turbo disjointed observations

1- We bought a package of rice cake cookies, 2 large coffee mugs, and a floor mat for less than 3$ today.

2- Riding a bike in Thai traffic, although it seems life-threatening, isn't really that bad. The first trick is to avoid crossing directly through traffic, ie perpendiculating it, at all costs. This is virtually impossible without forcing the cars in one lane to completely stop for you, or the contrary, bolting in front of someone in hopes they will stop in time. A better alternative is to be riding in traffic as a car or motorcycle would, and change lanes one at a time until you get where you want to go. The other trick is to plan your trip in such a way that you make as many left turns as possible, as the traffic flows like England or Japan: on the other side. A big difference between Thai traffic and American traffic is that people expect to be cut off. They cut off, so why shouldn't they be cut off. This is the only way they would get anywhere, as the traffic somewhat resembles a bee colony. When in the mindset of "be cutoff, so be prepared," all the traffic expects you to move around. This provides a certain level of safety for us cyclists. In traffic at home, rules are more generally followed, therefore making sudden movements on a bicycle are unexpected and therefore much more dangerous.

3- Tuesday and Wednesday I taught 1 student, 1 subject for 7.5 hours straight. For those of you at the Stern Center: Holy Cow, right!? I've been teaching the TOEFL test to an 11th grade student. Believe it or not, for the entire 7.5 hours he was attentive and motivated, never once complaining. And in a foreign language! 40 hrs with the kid over 2 weeks. One Stern Center school year stuffed into 2 weeks.

4- While in Germany, I often said that there must be a really good bicycle parts salesman out there, who managed to convince an entire country that everybody needed a completely frivolous set of hydraulic brakes. I saw these bikes all over with aftermarket brakes and was appalled that someone was able to sell all these expensive brakes.
I have found Thailand's version of that product. TURBO. Everything is turbo: everything. I have a bicycle that is a "turbo extreme". I have seen mopeds that are "turbo", I have seen cars that have giant"intercooled" stickers, implying a turbo. Amongst these cars/mopeds/bikes none of them actually have a turbo. Some cars, on the other hand, many of which don't deserve them, do indeed have turbos. I have seen the equivalent of plymouth horizons with an obvious turbocharger, I saw a 1995 bmw with an interccooler bursting out of the front bumper. Toyota camrys, honda civics, daihatsus. You name it, someone took the time to stuff a snail and an intercooler in the car. How the 1.6l engines built to handle 45-95 hp don't explode the first time the thing spools up is beyond me.

Those of you who are jealous of those Japanese cars that we never got, ie Evo 3, skyline GT-R r32; they are all here. I've seen the fakes, and I've seen the real ones. There are also 1.7 billion E30's.

The roads here are very twisty in the country. I miss my car.