Addendum

Oops – forgot to mention a few things in my last blog update. I have a couple other stories from Bangkok & Penang.

I was in Bangkok for this year’s Loi Krathong festival. It’s a holiday where the Thai people pay respect to the water, for all that it gives them. They do this by floating small rafts on to the water. In Thai, Krathong is the word for the rafts, and Loi means ‘to float’.

I took the Sky Train down to the river, expecting it to be a little crowded. I was shocked to see how many people were there – I could barely move through the crowds! I suppose in a city as big as Bangkok, every holiday will be a very crowded event.
The rafts are made out of banana tree trunks, and decorated with flowers, candles, and incense. They used to be made with Styrofoam, but Thailand was encouraging everyone to be more environmentally friendly this year. Some of them were pretty elaborate. It was fun to watch everyone float their rafts out on the water. There were people in the water, helping guide people’s rafts. Little kids waved goodbye to their rafts as they floated away.

After the river, I took the train over to a mall to meet my friend Aor for dinner. Afterwards, we went to the Queen’s Park – nearby the mall. There’s a large pond in the park, and people were launching Krathongs there too. It was much easier to see at the park, the crowds weren’t nearly as large.





Oh, one other thing I came across in Bangkok – a Cosplay gathering at the MBK mall. There were all of these people (most, but not all, were teenagers), dressed up like their favorite video game characters. I think it originates in Japan, but it’s pretty popular in other Asian countries. Everyone was standing around posing for anyone who wanted to take a picture. Words probably don’t do it justice…



A cardboard mustache, a red nose, and a pink cell phone… what more do you need?

I have even more pics on my flickr page.

Another aside… when I was flying from Penang to Bangkok a week earlier, I had one of the strangest experiences on a flight. During take-off, a woman decided it would be a good time to get out of her seat. Now, this isn’t a few minutes after take-off, this is while we’re still getting up to speed on the runway – before we took off! What the?!?!?! I knew not to do that the first time I was on plane. You’d think her first clue was that she had to lean waaaay forward to keep her balance. Anyways, she eventually sat down. I thought that she maybe had to go to the bathroom, but she didn’t seem to go as soon as the seatbelt light went out. Hmmmm.

Anyways… jumping around in time a little bit more - I flew back to Singapore on Dec 1. On Dec 2, I woke up super early & went to run the Standard Chartered Half Marathon. They had over 40,000 participants, between the full & half marathons, and the 10k. It was unbelievable how many people there were! The half-marathon started at 6:15am (the full started at 5:30), which was necessary to beat the heat. Actually, it was really nice running weather that early in the morning, and it was great to be running during the sunrise.

I didn’t have (or maybe it’s “I didn’t make”) much time to train, but I was really happy with my time. I finished in 2 hours, 15 minutes, which is pretty much exactly half of what my last full-marathon was (which I trained heavily for). I guess that means I’ve improved my running, right? :-)

Well, I’m about to head up to the Similan Islands in Thailand (just off of Phuket) for a few days of scuba diving. It’s supposed to be a pretty good dive site – I hope I see some manta rays (they’re supposed to hang out around there). Then, it’s just a few more weeks until I get back to MN for a visit. I’m looking forward to the snow & the cold.

Lastly, Merry Christmas to all of you that celebrate it!
CB