Father's Day, Fashion Island Mall , and a nice weekend

Our next to last weekend in Thailand in 2017 was quiet (ish). Jacqui and a friend went for a hair color, mani-pedi somewhere close to downtown on Saturday. They then went for lunch somewhere nearby and didn't get back until about 5 pm!  A girls day out, I guess!

On Sunday, we had the brilliant idea of going to Fashion Island, a mall that is about 6 km from where we live. It took about 15 minutes to get there (pretty normal) but another 20 minutes to park the car. It was unbeleivable! But I guess it's like that every weekend day.

Tuesday Dec 5th was Father's Day, a national holiday in Thailand, so Jacqui had a day off. We went for a nice 90 minutes massage that afternoon; the rest of the week was as usual.

We had the school Chrsitmas party on Friday the 8th at a hotel; it was very nice. The school does it so well. They had a room for kids, with movies, games, food (french fries, chicken nuggets, ... ) balloons, while the adults had a really nice buffet dinner with turkey, ham, suchi. salads ... Everyone seemed to have a really good time. Teachers sure work hard enough; they deserve to celebrate at this time of year!

This also makes it our last weekend away from Canada in 2017. We can't wait to come home. After this year, we will be home on a permanent basis (ish - we still have passports, so let's travel, right? - who wants to join us??)

The repairs on the olympic size pool at school are finally over

The grade 6 band performing for Jacqui's class!

Jacqui's PreK team at the Christmas party

There is a cockfight place close to where we live

The keep the gamecocks in these cages

The khlong - basically a 3 feet cement sidewalk along the river, used by pedestrians, cyclists and scooters.

You can walk for miles and miles on the khlong; it's a full network of "roads"

We even ran into a laundromat along the way

Week of Nov 27th - Dec 1st - Jacqui's class getting ready for Christmas and a visit to the Royal Crematorium

Jacqui's class is getting ready for Christmas. They are singing Christmas songs and even have a Christmas tree in their class that they decorated. There will be a Christmas concert in the last week of school, ie one week from now!!

Last year, in October, Thailand suffered a great loss as the King passed away. He had been King for 70 years and people absolutely loved him. He did so much to bring them to where they are at now, in this modern world. Mourning lasted for one year, where people were encouraged to wear black or somber colors of clothing. They built a Royal Crematorium close to the Grand Palace in downtown Bangkok. It took a year do to it and the cremation was held on October 26, 2017. The site of the cremation was open to the public as of November 1st for the full month of November. Jacqui's Elementary school organized a visit at the end of November. However, due to the overwhelming number of visitors (most of them Thai), the government decided to extend the date at which it is to be brought down. Yes, they will take all of it apart, but it is a magnificent site to see. So glad we could see it. Both Jacqui and I had never seen anything like this.

Jackfruit on the tree, at school

I found this guy waiting for me on the fence when I got home one morning!

Jacqui's students decorating the tree!

Making a Christmas wreath

Jacqui's class!

At the entrance of the site of the Royal Crematorium - Landscape of rice plots

One of many exhibition halls

The Royal Crematorium - the details in the architecture are quite impressive, and most everything is gold platted

The Royal Gun Carriage

Really glad that we are here; it is quite impressive!

November 23 - 25: My first American Thanksgiving

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas,...." Well, not really. Temperatures are still in the low 30's, all our trees are "evergreens" as they never lose their leaves, and we live in a Buddhist country! There is however one grocery store that has been playing Christmas music for the last two weeks! But it's still kind of hard to get in the spirit of the holidays.

Even our American friends (and there is a lot of them on staff) feel the same way. It's their Thanksgiving weekend, but celebrating in shorts and short-sleeve shirts feels really weird to some of them, especially the teachers from the northern states living their first experience abroad!

