Funny Signs of Thailand

The words and signs in Thailand are unbelievable! Their words, language, and way they translate things is hilarious! At every turn we were struck by something else that struck us funny. Here is just a sampling.

First, let me start off by saying: Hello Phuket!

Wasn't that a good idea?

As you can see here, your children can eat for free for 1/2 price. They even say it 2 different places on the sign, in case you didn't catch it the first time. Maybe free is 1/2 price of.... ahhhh! Brain freeze! This is starting to sound like one of those pesky word problems where you have 2 trains traveling toward each other!

Ooh! This place looks good!

Better wash our hands first! Hey! Take it easy on the hand dryer!

What!? You spilled food on your shirt!? Now we're going to have to do the dang laundry!

Better swing by the "Tiffany's" cart on the street and pick up a peace offering.

Its getting late. We better find a place to stay tonight. No, we don't want to rent a building, just a good hotel room will do.

Oooh! Look, honey! It's the first resort! Sure beats waiting 'til we're down to our last resort!

Our Trip to Thailand

We took a 1 week trip to Phuket (pronounced poo-ket) Thailand. It was quite an adventure. It's an interesting town. There are beaches, snorkeling and SCUBA diving, elephants, rain forest, and the town is full of dentists, optometrists, little vendor shops, and tailors. A man can get 2 suits, 2 ADDITIONAL pairs of pants, 2 shirts, and 2 silk ties custom made for $189 US - TOTAL. There also also what Rob calls he-she's. They have cabaret shows where these guys perform in drag. Some are still guys, some are "in transition", and some "have completed the surgery". Nice! There are also a ton of tourists. I think if the tourists left they would lose at least 95% of their revenue in the town. We concluded the average tourist age was 55, and the beaches and resort pools don't look like California. Almost all of the tourists are fat and terribly out of shape. An no body complexes like in the US. These people all run around letting it all hang out, totally unihibited. In the next few weeks keep checking back as I post new postings showing some of our adventures in Thailand.

Our Driver

This is our 26 year old driver, Michael. He is our driver, translator, tour guide, body guard, and friend. He is very fluent in English after having just returned from 6 years of college in Ireland. It's amusing to hear a Chinese person speaking English with a Chinese/Irish accent. As you can see, Michael is a big boy. Rob is not a little guy, and he dwarfs him. He came to our apartment on his day off to decorate our door for Chinese New Year. The decorations he selected are to bring us good luck in the coming year.

Chinese New Year's Eve Fireworks

What you are looking at is ALL amateurs. No training, no rules, no safety precautions, all legal. In fact, there were cop cars driving within a couple feet of these being launched at the edge of the roads. The "big show" by the professionals is the following night, the 2nd day of the "new year".

This is early new year's eve.







As the evening progesses, the frequency and quantity escalates. And a plume of black smoke begins to grow over the city.






During the fireworks, the window needed a little additional cleaning. So Rob "stepped out" and cleaned it. We live on the 15th floor, and there is an 8 inch ledge. Hey, why pay someone a dollar an hour to clean when you can do it yourself, right?





These fireworks are outside our side bedroom window. I mean RIGHT outside our bedroom window. The security guards at our building had their little guard shack full of fireworks for the evening. A little before midnight they started lighting off everything from firecrackers to some pretty big fireworks right beside our building. As you opened the side bedroom window, leaned out, and looked straight down, you could see the launcher they were firing out of. Probably not the smartest move, we opened the window so we could photograph and video tape the launcher, and the fireworks that were exploding RIGHT in front of the window. I mean, the spray coming off of them was at the height of our window, and coming within inches of hitting us. In fact, our bed and comforter are right inside that window, and as our friends are standing there watching it, I'm wondering what the odds are of some of the firework spray coming through the window and igniting the comforter. But hey, the fire station is right across the street from our building, so we were fine, right?






Midnight is pretty intense. The black smoke fills the air from 6 straight hours of thousands of people all firing off fireworks and firecrackers of all sizes. Throughout the night the intensity has been building. Then at midnight the sky errupts in all directions and the city is blanketed with fireworks in all directions as long strings of firecrackers go off all over the town on the ground.

It is perfectly legal to buy fireworks and fire them any time, any place. And we're not talking little fireworks. We're talking the kind you see the professionals shoot on the 4th of July. They save up all year to be able to afford these. Each person out there shooting off fireworks can spend up to $1500 (in US money, $10,000 yuan) on this one evening. Remember, many only make around $50 (US dollar) a WEEK. This night is a BIG deal. - The event of the year. They "warm up" for about a week leading up to New Year's Eve, and that evening the action starts right after dark, and runs steady, climaxing at midnight, and then continuing on - with a lot less fireworks and a lot more fire crackers, until after 1:30 AM - with periodic explosions throughout the entire night. Then early in the morning you are awakened to firecrackers again. By mid morning it seems like a normal day outside, and the clean up is well under way. You can't believe the mess of red paper in the streets from all of those fireworks. And even more amazing is how fast it gets cleaned up. They sweep it up into piles with their home made brooms, and some burn the pile (not a real safe thing if there are a few duds in the pile that go off), and others bag it all in black trash bags. Then the streets are lined with filled black trash bags.

