Memory: Appetizers

You booked your air tickets and there is 2 months to go. You are very excited about the upcoming trip, you are about to devote your time on the itinerary, spending hours of researches about the places to visit, eat & sleep.....
1 month to go, your mind is full of pictures about the place that we are going; imagining about the things that you will encounter: the people you will meet on the journey, the place that you are staying, the street, the smell of food, the one who is going to share the moment with you....
Tomorrow is D day, you will sleep little tonight as you are too excited about this long awaiting trip, you will set more alarm clocks to make sure that you will wake up on time.
Today is here, you are feeling a little tired but that's not the same as usual, you are energized and your mood is at the peak, nothing is as good as this. From the moment you shut your door, carry the suitcase and wait for the cab or coach to the airport; arriving the airport, check in and pass through the custom control, wonder around the duty-free shops or grap a drinks. Although you can't wait to take off, but you are still very much enjoying it as your holiday is already began!
Time to take off, if lucky enough you would have hundreds of movies to watch in front of you accompanied by some refreshment & snacks. After the meal you might take a nap..... and then a breakfast; Your pilot tell you that the plane is 30 mins away from the destination and not long after the plane land smoothly. Now is the hard part- you are impatient about the queue at the immigration, the baggage control as you can't wait to get out of the airport. Finally you are at the arrival hall and you are heading to your first destination. On the way you get to see a bit such as billboards and low rise housings but nothing much.
After a long trip you finally get there.
Most of our PN people have never been to other countries so they may not know how it's feel, but after telling this story they know what they are meant to your journey, we are your temporary home. As your 'temporary' family members, they will give you a warm welcome and take care of you, make sure you have a good start for this unforgettable memory.

Have a slow life!
Donald

The singing bird woke me up.

5.30 in the morning, I heard the birds singing out side. Is this place really in Bangkok? I asked to myself.

10 minutes ago I was so sleepy but I can’t sleep because I’m working in the night shift which finish at 7 am but the beautiful voice of the bird woke me up and remind me how wonderful this world is.

When I was young I lived in the country side in south of Thailand, in front of my house is a wide rice field. Me, my brothers and some other friends always run and play there. We really enjoy the rice field play ground when it’s in rainy season because we can also catch the fish, the field crab and frog in the rice field to make some delicious food and eat with the rice that our parent had grown.

Sometime if it was rain I would sat on the bench in the front of the house and looking out to the rain and after it stop raining I would look up in to the sky to see the rainbow. That was my precious time which gone by.

Now I’m sitting in the crazy Bangkok but lucky me that my office is green and peaceful. My life is going slowly by the tempo of nature, however my heart still calling to go back home and one day, one day I’ll be home.

Joy of work

We have closed our kitchen (except breakfast and beverage) for almost 3 months already, one of the reasons is because we need to find suppliers with more consistent supplies for both quality & quantity. I have been searching for new organic food suppliers & manufacturers these days as PN is about supporting local produce. Things are not complicated if you know where to find, but it take some efforts to do the research if you don't have any connection in the field. So far we have found serveral organic vegetable suppliers, a fruit supplier & a organic cheese manufacturer. I see this as an acheivement because everyone have learned a lot things in the process, so far we have visited the dairy farm to see our suppliers- the cows, and soon we will visit the farmers from the organic mushroom farm, later we will go to the cheese factory to see how they make our cheese (their milk is come from the royal project) & take a look at the fruit wholesale center where our fruit supplier select fruits from all over the country, sound fun isn't it?
Everybody in PN learn something new through works, & that's how we find our joy.

Receipe

Few days ago I asked our F&B gangs if they can file our 7 days breakfast receipes & the first draft (they though it's a completed one) has arrvived today..eventually, so I took a quick look and asked them to use one of the recipes to make the 1st revision, not the cooking part but the 'know-how' process or in otherwords the 'work flow' or 'Operation manual'. Receipe sound simple but it's a very important piece of work/art as it can help the us to acheive an expected result, or to perform a stable & consistent quality of work. It is not good enough if only you can make a very delicious chicken curry, you should be able to record the portion & quantity, write down every little steps and pass this skills to your friends & family, so next time you can ask them to make you the same dish while you are ready to create another new receipe, or another way round. You are going to learn a lot by teaching others.

Have a slow life!

Donald

Small is...

Q: A glass is filled up by drinking water and the rest spill out (assume you can't control the source), what should you do?
A)Let it be as I only want one glass so I can focus on the beauty of the glass, taste the sweetness from the water, look at the bubbles & reflection, look at the motion, enjoy the fullfillment of thirst......
B)Get more glasses (you need to buy and maintain them).


