December 31, 2011 - New Year's Eve

Vishnu carried by Garuda

After breakfast, Lindy are ready to leave our hotel.  I get a sweat on pretty early.  It's 90 degrees and very humid.  We are walking to the Central area of town where thousands will gather for tonight's New Year's celebration.  It's a half dozen or so blocks to Central World.  On the way, we cross broad boulevards by climbing up stairs to a pedestrian crosswalk that gives us the choices of just descending on the other side or staying on a walkway with small businesses on either side and occasional connections to their equivalent of Chicago's elevated trains.  Our walk is casual and we duck into several stores.  One is an air-conditioned multiple-floor building, something like a Macy's.  Others are tiny shops on the side of the walk.

Shiva holding his trident

Much-loved elephants

Along the way are several mini-temples where worshipers kneel and leave gifts, often of food.  Most of these shrines have dozens of wooden elephants standing beside them.














 There are also occasional large pictures of the Thai king.













In the Central World area, the road is several lanes wide.  Shops are fun and plentiful.  We each buy some clothes that are colorful and inexpensive.  A band plays short phrases to test out the speakers and electronics.  This area is Bangkok's version of Times Square in New York.  A few large screens advertise products, and by their very presence, the modernity of central Bangkok.




Returning to the hotel, we rest, enjoy some afternoon tea, walk on the exercise track on floor 7, check our email in the lobby and recuperate a bit more from fading colds.

In the evening, we attend the wine and dine get-together.  It's a popular night to attend, and we are a little late, so there are very few places to sit.  We get "stuck" with a table behind a Chinese chef who is carving thin slices from a roast duck and rolling up the meat with chives and bean sprouts in a translucently thin pastry.  The duck is done to perfection - crisp skin and tender innards.  Lindy makes several admiring comments and is awarded by the chef presenting her with a small plate mounded with slices of roast duck.  All of the food samples are good, but this special treat (she shares generously with me) is scrumptious.

We talk about walking back to Central World to mill with the thousands and ring in the New Year.  As part of our discussion, we recall how we have celebrated other recent New Year's days.  Most of them have been greeted in our living room with just the two of us.  We decide to make this New Year's one more relatively simple one.  The bar in the main lobby is putting on some special New Year's festivities.  Bottles of champagne and vodka sit in vats of ice.  There are only a few people listening to the live band.  We sip on a drink, but when we finish it is still hours before midnight.  Growing restless, we check out and look for other activities.  A dance floor around the corner is totally vacant.

Stu's such a nice deer...

We walk out into a shopping lobby where I pose.











 
A walk around the seventh floor trail is pleasantly cool with great views of the city.  It's closer to midnight, so we return to the bar and order another drink.  There are quite a few people here now, and they pass out noisemakers and hats, which a young girl in a nearby family is enjoying a lot.  The big screen shows the countdown at Central World and the invigorated bar crowd cheers the new year.