Noddy Playgroup: Sports day 2011 :)

The photo (left) is a bit of a spoiler… :) your team (Green) won the gold medal! Trust me baby, you and your team mates have no idea how stressful that was. Right from the very beginning, we were told the organiser had deliberately put together a weak ‘Green’ team, as ‘Green’ had already won the cup for the past two years.

There were four colours (teams) in all, Green, Red, Blue and Yellow, each colour was made up of a selection of children from different classes and also from different age group, so you and your class mates were split up between different colours. (By the way, it rained, so the whole event had to be taken in door').












Now getting back to the ‘Green’ being a weak team… right from the very beginning, I knew that this wasn’t so, the older children was taking real command of each game played.

You participated in two team events, winning one and came second in the other, I am sorry that I can not post any photos here, as it just doesn’t feel right posting photos of other people’s children.

The ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ were neck and neck heading into the final event, the “Tug of Gory Death” (sorry, a bit dramatic here, it was a ‘Tug of War’)… (queue back the dramatic music), in the first semi-final, ‘Green’ had a hard time dispatching the ‘Red’, but they were through to the final, while the ‘Blue’ had no problem getting rid of the ‘Yellow’ in a somewhat one sided match. So, this was it, the very final event will decides who lifts the cup of champions… the atmosphere was intense, the sound of cheering parents were deafening, the passion was overflowing… it was time…

Each team strained the rope, the referee lifted his foot and the match was on! The ‘Blue’ had immediately took charge of the pull, the ‘Green’ was looking in disarray, each team member was swaying from left to right like a set of unorganised pendulum, the ‘Blue’ was fulfilling their deadly form they had shown in the earlier semi-final. You have to see the vdo to understand what I am about to say… like a phoenix, ‘Green’ being a millimetre away from loosing everything, sudden found their rhythm… pulling in unison like a team with a purpose… In a blink of an eye, the match was won… Now I know how the people of England felt in 1966 :) (only kidding).
 
 

2011 Winter Holiday (Part II): First Night in Chiang Rai

The morning came too soon, being a worried soul that I am, I was truly dreading the drive back through the ever winding road to Tak, as there was a very strong chance that you would be sick again. So a strategy was formed during the night (after a beer, so it may not have been the best of plan). Firstly, skip breakfast (you loved this), secondly, let you sit at the front seat, thirdly, make sure you look forward while driving, fourth, to keep the window slightly open so that we have cool fresh air coming into the car, fifth, stop when we can and finally, to drive at a constant slowish speed.

Well, putting all of the above together resulted in us taking almost two hours to drive the eighty km, including one short stop at a sight seeing area (09:17). It was all worth it though, the toughest thing was when we were at about the sixty km mark, you started to repeat the word ‘nom’ (milk) over and over, but it was easy enough to distract you (iPhone) away from your hunger. As soon as the windy part was over, we immediately stop to make your milk.

Mae Sot to Chiangrai is about 471 km, our chosen route took us from Tak to Lampang, then Phayao and lastly Chiang Rai, because we took it ridiculously slow going from Mae Sot to Tak, together with a quick lunch in Lampang, it was around 16:30 when you were once again jumping on a bed at the Dusit Island resort. A+ for your mother, the hotel was fantastic, not the newest of hotel, but the quality of staff, the view and all the bells and whistles were certainly above my expectations.

 

Unfortunately the hotel was really busy and it was fully booked on what was supposed to be our last night in Chiangrai, so for our final night we were going to have to change hotel. The thought of having to pack up all your stuff, move hotel then unpack it all again just for that final night kills me. But hey, that is 3 nights away, your mother was convinced that there will be a room available so that we didn’t have to move.






After we got freshened up, we decided to head out straight away to your mother’s auntie and uncle house because that was where everybody was gathering (including your grand parents who flew up to Chiang Rai a few days earlier), and so this was how we spent our first night, full of food and laughter (especially seeing you and your new friend mucking around), more importantly you had a great time being centre of attention (as always).

2011 Winter Holiday (part 1): Bangkok To Mae Sot

Baby, now that everyone was back at work, it was our turn to take a break :) avoiding holiday madness is one of our golden rule that must never be broken, after an awful experience a few years back.

This time the destination was Chiang Rai, one of the most northern province of Thailand, this is your mother’s ‘home’ province, many of her relatives are still there and they were now eagerly waiting to meet the latest member of their family... ‘you’ :)

It felt like we had taken half of the house with us (we are all use to this by now), the trip started off rather wonky, your breakfast was loving packed into a special 3 compartments flask; hard gorgeous boiled egg, nutritious spare ribs soup and steaming hot rice... unfortunately the egg and soup was ‘lovingly’ packed in the wrong compartment, and so the soup leaked like the Titanic... had to stop the car even before we got on the express way :)




Chiang Rai being over eight hundred km away to the north, it was going to be too much for you to sit through this in a single drive, so your mother decided to stop over night at Mae Sot (on the border with Burma), before driving on to Chiang Rai.