I remembered PN was once published in the TIME magazine and the title was called "small is beautiful", and not long ago P Rose also mentioned about our local tour should be "small is beautiful", then I started questioning: 'what kind of "small" is that?'
A while ago I finished reading the book "A day at El Bulli" which inspired me to think further the importance of 'small', this 50 seats restaurant only opened 6 months a year, which is equivalent to approx. 8000-9000 seatings altogether (50 x 180 days) but the booking request is stunning: 2million. This excellent team can do as much as they want with the 2million requests but instead they choose to stay 'small', I eventually understood what kind of 'small' that P.N. should stand for.... In terms of size we are small for sure (our rooms are small indeed), capacity is small (>30 rooms) but the real 'small' in P.N. means 'detail', when we have small nos of guests and staff(not so small for 30 rooms) there is much more time for communication and understand each other; we can improve our facilities and systems more carefully as we don't have another branches, so there is only one to look at. A beautiful piece of architecture is composed by many many small details (or a bad one has no details but only defects), if we just look at one detail it seems very simple, but how do we have time to look at them one by one? you do if you stay focused, everytime it will give you something new and inspiring(P.N. is different to me everyday).
A cup of good night tea is detail, A presentation of the breakfast is detail, A 'smiling' PN logo is detail; A passionate PN staff is detail; A home-made soap is detail; A hand painted fish on the table is detail; A decision on choosing a good dairy supplier is detail. A happy guest is detail. They are everywhere so we are determined to turn every defect into detail. Although small but beautiful!

Again..
Q: A glass is filled up by drinking water and the rest spill out (assume you can't control the source), what should you do?
A)Let it be as I only want one glass so I can focus on the beauty of the glass, taste the sweetness from the water, look at the bubbles & reflection, look at the motion, enjoy the fullfillment of thirst......
B)Get more glasses (you need to buy and maintain them).

My answer is 'A' obviously.

Have a slow life!
Donald

COMMUNICATION!

It took me some time to squeeze out this blog as i am a very poor communicator in writing, but it's the only way to improve my skill in this case... Every time when I try to write something about PN I just can't stop browsing other people's blogs to see how they 'write'. For me this blog is about showing how PN people live, work and think, but why do we do that? Since you (whoever is reading) may live miles and miles away from PN and have no idea what we are like apart from the still pictures, I believe this online platform allow us to explain as much as possible due to the fact that PN is not a hotel, a hostel, a guest house, a shabby place (named by some of our unsatisfied guest) or a home away from home.... PN is your friendly host which gives you direction when you don't know where to go, look after you when you are not feeling well, feed you with good food when you are hungry, prevent you from getting cheat by those bad vendors, make friends with you & listen to you, and finally make sure PN is what you need in Bangkok, if not we are more than happy to recommand you to other nice hotels or give you a full refund (you just need to fill a form and we will give you back the refund instanly). At the end we hope you to leave with a happy memory- that's the only thing we want from you :)

Have a slow life!
Donald

Colleen and James

12th May 2009

Around 6pm, I was working at the reception room, I heard someone sang an English song, it was an old man voice but sang with a young heart, his name is James. His daughter Colleen was sitting next to him and laughing with another 2 women which is the masseur who gave them a great massage.

I went out to ask him to sing an Australian song (because he’s from Australia).

And he sang,

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Then he ask the masseur to sing with him, P’Pleng one of the masseur sang an old Thai song about a woman who waiting for her lover to came back as he promise her, and P’Pleng told James she will wait for him to come back to Thailand again. We was smiling and laughing together. Colleen said it was a really good choice to take her father here, it was a wonderful holiday for her and James.

It was great to have you two here with us as well. I wish I could hear James sing a song again and don’t forget to say hi to Australia for me :)

Noo
PN Gangs

Visited "THAIFEX-World of Food Asia"

Today we went to Muang thong Thani to visit THAIFEX fair. It is about fruit and vegetables free of toxic and canned food. Including kitchen equipment suppliers. But today the major that we saw Fruits and vegetables. The only one thing that we have to see “Find the best for customer” It is not easy. Because most of vendors they's not sending a few commands. The listen is they will be less in profit. That problem is quite difficult to solve for us. Because our hotel is a small hotel. The room has only 20 rooms. So, the order is to be less common. But we also find it much further, because we believe that it must be art! Another is to see and wonder is most dealers now focus on the more toxic substances and free health. This is gratifying. We spent 4 hours together to see and taste it to get information. Glance on the time. To return home… Today is considered to be worthwhile to see this because the view from the documents is much too many!!. And we must follow for each document as soon as finish…

PN Gang

Our hotel in WOM Japanese magazine

OHAIYO...Japanese traveler.

This is WOM free magazine in Japan that published about our hotel a few months ago.

I'm learning Japanese but still can't read the long article, so if you don't mind please someone tell me what does it said about us?

Keep on smiling
Noo :)


http://www.wom-bangkok.com/info/i/36.html

Smiling in the garden

Sawasdee Kha...

Do you like tree, I love tree and the colour green.

When you feel tired because of some problem in your life and you need to cool down your mind but if you don't have enough time to go somewhere faraway you can just look out to your courtyard or sit under the tree, close your eyes and take a deep breath in and out.

I did that when I need some power to go on and I don’t have to go far away, in my work place which surely PN, I can just sit, relax and listen to the song and sometime is ancient Thai song, all atmosphere make me feel like I live in 200 years back into period of time.

Sometime something make me upset, but I can smile to my lovely guest, not because I have to but because I love to. When people smile, you can see in there eyes that it’s from there mind or not. Smile can make you feel better, when you feel sad, put the bad thing on side and let’s smile together.

Noo