Bangkok, December 2008
Part III
After Part II
December 2008
Does anyone want to guess as to why these newly laundered and dry-cleaned brightly colored clothes are hanging in this big old tree? Is it relevant that there is a car wash on the adjacent property?
My son-in-law, Bernie, and my daughter, Christy, are preparing for a Christmas Eve dinner. Bernie sent the following:
Alf,
The weather is pretty severe in Seattle right now. We had a brief sun break on Saturday morning - cold but no new snow. Christy and I ventured forth (by bus) to the Pike Place Market to stock up on Christmas foods. The Market was beautiful. We bought salami and bresaola (standing in for the hard to find bunderfleisch). We are having a fondue on Christmas Eve with the family. I thought you might like to see the sights, so I sent some photos. They are just from my iPhone but not too bad. The oysters are from one of our favorite restaurants in the area, Steelhead Diner. They make a great frozen/shave ice mignonette.
I hope you and Watcharee are all settled in to the new place.
Happy Holidays,
Bernie
Sunrise in Bangkok ... followed by King Kong's arrival later in the day when he climbed to the 55th floor of the Centara Grand Hotel at Central World.
Who busts counterfeiters in the States? Is it the Secret Service? The FBI? I forgot. Anyway, here in Thailand there is a flood of fake 1000 baht notes hitting the markets. It's gotten so bad that a lot of small merchants won't take any 1000 baht notes for payment. This hot money is even making its way into Nana, Patpong and Cowboy where poor lighting makes the bills difficult to spot.
PS: OMG, the irony of it all!
Counterfeit money coming into circulation in the real world at close to the same anniversary that the counterfeit god was about to circulate from the imaginary world.
It is so wonderful living in a country where Xmas is a purely secular non-traditional holiday ... festive decorations in the stores (yes, they are open and so are the banks and the bars), no saying of grace before eating boring turkey dinners, lots of pole dancers wearing cute elf outfits, no annoying church bells and no bowing our heads to the imaginary folks in the sky. In other words, FUN. Let's continue to keep Christ out of Xmas!
While walking by a local post-Christmas fare I smelled something terribly good: roasted pig, roasted squid and roasted mussels. I ate.
Check this out. The Holy Redeemer Catholic church at the foot of Soi Ruam Rudee has a 'spirit house'. Wow! Rome allows a Thai spirit house next to the church. That is really liberal and so sensitive to the local culture. I have to check this out.
FRAUD!!!! It's just the "virgin" Mary with her kid in her arms, standing in a very tiny house.
I love Bizarro! Here is the 2008 Year Review.
Between Lumpini Park and Sukhumvit Soi 12 there is a wide concrete elevated bicycle/foot-path than runs east/west for several kilometers through a very busy section of Bangkok. At about a 10 meter elevation it allows its user to anonymously watch not only a slice of Bangkok street life but to also see how the local buildings behave at center stage while the major Bangkok towers form a backdrop.
For the next day or two I'll post snaps of this.
She has appeared in many of our pages in the past. Any guesses before you look at the answer?
Here is the answer.
Continuing with yesterday's theme here are some photos taken from the bike path which highlight the adjacent older buildings with the newer backdrop.
PS: Also, a map.
PPS: Photos 012 and 014 show two sides of a curtain hotel. Anyone know what is a curtain hotel?
Happy New Year! But, with lawyers in the background?
Next: 2009!
