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Earlier this evening there was a series of explosions in Bangkok. We didn't find out about it until we received an email from the American embassy and then read about it online. We'll find out more tomorrow, but have no plans to go into the city in the near future.
-Tom
Yesterday we got back into downtown Bangkok and had fun experiencing a new area. We rode the bus to a library and then explored the surrounding blocks. We really enjoy Bankok's diversity. I took the two pictures posted above from a street corner - in one direction was a mosque, in the other a Hindu temple. We ate lunch at a vegetarian Indian restaurant and then rode the bus back home.
New Year's is a major holiday here. There's a four-day weekend so scads of people are leaving the city to go back to their home provinces and the roads and public transportation networks are packed. Unfortunately the traffic congestion (and high percentage of motorcycles), alchohol consumption, and long distances that people travel combine to make this a particuarly deadly time to travel. The paper gives a daily update and compares the totals with previous years. In the past two days 109 people were killed and an additional 1,300 injured.
On a less grim note, here's another picture from yesterday - Candice and Eliza on a motorcyle taxi. (Don't worry concerned family members, we were using the motorcycle taxis inside our safe neighborhood, not on the aforementioned dangerous highways!)
-Tom
The girls and I were so excited about coming to Chiang Mai for Christmas that we wrote a little song about it. The lyrics are the title of this blog entry and you have to wiggle, point your index fingers in the air and say woohoo hoo hoo at the end. Well, it met our expectations in terms of a time away, rest and relaxation, beautiful sights, and (much) cooler weather.
We stayed at the Juniper Tree (above is a picture of one of the Thai style cottages) which is a place for missonaries to rejuvenate for a little donation. :) We enjoyed the big slices of homemade bread at breakfast, the tree and flower filled grounds, the semi-rustic cottages. We were saying that it kind of felt like camping in the fall (although the days heated up) and the cooler weather really made us bundle up at night. It was also fun and interesting to meet missionaries with great accents from New Zealand, England, Australia, Germany, ect, now working in places like Bangladesh, Uzbekastan, India, China, Mongolia, Korea ect. We all got together for a little Christmas celebration where different people contributed songs, stories, a puppet show, etc and we sang carols together. Some Thais from a nearby church also came and caroled for us which was fun.
On Christmas Eve day we went to an elephant camp which turned out to be a really cool experience for all of us. The country side and mountains were absolutely amazing.The elephant ride was far more terrifying than I expected… I was anticipating a little jaunt around the pen, not a river and jungle trek! Imagine your whole family teetering in a small box on top of a giant beast who walks with very ungainly clomping steps (of course we got the most gigantic elephant in the herd- name: Bouchie). Now imagine that this beautiful but awkward beast is sloshing through a river, scrambling up steep muddy riverbanks and lurching up narrow, jungly mountain paths. Meanwhile your driver who is perched “bareback or barehead” on the elephant’s hairy head, (and who thinks himself a comedian) smells your fear. So, he goes on to make fear worse by yelling in a fearful voice, “oh my Buddha” every time you are in a particularly scary vertical position and grabbing on to the chain of your perch as though you are about to fall off. Oh, and lets not forget the times the elephant lurched off the path to get himself some grass for lunch or the time the driver suddenly bounced down to the ground and ran ahead of us to take pictures while I imagined terrible scenarios in which the elephant suddenly plunged down to the waterfall below.
So, can you see why I was scared stiff although awed by the incredible scenery and can you see why I was completely amazed that Claire and Eliza rode along with incredible calm?? (Claire kept saying, Calm down mommy, don’t get stressed out mommy. It’s going to be okay mommy..as if she was the adult. Meanwhile, Tom is non-stop laughing at me). Claire even mentioned at one point as the trek wore on and we seemed to have been bouncing up there forever, that she was ready to get down because she was bored now.
After the elephant ride, we enjoyed looking at some hill tribe crafts (Claire bought the fantastical hat) and then went for much tamer but still fun, rattly ox cart ride. After a fabulous Thai lunch, we continued on down the river by bamboo raft.
So, it was quite an adventure filled and exciting Christmas Eve. For our Christmas Eve night we ordered pizza and ate ice cream watching a holiday “Ben and Jerry” and then played Old Maid and read Charlotte’s Web in our cabin. Claire told us the Christmas story and we were amazed at all the details she recalled…and Eliza amazed us by belting out “HOLY NIGHT” when I mentioned singing Silent Night. We felt a little sad about being away from our families and thought about them a lot (LOVE YOU GUYS!) but really enjoyed each other too. Thank the Lord we have Skype!
