My Unforgettable Thai Birthday!

My birthday was another day I was worried about spending away from home. Turning 24 isn't exciting but knowing I wasn't going to have a dinner at my mom's or go out for drinks with my friends made me sad. I love birthday's, they are a perfect way to get together with the people I love. This year it was with the new people in my life that I love and they made it so special for me, I will never be able to thank them enough. My birthday fell on a long weekend, already off to a great start, and all my friends had planned to make a trip to Bangkok! The long weekend was the Monday off so I still had to go to work on my actual birthday the Friday. My day started off amazing with beautiful messages sent from home and Thailand. Thank you to everyone who took the time to send gifts and cards they made me feel so loved. When I arrived at school my one student, Time came running up to me with a pink rose. The day before she had asked me what my favourite colour was and I told her pink, which is why she brought me a pink rose. I started crying like a baby. How thoughtful that a 5 year old remembered my birthday and asked her mom to take her out to get me a flower for me birthday. Then all day the students sang me happy birthday when I would rotate to the different classrooms and finally my K3 class made me a beautiful birthday card with wonderful drawings of birthday cakes inside! The students and teachers of Dararat Kindergarten made me feel so loved and special it will be something I cherish for the rest of birthday celebrations to come. Then after school My friend Elise came to Bangkok to spend my birthday night with me! We met up with Jenna, Katie, and Callie at our usual weekend hangout, W-District (which is a beer garden type thing near my apartment). We started off with food and drinks and then went to the skybar. It was a beautiful view and great way to start off my birthday weekend! Then we went to the party street, Nana. We went into Aussie Bar because I love it there!!! The weekend band always rocks and plays the best song sets with every possible style of music you could think of! We just had some casual drinks and called it a night so we were well rested for the next day. Saturday morning we went for breakfast at a place called Rocket. It had the best eggs benedict I have ever had in my life!!!!! Mary caught the early morning van ride and met us for breakfast. Elise was leaving to travel to the beach for the rest of the long weekend so we said goodbye to her after breakfast. Then Mary and I went to the Flower Market in China Town. The flower industry is huge in Thailand because they give flower offerings to Buddha images and temples and to monks. Smaller flower offerings are also given to taxi drivers as a thank you and even teachers or other members in the community. This market was huge and had outrageous amounts of flowers ready to be sold in bulk to those who make the beautiful flower arrangements. It was really neat to see where majority of the flowers are bought each day for these arrangements. Mary and I then met up with Jessie and Bailey (the sisters) who also came down for the weekend from Khon Khaen. We got ready for the night and went to an Indian restaurant called Bombay Blues for dinner. It was amazing!!!! Some of the best butter chicken I have ever had! We then went to a pub called Sway. They hold events every week to promote people coming in. This weekend was free wine for ladies from 7-9pm. Perfect :) It was cheap wine, but free wine is good wine so I had about 8 glasses. Fair to say I didn't have to buy any more drinks for the rest of the night!!! Then we went to cheap charlie's and met up with Doug and Matt, some more friends from our program. We had some drinks there and headed to Aussie Bar again because the band is amazing! We sang and danced the night away!!! We finished the night at Levels which is more of a club and it was a perfect night spent with friends! The next day we were all feeling kinda rough, so we took it easy and went to Au Bon Pair for breakfast. I had my first bagel in months and oh man it was worth it!!! We spent a couple hours in here just reminiscing, telling stories of our lives back home and funny things that have happened to us. This was so much fun. These girls have become my everything in Thailand and I am so grateful they took the time to travel to Bangkok for my birthday. I went back to my apartment to have a nap and they went to see a temple in Bangkok. We met back up for dinner and there was a live band playing. I am always amazed at the bands who sing songs in English and sing it perfectly!! I have heard some of the best music in Thailand who only sing western songs! It was a early night in since we were all still tired from the night before. The next morning Mary and I wanted to go back to Rocket for breakfast so we took Jessie and Bailey there to have the best breakfast of their life! I got a sandwich this time and oh it was also amazing! This is one of my new favourite restaurants! After this everyone had to catch a bus back to their cities so we parted ways and said goodbye until we meet up again! Overall amazing birthday weekend and couldn't have asked for anything more from all of my loved ones at home and my friends in Thailand!