Happy Holidays... I HOPE YOU DON'T DIE!

Occasionally, during the Christmas holiday season, folks I teach with will surprise me with a gift. This past December, one of my colleagues came to my room with a small gift wrapped package, which he delivered, said "I hope your not offended by this gift, I don't mean by it that I hope anything bad happens to you," dropped it into my hands and left the room before I opened it.

I didn't open it until I had gone home and realized that he had given me a copy of the 1,000 Places to See Before You Die. After two months, I continue to enjoy reading the daily notes and photos, some more than others, and it is the ones I like best that I will share from time to time. Up until now, the ones I have saved, have been piling up under my computer keyboard until I had no choice but to bring them home today...

On Thursday, January 4, I came across a page in the calendar suggesting Wat Po, Bangkok, Thailand, as a desireable locale:

The most enjoyable way to reach Bangkok's famous Wat Po temple from riverfront hotels is via the ferries that run along the Chao Praya, for centuries the lifeline of the city.

Recently, I reread some potions of the novel Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse. On the cover of the edition that I own (the mass market paperback version) there is a stylized depiction of what appears to me to be a Bodhisattva statue. I really enjoy the iconography of the image, which further draws out the message of the novel--"suffering, rejection, peace, and, finally, wisdom." The calendar also features a photograph of the statues from the Wat Po Temple's, similar to the one posted above.

I know some of my on-line friends are actually in Thailand, and while my American view is probably very romanticised, (as their's may be of my country), Wat Po is just one of the places I want to visit before I die...

Breathe in, breathe out... YOU AND I ARE ALIVE!