Suphan Buri: Day 3

Today was a pretty sweet day. As part of my learning about the factory Prapas wants me to see Suphan Buri and learn about the people and the culture. So today was kinda of a field trip day as it were. First we went to the aquarium and the zoo which just happen to be right next to each other. The aquarium was pretty cool. They had tanks for both freshwater and salt water fish. Man those fresh water fish can get huge!! They also had this really cool shark tunnel where you could walk through and watch the fish swim overhead.

The zoo was pretty cool too. They had orangutans just hanging out that you could take pictures with. The best part was the lion and tiger cubs. For 50 cents you can go in their cage and feed them a bottle of milk while someone takes pics. Once the bottle was gone I just started playing with them. The tiger got a little rough though just playing like a kitten would but man those teeth are big. I kinda used my arm as a chew toy. Nothing too harsh but I did get scratched up a bit. I still have welts on my wrist and arm. At the same time for some reason the lion cub really liked my flop flops. He kept on biting them and trying to steal them off my feet. Now every time I look at my chewed up flip flops I will remember the time the Lion cub tried to eat them J

It looks like he is giving me a kiss but really he is trying to eat my earring.

A family that grooms together stays together?

I always wanted a pet tiger. For reals!!

You can just see the lion cub is getting ready to pounce on my flip flop.

Pan’s family invited me to go to their house for dinner. They live about 20 min from the factory out in the countryside. Pan told her mother that I didn’t like sea food in advance so she made me an array of chicken dishes: chicken soup, fried chicken, chicken and vegetables, marinated chicken. Yes...it WAS a lot of food but oh so good!

After dinner Pan and I went for a nice long bike ride through the Thai countryside. Pan pointed out to me all the things the farmers were growing the fields; mostly rice with the occasionaly water chestnut, lotus flowers, or corn fields. We even passed a shrimp farm. I love hanging out in the countryside, to me that’s what visiting foreign countries is all about, seeing how the general population lives, how they lived before everyone moved to the cities and started working their fancy office jobs. Not to mention the beauty and serenity that can only be experienced in nature. Those are experiences that you don’t get as a tourist. That’s the best part about going and living in other countries for a while.