Like I promised, life has kicked up a notch - starting with a weekend trip to the land of ladyboys, Russian tourists and the Gulf of Thailand - Pattaya! Last weekend, a bunch of us teacher folk headed 2 hours east to the oceanside town of Pattaya - or what I like to refer to as Crazy Uncle Chuck (C.U.C.). The thing is...nobody likes to admit they are related to C.U.C. - much in the same way tourists often don't like to admit they've been to Pattaya. However, deep down, one kind of secretly enjoys the sleaze, craziness and fun that is both C.U.C. and Pattaya. Me included!
My dear Nesrine's brother-in-law opened a fusion Thai-Russian-European restaurant (if you are wondering what that means, I am still unsure myself) there, and we were VIPs on the guest list! Let me say, I could totally get used to the VIP lifestyle, where the free food and drinks flow steadily right in this girl's direction! We had lots of fun strolling around the go-go bars, running into Russian tourists (they all come here, I swear!) and eating, all in good company of course! On our way to Pattaya in one of Thailand's bajillion minibuses, we stopped at a good ol' truck stop in the middle of nowhere where - well, I think the picture says it all!
We returned to Bangkok late Saturday night, and you could feel something special in the air - King fever of course! Yesterday, December 5, was Big K's big 8-0 - so you can imagine the fanaticism of the Thai people when it comes to celebrating the King's birthday!The school put together another ceremony (complete with another whole background for the stage) full of ornately corny staging, singing and skits - featuring moi once again. Sarasas Witaed Saimai students descended on the school's canteen Monday morning to engage in almost 2 hours of singing King songs, holding (and swaying) King pictures and watching poorly practiced skits featuring their English teachers - all in the color yellow of course! I kid you not - there were even girls crying as the King songs were sung. For what reason? Your guess is as good as mine. Lauren has some great photos - so I will try to put one of those up soon!
Yesterday, on the King's actual birthday, I dressed myself in my best yellow shirt (which also happens to be my only yellow shirt) and got ready to do what Asian nations seem to do best - shop! We went to a huge exhibition called "Made in Thailand," where you guessed it, all the products are made in Thailand! They had row after row of food, housewares, scarves, clothes - everything a girl could want and more - including Starbucks Coffee (don't ask me why that was there!). After beginning our day of shopping, we stopped for a late lunch at a delicious Thai restaurant where I had some vegetable & shrimp rice cooked in a pineapple! Delish!
Then we headed to Siam Paragon (a.k.a. the nicest mall ever) and MBK (the best bargain mall) for more shopping, where I preceded to start checking off my list of Christmas presents for family and friends! Then unfortunately, we all remembered that we had to teach the next day, so we headed back around dinnertime to Saimai, where I blissfully fell into bed after a loaded day of shopping, shopping and more shopping!Soooo...I am going to leave you with a parting picture of me and the King (which is actually a ginormous King memorial outside Siam Paragon) celebrating the day off from school yesterday!
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