One of my neighborhood friends invited people over to make fabric pumpkins, so that we could feel somewhat fall-like in 90 degree weather. She even made a crock pot version of pumpkin spice lattes and cranked up the air conditioning, so that people could wear sweaters if they wanted to. I was nervous, but willing to give the pumpkin thing a try. We picked out different materials and cut them for different sized pumpkins and leaves.
The process involved turning the material inside out, tying off the ends with rubber bands, turning it back right side out, and stuffing it with pillow fluff. As I was finishing up the stuffing on my first one, I pushed on the wrong place, and my pumpkin fluff exploded all over the place. I had been so anxious about doing it right, that I had a moment where I almost started crying, but then I realized how funny the whole exploded pumpkin thing was, and I started laughing. After a good laugh, I started over again and completed my three pumpkins without any further explosive moments.
We were all quite proud of our finished pumpkins, so we made a pumpkin patch on my friend's sofa.
I do realize they're kind of lumpy and funny looking, but I'm still very proud that I made something that didn't fall apart, and Elena loves them, so I'm quite pleased with the whole project.
The next craft project my friend is organizing is a Christmas craft swap party, where each mom brings supplies for a different craft, and then we swap so that we all have lots of advent crafts to do with our kids. I got the angel craft, so I needed white feathers, and a couple other things that I wasn't sure I could find easily. The Chinatown in Bangkok has tons of shopping stalls, most of which are down little alleys, and you can find almost anything if you're willing to look long enough. I went there once when Mom was here last year, but I haven't tried to go with an actual mission yet. Luckily, I had friends who wanted to go too, including one with a driver, so we went exploring together.
It's almost impossible to capture in photographs the narrow alleys full of people and inexpensive things to buy, especially since motorcycles regularly come through, and you have to watch your feet and elbows. We did manage to find all of the main items on our list, including red felt, so that Vivian and I can have matching poodle skirts for the mother daughter sock hop in January. Overall, I was very pleased with my loot.
Our next adventure was lunch. You can get good street food in Chinatown, but I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to lunch out with friends and try one of Bangkok's hundreds of interesting restaurants. I thought it would be good to stick with a China theme, and so we went to The China House restaurant next to the Mandarin Oriental hotel.
There was an incredible tree shrine next to the restaurant.
The restaurant decor was all about red, black, and privacy.
It was cool and quiet, a nice change from the heat and hustle of Chinatown. The big draw though was their unlimited dim sum menu for about $30. You got soup, dumplings, rice or noodles, and dessert. All three of us went for the dim sum with lime soda, and so they brought us three of almost everything to try. I say almost, because we weren't brave enough to try ones like "steamed assorted mushrooms, ear fungus, and winter melon."
We decided the lobster and spinach dumplings were our favorites, and the only one we sent back uneaten was the chicken and abalone experiment. I had also tried and did not like the chrysanthemum ice tea which tasted like super sweet soap. I got a corn soup and fried rice, which I liked, but they brought the rice after the dumplings, and I really couldn't eat much of it. For dessert, I chose what the menu described as "chilled cream of coconut, sago pearls, with rock melon ball." I was expecting something white, but instead it was a bright green chilled soup. The sago pearls are little tapioca balls, and the whole thing tasted like melon. After I got past my initial surprise, I realized it was quite yummy and refreshing. I'm also getting used to the tapioca balls. I liked these ones better than the ones in the bubble tea. They were smaller, which made them easier to manage.
I got another lesson on not judging food by its appearance when we got the bill, along with some adorable little panda buns.
They were white dough filled with bean paste and were tasteless. We each took one bite to try and then gave up. Thank goodness we had a driver, because we were all so full and sleepy it would have been rough getting home on our own.
Vivian had swimming that afternoon, and traffic was kind, so I managed to get to ISB just as she was finishing up. Swimming usually tires her out, and Elena had had a full day as well, since my friend's little boy spent the day with Elena and Young while we were downtown. Jeff was out of town on a trip, so luckily, the girls were as willing as I was to have a quiet reading kind of evening.
It was a fun adventure day, and I'm starting to feel more confident about this whole crafting thing. We'll see how the holiday craft projects go though, before I make any claim to having a clue about what I'm doing.
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