Change of Running Location

You may be asking yourself, “what does that picture have to do with Lumpini Park in Bangkok?”  Well, it has everything to do with jogging in Lumpini Park in Bangkok!  It is from a scene in the Thai action movie Tom Yum Goon with Tony Jaa fighting the monstrous Aussie Nathan Jones.  You may remember Nathan Jones from playing the giant soldier Brad Pitt slayed as Achilles at the beginning of the movie Troy.

The guy is 6’10″ and weighs 350 pounds of all muscle.  He is a former World’s Strongest Man contestant, Pride fighter and WWE wrestler.  What does this have to do with running in Lumpini park?  Well, according to his wikipedia entry Jones was the victim of a hit & run accident while jogging down the streets of Bangkok which severely injured his arm.

I figure if this incredible hulk of a human being can be injured by a driver I would have been killed instantly and I don’t really feel like instant death via tuk tuk.  I have gotten quite bored running the same route past the sewage smelling canal through the polluted, highly trafficked and crowded streets to the gym for some boring elliptical machine cardio anyways.  Today was my cardio only day so I decided that I would go to Lumpini Park to run.

Getting to Lumpini Park

Since I knew Lumpini Park was right next to the Sala Daeng (Si Lom MRT) BTS stop which is 4 stops (including a transfer) from my closest BTS (Phloen Chit). I always feel like a jerk taking a taxi / subway to go workout instead of jogging but I didn’t want to get lost.

I got in the crowded Saturday skytrain and was crossing the busy street to get to Lumpini park in about 20 minutes from when I left.  According to my GPS it was 2.2 miles from Lumpini Park to my apartment.

Running in the Park

Running was interesting because the park has a one lane cement path which is about 10 yards wide for running or walking around the park.  I was there on a Saturday afternoon so there was probably more people than there would be on a weekday but they posed no problem as I jogged at a fast pace. I was weaving in and out avoiding slower joggers and walkers.  I ended up running what I thought were mile intervals.

I used my Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS to monitor my running and I got suspicious results.  It said my mile time was around 5 minutes which I thought was too good to be true and it was.  I had the Forerunner set on metric measurements so everything was not what I though it was.  The whole path around the park which surrounds the lake is a little over a kilometer long.

What Else is in the Park?

If you’re not from San Francisco you may be surprised that there are American bison in Golden Gate Park.  When I went to Central Park in New York for the first time I had no idea there was a whole zoo in it.  I wasn’t thinking about any of this when I was in Lumpini park but I soon found out that there are some truly organic surprises which await any park visitor as well as some man-made attractions.

As I was runing around I noticed lots of exercise equipment including crude exercise bikes, pull-up bars, dips bars, swings and even a full gym with equipment which was probably from the 1940s.  There was a large and surprisingly clean bathroom as well.  I will head back soon with my AWESOME Canon HG10 camcorder/camera to take some pictures and videos.

Not your Average Park

To take a break from running and stretch with this old man who was probably 80 I headed to a bridge.  I bought a bag of fish food for 10 baht from this little girl after I saw the many people in peddle boats feeding the fish.  It was pretty amazing the amount of fish in the lake.  When you throw a handful of pellets or bread in the water, you can see hundreds of large catfish piling on the top of the water.

I would estimate there would have to be literally millions of fish in that lake unless the bridge was where they congregated for their usual feedings. During the whole time at the park I didn’t notice any ducks in the lake or any dogs in the park and I soon found out why.

In the depths of the water are GIANT lizards.  Water monitor lizards which are several feet long live in the water and come out periodically.  The Thai people completely ignore these modern day dinosaurs which come out of the lake and lackadaisically walk around the shore. From what I researched these lizards are harmless and many people keep them as pets in other parts of the world.  The picture (below) I found online from the Bangkok Post but I will head down to Lumpini park to get some better pictures with my Canon HG10.

Also See:  Lumpini Park Gym Workouts

Not another Chinatown ?

If you have read my review of the Kuala Lumpur Chinatown you would know my stance on Chinatowns.  While I think Chinatown is a cool place for the most part I do not think they should be a primary destination.

I’m not sure how many people have flown across the world just to visit a Chinatown but I hope if someone wants to experience China that bad they would just go there!

Heading to Chinatown

I thought Chinatown was a bit of a journey from where I currently live because it was by the Chao Phraya which was where I stayed last time I was in Thailand.

