Out to Space

13-15 April is Songkran Festival, traditional Thai New Year. Thai community in Sydney has the celebration called Thailand Grand Festival in Tumbalong Park, Darling Harbour. Last year I explored the Buddhist ceremony and the entertainments on stage. This year is pretty much the routine with merit making and blessing in the morning then stage shows in the afternoon. No Aboriginal welcoming protocol has a presence here, just the Premier representative. Do we need a black fella to officially open every single event in Australia or, at least, just an acknowledgement?

The best improvement this year must be Singha Beer tent and the promotion girls are willing to table serve the customers while gulping some beer with her friends along the way. It feels like home. Of course, there are loads of food. Many of them you cannot find in typical Thai restaurants in Sydney. Other than that is largely tourism promotion.

The hi-light performance would be Joe Louis Traditional Thai Puppet Theatre. Unfortunately, the show has to stop due to the rain. The best Thai attitude is still applied here by stating it is the shower of the angels even though everything is on hold for a while. Nevertheless, when weather is clear, the event continues and the crowd is back again despite of the soggy ground.

I would like to use the word Songkran on this post which unofficially unannounced in the event. It is the best we can get on such a special occasion away from home in Sydney.

Look deeper… They will never get out.

Tuk Tuk

Housewife

Cleaner

A bunch of sci-fi movie sets comes to my mind when I have a look at this pair of pictures of Siam Square. What can you think of?

Something weird happened while transferring files from the memory card. The backup hard drive did not display the errors but the files were definitely corrupted and could not be retrieved. Anyhow, I liked how it rendered the misinformed pixels. This only keeper of the three fault images was taken at a night fair for Loy Krathong Festival in Bangkok.

In the reference of Buddhism’s three jewels (Triratna-ไตรรัตน์) including Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, Thais are still deeply in following the way of Buddhism life. This is just my alternative views of the practice in Bangkok.

Lost Buddha

Found on a Bodhi tree on a street.

Lost Dharma

Chanting Tripikata for a blessing in Sanam Luang.

Lost Sangha

Waiting on a street market.