Goodbye to Chinatown

John and Suzy had the most unusual living arrangement of all of us, living in a shophouse in Chinatown on Rama IV. The house didn't seem built for normal living, all these rowhouses have multiple floors, small rooms, small kitchen and one non-flush toilet. But the neighborhood was outstanding and we all loved going over and seeing some real Bangkok. They're moving to an apartment closer to our neighborhood, but not before one last night out. No pictures, forgot my camera. Started off at Happy Hour, a little bar with singers doing pop songs from the Northeast, except for the one girl who did a full-on strip tease. It seemed way out of place in what seemed like kind of a family place, but go figure. On to a karaoke place where we took over the mike for a while, John and I belted out Suzy Q. And from there to an all-night snooker joint. We were the only ones there when we arrived at 2:00 am or so. Luckily Irish Paul knows how to play snooker so we got a couple good games in playing by the rules. Home by almost 4am, one of the later nights I've had out in Bangkok. (Dung bailed out during karaoke....)

Wedding party in Bed

The night after Koi and Joppe's wedding, they hosted a party at Bed Supper Club. Bed's a great place, lined with beds around the whole place so you can kick back and relax when you're not out dancing. They did dinner there, too, so we sat on the beds and ate. The party theme was white: Bed's decked out in all white so with all of us dressed in white it was blinding. Lots of griping beforehand by guys who didn't own white pants (I happened to already have a pair of white beach pants and a white linen shirt), but everyone agreed afterward it was quite a sight. Quite likely the best wedding we've been to ever.

Up skirt photos

Ever wonder what's underneath those kilts? So did Suzy.

Marshaling the troops

Everybody made it out for Koi and Joppe's wedding, here are a few shots of our group of friends that came out for the big day. The theme for the day was orange in honor of Joppe's homeland, so most of the guys managed to find an orange tie, the ladies went for anything from an orange bracelet to the whole orange getup.

Koi and Joppe get married

Koi and Joppe finally pulled the trigger and got themselves hitched. Koi's Thai and Joppe's Dutch, so we had a big slew of guests from both countries, including about half the small town Joppe's from. Wedding was in the afternoon and we all got back together in the evening for the reception at the Conrad. Koi's kind of been our entre into Thai life and a lot of the places we've been to and things we've done were thanks to her, knowing everything there is to know about Bangkok.

Quick stop in Seattle

We didn't have time on this trip to stop in Seattle, but realized we had a few hours layover between our flight from Spokane and the onward flight on to Tokyo. So we got Sung and Eun-yi to come out on a Saturday morning for a late breakfast at the Denny's by the airport. A good hour and a half to catch up with those guys, but we didn't get to see the girls, it's been forever since we've seen them. The kicker is, they were in DC when we were there and we had no idea. Overlapped for a couple days and were hardly more than a mile apart. That's what I get for not emailing before we left the U.S.

Up a head

Funny thing happened while we were gone, Paxton grew almost a foot. He went from being pretty big for his age (now 14) to being about a half inch short of me. At 14. His birthday was the next week so we did an early birthday party for him. Four or five of his friends came over, too, what a bunch of gangly teenagers trying to figure out how to use those new big bodies.

Home with the folks

It had been almost two years since we'd been home to Spokane, just before we came out to Bangkok. Aunt Lol came out from Chicago for the week as well so we got to see a whole bunch of family. Spokane was, unfortunately, and like the rest of the U.S., still stuck in a cold snap but that turned out alright. We went out for a run, did six miles and hardly felt it. Such a difference from running in Bangkok. Dad just retired so was home the whole time luckily, didn't have to miss him for the whole day like other trips back home. His retirement party was during the week we were home so got to see his work on his last day in there. Mom took us to see her sewing group, they're busy sewing blankets, dozens of them for relief work. All in all a good week hanging out with the folks.

Crazy Kids

One normal, one not so normal shot of Lam and the kids, Brandon and Hannah. Which shot is normal and which ain't? You decide.

Golden Gate with Lam & Quyen

Lam and Quyen are old friends of Dung's from the old days in Vietnam. They're both living in Walnut Creek, outside San Francisco, now but Lam spends most of each month back in Vietnam and commute back and forth. Quyen's getting her law degree so can't go back to Vietnam where Lam is most of the time. Not for a while anyway.

Yankees - A's

Lam's a huge Yankees fan despite being from Massachusetts, turns out he grew up closer to New York City than Boston and never gave up his loyalty even after moving to Boston. The Yanks were in town for a series with the A's, we saw the first of 'em. Needless to say the night was bitter cold but at least we expected it and were wearing about half the clothes in our suitcase. By chance we even saw Norm and Tilda there, they had tickets for the same game. It turned out to be a good game, too, almost too good. It was tied going into the ninth and by the twelfth it was still tied. You can never tell how long a ball game's going to go so we bailed out then and turned the game on in the car. A's got a homer and ended it in the 13th, oh, well!

Norm and Tilda get hitched

We rolled into San Francisco after DC to see friends there. First stop was out to dinner with Norm and Tilda. I've known Norm since we were State Department interns back in the day and we've stayed in touch. It's been a few years and things have changed: Norm's getting married next month. He met Tilda some time back and for some reason she decided an unemployed spike-haired Chinese boy was prime husband material. Norm found us our Ethiopian food fix somewhere on Geary Street and we got to meet the wife. Luckily Norm hasn't changed in 15 years and I seriously doubt settling down will change him much either.

Elston #4

While we were in Bangkok something strange, but not necessarily unusual, happened. After three great kids Bob and Thuan were through with the child bearing. At least they thought they were. #4 popped up unexpectedly back in January and for some reason looks remarkably familiar. Elston #4, dubbed Thai-Son, has the Elston kid looks, looks just like his older brothers did at that age. Not that you can hardly tell with him in that Michelin Man suit.