Turns out it was very close.  All I had to do was take the BTS from Phloen Chit which is a 10 minute walk from my apartment and take 2 stops to Siam.  From Siam I had to go another 2 stops to Si Lom BTS / Sala Daeng MRT station.

From Sala Deng I had to transfer to the MRT (subway) for the first time.  Two more stops in the underground MRT and I was already at Hua Lamphong station which was a 5 minute walk to Chinatown.

Using the MRT

I was a bit geeked to use Bangkok’s underground subway for the first time.  I walked in and immediately noticed it was immaculate.  Most subways I have been in are clean and the MRT was no exception.

The trains were fast and smooth, not at all like BART in San Francisco which are bumpy and very noisy.  On the doors had a sticker which said that the MRT was on its 5 year anniversary which partially explained why it was so clean.  There was also an airport style glass wall which separated the tracks and the platform which made the MRT feel much more modern and peaceful at the same time.

Chinatown

Walking from the Hua Lamphng station to the heart of Chinatown was interesting because the streets were pretty deserted.  I saw about 10 shops selling scales on one side of the street and another 10 shops selling vintage looking sewing machines on the other side.  I knew there would be more and when you arrive you can see that Chinatown in Bangkok is absolutely huge.

The first thing I saw was a bunch of fruit stands.  They had mostly imported fruits such as apples, cherries and grapes presumably from the USA which is different from most of Bangkok.  Exploring further down the narrow street with a packed mix of foot traffic, motosai (motorcycles) and trucks I found tons of little shops.  There were some shops with high end stuff and others with very low end things.

I apologize for being vague but I saw thigs I haven’t seen anywhere let alone Chinatowns.  There was a very tight corridor packed with people jockeying for position amongst the motorcycles packing boxes of goods on the back which went on for a couple of blocks with hundreds of little shops and bigger stores.   Very tight may be an understatement as there was probably 3 feet to navigate amongst possibly disastrous hot grease carts frying yummy Chinese treats.

I saw less restaurants and bakeries than I would expect as one of the prime motivations for heading to Chinatown was dim sum, namely pork buns & egg tarts my two favorites.  I managed to find a couple places and tried the egg tarts and pork buns for 15 baht (44 cents) each which was rather expensive (relatively) to most of the stuff you get in Bangkok.

Each street and alleyway seemed to have its own specialty.  Some had Hello Kitty type merchandisse while others had dried Chinese herbs and others had meat including unidentifiable animal parts, stomach, and of course the environmentalist despised shark fin.

Overall Impression

Like I said before, I wouldn’t say Chinatown in Bangkok is something to travel across the world to visit but it was pretty impressive.  I got the impression that it was actually a functioning part of Bangkok rather than a tourist dump like Chinatown Kuala Lumpur.  Another big difference is I was there for over 2 hours and did not once have a person bug me about buying something!

If you want to get some good cheap Chinese snacks, some cheap and fun souvenirs and anything else you can think of which would be in a Chinatown, Bangkok’s Chinatown no doubt delivers as it is very big.  If you don’t like huge crowds it is probably best to head there on the weekend.

Stay tuned for more about Bangkok’s Chinatown as I will definitely head back there one of these days.

Eating in vs. Eating out

With little cheap and delicious hole in the wall and street food spots every 20 meters or so on the street there really is no need to prepare any food at home.  Compound that that with the fact that messy food preparation has the possibility to turn your apartment into a roach motel and I’d be willing to bet that most expats (and maybe even Thai people) have a majority of their meals away from home.

So far I’ve bought 7/11 prepared meals which are cheap (35-45 baht {$1.02-1.32}) and include  bland spaghetti & tomato sauce, salty fried rice and decent meats with rice to microwave at home but I decided it is the time to ‘prepare’ something.  I say ‘prepare’ because if it doesn’t include a rice cooker, microwave or coffee maker it’s not possible.

Healthy vs. Unhealthy

I have been wondering for the past few weeks how healthy the foods I’ve been eating actually are.  The old idea that, “if it tastes good, it’s unhealthy” may be true as most Thai food which you can buy for around $1.00USD are delicious.  The added fat has got to be an issue as you can often see the guy at the wok liberally dumping in oil.   I decided to try to avoid things with high fat such as any fried rice, chicken skin and fatty pork.

