Sert Has Talent

Prasert, one of the most beloved members of my team at work, represented us tonight in DSTWS Has Talent, a musical talent contest.  The whole team was behind him!

Ready to cheer on Super Sert

Sert singing his song

Given chains and money by his fans!

The crowd loves it!

Second place in the contest.  First place in our hearts.

The team shows its pride in Super Sert!

Universal Studios - Singapore 2011

Laid out like New York City.

 Galactica, you spend half the ride upside down.  Good times!

Standing in front of a 'merlion' something like a mermaid with bigger teeth.

I wish I had gotten this whole thing in photos.  After leaving the theme park, Rerk was hungry so he got a turkey hot dog and fries and we sat at a table while he ate.  Before he could get started a monkey jumped on the table and grabbed the hot dog and scampered off.  The monkey kept the bun and ate it, but dropped the dog.  No reason to fear wastage... a peacock came up and snagged the hot dog!

Checking out Singapore

Jim Galindo is an old friend of mine.  In fact, I have known him since he was thirteen and a student the first year I taught.  Although we seldom get to see each other, we do stay in contact.  Today, Jim lives in Australia.  When I found out he was going to be working in Singapore for a few weeks, I decided this was a great time to check out that famous city.  I had been planning on putting together some weekend excursions to some places throughout Asia and this seemed a great time to start.  At the same time, Supparerk had mentioned that he had never been out of the country, so I decided it was almost a 'perfect storm' situation, and we HAD to do this...  So this weekend, Rerk and I hopped an AirAsia jet to Singapore to visit Jim AND to check out Universal Studios - Singapore, which just opened this year.  What a great, fun trip!

At Marina Bay, near our hotel.  In the background is the Marina Sands Hotel and Casino with the famous Sky Park on top.  (We went up to the park and enjoyed a great view of Singapore.)  On the right is the Arts and Science building. 

The Arts and Science building, where they were holding a Salvador Dali/ Vincent Van Goh exhibit.  That was great!

At the Dali exhibit.

The view from the Sky Park.  Our hotel in the center of the photo.

The view in daytime from our hotel.

The view from our hotel at night.

Me and my friend Jim Galindo.

Jim and Rerk quickly became friends.  They are already making plans to get together when Jim comes through Bangkok in the near future.

Me, Jim, and Supparerk.

Election Day is getting closer

The election is two weeks from today, and all of the streets are lined with an amazing number of campaign signs.  They are everywhere!  And with 36 or more political parties, you can see why...

Nobody really knows how the election will turn out.  All of the polls indicate that the party headed by the former prime minister's sister will win the most seats, but no one is sure...

On of the most significant minority parties has taken an unusual tactic... they are telling their supporters to vote "no," as in, "None of these parties and candidates is acceptable to me."  The sign below show caricatures of former prime minister Thaksin on the left, and current PM Abhisit on the right.

Thai Politics

National elections will take place July 3rd and it will be interesting, to say the least.  The Thai government is set up a bit like the UK.  Whichever party wins over 50% of the seats in Parliament gets to set up the government and choose the Prime Minister.  If no party gets more than 50% of the seats, two or more parties will join to form a coalition that gives it a majority.

The two biggest parties are the Democratic Party, which is currently in power, and the Puea Thai Party, which is the party of the "red shirts" and of the former Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.  Thaksin was removed from office by a military coup in 2006.  Afterward, he was convicted in absentia of several financial crimes.  He is currently living in exile in Dubai. 

The campaign here is interesting.  There are 26 registered political parties, so it is almost impossible to keep them straight.  Each party is assigned a number by a lottery and will appear in that order on the ballot.  The campaign last only six weeks.  Before the official start, there are no campaign posters or TV ads.  None of the American stuff with non-stop campaigning.  Once the six week period starts, though, posters are EVERYWHERE.

