St. Andrews Swim Meet

Another weekend swim meet but this time at St. Andrew's International School in Bangkok so not too bad for travel. It was a smaller meet and we had a lot of first timers so we were three coaches, Matt (head) Jenn (new teacher) and myself. 

Two new buddies from the new cohort...Angie and Jenn.

It's great travelling to other schools is that you get to see some pretty neat places. This one was centered around the pool and felt a bit like a country club with balconies all around. I was running the warmup...and had a vague idea what I was doing.

How many kids can you legally fit in a gym?

The corral where we gather the swimmers and organize them into heat, lane etc.

Rising stars

 Explaining how the race works to two first timers.

Even the parents have team shirts.

Nap time....

Klong Ride

One of the things that I have made a conscious decision to do is explore the klong even more than we have. It's not really doable after dark but it's always an adventure and you can go on for ever. We had a big gang a couple of weeks ago...the regulars which include two little ones.

The khlong in the early morning. So peaceful.

A bridge to a house. I never get tired of these doors.

The bridges that get you from one side to the other.

Waiting for Paul. Confusion of which mosque we were meeting at. 

Found Paul!

Kay: Art teacher, yoga teacher, person extrordinaire.

Little Evelyn on the back of her Dad's bike. Crystal, a new psychologist.

The whole gang

Proof that I was actually there. We think that we have almost made it to our destination which is a green painted 23 km loop around the airport. It was getting too late and too hot...next time.

 I have never seen bananas like this.

Closeup.

Trying out a Thai Exercise Class.

I'm pretty sure I already wrote this one but maybe not. To put things in context, we live in the suburbs of Bangkok so with the exception of a couple of western restaurants and grocery stores everything else is run Thai style which is great. The idea of exercise as a recreation has not been around as long as other countries so it's just different. We live near a gym which offers classes and my friend Alis and I went a couple of times....she is still going weekly but I only go once in a while.

We became celebrities one night.

The whole gang. Posing is the key and it's all about air boxing.

Alis, me and the instructor.

Swim Meet in Hong Kong

I coach swimming to 6-12 year olds and at the end of February, I was lucky enough to be asked to go with the team to the South East Asia swimming competition in Hong Kong. We are not a big school and our program is fairly recreative rather than competitive but they swam well. 

It was host by non other than the Canadian International School of Hong Kong which was pretty nostalgic for me. 

A very Canadian entrance.

On one of their bulletin boards....love it.

Hong Kong is incredibly hilly and I am completely intrigued by it. This is the view of the soccer field at Canadian Int. School.

We actually used a community pool which was beautiful.

Here's our awesome little team.

The Canadian Team jacket. We sat right behind them. 

The buildings are more dense than I even imagined.

I am not so familiar with the HK cuisine except that we ate really well and almost always noodles. Stores like this had ever dried type of seafood imaginable.

Victoria Peak is like Montreal's Mount Royal only steeper and I think higher. We took the local bus up and a crazy tram down. Those are our swimmers on the terrace. One of the kids uncles is a tour guide in HK and he offered to take us out and about which was a real thrill for teh kids since we had a full day to spare before heading home.

That's me...wish I had another sweater.

Beautiful views.

Of course some shopping was involved.

We took the tram, bus, subway...all incredibly well organized and easy to use. You can see forever down the aisles.

Our end.

So many people!

We walked as a group through here and I have no idea how we didn't lose anyone.

Moi 

Chinese New Year

After a delicious lunch at a Lebanese restaurant, Vince and I took the subway over to China town to check out the sites for Chinese New Year. Red is the colour of the day.

 The Golden Buddah is inside but we didn't get to see it-will have to come back. This is when we started hearing that the Princess was coming.

Waiting for the princess. Beautiful red lanterns.

After an hour, we decided to walk back to the subway and head home. We were blocked off so took the alleyway out.

This is one of four tramcars that went by and we are pretty sure that the princess was in the first one. We were not allowed to take pictures of her but there were 20+ security men running beside it.

A visit to the mall on the way home (Terminal 21) to get Vince's phone fixed. Saw this view and wondered why I have not seen this lake before. Have to check it out.

A dizzying look down from the top floor of the mall.

Examples of the bling that many girls use to decorate their phones.

Our vine covered townhouse. In theory, we can now sit outside with some privacy. In reality, 35 deg (and climbing) and mosquitoes doesn't really make it attractive. I think it's getting a little out of control.