Green Beans

I have no idea where I can find green vegetables close to where I live so I see these green beans when I’m walking back from the gym in some noodle stands.  For a very low 10 baht (35 cents) I got this bag of green beans (in picture below).   I noticed Thai people staring at me while I was walking down the street with the bag of beans which was pretty interesting.

To make a long story short, I have a rice cooker with a steamer on top.  I just broke the beans up, threw them in while the rice was steaming and 10 or so minutes later I have a nice plate of rice & green vegetables.  I threw a little Kikkoman soy sauce on them along with a few squirts of Siracha and Bam!

I had a fat free servings of carbs and fiber along with the complimentary protein at home in 10 minutes.  The best part is the price which I estimate to be around 40 cents!  I took some Flax seed pills to add the essential fats and I sometimes take a little whey protein with it for added protein.

What you see above is NOT the entire Thai alphabet!  It is what makes the language so difficult to read, write and speak.  It is actually the list of vowels along with the tone marks.   What you don’t see on the list is the 44 consonants in the Thai Language.

I took Japanese for an entire year and I can tell you, as a native English speaker who can read/write Spanish Japanese is far easier to learn than Thai.  Japanese is very systematic and orderly.  The two sets of Syllabaries in Japanese the hiragan and katakana were easy to remember as each consonant sound had 5 vowel sounds for example ka, ki, ku, ke, ko.  It makes it easy to read, write and speak basic Japanese (w/out Chinese characters).  Japanese is not a tonal language so you can say it pretty much any way to ge the point across.

Thai Vowels

The chart above has all the Thai vowels.  Confusing right?  You don’t even know the half!  You see the dash which is surrounded with a red dot?  That is where the consonant is supposed to be.  So for example what the vowel above is “sa-ra aah”.  Sa-ra aah is the name of the vowel as all vowels, consonants and tone marks have.

The name usually includes the sound the vowel makes as well as something else.  I will get into that more with consonants.  There are 44 consonants which all make different sounds.  A simple example is adding the first consonant people learn which is called gaw Gai, which means means chicken and makes the g sound.

So you see all the vowels above right?  Some have symbols on both sides, above and below the consonant.  This makes reading very difficult as you must look a group of a bunch of symbols which is complicated by the addition of tone marks and the fact that there are no spaces or punctuation!

Thai Tone Marks

The Thai language is a tonal language.  This means that words that are spelled the same phonetically and sound relatively the same in Western ears, mean something COMPLETELY different in Thai.   For example if you say mai in Thai 5 with the 5 different tones (no tone mark = no tone) it could mean either mile, new, not, right? or silk.  Maybe now you can realize the difficulty of speaking and understanding Thai.

The tone marks are located on the top right of consonants.  To complicate matters, sometimes different vowel and consonant combination have automatic tones which do not have a tone mark!

Thai Consonants

Thai consonants are probably the easiest part of the Thai alphabet to master compared to the vowels but this doesn’t mean they are easy at all.  There are 44 Thai consonants but some look very similar and some make the exact same sounds as others!

What makes Thai consonants complicated is each letter, has a name, a sound, and a meaning.  The name, for example is like double U (W).  The name means nothing and has nothing to do with the sound but in Thai the names has the sound as well as a meaning.

For example the first character, gaw gai (above) means chicken and makes the g sound.  Like I already mentioned, it gets confusing because some look very similar and some sound exactly the same.

Speaking Thai

Speaking Thai is easy if you are reading the phonetic spellings w/out taking into consideration the tone marks.  The problem with this is, it is completely worthless as you are not speaking right.  You may as well be speaking Chinese.

Speaking the words with the correct tones even slowly is difficult and speaking it fast like the people in the street is virtually impossible at this point.  I want to go back to Japanese because it’s about 1/10th as frustrating.

My Class

My class at Language Express is pretty fun.  The structure of each class is pretty much exactly the same for this beginning section.  The first hour is spoken in English.  We start off by going over new consonants and vowels, how to say and right them and their meanings.  Then we have listening exercises then finish the first hour with a game.

The 2nd hour is the speaking hour in which the teacher speaks Thai the entire time.  We listen and read a set of words and phrases then say them outloud in the class.  Next we get in partners and read these conversations in which we have to substitute words we are supposed to memorize which gets very frustrating.

