I was even happier when I discovered that Mika was interested in attending the concert with her family. This was a perfect opportunity for an evening out together with our spouses and families. Tim was in, so I reserved two tickets. The next week, Tim apologized but said he was going to have to be in India at the time of the concert - bummer. So I let Mika know that Tim wouldn't be joining us, but that I still wanted to go.
Just days before Tim was scheduled to leave, it was discovered that his India work visa would expire while he was in India. So the trip had to be postponed until he could get a new one. This is no quick phone call; he had to again relinquish several documents to the Indian embassy, then travel to Bangkok to resubmit everything. I don't understand why this is necessary when they already have all the information on file. Anyway, because of the visa delay, Tim would be able to attend the concert after all.
The concert was on a Sunday, Mick's usual day off, so we gave him Saturday off that weekend. I went to Sunday morning mass instead of my usual Saturday evening (alas, all the Pattaya Mails were gone by then.) Tim needed a haircut, so after mass we had Mick drop us at the mall. We looked for a breakfast place, winding up at Mulligans, an Irish pub in front of the mall on Beach Road.
Mulligans has one breakfast item on the menu, so we ordered it: the usual English breakfast of eggs, bangers, bacon, baked beans, black pudding, etc. We were a little concerned when they said their coffee machine was broken, but the waitress kindly offered to run next door to Starbucks to pick up some coffee for Tim. The food was so-so, but the decor was fun and the soundtrack was great.
After breakfast, we stopped in at Starbucks to have them grind a bag of beans for us. (We are down to a precious two bags left from the stash we brought from home. We can buy beans here, but the bags are twice the price and half the size.) Then we headed up to the "Cut and Curl," the place in the mall that does a pretty good job cutting hair. I have yet to get my hair done in Thailand, but Tim has used this place several times.
In the afternoon, we headed back to the condo and got ready for our evening out. The Dusit Thani Hotel is quite close to us - this is the same place that hosted the tennis tournament back in February. We arrived in time to walk in behind the bell-ringing lady featured in an earlier blog about the Thailand Philharmonic concert in Pattaya. Thankfully she was just a fellow concertgoer this time. We picked up our tickets and headed into a ballroom that was set up like a wedding reception with large, round tables and a buffet set up in the middle. We found a table off to the side and staked out some seats for Mika and her family. They came in shortly after, with their little one asleep in the stroller. It was nice to meet each others' husbands, and we all seemed to enjoy getting acquainted. The food was quite good, with a nice combination of salads, entrees and desserts, including some very good California rolls.
Young people dressed in traditional Thai clothing were at the table next to us, all Asian in appearance, but clearly speaking American English. We surmised they must be the musicians, and we were surprised to see how young they were; the oldest was no more than seventeen, the youngest perhaps eight or nine. We were also curious about their backgrounds - were they Thai students attending a school in America, or a school in Thailand with the name "American Northwest Music School?" It was never really explained, but this was clearly a school in America, and the emcees spoke distinctly American. The American accent is more conspicuous once you are away from it for a while; a bit harsh yet comforting to hear. From the surnames, we figured maybe four of them were Thai nationals who live in America; the others had names that sounded Chinese and maybe Vietnamese.
The stage was set with five beautiful grand pianos arranged in a circle. The program started with the Thai Royal Anthem, for which we all stood, then a Thai song medley, with two musicians at each piano, hence the "20 Hands and Five Pianos." The first solo was Watch My Fingers Rock, performed by a young boy of eight or nine. Tim and I were both instantly reminded of watching Michael play when he was little, when his only tempo was "fast." So cute.
The concert continued with several solos, duets, and various other combinations, working their way through Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Saint-Saens, and the like. They even played Sousa, and a piece composed by HRH King Bhumibol Adulyadej which was quite lovely. They tackled some pretty difficult pieces, some quite expertly. The pieces with all ten players could get a bit muddy at times; it is pretty ambitious to expect synchronization of twenty hands with such complex pieces. In the second half, one piece was performed by five musicians lying on their backs reaching their hands over their heads! Victor Johnson, I thought you were the only one that could do that :)
All in all it was a lovely evening - a nice escape to a different world. I'm anxious to see what hidden treasures might appear in the paper next.
What I'm Reading: Just finished reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, a simple yet insightful story of a young man's search for meaning. I'd never read this classic before, and found Thailand to be a good backdrop. It's a reassuring tale to be read and reread by those who feel like they are wandering through life without direction. It strips away all the "shoulds," and refocuses the reader on the beauty of the journey.
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