We had a beautiful Christmas at the Alliston residence of Lynda and Scott. The whole family, traditional gifts before dinner, junior game on the tube (Canada with a convincing win over the Rooskies), a wonderful turkey dinner put on by hosts Lynda and Scott, a Tortierre brought down from NB by Rick and Louise. It was an awesome time.
Figure this out. Two people from Thailand, one from Michigan, one from Halifax, two from New Brunswick, others from all over Southern Ontario. Home for the holidays! What it is all about.
Lena is off snowboarding this morning. Deeds and I have a will signing to witness and then a little boxing week shopping just for fun. Off to another friend for a coffee this afternoon and then Lena and I have a Daddy/Daughter Day planned for this evening. (The fading Habs have a date with the Great Eight and the Washington Capitals cesoir)
I will also start taking the tree down today. Yeah that is a first for any household I have ever been in. Usually stays up until the Epiphany (Jan 6 for the heathens in the crowd, sometimes referred to as Ukrainian Christmas), but with Diane gone on Sunday and Lena on Tuesday it is left up to me and I would rather have the help then sit looking at a tree that I need to deal with later next week.
It has been an uneventful time, no real high jinks or funny little anecdotes to tell you about. The visit to LA Music was a whimpering bust. Yeah they whimpered. I talked at one of the staff for about 10 minutes. He never looked me in the eye once. Stared at the table top in front of him the whole time. Tried going down the "Oh yeahhahah. James, well he doesn't work here anymore." While I tried to keep telling him that whoever I talked with was irrelevant. I was talking to LA Music. First names are of no consequence when you are looking for customer service. A phrase that totally escapes these dweebs. Keep the faith folks, boycott la music. They are losers.
A few more visits to friends over the next days to look forward to. More relaxing and takin it easy.
I did get a load of golf balls on Boxing week sales, so I am also very prepared to head back and play more golf. Hope it all turns our!!
Have a very happy new year celebration. Be safe.
Ok, talk to you in a bit. Hope this finds you well.
Sawdee Krup
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Home for the Holidays
Hi y'all. Kuhn Jerry writing you a little Christmas note from Mississauga.
We are home, intact and loving it. Deeds and I arrived on Saturday nite, a little later than scheduled but safe and sound. A great flight with lots of sleep for both of us.
Lynda and Scott met us at the airport and Deeds and I headed home for a cup of tea in our own house!!
Not much time to sit as Lena arrived at Island airport at 10:30. We picked her up and were home sitting on the couch chatting until after midnight. How great is that.
A few sleeping pills and it seems like Deeds and I are starting to adjust. Not kidding ourselves though. Jet lag is still there in the background. Ohh you can mask it with holiday beverages and copious amounts of very good red wine (thanks Tammy and George) but we are still a little wobbly kneed at times. Sleep will come when it wants and leave just as quickly. I think Deeds and I are in for a fun four weeks from a sleep perspective.
We have all the appropriate dinner and visit plans laid out on a daytimer. Bookings and shifting meetings around as best we can.
We now realize that we should have set up a few in advance as now it seems impossible to wedge a get together into ours or other peoples schedules at this late stage in the game.
We apologize to the many who we wanted to see but now realize we will not be able to get around to see you. We pray that our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season is heart felt and finds you well and in the spirit of the season. Now we know we must make the meetings in advance so we can get together, talk and laugh about all that has transpired in your lives.
As is always the case with Deeds and I, we cherish the time we spend together kinda doing nothing. (See I have had an impact on her. Yes you know that it is my job in life to spread the gospel of nothing. How very enjoyable it is to do, especially if you do it well!). We have some of that built into our schedule as well. Along with simple family time, like Christmas day, sitting around in your pajamas til mid day. And of course for me starting on Boxing Day, watching the World Junior tournament to the end.
So until at least after Christmas I will say adieu. Have a Very Merry Christmas, with that spirit in your heart. To all a very Happy, Prosperous and Healthy New Year. Keep your stick on the ice!
Sawadee Krup
We are home, intact and loving it. Deeds and I arrived on Saturday nite, a little later than scheduled but safe and sound. A great flight with lots of sleep for both of us.