The interesting thing about the class is the demographics.  Even though the teacher speaks perfect English over 1/2 of the class is from non-English countries.   My classes which have different people from time to time had a student from, USA (2 counting me), Australia, France, Japan, Italy, India, Singapore and China last time.  Even though many people use English as a second language there seems to be no problem with the class being taught in English.

Below is a List of the Thai Consonants.

WOW

An obnoxious name for a gym if you ask me.  The official name is actually California WOW Xperience.  I wrote a while back about choosing a gym in Bangkok and now that I’ve had the chance to workout there a dozen or so times I will blog more about my “Xperience” working out there. I have been going to the gym probably an average of 4 times per week during the past 8 or so years.  I have rarely taken breaks of over a few days which are usually due to sickness or traveling.  I also worked in a gym for most of the past 8 years so I would say I know a little about gyms.

Working out at WOW

If it not evident by visiting their official website it will be when you first set foot at the front desk.  WOW Xperience has more of a nightclub atmosphere than a gym.  Don’t believe me?  Head to the Asok gym which has a live DJ spinning right next to the front desk during most of the day! Every time I walk in the gym it feels like I’m part of a scene from the movie Bruno.

The music is so loud that heavy metal in my iPod needs to be cranked almost to full blast to drown out the sound of the extremely de-motivating techno which would likely be a fixture at any night club in San Francisco’s Castro district. There are probably around 100 speakers on the 3 floored fitness center.  The bottom floor has a women’s only center and some free weights and machines.

The middle floor has the front desk and a few cardio machines and the top floor is complete with around 200 cardio machines. It is relatively easy to use free weights, unlike the US there seems to always be a bench press or squat rack open as people tend to gravitate towards the machines.  The equipment is all top quality although just like 24 hour fitness in the US broken cardio equipment stays broken and most of the time doesn’t even get an out of order sign.

California WOW Xperience Advertising

California fitness takes advertising to a new level.  The advertising overload consists of huge posters of scantily clad models who are mostly super-model skinny, fixed television ads on the TVs in the cardio sections and little placards on every single cardio machine. It is interesting that every single TV (which there around 30) has a permanent rotating advertisement built in.  The brightly colored ads take up around 1/3 of one side of every single screen.

The ads usually consist of the standard scantily clad model or personal trainer with their collars popped like the Fonz.  They really don’t bother me too much but they add to the overall advertising overkill. The classes offered include “Planet Yoga” with the very cheesy Master Kamal, a cult hero of mine.  The guy is the real deal, a real yoga guy who is in great shape, but it’s just too cheesy for me.  Another class which I guess is popular in the USA is XXX pole dancing along with a private pilates class and the standard group of aerobics classes.

California WOW Gym Members

Perhaps the biggest difference between the gyms here in Bangkok and the gyms in the real California in the USA is the clientele.  In the 50 or so trips to multiple gyms I have yet to see a woman who weighs over 120 pounds.  There are very few Thai people over 40 who go to the gym as well.  You see your fair share of expats and travelers but for the most part it is young Thai people.

Finding Motivation

From living in Bangkok and not being as active as when I was riding bicycle all around San Francisco and training clients every day I have changed my body composition for the worse.  It doesn’t help that plentiful, cheap and often greasy  food is available at every corner. It seems every time I go to the gym I just don’t feel like working out.  I have tried to download some hard, loud heavy metal music which has seemed to work a bit.  One day I spent 30 minutes staring at the color changing neon lights on the cardio floor thinking about all the things I would like in the gym.  It motivated me to put together a pretty sarcastically cool list of the Top 10 Signs your Gym is Hardcore which unfortunately is the polar opposite of California Wow Xperience.

Muay Thai

I am a big fan of kickboxing and happen to live in the Mecca of Thai boxing.  When I originally moved to Bangkok I had plans to start Muay Thai lessons but it fell threw once I got in my awkward schedule, staying up early in the AM and waking up in the PM.  It was also hard to single out a not-so-serious Muay Thai school as I just want to do it for the workout not for getting punched, kicked, kneed, and elbowed in the face. They also have Thai Boxing rings set up at all  California WOW Xperiences but it is in front of everyone and I don’t think the trainers have any real experience to teach proper techniqe.  Hopefully I can find a Thai boxing gym to get some training sessions in the future.  For now I must just xperience California WOW and try to get the hang of it. Blog about Muy Thai Coming Soon

Welcome to Soi Arab

I knew I lived in between soi 1 & 3.  Soi 1 is a very small 2 way street while Soi 1 is a large 1 way street with 3 or 4 lanes.  Soi simply means street in Thai.

