Would you like some beef and wine before class?

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised any more by the questions that I'm asked over here, but this one surprised me a bit. The week before New Years we had several things on the agenda in terms of celebrations for the New Year but there were no plans (at least to my knowledge) that involved drinking large amounts of wine at school before class. We, the teachers, had arranged to do a gift exchanged amongst ourselves and order pizza on the Friday before the New Year. Classes were canceled in the afternoon so that the students could have their own little parties and hang out before the long weekend. This was our plan - the director of the English Program had other ideas. On Thursday, I don't teach in the morning, but I do have several afternoon classes. I had gone out to get coffee in the morning and read and came back at about 11:00. As I approached the office, I smelled what could only have been bar-b-que but that didn't jive with where I was - there shouldn't be bbq at school. Much to my surprise, I walked into the office and there is our director grilling up some beef with several bottles of wine on his desk. The other teachers wrapped up with their classes and came back to the office and we're told that this is his New Years party for us. So we obligingly started to eat and drink. He had brought a good amount of beef and three bottles of wine. Despite our protestations that we had to teach later in the afternoon, he kept our glasses full and we all enjoyed some good wine and beef. About 50 minutes later, I headed off to class sucking on a mint my director so thoughtfully provided for me. And so that's how I ended up drinking a good bit of wine before class - all in the name of celebrating New Years.

The following we came back to school and had our official party and the students got time in the afternoon for their parties as well. I brought my camera for these festivities and took a few pictures. Here's the album that I made from our New Years parties.

Bai Pai Ma

There is this place which has achieved somewhat legendary status among the foreigners living in Thai. I've been told of this place many times by many people. When asked by foreigners and Thais alike if I'd been and upon receiving my answer of "no", I was given the open-mouthed questioning look. If I could read their thoughts it would go something like this, "I can't believe he's lived he for almost two years and hasn't been to Pai!" And most then walk away in disgust. All this being said, I felt like I had to find a way to get myself to Pai. And I did as my post title proclaims (albeit in phonetic Thai, but a proclamation it is nevertheless). About four weeks ago now, we had a holiday. For those of you familiar with the month of December in Thailand, that doesn't come as much of a surprise. It also explains why I haven't written in a while and why I've seemed to gain a few pounds. Anyway, December 10 is Constitution Day in Thailand and unlike last year, the country was actual governed by a constitution (this holiday doesn't actually celebrate just any old constitution, it actually celebrates the day that Thailand first became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, but that's beside the point). It was a Monday and that meant that we had a three day weekend.

Pai is in Mae Hong Son province and is northwest Chiang Mai. It's up in the mountains and is about four hours from Chiang Mai (add another two hours to get from Lampang to Chiang Mai and it's quite the trip). I was able to convince two friends from Chiang Mai (Som and Maew) to come with me. I went to Chiang Mai late Friday evening. I was planing on going earlier in the evening but Mike (another teacher at Bunyawat) made chili. So I stuck around to eat some. I met up with the gang at the bus station and headed up to Pai. The drive is famous for it's curves. Pai is 136 km from Chiang Mai and there are 762 curves along the way. In a bus it takes about four hours. In Pai, we rented a few motorbike and hit the usual spots-a few waterfalls, Pai canyon, the river - and ate a ton of food. More importantly, we took a ton of pictures. In a weekend, we (and by we I mean Som) managed to fill my 2GB memory card. That's about 1400 pictures. Needless to say, my inaugural trip to Pai is well documented. We also did a good bit of shopping as well. I haven't really spent much time talking about what we did partly because I'm a bit daugnted by what I have on my To Write list and partly because the pictures explain most of that. So check out the album below!

Worlds Apart

Christmas in Thailand 2007

It's Christmas time and unfortunately I'm away from home again. But like I did last year, I've decorated a tree and am trying to make this tropical Buddhist home of mine feel a bit more like Christmas. I've gone ahead and posted a picture of my Christmas tree this year along with a photo of the Christmas tree that my family has put up in Colorado. Enjoy and may you all have as many wonderful memories as you put up your tree as I did while listening to Christmas music in 80 degree weather.

Christmas in Colorado 2007

7-11

It just came to my attention that there are 4,300 7-11 branches in Thailand. That's a lot of 7-11. It prompted me to look into the company a little more. Worldwide there are 28,123 stores around the globe making it the largest chain store in any category (even more than McDonald's). Thailand's 4,300 stores means that Thailand has the 4th largest number of stores after the Japan, the US and Taiwan. Taiwan has the highest density of 7-11's in the world.

I've mentioned it before and I'll mention it again - 7-11 has been a huge part of my life here in Thailand. Many an adventure has been had in its stores and countless items have been purchased off its shelfs. I'll leave you with a little known fact - 7-11 in Thailand isn't called 7-11. It called Sewen because Thai's have a hard time pronouncing the 'v' sound partly because Thai doesn't have that sound.

Buddha Casting

Thailand is a predominately Buddhist country and as such there are temples nearly everywhere. Having been here for a good bit of time, I've seen my far share of temples. One of the most common sights in the temples are the images of the Buddha. These images occupy a place on honor within the temple as well as many peoples homes. Recently I was able to witness the casting of a Buddha image at a temple in town. The director of the English Program decided to have a Buddha image cast and invited us to the casting.

The casting took place at a temple in town. There was a short ceremony before the casting in the temple and then most everyone moved out into the courtyard where the casting would take place. They had set up the molds and were heating the metal when I arrived. In the picture below, you can see the molds in the left part of the picture. The metal is being melted in several different fires/ovens and those are fairly easy to spot (hint - look for the flames).
We arrived to the scene above and then entered the temple for a ceremony. But the ceremony lasted longer than our attention span so we ventured outside to watch what captured our attention which was the incredible bright flames and the steady buzz of activity around the molds and the fires. The kept feeding the fires and stoking them; keeping the metal molten until the ceremony finished.
It came time for the image to be cast so they pulled the bricks down from around the molten metal housed in what was now a glowing container. Using very long poles they exposed the container which was now bright orange.
Very carefully they used this clever little tool to lift the molten metal up out of the fire/oven and proceeded to clean off the outside of the container. These containers didn't have a lid to them and if you remember they just threw charcoal on top of them assuming (and correctly so) that the surface of the molten metal was hot enough to ignite all the charcoal and burn it off.
They transferred the molten metal from the lifting tool/contraption and put it into a tool/contraption more suited for pouring. They carefully lifted the molten metal up onto the platform which surrounded the molds and began to pour the metal into the mold.
The steam which was coming off of the metal as is streamed into the mold was incredible. The color of the metal was also equally amazing. This black and white photo shows the steam a little bit better than the color photos could.
Here's a picture of the molten metal (which I'm assuming to be bronze...I never got confirmation of that, but most of the Buddha images are made from bronze) as it is poured into the mold. This picture doesn't do justice to the color of the metal. But you can still see the oranges and the yellows in the container nonetheless.
While this was all happening, people had gathered around the men working and had run a string through their hands (a common part of Buddhist ceremonies) and held their hands up in a wai while the image was being cast.
And that was that. The image was cast. The image had to sit for a few days before it could be broken out of the mold and then polished and have the finishing touches added to it. The image will stay at the temple for a few days and then it will be taken to my boss's house where he'll keep it or store it until he decides to donate it to a temple.

And that's how Buddha images are made - Thai style.