Talk To The Hand

I know, when you hear someone say "talk to the hand" you are thinking that they are being disrespectful, and rebellious. You can imagine someone holding their hand up to your face as if to say "stop, I don't care about what you are saying and I'm not going to listen.   I'm going to stay in my own little box here and nothing is coming in and I am not coming out."

  

This "talk to the hand" came to mind during my stretching exercises for my wrist as I have been trying to regain some range of motion in my wrist after falling and injuring my hand.

 God has been working on me, myself and I to be more flexible, to have more "range of motion" in a culture that is different and sometimes hard to live in. 

There are many days when the attitude in my heart may be "talk to the hand".  So what does this do to one who is trying to overcome culture shock, to one who is trying to make a home for the family, to one who is trying to learn about and embrace the Singapore people and culture.

  What it does is put a barrier up, see it?  That "hand" is a wall between you and the person or the culture you are trying to interact with.  It takes great flexibility, range of motion and will power to move it.  It is in fact a decision of the heart.

I'm not going to paint a false picture here, it is hard to live over seas, it is also adventurous, and interesting and very, very revealing about who you are as an individual.

As I continue to try and gain more range of motion back in my wrist, hoping to reach "normal" I have to push that wrist to the point of resistance, the point of slight pain and hold it there for a bit.  Each time I choose to push past the pain it gets better, it is easier the next time.

Each time we choose to have POSITIVE talk about the culture we are in the people that make up this culture it is easier to see them and this island through God's eyes to know that here, they ARE the normal ones, it is US who are not so normal.

 Each time we choose to venture out knowing that we are going to face frustration, knowing that there may be a bit of "pain" involved and we push past that pain it gets better, it is easier the next time.

  We have found prayer to be key to our ability as a family to push pass the pain of culture shock.  We feel that God wants us here and that He has it under control and that does not mean that it will be pain free.

  You see, His hand is open available and willing to accept what ever the issue may be, we simply need to turn the hand, we need to be ready to accept what ever it is that comes our way without judgement or frustration.

The reality is Singapore is a great place to live and the people are fabulous!  This little island country is so diverse and offers so much to anyone who chooses to step off that plane.

 However if you are living here from a different land and culture you must "talk to the hand" tell it to get out of the way, to be flexible, to move with fluidity and full range of motion or you are likely to miss the special blessing that God has for you while living here.

Our family has certainly struggled but our family has also thrived in the process of this cultural adjustment so "move over hand", here comes the Miles Family ready to explore and learn to love and embrace  this new land in our hands.

KO SAMUI THAILAND

And God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear." And it was so.
 ^{God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good}
As our ship was nearing the destination for the day we could see that it was going to be a beautiful day.  Thailand  from the sea is breath taking, it is like mountains coming straight out of the water.  The depth of the sea was too shallow for our big cruise ship to pull into port so the captain just dropped the anchor off shore

we used some of the life boats to tender people into Ko Samui for the day.  This is our cruise ship from the life boat, the water was not smooth, thankfully no one in our family got sea sick although that was not the case for some of the people on our small boat.

Ko Samui is largely a fishing village there are many fishing boats to be seen and the sound of engines in the background.

We decided to take a ship excursion for the day to ensure that we would safely get to and from our destination.  There were a couple of excursions to choose from the one that fit us the best was the boat trip to a remote island for some sunning and snorkeling.

A van met us in Ko Samui to take us to another set of boats, the final destination being Coral Beach.  By the time the van arrived at the boat "dock" we were all hot and thirsty so we took some time to rest and drink before getting into yet another boat. These pictures are what was around us at our rest stop.

The sky was an incredible blue with a slight salty breeze coming in off the sea and an occasional waft of fish smell across our nostrils, we were ready to go on an adventure.

The boat we took over to Coral Beach was a wooden fishing boat, low in the water fast and amazingly stable considering the big waves that greeted us.

This is our captain, it was good to see that he had good balance before our boat took off.

During our trip over to the island we saw a few different boats parked in the water, the waters off of Ko Samui are a desired destination for both snorkeling and deep sea diving.

Because the boat sits so very low in the water we were drenched with the spray of the boat and the crashing of the waves.  The life jackets provided a slight shielding but all in all the clothes were soaked when we got to our final destination.  No worries, the sun quickly dried them out.

Coral Beach Island is what I have always thought of when someone says a tropical island.

 Surrounding the island is deep blue and green water, mountainous land forms, palm trees and beach.

We had some time to just explore and relax before getting into a third boat to head out to snorkel.

 The sun was hot but there was a nice breeze, the beach was sharp with coral so shoes were a  must and swimming not possible from our beach setting as the water was too shallow.

looking up from the beach chair was an equally beautiful sight.

We recently got a small underwater digital camera, it was the perfect tool to have on a day like today.

The tour guides loaded up the boats and off we went to explore the underwater world.  Unfortunately the tour group leaders ran out of snorkeling equipment before getting to our boat so we were grateful that we brought our own swim goggles with us so we could see the reef  that awaited us under the water.

We just jumped off the side of the boat and swam over to the reef, the boat does not want to park to close to the reef to avoid disturbing it.

