So tired. So many pictures, so many videos. Details will come once I'm done photoshopping and youtubing.

OK forget the photos for now I can always have part 3.

Whoo today was tiring, exhausting, excruciating, disintegrating - well it felt like it it was so hot I thought my limps would fall apart.

Just imagine this. The big deal cremation ceremony like today involves us walking around the main เมรุ or this place where they have this gigantic oven to cremate the body in. And no we don't do that early in the morning or late afternoon or evening, we're doing it at NOON. If you still think that's not absurd enough, throw in the "uniform" - guys wear white suits while girls have to wear black long sleeved blouse and floor-length skirt made with silk or ผ้าซิ่น aka THICK and AIR TRAPPING. And did I mention that it's black?? That's not all, there's the mandatory BLACK STOCKING thrown into the mix. All the family members had to wear that and do the walking and like 70% of us are all old and aging granduncles and grandaunts. What a torture.

But it was cool though. We met up at the house in the morning to do the preparation. Most of my uncles and granduncles are/were in the military so they wore their full uniforms, complete with medals and swords and stuff it was so cool. Photos of those cool dudes are coming later.

The ceremony started from our, well my grandma's house, with soldiers and all standing by waiting to form the ขบวน or the parade. The coffin was moved from the house onto this military hearse and the rest of us were put into assigned vans and buses and just followed the hearse from the house to Wat Thepsirin. We were led by police cars and all and whenever the parade cruised pass a military station/center or whatever, the soldiers would come out and salute the hearse. I took pictures of course. There were news crew and camera men standing by at almost every corner all the way to the Wat. We even blocked traffic. Apologies to you all who were around the area today I know how much I hate traffic blocks - you know those times when the cops just flat out close up the street to let some important persons passing through breezely. Yeah we were the ones blocking the traffic today.

Then we got to the Wat, did the circling around the main three times and then just waited for the Queen. When we got there it was around 1pm and the Queen wouldn't come till 5pm, so what did we do? We ate.

You have no idea how much you eat at funerals. There's nothing much to do besides eating. With my family, food always comes first. Our family's funeral events are the best, not that we like having funerals, it's just that we have better funeral food than others. At other funerals you probably get like a pastry and some water, but for us, you not only get the pastry pack, but there are also noodle stands and home-cooked buffets. No one can do funerals better than Baan Thakolsuk. I believe it was the sole reason why I gained so much weight three years ago it's because of the food at the funerals when my great grandfather had just passed away. And today I ate non stop. I had like three of those packs, a bowl of noodles, and some rice dishes. I got home like two hours ago and I'm still full.

The ceremony itself wasn't very interesting. It was just people lining up to put down the Chan flower (ดอกจันทร์) at the coffin. The only difference is that the first two persons who did that at the ceremony today were the Queen and Princess Chulabhorn. We all got a chance to greet them too when they arrived. It was so funny because we had to stand in line according to our "houses". My great grandfather had 2 sons and 4 daughters so all the "sons and daughters" had to line up at the front and whoever are the offspring of each of them had to stand in another line behind them, and so on. My grandma, Khun Ying Nongnuch Chirapongse, is the forth I think. I was way back in the line because I'm at the great granddaughter level and I'm the daughter of my grandma's youngest child. I was blogger-slash-great granddaughter today, I was trying to get the video of the Queen and all I got was balding heads.

You know what I was excited about the most about the ceremony? The Freebie Package. At funerals you always get like a memorial book of the deceased. And the deceased in this case is my great grandfather so the book is going to be about his life, and of course The Incident. The book can be a real significant historical item so everyone was going crazy for it today. There are three books in total actually, one made by our family featuring letters and memories from all the family members, one made by the military, and the last one is the most sought after. It's my great grandfather's own written book, almost journal-like, about his life, his career and the incident. I only managed to get the first two, I need this last one.

You have no idea how much people were going crazy for the books. The guests who came were given this queue card that they could use to redeem the Freebie Pack after the ceremony because they were limited and guess what there were people trying to steal the queue cards from the soldiers who were handling them. Worse thing, some creeps were trying to get the books so they could sell them in front of the Wat it was ridiculous. So in the end they just stopped handing them out and those who wanted the books had to leave their name and contact address for us so we can send the books to them later.

I have to get that third book if I wanna really learn the truth. Will blog more about him when I have enough knowledge about his life and what happened.

Gotta get back to photoshopping and youtubing now. Stay tuned for Part 3 or re-read Part 1.