Miracles do happen!

Two events this past week prove that miracles can happen; I finished uploading all the wedding pictures (1 year, 10 months) and Thailand’s long anticipated new airport finally opened (44 years in the making). So, comparatively, I’d say I was pretty quick on the photo uploading!

The pix can be viewed by clicking on Michael & Kay pix which is in the right hand column under ‘Links’.

News about the airport, Suvarnabhumi (pronounced: Sue-wan-a-boom, which means expensive new airport!) can probably be found on all the major news websites but, to summarize what I’ve read locally, it’s a beautiful facility that probably shouldn’t have opened for another month or two.

A friend who works in the construction industry flew out of Suvarnabhumi on Sat and had this to say:

“Check in was painless, immigration was as bad as ever (i.e. slow), you have to navigate through all the (duty free) shops to find the departure gates and the public arrivals area … what a disaster.”

He went on to say: “… they will have to rip out some stuff to improve the arrivals area … the architect should be shot … and because it’s a glass facade, the place is a maintenance nightmare!”

With any luck, those ‘teething’ problems at Suvarnabhumi will be worked out in time for the tourist high season (starts in November) and I’ll accomplish another milestone and have the wedding video finished before our 2nd anniversary.

Yes, both of those are rather improbable but one has to have hope!

News of the Week

Sunday saw two new ‘winners’ in Thailand, one on the tennis courts and one who will help to oversee the creation of a new constitutional court.

With King Roger (Federer) not returning to defend his two back to back Thai tittles at the ATP Thailand Open, many of the men’s top players flocked to Thailand with hopes of picking up some late season points not to mention a little cash and the opportunity to enjoy some Thai hospitality.

The final was a battle of the top seeds; Ivan Ljubicic and James Blake, the latter being the underdog as he had lost all four previous meetings with big Ivan. So one would expect a tough fought battle on court but, in just under an hour, Blake managed to prove he is a rising power in men’s tennis; he beat Ljubicic 6-3, 6-1 and he did so without smashing any racquets (unlike the hot headed Safin who crashed out in the semi’s … at the hands of Blake).

The other winner on Sunday was Thailand as a whole; the coup leaders made good on their promise to appoint a new civilian PM within two weeks of the coup and they did so with time to spare. Our new PM is K. Surayud Chulanont, a retired general who was pushed towards his retirement by Thaksin several years ago; Thaksin apparently believed K. Surayud was PM material and didn’t want competition. From everything I’ve read about our new PM, he’s a man of integrity, tact, effective management and (apparently) has a disdain for corruption. Time will tell but I’m cautiously optimistic!