Waterside Restaurant b-day celebration

Despite Sean being quite sick with the flu (again!) we peeled ourselves off the couch last night to attend his co-worker's birthday celebration at Waterside Restaurant. It was an eventful night from the start! I knew the evening wasn't going to go smoothly when we jumped in a cab and saw the clock: 5:45...dinner was at 6. In St. John's this is ample time to get to your chosen restaurant, but in Bangkok, at rush hour, on a Friday, it's not enough time to get to the end of the block let alone a restaurant that's "very, very far", according to the hotel staff.

35 minutes later we had finally completed the circle around the block that put us in the correct lane to get up onto the expressway. I'm not kidding. 35 minutes to turn around. With traffic like this you'd think the Thais would be quite an up-tight bunch. How they stay calm and patient (and avoid road rage), I'll never understand.

Once we hit the highway we were doing ok. Traffic was still heavy but at least we were moving. Regular cell phone updates with the group of co-workers put us at ease - they were stuck in traffic as well.

Fast forward 1 hour, 15 mins (making our total travel time 1 hour 50 mins and costing us a fat sum of $9 including a good tip) and here we are...or so we thought. The cab driver dropped us off at a restaurant that had absolutely no sign of Sean's co-workers or the name "Waterside". Great. Into another taxi, further down the road again, finally, Waterside! Off we go to find the group of people that are no doubt waiting on us, hungry and impatient. Wrong! The co-workers are STILL not here. Whew! 1 hour and 30 mins late, we're sure we've lost our table...but then again, they must have provisions for this (Sean has been told that wedding invites always state that dinner is an hour earlier than it's actually scheduled for since people are so often late).

A few minutes later the rest of the group showed up and we were quickly seated without a problem. Time to start the party! And this is my favorite part...the part where all the Thais eagerly flip through the menus and start ordering dish after dish after dish! The frantic speaking in that tonal, Asian drawl and all the hand-motions get me really pumped! And I love not having to decide what to eat (although they always offer to let us pick). No matter what shows up, it's always tasty.

So a few minutes later the delicious food starts to arrive along with a gigantic "tower" of beer (a compromise between a pitcher and a keg). I think we're all in need of refreshment after the looooooong drive. Chung Gao! (cheers!) They are all amazed at our advanced grasp of the Thai language ;)

The rest of our dinner is a mix of Sean and I learning some Thai and helping the group practice their English. I made a surprise discovery when one of the guys offered me a beer refill and I happily replied "sure!". The group kind of gasped and giggled while he looked a little taken aback. Apparently "sure" in Thai means something entirely different! (The most modest of the group described it as meaning "evil" but I'm pretty sure it was a little more harsh) LOL! I'll have to keep that in mind - I have no idea how many people I've offended in the last 4 months!

Sean's Thai practice came in the form of karaoke later in the evening. His co-worker S caught him trying to sing along with the Thai words (the Roman script was on screen along with the Thai script) and so quickly passed the mic over. He took it without fear and continued with his garbled Thai pronunciation! They loved it! Great entertainment :)

All in all the great food and company more than made up for the long trek to get there. Sean's co-worker Gwyn dropped us off in a central area so we could get home easily. Total travel time home: 20 minutes.