OK, down we go, here are some of our underwater pictures, again, it is hard to capture the moment on film but I will say we have all agreed that this was our first and not our last snorkeling experience as it was much more spectacular than any of us imagined, the Planet Earth DVD does not do it justice.

look at the top of this next picture, do you see Scott swimming?

Again, the pictures are not great the camera is a point and shoot but we were pleased to be able to take some pictures of our experience.

We did see a man fishing, it was interesting that he was rubbing two shells together as a kind of fish call, then he reached down to grab the fish and put them into a bag.  I think those sticks are to attach a fishing net.

Thankfully no sharks were seen and injuries were limited to a few cuts from the sharp coral. It was good to see that there were medical facilities available just in case they are needed.

 A bit sunburned, well rested and ready for dinner, we were happy to get back to the cruise ship after our adventurous day.

Bangkok

We had about 6 hours to explore the city of Bangkok, our family decided to hire a private tour guide instead of going on a ship excursion, this was the cheaper and in our opinion the better of the two options.

We were picked up at the ship by our guide Tim Tim and taken into the city, it was about a two hour car ride into Bangkok and yes, we had to make the two hour trip back to the ship later that day but we think the 4 hours of driving for the 6 hours of experience was worth it. 

Upon meeting our guide we were given a traditional Thai welcome which included a welcome flower wreath for each of us and a "lucky elephant".

The flowers smelled amazing as there was fresh Jasmine flowers.

This blog is going to be full of pictures to help us remember our trip.  We hope to give you a little flavor of this bustling Asian city.

As in any city there are signs everywhere, some where in English but most were in the traditional Thai writting.

Currently there is campaigning for the up coming election so these signs are through out the city, the party is voted for by the number so if you want this guy to be your leader you would have to x box 2 on your ballot.

Traffic is dense and interesting

"Tuk Tuk" vehicles are very common they are a three wheeled car that is open and they are used like a taxi in the city.  This one says Thailand on the back, some did some did not.

Taxi cabs were seen but you must be careful in Bangkok to negotiate your price up front with your driver or you will for sure be "taken for a ride" and broke when you are done!  To help with this problem there are taxi cabs that have a running meter so that the driver does not just make up the price, it is best to take one of these cabs if you can find one.

We started our tour of the city with The Grand Palace.

 This is where the King stays and it is possible to tour the palace grounds.

As with Singapore it is very hot in Bangkok, in fact I would say it felt even hotter than Singapore does, umbrellas are your friend to provide some shade as are large brimmed hats.

The Grand Palace is indeed grand, it is huge, beautiful and peaceful all at the same time.  There are statue "guards" all over the place along with idols that are worshiped.

  Along with tourists there are worshipers walking the palace grounds.

We took a lot of pictures due to the vastness of the grounds it is hard to capture it all but we did try to get a taste of the grounds in photos.

This is our tour guide Tim Tim, she smiled like that all day long and was very good about giving us the history behind what we were seeing.

There was renovations going on at the palace while we were there, these men are making a new design on the roof, notice there are no ropes on them or anything to keep them from falling the three stories to the ground in spite of that they looked comfortable with standing up on the roof and were happy to return our wave to them.

We spent about an hour touring the palace and seeing the "Emerald Buddha" temple, with only having six hours in Bangkok we did not want to spend the whole day touring Buddhist temples so we asked our tour guide to take the other three temples off of our schedule, this left more time for our canal boat tour.  As you can see under this boat the water was very choppy.

The  Chao Phraya River runs through Bangkok and is used  by many boats and cargo ships, the canal was long and breeze off the boat refreshing.

 We did get to experience some of the floating market, these sellers wait in their boats usually in the shade and are happy to meet your boat to sell you their items.

This lady had fresh coconuts which we love and after being out in the hot sun for the palace tour we were thirsty.

It was surprisingly cold and so refreshing.

Our tour guide also brought some fresh mangosteen for us to try, it was our fist time having it and we all loved it so we will be looking for it in the wet markets in Singapore.

One other market boat pulled up along side our boat, she wanted her picture taken with Caleb and she was trying to sell us some way over priced tourist souvenirs.

Along the canal there is a place to feed the cat fish some bread, the Thai people believe that if you feed the fish you will have a long and healthy life, we chose to feed the fish because it was fun to do , we will let God determine the number of our days.

As you sit back and enjoy the ride on the canal there are many sites to take in from rich to poor there are all kinds of people living along the river

and of course there is a Buddha along the river too.

In Singapore the common way for people to eat is to go to Hawker Centers and have some food, in Bangkok there are street food vendors all over the place, in alleys and on main roads, sometimes right in the middle of the sidewalks.

This lady was frying up something that smelled great, we asked her what it was and she said it was a rice and pandan leaf patty so we did decide to try it since it was fried it is considered safe for us to eat we really enjoyed it, kind of a sweet earthy flavor to it.

Speaking of food, it seems the U.S. junk food can be found in all corners of the world

We have really enjoyed just observing people, I think you can get a feel for the culture when you observe so we will leave you with some street scenes from our day in Bangkok.