The Bomb? (no pun intended)

So before reading this everyone must PROMISE me to read the whole thing before freaking out. I'm totally okay and everyone here is fine!!!!!! (Mom I'm looking at you....haha)

Yesterday night we had a bomb scare here in Bangkok. I was out shopping for video gear with Andrew, John Wood and Pastor Doug. We were at the MBK mall getting ready to head home when Pastor Doug gets a phone call from the mission president. Apparently there was a bomb rumored to be found in a 7-11 in Bangkok so we should stay put and not go anywhere. This wasn't a laughing matter but we kind of chuckled to ourselves anyway because 7-11's here are as common as stop signs or bus stops. A bit later we hear back from the mission president and find out it was the 7-11 attached to my apartment building. WHOA!
So my first thought was "GOI!" while we weren't near any blast radius (I didn't think) we live on the top of the building, 6th story, she had been home sick all day with a bad cold. We got ahold of her and told her not to go out (I was more for Plan B of taking a bus to Chang Mai and getting out of the city as fast as possible, but apparently she was supposed to stay put). We had a nervous dinner together and headed back to the apartment.
We took the BTS (train) to our neighborhood and in the Song Tao (its a truck with benches in the back that you pay 6b for, very common) Pastor Doug questioned some of the other Thai's that were riding with us.
One of the girls said, "Oh! I heard about that, its actually 2 blocks down, its not the 7-11 on Soi 42 (my street) its on Soi 45!" We get off the Song Tao at my street and it looked like she was right at first, no one looked any different than usual…street vendors were out, 7-11 was open, nothing had changed. So the video guys decided they wanted to see some of the footage and action actually happening at the site. We got to Soi 45 but nothing looked different there either. So confusing! Doug asked a old man standing on the street corner about it and he said, "Oh! Not this 7-11, different street!" No one knew! Apparently it was all rumor.
Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and started back to the mission. The guys decided to drop me off at the apartment for good measure and just to make sure we asked a fish sales-lady in front of 7-11 about the bomb scare. She said,"UGH, yea that was here! I didn't sell anything all day! Bomb squad wasn't hungry! It was at the bank next-door." Relieving? I think not, still next to my apartment building! She continued to give us more details though and we found out that the bomb wasn't 'a bomb' EXACTLY… it was a bottle of oil that someone had left at the bank. While purposes could have seemed sinister, more than likely it was just a street-vendors cook fire.

SO everything is fine. Kind of anti-climatic actually, it's kind of ironic that it had to be THIS street of all places, next door in fact, haha. Out of the BILLIONS of streets, people, 7-11's in the city it was THIS one. I'm so thankful for the friendly turn of last nights events, we are WITHOUT A DOUBT being watched over.