I have noticed that every time I walk up Soi 3 it’s a lot less like Thailand and a lot more like downtown Baghdad.   You see many women and men dressed in traditional Arab clothing as well as many businesses with Arabic script.

Rip-Off Alert

Nobody likes getting ripped off.  Regardless if the rip-off is for 10 baht or 2000 baht I will always mention it so anyone reading this is either visiting Bangkok or living in Thailand doesn’t have to find out for themselves.

So I’ve gotten papaya from the street probably 100 times since I’ve lived in Bangkok and each time it has cost 10 baht per.  Not on Soi Arab.  I think it’s a scam they pull when people come and order a fruit expecting to pay 10 baht and after they slice it and bag it, they say 20 baht!  The papaya was unripe as well which was a double whammy.

I know it is only getting you for 30 cents but is still enough to never buy fruit from Soi Arab ever again and I would recommend that you buy NOTHING from Soi Arab or the surrounding streets if you can get it anywhere else in Bangkok.

Falafel and Shawarma

One thing which isn’t very common in the rest of Bangkok is indoor/outdoor Mediterranean food.  To get there, from the NANA BTS station walk straight and take a right when you see a big street.  You will be walking onto Soi Arab from Sukhumvit Roid.  You on the right you will pass some sort of pipe smoking oxygen bar or something then you cannot miss a big outdoor set-up with 2 shawarma spits.

There was a friendly Syrian guy who took my order and had my food ready in 2-3 minutes.  I ordered a chicken shwarma and a falafel sandwitch because I was hungry and they are not very big.  One would be perfect for a light eater but I’m a very heavy eater.   They were both delicious as I devoured them in about 2 minutes.  My picture is embarrassingly bad but I’m posting it just to teach myself a lesson about photographic food presentation;)  There is an outdoor/covered area to eat as well.

Although I haven’t tried it yet, there is another place which is pretty much identical about 200 meters down the road.

Price

Falafel Sandwitch (burrito): 50 Baht ($1.46)

Chicken Shawarma Sandwitch: 50 Baht ($1.46)

Meat Shawarma Sandwitch: 60 Baht ($1.76)

If you’re in the area and would like to have a fabulous quick snack or meal these 2 outdoor shawarma spit locations are great.

Shocking Bargains in Bangkok

Bangkok is world famous for its shopping bargains.  Whether you’re walking past the designer botiques in the lavish Siam Paragon shopping center, in MBK world renowned for cheap deals or on certain streets, shopping is everywhere.  While tourists may love the fact that there is so much shopping, especially on the streets, I find that for someone who lives in Bangkok, they are extremely annoying.

Shop til you Drop Whether you Like it or Not

Going to the gym is something I try to do every day.  I hate doing cardio on machines in the gym and would rather get my cardio while going to and from the gym.  The gym is a little more than 2 miles from my apartment but running there and back on the main street is literally impossible.

The reason being is because the Asok & Nana BTS stations on Sukhumvit road the sidewalks are completely covered with shops and tourists which slows your run home to a very slow walk.  At first it was cool because you can see the products offered on the street.  It gets old after you see the same things over and over again even though some are interesting.

Are you in the Market For…

Every time I walk by the ‘random stuff’ stands on Sukhumvit road I wonder 3 things.  1.  Who the hell buys that crap? 2.  How would a tourist get it past customs and 3.  What if someone sold it on the street in America?  Every day when I walk by the stands I have a little chuckle about the new stuff I see there.   Here are some of the random stuff available in addition to the Thai art, T-shirts, pirated goods, handicrafts and other classic tourist items.

Cross Bows
Nothing more important to own in a large city than a crossbow.  Maybe cupid is in town as a tourist?

Viagra & Cialis
I guess cupid is in town.  Who would buy Viagra in candy cigarette boxes off the street?  Especially when there’s a pharmacy on every block?

Stun Guns
The classic 1980s stun guns w/ the bolt of lightening are readily available for those paranoid housewives.

Brass Knuckles
If stun guns aren’t 1980s enough for you can get some brass knuckles.

