Money Expo 2007 was held this weekend at the Queen Sirkit Convention Center.  A consumer finance and banking convention, it is designed to educate the public about investing (and credit card debt… sign up now) and is also the place where banks compete to offer tempting home loan rates.

Tawn’s cousin-in-law, Nicha, had told us that in addition to any other loan applications we filled out, to be sure we attended the expo to see if there were any good promotions.  So on Friday evening and then again Saturday we were there.  We did find two good promotions and signed up for them.  Right: Just like in the US, you sign up for a bank account (with ATM Check Card) and you get a free toaster!

While Tawn was doing the paperwork, I walked around and took pictures of this amazing event.  Part Vegas, part half-time show, part Patpong, the banks were targetting consumers by using whatever shock-and-awe techniques they could: pretty girls, pretty boys, costumed mascots, loud music, flashing lights.

Above: Dozens and dozens of loan officers were on hand to sit down with you, sign you up, and sell you on their business.  Below: Two girls from Siam City Bank educate the crowd about the benefits of their bank – free umbrella if you open an account today.

Above: Khrung Thai Bank featured a high-energy dance team with blaring music.  Below: Siam Commercial Bank’s rabbit mascot along with Thanachart Bank’s orange Teletubbies-like mascots. 

 Above: I don’t know what they are, but they sure can dance!

Hi friends, I’m wondering if you can help me.  October 6th we will be attending a cousin’s wedding in the San Francisco Bay Area and it looks to become a bit of a family reunion.  Tawn and I will be traveling back with my grandparents, parents, sister and brother-in-law and their two daughters.

We’re looking for a rental home for four or five days, anywhere in the Bay Area (the wedding is in Walnut Creek, but we’ll rent vehicles so we can drive) that can sleep at least eight of us, if not ten or twelve.

I’ve done some online research and have found some options, but would certainly appreciate it if you know anyone who has a house that might be free for a few days around October 6th.

Thanks for your help!

Yesterday morning Tawn called and told me to turn on the television: I was missing the Royal Ploughing Ceremony, called แรกนาขวัญ – “Raeknakwan”.  Sure enough, being covered on all the local stations was a live broadcast from Sanam Luang, the Royal Parade Grounds in front of the Grand Palace, of this Bhramanist ceremony.  (Pictures were taken of my TV screen, explaining the low quality.)

Thailand is the world’s largest exporter of rice, although not the largest cultivator of it.  Despite economic development in the past few decades, a majority of the Thai people still earn their living either directly or indirectly from agriculture.  As such, festivals and ceremonies associated with farming still play a central role in Thai culture.

(Left: The Crown Prince hands declarations out to representatives of each of the 76 provinces, most of them are citizen farmers.)

The Royal Ploughing Ceremony marks the beginning of the rice planting season, which coincides with the rainy season.  This ceremony is taken to ensure a bountiful harvest and is performed on an auspicious date in the sixth month of the lunar calendar, usually falling in early May.  The ceremony dates back to the Sukhothai period (1257-1350 AD) but faded out towards the end of the reign of King Prajadhipok (Rama VII) in the early 1960s. It was revived by His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 1960.  Since then, it has been observed annually.

Today, the Royal Ploughing Ceremony consists of two ceremonies conducted on consecutive days.  Both royal ceremonies are state events with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture assuming the role of the Lord of the Harvest, a representative of the King.  Additionally, four single female officials of the Ministry undertake the role of the Celestial Maidens, assistants to the Lord of the Harvest.   All are dressed in traditional clothing.

The first ceremony is a Cultivating Ceremony known as “Phraraj Pithi Peud Mongkol”.  The Cultivating Ceremony is a Buddhist ritual that was added by during the reign of King Rama IV.   Rice and the seeds of forty other crops and ceremonial items to be used in the Ploughing Ceremony are blessed in religious rites performed in the Royal Chapel of the Temple of the Emerald Buddha.

(Right: the Royal Pavillion where the Lord of the Harvest reports the results to the Crown Prince.  Notice the three furrows that have been ploughed in the field.)

The second is the Ploughing Ceremony, “Phraraj Pithi Jarod Phranangkal Raek Na Kwan”.  The ceremony is held the next morning at Sanam Luang, the Royal Parade Grounds.  It begins with the Lord of the Harvest performing a rite to predict the amount of rainfall in the coming season by selecting one of three pieces of cloth of varying lengths:

• If the Ploughing Lord picks a piece of cloth measuring four palm spans, there will be more water. Farming on high land will bear good yields, while farming on low land might face some flooding.
• If the Ploughing Lord chooses a piece of cloth measuring five palms, the prophecy is that water supply will be just about right, rice plantations will yield good output and other food will also be abundant.
• If the Ploughing Lord selects a piece of cloth measuring six palms, water will be scarce. Farming on low land will bear good yields, but farming on high land will not bring good results.

