Happy Birthday, King!
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!