Friday, January 23, 2009

HOUSE WARMING


Three weeks ago we were honoured with the presence of 7 Buddhist Monks in the house who performed an hour long ceremony to bless the property and all those who come to stay here.
Many Thai people, along with friends and family from THE UK came. It was a fascinating insight into a major aspect of Thai culture and belief.

Earlier this week (see last post) we had the blessing of the Spirit House so that the resident spirit of the land could move in and be our Guardian Spirit.
Last night (Thursday 22nd Jan) it was the HOUSE WARMING party. Many of our Thai neighbours came and very generously bought us presents and Good Wishes. Our guests currently include two couples from UK who were proved to be great centres of attraction as our Thai guests are always very eager to improve their English.

One colourful and entertaining custom at parties (or for any excuse really!) is the releasing of large, hot air 'balloons'. These 'balloons' are very large square paper contraptions. They are very light. The hot air is provided by igniting a paraffin impregnated circle of material at the mouth of the 'balloon'. Once it is filled and ready to drift up into space, the party goers make their wishes and the Night Light is released. It goes up for what looks like thousands of feet and burns for a very long time. At New Year there anywhere up to 100 in the sky in this area alone. Very impressive sight!




Tomorrow John and Sonja make thier sixth dive with me and then progress to the Padi Open Water Course on Sunday wich will take place over 4 days and includes shore and boat diving as part of the training. Cost is about a third of the UK price...so that's a major attraction for people coming to stay in Phuket.

Last week we were taken to a famous Night Club in Phuket City that had a very good Thai band with a really amazing Thai lady singer. Plenty of soul, Joplin, Tina...bt it was extremely classy stuff. Needless to say...we're off there again tonight!

More Blog stuff at the weekend!

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