In Thailand, Christmas is celebrated on more than just December 25th. Being odd to begin with since the majority of Thais are Buddhist, a week long celebration was had. The director of English at my school recieved gifts every day of the week after Christmas... jealous! However, I did receive a few presents from my school as well as the company that hired me, OLC. But backing up to Xmas Eve Day, Wes and I ventured to Hat Yai Municipal Park to check out the numerous displays set up for the annual lantern festival starting in January. There were a crazy amount of extremely elaborate lanterns that I'm sure will look awesome when they're lit up at night.
We then hiked up the long path to the very top of the hill to see the shockingly big buddha, which was definitely worth it.
The view of downtown from up there was absolutely amazing! I knew that it's the third biggest city in Thailand, but I never imagined that it was actually this vast!
After devouring too much delicious food at the bbq buffet on Christmas Eve, we went to my by-far favourite bar, Co-Art. Immediately upon entering, we felt the Christmas spirit when some Thais gave us free beers! The great live music made the night even better and we ended up running into many foreigners I'd met before. After a late night there, we got up semi-early to head to Songkhla for a visit with Owen & Kag (the couple I spent my first weekend in Hat Yai with). They took us out to a stunning restaurant right on the water where we devoured the freshest seafood we'll ever eat in our entire lives, guaranteed.
There was a tank that we got to choose our own fish from, which was killed right in front of us then thrown into the fryer. Suprisingly delicious! Other dishes we had were spicy mango salad, yellow curry, sweet 'n sour vegetables and grilled catfish, all quite opposite from the traditional western Christmas dinner! Even though everything was very tasty, Wes and I both missed juicy turkey... although he did get the full-on meal before he left for Thailand (jealous again). Anyway, we stopped at a coffee shop after lunch and enjoyed homemade banana bread and fruit cake over some tea. Owen then drove us all the way back to Hat Yai, proving to be extremely hospitable once again. For dinner, Wes and I treated ourselves to another succulent meal just across the street, thinking we should spoil eachother since the only present we exchanged was simply being together after 2 months apart. Throughout the week we visited various locations that were displaying Christmas decor, including the markets and shopping malls.
These were the only things that made it feel like Christmas! It's harder than you think when the weather is a whopping thirty degrees... definitely a Xmas to remember! So, Merry Ho Ho to you all and I hope this holiday brought you as much happiness and as many memories as it did to me!
We'll be on Ko Samui for the next four days and Ko Phangan for New Years Eve, so look forward to a very interesting post next week!
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