Mangosteens, Ice Cream and Escalators!

Laura and I had a little last minute shopping to do, so while Jeremy and Ryan had the little 4 kids swimming, we (+Katie and Abby) headed back down to the market.  We picked up a craving that we were all fighting while we were out.  SUBWAY!  I tell you, a sandwich has never tasted so good!  Don't get me wrong, we had some really good food while we were in Thailand and were able to try some new things, a Lebanese place and an Indian restaurant that only had vegetarian food, but every once in while, an American staple can just be so GOOOO-OOOOD!  While we were at the market, we picked up a few mangosteens for the family to try.  Abby and I had them during our 2010 visit, but the rest hadn't.

The pretty purple skin is thick and comes off rather easily.
If you peel it so that you expose just the bottom, it kind of looks like a brain sitting in there.
YUM, right?
(It's even kind of slimy!)

Amelia is deciding what she thinks of it...

It's...okay.
Not as good as mangoes or passionfruit, but not as bad as durian, aka stinkfruit, which I thought kind of tasted like a fruity version of an onion.  Ryan said that we didn't get a really good one though and that I believe because it didn't really stink!  Last year the food court at the mall had a store serving durian (the same one we got mangoes and sticky rice from) and it smelled so bad, I had to hold my breath while waiting in line and ordering.  :P

After our Subway and a bite of mangosteen, we hopped in taxi's and headed out to get some Swenson's!  They have very good ice cream sundaes, similar to Friendly's in the U.S.  The kids decided to take their ice cream outside to the front of the store where they could get their sugar high on without worrying about bothering any adults.

You know there's NO CHANCE Abby can finish this, right?

Swenson's is a very Americanized shop.  Your ice cream can come complete with a US flag!  The little triangle wedge is a sliver of sugar cone.  Amelia had a strawberry and banana sundae.  See?  Ice cream doesn't have to be ALL bad!

In this one area, they have an ice cream shop (Window on the right), a pizza place (The Pizza Company is the window on the left) and a Starbucks.  Think they're targeting us?

My little history buff made himself into the Statue of Liberty with a glass of water
and a double scoop...apple sorbet and cherry ice cream!

Wow!  That's a tall ice cream!
His waffle triangle is even dipped in chocolate!
The sickening part?  He remains so svelte after eating all of this
AND the half of Abby's sundae that she couldn't eat!

PASTOR Ryan is a really nice man!
One of the few I would let babysit my kids.
This picture makes me rethink that.
Ice cream, little girl???
**Just kidding!  Some people just hide their anticipation for feeding their
chocolate addiction better than others!  I would totally let him babysit!
He just can't have any ice cream while he does it.  ;)

The kids ran off their sugar high (Marshall going the wrong way up the escalator) while I went into the Starbucks to get change.  I wanted to bring back some small bahts to share with our church school when we go to tell them about our experiences during their unit on Thailand.