The Gathering

Nov. 24th - as many of you are happily preparing for your Thanksgiving gatherings, Thursday will be just another day here in Thailand.  But don't feel too sorry for us - Thailand seems to find many, many other reasons to have holidays.  In fact the term "sanook" means fun, and Thais want everything to be "sanook!"   I already mentioned Loy Krathong, the water festival that was happening the day we arrived.  This weekend is the International Fireworks Festival (I love the fact that it has the same name as the Detroit/Windsor fireworks) - two nights of spectacular fireworks right out over the bay.  Apparently teams from several nations come to compete with their best fireworks - someone told me the team from USA won last year.  Should be exciting!  I'm hoping we will be able to watch them from our hotel balcony.  Other upcoming holidays are King Buhmibol Adulyadej's birthday on December 5th and Constitution Day on December 10th.  I understand New Year's Eve is quite the party here, too.

A very active group of expat women are members of an international ladies club here - not just Americans, but from many different countries.  (They give their membership pitch to all the new Ford ladies when they arrive).  They sponsored a Christmas Bazaar on Sunday, conveniently located at the very hotel where we are currently staying.  I ventured down to check it out.  I wouldn't say it felt especially Christmas-y, but they had some fun booths for the kids, including a semi-Santa in a dimly-lit tent - some of the children wisely balked at a visit to his knee.  There was also a rather disturbing tall man dressed as an angel, complete with giant bra and pink eye mask.  Maybe this is a normal Christmas tradition in some other culture?  I should have taken a picture for you, but I felt a little uncomfortable initiating any interaction!   I might have renamed the event the Christmas Bizarre instead.  Really, it wasn't all bad - they had a room where people were selling their crafts and wares - nice to see the displays of people's talents, although I don't think they were all handmade items.

We were privileged to be invited to a lovely Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday at the beautiful home of another Ford family - they hosted over forty people, mostly Ford expats and their families (lots of children), and everyone brought a dish to pass.  It doesn't substitute for gathering with family, but it was lovely just the same.  They had all the traditional Thanksgiving food - turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie - the works!  We enjoyed being able to visit with other families who are in the same situation as us.  Many have been here for a couple of years, and so had lots of advice to share with us - best restaurants, where to shop for food, what places to visit, where to get DVDs, etc.  I really should have had a notepad handy, as I will never remember it all.

Speaking of "sanook," yesterday I was in the hotel room and heard a lot of shouting outside.  I went to the balcony and saw a group of nearly 100 people, all dressed in black, taking turns at tug-of-war in the water!  It seemed like it took them much longer to get in place than it did for the actual pull.  People were slipping and shrieking their way into the waves.  Must have been some sort of team-building exercise.  When I went to look again a short time later, everyone had disappeared, but I saw a telltale pattern of wet footprints leading into the hotel next door.  Sherlock's got nuthin' on me!

(Looks like it's German stout day at the pool - or should I say stout German day?)

Yep, this is the life.