on safari

I learned two important lessons this week:

1. Christmas decoration disappears when Christmas is over.
2. What Thais and Chinese call birds’ nest is really birds’ spit

There was a fire at Major Ratchayothin on Wednesday. The Christmas decoration caught fire and distroyed part of the California Wow fitness center. Major Rachayothin is very close to where I work and when we heard that there was a fire, we ran up the stairs to see it from the balcony. However, after having seen what was there to see, we decided that there was no fire after all and went back to work. Later only we heard about the burning Christmas decoration and I thus learned my important deco lesson.

Major Ratchayothin: before and after the fire.

Ever heard about the famous birds’ nest soup? Birds’ nest is a popular new years’ present in Thailand and it’s currently on display in every supermarket. I always thought that eating a bird nest was kind of weird, but I never enquired about its details. While waiting for a friend to finish his shopping, I naively asked about the secret of the famous birds’ nest soup and I learned that it consists of the saliva of cave swifts. Mmh!

Bangkok features some of the most astonishing Christmas decorations I have ever seen. Almost every shopping centre has their own decoration. This is quite funny as Christmas is not even a national holiday in Thailand. I’ll be working on December 24 and 25… However, with these decorations it will feel a bit like Christmas anyway.

A few impressions from my first weeks in bangkok.

There are also some photos available from my last trip to Thailand in July 2007:

I couldn’t resist to starting a new blog. so this is it. I am planning to post more photos than text. don’t expect too much though… for the time being, photos will be in mobile phone quality as my digital camera has somehow resisted to come along to thailand. it might be in some drawer in switzerland. yeah, well, that’s it. I think I’ll just get started!