We are loving you already…

A bit soppy I know, but your mother keeps telling how active you are, always moving (unlike your brother who hardly moved), so this Tuesday we shall know what colour shirts to buy for you, well to be honest there seems to be only two colours, ‘blue’ vs ‘pink’.

Anyway, just wanted to let you know that everyone is waiting for your safe arrival, in a blink of an eye you’ll be in our arms :) Even Matt is kissing you goodnight every night :)

All I need now is a huge full moon near the top right hand corner

The composition could have been better, well, I can’t see this view changing any time soon so at least I’ll have an opportunity to have another go. Come to think of  it, it would have been better if I had a Tripod, ended up having to rest the camera on the railing… :)

Just imagine if there was a huge full moon near the top right hand corner… In that case I might as well imagine Superman flying into the tall condo, then what a pic this would have been lol.

Another Gif, sorry, really can’t help it :)

I am so sorry for another Gif, I promise I won’t get addicted to it this time (yeah right), anyway, this one is of the Little Gym ‘Show Day’. Each of you took turn to do your exercises that you’ve been practicing all these time.

No need to go into the detail here, I have taken loads of videos, and let me put it this way, I have already decided to show the said videos on your wedding day ;) lol.

I can see it now! Oh the embarrassment, of course your mother would cry and I would probably be too drunk to care, only kidding… lol.

Walking Home… (again and again).

A couple of weeks ago, right around six (pm), the sky above Bangkok decided to have one of those ‘the end of the world’ type of monsoon; raining usually means bad traffic, rush hours usually means bad traffic, raining (heavily) during rush hours usually means pitch your tent at work and call your wife and children to say good night.

Luckily for me I was already at my destination (an underground station) when the sky decided to relief itself, the usual thing to do was to take the motorcycle taxi home, well in this type of rain only a fish is safe outside, but there was no way I was going to stick around and wait for the rain to stop, the rain was so heavy it felt like the Mayan had got the date of the end of the world wrong, perhaps it should have been on a day in June of 2011.

So from my magic rucksack, I pulled out a girly umbrella (one has to see it, it is very girly) and decided to walk home, I have driven on these roads enough to know that it was going to be a long walk, but it was better than waiting around, besides I had nothing to do the battery in the iPhone had already died a long time ago.

Managed to get home in about 40 minutes, but it got me totally addicted, now I try to leave work early so that I have time to walk home, the average time is now down to 25 minutes (2.2 km, without the heavy rain), perhaps I should get a bike? :)

Your first ‘Proper’ party :)

Well, how does one define a ‘proper’ party (rather than a pi** up every Friday night, lol), well, it starts with a proper invitation; Subject: Chloe’s third Birthday, Date: Saturday 11th June, 3pm onwards, Location: @ Poolside.

I think I was more anxious than you were, for the first time we were going to really meet with our neighbours, and to actually talk to them rather than a smile and a nod of a head.

I must have taken a billion photos, but as you already know, it just doesn’t feel right for me to post photos of children we neither clothed nor fed, lol.



 
As always we were late, you having woken up at half two, by the time you had your lunch got cleaned up, it was close to three thirty. With present in one hand we rushed (well, walked fast) to the pool side.

 
The party had (obviously) already unofficially started, as always, when there is a large crowd you would be all funny (not haa haa funny either) but all of a sudden gone extra, extra shy.

Body paint was a fantastic idea from Chloe’s mum, what a great ice breaker, I was surprised that you chose a spider and a web, I thought you hated all things with eight legs.



 


 
What a fantastic first proper party, it had everything… body paint, animal balloons, party games, presents, magic show and the cheery on top was a Pinata

We certain had a great time, and we know you did too, judging by the amount of smiles and laughs we saw and heard that afternoon. :)

Thank you Chloe… :)

iPad2, what a time waster (in a good way)

I am sure millions and millions of iPad2 users are totally productive, creative, original and even innovative using the darn thing. It arrived in the mail today (got it for the wife), after setting it all up with Gio’s various email accounts, filled it up with all of the modern lifestyle necessity, aka, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, a good selection of games and other apps (mostly not native to iPad2). I found myself fiddling with it for a few minutes, then putting it aside like a yesterday’s toy.

