What Was I Thinking?

 "The sun comes up. It's a new day dawning. It's time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass and whatever lie before me, let me be singing when the evening comes." - Matt Redman I arose early to join Zinan in taking pictures of the sunrise only to discover that Zinan was... So, I took some pictures on my own. When Tain and Zinan woke up, we prepared a special breakfast on the stone table outside for our last morning at our hilltop manor. Everything we had left became part of the feast.  Our breakfast table from above Our morning feast Fresh mango and a fruit Zinan said is called Buddha's Head in Chinese My design - strawberry yogurt topped with coconut yogurt garnished with a piece of fresh mango  Tain's "Everything, but the kitchen sink" ramen noodle soup We cleaned up and took a van ride back to Bangkok, checked back into the Samran Place Hotel, and then went for a Thai massage. It was Zinan's...

Reminders of Christmas were everywhere we went in Asia. The Philippines with its 70 percent professing Catholic population, had baby Jesus, shepherds, wisemen, Mary, Joseph, angels, and stars of Bethlehem everywhere along with Christmas trees, Santas, and snowmen.  Santas in the Manila airport in the Philippines. Thailand had lots of lights and Christmas trees, and employees wearing red and white Santa Claus hats.  Even China had Santa and Christmas trees in airports and places where people shopped to encourage consumer activity, I suppose.  Santa in the window of a restaurant in Lijiang, China. The area near the Samran Place in Thailand had six modern, multi-storey, mega-malls, all decorated for Christmas in ways that exceeded the excesses of America.  Can you imagine six, huge malls pretty much side by side, filled with stores, restaurants, movie theaters, skating rinks, and shoppers? One storefront had a Ferrari and a La...