Christmas Day was very quiet and relaxing at the Juniper tree. We enjoyed some more swimming and playing on the playground as well as calls home to family. They provided a nice Christmas lunch which even included turkey and stuffing which was pretty exciting for us! In the evening we went to the Night Bazaar in Chiang Mai and bought ourselves a few Christmas presents/souveniers including a decorative pot, a carved elephant and squishy dolls for the girls. In Chiang Mai we had to adjust to not having the taxis and buses of Bangkok and got used to riding motorcycle carts, tuk tuks and mini-buses (little covered trucks with benches in the back and an open back end). We took a tuk tuk home that night and were nice and cold by the time we got "home."
Here's a picture of Claire and Eliza on Christmas day (the poinsettias were growing outside!)
On our last day in Chiang Mai we visited the Royal Flora Exposition. This has been a huge deal in Thailand this year - one of the many events planned in honor of the King's 60 years as monarch. We were only able to see a fraction of the exhibits but we especially enjoyed the beautiful orchids.
Yesterday we returned to Bangkok by train (because the night bus was full and because Tom has always wanted to travel by train). It was a long day but the girls did really well and we are happy to be back home in Bangkok.
-Candice
Yesterday we celebrated our family Christmas so we wouldn't have to lug our presents to Chiang Mai. We went to a pool during the day and actually got a little chilly since there was a breeze and it's gotten a little cooler lately. It was fun to be able to swim on "Christmas" day and Claire loved it even when her lips were purple from cold! After naps, we had shrimp for dinner and then dug into our pile of presents. It was fun to have some to open from the aunts and uncles in the States and the girls were so excited with their new books and toys.
We have been touched by the incarnation in a new way this Christmas as we think about God becoming Immanuel, "God with us," here in Thailand. We also been impressed as we sing Christmas songs, that the story of baby Jesus is THE missions story! We think of lines like...
"Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her king"
"and make the nations prove, the glories of his righteousness and wonders of his love"
"long lay the world in sin and error pining, till he appeared and the soul felt its worth,
"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices.."
"Joyful all ye nations rise, join the triumph of the skies"
We wish all of you a wonderful Christmas too and that you will really experience the reality that God is with us!
We are taking the overnight bus to Chiang Mai tonight (Friday) and will be staying through next Wednesday. We will take our laptop and will have internet access so keep writing and we'll talk to some of you on Christmas! We love you and miss you!
On the way to the pool. Claire takes good care of Eliza singing "Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes" and "Let the Sunshine In" all the way there
Claire at the pool enjoying the sun and eating her favorite snack of strawberry popcorn
Merry Christmas!
The girls are excited to open their stockings...the sugar rush is coming.
Claire loves the new bell and basket that Daddy added to her bike
Claire and Eliza with new friends Pooh and Piglet.
The pooh playhouse that was such a hit that the girls ate their eggs and toast in there this morning!
We also had our team Christmas party here on Wednesday night. Highlights: eating too many cookies, singing Christmas songs and trying to remember all the gifts for the 12 days of Christmas, learning about the origins of Santa Claus (started by a random argument),and a white elephant gift exchange of mostly food and gift certificates. The girls had a great time too staying up late and eating waaay too much candy and opening great gifts from the team. We are really thankful for our team to celebrate with and are grateful for their friendship and kindness to our girls!
Claire sneaks food from the snack buffet before the party starts
Ben, Tom, Joe, Dan, and Trish.
Claire with Sharon, beginning to wind down from all the excitement (all that dancing and jumping has worn her out)
The girls love their gifts from Joe (Claire yelled HAPPY FEET!...she just saw the movie). They also loved the coloring books, books, and video from Trish, Sharon and Dan.
-Candice
I don't want to bore you with multiple entries about Thailand's weather, but I thought that this was too good to pass up. An article in today's Bangkok Post, with the title "Chiang Rai declared a disaster area as temperatures plummet" states that:
"Plunging temperatures have prompted local authorities in Chiang Rai to declare the province a disaster area...Kittirat Sornsue, chief of the Chiang Rai provincial office of disaster prevention and mitigation, said hundreds of thousands of Chiang Rai residents are in need of blankets and warm clothes...With a low pressure ridge moving down from China, the Meteorological Department has warned residents in the northern region to be prepared for lower temperatures of between 10 and 15 degrees Celsius [that's 50 and 59 degrees Farenheit] this week. There will also be a wind chill factor in the region."
I don't want to make light of what is really a serious situation for the people in this area who don't have warm clothing and who are unaccustomed to such low temperatures, but it would never have occurred to me to associate "50 degrees" with "disaster area."
-Tom
For the past two days we've enjoyed some wonderfully cool weather. No, we won't have a white Christmas but the temperature has dropped to the upper 60's at night and with a nice breeze it has almost felt chilly. For the first time since we arrived the girls have slept without their ceiling fan running and our cold showers have been a little too cold!
