Yesterday I tagged along with the undergraduate General Entomology class to Stebbins Cold Canyon, a UC Davis natural reserve in Solano County, north of San Francisco Bay. When we met at Berkeley in the morning, the rain was coming down pretty hard, but somehow we decided to go anyway. It didn't rain a whole lot once we got to Cold Canyon, but it was still pretty drippy, overcast, and cold. There also weren't nearly as many insects as we expected, because it's been raining constantly for two months now, but we still found a fair number of interesting things, including a huge (i.e., 3 mm long) sminthurid springtail, two newts, and some kind of cricket that likes to hang out at the tips of tree branches. I came back with a 10-cm long millipede and a baby scorpion to keep as pets (it seemed like a cool idea yesterday, but I'm less enthusiastic today about having more pets in my office). Rather randomly, on the trail I ran into a grad student from one of the labs I had considered going to instead of Berkeley. He was looking for salamanders, so I told him where we had seen the newts. It was a really beautiful place with some impressive rock outcroppings, so I'll have to go back sometime when the weather gets better.

On Sundays, a cross-section of Berkeley society gathers at Wat Mongkulratanaram ("the Thai temple") in Berkeley, where Thai vendors gather to sell cheap, and authentic Thai food and desserts. Right now it is Songkran (Thai New Year) so Jennifer and I went to see if anything special was going on. There wasn't, really, but I took some pictures.

I'm always amused how Buddhist temples in the US look a lot like very ordinary American buildings, but with a small amount of Buddhist decoration. In back is a huge open area where hundreds of people sit in folding chairs and eat at cheap tables. Very few of the people who show up are actually Thai. You exchange money for aluminum tokens, and then buy your food with the tokens. The curries are quite good (and taste different from restaurant ones), the fried chicken is really tasty, and for dessert there are mangoes and sticky rice, and also khnam krog, coconut milk cooked until it becomes kind of jelly-like. Demand that I take you there next time you visit!