Thank you for the new hat!

Hello it is me charlie, i have missed you very much. I know i have taken lots of time to write this, i hope you are not angry with me. I am doing the best that i can and i try to type really hard and loudly and also i can jump eight inches off the ground even when i am standing still!

I have been in vietnam, home of the vietnamese. Tiara and ian went to see uncle ho here but told me that i could not come see him because he is dead. Where i come from we are taught not to call our uncles things like 'ho' and also not to visit them when they are dead but it is a different country and we have different traditions. I did see some dead people in a cave at marble mountain. They might have been fake though because i rode a lizard that was eating a dead body but the lizard hardly moved at all. Oh no, what if the the lizard was dead too?! It was all really scary and i was so afraid and i could not stop smiling (it is a nervous scared thing that i do!)!

Wheeeeeee!!!

After the cave we went outside and it was sunnier and less full of scary things. There was a lot of wind and i almost fell out of the stone tree twice. Ian said that i could have been hurt and i was lucky to have "dodged the draft," so i told him that this is not a funny joke because vietnam had a war and it was very serious. People died in vietnam, ian. People died.

Charlie's in the trees

I also almost died a lot of times because there are speedy, speedy motorcycles all around. They are different from normal motorcycles because they are noisier and everywhere. I will pretend to be a motorcycle to help you understand:
*Vrooooom*, *vroom*
*Beep*, *beep*
*Drive on sidewalk*, *drive on sidewalk*
Okay i think you get it. Also i have a picture:

The cars are not usually this blurry unless you are very sleepy because you stayed up all night counting M&Ms

Sometimes when it gets too busy i like to lie down and listen to my monk friends and they chant and help me fall asleep. Before you get excited i should let you know that the monks are actually people and not monkeys and they don't even have tails even though i think i did see one eat a banana once.

If you look close you can see that he does not have big ears or toes that can grab on to branches or peanuts

Okay bye!

Number One Cone

Charlie submitted this (and other work) a month ago when we were still in Hong Kong – I've been slow to help him post it. Sorry Charlie!

Happy january everybody!

Ian says that i have fans and that i need to write more blogs so they will keep reading and “make us all filthy rich.” I don't mind being filthy because i am naturally brown so you can't see dirt on me and also i smell like chocolate. Someone please tell this to ian, he says i “stink like a vagrant belgian” and need to take a bath or the flies will carry me away. I do not like baths or flies, so please do not get me either for christmas or my birthday.

Today i went to the hong kong walk of famous hong kong people (ed note: 'Avenue of the Stars'). It is just like the one in hollywood except that i have a hard time sounding out the people's names and the hand prints are mostly smaller. Ian and tiara don't let me watch enough tv so i have not heard of a lot of the hong kong stars. I did find a good american one though, jackie chan! Jackie chan is the most famous kung fu detective and he starred in lots of movies like "jackie chan in the bronx" and "rush hour" where he plays a detective from the honolulu police. I got a picture of me with his hand print, i think my hands were almost the same size!

It is a little hard to see my face but i am smiling because these are jackie chan's real hand prints!

Maybe i will change my name to charlie chan and do backflips and solve mysteries and have helicopter chases and say folksy chinese wisdom.

Okay, thank you for reading everybody! Here is an inspirational quote that i really like because even if i do not understand all the words it does talk about donuts:

"Optimist only sees donut. Pessimist sees hole."

- Jackie Chan

A Charlie Cone Christmas

Hi everybody, it's me, charlie!

Happy christmas and kwanza and hannukah and veteran's day! I hope i didn't leave anyone out. I loooooove presents and candy and holidays and i went on a "special investigation" to see christmas in hong kong.

First i asked a nice reindeer to take me to santa so i could ask him holiday questions. (Charlie fact #1: reindeer have very sensitive noses and can smell santa from three miles away or even more if there is no wind).

This reindeer was lazy and didn't take me very far, but it was fun to ride!

I was nervous to see santa because the last time i saw santa it was also christmas except that it was really sad and i got lost. We were on the sleigh and i was wrapped in a box for a little boy named 'kasem shinawathra' and it was dark and noisy but i heard santa say that kasem "just gibbed a kitten with the mower" and wouldn't get any presents. So santa dropped me off in bangkok with barnaby, the "regional warehouse supervisor elf" and he loaded me into a big box with some other animals and we were fedex-ed to the north pole c/o krabin, the "toy redistribution elf". But something went wrong and instead of going back we ended up at the mall in krabi where they sold me for money to ian and tiara so i guess it was okay. Ian and tiara are neat!

Tiara helped me to see santa and also to not get stepped on by the kids that are bigger than me.

I said hi to santa but he didn't remember me and he smelled like moldy grapes and wanted to borrow $20. There were a lot of other kids that wanted to see santa so i couldn't ask him about making toys and how to grow a white beard and who his new favorite ice cream cone kid is since he doesn't like me any more. Santa if you are reading this then i say shame on you for pretendeding not to know charlie your favorite ice cream cone kid, and also to please pay me back the money on the first like you promised.

