Tuesday July 25, 2006; Mah Boon Krong (MBK)

At the lab, we completed the second rounds and had much better results! That was a huge relief.
I found out that Glen missed his flight in NYC, so he wasn't arriving in Bangkok until Tuesday evening. I spent a good portion of the day Monday trying to track him down. I was in contact with his Bangkok friend Narissara, Glen's previous co-worker in Boston, but she hadn't heard from him all day. I also left numerous messages with his hotel staff to have him call me at work, my hotel, and on Mew's cell phone. I think they were really annoyed with me at his hotel. I also left a message for him at my hotel to have him call me if he arrived. It's so difficult trying to get ahold of someone without cell phones! How DID we do it??
I decided that Glen would get in touch me somehow, since I left him Mew's cell number and she allowed me to borrow it for the evening since she had another cell phone to use. Liz and I went to MBK (Mah Boon Krong), an amazing 7-story mall in Bangkok. There were so many stores, and so many stores sold the same items, that that coupled with a floor-plan that appeared to haave no understandable layout, completely overwhelmed me!
Glen finally called on Mew's cell phone and agreed to meet us at MBK for dinner. A half hour later Glen spotted me in the mall. Apparently it's not hard to spot a foreigner in Thailand, even in a 7-story mall, so Glen and Narissara joined Liz and I for dinner at a huge international food court that appeared to be brand new. The food was delicious too!

Monday July 24, 2006; Lumphini Park

Unfortunately, the amazing weekend on Koh Samui had ended and work proved to be sub-par to say the least.
We had negative results for all our samples, and I was extremely disappointed. I went from an incredible high to a screeching low. I asked Mew if she had remembered the essentials; primers, template and enzyme. "Of course," was her reply. Since we used the same protocol I optimized in Boston, I had no good reason why it wouldn't work halfway around the world. I finally checked the PCR block and found there was no RT step. for whatever reason a second round program was used, so the RNA was never reverse transcribed, a good reason for negative results. Problem solved.
We set up another 4 experiments to repeat the negative reults. This time I went through each PCR protocol condition and changed all the temperatures for annealing and adjusted the extension times to the Boston protocol. Mew and I then went through the protocols together and gave each relevant names for each protein.
Just as we were setting up the 2nd trials, a package from Andrew in Boston arrived. The primers had finally arrived and the tubes I had asked him to ship- well, almost. The primers all made it, but he sent 0.65mL Eppendorf tubes instead of 0.02mL strip tubes, so my last glimmer of hope was a big let down. Oh well, we didn't have strip tubes the previous week (and Thailand's lab has never had them), so we continued with 0.02mL individual PCR tubes - royal pain in the butt, and big waste of time and energy.
After my emotional roller-coaster of a day, Liz and I decided to check out Lumphini Park (pronounced Lumpini) after work. The Park is stunning with many little areas to play sports such as basketball, a soccer/volleyball/hackeysack- type sport, and various forms of Tai-Chi, yoga, and walking or running. While watching the amazing game of volleyball with only using your feet, a net, and this whicker type ball, everyone around the park- the joggers, the players, and the observers all stood up as a song- the national anthem(?) was played over the public address system. I asked Liz to look at her watch, and it was precisely 6pm.
We decided to take a little trip around the pond in a paddle boat! It provided a great view of the city of Bangkok. Lumphini Park rocks!
We then had dinner at "Cabbages and Condoms", a restaurant that supports condom use to prevent HIV. One of Liz's Harvard roommates treated us (actually, the roommates' Mom and Aunt). The food was good and the decor was fun, and a percentage goes to promoting condom useage in Thailand.