Porn
You can’t have Viagra & Cialis without your international porn selection.

Rambo Knives
You can pick up a large survival knife right off the street table, and “haggle” with the shop owner.

BB Guns
There are plenty of rats, stray dogs and cats on the streets at night for target practice.

Those are just some of the fine products you can buy on Sukhumvit road on the sidewalk in between Asok & Nana BTS stations.  You can see in the picture something like what it looks like and imagine how hard it would be to walk through when tourists are browsing all the stuff.

7 / 11 / 24 / 7 / 365

According to Wikipedia there are 1,500 7-Eleven stores in Bangkok which only 77 less than Tokyo.  Consider the fact that (according to some websites) Tokyo has up to 4 million more people than Bangkok and you will know that there is no shortage of 7-Eleven stores in Bangkok.

When you’re walking down the main streets in Bangkok you can count on a 7-Eleven every couple hundred meters.  There are also a 7-Eleven clones such as Family Mart which have some of the same stuff as 7-Eleven.

These convenient stores are usually open 24/7 and are very handy to get a bottle of water, Red Bull or snack.  7-Elevens in Bangkok are more than just junk food.  You can live off of stuff you can buy at 7-Eleven which includes everything from eating utensils to pirated DVDs to milk to some of the snacks which I enjoy on a regular basis.

7- Eleven Snacks in Bangkok

I can’t really remember if there are any 7-Elevens in San Francisco.  I do remember there being very many in Tokyo where my friend Bryan would get a Pizzamon which is like a pork bun with pizza inside every morning!  In Tokyo they had onigiri as well as other Japanese style foods.  In Bangkok they have full frozen and “fresh” TV style microwavable dinners w/ tons of preservatives I’m sure.  They are good at first but quickly get old.  What doesn’t get old is some of the snacks.

The above picture is of my latest purchase which I will detail below.  I will list the price, a brief description and how much they cost with a few details.  I will blog about my favorites in more detail at a later time…

6 Pack of Non-Fat UHT Milk ($58.50)  $1.70
UHT milk tastes just like fresh milk.

2 Containers of Mixed Fruit Yogurt
Tastes just like any kind of sweetened yogurt I’ve had in California.

2 Packs of Nori (40 baht)
Nori is Japanese fried seaweed.  It comes in regular and spicy flavored.

2 Packs of Cocori Nuggets (40 baht)
My new favorite snacks.  These Japanese cheesepuff like snacks come in 2 flavors, squid and sesame and are both crunchy and tasty.

1 Pack of Chocolate Almond Crunch Pocky (25baht) 73 cents
Pocky is a staple sweet at all convenient stores and grocery stores in Asia.  If you’ve never had it, it’s cracker/cookie sticks with chocolate coating and assorted nuts/sprinkles with different flavors.

2 Packs of Nuts (50 baht)
The almonds are from California and the cashews are from Thailand and they are very very very very addictive as they are almost impossible to stop eating.  I can only buy one pack at a time.

4 Cartons of Mixed Juice (57 baht) $1.67
The juices are delicious.  The bigger cartons are 13 baht and have 40% mixed juices with different mixtures of carrot/prune/apple/vegetables/beats and more.  The small cartons which actually cost more (18 baht) have 100% juice.

Total

276.50 baht $8.10

Considering you can get a good sized meal of rice & one of many flavors of chicken and vegetables with a drink for 35 baht ($1.02).  Spending almost 8 times more on mostly junk food which I finished off in a night  Not only can the price of the junk food of 7-Eleven add up and cost quite a bit it can add extra, unnecessary calories to the diet.

Truly Exotic Fruits

The Fruits of Thailand:  Part I dealt with fruits which although exotic are pretty common at least in California.  The next three fruits I got from my neighborhood mega fruit stand, which happened to be a fruit truck are not common in the USA at all.  As a matter of fact, I have never seen any of these three fruits in the United States.

Mangosteen

I used to drink the canned mangosteen drink which was saturated with sugar once in a while.  In San Francisco’s small Asian markets by the coconut water you could usually find a few cans.  It is more like sugar water than a actual fruit juice as Mangosteen has a taste which is sweet and tart at the same time.

Mangosteen juice and pup is marketed in the USA as your typical “Super Food.”  A natural fruit which is high in antioxidants, mangosteen is seasonal in Thailand available 3-4 months out of the year.  A company which markets mangosteen juice, claims that the real antioxidants are actually found in the pulp which is very bitter and not usually eaten but who knows?