Lynda and Scott met us at the airport and Deeds and I headed home for a cup of tea in our own house!!
Not much time to sit as Lena arrived at Island airport at 10:30. We picked her up and were home sitting on the couch chatting until after midnight. How great is that.
A few sleeping pills and it seems like Deeds and I are starting to adjust. Not kidding ourselves though. Jet lag is still there in the background. Ohh you can mask it with holiday beverages and copious amounts of very good red wine (thanks Tammy and George) but we are still a little wobbly kneed at times. Sleep will come when it wants and leave just as quickly. I think Deeds and I are in for a fun four weeks from a sleep perspective.
We have all the appropriate dinner and visit plans laid out on a daytimer. Bookings and shifting meetings around as best we can.
We now realize that we should have set up a few in advance as now it seems impossible to wedge a get together into ours or other peoples schedules at this late stage in the game.
We apologize to the many who we wanted to see but now realize we will not be able to get around to see you. We pray that our best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season is heart felt and finds you well and in the spirit of the season. Now we know we must make the meetings in advance so we can get together, talk and laugh about all that has transpired in your lives.
As is always the case with Deeds and I, we cherish the time we spend together kinda doing nothing. (See I have had an impact on her. Yes you know that it is my job in life to spread the gospel of nothing. How very enjoyable it is to do, especially if you do it well!). We have some of that built into our schedule as well. Along with simple family time, like Christmas day, sitting around in your pajamas til mid day. And of course for me starting on Boxing Day, watching the World Junior tournament to the end.
So until at least after Christmas I will say adieu. Have a Very Merry Christmas, with that spirit in your heart. To all a very Happy, Prosperous and Healthy New Year. Keep your stick on the ice!
Sawadee Krup
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Last from Bangkok
Hi folks. Well two more sleeps and we are on a plane to TO. Time just flys, hehehe, no really. Just a few short months ago I was wondering if I was up to blogging, now you can't shut me up. Well there might be a little hiatus. I will give you some updates from TO, but since most of you will be part of TO it may seem redundant, but maybe for posterity I will make entries while at home. I know somehow at the end of all of this Deeds will find a way to get these blogs into a photo album or some such!!
So the last entry from BKK is about our last day trip up to Ayutthaya.
There are two sets of pictures to be viewed at this link: please click on this link and then click again on the address offered go to link ; Ayutthaya PICS
Hope you enjoy those.
We started out that day with an early morning start. We had a five minute walk down the street to meet the tour mini bus. Our pick up time was 6:30. Yeah, on a weekend as well. Sad part was that we ended up driving around picking up other people and then congegating in a parking lot until all were ther and loaded onto a big tour bus. Wasted a lot of time. It was then a leisurely hour plus ride up to Bang Pa-in. The history of this summer palace of the royal family goes back to when Ayutthaya was the captial of Thailand in the 17th century. The first residence was constructed in 1632. Various other additions and deletions have taken place over the years. Temples added, etc. It was a gorgeous day and the palace did not disappoint. The ground were outstanding as you will see in our pics. The disappointment is that it is still a summer retreat and therefore only the royal family is actually allowed into the palace. No walk arounds for the tourista. Oh well, a joy to see.
From the palace grounds we are back on the tour bus and off to the historic city of Ayutthaya.
These ruins sit in the middle of developed urban and populated areas. It is not like they are out in the boonies. Well they are to an extent, however they are a large part of the tourist process in thailand, supporting a large number of people, who live in and around the ruins. Not unlike the coliseum in Rome as an example. To actually find it on a map you would need to look up Pra Nakon Si Ayutthaya.
We spent another hour or so at the site walking around. The tour guide gave us a little intro into the site but after that left us to ourselves. He did mention to not miss the free elephant show before we boarded the bus again to head off to the last leg of our tour down the Chao Praya River.
The site was filled with many ruins as the pics detail. The history of Ayutthaya goes back to 1600. It is estimated that Ayutthaya had a population of about 300,000, with the population perhaps reaching 1,000,000 by 1700. This would make it one of the largest cities in the world at that time.
