Pictures, videos, and more pictures

That's been my day: uploading, editing, and sharing. Honestly, it's somewhat exhausting sorting through vacation pictures, if you also want to edit them, upload them to Facebook, comment on them, tag people, and mark where they were taken. This is especially true if, as today, Facebook tells you with some regularity that you don't have permission to edit your own albums, for some bizarre reason.

Anyway, here's the fruits of my labor, in the form of my first Thailand album and the link to my Youtube page, where you can find my videos chronicling dancing elephants and elephant ridie in Chiang Mai, and hundreds of thousands of terrified crabs and a gorgeous sunset with the sound of a muezzin call at Krabi.

Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2644331434819.2114580.1451610020&type=1&l=04c4bfe453

and video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/grahamcrackersarecoo?blend=1&ob=0

More pictures are forthcoming.

But also, today's one new thing!

Thing 10:
I ventured outside my restaurant comfort zone today and began my exploration of the streets behind my apartment. Today, that meant a nice stroll along the backside of the street reading menus until I got to the oven-baked pizza place which throws its garlic-and-cheese smell out into the street for all to covet. Once there, I was able to ask in Chinese whether or not they could do take-out (they could) and then used my standard point-and-say method to order myself a Margherita pizza, one of my all-time favorites, before sitting down to await it. I was the only person in the shop when I went in, but I seem to have brought the customers with me, as two or three people trickled in as I sat there. Interesting phenomenon...going to have to keep an eye on it.

Armed with my pizza, I walked back by way of a busy little restaurant I've been eying for a while now, for its juice stand section. (My favorite juice stand went out of business a few months ago.) So I stopped in and ordered a watermelon juice, only to discover that the staff is all but surly, and there is absolutely nowhere to stand in that restaurant without being in someone's way, especially while holding a pizza box. Maybe I'll try again--it is the only juice stand I know of nearby--but it was supremely awkward. At least the juice was tasty.

When I got home, I discovered that my pizza was not, in fact, Margherita, but something else altogether, with shredded cheese, sliced cherry tomatoes, and not a basil leaf in sight. Very sad, and odd since I heard the waitress repeat my order twice, both to me and to the pizza maker, yet he somehow still made it wrong. Oh well, it was still decent, just not terribly awe- or trust-inspiring for this particular shop.

Anyway, here's what I got for my adventures in dinnertime. You win some, you lose some.