For Thai people who are thoroughly acclimatized to the heat, this weather really is "cold." I went out the other morning (when the temperature could not have been much below 70) and saw a woman wearing a stocking cap.
I spent some time today working on the Thai alphabet. I configured our computer to type in Thai (but I still haven't figured out the keyboard layout. Here's a sample of some random keystrokes:
ฟรคตืทฟกำ
Claire and Eliza are playing outside by themselves right now. A little while ago I heard Claire say "Eliza this is an important thing to know. You get on the bike and ride." I guess I'd better keep an eye on them!
-Tom
I've now completed the second module at Union Language School and I'm looking forward to a three-week break. It will be refreshing to not need to leave the house at 6:00 every morning! I do want to keep working on Thai over the break though. In the next module we begin studying the script, and I'd like to get a head start on that.
In other random news...Eliza has a fever today (she's on my lap, laying against my chest while I type. She just pointed out her Uncle George in the picture on the wall beside us). Candice was planning to take the girls to a birthday party for a kid in their playgroup today, but since Eliza was sick Claire went by herself with another friend. She was very proud of that accomplishment!
To add some holiday spirit to our site I'll post some pictures of Eliza being goofy in a Santa hat.
-Tom
The old married couple- we've been married 8 years already!
To celebrate, we enjoyed a rare, childless evening (Thank you Sharon!) and went on a dinner cruise down the Chao Phraya on a converted teak rice barge.
The boat was decorated with lots of orchids and little white lights and candles. It was very romantic and we enjoyed seeing Bangkok from the river at night- especially the lit up and sparkling Grand Palace.
We had a delicious, and huge, Thai/seafood meal including sweet & sour squid, a couple kinds of curry, shrimp cakes, mussels, and steamed sea bass.
It was a very happy, special and memorable anniversary!
This afternoon I was reminded of my ongoing status as a learner (or is that child?) I stopped by our landlords’ house and in the course of our conversation mentioned that I was planning to get a haircut. That innocent attempt at making conversation led to series of questions – “Which barbershop are you going to?” (we have at least 8 of them in our neighborhood) “How much do you pay?” “Why have you gone to several different places?” – and ended with Khun Seri deciding that he should take me to his barber to ensure that I receive a decent haircut. (He said that he could understand what kind of haircut I wanted, but the barber might not.)
At the barbershop he explained what kind of haircut I wanted (a short one) and the barber complied. It was just like being taken to the barbershop by my dad when I was a little boy (except that in Thailand you get a complimentary shoulder rub at the end of the haircut).
Even though I had never been to that barbershop or spoken to any of the men in there before, they knew that I had two daughters and that I walk around town a lot. We run into that a lot – people know about the girls and even know what street we live on without us saying a word.
Because Seri was doing such a good job of taking care of me the barber assumed that I didn’t speak Thai and asked Seri a series of questions about me. I couldn’t follow everything he said, but he told them that we go to church and that we like Thai food. At that point I chimed in and managed to contribute a little to the conversation. Although I was a little irritated at first that I couldn’t just go get a haircut on my own, I am glad that our landlords are concerned about us (and I’m pleased with the haircut as well).
Now we’re going to eat Pad Thai and then go into Bangkok for a “Friendship Concert.” A choir and orchestra will perform Handel's Messiah, Beethoven's Choral Fantasia, and the Thai King's composition Paen Din Kong Rao.
-Tom
The countdown to Christmas is heating up (and it's still pretty hot literally too) in the Mast household! Last night we did our first Christmas shopping at Toys R Us and now have wrapped presents tantalizing the girls in the living room! We also got our first box of presents from home today- thank you Del and Gail!! Claire can hardly stand it that she has to wait another two weeks! We enjoyed going to English church on Sunday and singing some Christmas songs too.
I thought it had been a while since I'd written an update on the girls, so here's the latest for anyone else who's interested...
Claire and Eliza are both really into our fish Dorothy (has a girl name, but we call it a "him"). They like watch him move rocks all around his aquarium (Claire even saw him picking up rocks in his mouth and spitting them out!). We like to give him the frozen blood worms and watch him gobble them up every morning and before bed.
Eliza is a little parrot these days- copying the last two words of every sentence we say. She loves to get powdered before bed (one of our attempts to be like Thais and stay cool). She flops down on her tummy and says "powder back!" and wiggles her bottom in delighted anticipation. She is also learning to pray things like "Dear Ye-sus. I love you. Amen." We've taught both girls to kneel and fold their hands because other wise they are flopping like fish on the bed and paying no attention to "Ye-sus." She loves riding around town in her new red stroller and watching Peep movies. She makes a gigantic mess eating- especially rice which she loves! When she's in a good mood, she can do a perfect wai (bow) and everyone loves that!
