จัดงานแต่งงาน - The Wedding

Here in Phichit there are not many white people and we got excited one day when we ran into a guy from Atlanta, Georgia, Daniel and his Thai wife Pat here in town. They are SO nice and generous. They have come to the school, met the kids, brought them candy and taken us out to eat too many times!!  They were legally married around a year ago so Pat could go to America for Christmas but their traditional wedding was this past weekend and that is the reason we went to Bangkok. Pat and Daniel met on Daniel's first day in Thailand and they have been together ever since for the past four years. We had the privilege to attend our friend's wedding and it was BEAUTIFUL!! We are so grateful for their friendship and generosity! 

Us in our traditional Thai dresses in the elevator heading to the wedding.

The monks did chants and rituals for a couple hours, it was really neat 

to be a part of it. 

Bride and groom in Thai traditional dress

The couple changed into their western attire, Daniel giving his speech.

Cute Thai wedding party, all in traditional dress. The girl in the blue was running around all 

afternoon taking pictures of everyone and everything, she was SO cute!

So we were at the wedding in our Thai dresses that we rented and relized within minutes that we were over-dressed so we took the elevator up to our hotel room and changed into our western dresses. It was pretty funny, and we felt much more comfortable anyways. We decided to do a photo shoot back at the school after our Bangkok trip. 

More of the wedding: 

We used these flowers as part of the ceremony when Daniel, the groom, entered the room. We used the flowers as a block way and Daniel had to give us money and answer a question we asked correctly in order to pass. He was followed by all his friends holding gifts and flowers, the friends would holler and howl

when Daniel would pass one of our thresholds, it was SO fun to be a part of the wedding!

Photo shoot at the school: 

All six of us!

These are shrines in front of the school. Offering are put 

on the front pedestals almost every week. 

The two K3 teachers

Beautiful fabric!

This is guard in the black and our gardener in the green they were following

us around taking pictures of us, it was SO funny!! They are both

sweet men who take good care of us and the school.

A little sunny but I had to represent Phichit!

The dresses were BEAUTIFUL and even though we didn't wear them to the wedding we were glad that we rented them anyway!

Thanks again Pat and Daniel for being such great friends to us!

CONGRATULATIONS on your big day! We are all very happy for you both!

กรุงเทพฯ - Bangkok

This weekend we went to Bangkok. It was our first real visit, we had only been there when we left the airport after first arriving. We woke up at 5am on Saturday and the bus (more like a van) picked us up at the school at 5:30am. The van had around fifteen people in it counting us and the drive was about five hours long. Once we arrived in Bangkok we were dropped off at Victory Monument. The bus driver helped us get a taxi to take us to our hotel. The taxi was bright pink and the more we drove around the more and more I saw these taxies spotting Bangkok.

The taxi dropped us off at the San Dusit Zoo, which we knew was close to our hotel so we wandered for a little while asking people for directions to our hotel. We found it inside the university, checked in and passed out on our beds for a nap. 

Our hotel

While we were looking for the hotel we met a Kenyan man who told us about his acrobat show that was performing at the zoo so after our nap we headed in that direction. It was also a plus that we knew how to get there because the taxi had dropped off by the entrance in the first place.

San Dusit Zoo:

Ya... we didn't know either.

There were komodo dragons surrounding this pool. 

The would whip their tails when they were agitated but luckily, 

that was all they did. One dragon actually did whip one of us and it hurt

but mostly just scared her, the Thai people in the zoo got a kick out of it.

Time for the show! First up, Kenyan acrobats.

They were incredible

Second: Elephant show

The elephants did everything from dance to Micheal Jackson to shoot basketball.

We couldn't decide how well they were treated so it was a little difficult to fully enjoy it.

After the zoo the acrobats were done and we met them. They were friendly... very friendly. And when I say very friendly I mean they asked us out for drinks and they wouldn't take no for an answer. It blew their minds that we didn't drink or smoke. One even asked for our phone number and insisted on us coming back to the zoo... that was our cue to leave. We just told them how great the show was and walked away, it was hilarious. It was then time for dinner!

Mexican Food!!

Took the taxi a while to find it but the drive was worth it!

We were SO excited to see cheese!

After dinner we just walked around a little. We bought a few things but were tired and not fond of the kind of night life Bangkok had to offer.

The city was HUGE and... dirty. 

We saw rats, drunk people and many other things we didn't want to see. 

We didn't stay on the streets long but we never felt unsafe because we never 

separated but the night life was not why we went to Bangkok. 

The next day we went to the wedding (more on that later) and then took Tuk Tuk to the Grand Palace. 

This is a Tuk Tuk. Only foreigners use them but they are so fun

 and were better at getting through traffic!

View of Bangkok

View of the driver

View of the riders

SUPER nice driver

Not so nice of a driver.. he lied to us about the Grand Palace being 

closed to get us to go to the floating markets... He was a good liar, 

I'll give him that but we didn't fall for it. 

Grand Palace: 

According to Wikipedia - 

The Grand Palace is a complex of building at the heart of Bangkok, Thailand. The palace has been the official resident of the Kings of Siam (and later Thailand) since 1782. the king, his court and his royal government were based on the grounds of the palace until 1925. The present monarch currently resides at Chitralada Palace, but the Grand Palace is still used for official events. Several royal ceremonies and state functions are held within the walls of the palace every year. 

We didn't have much time before we left for the bus so we weren't go inside the palace because you have to change your clothes to be suitable for the palace and there was a long line but we got some great shots outside it. 

After we walked around the outside of the palace we went and saw 

Wat Pho: one of the largest reclining Buddhas in Thailand

Trip overall: great. Will we return to Bangkok? nope. It was fun, we did a lot but Bangkok as a city was big, confusing, dirty and people were pretty rude. The wedding was beautiful and that will be my next post, it was the highlight of our trip!