Thongvanh [dot] com

I have finally started to learn to read and write Lao about a week ago using the language files http://www.fsi-language-courses.org. Everyone else can try to learn these on their own too, but it may be difficult because they use some pretty technical linguistic terms. So, as I go through the lessons, I will be reinterpreting them using some easier-to-digest language here for the family, and anyone else who might be interested in learning to read or write Lao. We always talk about forgetting Lao, and this is a fun way to keep the language alive in the family. Hopefully, this will give the moms and dads a more organized and focused approach to teaching Lao literacy and a way to spend a bit of time with the kids practicing Lao. Let me know what you think of this idea with some comments and also let me know if have suggestions on how to improve the lessons! Now, the first lesson...

merry mother's day to all of the thongvanh mothers!

for the chinese new year, i took a vacation to thailand. i was there for three weeks. the weather was hot during the day, which was exactly what i needed, and cool in the evenings. first we went to go visit friends in chiangmai and got out to see some jungle. chiang mai is a nice nice city. very relaxed and lots of comforting things: good book stores, good coffee, friendly people, and good english language publications. lots of things that are real hard to come by here in china.

okay, for everyone who didnt know, i went to europe for christmas vacation. i spent two weeks there. i spent new years in ljubljana with a bunch of friends that i made in china. we had people from germany, china, and serbia all getting back together! it was great to see them all again. for christmas, i went to venice for about three days. it was beautiful there, but a bit cold.

here are some links to pictures on picasaweb:

piran and bled, slovenia

venice, italy

well, after everyone left france, iseng took me to visit toulouse for a day, then dropped me off in some random place in the pyrenees where i hiked up to a place called sauvegarde peak. its about 8000 feet above sea level, with something like 60 switchbacks on the trail. i camped for one night there, and summited twice because i didnt camp far from it. after that, i began my trip out to visit my friend in prague. first i went to barcelona by train, then flew to the brno in the czech republic, took a bus to prague, then another bus to frankfurt, germany where i flew back to china.

the trip only last about two weeks, but i got to see a lot of beautiful places. barcelona was pretty incredible. i couldnt walk around too much because my knee was sore from hiking. unfortunately, i didnt take too many pictures there, but the weather and architecture was amazing.

how do i change where my email redirects to? i'd like to point it at my gmail it account.