New Years in Hat Yai

For New Years I went to Hat Yai with Aj. Tor and Aj. Tim (pronounced Thim) to spend time with their families. We got there on New Years Eve and I stayed with Aj. Tor's family first. We stayed up till midnight and watched the firworks from his front yard which was pretty awesome. It sounded like we were in the middle of a war zone since everyone in the village kept shooting off huge fireworks.

Then the next morning we went to the temple to get a blessing for the new year. At the temple we participated in a ceremony where the villagers give all the monks tons of food. The monks had a small mountain of food and bottled water and thier rice bowls were all overflowing by the time the ceremony was over. I belive this ceremony was to obviously assist the monks and to gain further blessing and good fortune. That night Aj. Tor and I went into Hat Yai and went to the lantern festival they were having. The had lanterns in all kinds of shapes but my favorite part was where they claimed the polar bears and penguins live in the north pole together...silly Thai's polar bears and penguins are only in the same place when they are in a zoo together.

On Saturday I went to the sea with Aj. Tim's extended family where we had a picnic. There was a ton of food especially shrimp and fish. After we ate we walked on the beach and I played with Aj. Tim's baby and a 1 year old girl. Then we went home but since there was not room in Aj. Tim's car for me I rode with her cousin. He took us to get Thai style ice cream which was an adventure in a cup. Thai people like to put a ton of stuff in with thier icecream! My cup had icecream, 3 kinds of fruit, nuts, coconut milk, sticky rice, and white bread O_o The bread was surprisingly good but I can't eat rice with icecream it tastes funny. Then Aj. Tim's cousin kidnapped me for the evening so I stayed with them in thier new home.

New Years in Hat Yai was a lot of fun I got to see fireworks, animal shapped lanters, the sea, eat ice cream, and get kidnapped.

Lantern's

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