In 1767 the city was destroyed by the Burmese, resulting in the collapse of the kingdom. The ruins of the old city now form the Ayutthaya National Historic Park which is recognized internationally as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The present day city was refounded a few kilometers to the east.
We toured the Wat that is on the site and then made our way over to the elephant show. Man I wish we had been to this earlier.
First we had our pictures taken with some of the stars of the show. Great fellas these elephants were, well except for the one who kept trying to undo my shoelaces! Cheeky bugger, he kept tuggin away. We had totally misunderstood the tour guide about this free show. We thought we were going to bus to a location. So when we finished our little sojourn into the Wat we sat down at a shaddy table for a rest and then sauntered over to the tour bus with about 5 minutes to go before departure. We then noticed all of the elephant action caught wind of the show and went over and sat down. We were mesmerized by the tricks they performed. So mucy so that the tour guide came over and hustled us away. We were holding up the bus! You know that couple that is alwasy last on, you sit in the bus saying, "Why aren't we leaving Hayzoos? Is something wrong" As the tour guides walk up and down the aisle counting heads. Then the bozos arrive chattering away, "How could she not take 15 cents for the bedspread, pillow cases and two sheets. It was totally a good offer! I was negotiating. Just like they tell you in the travel books!"
It was a show I hope I get to go back and see.
Back on the bus we were 45 minutes to a location closer to BKK to continue with the river cruise portion of the tour. We had a great lunch on board and quickly made it up to the observation deck. It was sunny and hot and we took the opportunity to catch some rays. See the river and all of the neighbourhoods along the way. Too much to remember. Some great sites and a look at life on the Chao Praya. The lifeblood of BKK.
Off now to watch the rest of the Habs / Flyers game.
Hope this finds you well.
Sawadee Krup
So the last entry from BKK is about our last day trip up to Ayutthaya.
There are two sets of pictures to be viewed at this link: please click on this link and then click again on the address offered go to link ; Ayutthaya PICS
Hope you enjoy those.
We started out that day with an early morning start. We had a five minute walk down the street to meet the tour mini bus. Our pick up time was 6:30. Yeah, on a weekend as well. Sad part was that we ended up driving around picking up other people and then congegating in a parking lot until all were ther and loaded onto a big tour bus. Wasted a lot of time. It was then a leisurely hour plus ride up to Bang Pa-in. The history of this summer palace of the royal family goes back to when Ayutthaya was the captial of Thailand in the 17th century. The first residence was constructed in 1632. Various other additions and deletions have taken place over the years. Temples added, etc. It was a gorgeous day and the palace did not disappoint. The ground were outstanding as you will see in our pics. The disappointment is that it is still a summer retreat and therefore only the royal family is actually allowed into the palace. No walk arounds for the tourista. Oh well, a joy to see.
From the palace grounds we are back on the tour bus and off to the historic city of Ayutthaya.
These ruins sit in the middle of developed urban and populated areas. It is not like they are out in the boonies. Well they are to an extent, however they are a large part of the tourist process in thailand, supporting a large number of people, who live in and around the ruins. Not unlike the coliseum in Rome as an example. To actually find it on a map you would need to look up Pra Nakon Si Ayutthaya.
We spent another hour or so at the site walking around. The tour guide gave us a little intro into the site but after that left us to ourselves. He did mention to not miss the free elephant show before we boarded the bus again to head off to the last leg of our tour down the Chao Praya River.
The site was filled with many ruins as the pics detail. The history of Ayutthaya goes back to 1600. It is estimated that Ayutthaya had a population of about 300,000, with the population perhaps reaching 1,000,000 by 1700. This would make it one of the largest cities in the world at that time.
In 1767 the city was destroyed by the Burmese, resulting in the collapse of the kingdom. The ruins of the old city now form the Ayutthaya National Historic Park which is recognized internationally as a Unesco World Heritage Site. The present day city was refounded a few kilometers to the east.
We toured the Wat that is on the site and then made our way over to the elephant show. Man I wish we had been to this earlier.
