95% of Thai people are Bhuddist, 4% Muslim, 0.5% Hindu/Sikhs and other religions... that leaves about 0.5% for Christianity. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is there isn't Christmas in Thailand... or so one would think. My host family is wonderful and so I had a little... though nothing like Christmas in Alaska... celebration. I actually ended up going to the most "Christmas Parties" I've ever been to this year... strange how that works. Soon after Christmas I headed up to the North for my host family (and extended host family)'s annual roadtrip for New Years. It's been a little while since I last wrote, so heres a quick overview of the past week or so.
December 23rd- Celebrate Christmas with the family. The day was just a normal day spent hanging out a home... or so it was planned to be, but it turned out that I found myself becoming even closer to my host siblings. In the evening we had Christmas dinner which was quite a funny affair. We ate barbecue pork ribs, spaghetti, duck, mashed potatoes and fruit by the lit up Christmas tree. Each person in my host family got me a Christmas gift and I gave my family gifts from Alaska. We started out the evening wearing Santa hats but soon my host mom came out with crab hats that my host brother brought back from exchange in California last year... so in all Christmas fashion we spent most of the night listening to my host brothers music-- mostly top of the charts radio music from last year--mixed in with random bouts of Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas wearing crab hats and laughing. It was a great evening.
December 24th- Slept in late and then went out to breakfast/lunch with my host sister, we went and got our nails done, ate Christmas ice cream at Swensen's and learned that we are both quite forgetful sometimes. That evening I went to another exchange student's host family's "Christmas" party. I put Christmas in quotations because Thai people don't really know what Christmas is... 555 Anyways, the night include karaoke (of course!), trying to make cookies without a recipe or the right ingredients, Santa hats/Batman masks/squeezable pig sound makers/confetti and two person bike rides (there are lots of bikes with sidecars here).
December 25th- Woke up early on Christmas morning for... drum roll.... presents! Just kidding, woke up at 6:45am on Christmas morning to go to school. Yes, I'm serious. So now I can say I have been to school and worn a school uniform on Christmas! But school didn't last long, two other exchange students and I had been enlisted to sing Christmas carols at the morning assembly, so after doing our spliced together version of We wish a Feliz Navidad Jingle Bells we headed to my house and spent the rest of the day with all the other exchange students in Lopburi making cookies! This time with the correct ingredients and a recipe! After make dark chocolate white chocolate almond cookies, Moon cpokies/Mexican Wedding Cakes/Russian Tea Cakes/Russian Wedding Cakes (whatever you call them, we all had different names for them!) and peanut butter cookies we watched the Jim Carrey version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" which is something I do every year around Christmas (and I learned one of the other exchange students has the same tradition!). That evening we went out to a nice dinner... wearing our crab hats of course. Late that night I skyped my family back home, so I got to see them all bright and early on Christmas morning like always.
December 26th- Went to my friend Alex (exchange student from Oregon)'s house and helped she and her host mom cook food for the party that evening. That night twelve exchange students all got together to hang out which was quite fun. I ended up spending two nights there before heading home in the afternoon on the 28th.
December 28th- Packed up and headed off on my host family/extended host family's annual New Years trip to the North. We left the house around 10:30pm and drove through the night. Somewhere in the middle of the night I found myself at a temple. We "Waied Phra" (I don't know how to say this exactly in English, but it's something like "gave respect to Bhudda") and also walked around the temple a bit. My host mom told me that God's bones were here and that to come here was very good luck. Though I have visited many temples already, at this one there was two new things I had never done...
1. There is heavy metal elephant and you Wai Phra and then ask a question about your future, then try to lift the elephant with only one finger (a different finger depending on whether you are male or female). You then let go, ask again and try to lift the elephant one more time. It is good luck and a positive answer if the first time you can lift the elephant and the second time you cannot. Though the second time the elephant was quite a lot harder to lift, I was still able to lift the bottom about a centimeter off the ground so I suppose the answer to my question was mediocre.
2. There is a tall cup of number chopsticks which you hold as if waiing and then shake. Shake, shake, shake... and boy does it create a racket especially when it's the middle of the night. Supposedly one should fall out and that one will hold your fortune, but not everyone can get the hang of it so instead of one chopstick falling out... they all did... twice. After this happened my older brother told me to just choose one stick and so I did and then, remembering the number--two, I went to the side wall and ripped of a little rectangle of paper that gave me my fortune.
These two practices were interesting and I really enjoyed them.
December 29th- Arrived at Obluang National Park and set up tents. Spent the day talking, sleeping and eating, took a short walk to the famous "Obluang Rock" before settling down for some dinner and a good nights sleep.
December 30th- Drove for hours, stopped at a hot spring where we were able to cook eggs in the 90 celsius water. Stayed at a little group of guesthouses in Samoeng, Chiang Mai Thailand. Spent the evening listening to my host brother and cousin playing guitar and trying to sing along.
December 31st- Packed up a left and drove out to a strawberry feild where we picked our own strawberries and where given tastes of strawberry wine and dried strawberries. Got to see the inside of the workspace where they make strawberry juice/wine/candy etc and it reminded me of my work the summer before I left. Labeling bottles, stirring pots, sweet fruity smells... lots of memories and of course a lot of sympathy for the pour girl who had to bottle everything, that is the least fun job. That night we planned to sleep in Chiang Mai city but the place we had planned to stay wasn't what we expected and everywhere else was full on New Years so we ended up going back out to Samoeng and staying another night. The woman who owned the questhouses was quite happy to see us again and we all danced and listened to karaoke with her and her daughters before heading back up to our little houses where we sat on the ground, played music, talked, sat by the fire, lit off a few small fireworks and floated lanterns in the sky (something I have always wanted to do) and ended the night exhausted and falling into bed beside my host sister, but not before wishing her a happy birthday (January 1st)!
January 1st- Drove a whole lot today, stayed by another hot spring, this one much larger than the last. Took hot tub/saunas for 10 baht per person (about 30 cents for 10 minutes). Rented tents... yes, you can rent pre set up tents! How cute and convenient is that? Spent the night eating, talking, laughing and celebrating the birthday of my host sister and her younger cousin.
January 2nd- Spent the whole day driving home. Got back around 5pm and said goodbye to the extended family. They are all so kind and welcoming, it was wonderful to meet them and I'll really miss them, especially one host cousin named Mai who is the same age as me. They live in Chonburi which is maybe four hours away so maybe I will get to see them again! I hope so!
Anyways, that's my Christmas and New Years! It was a whirlwind, so busy, nothing like home at all but definitely wonderful. I cannot believe that it is already 2013, it seems not so long ago that right about now... January 3rd, 2012, I was counting down the days until the 15th so I could find out what country I was going to be spending this year! Boy how much has changed since then. I cannot believe that it's been almost five months since I left home. Time is flying... they say it does that when you're having fun!
I'll post photos later, for now I am off to Bangkok for the day!
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! สวัสดีปีใหม่ 2556! Happy New Year 2013!
-Kearn
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