha. We also got massages there since apparently there is some massage school. This was my first professional massage ever if you discount the ones on my forearms in physical therapy. Other people seemed to enjoy it more than I did though. Of course it didn't help that she kept pressing on my ice slide bruises.
Something I noticed a long time ago in my life is that I seem to be a mosquito magnet. Unfortunately I am also allergic to mosquito bites. True to form, last night at dinner I managed to get 20 some odd bites while other people got about 2. Also true to form, this morning I immediately looked up possible diseases carried by mosquitos in Thailand.
posted by wchien at 9:03 AM
1 Comments:
This should help:
http://asiatours.net/thailand/info/buddhism.html
It covers a lot of the symbols that you'll see at temples in Thailand while you're there.
Sucks about the mosquitos. I'm the same way. Hopefully you didn't catch any weird diseases.
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