Saturday the 11th was Children's Day in Thailand which I spent with my Thai Family in Ubon Ratchathani. My Thai family has a baby boy, 9 months old called Austin, a little girl, 6 years old called Orchid and a boy, 9 years old called Inter so as you can imagine, Children's day for them is a big deal. Children's Day is basically a Thai holiday where they celebrate their children and the big towns put on various functions for kids to enjoy, mostly for free!
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| Orchid and Inter enjoying the rides |
First of all we went to Central Plaza which is one of the main shopping centres in Ubon. There were several little games for children to play to win free things like cinema tickets, sweets, juices and toys all around the centre. Orchid and Inter got so excited and played all the games and insisted we play them too. I think maybe because we're foreign (farang) they let us play even though we're clearly not children anymore - though some parents did give us strange looks as the 18/19 year olds playing these games meant for 12 year olds and younger... oh well.
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| An old Airforce plane |
After this we went to the airforce which was putting on a special fair for Children's Day. There were rides for the kids, stalls selling things, airforce soldiers in uniform letting you take photos with them, an old plane you could explore and much more. Orchid and Inter got great joy out of the toy planes they bought and played with them for the rest of the day. Next we went to the zoo which had free entry because it was Children's Day. When driving our Thai mum once was saying how many laws in Thailand are like 10 years behind western laws, for example they recently introduced a law where they had to put their motorcycle lights on all the time. Well Thai zoo's are also a clear example of this; the cages the animals were kept in were so small, cramped and just in generally bad condition. Many of the animals looked sick as well with one parrot losing a lot of it's fur and a cow with a mutation - it had an extra leg hanging from it's back! It was also strange to see cats and rabbits in a zoo as in Britain we see those almost everyday. Needless the say, Inter and Orchid loved the whole day!
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| The cows deformed 5th leg..... |
Next we drove to Phana to visit our Thai dad's family as they were having their annual 'funeral' type remembering, called to 'make merit,' of my Thai dad's brother who died in a car accident a couple years ago. This is a really nice way of remembering the dead, rather than wallowing in sadness they bring the family and friends together. Firstly some monks came and we all chanted and prayed together, and then the monks left and we all ate dinner together whilst they were sharing good memories.
Then we all drove home and after a long busy day we were so tired we fell asleep very early! Zzz...
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| Inter and Orchid with the Airforce Soldier |
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| Cats in cages |
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| Monkey's being monkeys |
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