badmition fight culb, fish murder and thanksgiving!(in that order)

welll ok heres my early blog, since im heading out tommoro for pukadung(rotary trip, all 38 of us are gonna go hiking nd camping at on of the highest peaks in thailand!)

hmm so befoer we get into the main things that happenexd this week ill just say that these are the most exciting things that appened, all the rest was usuall id ide my bike to school(180km on that bike now, the plastic parts of the pedal keep snappin off, im on my 3rd set now i think i just pedal to hard or something, i didnt go to school on monday i was feeling a little sick, cough cough...)
so anyways schools the same, on friday, we didnt have class, monks came to school to recive money frm all of the students for the temple,the cool thing was when we give the money we make this christmas type thing where the money hangs off of the branches then we give the tree to monks while they chant and pray over it it was pretty cool!

so on teusday, my host dadasks me f i like wan to go and play some badminton with him and some friends, sure sounds like fun, badminton is fun to play every now and then, and im not bad at it, zso why not?
my host dad goes upstairs to get redy, while i stay downstairs, he comes back five min later weraring TINY(these shorts are absoulutly idiculous!) baby blue storts and a green polo that was abot two sized to small, i started to burst out laghing, but quickly turned it into a massive coughing fit!
so after my coughing subsided, my host bro and i hop into the dads truck at around 8 or so so its really dark when when were driving, we drive for quite a while, and when we finnaly stop im lookng up at one of the scariest looking wharehouses ive ever seen, i mean this place is out in the middle of nowhere, its pitch black in side and this place looks like its been condemed!!!
so i was a little bit on edge as you can imagine, but m host dad gets out of the truck, ad tells us to follow him inside the creepy wharehouse, so we slide open the doors, and y host dad goes over to one of those circut breaker things, flips a toggle and flood lights start to flicker on revealing two badminton nets in the middle of this huge room that has trash and random odds and ends littered throughout, as if on cue the doors screeched open again, and 5 more thai old guys start to come throug the doors, decked out in the same bad 80s workout atire!

the first thing that pops into my head is
"dear god, ive wnderd into a badminton fght club" iwas just waiting for brad pit to step out of the shadows and start telling me how we dont talk about badmiton club, i mean these dudes were serious!
so i play for a while with my host bro while the other guys go through streaches to make sure they dont pull anything i guess, once they finished up, they took the court, and well these dudes were,,,
INCREADIBLE!!!!
these were the best badimnton players ive ever seen, i mean every hit was a spike! they were darting around the court like crazy!!
so while i ws watchin them, since i didnt know any of thier names i started to manke up names for the teams.
first off we have
the nudists- these guys both wore shorts that were actually shorter than thier shirts, making them look like they werent wearin any pants!

next was croughin tiger/hidden dragon, my host dad was crouchin tiger, hed be in front of his partner in a croughed position dodging the other teams spikes while hidden dragon would jump out of nowhere and make increadible returns!

and lastly we had the nam phong globe trotters, these dudes were all about the trick shots, behing the back, between the legs, you name it, and these dudes could do it!

so that was my night, sitting on top of an old table with my host br while these guys put on a awsome display of thier mastery of the game after it was over, my host dad shut off the breaker locked up the whare house and went on home like 6 grown men playing a kids game in an abandoned wharehouse in the midle of the night was perfectly normal!

sowendesday and thursday passed normally, but then on friday night after the thing with the monks, my host dad comes to me and tell me that were having a barbecue(oh whenever i tell you guys about interactions between me and people who only speak thai, im giving you the abridged version, my translation, you know?)
so i ask him what were eaitng, he takes me to the backyard to a buket, and inside IS THE BIGGEST FISH IVE EVER SEEN!!!
and its not a normal fish either, this is one of those fish tht doesent have gills, and is able to crawl around on land!
my host dad tell me that i have to kill it
uhhh no thanks
no you have to
no id actully rather not!
ryan you have to kill it


so i guess i was about to commit fish murder
my host dad goes to the house and brings me back a hammer, he tell be just to pick it up and whack it on the head!

one problem.... how?
imean the fish HAS NO GILLS!!!
how the heck to do i pick this thing up????!!!
he says just grab it by the tail, so well i rech for this beastie and some how it senses me coming and manages to JUMP out ot the foot tall bucket and, actally starts to CRAWL away from me, like a person!!!
at this point i feel terrible about killing man-fish, so my host had grabs it off of the ground an holds it out for me to smak on the head
i tell itim sorry, nd then i hit it, which sends man-fish into convulsions, whic means i have to whack it again!
i felt terrible.
i dont know why i felt bad either, i mean i go fishing all the time no problem, maybe it was just that i didnt catch the fish, so it wasnt my right to kill it, or tht the thing was actully able to crawl on dry land that fraked me out....

so i bet your all wondering "how did man-fish taste?"
well so my hd was grilling it, but then i guess he realized he was hungry NOW!
at this point im in the other room with my host bro, when i realize i cant hear the fish being cooked any more, so i go to chek it out, and i see my host dad bent over infront of the microwave smiling hungrily. and i realized that theres no fish on the grill anymore, i go to se what hes looking at and in the microwave if a halfcooked fish thats been choped in half(too big to fit you know) slowly spinning int he orange light.
awww no.
my host dad looks up at me and asks if it smells good, i kinda shake and nod my head at the same time, and he asks whats wrong, i point at the spinning fish halfs and try to xplain how a microwave isnt how you cook a fish, he tought i was just being funny, so when we sit gown to eat he keeps on urging me to try the fish(i was perfectly happy with my plate of white rice) but i had to try some, so wouldent insult him, so i take a bite, nd well...
it was basiclly warm sushi, you know how fish is supposed to flake apart in your mouth, this was slimy and i had to chew on it, i said it was delicious, but sadly i ate a big lunch at school sooooo, im gonna have to passs on this meal
my hd looked a little ssad, but i sure as heck wasnt eating ny more, so i politleyexcused my self from the table(later that night i sunck down for some dry ramen noodles, its called "mama" here)


ad that brings me to thanksgiving,
so i was pretty bummed about missing thnks giving, so today i prsuaded the girls to skip fruit carving class with me, then wed go to lotus(its kinda like a thai costco)and buy a bunch of food and just hangout at marias house, fter a bit of pleading they all agreed, and we set off to raid lotus

one hr later maria and i are staning in akitchen sauteeing onions mashing potatoes peeling carrots and carving pecooked chickens(no turkeys in thailand) having a blast, it was awesome, we made the food(it actually tasted alright, maria works in a kitchen in a hotel back home, so you know she helped me out a little bit while i did my rachel ray thing.
anyways food was good company was great,all in all, we had a really fun thanksgiving!

man its late!
uhhhhh ok ive got time for a thai lesson
ok
so this isnt really thai you can say, but thats kinda nitpicky
555
thats it.
555
ok so its actually thai internet slang
555
ok in thai the word for the #5 is "ha"
sooooo....
555=hahaha
get it?

its now my favorite thing to use in emails, well its oficially almost one in the morning on november the 25th, i gotta go, ive got a mountain to climb tommoro!
until next issue
ryan
555