Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The final curtain call for 2010

IMG_20802010 will soon be just a faded image in our rear view mirror, sitting back and staring at the credit card size calendar, reflecting on what had happened in the past twelve months is turning out to be quite a good mental exercise.

Anyway, lets hope 2011 bring only joy, happiness and prosperity to all of us :)

I wonder if I could reach 100 posts next year? :)

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Returning to the Marble Tripitaka

We got there a bit earlier than last time, so there were some goooooooood light left :) (are there such a thing as bad light???). So this time round, I had to get some pics of the marble tripitaka (I think I got too carried away with the post processing…).

After a good walk around, it was obvious that this place have been neglected, although it is still in an ok/good condition but, as important that this place is, it should have been in better shape (more top notch), in one particular corner it was being used as a storage place for a huge old wooden door.

Pigeons were everywhere but there were no usual mess that seems to follow these pests, so these were either the cleanest pigeons I have ever seen or they were all totally constipated, because in a simple equation, Pigeons equals a pile of … :)


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Friday, December 24, 2010

My only wish this Christmas…

Dear Father Christmas,

My only wish this Christmas is for a boffin to re-invent all of the known medicine for toddlers.

Our Matt is about two and a half, and after a visit to the Doctor last week, he was given 4 bottles of liquid medicine. One for his cold, one to ease his congestion, one to ease his phlegm and the most important one was the antibiotic, all of these came in different colours and flavours; green, yellow, orange and white...

Obviously I took the easy way out, all of the above went into his milk except for the white antibiotic (not allowed to be mixed with milk), and of course there was no hope in *&^^ that he was going to willingly swallow that.

Who the *&^^ would invent an antibiotic for toddlers that is a thick white liquid and smells like a million bananas being squeezed into a single drop! It was like making him swallow ‘over ripen banana flavoured Tipp-ex’.
 
 
DSC03175And of course the dreaded syringe had to come out, oh what joy. Giving him this antibiotic can be classified as torture for both him and us. We hate it, the missus have to lock down his arms while I use one hand to gently squeeze his mouth, of course he would be gritting his teeth like his life was depending on it, you would have thought we were giving him poison (perhaps we were, perhaps it was really banana flavoured correction fluid).




 
 

After getting through his gritted teeth, comes the most powerful tongue in the known universe, it is like duelling against a giant one tentacle octopus, the syringe would be fighting to get into the correct position, while the tentacle would be cunningly getting in the way and pushes the syringe out.

Ok, I am in position to deploy the correction fluid, I am now gently squeezing the syringe to release the ghastly white paste into the deepest side of his cheek; his final trick is a classic and I have no idea who had taught him to spit while his mouth was fully open.

It’s like a giant whale’s blow hole, for a millisecond I could see that he had blocked off his throat, and most of the white ooze is just laying there, and in a blink of an eye I could tell that he was drawing in air through this tiny nose and next comes the release… just like a whale’s blow hole… I never knew the white thick antibiotic is so difficult to get out of clothes, face and hair.

The counter punch is to make him swallow before the air intake… not always possible… of all the bouts we have taken, I’d guessed we are talking about 50-50 success rate, which is pretty darn good, did I mention the crying and the screaming that comes with every bout?

I lost it once, ended up slapping the sofa and shouted at him like I was an idiot, of course I felt absolutely terrible straight away, I was making him drink correction fluid that smells like a banana, anyone would fight tooth and nail against that too.

Coming back to my wish, someone please just invent an odourless and colourless medicine with a consistency of H2O, but at the same time make it so potent that one would only need to use 1 cc instead of the usual 5 or 3 cc. Matt loves to drink water from a syringe, he can go all day long pushing syringe after syringe of water into his mouth, but anything else is just a no no…

So Dear Father Christmas, please, I have already been watching out, and I have not cried and I am certainly not pouting… so please just give me a boffin who can make my wish come true…

Monday, December 20, 2010

Practice Practice Practice

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This was taken back some time in June of this year, while we were on a business trip in Shanghai. The group was given a few minutes to wander around; not being much of a shopper I decided to head for the nearest road and whipped out the G7.

Have been trying the pan technique on & off for a about a week, and so far have not had a single acceptable photo. This was the first ‘acceptable’ capture ever :)

What worked for me was to use continuous shooting mode and the panning was purely guess work, which got better with experience. I kept rushing the camera while panning, so instead of keeping pace with the subject my composition often cropped out part of the subject.

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Wow Grandma, what big eyes you have!

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I have no idea how this came to be, but the latest trend over here right now are these ‘big eyes’ contact lens. They are just like normal contact lens, a pair lasts about four weeks and purely for cosmetic purposes.

It simply increases the size of the pupil of your eyes, and I must admit the effect can be stunning... frighteningly stunning... it is like looking into someone possessed, making very hard to hold a normal conversation :) (especially at work).

Looking at the point of purchase materials, it looks like these came from (South) Korea, apparently Thailand’s teens are all Korea crazy at the moment, just like the British invasion of the American music scene, K-pop are everywhere and in everything from sweets packaging to representing the top motorcycle brand.

Hoping it will be just another phase

For the past few weeks your eating has gotten so much better, but a couple of days ago we noticed you were chewing but ended up spitting out all of the food rather than swallowing it. Yesterday and this morning you have decided to go back to square one, refusing all solid foods.

Not exactly sure why this has come back, we are all hoping it is just another phase you are going through, both your mother’s and my patience were running so thin yesterday, going back to square one was quite hard to take and so frustrating. However, this morning our senses have returned, at least you are still taking you milk.