Bangkok to Mae Sot will always be about 476 km (unless the Mayan was correct), on the map it was only 80 km off our intended route, but as it turned out, the 80 km side trip was more curvaceous than Miss Kardashian’s silhouette. You ended up chucking up a couple of times, and I had to drive slower than a lame duck walking up shag hill with a huge rucksack loaded to the brim with house bricks, it took us literally ‘forever’ getting through the 80 km.



After several stops (including a long lunch) and the need to go slow through the winding hills, all in all it took us around seven hours before we were checking in at the Centara Mae Sot hotel, it was just four when we were finally in our rooms.

Lovely hotel, and I am sure it will always be totally fully booked during the holidays, but on this night I think they had three guests and they were all listed on the welcome board, very strange seeing my name of the front door of the hotel though.

We all regretted spending just one night here, especially when the journey was so tough on you and there were so much to do here; deep down I was dreading driving the same 80 km out to Tak then the rest of the way to Chiang Rai, it was going to be another long session tomorrow :)

After everyone had freshened up, It was just the right time to have early dinner, since you had chucked up most of your lunch (by the way, your mother was faster than lightening with the plastic bag, it was amazing the car remained as clean as it had). The restaurant was recommended by your mother’s friend (the friend is from Mae Sot), and talking about WOW... the food was great too :)




 












 


























After dinner, it was time to head back to the hotel, it was around seven/eight when you nodded off... free time for your mother and I :) perfect time to enjoy the chilled night air (almost never happens in Bangkok) and a beer :) and trying not to think too much of the second leg of the trip, from Mae Sot to Chiang Rai.

Exciting Start… (another trip to the emergency room)

Wow, what an exciting beginning to 2011 :) Last night everything ran like clockwork… You had your dinner, had your bath and was all cosy in bed asleep by around nine. Then at around midnight both your mother and I heard you crying, thinking nothing of it, your mother went into auto pilot mode.

In the dark she picked you up and started to cradle you to sleep, but something was wrong… then your mother turned on the light. I was in the kitchen when I heard your mother scream (of course in a calm way :) ), dropping everything I ran to your bedroom, and saw blood everywhere!

 
Your mother was checking every millimetre of your body, and it was obvious that all the blood was coming from your bottom lip… somehow you had fallen over and badly gashed your bottom lip. Leaving nothing to chance, we got dressed and quickly got into the car to go to the hospital… and here is a funny story :)

It is quite a long walk from the elevator to our car, so usually I would jump out at parking level 2 while your mother and you ride the elevator to the lobby and wait for me to pick you both up. So that is what I thought was going to happen, but this time your mother decided to follow me out from the elevator. I ran toward the car, not realising that your mother was trotting behind, carrying a very sleepy & bloodied lip you :). I got in the car and sped off to the ground floor (also driving passed your mother without seeing her or you), leaving your mother very puzzled and kind of crossed :) After I arrived at the ground floor I realised almost immediately that your mother must have followed me out of the elevator… the rest is history :) of course it wasn’t funny at the time :)

The Dr. took a good look and decided that the gash was wide but not deep, so he decided against putting in a stitch (much to our relief)… Some one thousand and seven hundred bahts lighter, we headed back home… Of course the night had just started for me, as I had to stripped and re-made your bed, washed all the bloodied clothes (my shirt was covered), cleaned all the walls and floor as well as the dirty dishes and washed your bottles, it was way passed two when my head touches the pillow (can you hear the sad violin in the background? :) ).

Please let the rest of the year be less exciting :)

Together

Although by the end of November you’ll see all sorts of iconic Christmas decorations being put up all over the city, especially in the leading department stores, hotels, major office building, and on main roads. Of course colourful lights are mandatory, a (fake) Christmas tree is also a must, as well as a perfect snowman made from the perfect polystyrene, Santa Clause do make an appearance, even a few reindeer here and there. But as a nation, 25th of December is just another working day, oh well, at least the lights do cheer up my little Matt to no end, screaming ‘lights’ every second can be very annoying to say the least.
 

The official holiday started on the 31st and ended on the 3rd, during these few days where a large number of Bagnkokian leaves the capital city, either for overseas or upcountry, Bangkok suddenly became a totally different city, to me it is now able to breath, smile and even laugh, it seems Bangkok also needs a holiday :)

No bad vibes oozing from every traffic jams, there were less pollution, less anger and frustrations; street hawker are also taking their much needed rest (simply because there were no customers), so the footpaths were no longer a compilation of mini mission impossible type assault courses, being able to walk freely is quite liberating.

Of course there are always an opposing view, ‘Boring vs Blissful’ would be the best description of each viewpoint. I do fall heavily in the ‘blissful’ camp, during these few days Bangkok or Krung Thep (Thai name) have a chance to truly reflect in the  meaning of its name, ‘City of Angles’.

We spent most of our time in various parks, walking and talking, a thoroughly wonderful & uneventful holiday, it was very good just being together :)

The final curtain call for 2010

2010 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? :)

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 … :)

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’.
 
 
And 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…

Practice Practice Practice

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.

Wow Grandma, what big eyes you have!

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.