Excerpt: “If one person imitates what a monkey does, and the other person does not imitate, the monkey prefers to spend more time in front of the person that imitated them,” said Dr. Annika Paukner at the National Institutes of Health offices in Poolesville, Maryland.

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/08/13/monkeys.imitations/index.html

*Someone just wrote me and said “this could’ve been a C-flat”. Ouch, that’s bad!*

I finally got to ride the elephants! That was one of the things I wanted to do while visiting Thailand. This was my first full vacation since relocating to China with Cirque Du Soleil. We spent three days in Bangkok and four days in Phuket, Thailand.

In the picture above I am getting a massage from a baby elephant. Believe it or not – he actually cracked my back for me and it felt great. A true Thai massage!

This was a really great touristy ghylo tour – complete with elephant rides, ox rides, Thai cooking class, elephant show, monkey show, rice farming tutorial and demonstration of rubber tree harvesting – and an exhibition of Thai Boxing. Very fun stuff. This was my favorite tour that we took.

My friend Olivier was not very excited about riding the elephants and went along just because he knew I was looking forward to it. But he was amazed to watch the driver control the elephant with his feet movements and Thai verbal instructions.