Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Visakha Bucha Day and Other Recent Festivities

We were surprised not to get any comments on the King Cobra entry. You all must just be getting used to seeing strange things on here. Well this post is not promising to be too exciting, just an update on what we've been up to in the past month. 


Starting today and working backwards.


Today is actually a major Buddhist Holiday called Visakah Bucha Day. I learned all about it in my kindergarten's Thai class yesterday at school. It's a day that recognizes when Buddha was born, enlightened, and died, the full moon of the 6th month (yes this all is believed to have happened on the same day). Click here for more information and about things that will go on today in Thailand. Greg's actually working today (lots of people here from the US right now and he needed to go in although a few of the Thai's said they could not because the important day) and I plan on skyping, doing some report cards, and seeing a movie.


Last weekend we went to the beach again. Jomtien, if you remember when we posted about it a long time ago. We went with a group here from the US for Greg's work. We even took a boat out to an island. It was the most beautiful water I've ever seen!


The beach at Jomtien, a view from the table where my sand-dollars were drying out
The beach at Koh Larn, much more beautiful. The water was at low tide, so it was very far away!!!


Now this is life!





A few weekends ago, we went and saw Muay Thai. Muay Thai is the unique sport of Thai-Boxing. Lots of knees, elbows, and kicks. There is a famous stadium about a 5 minute walk down our road that we went to with large group of people. I was surprised when I loved it! The atmosphere, the people, the cheap beer and fresh peanuts, you can't go wrong. Our friend Melanie also blogged about it, read here for her take. If you come visit, we will take you!


Outside you get a picture of the line-up

We had the bleacher seats!
Some video of the fights! Do you here the band playing in the background? With each round it got louder and faster. The crowded area to our left was filled with locals betting on the fights. Lumpini stadium is one of the only places in Bangkok where gambling is legal.
More video, this was a staged fight, but it was pretty cool!

Easter in Bangkok was nice. Saturday Greg made a roast. We enjoyed it with veggies and a bottle of wine.  I even got out my Easter basket! We were joined by two of my co-workers for church on Sunday evening. It was nice weekend!



Ok! That's the update from Thailand! Hope you are doing well. The next two weekends we'll be on the beach...