Christening this coincided with our first use of one of Paul’s Christmas presents, the sausage stuffing attachment for his beloved Kitchen Aid mixer. I’d managed to find this, and the skins, in Toronto when I’d been visiting there, and they’ve spent the last month hiding in the fridge wrapped up and looking mysterious.

To cut a long story short our sausage-making exercise was a great success, yummy and they can’t help but be healthier than any you’d buy. Grilled to perfection on our new barbie, I think we’ve managed to bring a bit of Aussie backyard cooking culture to Thailand!

It’s magnificent; let the photos speak for themselves. Pete thought this was a great idea & we had a lovely day.

Lunch comprised roast pork, roast turkey and of course a ham - the latter took a lot of walking-around tyring to find a half-leg, not such a common thing here, but I got one! - and some of our families’ favourite traditional salads. Pete and I had also made a Christmas cake a few days before, to a recipe which is a hybrid of both of our mothers’, with a bit of local dried fruits and other touches.

Our guests for lunch were Khun Dao, who works in our building, and Khun Pae and Georges, work colleagues of Pete’s. We also had a second sitting, for dinner, for Khun Aom and Khun Poo, my Thai teachers from school. Khun Dao was the stayer who was with us for both, and then cocktails late into the night!

It was a lovely day which everyone enjoyed - it was nice to have some friends to spend the day with when our own families were so far away, which we really felt.

To all of our families and friends, we wish you all the best for a Happy Christmas and a wonderful Year 2007. We miss you loads and can’t wait to see you all again, be it here in Bangkok or back wherever home may be.

(Photos are from Pete’s new Sony DSC-T50 camera, his Christmas present from me!)

The only other information we had was the dress code from the invitation- “Dress: Up”. So much time and deliberation was put into choosing suitably fancy outfits for what we knew was going to be an amazing night, knowing too that Will & Gavin had put a lot of secret planning into it.

We certainly weren’t disappointed! It was such a fantastic, memorable night. Friends and family flown in from Australia, China and other parts of Asia all met up at JJ’s bar at the Hyatt, before we were escorted from the hotel down to the waterfront of the harbour - whereupon we boarded a luxury yacht and then spent the next four hours cruising around Hong Kong harbour quaffing French bubbles and munching on a divine finger food buffet. Normally people would say “how the other half live”, except this time it was us, and of course we deserved it! And it was an absolutely fitting way to celebrate Gavin’s birthday, suited him to a T.

Apart from the hideous flight it was a great week, very productive work-wise and the new product lineup is great. I’m looking forward to putting all this into practice on my new project. My personal highlight of the week though was the coooold weather. It even snowed a bit on my last day! It was nice to be able to walk around without sweating all the time and fun to be able to wear all the winter clothes which, strangely, haven’t got much of a workout while living in Bangkok.

Had the opportunity to do a little bit of touristing and a bit of shopping, well let me say that North America is now re-confirmed as my favourite place for shopping for men’s clothes, although of course there wasn’t much point in buying any of the winter stuff which the shops were all full of, which was a bit disappointing. Never mind, it was fun to look. And Toronto is a great city, lots to do and quite ‘cultured’. I managed to visit the CN Tower for a bird’s eye view of the city (yes very touristy but hey, I’m a tourist, all right?) as well as the fantastic St Lawrence Market which is quite a foodie’s paradise. I’ll look forward to visiting there again, hopefully with Paul in tow so we can have some adventures there together.

Loy Krathong is a festival held in Thailand once a year which signifies a person “getting rid of all the bad things” from their lives. Each person makes a small boat, sometimes simple and some quite elaborate, and candles, incense, some money, a lock of hair and a piece of fingernail is put on board. The little boats are then set adrift on the river, washing away the negative things from your life.

Paul and I were taken down to do this by Khun Aom and Khun Poo, his Thai teachers, which was quite fun and good to see people of all ages and walks of life down by the water doing the same.

On Friday night, Juliana and Jon, Jon’s brother Nick, (who all live in Aus) and Richard (Aussie but living in Singapore) arrived on the midnight flight. A very exciting reunion of course and many cocktails and stories where shared. Then on Saturday, Kathleen (aka Katie Redshoes) arrives from the UK - even more excitement because it’s been absolutely ages since seeing her. So we had a full house! (Unfortunately Richard was staying at the Westin up the road since we’d run out of beds, but I know he’s on a mission collecting Starwood points, as I am, so I suspect he was glad for the excuse to get an extra two nights’ credit.)

During the day there were many shopping and massage experiences, trips to temples and the usual tourist stuff. Paul, Jules and Richard had a bit of an antiques-shopping spree, and they found some really interesting things.

Saturday night was a real highlight, as not only the seven people already mentioned but five other Aussies were in town as well - Kester (who I used to work with at SalesForce), her friends Nicky and Abi, and old friends of Jon’s, Tarn and Christine. So a major night out was on the cards! We organised dinner at Lan Na Thai, a beautiful restaurant in a old-style Thai teak house, where we had a private dining room - probably a good thing as we made a bit of racket! It was such a happy night having so many friends old and new around, it reminded me of big dinners we used to have in Melbourne from time to time.

Of course after such a fun dinner it was essential to visit the old favourite Sky Bar to show the newbies the sites of Bangkok from 80something floors up… and to squeeze in another cocktail or two…

What a fantastic night out. Of course, the fun didn’t stop there. Having so many people staying over meant that breakfast was going to be a major production anyway, so we turned it into Brunch, called it a Soiree, and got everyone to bring duty-free Champagne. This basically ended up taking the whole day and was great fun, Paul and I (especially Paul - check out the hand-made mini muffin burgers!) having made a lot of food-preparations in advance meant there was lots of yummy stuff to eat, and everyone only needed to ever venture out of the apartment for swims, last-minute massages and some last-minute shopping (by Juliana, of course).

