Hey Guys, hope you all spent your christmas' in merriment. We are having a great time here in Thailand. The weather is warm, the beer is cheap and the food is amazing. Alwyn and I spent our christmas day shopping at Bangkok's Chatuchuk Market, the big weekend market. This place is one of, if not the biggest markets in the world. We walked around all day and I don't think we saw three quarters of it. Full of knock-off designer products, cheap clothes and shoes, awesome thai antiques and artworks, and crazy pets (Tarantulas, iguanas, snakes etc) - to name just a fraction of what was on offer. We were able to score ourselves a bargain or two. The highlight of the day was being able to haggle with the dealers - that was fun. Christmas night was spent at Big John's Backpackers Hostel where we enjoyed a traditional roast xmas meal with others who were away from home on this xmas day.

We spend our Boxing Day Temple gazing - we saw Wat Pho home of the giant reclining Buddha, and Bangkok's Grand Palace grounds including the temple of the Emerald Buddha. To top it all off, on the walk from the train station to where we're staying we were lucky enough to see an elephant walking down the street. Here are some photos from our past few days for your enjoyment.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE - All the way from Bangkok. Whatever you are doing on this christmas day I hope it be merry for all. Best Wishes to everyone out there be there in Sunny Australia or the frozen wasteland known as Korea (or Scotland).

Christmas eve was a superlong day for us but we made it, and I'm writing to you from Big John's Backpackers Hostel in Bangkok and weather is fine. Today we will be hitting the markets for a little shopping, if you have been good this year I might just get you a little present. Merry Christmas all!!!

Well we taught our last classes at 6 last night and we are one christmas talent show, a 5 AM bus ride and a few hours on a plane away from spending christmas in sunny Thailand. We are pretty much all packed and ready to go - stay tuned for pics.

Merry Christmas,

-T

Please disregard any comment I may have in the previous post that may lead one to believe that this season is magical, beautiful or in any other way positive. Little more than weeks into winter and I'm well jack of it. In fact, I think it took a little under 48 hours for the season to sour for me. The walk to work the monday after the snowfall was a killer. The ensueing week involved me getting sick, almost slipping arse over tit everytime I set foot on the outside foodpath, and freezing my balls off on the journey to and from work everyday. Tis the season they say.

Aside from being cold - we have been busy preparing for this years installment of the Annual Swaton Christmas Talent show which will be performed next Friday (December 23rd, 2005) by the our kindergarten kids. Starring yours truly as the wise old octopus in the Rainbow fish, in which I will also be making my directorial debut. They take this sort of thing very seriously here and there has been a lot of work gone into it over the last few months. I'll let you all know how it goes.

The plus side to all this cold is that there is light at the end of the tunnel - Alwyn and I will be in sunny Thailand from christmas eve, where it is a sunny 27 degrees C today. oh yeah.

Til next time,

- T

SNOW!!!

well well - winter has only just begun and we have all ready seen our first deluge (well a deluge as far as aussie standards go). In the early hours of this morning we saw the first snow flakes of the season and making this officially the third time I have seen snow. The snow came down steadily as we watched from one inside of our local bars.

















After a few hours the parked cars had a thick covering of snow; we decided to walk around the corner and see how the snow had affected the rest of the dong. A few short hours of snow had absolutely transformed Dongchundang park into a snow covered asian winter wonderland. At around 1:30-2 o'clock Alwyn, John-teacher, and I were lucky enough to be amongst the first to see it - untouched. It was awesome. We also managed to get in a snowball fight with a bunch of the local young ladies. We took loads of pics but unfortunately they all didn't come out as well as we would have hoped.



Today, A decent build up of snow has remained. We wandered down to the park to get some photos by daylight. It was cool to see the kids out sledding and building snowmen, and while some of the snow had disapated the park was still a spectacular sight.







So, it certainly is beginning to look a lot like a northern hemispherical christmas. In fact, in the time that it took me to write this post snow has started to fall snow outside our window. (We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto)

December 1st
Today is officially the first day of winter....and this is shaping up to be the coldest winter I have ever experienced.
This morning I decided to check out the temps using Yahoo weather, and this is what the week has in store!!!

Today - High 13c, Low -1c .... Mostly Sunny
Friday - High 5c, Low -3c .... Mostly Sunny
Saturday - High 6c, Low -4c .... Partly Cloudy
Sunday - High 3c, Low -6c .... Rain/Snow

Now....here's the one that's gonna be the killer
Monday - High 2c
Low -6
Scattered Snow Storms!

It's also now only 24 days till Christmas - and only 23 days till Thailand!!!
-a