At the auspicious time following the arrival of His Majesty the Crown Prince, the Lord of the Harvest begins to plough the field with a traditional wooden plow led by two royal oxen.  He circles the field three times, then sows rice seeds from the baskets carried by the Celestial Maidens. 

At the end of the ceremony, the oxen are brought a tray with seven banana left baskets, each containing a different offering of food or drink: rice, green beans, corn, hay, sesame seed, water and liquor.  Predictions regarding the success of the harvest and the abundance of particular crops in the coming season are determined by the items selected by the oxen.

(Above: A member of the Ministry of Agriculture holds the tray of seven types of food and drink for one of the royal oxen.)

If the Sacred Cows eat rice or corn, the prophecy is that the rice harvests will be abundant. 

• If they eat green beans or sesame, rice harvests will be abundant and the food that we eat every day will also be available throughout the country. 
• If they drink water or eat grass, water will be abundant, while harvests, food production and the food that we eat every day will be rich in supply. 
• If they drink the liquor, transportation will be convenient and commerce with foreign countries will be prosperous.

Tawn points out that all the choices are good one: there’s no way for them to forecast negative news.

After the ceremony is over and the Crown Prince has left, the barricades are removed and hundreds and hundreds of people – many of them farmers from the different provinces – rush into the field hoping to gather a few sacred rice grains scattered by the Lord of Harvest.

(Right: The crowd converges on the field to scramble for grains of auspicious rice, quite literally a land rush.)

“The cow ate the rice,” Tawn messaged me on my phone, “How macrobiotic of him.”

Reported from this morning’s Bangkok Post:

During the ceremony at Sanam Luang yesterday morning, the sacred oxen, Therd and Thun [they have names!], chose rice, maize and grass to eat from among the various food offerings. As a result, the court astrologer predicted there will be crops, grain and livestock in abundance this year, as well as sufficient water for farming.

Sounds like good news.

For you aviation enthusiasts, my complete Airliners.net trip report for last weekend’s trip to Melbourne has been written and posted here.  Yes, minute by minute detail of the experience of flying JetStar International Airlines.  Enjoy.

Tod is complaining that I need to update my blog more frequently.  I suggested he should become a contributor.  That’s what I need here: correspondents.  No response from Tod yet.

Yesterday a group of us went to try a new taqueria that has opened.  More about that soon.

After a stressful Wednesday and Thursday trying to get all the details arranged for the condo purchase, Tawn and I jetted out of town for the weekend to lovely Melbourne, Australia.  Last July, Jetstar International, the “low cost” arm of Qantas, announced that in November they would begin flying long-haul international flights, including Bangkok-Melbourne.  Their promotional fare: 1000 baht each way, plus taxes and fees.  Going online to book, the first weekend I could find available seats for this fare category was the first weekend in May.  We went ahead and booked the flights, the first time ever I’ve bought a flight so far in advance!

Jetstar is one of these airlines with an “a la carte” pricing scheme: the only thing you get for your ticket is transportation, plus a 300 ml bottle of water at the start of the flight.  After that, you’re paying for everything.  You can pre-order some items online at the time of ticket purchase, receiving a modest discount on things like a meal, amenity kit including lovely fleece blanket, and a portable video-on-demand unit that you can use to watch movies.  In general, I like this approach to pricing because I can pay for only the things I’m going to use.  Additionally, since I’ve paid specifically for those items, I can demand a certain quality because – quite literally – I paid for it.

The flight times are very convenient: a 9:00 pm departure from Khrungthep with an arrival in Melbourne at 9:00 am the next morning, and a return leg that is scheduled to depart Melbourne at 1:10 pm, arriving in Khrungthep about 7:30pm.  Of course, those times are convenient assuming that the schedule is kept.  Which it wasn’t.

The disadvantage of a 9:00 pm international departure is that you have to drive in rush hour traffic to get to the airport.  Thankfully, despite the gridlock out on Soi Asoke, once we got up the block to Rama IX Expressway, traffic was much smoother.  Upon checking in we were told that the flight would be delayed until 10:45 because of a mechanical issue in Melbourne that had delayed the inbound flight.  That allowed us some time to relax and eat a light bite beforehand, so it wasn’t really inconvenient.  There is a nice wine bar in the west wing of the terminal, which despite the mall-like atmosphere, offers a pleasant place to relax.