Unfortunately all good things must come to and end, it’s only been 36 hours but we did so much talking and carrying on, it felt like days! Sunday afternoon we farewelled everyone as they headed of to Koh Samui for a week’s holidays. (Minus Richard, who like our poor selves, had to head off to work again on Monday.) Paul and I were well exhausted and collapsed happily into the couch.

ps: If anyone’s interested in the full set of photos from the weekend (only the best ones are on this page) they can be found at
http://www.tincanct.com/gallery/v/BangkokCarryon.

Geoff & Deb have been living in the UK for the past 5 or 6 years but are on their way back home to Australia for good this time - so they’d just spent the previous few weeks selling houses and cars, packing everything up and generally racing around - an experience we can well relate to only having done it a short time ago ourselves. So we didn’t have too strenuous an agenda planned for them but rather thought we’d let them chill out here. Which is pretty much what happened.

Well it was very exciting to welcome them both to our little pad here, partly because we hadn’t seen Geoff at all since visiting him in the UK in 2004 but also because we’d never met Deb before. Happy to report that she’s great and will be a welcome addition to the family - smart and interesting and very enjoyable company. Her and Geoff are all cute and lovey-dovey too which is kind of hilarious.

The very next day we also had Gavin come to stay again so it was full house visitors-wise. The troops busied themselves all during the day visiting Jim Thompson’s house, the Blue Elephant cooking school and Geoff and Deb even did that thing which every tourist is warned not to do - allow the tuk-tuk driver to take you to “his friend the tailor”. I was kind of horrified when I found out but happily it turned out to be a great adventure for them and they were street-smart and well-travelled enough to avoid getting completely stooged.

Gavin kept himself busy at the dentist, as you do….

On the final night when all three were leaving the next day, we had a fantastic dinner at Distil which is right next to the old favourite Sky Bar, a great night and great way to finish off their visit.

Guess we’ll be seeing Geoff and Deb when we’re back in Australia again… unless we can tempt them to come back here again first! Which might not be so difficult after all, I suspect.

I must admit though that once he squashed the bouffant down a bit it wasn’t actually a bad cut and he looked as handsome as ever again.

(There was also the time where I came out looking like a budgie with a perm but happily there aren’t photos of that one.)

“Well,” she said, “Khun Paul, if you want more plants for cheap you go to Chatuchak, my husband knows many many people, very cheap! Chatuchak open Wednesday Thursday good day to go! If you want to go, I will go with you!”

So, after a weekend of thought, I told her on Monday that I’d love to go with her on Wednesday, after my Thai lesson in the morning.

Wednesday’s Thai lesson concentrated on learning how to say “tree”, “pots”, “plant” and so on (although not much good because I forgot, anyway), and after school I took the MRT (underground subway) to meet Khun Tai near the market.

Khun Tai had her husband with her when we met, Khun Aut, and we started our expedition. Well, you’ve never seen anything like it. Nothing compares to it in Australia - it was like having the MCG filled with plants. Absolutely huge. (So huge in fact we had to take a tuk-tuk from the plant section to the pots section.) Khun Aut’s presence was invaluable because, besides being able to bargain in Thai, the sheer volume of people he knew meant that we were well looked after whereever we went. I must have been introduced to twenty people, only half of whom were relatives.

After completing our (very sociable) first circuit of the market and seeing what’s available, we went off for cool drinks and met more family members. One particular shop was Khun Tai’s sister’s, full to roof with vases, where of course I had to make a small purchase. In Thailand, the first sale of the day is special to any shopkeeper, as it brings good fortune for the rest of the day. So when I handed over my money, she took the notes and flapped them about all over the shop, touching all the stock and saying blessings. Well it must have worked because Khun Tai told me days later that her sister had a very good day that day and I was credited with bring her good fortune!

By this time I had got into my head which plants I was interested in. So, off we go and start our second lap. The purchasing lap! In one shop I bought a huge “Indian Rubber” tree (not sure about the name, it was roughly translated) with dark maroon leaves for the total price of B1400 (which was considered very expensive but only works out to about AUD$40). Actually, Khun Tai’s promise of cheap prices wasn’t wrong either; I bought another tree that was taller that me and about 4 feet wide for only B400 (about AU$14). A cute bonsai from Khun Aut’s brother (B200 and it’s 6 years old) and a 5-foot high climbing ivy type thing were the other investments.

From here we caught the tuk-tuk over to the pots section were I picked up some big pots for all these to live in - of course all the while with Khun Tai and Khun Aut guiding me around, introducing me to everyone and looking after me in every way. Really, they were so nice and wouldn’t even let me even carry anything. I felt pretty special.

Once we’d got the pots organised, a truck was telephoned to help get all this stuff home. My ride home (with the truck driver) involved some excitement when we had to bribe a police officer to let us drive on the highway (why exactly, I’m not sure).

When I got home I took all the wrapping off the plants and then when Pete got home we spent the night rearranging the plants and the furniture. We’re almost living in a small indoor jungle now, but it looks great!

(Incidentally, after the day’s adventures and lots of practice speaking Thai, I know also know the words for “plant”, “tree”, “indoors”, “outdoors” and so on quite fluently!)