This was "amateur night". The day after New Year's Day, Jan 27, the govt. puts on "the big show". Lucky for us, it's going to be in the square right outside our apartment. So our picture windows face the event that this town of 6 million people will either be at, or wish they were at. And we'll be able to watch it from the comfort of our toasty, warm apartment. (We are very popular this time of year with our friends.)

The show is supposed to run every night for 7 nights, from Jan 27 - Feb 2. So all in all, the fireworks and celebrating lasts for 15 nights.

Russian Restaurant in Harbin

We couldn't leave without dining in a Russian restaurant. The further south you go in China, the warmer the climate. The warmer the climate, the lighter the food. The further north you go, the heartier the food. It takes a lot of calories to stay warm during the harsh winter. Harbin is very far north, and not that far from Russia. Hense the Russian restaurant. Plus, I believe at one point Russia occupied part of China. But don't quote me on that. I'm certainly no history teacher. Anyhow, the Russian restaurant was pretty cool, and the food sure hit the spot on a cold snowy day.

More Funny Signs

China is a wealth of funny signs. One would THINK they would have the people who are relatively fluent in English do the spelling and translating for their signs. One would be wrong. It makes for some pretty funny signs. A few of us are having a lot of fun photographing them as we come across them. We have quite a collection of funny sign photos.

One sign was on the check in counter at the airport. Most of the instructions were pretty straight forward. The final instruction left me scratching my head. I risked being arrested in the airport to capture this photo just for you. It read:
"Breach of the provisions of the relevant department in the settlement."
Well, there you go! Consider yourself notified!

I am also amused by the exit signs. They are consistent. All exit signs are the same. A little green stick man RUNNING for the exit. Because I guess if you really need to exit, you would have some sense of urgency, right?

Not to be confused with an exit, when leaving the Snow Sculptures in Harbin, there was a sign, not for an exit, but directing us to the "way out". Which, if you think about it, is so much more straight forward than exit. "Pardon me, which way is the way out?" "Why, it's right over there by the sign pointing the way out, of course."

Our friend John wants to know who the "Canary Island" camel is being marketed to. The problem? The words "Canary Island" stitched on the side of the camel are a mirror image!

And for my family in Alaska, they'll be happy to know that in Harbin, China, they can purchase a pair of "Alaska" snow boots. I had 4 store clerks yell at me that there were no pictures in their shop when I snapped this one! Yikes! They had dolls and other art type things in their store, but apparently I was going to go copy their Alaska boots and cut into their business now that I had a photo of them so I could copy them.



Want a good cup of coffee? How 'bout some "Happy" coffee. But always look at the fine print. Notice the red LED light in the top right of the vending machine? It says POO. Does this mean the coffee in this machine is poo flavor? Hmmm. Ummm, no thanks. I'll pass. I'm not THAT cold or thirsty.

Flat Stanley

I decided it would be fun to start traveling with a roaming gnome of sorts that we could photograph at various landmarks, places and events. For someone with a playful sense of humor, the possibilities are endless once you get on a roll. Then I decided a little flamingo beanie baby was cheesy enough that would be pretty funny.

Then I became aware of Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley is used as a children's school project. They print him out on paper, color him and laminate him, then mail him to someone in a far away place and that person takes pictures of Flat Stanley in various places. Then the child studies those places their Flat Stanley is visiting. I, being a child at heart, and with a flair for humor, find this hillarious! So I printed out my own Flat Stanley, colored and laminated him the day before I headed back to China, and he hit the road with me. What a GREAT idea! He's flat, weighs practically nothing, and is totally portable! So far he has been photographed in some pretty amazing places. And Rob is just DELIGHTED when I pull him out for a photo op! That, in and of itself, is also funny. So far he's been a good sport, though. And Flat Stanley is world famous. When I pull him out, people often recognize him and call him by name. "I remember Flat Stanley!", they say.







On this trip Flat Stanley got to visit the ice bar. No drinks for him. He just heard it was a cool place to hang out. (Oh, c'mon. I had to go there!)










He also made friends with a Fuwa. Fuwa is the name of the cartoon mascots from the 2008 olympics in China. My particular favorite is Jingjing. He's the panda. It looks like Flat Stanley likes him too. He appears to be greeting Jingjing with open arms.

















Then it was off to see the tigers. Hey! Wait a second! Is he posing with the tigers, or about to become a mid-morning snack! Better pull your arms in, Stanley!














Then it was time to chill on a snow sculpture. This was one of Flat Stanley's favorite sculptures. Personally, I don't see it. Maybe if you're a one dimensional guy, anything 3-dimensional is impressive.