The Overly Detailed Explanatory Blog Post Title

Check out this picture below. Do you know what that is?

What am I?

It's a water monitor. A water monitor is a lizard, the second largest species of lizard. And they are common in parts of Southeast Asia. In particular, they are common in Lumphini Park right in the middle of Bangkok. That's where I saw the one above. But look at this one below. Do you know what that is?

And what am I?

I think it must be a land monitor, right? I mean, if it isn't in the water, it can't be a water monitor. What's more, following my reasoning to its logical or illogical extreme, I think if you moved this reptile into a school and placed it beside the lockers, it would be a hall monitor. This is sound reasoning, I'm sure.

On a recent day excursion into Bangkok, we walked through Lumphini Park. We saw a lot of water monitors, among other things. For example, we saw the King Rama VI Memorial.

It's like six King Ramas rolled into one

There have been many kings named Rama, the present king is Rama X. Basically this entire dynasty which began in the early 1800s have all taken the name Rama when they ascend to the throne. It is named for Rama, an avatar of Vishnu who ruled as a king in the mortal world. He was an ideal ruler according to Hindu mythology, so it is a name that indicates a good king.

From the park, we took a bus across town. But there was a bit of a story getting to the bus stop. As we were walking, speaking to one another in English, a young lady stopped us. She was European, maybe British. Her English seems like British English. But she was having a problem. She had two cell phones, but had put a SIM card in one of the phones which wasn't working. She needed to switch the SIM card over to the other phone. But what she needed was one of those really thin pins you use to open the SIM card slot on your phone. She stopped us to ask if we had anything like that, maybe a paper clip. (Since we spoke English, she was able to communicate with us.)

It so happens that I carry exactly that pin with me in my wallet. There is a little zipper pouch and I keep one of those pins from one of the SIM cards we once purchased. Why do I do that? Because Alrica and I have to change SIM cards often enough as we move from one country to another that I want to be sure we are able to do so.

Wow, the young lady was so grateful. Apparently she had been asking at shops and they didn't understand her. No one had been able to help her. She was just hoping we had a paper clip or something. An actual pin that was designed to open the SIM card slot, this was beyond her dreams.

So after that, we made it to the bus stop. That was a long waiting process. The traffic in Bangkok is pretty intense. Now, at the bus stop, there was a young woman waiting. And her shirt read "Dissentery". Why would you want your shirt to say that? Maybe she thinks it indicates that she dissents, she is a dissenter. And if English isn't your first language, that might be the only interpretation that you think of. But if English is your first language, this immediately puts "dysentary" into your mind. And I don't think anyone wants clothing that announces that they are plagued with that particular condition.

When our bus did arrive, we took it through the city and across the river. We got out near the Wat Suwan, which is a complex. But the wat was not our goal.

Across from the wat is a shopping center called Iconsiam. In this shopping center, there is a floating market. But there is also a fountain, one of those fountains with lights that does a choreographed show to recorded music. This fountain was much smaller than one in Kuala Lumpur. And the fountain in Kuala Lumpur was smaller than the one I blogged about in Dubai. But this one had the most epic name of them all!

Is this not the most iconic (and multimedia) name?

I love that the designers of Iconsiam chose this name for their fountain. The Iconic Multimedia Water Feature. So expository and conceited all at once. To declare their own fountain as iconic is some chutzpah. What justified that? Okay, I get it. The mall itself is called Iconsiam. So being iconic is on brand. But it comes across as a bit artificial, like the Smurfs using the word "smurf" at various points in a sentence to fill in other words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, it could be anything! I guess anything can be iconic too, if you just name it as such.

Does this qualify as iconic?

As I have more humility, I did not declare my own blog post as being "iconic", but I was inspired by the name of the fountain. Perhaps I should have called my post iconic, but I'm a bit of a dissenter. Maybe I'm suffering from dissentery.