in the land of smiles.: loy krathong

hiiiiiiiiiiiii everyone!

This past week Thailand celebrated loy krathong. So much happened this weekend that I’ll just go over the highlights:

· Thursday harry potter came out!!!! I was able to see the new harry potter movie in English before everyone in the states! I saw it Thursday evening, which would have been Wednesday night in the states, so I got to see it a full day ahead of all my friends who went to the midnight showing in the states. Just another reason Thailand is amazing.

· Friday the kindergarten school celebrated loy krathong with a big festival. All the kids were dressed up in traditional thai outfits and Bradley and I were dressed up as well! The days activities included a beauty pageant (it was like a weird thai version of toddlers and tiaras), Bradley and I being asked to pose for a million pictures with all of our students, setting off water lanterns in the pool at the school, and no classes!

· Friday night the girls and I had our typical Friday night at the beer stand.

· Saturday morning/afternoon the girls and I headed into Bangkok. We stayed at the same hostel that we did a few weeks ago. Its in the silom area of Bangkok and it’s really easy to get to a lot of different areas from this location. We met a guy from England who is working in Taiwan who came to Thailand on a visa run. We kinda latched on to our group and became a hilarious addition. That afternoon there was a massive downpour so we just hung out at the hostel and chatted it up with the other people staying there and lounged around at a starbucks near by. I’m not a big starbucks person back in the states, but being at starbucks here was such a nice feeling. I had a peppermint mocha and a banana chocolate chip muffin and I was in heaven. My coffee was served in a holiday cup, there was Christmas music playing softly in the background and for a while I completely forgot that I was in Thailand. I could have been at any starbucks back in the states and it was exactly what I needed. We met another guy named wander who is from the Netherlands. Later that night after the rain stopped the girls plus our new additions wandered around a night market and grabbed some dinner.

o Side story….so we went to this little thai restaurant for dinner, we all ordered our dishes but for some reason mine and one of the guys never got our food. We waited for a while and then asked one of the guys working there if our food was coming; he said it would be out in just a minute. Everyone had finished eating and still we hadn’t gotten our food. Again we asked one of the guys where our food was and he again said it would just be another minute. We knew this was lie and that our food was never coming. The british guy that we were with wanted to say something to the cook/waiter/person working there who was standing around, but the girls and I begged him not to. Mai pen rai. Mai pen rai is the motto for Thailand…it means something along the lines of “whatever/nevermind/it’s ok. It’s kinda their way of life…a big thing in Thailand is to “never lose face”…it means to never lose your cool and pretty much never show when you’re upset, just let things happen and just go with the flow. This has become our way of life now; back in the states I would have never hesitated to get upset at a restaurant and demanded to talk to someone if my food just never showed up, but here I just smile and say mai pen rai and go on with my day.

· Sunday morning I went to starbucks again :) and did a Sudoku while drinking my toffee nut coffee drink (yum). Then the girls and I took a water taxi out to khao san road and did a bit of shopping. I bought a shirt for less than my coffee at starbucks cost. We ate some street food which was cheap and delicious (my two favorite things) and headed to a café to lounge and relax for a bit before heading over to the rama viii bridge for the loy krathong festivities.

· The girls and I bought two water lanterns to set off in the river. We each wrote letters to the goddess of the river, telling her our worries and anger that we wanted her to take with her into the river. We watched some of the performances that were taking place and then went to the river to release our lanterns. In northern Thailand they have a tradition where they set off these big lanterns into the sky and let them float away. There is an amazing picture of it on a lonely planet guidebook and we had been dying to do it ever since we saw the picture. We had seen lanterns flying in the sky around us so we knew that there must be a place for us to buy one to set off, so we started searching around for somewhere to buy it. We finally found a little lady who was selling them so we bought one from her and went over to a bridge to light it up and set it off. So we lit up our lantern and made our wishes and let it float off into the sky. It was beautiful. The whole sky was lit up with these lanterns and it was just a beautiful night. As we took a taxi back to our school that night we were able to see the fireworks that were being shot off over the river. A great way to end the weekend.

Coming up in the next month: the king’s birthday (which means no school!) so a few of the girls and I are going to head down to koh samet and spend the weekend relaxing on an island! Tentative plans for Christmas in Bangkok, a few day trips to see some sites, and then heading down to koh phi phi for new years! I’m really excited for all the things that are coming up, but also a little sad because thanksgiving is this Thursday and this will be my first year without a thanksgiving dinner. Even when I studied abroad in Sweden I still managed to have a turkey dinner with all the fixings (thanks in part to sarah’s amazing mom!), but this year that’s not going to happen. I’m a little bummed, but I just have to remember that I have a lot to be thankful for this year and one year without a turkey and pumpkin pie isn’t going to kill me! Hope everyone back home is doing well and is getting ready for the holidays!

love you all!