Jetstar’s cabin crew is mostly Thai nationals, except for two or three Australians on each flight.  The advantage of this is that the service is actually very nice, much better than what I’ve heard Qantas provides.  The economy class seating is on part with any other airline’s, the video-on-demand units provided some variety in terms of entertainment, and the little amenity kits (a re-usable black fleece blanket rolled up in an orange carrier that had an eye shade, inflatable neck pillow, ear plugs and a toothbrush/toothpaste set in zippered pockets – pictured right) was not only clever but also very practical.  I’m surprised that JetBlue doesn’t sell something like this on their red-eye transcontinental flights.

We arrived late on a bright but brisk Friday morning, temperatures edging towards a high of about 20 C / 68 F.  We hired a car and then drove down to Stephanie’s house, where she had cleverly hidden her mailbox key, enabling the retrieval of her house keys.  Lunch was along Balaclava Street, the main shopping district of Caulfield North, the predominately Jewish neighborhood in which Stephanie lives.  A post-lunch stop at Glick’s Bakery to get one of their extraordinary “Everything” bagels, and I was already in bliss.

Friday night, Tawn, Stephanie and I attended a performance by Chick Corea and Gary Burton, a pianist and vibraphonist respectively who have been collaborating for the past thirty-five years, as part of the Melbourne Jazz Festival (continuing through the 13th for any of you who will be in town).  They are both immensely talented artists and made for a fun evening, bookended by a light dinner and then a light dessert.  The performance was at the arts centre, which is located in the Southbank area of downtown, directly across the Yarra River from the business district.  There are a lot of pedestrian paths along this stretch of the river and with the restaurants facing it, one could be forgiven if you momentarily thought you were in Paris, except for the looming skyscrapers.

We had an early start Saturday, although not too early, as Tawn’s university classmate Ee and her husband Chris drove to meet us for a trip to the Yarra Valley.  Picking up Stephanie’s friend and colleague Peter, our sextet began the morning with a brunch at a lovely hillside restaurant, providing breathtaking views of a still cool and cloudy valley.

Left: Peter, Stephanie, Ee, Chris, Tawn and Chris

There are all sorts of wonderful wineries to visit and we fit four or five of them into our schedule, concluding at Domain Chandon’s Green Point, where Champagne-style sparkling wines are produced.  They offer a selection of light foods and a tasting menu with small pours of four of their different types of wines, including a rose and a sparkling pinot noir that is quite interesting.  We had a skewered pumpkin dish that was really tasty, perfect for the cool weather, as well as a good selection of antipasti and cheese.

It is autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, and the leaves are turning beautiful colors.  The grapes have been harvested at least a few weeks ago and the leaves are turning gold on their way to red as the temperatures cool a bit more.  Left: Peter and Stephanie in front of Domain Chandon’s gold-leafed grapes.

Around every bend in the road was another majestic panorama and by mid-afternoon when the sun began to break through the clouds, we were treated to the type of scenery that you want to compulsively take pictures of in the hopes that you will capture its beauty, while filled with a wistfulness that the pictures will never do the view justice.

Being very careful to spit rather than swallow after the tastings, I was able to make it through the afternoon quite safely.  It also helped avoid the normal problem I experience when going wine tasting: if I actually drink the tastes, after about the fourth or fifth taste, the flavors seem to get a bit blurry.  Or perhaps it is just me who is becoming blurry!

Along the way, we made some purchases of different bottles that caught our interest, ultimately sneaking six bottles back into the Kingdom.

In the late afternoon we drove back to Peter’s house, located just a short distance from the Yarra Valley, for a traditionally Aussie-style grill: we had everything from sausages to lamb to – yes – kangaroo.  Very tasty, indeed!  The evening was a bit chilly, but we were bundled up and sitting near the fire.  The day had been full of too much food, but all of it very good.

Sunday morning, Tawn and I met Ee at Queen Victoria Market, the large goods and foods market in the north side of downtown.  We picked up some cheeses, olives, marinated artichokes and a few other tidbits and then went back to Chris and Ee’s apartment on the 24th floor with a sweeping view of the northwest corner of the city.  The wavy silver roof at the bottom of the picture is Southern Cross Station, a very convenient half-block away from their apartment. 

