Our neighbours came for dinner last night

Being adaptable and learning Thai

One of the things we're looking for in Senior Servants is adaptability. Twice in 4 days our schedule has been changed at the last minute!

On Friday the plan was to have our Thai teacher come to teach at our house. But on Thursday night she called to say that she was unable to find the house when she had been loooking for it that day! So we headed off to her house instead!

Tan is a gorgeous young woman who teaches Thai. So does her husband! Learning some new Thai words was lots of fun and quite challenging, especially when they have sounds in their language that we have never experienced and so we don't know how to get our tongues and mouths around them. It gave us a better understanding of how difficult it can be for speakers of other languages to learn English.

But we all had fresh confidence on Tuesday night to go to the market to try out some of our new skills as we asked prices, bargained and bought our evening meal.

For my dinner I bought, anticlockwise from front right, mango and sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf, deep fried somethings that I ate with a skewer - perhaps yam pieces in batter - with hot sauce served in a plastic bag, delicious salad in a plastic bag and some yummy yummy fresh coconut patties. Some of it I was able to buy using little bits of Thai! Total cost for my food around AU$2! It's cheap for us to eat in Thailand.

This guy was selling bite-sized jellies. I bought one for about AU 6c

  And this is my salad on its way!

And more of our local Doi Saket market on Tuesday evening!

We came home excited about all the new delights we had bought for our dinner and sit at the dining table to have 'Show and Tell' and share tastes.

Our Tuesday nights at the market are a highlight.

Risk, Failure and Suffering

These are not fun words!

But these were amongst the topics we have been covering in our classes with the Embark students.

They are pretty heaving topics and brought up some great discussion. I've never really liked to fail, but in a strange sort of way I got quite excited about what happens when we meet failure head on, see what we can learn and decide to allow it to be a springboard for future accomplishments. You might like to check out a fantastic website http://www.admittingfailure.com/about/story/

or watch a great TED talk on the importance of sharing our failures here 

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_damberger_what_happens_when_an_ngo_admits_failure.html

My excitement about failing was put to the test yesterday when I made a batch of chocolate chip cookies for the girls. They were SUCH a failure that I had to squish them into cupcake thingys! 

But apparently they still tasted good!

The Queens Birthday

Tomorrow is the Queen's Birthday! Queen Sirikit of Thailand will be 80.


Queen Sirikit is the world's longest-serving consort to a monarch, just as the King of Thailand, with a reign of 66 years so far, is the world's longest-serving monarch. People in Thailand dearly love their king and queen and 'The King's Song' is played right before every movie and everyone stands as a mark of respect!

The Queen's Birthday in Thailand is a dutifully celebrated festival with crowds, performances, and a long weekend. Many wear pink to show their love and respect on the day that also serves as Mother's Day in Thailand. Last night when we were at the shopping mall there was LOTS going on in preparation.


 

We also heard yesterday that every girl born in Thailand on the Queen's birthday will receive a scholarship and ALL of her education expenses right through school and university will be paid by the queen. How cool is that!  A similar thing happens for the king's birthday, which marks Father's Day in Thailand and every boy born on that day will be educated right through school and uni. I'm impressed!

It seems to me that Queen Sirikit is quite a remarkable woman! 

http://www.pattayamail.com/836/queen-sirikit.shtml

Life can be unpredicatable!

So today's plan was to have our afternoon sessions 'at home' in Doi Saket with two visitors coming to share about YFC with us.  But because we didn't understand enough Thai to know what this morning's community announcement (coming from the truck cruising through the neighbourhood) was telling us, we found our road being totally blocked off for the afternoon while they resealed it!

Quick change of plans and we headed off in Kristi's truck along a walking track to the city and the YFC Asia Pacific Office in Chiang Mai, knowing that we had to go to our speakers as they wouldn't be able to get to us!!


We had a really interesting afternoon learning lots about YFC Thailand and YFC Asia Pacific and some of the inspirational young people who sacrifice much on a daily basis to take the message of Jesus' love to the young people in their nations.

And to finish off our day we headed back to Doi Saket to the local weekly market for a discovery stroll and dinner.

We all felt completely safe, enjoyed the smiles of the people and buying our meal and other bits and pieces in a very friendly atmosphere.

 These coconut patties were delicious and their vendor a gorgeous young lady. Sadly she won't be back next Tuesday

 Didn't attempt the fairy floss

 or these mushrooms

or the interesting fish!

 But enjoyed my interaction with this guy as he put my yam patty into the bag.

And I'm sure most of you will be pretty happy to know that I was able to include salad in my dinner!

We plan to go to the Doi Saket market every Tuesday evening and get to meet and mingle with some of the locals. Looking forward to that!

Once our TESOL training begins next week we'll have our noses to the grindstone and I don't think there'll be much blogging for a few weeks!

Today I met the Mayor of Chiang Mai!

Well it was just our normal (delicious) lunch in our normal (delightful) little Thai cafe in Doi Saket.  And who should walk up and introduce himself to us but the Mayor of Doi Saket!  Our Mayor!

He was very friendly and interested to know where we all came from and happy to be photographed with me! Bonus!

The Amazing Race

On Wednesday the two Embark participants arrived together from the US.  Alicia and Olivia. We have been going full speed ever since. 

Thursday was the day for 'The Amazing Race'! What a fun and challenging way to get to know Chiang Mai to put us all in good standing for the next three months. Although there was only one team we were fantastic! In future Embark programs when there will be more participants it will actually be a race.

We discovered where to find the embassies, where to buy and send postcards home, how to contact the Tourist Police if we needed them and lots of other useful things that will help us to find our way around and manage well.

Here are Olivia and Alicia with their map and bag of clues and challenges eager to begin The Amazing   Race.

 We learned how to use the public transport system

 where the major markets and landmarks are

a little about the history of the city and Thailand's major religion - Buddhism

 

And we attempted and overcame some pretty tricky challenges!!!

 

and finished at the waterfall!

 

Excellent day.  Thanks Kristi

Farewell Australia, Hello Chiang Mai

On Sunday evening we had a very special family dinner to say Goodbye to Granny!

Thank you family for making the effort! I am blessed to have such a gorgeous family.

And at 11.30 pm I got on a plane to fly to Thailand

The next day I was having lunch in Chiang Mai with Kristi and Lana plus Jik and Golf from the YFC Asia Pacific team. How amazing is our world today?!! And how thrilled I am to be part of what God is doing here.

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