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Re:sawadee from Bangkok
My wife and I hope to visit Thailand as tourists.
What useful phrases in Thai language should we learn before coming?
Many thanks
David
Jerusalem,Israel
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Language pair: Thai; English
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David Z.
September 1, 2006
# Msgs: 2
Latest: September 1, 2006
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sawadee from Bangkok
I would like to improve my english if someone want to learn thai language and visit my country. I can help you for learn and give you about information of Thailand. Nice to know you..:-)))
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Language pair: Thai; English
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anocha
August 4, 2006
# Msgs: 2
Latest: September 1, 2006
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Does anyone come to Thailand?
Hi everyone, i hope everyone have seen about our King celebration here. I hope that''s make many people interested to know more about how much we give the respect to our King.
I just would like to know anyone here have heard and seen about the celebrations from Thailand or not? Any comment??
Noa
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Language pair: Thai; English
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Tantawan W.
June 19, 2006
# Msgs: 1
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Puti in Japan, Part 2 of 3
(Continued from part 1)
The streets around us are quite narrow and follow the spaghetti layout typical to Tokyo. The appearance of the city is no accident, as it was purposefully built so in the historic times to slow down the attacking enemies. It is quite opposite to Kyoto, which has a rectangular grid of streets familiar from western cities. I like the meandering streets and the irregular jumble of building styles, but my wife, who is a city planning architect, often disagrees with what she sees there.
In the hot and steamy weather I have to drink much, and I often get out of the house and visit the nearby 24-hour convenient stores to buy this or that beverage, as if the stores were an extension of the living room. I also like to get out to read a book, as the house is quite small and cramped for five persons, but my reading is often interrupted by rain, mosquitoes, or the sunset feeling so premature for the season. The house has an air-conditioning machine, but we have not used it much, as it is quite hard to find a setting that lets us feel comfortable but does not make us catch cold. (I had the machine once blowing cold air on my neck over a night. Next morning I woke up with a high fever and intolerable pain in my neck and shoulders.)
We bought Japan Rail Passes to let our family to travel in the national railway network freely without further payments. The passes are available only from foreign countries. They are valid also for most of the Shinkansen trains, but not for any private railways. If the railway line contains a private section, a surcharge is required.
We used our rail passes quite a lot. First we visited the city of Kanazawa. On a Japanese scale the city is quite small, only about 300 000 inhabitants, but it is famous of its university. The city is located on the west coast, and due to the (relative) scarcity of people is therefore more spacious than the east coast cities. The district surrounding Kanazawa has the largest snowfalls in the world, up to the point that sometimes people have to leave their homes through second-floor windows or a roof hatch, as the building is nearly buried in snow. Maintaining urban traffic is quite a stunt, too.
Our friend, a professor of mathematics, had us stay in his home and showed us the city. Kanazawa has an old town with preserved cities and streets and we walked there for an afternoon. We also enjoyed a seaside drive with the professor's open car. We visited a beach with bare rock instead of sand, and caught sea shells which we ate later as a dinner. (As far as I remember, sea shells were the earliest main food in the history of Japanese people, excluding Ainus who had a diet of their own).
(Continued...)
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Language pair: Finnish; Thai
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Juha-Petri T.
August 7, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Puti in Japan, part 3 of 3
(Continued from part 2)
After Kanazawa we visited the city of Himeji which has a famous white castle. We visited the castle guided by a cousin of my wife. The castle looks bright outside, but is somewhat gloomy inside due to its dark-brown wooden interior and scarcity of window area. (You do not really want panorama windows in a building bombarded by thousands of aggressive enemies.) The castle has often been used as the stage of Kurosawa's samurai movies.
In Kurashiki city we saw more of historic town streets. The word "kura" means a storehouse for comestibles or other merchandise. These storehouses of the city have been protected, as there are not too many of them left in Japan any more.
The city of Okayama, besides Himeji and Kurashiki, was a third city in the southern Japan we visited. Okayama ha a large and beautiful park. Not very far from Okayama there is a very long and high bridge connecting the mainland Japan to Shikoku island. We did not go as far as Shikoku, but stopped at the small Yushima island at the midpoint of the bridge to eat a lunch in a restaurant.
We visited Kyoto, too, as my wife wanted to show the historic buildings to our children, but son got a fever, so I returned with him to Tokyo, leaving my wife and daughter to continue their excursion in Kyoto.
As a finale of our trip we saw the firework show in Chofu city (actually a part of Tokyo). My wife felt very happy, as she is a great enthusiast of fireworks. She is dreaming about seeing again a show with a "sanjaku" firecracker large enough to fill the whole sky with its light. Sanjakus are so large that their launching site must be selected carefully in order to not cause damage to the surrounding city.
The last day or two we spent buying presents for our Finnish relatives and filling our bags with foodstuffs not available in Finland.
Now we are back to Finland. Our holidays are over but the summer goes still on for a while. Next summer that we do not go to Japan, I plan to compensate my losses by going to northern Finland and basking in the midnight sun for a good while. :-)
Puti
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Language pair: Finnish; Thai
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Juha-Petri T.
August 6, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Puti in Japan, 1 of 3
This is a description of my family's trip to Japan in July 2005. The trip is one of those we make every second year to maintain contacts with the relatives and friends of my Japanese wife. That is also the only time that my two teenage children can spend time with their Japanese cousins.
We left from Finland for Japan in the end of June and returned in the end of July. Our traveling time is usually dictated by the summer vacations of our children, as it was this time, too. The timing is not a happy one from my viewpoint, as I have to trade the excellent Finnish summer weather and the white nights for hot, damp, and very rainy season in Japan, and also have the sun set at 7:00 p.m. However, I like Japan quite much and have many experiences on the positive side of the balance, too.
My relatives live in the western part of Tokyo, among the vast sea of small houses for single or a few families. Even after multiple visits the size and building density of Tokyo still manages to amaze me, coming from Finland, which is in comparison nearly empty of people. I am impressed by the ingenuity of Japanese traffic planners, as they can transport those millions of people every day to work and back home again through the mazes of the vast city.
The first half of our vacation we stayed at my wife's mother's house. When the house was built many decades ago, it had plenty of space around it, as it was the first building of that neighborhood. Now it has drowned out of sight with new buildings, and one has to look carefully to even find the narrow entrance passage to it from the street.
The house has plenty of nice neighbors now, and they often stop to chat with us and invite us to their homes when we pass by. One of them remembers Finland as "a country of no decayed teeth" from a TV advertisement about xylitol chewing gum. Well, perhaps the reality is not quite up to the fame yet.
(continued...)
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Language pair: Finnish; Thai
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Juha-Petri T.
August 6, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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