Outrageous!

This past week was a busy week as both Andrea and I tried to get a lot of work done. Andrea continues to attend classes two full days a week, but most of her time is spent researching, writing and making contact with people for her thesis/master's project. This week she also finally met with individuals from the organization where she will be doing some volunteer work. On Friday she travelled three hours south of Bangkok to Huahin, one of our favorite places here in Thailand for an assigned class project. On Saturday morning her group met with the corporate social responsibility manager at Chiva Som, one of the more exclusive spa's in the world, before returning Saturday evening.

I spent a good portion of the week doing much of the global research and recruitment for my employer back in the US.

All of that is not so important but we wanted to tell you about an outrageous (in the best sense of the word) highlight from the week which brings us back to the "small world" theme in a previous post.

About ten days ago we noticed a comment on the blog from an old friend in Tacoma. Bradd said he would be coming to Bangkok briefly and asked could we get together. Bradd was a significant supporter of Sound Youth Counseling in a variety of ways and was often an encouragement to me back when we were living in Tacoma.

What we didn't know was that the connection might never have happened had the Seattle/Tacoma area not received the massive amount of snow that it did ten days ago. This resulted in Bradd having a snow day with family and friends including Elliot (another friend and my former boss in Tacoma), who when hearing that Bradd was headed to Thailand and Vietnam said, "You know Duncan and Andrea are in Bangkok..." So had it not snowed in Seattle/Tacoma we might not have had the great evening that we did this past Tuesday here in Bangkok.

Bradd finally did make it here (after a cancelled flight) along with a couple friends. After briefly catching up in his hotel we thought the best way to share this city with them in just a few hours was to take a quick taxi ride, followed by another short ride on the khlong boat (photo - Andrea, Bradd and friend Chad on the khlong boat. Chad contrary to how it looks did not have a black eye, it's just the shadow of the hanging rope) to end up having dinner at the Baiyoke Tower, Thailand's tallest building. Andrea and I had been to the Baiyoke before when we led a group here and had the experience of eating at the buffet on the 81st floor of the 92 story building peering down and out over Bangkok throught the floor to ceiling glass windows.

This time as we checked in, I briefly heard the words "very nice, open air" and wondered, hmmm, this will be interesting. When we arrived at our floor we were ushered out onto a small patio(?) attached somehow (?) to the side of the building. Open air it was, with a small, chest-high concrete and glass wall separating us from all of Bangkok. I'm not sure the photos do it justice but the word that we kept using was simply outrageous!

(photo: Andrea and Bradd looking out over part of the city.)

(photo: Bradd, Chad and Andrea enjoying dinner and the sunset from the 81st floor.)

And then there was the buffet that snaked its way around the entire inner part of the indoor seating area.

The view, the setting and the food were all fantastic but what really made it great was just having a good time and conversation with Bradd and Chad. As we said goodbye to them that evening and walked away, Andrea said, "That was so much fun and just what I needed." I concurred. Fun, outrageous and much to be thankful for - especially in this case when it all came together as a result of a random snow day back in the northwest!

Duncan
PS - For a couple videos of the khlong boat in action go here.