christmas in udon

by **corvin1984** » November 23, 2010, 6:58 am

so its fast approaching the festive season, and it got me wondering. i'm emmigrating east for a year in australia in march and have organised a long vacation in Thai mainly Udon to get me settled into the lifestyle. pretty good work i know.

but, what goes on (if anything) during the holiday season ? i was in udon just after new year last year and noticed that a few bars and restaurants had xmas decorations up, but is there a special celebration? do pople give gifts. do the bars become frequented with merry old sods singing silent night? that sort of banter.

if so where?

Brett

by **corvin1984** » December 29, 2010, 8:13 am

jeeez, guess this topic has been murdered on the forum or something!

hope you all had a great christmas. see you around udon as of friday. when i hope you'll all be celebrating New Year with a bit more style.

Brett

by **trubrit** » December 29, 2010, 8:23 am

corvin1984 wrote:jeeez, guess this topic has been murdered on the forum or something!

hope you all had a great christmas. see you around udon as of friday. when i hope you'll all be celebrating New Year with a bit more style.

Brett

Hi Brett, welcome to Udon. I think your original posting may have been a bit early and most of us hadn't finished paying for last years celebrations at the time .Anyway too late to tell you about it now, but your in time for the special New Year countdown at the UD Center at mid_night on the 31st. In case you aren't sure the UD is near the train station .Hope you like Chang beer though, its a sponsored area and other brands are forbidden . :lol:

by **corvin1984** » December 29, 2010, 8:43 am

gah Chang, if needs must. when did the center get built? last time i was there there was only the robinsons complex or mall (whatever you want to call it) and that was only in january. how is everything else around town ? still lively ?

Brett

by **BobHelm** » December 29, 2010, 8:59 am

The Robinson complex is a building site at the moment corvin, so really to be avoided unless there is a specific shop in there that you have to go to. There was not much room left after all the 'building stuff' to Chritmasfy the outside of it. However they do have a very large artificial Christmas tree at the 'centre' end of it, where the only entrance is at the moment.
Once the building work is complete (not sure how long that will be) it should be a pretty impressive centre piece to Udon.
UD Town had many lights & Christmassy displays around it. Bit 'tat' I guess it could be said by the traditionally minded but I quite enjoyed it & admired the place for having the commercial awareness to try & take financial advantage of the situation.
UD Town certainly seemed to hold a huge advantage over the Night Market/Centerpoint areas. I went through both a couple of times over the Christmas period. The food area in front of the big screen was almost abandoned in the Night Market (& there was a live football match on) whereas it was difficult to find a table in the UD eating area.
I strolled through early Monday afternoon & they are still doing major building changes in UD Town now. Trying to place even more of it undercover I think.

by **corvin1984** » December 29, 2010, 9:11 am

i guess you cant keep something a secret forever. o well, shame.

is there noticably more "farangs" in udon these days ? i can remember in late 2002 that i was pretty much one of a handfull of westeners going for a late night beer. now there are 15000 people registered on this forum.

also can udon really support this rapid growth? are they piling money in because they believe that the foreigners will just keep migrating to thailand even if the prices continue to rise? i know its relatively small increases right now but the pound has taken a hammering against the baht over the last 2 year and its bound to take affect sooner or later. without all the "foreign" investment (thai wife/gfs), udon would surely still be the sleepy town i fell in love with?!

curious.

by **BobHelm** » December 29, 2010, 9:26 am

There are a lot more Falang about that is for certain. Not sure how much of the growth of Udon is down to foreigners though.
The 'blurb' for selling space in UD Town was all about visitors from Laos & the the Udon area rather than anything to do with the Falang population. Places like Top Mansion (who are building anew as well) do have Falang guests but their core business is Thai & I am pretty certain that they could survive & grow without any Falang custom at all.
The same is true of most of the housing developments. There are some 'back seat' Falang owners but the great majority of the sales are completely to Thais.
Same with the Supermarkets. OK they all sell a lot more Falang foodstuffs now but maybe that is because of a westernisation of younger Thais via the television. I would still estimate that the huge majority of the customers are Thai - high 90%s at least. You don't expand a business due to an increase in the 5% of your customer base, you do it in response to the 95%.

by **corvin1984** » December 29, 2010, 9:41 am

fair.

im pretty sure that a lot of investment in the region was oiginally by westerners who had moved to Udon. building luxuy houses, spending more than your average thai in bars and restuarants, buying clothes etc etc. at the end of the day you have to aquire the capital to re-invest in your business. perhaps im being overly critical of the thais and their prowess at making and squandering money. but surely, if it was going to expand like it is now it would have done so in the 80s.

i perdict a Spanish like fall from grace for thailand.

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