After a very late arrival (2:30 am!) by Dick and Sandy and another trip to the airport on Sunday morning to pick up Lilian and her mother, I have a full load of guests.  An additional guest, Jackson, is staying at a different hotel further away after completing a one-week guided tour around Thailand and opting to stay on for another week.

First, though, I just want to say that Tawn made me this really cute breakfast Sunday morning: Asparagus and boiled egg on fresh sourdough toast.  Cute, huh?

Our first day in Khrungthep was spent in a fairly relaxing manner.  Since there were several late arrivals plus a bit of lingering jet lag, we started the morning late and met in the hotel lobby at 11:30.  From there a quick trip by subway and Skytrain to Siam Center, where Tawn had already met with my teacher, Khruu Kitiya.

Khruu Kitiya (“khruu” means teacher in Thai) had prepared a Thai lesson for us, so after eating a nice lunch of Thai food we spent about forty-five minutes learning key Thai phrases and numbers.

The restaurant staff was bemused.

Left: Sandy (in stripes), my mother, Jackson’s head, the back of my father’s head, Dick (in blue), and Khruu Kitiya.  Right: Dick, Khruu Kitiya, Tawn, and Ken.  At the far right is Lily’s mother, Susan.

Afterwards we went up to the Chatuchak Weekend Market and did about two hours of browsing.  The key thing to buy: yellow “I love the King” polo shirts, which we’ll wear Wednesday when we go to school.  Actually, this week poses a dilema for us as we only have one shirt apiece but three occassions to wear it:

• Monday is the day of the King’s birth, so people have been wearing yellow shirts on Mondays all year.
• Tuesday the fifth is the King’s actually birthday this year, so it will be a national holiday and peple will wear yellow.
• Wednesday we are going to teach in Bangkhonthiinai and the teachers all wear yellow shirts.

My suggestion is that we save the shirts for Wednesday.  What do you think?

After shopping and an hour or so resting back at the hotel we went for foot massages.  We called 5-Star Massage in advance and arranged to basically take the place over.  There were ten of us when all was said and done.  The picture didn’t turn out great, but it will give you an idea.  I’ll see if the pictures Dick or Lily took turned out better.

Afterwards it was next door to our corner neighborhood restaurant for some authentic, day-to-day Thai food.

What a busy first day with everyone in town.  Monday has dawned cool and sunny… that won’t last long, though, and we have a full day ahead of us.