The Democrats are running under the leadership of Prime Minister Abhisit, and the understanding is that if they win, he will continue as PM.  The Puea Thai party is still deeply influenced by former PM Thaksin.  They have named his sister, Yingluk as the champion of their party and the person to be named PM if they win.  Yingluk has already said that if they win, one of their first acts will be to pass an amnesty act that will make it possible for Thaksin to return to Thailand.

As things stand now, all polls show Puea Thai comfortably ahead of the Democrats, but not in a position to get 50% of the vote.  My concern, and that of a lot of people is that Puea Thai may "win" the election by getting the highest vote total, but be unable to form a coalition to form the government, and that the Democrats may form a coalition to give them control.  This, I am sure, would infuriate the red-shirts and lead to all kinds of problems.  Similarly, if Puea Thai wins, and Thaksin comes back, many folks will be furious.  We live in interesting times here!

Prime Minister Abhisit (right) showing his support for one of the candidates for Parliament from his Democratic Party.

Puea Thai's leader, Yingluk, former PM Thaksin's sister.  Some of you know that I originally had the wrong photo here.  I knew when I took that photo it did not look like Kuhn Yingluck to me.  I had never seen a Puea Thai poster for anyone except her, though, so I assumed it was an old photo with her hair pulled back.  Soon after I posted this, I realized I had the wrong pic, so I went out today and got the real Kuhn Yingluck.  The other photo had been of a lady in Puea Thai who is running for Parliament from my district.  Thanks to my eagle-eye friends for noticing! 

This is Chuwit Kamolvisit, one interesting character.  He is the biggest massage parlour owner in Bangkok, and he has formed his own political party.  He ran for governor of Bangkok in 2008, but his campaign faltered after he hit a TV reporter who had called him "unmanly." 

This guy is trying to capitalize on the craze here over panda bears.  China loaned a female panda to Thailand and two years ago, she gave birth to cub, who has captivated the country.  There is a TV channel here on 24 hours a day that shows a live view of their cage in the Chiang Mai zoo.

Chanthaburi May 2011

The TRAC gang from DST took advantage of KC having Memorial Day and we went on a seaside R&R trip this weekend.  A fantastic time had by everyone.

This could get ugly fast!

The view from my room, with cool ocean breezes blowing in all weekend.  Unbelievable.

Junior and senior.  Ton and Kong, both went to the same university in Chiang Rai, where Kong was Ton's mentor (or "senior').  Ton followed Kong to DST and is now the newest member of our team.  These two guys are really cool.

This does not begin to show all the wonderful food we had for dinner last night... steamed fish, grilled scallops and shrimp.  You name it, we ate it!

Not a bad way to end your Saturday.

Winding down.  We sat around and talked well into the night, and most of the guys stayed up til 5:00 playing video games and just enjoying 'family time.'

On our way to meet the girls for lunch today.

On the way home, lunch at a wonderful seafood restaurant.

Flora of Chanthaburi

Saw lots of cool looking flowers while on our team trip this weekend.  Thought some might enjoy them...

Boyd Leads the English Service

Each Saturday, we have an English language service at Immanuel Baptist.  It started small, but has grown to over forty people each weekend.   We have four 'families' that take turns leading the service.  My family is actually mostly made up of the Young Leaders guys.   I usually have to speak each time it is our turn.  This week, I asked Boyd (pronounced "Boy") to be in charge and he was outstanding.  I welcomed people and led a sort of icebreaker activity and then turned it over to Boyd.  He had the Young Leaders guys ready to lead worship and that was great.  Then he had a very special 'sermon,' where Ike read a passage of scripture, and he showed a short video clip that referred to the same Bible story, then one of the guys sang a song related to it.  And he tied it all together with a short message at the end, telling us that if you will confess, he will redeem.  It was superb!

Getting started.

Boyd with a message of redemption.

Ike reading the Word.

Thank focusing during worship.

Rainny singing a beautiful song, "I Never Want to Leave."

The guys sing "You Raise Me Up."  They actually took one of the world's most annoying songs and made it very powerful tonight.  hahaha!  (Left to right:  Rainny, Bat, Thank, Boyd)