Victoria Market was a little smaller than I had expected and while there were many vegetable and fruit vendors, I had been expecting something more like the SF Ferry Building Farmer’s Market or Pike Place.  Instead, there were very very artisanal vendors.  For example, there were several delicatessen stands that sold cheeses, including several local brands, but there were none of the cheesemakers themselves.  Contrast that to either of the aforementioned markets where you can meet the actual people (or their friends or relatives) who make the cheeses, sausages, and other specialty products.

At several points in the weekend we found ourselves consuming lattes and flat whites (cafes au lait) at one of the ubiquitous cafes, for Melbourne is a city of coffee drinkers.  They take their coffee very seriously, serving double lattes in a glass (no handle) that is smaller than the smallest size your nearest Starbucks could conceive of stocking.  Coffee there is meant to be enjoyed, not gulped, and “venti” is an unfathomable term in the view of this well-caffeinated populace.  Tawn was pleased to find soy milk available at even the most obscure cafes.  Above: a colorful sidewalk cafe in the Balaclava Street shopping district.

Melbourne is also a city with street culture: people love to be outdoors whether to walk, bike, skate, run, or sit and eat.  Dotted with many small and accessible neighborhoods, there seems to be no shortage of people with time to enjoy life over a cup of something.

Our return flight to Melbourne experienced a slight hiccup: Jetstar informed us at check-in that due to maintenance on one of their planes, the Melbourne-Bangkok and Sydney-Phuket flights had been combined.  We would fly from Melbourne to Sydney, pick up additional passengers, continue to Bangkok, and then the Sydney passengers would fly on to Phuket.  So we were rewarded with a free visit to the lovely Sydney International Airport for about ninety minutes. 

The agent told us that for our inconvenience passengers would be given free meals on the flight, but that information didn’t make it to the flight crew.  We had pre-paid for our meals anyhow, so it wasn’t a huge issue.  But it did result in us arriving home quite a bit later than originally planned, making for a very long Monday.

Right: departing Sydney, with the Habour Bridge and Opera House visible to the right of the wing.

All in all, it was a fantastic if brief trip.  Melbourne is an appealing city and one that I could see living in.  Of course, Tawn and I are several years away from being at a point to make a move, but especially if Victoria State continues moving forward with the planned legislation to legalize same-sex marriages, in addition to Australia’s current favorable immigration policies towards same-sex partners, it would be a very tempting place to move.  Especially when considering that in addition to Stephanie, Chris and Ee, we have other friends who are making plans to move, some to Melbourne and others to Sydney. 

Below: Sunset from 31,000 feet.

A depression is stalled over the Gulf of Thailand, bringing us weather that from the indoors seems identical to Seattle’s.  Once you step outside you realize that it is considerably warmer than Seattle, around 31 C, but that is still six to nine degrees cooler than it was two weeks ago.  The Thais are in agreement: this is strange weather for this time of year.

All of the rain, which has been of the drizzly variety instead of the more “tropical monsoon downpour” style we’re used to, has resulted in some waterlogged properties.  Down in the south of Thailand and along the western Gulf, there has been significant flooding.

Shown here is what was, until three weeks ago, the Ford dealership on Sukhumvit Road just west of Asoke Place, in the block between the Westin Hotel (Sukhumvit 19) and Soi Asoke (Sukhumvit 21).  They tore everything down a few weeks ago in preparation for some type of large construction project.  What you see in the picture is only about half the entire property. 

Now they have a nice little lake at the back of the property.  Hopefully when they do the construction they re-grade the property so it slopes towards the street instead of back into the corner.  The red arrow in the building indicates our current condo building, just so you get a sense of where we are in relation to the BTS Skytrain station, where I was standing for the picture.

As I’ve mentioned before, I write a lot of letters: old fashioned ones written on paper, sent in envelopes, and posted with real stamps.  I write to many different people, but most frequently to my nieces, ages one and four.  These letters are actually meant to be saved, unopened, until they are eighteen, sort of a time capsule for them to open when they are young adults and read about the experiences and reflections of their uncle, especially a recounting of stories and anecdotes about their childhood. 

I try to send letters that have a variety of interesting and colorful stamps so that as an added side benefit, they’ll have a de facto stamp collection going by age eighteen.  The challenge is that the most common Thai stamps are the ones that, regardless of denomination, feature the same portrait of His Majesty the King.  Different colors for different denomination, yes, but the same portrait.  He’s a wonderful King, but the style is a bit repetitive.  I suppose if I used the one-baht stamps and pasted a block of twenty-eight of them onto an envelope, it would give a certain Andy Warhol effect.

