woke up at 8. woot woot

yes i finally did it i woke up after the sun came up and i didnt have to watch the sunrise for the third time. but there really is no sunrise where i am am cause i could never find a place to actually see the sun come up. yeah today is? i need to buy a calender in town today cause that is not a good start if i cant figure our what day it is. but yeah were gonna start with yesterdays adventure and then tune you guys into what is going to be happening today. i woke up at 5 yesterday and basically didnt want to wake my room mate chris. i sat in bed for at least and hour and a half and finally realized having fallen asleep before dinner again the night before. so basically i got dressed as quiety as possible and really there was not a whole lot open but i managed to find a taro bun breakfast and some type of cheap burger thing at a 7/11. that early in the morning i really wast gonna comlain about where i got my food but the truth was it was really good.so about this time it wasabout 7:40 so instead of going back to the room and waking Chris up i simply walked around and listened to my ipod untill about 8:40. i ended up goign back to the room where Chris was still asleep and what do you know.. i wake him up. instead of me walking around the room making noise i go borrow the laptop from Bill who may or may not have been awake when i knocked on his door. i got the laptop from him but when you get into conversation with him he always has such descriptive and long conversations. i learned a little bit more about the systems and just some other random fun facts andthen was on my way back to the room. i playedon the computer for a while but really never did do anythign of any importance. i just tried to be quiet and that was about it. we finally got moving around 9:30 or some and woke up BIll again who had gone back to sleep from when i woke him up. He got his shower and we went to te main campus road to catch a #16 truck into khon kaen. yesterday was basically just another day to learn the city since Bill would be leaveing us the next day. or since i am writing this in the future he will be gone in an hour so we are on our own today. but we looked at the grad streets and the main places to go. that was really about it. we ate at my favorite grovery story/cafeteria. i had some type of vegetables and pork or beef. couldnt tell what it was but it was very good nonetheless. after we had eaten we needed to meet chelumchai back at his buisness. which i may or may not have told you is interwater treatment. he is basically heading the system operation right now because it is easier for him to do it. his buisness already had all the supplies needed to do this operation and on top of that he speaks the language which is a major bridging point for us who dont. but we were meeting him at his buisness because his wife was back in town from bangkok. she was thee applying for a romainian visa so that she may travel in the coming weeks. we had to take the truck/bus to interwater but because chelimchai and lek were going to take us to certain sites around khon kaen. kind of like a tour around the cool stuff. but we arrived at interwater after crossing a 6 lane highway which amazingly enough couldnt have been safer. but yeah we got to interwater and as tradition to anywhere you go in thailand we recieved cups of water. we met lek for the first time and then waited on chelumchai. chelumchai arrived and he and lek began to disucss where they were going to take us that day. they decided to take us to a dam and there were some things that we could stop and see along the way. im gonna try pictures again cause yesterday ahad some cool stuff.but for now i will finish this post. the first stop was a small temple over looking the dam. and the sotry behind that is long ago before that dam was built people in thailand didnt have enough water. so they prayed and were told to build a temple where it is now. they built the damn and built the temple and they have had enough rain to fill the dam on most years. but the temple was beautifully elegant. so very simple but beutiful. it was built into a forested and rocky hillside that over looked a lake that was made because of the dam. the lake was so large you could not see the other side. you couldnt see that far anyway because of the comeing rain but still it was an enormous lake. from there we traveled to the other side of the dam and there was a restuarant and some boats and a place where you could pay to feed the fish. lek got us ice cream and bottles of water. chelumchai took us to waters edge where we could feed the fish. which looked like catfish except i have never avually seen a cotfish swimming, unless you count a fishing show but yeah. we sat and enjoyed the snenery and it was a nice day. the rain was still very far off in the distance as well. from there we left to another area of that same side of the dam. when we were at the first temple we could see a giant white buddah on top of the hill on the other side of the dam. we went to see that next. when we actally reached the top of the hill we realized how big the buddah actually was. it had to be at least 100-150ft tall. i took many pictures of it and the surrounding scenery. the rain was getting very close now and you could see the drops falling in the middle of the lake. we got back into the car and headed back down stoping halfway down the small mountain to see another set of buddah relics that were very interesting but will be easier to explain as soon as i can get some pictures up. we drove all the way back to the aparment and i slept almost the whole way. they dropped us off and said they would pick us up in a little less than an hour for dinner. Chris and i just kinda around the room for that time playing with the slow motion feature on his HD video camera. it was fun.. chelumchai and lek picked up us americans and took us to what can only be described as the thai version of a melting pot. but it wasnt near;y as expensive or nice for that matter. and there was no chocolate. how it works is the center of the table is a hole and in it they put coals and over that they put a grill but the grill only takes up the center of this. ok heres once again will be easier to explain with pictures. but in short i ate way too much and Bill told me that Lek is famous for trying to make you eat 5x's more than you should have and i definitely did. the kinds of food that we used on the grill were pork, chicken, shrimp, some type of fish, and squid. let me just say that grilled squid is awesome. and yes i ate both sides which you grill separately. the head of the squid tastes a little bit like a warmed up edible rubber balloon. and the tentacles were all around jsut very good. but we finished up there and where did they take us... but out for ice cream. which couldnt have been a more terrible end to a already stuffed body. i ate some kind of chocolate thing with truffles in it. after that they took us back to the aparment and i basically just fell asleep. that was really how my day went yesterday. Bill has already left to bangkok to pick up a rotarian that sponsored a system by himself. because that rotarian did this he has flown over for the dedication. That rotarian is also giving a speach which he is completely unaware of. but i will give you the scoop on how that goes later. today Lek is goign to take us wherever we want to go. but this morning we are going to make our way into town and try not to get lost.