You are now on your Christmas break, so to keep you entertain, we decided to enroll you into another half day nursery, it is so much better than having you cooped up in the room, as this nursery is only across the road, we decided to walk across the overpass rather than driving. Walking and carrying all your stuff took some getting use to but as of now it is all running like clockwork :)

Marble Tripitaka

 

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Not wanting to take you to same old places especially when Phutthamonthon is such a huge place, there was this landmark that I have been meaning to visit but never did.

On this day your mother decided to stay home to make her infamous soap, it was just you and I this time…

Tripitaka Marble Shrine (actually not quite sure if is correct to call it a shrine) totally took my breath away, unfortunately didn’t have a chance to take a pic of the Tripitaka itself (ran out of light juice), just imagine a tall man height marble slab, at about one and a half to two meters in width and about 15 cms in thickness. On it are etching of Buddhist canon. But there wasn’t just the one, there were hundreds of these, all laid out in a circle surrounding the centre shrine architecture (these pics).

It would have made a really good location for a ‘Lara Croft – Tome Raider’ game (by the time you are old enough to understand this I am sure Tomb Raider would have already been totally forgotten).

It was obvious that I found this place far more interesting than you did, being only two and a half all you wanted to do was to play hide & seek, and in this place hiding (your job) was easy, seeking (my job) was frighteningly super difficult… :) However in this serene surrounding it was totally inappropriate (although I was awfully tempted to have a quick game).


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Monday, December 13, 2010

And now for something completely different…

 

Stage locationsDuring this past long weekend there was an event in Lumpini Park, International Street Show (in Bangkok).

There were 12 stages plus some roaming shows all around, what a nice change of pace, it had a real festival feel to it, unfortunately the weather was far too hot and humid…
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

With everything that was going on, I had only managed to take Matt there late one evening while the event was winding down, walking with a pram against the hoards of people coming from the opposite direction was like swimming against a land slide, after a couple minutes and 2 cms later, an alternative route was taken… Managed to get to station number 11, a show from Laos, “Kabong Lao”. 
 
Kabong LaoIt was a great change to see a performance that was not based on physical strength or agility, but an actual performance-performance… We had already hit a real Gem with our first stop.

After a few minutes Matt was getting a bit restless, and that was a signal to move on…

The next stop was a pair of acrobats from the Netherlands, “Bencha Theatre”, talking about a ‘Wow’ factor… it had a flying hoop and everything (leaving the rest to your imagination). Matt was mesmerised, but now it was my turn to get a bit restless, people dangling from hoop and ropes was nothing new, the choreograph was actually very good, and I must say seeing it live did hold my total attention for a while…

The night ended with a huge balloon and a ‘multi coloured flashing light stick’ thingy for Matt… and now we are having trouble taking both away from him :)

Monday, December 6, 2010

THAT’S A WHOLE LOT OF LOVE :)


That's a whole lot of love :)


What perfect timing, yesterday (December 5th) was our beloved King’s Birthday because it felt on a Sunday thus the ‘9 to 5ers’ were given Monday off as a ‘catch up’ holiday, making this a much needed long weekend.

6th of December was also set for your year performance, no costumes and no props, the average age was only 2.7 years old so it was just a show to give you and your friends confidence. It starts off with a group song, then each class would come to the front to do their own little piece, you were in the ‘green’ class.

In the beginning all parents (including us) were very polite and sat perfectly still in rows (quiet chit chats here and there of course), you can feel the anticipation and excitement building at every tick of the clock…

Then the curtains were pulled back, revealing about 50 children, sitting, fidgeting with startled faces everywhere, as most of the parents stood up (some at the back even stood on their chairs), laughing and smiling all around…

The performance was perfect, of course we would say that, all the teachers and assistants have great voices… haa haa haa, the whole morning was absolutely adorable :) Can not wait to show you the video :)

Saturday, December 4, 2010

She just can’t get away… :)


Now that we’ve moved your Little Gym class to Sunday, for this class parents are not allowed to participate in the lesson.

So your mother has about an hour to do whatever she wants… Since she has so few chances to have free time, I had assumed for that free hour, she was going to be off, shopping or sipping hot cappuccino or visit the hair dresser or anything…

Instead, she chose to be sitting outside the gym watching you play :) and it was my job to trot off and get her that hot cappuccino. She wasn’t reading any magazines, playing with the mobile phone, talking to friends, she just sat there laughing (quietly to herself) and smiling at your every move… I just wanted you to know that :)


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What will this be?

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For the past few weeks, this structure was (and still is) going up (bit by bit), I am still trying to figure out what it will turn out to be.

The location is quite unique, as it sits above one of the major crossroad in Bangkok, Sathorn – Naradhiwas Rajanagarindra, it links the BTS and BRT (‘sky train’ and ‘special bus service’ respectively).

A motorcycle taxi told me (as he screamed his thoughts while we were travelling at warp 9.9, dashing between cars stucked in traffic)… “IT WILL BE A FOOD COURT!” Imagine that, it  would be the funkiest food court in Bangkok, but it would be a real surprise if it did turn out to be what he had told me.

What will this be? Will it be some bold and fantastic art? Or just another waste of tax payers’ money… :)

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Time to dress up :)


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For Loi Kratong festival, the school left a note for all parents to dress up their children in a traditional Thai attire, of course the first person we turned to for advice was my mother… and she did not let us down :)

Unfortunately she did not see you all dressed up first hand, but the video I took gave her a huge smile. It must have been destiny, but the traffic was non existence, so we arrived at the school well before it starts (which is a rare occasion, haa haa haa), and to see all the kids dressed up was just  amazing.

In the afternoon, all of the children went over to the pool and each class’ paired representatives would ‘loi’ the ‘kratong’, V and Angie were chosen to represent your class, and for your mother and I, it was a good decision (V and Angie were always calm and well behaved when we saw them) you sat at front all smart and salivary… haa haa haa.
 

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