Thanksgiving in Bangkok

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year we were invited to a Thanksgiving party by my Thai-American colleague who works over at the vocational school! It had (almost) all the trimmings, except turkey, which is hard to find and quite expensive over here. It's very fun to celebrate over here. It makes it almost feel like Thanksgiving after all.

On Friday, I had my annual Bangkok Thanksgiving tradition, the M4 class Thanksgiving Party! I've done this for four years now, and it's become my way of celebrating, even when I'm so far from home. It's quite an unconventional Thanksgiving feast, but it's a lot of fun. All the students bring something to share, and we spend the whole class eating.

Class party!

It's a fun tradition for me, and I hope it's fun for the students too. If my measure of success is being able to prevent a food fight from breaking out, I'd say things went quite well.

This year we even had a Thanksgiving cake!

Thanksgiving Cake

And that means it's time for the trees and lights to go up at the malls, as Christmas approaches! This weekend I'll put up my little tree.

Christmas decorations at Siam Paragon Mall

Click here for the origins of my annual class Thanksgiving party tradition!

Supermoon - Loy Krathong 2016

It's that time of year again! The holiday season!

No, I'm not talking about Thanksgiving, although that's coming soon.

Last night was Loy Krathong, one of my favorite Thai festivals!

(Here's a post I wrote for Last Baht about Loy Krathong)

krathong kits

Instead of making a Krathong, we picked up a couple of kits at Tops Supermarket. These weren't as elegant as the ones we made from banana leaves and flowers last year, but they were cheap and biodegradable. We dressed them up a bit with watermelon, incense, candles, and flower garlands.

the Marble Temple

This year, instead of going to the River Festival, we stayed more local and celebrated a neighborhood Loy Krathong. Just after dark, as the supermoon rose over Bangkok, Pinky and I met up and headed to Wat Benchamabophit, the beautiful Marble Temple, which adorns the back of the B5 coin.

a vendor preparing krathongs

 The marble temple sits by a khlong, one of the many canals that gives Bangkok it's nickname "The Venice of the East". It seemed like a perfect place to float our krathongs, and not far from my condo either.

getting ready to float our krathongs

So we lit the candles on our krathongs, made a wish, and let them float away down to the river.

make a wish!

It was a much smaller celebration than the big, exciting River Festival. But maybe this year felt a little more meaningful.

floating down the khlong

Happy Loy Krathong!