Of course as soon as our Matt came, it was a totally different story, he was ‘over the flippin moon’ is an understatement of the century, I ended up having loads of laugh with it as well.

It was ‘SO’ nice to have all the extra real estate (especially for email and web), the native ipad2 apps look great, for me this device will play more of a consumption role rather than creation role.

Was it worth it getting the top model, perhaps not, but the original plan was to load it up with all of Matt’s vdos so the 64 option at that time was even too small, but right now can not be arsed to rip the dvd into mp4 just yet.

It would be fantastic to have one of these in my hands during one of the numerous ‘waste of time’ meeting, but apart from that I can’t see myself fighting the wife just to take turn on it, let alone getting another one for yours truly. Now, my iPhone is a different story, no one can tear that away even from my cold dead hand, of course unless they were going to swap it with a Samsung Galaxy S II :)

Wat Trimitr (The Sukhothai Trimitr Golden Buddha Image)

Your grandmother have been mentioning this temple for a few weeks now, so it was our destination for this week’s Saturday-Scape :)















After reading a few articles, here is the gist of it; this Buddha image is over 700 years old, and apparently while Thailand was waiting for the impending invasion by the Burmese, a team of monks put plaster all over this Buddha image, so that it would be overlooked by the invaders, well, I guess it worked.

Fast forward, in 1955 while this Buddha image was being moved, some of the plaster came off and the monks noticed the golden colour beneath… Wow! 





What I really liked about this temple, isn’t just the history, but the two museums beneath this Buddha image. One is of the history of this Buddha Image (we didn’t manage to see it this time) and secondly, the history of Thailand’s China Town (Yaowarat). Although small, the China Town museum made up in its quality, well worth a visit.

Sri Mahamariamman Temple

How could we ever follow up on the ‘only yesterday’ superb ‘Saturday-Scape’? How about a sublime ‘Splendiferous-Sunday’!

One of the good thing living very close to the centre of the city are the interesting places one could visit, I have drove/ran/walked or even possibly skipped passed this Hindu temple, and never once set foot inside in 39 years.

It was your mother’s idea (again, another wonderful idea from Mrs. Always Right :) ). I loved it, totally different and kind of mysterious, I mean the closest I’ve been to an actual Hindu temple was through watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and what a mess that movie turned out to be!

We went through the whole shebang, you and I and even got a tilaka :)

Saturday-scape :)

On this Saturday (28.05.11) morning your mother decided to pay a visit to this shop, ‘Suksapan’, I have never known such a place ever existed, it was such a pleasant surprise to find such a fantastic shop in Bangkok.

A direct translation of ‘Suksa-pan’ is ‘Education-Supplies’, after squeezing through a smallish door you will be treated with a space as wide as the eye can see, a multi level store (no escalators just an old fashion wooden stairs), that is probably older than mother time. It was how I imagine an old ‘communist’ shop would look like, not quite organised and not yet an anarchy.

Loads of people though, I’d guess it was just like finding the ‘room of requirement’, of course the things you were requiring happened to be stationaries :) How to describe this place in the least possible words… ‘Anything from Microscope, dead samples of insects to nursery rhyme books and HB pencils’, they have everything! Literally ‘everything’.









Anyway, I got you a magnify glass and a couple of books (no idea where they are all now, probably lost in the wardrobe of Narnia), after which your mother and I had a dilemma, should we skive off ‘Brain School’? Of course we did :)

We decided to find a place to have lunch, Burger King turned out to be quite a good choice, you were chomping down the fish burger faster than a fish swallowing water, to get to Suksapan, we had to park in the temple’s car park, so we decided to have a quick gander around the temple before going home, what another great decision from your mother.



 



The temple,‘Wat Bowon Niwet’, turned out to be very famous, and absolutely beautiful. Your mother was so patient with us, you and I managed to pay homage to a couple of temples, and it was also your mother who found the tree that was planted by the King, wow. This very normal Saturday had turned out to be something very special in deed. :)

Very efficient in deed.

 

If I had known that this was all the space you were going to use, I would have bought you the gnome’s bed that was on sales so many years ago :)