Happy Birthday King

The entire country takes the day off to celebrate his majesty's 80th birthday. Unlike the West, where decade birthdays have significance, Thai's don't generally consider your 30th, 40th, etc to be special. What is important here is every 12th birthday; once you've reaced your 24th, 36th, 48th..., you've completed a full 'cycle' through the 12 zodiac animals. (thus this February will be a biggie for me). However, someone spotted that 80 was the age at which Buddha passed into nirvana, so that's been taken as an excuse to go large on the celebration front.
Obviously, pretty much everybody is wearing their yellow polo shirts in honour of the King, but in an interesting twist, there's a few people starting a counter-trend by donning pink polo shirts. This new look has been inspired by the King's recent departure from hospital in which he was seen dressed in a bright pink suit, on the advice of his official astrologers who said wearing pink would improve his health.