But a celebration had to be had! The school organized a Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday and we had a wonderful meal: turkey and stuffing, ham, various kinds of potatoes and salads, pumpkin dishes, desserts gallore. It was a very good meal! It must have looked pretty traditional to what they have at home for Thanksgiving dinner. Jacqui and I both really enjoyed it.

On Saturday, we had another Thanksgiving dinner at one of Jacqui's colleague's house. Again, the meal was outstanding. They bought a turkey at a nearby grocery store, which cooks it and delivers it, with stuffing! No extra charge for the cooking, stuffing or delivery! Gotta love it!

Jacqui's report cards are coming up; it's a sign that we are getting close to the end of the term. Three more weeks to go and then we come home!! We can't wait!

November 17 - 19: Weekend getaway in Hua Hin

Since we wanted to check out some of the beaches aroung Bangkok, we decided to book a weekend in Hua Hin, a three hour plus drive southwest of Bangkok. We left after school on Friday and the drive there was nice with traffic being calm to moderate. The resort that we have is pretty nice and the beach is also nice. Our dinner on Saturday was one of the best dinners we've ever had!!! Our weekend was spent by walking the beach, sitting by the pool, enjoying good food and fine liquids; it just didn't last long enough. But on our way home, we started looking forward to our next trip which will take us to Vancouver, to see Nic, and then back to Ontario, to see friends and family. We are really looking forward to that!

View of the pool from our balcony

Same view, in daylight

Thailand Gulf in the background

Beach to the left!

Beach to the right!

Our hotel complex

Where we're at!

From the lobby to the pool

Part of our fabulous meal: escargots in their own shell. It was awesome; best escargots we've ever had!

Oops; Julie's backyard in Ottawa... Just a reminder!!

Sunrise on Hua Hin

I"m glad someone is taking those pictures so I can see them too!!

November 2 - 15: Jakarta,Loi Krathong and the Khlongs

The return to school from our fall holidays has been pretty hard. We learned on the Saturday/Sunday before coming back that one of our PE teacher, 28 years old from Nova Scotia, had passed away during our week off. Staff and students were pretty shocked.

I took my volleyball team to Jakarta for the South East Asian Student Activity Conference (SEASAC) championship. We didn't really have a chance to visit Jakarta as we didn't have much time, basically going from hotel to gym or vice-versa, plus I don't think there is much to see in Jakarta (I might be wrong).

Meanwhile, Jacqui and her colleagues were celebrating Loi Krathong (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loi_Krathong), which basically is a celebration where you float a small container of leaves often accompanied by a candle light of some sort. In Jakarta, one of my volleyball player built a "boat" out of paper and was shining the light from his cellphone on it; he told me it was the best that he could do to celebrate the occasion given our situation in a hotel room in Jakarta. I would have loved to see it where we live, as we have a lake near the school. Jacqui and some of her colleagues went out and found it pretty neat.

The next day, Jacqui went with a few friends to walk the Khlong, which translates into a "canal". There are many canals around and most of them have some type of cement sidewalk that you can walk along (also used for bicycles and scooters). You can basically walk for hundreds of km on the Khlongs.

Jacqui also had her class start swimming lessons, at the school pool. She went in for the first day, to help out with her students. She enjoyed it and so did her students! I also went in one day to help her make Banana Bread with her students, using the Culinary Arts room at the school. I was quite impressed by that room, and yes, the Banana Bread turned out fine!!

Scooter parking lot near our hotel in Jakarta

Jacqui and her class at swimming lessons at school

Jakarta: they don't seem to use the letter X

Where I spent most of my weekend - we came in third

One of Jacqui's student getting ready for Loi Krathong

Jacqui and Lauren, her PreK3 colleague

Putting it in the water!

There they go, floating away

Parts of the Khlong between MinBuri and Samakhorn

The Culinary Arts room at school

Jacqui's class, getting ready to make Banana Bread

Learning about various quantities: which is larger, smaller ...

Mr Richard helping out!!

How good was it??

Our "burger man", where you order from the back of a truck (but his burgers are really good!)