Mangosteen are purple and round with these round green leaves on top.  To eat them you only have to cut a line a few centimeters long on them, I usually use my key, then you can rip half of the outer shell off to expose the delicate white brains!

The inside of mangosteen kind of looks like a white orange but I see it more as a brain sticking out of the skull.  Thais offer you a small fork in restaurants to scoop out pieces of the fruit but I just grab the while thing and pop it in my mouth.

The mangosteen fruit is VERY juicy.  It tastes bitter at first, then sweet, then bitter again.  There are 1-4 seeds amidst all the pulp some big and some small.  You can spit it out, or be like “Weird Al” Yankovich and just eat it!

Rambutan & Longan

I had never heard of either Rambutan or Longan before I aimlessly began walking the streets of Bangkok looking for some sweets.  The rambutan looks vaguely similar to a  sea anemone and the small, brown round longan looks like a little brown nut which comes on a branch.

They don’t very appetizing on the outside but both have their own sweet rewards on the inside.  They are both seasonal fruits which grow in hot environments and according to wikipedia the longan is a near threatened species.

To me they taste very similar and have almost the exact texture.  I have read that both are similar to lychee fruit which I have had but am soon to find here in Bangkok.  The taste of both is sweet.  I can’t really describe it any other way, there is no tartness, bitterness, saltiness, etc.  just sweet.

They say the longan has a more pungent taste which may be true but they pretty much taste the same to me.  The reason I like the longan better is because the seed separates from the fruit almost completely.

See in the picture, the rambutan (top) fruit has the outer part of the seed stuck to the fruit.  It doesn’t really change the taste at all or hurt your teeth but I think it makes rambutan a little less enjoyable, biting on a chunk of seed.

The seed may be healthy as it appears to be similar to an almond but until I know it’s free of any deadly poisons I will throw it away.

Getting to the Rambutan & Longan Fruit

Both fruits are easily peeled with the hands, the rambutan is the easier of the two.  To open a rambutan grab the fruit with both hands with your thumbnails touching each other.  Dig your thumbs into the outer shell and simply tear the skin away from the inner fruit which comes out easily.  The Longan has a tougher, smoother skin which takes some serious strong nails to dig in.  I usually bit a little tear in the skin and peel it off.  Like a cherry, the seed is easily separated from the fruit.

Both fruits have very little juice.  The texture is hard to explain.  I would say it’s like the ultra-preserved cherry which is in most canned fruit cocktails.  Both fruits are good for snacking on and taste especially good when chilled.

Read about Fruit more Common in America.

Stay Tuned for More about the Fruits of Thailand

Just Another Day in Bangkok

It took until around 8pm local time to realize that it was the 4th of July.  Of course Thai people have no history on the 4th so you wouldn’t expect anything to be different right?  Well, what reminded me of the 4th of July was none other than Nathan’s annual hot dog eating contest!

Close Call

I was doing cardio at California WOW and I looked up and there they were, Kobayashi and Joey Chestnut going at it, cramming hot dogs and buns down their throat.  I thought it was live but I guess it was last year’s contest but that’s besides the point.

I had just ate a bunch of fruit a few hours before writing the last blog post and I pounded a Gatorade during my weight training workout.  Anyone who consumes Gatorade regularly knows that it’s not the best thing to drink fast while working out.

The commercial version of Gatorade has a lot more sugar than the stuff which is research proven.  So I had that Gatorade burp problem.  Needless to say (see picture) some parts of the contest almost had me projectile vomit a Gatorade & tropical fruit smoothie on the girl on the elliptical in front of me.

It was only the 2nd time in my entire life I gagged from something I watched on TV.  The other was on this show called Guinness which had world record attempts.  It was a guy trying to eat the most worms in a minute or something.  He stuffed what seemed to be 100 worms in his mouth and just inhaled them.  Yikes!

California WOW Television

This is on a side note but who the hell produces the TV channels at California WOW?  The gym is like 24 hour fitness with super-extreme marketing.  I will blog about it fully later but the TVs all have a split screen.  One side of the screen has rotating California WOW ads which are beyond cheesy and the other half has completely random things from runway fashion shows to soccer to hot dog eating contests.

More about California WOW Fitness coming Soon…