Thai fun, fellowship and food.

When Susan Song became Susan Chinn, she warned me that odd things happened in her life and I should be prepared. I've remembered that warning over the years, and never more so than during our recent world travels. When you look up "stodgy old bachelor who is content to stay home and read a book" on Google, my picture used to pop up at the top of the listings. Well, we are now half way through a trip to Southeast Asia growing out of a venture to The Republic of Korea as a visiting professor. You would think, during the past 6 months that we were, by now, accomplished world travelers. In truth, the stodginess has not strayed far from this happily married man. During the first leg of the SE Asia tour through Cambodia we were met by people in ministry each step of the way to handle translation, accomodations and even selection of places to eat. I was along for the ride and enjoying each moment of the adventure. The second leg of our trip took us to Thailand. Here we were truly on our own and I was more than a little apprehensive. I had lots of questions and few answers. Susan, however, is the happy traveler and ready to conquer every challenge. So, here we are at this wonderful Christian guest house that makes us feel right at home in a quiet section of town with a library on site. I'm ready to settle right in with a couple of carefully selected good books and spend 5 days in Thailand reading. Some world traveler! We finally ventured out yesterday in quest of a recharger for a cell phone which we failed to bring along. For those (such as myself) less schooled in world travel, you can get a SIM card and minutes for your cell phone that make it useable in a foreign country for just a few dollars. What a bargain (and reminder of how much our home cell providers are making money hand over fist back in the states for the same service.) We asked around and got the name of an electronics warehouse that has anything and everything cheap here in Bangkok. So, we loaded the family into a cab yesterday in search of the needed recharger. The cab took us to a beautiful building and we walked into a mall that reminded me of every indoor mall in Orange County. Half of Bangkok must have been in this same mall as we set off to find the needed recharger. Immediately we noticed there were no electronic stores in sight, but lots of fast food places. So here we are in Thailand, home to some of the best cuisine in the world and I hunt down a Burger King and the kids insist on McDonalds. We compromised by going to both places as Susan wisely abandoned us for a Thai noodle shop. After our meal we sought out an information desk to find the electronic section of this mall. Apparently we got our signals switched, for there wasn't one. There were some stores on the 5th floor that carried cell phones who might be able to help us. No luck on the recharger, but we found a brand spanking new cell phone for less than $20 at this high end mall (they even had luxury automobile dealerships). Daniel is becoming a bit of a wiz at electronics, but the stodgy professor was taking no chances. We had the clerk at the store set the whole thing up and figure out what our phone number was (and list it on the contact phone listings.) From there it was back to the guest house and the books. We'd survived our venture out on our own and returned victorious. No point in pushing it. Today is Sunday and it is time to find a local church. We ran into a family and another group of short term missionaries who planned to attend the Evangelical Church of Bangkok this morning at breakfast. Good, I think, we can follow them. The group fills up about 4 different cabs and off we go to the Bangkok Sky Train that will take us the rest of the way to ECB. Unfortunately, our cab driver had a mind of his own. Fortunately, the leader of the short term missionaries was in the 4th cab. When our cab headed past the intended station, our guardian angel had his driver give chase (follow that cab!) and eventually jumped out of his cab to pound on our window when we got caught in traffic and redirect our poor cabdriver to another station for the sky train. But for his intervention, I have no idea where we would have ended up (confirming the folly of having strayed from the comfort of the books back at the guest house.) The sky train was crowded and fun and took us to our destination. We enjoyed another outstanding worship service at ECB though I was puzzled by their perspective on missions. They send missionaries out around the world. They share this same puzzling trait with the church we visited in Cambodia and our Korean church. They don't seem to realize that Jerusulem in the Great Commission is Anaheim California and they are part of the outer parts of the world where missionaries are sent. And then the lights came on as I fully realized for the first time that every local church in every part of the world is Jerusalem for purposes of the Great Commission. From a Thai perspective, Anaheim California is the outer parts of the world. Great insight Professor Chinn (duh!) Still, it was a reminder of how personal God's word is to us and the local body of believers we worship with. After the service I feel the siren call of the books, but realize it would be awkward to explain to others that we went to Thailand and failed to experience the incredible food. So, we checked with some of the parishoners and headed off the the one that was their favorite. I should have asked about the price range. Suffice it to say that we spent about 2 weeks of Susan's carefully calculated food budget for our trip. We truly didn't care as we ate one of the best meals ever. Every dish was served family style and came with a variety of sauces that delighted the taste buds. The best of all was the giant prawn dish with a delicious sauce and tasty ingredients sprinkled on top. Thankfully the kids are at that stage of development where they claim they will never eat a shrimp. So Susan and I were able to split the dish of 4 baked shrimp that were easily 4 times as big as anything I've seen described as colossal back in the states. Each of them was as big as a medium sized lobster. We've now arrived back at the guest house where I'm back with the books - and memories of some fun times and meals in Bangkok without a guide and on our own. I may yet turn into a world traveler.