Sawat dee Everyone!
Sawat dee means both “hello” and “goodbye” in Thai. Grandma and I have been on more adventures this week. First, we finally found the botanic garden on campus! Two of the entrances are closed for construction, but we walked around until we found the third entrance. Isn’t this a pretty, peaceful place? I met some bananas, but it was really confusing to find a model of the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t know whether I was back in Paris or not! It was easy to figure out where we were when we walked past this stainless steel sculpture on our way back from the garden. We were in front of the Faculty of Engineering. After we got back from our walk, the manager of the hotel brought us a microwave oven. Grandma says she is very happy she will be able to warm up food for us in the evening when Grandpa comes.
Everybody has been talking about the Chinese New Year. The Chinese people base their calendar on the moon, not the sun, so their New Year isn’t the same time we celebrate in the United States. The Chinese New Year is happening right now. The manager of the hotel sent us a yummy dessert to celebrate the New Year, and some restaurants have special decorations with oranges and golden objects.
On Friday, Dr. Porntip and Dr. Shusee took us to Chinatown to see the New Years festival. We had to take a tuk-tuk to get there, because cars and buses can’t go into Chinatown during the festival — it’s too crowded! Tuk-tuks are sort of like a motorcycle and a golf cart put together. They go very fast, and they are small enough to weave in and out of traffic around cars and trucks. Riding in a tuk-tuk on a busy street was exciting!
When we got to Chinatown, we walked along the busy main street to see all the decorations and special food. Everything is decorated in red and gold, because those are the lucky colors. Roasted chestnuts are a special treat at the festival. I had to be careful to keep my paws away from the hot kettles where they were cooking! There were lots of dragons. All the dragons at Chinese New Year are good dragons, but they were too busy to make friends with me.
When we got back from Chinatown, it was way past my bedtime. I was so tired it was hard to get up the next morning for our next adventure. But I did the yoga inversion Averil-san taught me, and that helped me wake up. This new year is the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese calendar, so I found a rabbit to make friends with.
Our next adventure was visiting the Jim Thompson house in Dusit, one of the neighborhoods of Bangkok. Dr. Porntip and Narisara-san took us. Thompson-san was an American who came to live in Bangkok after World War II. He really appreciated traditional Thai architecture and Thai handwoven silk, and he helped make that kind of silk popular all around the world. He built his house by moving very old houses from other parts of Thailand and putting them together in one place.
Thompson-san’s real life was like a mystery story. He disappeared while on vacation in 1967 and nobody knows what happened to him. But his house has been kept the way he left it, and it is a very peaceful place in the middle of a very busy city. His gardens reminded me of Hawaii . I tried to use the weaving loom for silk, but I was too little to reach either the shuttles or the treadle. There are some things little lions just can’t do!
After lunch, we went to a very, very big shopping center, Siam Paragon. They were celebrating Chinese New Year, too, with special shows and decorations. I got to make friends with lots more rabbits there!
Grandma says we will only have little adventures today. She is busy preparing her lectures for the rest of our stay here, so we can have time for big adventures with Grandpa when he comes. There is so much I want to show him!
Love,
Lion-san