The End of My First Week

To begin, I've been getting a few emails about the political situation here in Thailand. Everything is perfectly safe, and to be honest, not that "tumultuous" or whatever the media has been calling it. Here is an article that explains the situation well: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7427309.stm Basically, the military and some others overthrew the government in a coup last year. A national election was called, and then the same people were put back in power by a large majority, again, so most analysts think the military will not step in, as it is clear these guys are who the people want. We have seen some of these "mass protests." About 150 people wearing yellow (the king's color) marched downtown, very quietly chanting. Most people here don't think a coup will occur again, and even if it did, it would most likely by calm and peaceful.

Well, for my life here: I've finished my first week here in Bangkok. It went very well. I am really enjoying my internship. My first week entailed finishing my tax report, and then working with the Executive Director and and another intern to write up an investment and trade review. Basically, I spent hours with charts and a calculator figuring up Foreign Direct Investment (yea Model UN research) and import/export trends and then working with others to write up the results. Looking back on what I just wrote makes the job seem boring, but I really like it. I get to actually use lots of the information my Economics and Math classes have shoved down my throat.

On Saturday, we went to Wat Po. Wat means temple, and Po is the type of tree under which Buddha reached Enlightenment. It is a huge temple most famous for its reclining Buddha statue (the Buddha is 138 ft. tall). I took pictures, and then my camera promptly died from lack of batteries. So, as soon as I get more batteries, I will upload some pictures for those of you who would like to see a Buddhist temple/massive statue. It was extraordinarily hot, especially because I had to wear pants and real tennis shoes out of respect.

On Sunday, we were headed to the Grand Palace (another of Bangkok's major historic destinations) when a major storm hit, so instead we went to the mall to see a movie. The mall is called Siam Paragon and it is the largest mall I have ever seen, and of the same caliber of North Park in Dallas (that means something to most of you, to the others think Woodfield). It has seven floor of regular mall space, a food court the size of Kennedy Mall in Dubuque (Midway mall in Sherman) and an entire floor dedicated to luxury cars. We're talking Ferrari, Maserati, and Lamborghini. The movie theatre was also ridiculously nice. We arrived too late to get the "nice seats" so instead we sat in the "cheap seats." I use quotation marks because our seats were still leather reclining seats with big headsets. Incidentally, the Indiana Jones movie was much better than I was expecting, though I wasn't expecting much. Everyone is right, it has nothing on the first ones, but is still worth seeing.

That does seem to be rather long, so best of luck to all,
Mike