Pun Pun and Other Fun

I suppose I should share a little about my internship. Four days each week, I spend the afternoon at a Buddhist temple called Wat Suan Dok, where college-age monks attend university courses. I help to teach English by reading and answering comprehension questions with them. This part of the afternoon normally wears me out, because it's a lot of enunciating and speaking slowly and loudly. Fortunately, after this, we normally get a break that varies in time from five minutes to two hours, depending on the day. After the break, we sit and chat with monks, whomever of them chooses to join us.

There is a (forgive me) organic vegetarian restaurant called Pun Pun (Thai pronunciation "bun bun") on the premises, where I usually go and grab a bite during the break. There are about twelve tables, each under rugged-looking country club-goes-tropical umbrellas, surrounding a tree whose trunk is about six feet wide. The food is delicious, and the environment pleasant as a result of the sunlight that trickles through in between the large leaves of said tree.

I walk home from the temple every day around 5:00. On my way, I pass by all of the restaurants and vendors setting up shop for din-din. I hate most of the smells (fish, trash, sewage... I live in the city) and sights (whole cooked chickens, minus the heads, hanging in glass cases under heat lights), but I love it that by walking each day I save 10 baht that I would spend to catch a sii laaw. It helps me to feel justified in eating the overpriced, farang-targeted food at Pun Pun.