To visually spice up my stamp selection, I visit my local post office from time to time and see what new and interesting stamps they have.  These are usually the three-baht variety, as that’s the price to send a local letter.  But the branch on Sukhumvit 23 has had an increasingly limited selection of stamps, so it became necessary to go down to the large General Post Office, located on the edge of the older part of the city along Charoen Khrung Road.  It is a gorgeous 30’s era building with grand fascist architecture.

The interior is very stark, looking more like a nearly-abandoned train station than a post office.  Out front is a statue of King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, who led much of the modernization (or, more accurately, Westernization) efforts in the 1930’s.  He is seated next to a small table that has an elaborate telephone seated on it, indicative of the days when post, telephone and telegraph inter-related agencies.

The GPO has a philatelic counter with a very lonely agent working it.  There are glass display cases showing the many different stamps supposedly available, so I scribbled a list in Thai and then approached the counter to work through what was in stock and what wasn’t.  “Mai mii,” he said, indicating that they didn’t have one-baht stamps.  Mai mii nine-baht stamps.  Mai mii twenty-baht stamps.  Mai mii several styles of three- and five-baht stamps.  Thankfully, mii two-, three-, five-, eight-, ten- and fifteen-baht stamps.  Above left are some examples of the interesting new stamps that were available.

Tuesday evening we met with Bill, who is visiting from Florida, and his partner Kom.  I thought it would be fun to invite a few additional people so I set about sending text messages and at the end of the afternoon thought we would be joined by, at most, one or two additional people.  The party ended up being a dozen and, ironically, I was the last to arrive as I made the decision to drive to the restaurant and got stuck in the worst traffic on Sukhumvit I’ve ever seen.  From the light at Asoke and Sukhumvit (in front of Soi Cowboy) to the Nana BTS Station – a distance of about 400 meters, if that – was 50 minutes.

Right: Tawn and Chris at dinner.

Dinner was at Whole Earth, a very good Thai-Indian restaurant that specializes in vegetarian food, although their meat dishes are very enjoyable, too.  This was the restaurant that I went to with my visiting family up in Chiang Mai, located near the Night Bazaar in a antique Thai house nestled in a lovely garden.  To my pleasant surprise they also have (or, I should say now, “had”) a location on Lang Suan here in Khrungthep.  The interior was a little shabby but the quality of food and service were every bit as high as up north. 

Above from left: Kom, Bill, Todd, Tawn, Chris, Sean, Brian, Justin, Ken, and Vic.  Bill is visiting from Florida and Justin from San Francisco.  And Todd?  Well, he’s kind of living here, kind of visiting from SF.

Sadly, we discovered while eating dinner Tuesday, that Tuesday was that location’s final day.  The lease had expired and they were pulling up stakes.  Hopefully, said the manager, they will find another location here in Khrungthep as they have a loyal local clientele.  I hope they do, too, because it is a gem of a restaurant.

Now to get to the story that relates to this entry’s title – But he’s only a child!  This describes Khun Chai, the branch manager of UOB’s (United Overseas Bank, a Singapore bank) Sukhumvit 25 branch.  Tawn has met with him a few times over the last few weeks to learn more about the home loan process.  Tawn has checked elsewhere, too, but UOB seems to have good rates and Khun Chai is particularly attentive.  This, I learned last night, is because Tawn’s father is a big customer at that UOB branch.  Usually we would just be dealing with a regular loan officer, not the branch manager.

We needed to complete the loan application (I’ll be listed as guarantor; the bank won’t give the loan to me and Tawn jointly) and Khun Chai offered to meet us after work at the coffee shop in the building next to ours, to do the paperwork.  I thought we were just meeting a loan officer and I was expecting some man in his forties or fifties, but when Khun Chai arrived, I was shocked: he looks like a baby!  It turns out he is older than me, but no more than a year or two.  But he’s got a baby face and is a very sleight guy.  On top of it, when he gave me his card I was further shocked to discover that he’s the branch manager.  Very impressive service for the branch manager to go out of his way to meet us after hours at a place of our choosing, to get a loan that in the grand scheme of things, isn’t that much money for them.

Of course, he’s probably smartly looking ahead to the day when Tawn – an only child – inherits his father’s investments!

The application and paperwork is completed and Khun Chai assures us that it is just a formality; the loan should be no problem.  It should take about three weeks to process, following a physical inspection of the property next week.

One more step completed.