Claire is still really into books- especially now that we found an English library in Bangkok! She loves to sit down with a stack of books and "read" aloud to herself. She is learning to help around the house- helping hang out clothes, clear the table, do a little vacuuming, and helping cooking (breaking eggs is a favorite). She is getting to be quite a big girl, but not to big for much loved lamby- who doesn't leave the house because he embarrasses us to much with his dirty self! She loves riding in taxis and on the skytrain (she runs up to the guards and they let her through without paying and says "kop khun ka!" (thank you). She is a good sis to Eliza- always coming up with games for them to play together like parades, and trains, and boats and making her howl with laughter in bed at night. Her new favorite thing is our "family game" of Dominoes which she plays on her own (with only a little oversight from mom or dad). She is tremendously thrilled with herself when she wins!
-Candice
Today is King Bhumipol's birthday and it is a national holiday here in Thailand. In honor of that occasion our community held a sai-baat ceremony this morning. One of the important components of Thai Buddhism is contributing food to monks - as a way of providing for the monk and making merit for the one giving the food. Every morning, as I walk to the bus stop, I see two or three monks making their rounds. Since our community does not have temple (wat) these monks come in from somewhere else (riding on the back of motorcycle taxis). But today, in honor of the King's birthday, a truckload of monks came in from another province. People from our community gathered along the main street with bags of food, and the monks walked the length of the street collecting the donations. After they were finished they performed a chanting ceremony in the park and then they, and the people who had gathered to watch or participate, ate a meal.
The paper today is full of tributes to the King with full page advertisements sponsored by corporations (including Honda and Nestle). Tonight there will be candle-lighting ceremonies in His honor. We had read about the importance of the monarchy before coming to Thailand, but we have been suprised at the depth of feeling that is expressed on such a large scale. Of course there is never negative press about the King, but from what I have read, he is a man who has done a lot of good for the country and who takes seriously his role as the "lord of life" for Thailand. There's really nothing from our experience as American citizens that we can compare it to. It comes much closer to our experience as Christians worshipping The King and it is interesting that we will be celebrating the King of Thailand's and our King's birthdays so close together.
Most Thai people will not celebrate Jesus' birth in a few weeks. Christmas exists here, but it is a foreign holiday that exists primarily to promote Western-style materialistic consumerism. However, the love and devotion that we are seeing expressed by the Thais today challenges me to approach Jesus' birthday with a similarly humble and grateful reverence.
Here are some pictures from today...
The monks collecting gifts
This monk sat in the back of the truck and sprinkled water on people's heads
The monks chanting while holding a white thread
Claire and Eliza enjoying some rice and pork from the meal that was served following the chanting.
Saturday evening our community held a dinner in honor of Thailand's King Bhumipol who will celebrate his 79th birthday on December 5. Chaweewan, a friend we met during one of our first weeks here, and her husband Jed, invited us to join their family at the dinner. It turned out to be a much bigger production than we were expecting. Around 200 tables (seating 10) were set up on the lot where the bi-weekly market is held. The program consisted of a lot of dancing and singing (by cute schoolchildren and scantily-clad women). We ate a Chinese-style dinner (dim sum, steamed ginger fish, noodles, mushroom sour soup, etc.) and had a good time taking in the cultural experience and socializing with our friends.
Here are a few pictures...
All dressed in king-honoring yellow and ready for the party (almost everyone there wore a yellow shirt). The girl's shirts say, "Rao rak nai luang" (we love the king)
Chaweewan and Candice talking before the meal starts. She was in charge of some of the stage show and was running around in a frazzled way most of the night!
Chaweewan and Jed's daughter, Hope, age 4. All dressed up to dance during the festivities. Her lipstick had to be redone at least three times as she kept eating shrimp!
One of many dance acts
Claire found some fishing pals and even went home with her own toy fish and pole courtesy of Jed- she is absolutely thrilled!
Our kind neighbors
We've been the recipients of a number of gifts recently - mostly delicious food. We have a couple of neighbors in particular who seem to be looking out for us. This is a dish that we received today - it's cocunut syrup with ice and green things made from tapioca flour and mung balls (according to a cookbook that we have). This is a popular Thai dessert and one that we're learning to enjoy.
This lady lives a couple of houses down the street from us and she goes walking every evening. The girls love her because she teases and chases them. When Claire sees her she runs to jump on her bike and then they ride/walk to the end of the street together. Tonight I asked Claire what they had talked about and she said "She talked in Thai and I didn't say anything."