After we saw santa tiara and ian went to go buy christmas foods at the mall and i got to look around. I found santa again but i don't think he was feeling well (maybe all the moldy grapes!) and he wouldn't move or speak or give high-fives.

Santa was maybe in a comma or dead but i took my picture anyway

I gave up and went and rode up and down the escalator for an hour while tiara and ian finished shopping.

These are escalators, i don't know if you've played on them before but they're really fun and you can walk down the one that's going up but stay in the same place!

I was tired from all the excitement but tiara and ian wanted to look at the lights so we went on a ferry and looked at the lights and they were pretty and not as blurry as they look in the pictures i took.

Here's a hotel. It looked like it had falling snow but it wasn't real snow because it glowed yellow and didn't fall to the ground and it tasted like glass and burned my tongue when i tried to lick it.

Here's a tilty shot of what the buildings look like across the harbor.

I know that i am supposed to be a good reporter but i fell asleep on the ferry back because i was very tired from running up and down the escalator. But when i woke up in the morning there was a box for me from santa!

This is me opening presents. Charlie fact #2: I loooooooooove presents.

Santa gave me my favorite thing, chocolates! I guess he remembered his 'ol pal charlie cone after all :)

This chocolate says 'alexandre le grand' on it. I like to eat chocolates with people heads on them, i eat the noses first

Okay, that's the charlie report. Ian says i should end it with something like "happy holidays from everyone at the farang team," but yesterday he called santa "dirty" and "probably homeless" so i'm not going to.

I made a post about a big gate

Hi everybody!

I'm still charlie, and here is my first post "on assignment!" Tiara said if i do good on this one i can write another. Ian said "go away you little batard, i'm trying to sleep." I don't know why he called me a batard when i am an ice cream cone, i think he is still confused from being sick.

Okay, now i will start my report, I went a couple days ago but some of the words are hard and it took me extra long to press all the letters. This is the victory gate of vientiane! Tiara gave me a ride because my legs are little and i can't always keep up.

A sign said the gate is a monster and it made me scared. Tiara said not to worry that calling it a monster was a "petit foure" (i think that is what she said).

We climbed all the way up to the top of the arch. Inside it was dark and scary and ian said it looked and smelled like a subway, but not the kind with jared and the sandwiches. At the top i looked down and it was really far.

Afterward we went and looked at it from the other side. I took a picture of it from far away, but the camera is really big and it came out kind of slanty. Tiara read in her big yellow book that it is made from concrete donated to build an air strip, and that some people call it the "vertical runway." I waited for three hours but didn't see any planes land on it :(

Ian and tiara went on a walking tour instead of watching for jets, so i had to take the bus back by myself. It was hard but i am okay, thank you for asking.

Okay, you can leave now. Bye everybody!

I like lasagna!

Hi everybody!

I'm charles the ice-cream-kid, but most people call me charlie. Except one time downtown an old man called me coney. “Coney go home,” he said. My dad said not to listen to him because he was 'bread-jou-dish,' but he smelled more like lasagna to me. I like lasagna, do you like lasagna? I bet you do, everyone likes lasagna!

I like all kinds of foods. Tiara and ian told me if i worked for them they would pay me peanuts. I told them that i loooooooooooooove peanuts and i can sometimes type five words a minute if they're short words and i would start right away! I hope they have honey-roasted peanuts, i like them the best.

I'm so excited to eat honey-roasted peanuts and work for tiara and ian! I feel like i'm riding a monkey that's petting a talking chihuahua and i'm eating a big bag of cotton candy that looks like a fluffy pink cloud and the monkey is strapped to space mountain at Disneyland and every time we go down a dip the chihuahua says “Ai chihuahua!” This is so much fun! It's even better than when my job was to mow the lawn and i accidentally mowed the desk in the study. Dad was really mad even after I gave him the lawnmower bag with all the pieces of paper and laptop in it.
I have to go now, Ian needs his medicine. He says he has the 'flew' but it sounds more like the flew has him! Haha, get it? He coughs and sniffles a lot.

Okay bye!

Introducing the Newest Member of the Farang Team

As you know, we've accumulated quite a backlog of posts in recent weeks. So, we've embraced the spirit of of American capitalism and have hired some local help at wages that undercut the US market. Meet Charles, the newest member of the Farang team:

Charles approached us at a mall in Krabi, eager to work and smelling of chocolate. We were instantly taken by his enthusiasm and cheerful demeanor. He tells us that he is named after Charles of Charles Chocolates, one of the greatest American chocolatiers. He often goes by the nickname Charlie, which reminds him of his favorite book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

We put Charlie to work right away answering reader mail:

As our intern, Charlie will also be helping us sort through our hundreds of photos so we can share some of the best with you. When we reach Laos, we may allow him to bring you some special reports of his own. When he's not working hard for the Farang team, Charlie enjoys squeezing into small spaces, attending toga parties, and riding elephants.

We are thrilled to have Charlie on board. Please join us in welcoming him to the Farang team!