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Published: October 21st 2008
Last night for dinner we went to the oldest American hotel in Bangkok, only built 30 years ago, called the Oriental. The hotel has boat shuttle service to the other side of the Chakapraya River to the restaurant, and I have attached a picture of the lit boat on the river. Really pretty. We had a river front table. Had a bottle of Copolla Chardonnay, Director's Cut, 2005, with dinner. Excellent!
While driving through Bangkok today, there was a sight to be seen. There were some shack type structures with Air Conditioning units on top of them. We saw areas of such poverty, but the disparity of the temple pictures that follow is obvious.
One picture is inside the temple grounds at the Grand Palace. The gold structure is completely tiny gold glass mosaic, similar to what I've seen in Rome at the Vatican. The "Emerald Bhudda" in the picture is actually solid Jade. You aren't allowed to take pictures inside, which was beautiful. It was built in the early 15th century. It wears four different outfits for the four seasons. These ornate buildings are covered with real gold flake. A gram of gold makes 40,000 leaves to use.
They used cut glass and mirrors to simulate jewels. Would never do for the Craft ladies.
George and I are standing in front of a building that has monkeys holding it up. The story goes that God gave power to the monkeys to become demons, then he worried about the evil, so He came to Earth as Bhudda to battle evil.
The last picture is the main landmark in Bangkok on the Chakapraya River called the Temple of Dawn and it's a pagoda.
Leaving Bangkok tomorrow on the ship after an excursion that we're really looking forward to!
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Cheston and Katherine
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The tarp roof might become a reality very shortly for us. I suppose that if God was going to give power to anyone to become demons, it would be monkeys. The people of Thailand probably shouldn't trust them to hold a building up though. I mean, they're demons right? Wouldn't you expect them to wait until the building was full and then let if fall down? Some architect didn't think that one through. Love you guys. See you soon. P.S. Nice sweat on the purple shirt Dad.