Hello Strangers

 Figured a new post was a wee-bit overdue. I have come to realize that there IS no normal when it comes to graphic design in Thailand. I haven't worked with the same person for more than a week, the same projects for more than a few days, and definitely haven't been in the same place for more than a few hours...hahaha. It's been pretty crazy.
So everyone reading this seriously missed out on THE weekend and should consider investing in plane tickets for the next weekend in case of further lost opportunities :) haha. Basically (if you could sum up an adventure with one word, HA!) it went something like this...
Saturday: I ended up doing powerpoint slides for the Burmese church. I was definitely groaning about going but dude, it was SO rewarding!!!! I asked the pastors wife (who would have adopted me if I was for sale, but its okay mom!) who told me to show up at 9:30 for church the day before, BUT her husband the pastor said, "WELL....church doesn't actually start till 11:00 but Sabbath School is at 9:30." So I'm thinking, "Hey hey hey! This girl is sleeping in!" Goi and Andrew left early that morning because they had to go film a baptism at the church near the SDA Hospital and took my time getting ready, but couldn't force myself to procrastinate longer than 10:15 because I'm still working off jet-lag...haha.
So, I showed up at 10:15-ish and walked into the church and the entire Sabbath School STOPS in the middle of the lesson and is like, 'NICOLE! So glad you made it!" I felt awful for being late. They all scooted down a row of chairs and I was stuck front and center, THEN the person who had been giving the sabbath school in Burmese looks at this other guy sitting near me and nods. This random person gets up and starts translating everything the Burmese guy says into English, JUST FOR ME. O.O
I set up the powerpoints after that, but everyone in the church had to stop and talk, "Ma-te-abue Nicole! (hello in burmese)" Talk about a church you just want to put in your pocket and take with you everywhere.
Goi and Andrew showed up later to film 6 baptisms that happened at the church that day, and after the pastors wife had watched us all eat and was pleased with the amount of rice/noodles/fruit we all consumed let us leave for the day.
We went to the park for the afternoon, chased pidgeons, played cards and watched this hackey-sack-volleyball game that was really incredible! I'll have to attach a video so you can understand better.
Then Shannon (sp?) this crazy Australian guy that helps us with video sometimes called us up and asked if we wanted to go to an upscale vegetarian buffett. We all said sure and got in this taxi heading towards China-town (how is it that every city has a Chinatown? what happened to Mexican-town?!)
It was kinda interesting actually because we had to go through a really touristy section of BKK and ended up getting mobbed by salesmen, odd...because the white people seemed to out-number the Thai's there.
We finally got to the restaurant and besides being also a tourist hotspot it was REALLY FUN. Its seat-yourself, and we chose floor cushions on the balcony level. It wasn't "upscale" looking, it actually resembled the ideal hippie-pad. Tapestries, rugs, lights, incense everywhere. They had Thai dancers (Goi says that every person, even boys, have to learn cultural thai dancing in high-school). The food was REALLY good, but apparently the cafe here serves dishes that are pretty similar for half price, I haven't eaten at the mission school enough yet to know.
After that we caught a Thai movie called "Hello Stranger" if it ever makes it to foreign film sections in Blockbusters near you...RENT IT! It was adorable. Definitely going to win a foreign film/indie film award soon. You laugh, you cry. It was about two Thai teenagers who go to Korea on vacation (apparently Thais revere Koreans almost as much as white-foreigners) and get dumped. We learned a LOT about Thai culture and Korean culture from the film actually. SUPER CUTE!
On the way back home I bumped into a mannequin and Shannon got me to "wai" it (its the typical Thai greeting where you do the "prayer hands" and bow at each other) he swore it was super impolite...the saleslady must have thought I was crazy!
Looks like I'm saving Sundays events for a later date...hahaha. Saturday was just too cool. Love ya guys!

Vespas :)

Fridays here are usually half-day's, not just because of the Adventist system but the Thai weekend starts Friday. This doesn't exactly mean I have time "off" because when you're on the film crew weekends are required and your free time is completely changing. I happened to get off a few hours though and ran back to the apartment, threw my wash into one of the three machines I saw and ran back up the stairs (6 floors, yes...i am the stair-master) and cleaned our room. It looked like the room hadn't been cleaned since the 80's but in reality it had only been a week since Goi scrubbed the floors. It kind of felt like I was punishing myself scrubbing the bathroom floors with a toilet wand but apparently thats the norm around here, haha. When I finished the room I ran back to get my wash and the adventure began:
The washmachine I had chosen was apparently designed for the smallest load size, hence the cheaper price. Woops! My load was definitely over that after 2 weeks of intense sweating in 70% humidity. Sooooo it finished the spin cycle, then started filling up with water again, then pouring out the top! The lady that lives in the bottom of the apartment came out yelling something, then appeared to dial 911 on a telephone and gesturing at me. She runs back and unplugs the washer then this Thai girl (the person she'd been calling) comes out and starts translating...apparently my load was too big, the lady gave me a bucket for my sopping wet laundry and told me to come back tomorrow to try again in the bigger washer if I wanted. I felt awful but she was apologizing to me the whole time. I got my laundry back upstairs *way heavier than before* and managed to hang it up on the mini-porch thing we've got out our window. I have no hangers yet because we have to go to a market to get some, so its all just massed on the bars of the window...probably be dry by next Thursday if theres no rain :/
I managed to make it back to do powerpoints for vespers tonight at the church the Evangelism meetings have been taking place at, of course our one clicker belongs to the conference president who needed it this weekend, so I'm clicking every slide from the back on my computer. Woohoo! *obvious sarcasm* The church here is SO sweet though, everyone wanted to talk when it was over and I even remember lots of names from this last week. It was great too because I got to see these teenagers taking photos in front of the backdrop I made "myspace style", made me feel kinda cool, hahaha. Sometimes its good to step back and see how what we're doing actually effects people.