Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, folks! It’s been a busy couple weeks, with many firsts.

Christmas here was just the four of us, which was a first. And it was the kids’ first warm Christmas too. After Santa’s and the family’s presents were opened, and breakfast was eaten, we headed out to Siam Paragon, a huge posh mall, about 15 minutes away by skytrain. In the basement of Siam Paragon, we visited Ocean World, the biggest aquarium in South-East Asia. We took a ride in the glass-bottom boat around the shark tank, had the little fishes nibble on the skin of our feet (only Alaric managed to keep his feet in without freaking out or being ticklish), and watched a 5D movie (in addition to 3D imaging, there were moving chairs and blasts of wind blown at you.) Oh yeah, and we saw more species of fish than we could count!

From there, we used the skywalk to walk over to yet another mall, Central World. Christmas day here is not a public holiday, so everywhere was open, and folks went to work. But it was still clearly a “special” day: there were way more people walking about than on a regular weekday. Both Thais and farang (foreigners) crowded the skywalk, the sidewalks, and the malls, in and out. It took thirty minutes to walk from Siam to Central World, when it would normally take less than ten minutes. At Ocean World, we picked up KFC for dinner, and sat outside. At one point, there was a boy band performing. We couldn’t see them for the crowds of screaming girls, but they sounded great! After the boy band, there was Christmas music mixed in with Thai pop music. As we ate, we watched the five-storey tall Christmas tree twinkling its thousands of lights, the LED-lit fountain, and of course, all the people! Moving from small Guyana to smaller Orangeville does not prepare you for this many people! One phrase kept replaying in my head: “Cheio de povo!” Loosely translated, it’s Portuguese for “nuff people”. See for yourself: