Christmas in Thailand

It’s Christmas eve and Pasta and I are spending it quietly away from home. Pasta and I just had our KFC dinner and she’s now loudly snoring on my feet (believe me, she can snore!). I’m not in the mood to cook any traditional Filipino feast unlike in previous Christmases when I’ve cooked up meatballs and spaghetti, a pad Thai cooking session with bloggers (little did I know I’d be moving to Thailand!), homemade bacon, ube jam, palitaw… For now, cooking is taking a back seat, I’m too lazy to cook, and has not made up my mind what to cook at the very last minute. So KFC fried chicken it is!

Anyway, before the year ends, a couple of update from A Scientist in the Kitchen. Despite the lack of posts lately, I have been cooking quite a bit. As I’ve mentioned early this year, my goal is to eat healthy and that’s what I’ve been doing. To my dismay, my cholesterol levels are still up, and I’ve been adviced to diet and exercise. I’ve getting there, my pants size dropping down (hurray for me!). I’m cooking up something with my blog and can’t wait for late January to roll up new plans for this site. Offline, I have been busy learning how to drive. For two weeks now, I’ve been driving my car alone. This is quite an achievement for me as I felt I like any mechanical inclination such as driving. Would you believe I don’t know how to ride a bicycle??? Combine that with learning the Thai language and it makes for a pretty packed day everyday. Now I can manage to get a full tank on my own and have my car cleaned. Come Tuesday, my father and sister will visiting me and that is what really makes me very very excited. I’ll show them Bangkok and come to Phitsanulok for the New Year. We had a long weekend a couple of weeks ago and I joined my new friends to a climb of Phu Kradueng National Park. I think I walked over 40 km during that climb, it was so cold but so beautiful as well. I saw a lot of deciduous vegetation such as these dewdrops which are insect-eating plants. W didn’t get to see wild elephants, though.

We didn’t have any Christmas party in the office like we do back in the Philippines. But guess what, we have a New Year party! New Year’s quite a big thing here, the malls have Christmas decors but no “Merry Christmas”, instead lots of “Happy New Year” signs all over. A few weeks ago, I noticed so many items for gift giving and I happily told my colleagues, there are so many Christmas gifts choices in the mall. They all smiled, and said that’s for New Year gift giving. During our Christmas party, err.. New Year Party with the staff, my manager jokingly told that they put up a Christmas Party for me! There were all sorts of great Thai food and fun games that Thais do well. We even had a raffle draw to give away the gifts!

So I’m getting more settled here in Thailand. The house still needs a lot of fixing up. Up to know there is no living room to speak up (hey, my kitchen’s complete!). That will be my project for the next few weeks. Pasta and I get to play football everyday though come to think of it, looking at the pictures above, the yard needs clean-up, the grass needs replacement as they grow widely every few weeks. I probably need a Turf Installation!

Merry Christmas to you my dear readers! All the best for 2012 (or year 2555 here in Thailand)!