Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!!

I'm sitting at a Starbucks at 06:45 on a Monday morning and it's closed. How on earth a Starbucks is closed at this time of morning is beyond me, but it's flat-out closed. Maybe once they finally do open on banker's hours I'll go inside and find out that the store also doesn't serve coffee also..

Today I'm going to hit Wat Pra Kao, Wat Po and finalize dad's and my return flight info with a local Thai Airways ticket office. I don't think that I'll be online again until I hit Kathmandu because my flight tomorrow is early and the Holiday Inn does a good job in raping touristas with its Internet service. $25 for a 24 hour connection. Hold on while I laugh at that one.

One quick story before I head. Maybe not the best Easter story, but still unique and I think in many ways I have tried to capture some of the essence of this trip- the good, the bad, and the strange. So in that light, I think this is a pretty good story. I went to one of those foot massage specialists and this guy (we'll affectionately call him #21 since I couldn't read his name tag other than a "21") started going to town on my feet. I don't normally like people touching my feet anyway but Asians swear by foot reflexology so why the heck not.

Matthew, Tyler, Christopher and Connor- no more reading.

A few minutes into the foot massage #21 was working the tar out of my feet. "Holy shit! What the hell was that!?" I yell as a searing hot pain shoots up the side of my leg, into my butt and along my back- all the way up to my neck. He said something like "what, that?" or at least I think that's what #21 said because he did the same exact thing a second time- mainly to make me writhe in pain I think.

-insert translation here and literal English wording from the translator- "you need to poop more. You aren't pooping enough". Literally. That's no joke. So each part of your foot apparently has a special nerve that is attributed to a part of your body. Where the pain is? Problems lurk. So the reflexologist specialist painfully releases all of this built up.. pain.. and then -poof- problem is solved. Heart, stomach, small intestines, etc.

Ever have another complete stranger guy ask you if you are taking enough dumps in the presence of a room full of men and women? All conversation stops, all eyes turn to you- the bright red-faced foreigner who has to have it repeated in two languages just to make sure that he got the message right. The guy at the piano may as well stop playing too if this were a cowboy movie.

Yeah, it was an experience for me too. Then here's the crazy part. #21 is then going to town on my big toe and there's all sorts of weirdness going on. Feels like #21's running his finger over a string by my bone. "Oh, don't worry it's just a nerve". Ok, no problem #21. Let's go a little easy on that one, k? Apparently whatever that nerve was and other work on that searing hot nerve did the trick though because I must have taken like 5 craps in the day since.