BB

Today was Marissa's 22nd birthday. There were two things that she wanted to do for her birthday: eat at her favorite Egyptian restaurant and go to the puppet theater to see a traditional Thai puppet show. We did both.

We got to downtown Bangkok at about 6:45. The performance was starting at 7:30, so we quickly ran over to the Middle East district and picked up some schwarmas to snack on before the show. On the way we passed through the Marriott and saw this great sign (Man ho(e) restaurant). The puppet performance was absolutely incredible. The same group of puppeteers won best traditional performance at the 10th World Festival of Puppet Art in Prague last year. Tonight's performance was the story of The Myth of Rahoo and the Lunar Eclipse. Apparently you can see a clip of it here. I wouldn't know because blogspot is acting screwy here, and it may be a YouTube clip. For those of you who don't know, YouTube is banned in Thailand (long story). There are three performers who control each puppet. The performance is unbelievably fluid. After the initial performance, the puppeteers come into the audience with their puppets and interact with the audience. Hanuman (from the Indian epic Ramayana) tried to bump me out of my seat and steal Marissa from me. Marissa seemed very pleased with the performance as did the rest of her family.

The Egyptian restaurant was also great. We ate hummus, grilled lamb, tabuli, chicken masala, samosas, and some other tasty stuff (of course, all with delicious naan bread). Marissa and I came to this restaurant last year quite a bit, frequenting the top floor where people smoke sheesha and watch al-jazeera. We always like that room because you can watch Arabic television and sit on pillows. However, today we sat downstairs :) After eating at the restaurant we headed home and sang "Happy Birthday" to Ris. Melanie made Marissa a "Cookie Monster" cake. It was an eventful and fun day.