Skateboarding and then some generalities

Skateboarding here is great. Hardly anyone does it and the Thai people are definitly not used to seeing it which means you don't really have to worry about getting kicked out of every spot you go to. The other night we went for a evening skate around the city guided by our friends from the Crossing youth center.

The first spot we went to the workers actually stoped to watch and when one worker came out to work and got in the way while moving shoping carts the other workers told him to move and cleared the way for us. Then when one of our friends landed his trick there was a big round of applause from them.

We then rode a mellow hill down to the beach where we grabbed on to the back of a truck and hung on while it pulled us down the street, just like in back to the future. The truck started going like 30-40 and one of the guys lost his board to a crack in the road. He kept hanging on and dropped to the pavement, dragging on the road for about ten seconds before finally letting go and rolling to a stop. Luckily there were either no vehicles behind or they stopped and He was up and skating after so all was well.

We continued along the beach, stopped to ollie(jump) a set of stairs. Those of us trying were succesfull and were met with applause from many chinese tourists celebrating the new year when we landed.

After we climbed this huge hill in Pattaya that houses temples on the top of it and looks out over the beach front. After climbing the hill we finished off the night with a long and FAST ride down the streets decending it. The last hill was the steepest and fastest ride. I was lucky enough to make it down but two of my team members, Josh and Dave weren't so lucky. Josh hit a rock going mach 3 and ended up with his glasses on one side of the road, one of his shoes on the other and a bunch of skin left on the road. Dave had a similar fate after getting beat by speed wobbles. Both are doing alright now, despite some road rash Josh is fighting a bruised hip and Dave a sprained hand.

Other than that I don't have to many stories to tell, we went to bangkok this weekend which was interesting. I saw more Desiel jean ripoffs than you can shake a stick at.

As a team we're doing fairly well right now, more orphanage painting this week and some prision work for the males and possibly bar visits for the girls(the girls go to meet prostitues and tell them about the Tamar center which teaches them skills like hair dressing and stuff so they can make money without having to have sex).

The new skateboard ramps are under construction and should be done in a couple weeks. We're travelling to Northern Thailand in a couple weeks time and are working out the details for a trip down to southern Thailand in the end of April.

Oh, in-case you're interested, actually if you're not I don't really care because I can read through this stuff when I'm old and remember it. But we went to an oriental night at the school where our youth group members attend(we run the youth group on Friday nights). The purpose of the night was to celebrate the Chinese new year. We were able to try Chinese, Korean and Thai food. Then we watched the children at the school perform traditional dances and songs from each culture. There was this great kung-fu dance where they opened fans to the music, very dramatic. It even featured a dancer who looked and moved exactly like Napoleon Dynamite. There was also an incredibly colorful Korean fan dance that seems worth mentioning. The dance was wonderfull and ended with the dancers standing in a circle with their backs to each other and fans out to form a giant flower.

later