First we had our pictures taken with some of the stars of the show. Great fellas these elephants were, well except for the one who kept trying to undo my shoelaces! Cheeky bugger, he kept tuggin away. We had totally misunderstood the tour guide about this free show. We thought we were going to bus to a location. So when we finished our little sojourn into the Wat we sat down at a shaddy table for a rest and then sauntered over to the tour bus with about 5 minutes to go before departure. We then noticed all of the elephant action caught wind of the show and went over and sat down. We were mesmerized by the tricks they performed. So mucy so that the tour guide came over and hustled us away. We were holding up the bus! You know that couple that is alwasy last on, you sit in the bus saying, "Why aren't we leaving Hayzoos? Is something wrong" As the tour guides walk up and down the aisle counting heads. Then the bozos arrive chattering away, "How could she not take 15 cents for the bedspread, pillow cases and two sheets. It was totally a good offer! I was negotiating. Just like they tell you in the travel books!"
It was a show I hope I get to go back and see.
Back on the bus we were 45 minutes to a location closer to BKK to continue with the river cruise portion of the tour. We had a great lunch on board and quickly made it up to the observation deck. It was sunny and hot and we took the opportunity to catch some rays. See the river and all of the neighbourhoods along the way. Too much to remember. Some great sites and a look at life on the Chao Praya. The lifeblood of BKK.
Off now to watch the rest of the Habs / Flyers game.
Hope this finds you well.
Sawadee Krup
Monday, December 13, 2010
Five more sleeps and home!
Ya think we are starting to get anxious about coming home? Totally! Wow. And we originally thought that we would pass by Christmas, have Lena come to BKK because she gets two weeks off now and only one for reading week. Can you imagine. Man am I ever glad we decided to come home at this time. It just feels so right to be sharing this with all of you and being able to come home to talk and see you all. Thanks Leenz for sticking to your guns. All Deeds and I ever wanted to do was to spend Christmas with Lena and now it has turned out to be a home coming of sorts.
As I sit and pen this latest effort it is raining very nicely in BKK. Might clear up later in the day which will make it steam bath city, but a good day to tell you about our last long weekend in BKK. The weekend before we head home took a few twists right at the end. We had decided that we should get out to play a game at BGC and since Friday was a holiday what better time to do that. Ooops. Waited to long to get a tee time. Best I could do was 2:45, which meant only 9 holes, so we kinda bailed. Tried to set up a game for Sunday but that put us into another reorg of plans so no golf was played on the weekend. I am hoping to get out tomorrow, Tuesday for a game. Will have to check it out. I cut my hand washing dishes on Sunday. Darn wine glasses are some flimsy is came apart in my hand. Nice little gash, lots of blood and some decent sympathy from Deeds.
But I digress. The weekend played out like this. Friday, since we had no golf meant a classic BKK stand by replacement activity > Shopping!!!!
I have made one simple request for a Christmas present, a new putter. I love my white hot, but it has been six years and every golfer knows that new equipment means lower scores! So I have been scouting Canadian websites for prices to see if I can save the tax and buy one here. So going down to Thaniya Plaza to check out the golf stores was on our list to do on Friday.
Deeds had volunteered a trip to the famous thai silk company Jim Thompson. She even had a coupon for the factory Christmas sale. Unfortunatly the factory was a 30 minute bus ride after the last stop on the BTS Skytrain. Not a ride that either of us was looking forward to. So we changed it up. We hit the pool and tried to brown up, then out to the street for some great Phad See Ewe (Siew). The folks across the street are awesome and have become a weekend favourite for us.
From a good lunch we jumped on the MRT. The plaza that we were looking for is located at the corner of Lumphini Park and Rama IV Road. No trouble getting there. Got off the train walked up to the street. Then we commence to put our left foot in, take our left foot out, somehow we turned ourselves all about with the resulting hokey pokey costing us about 45 minutes. Man it was unbelievable. We had our phones out, with GPS signals flying all over the place we still managed to walk in the wrong direction. Holy mother or pearl. We got to one corner and there is this other farang asking a tuk tuk driver what street he is on. The tuk tuk drivers here always start or answer with "Where you going misser" Where you want to go misser" Well what we heard the driver tell the guy was, more or less, if you want to know where you are get in, if you no get in then you someplace else misser. So of course we put our right foot in and took our right foot out, and turned around and starting walking the other way thinking that he was telling him that the street we were on was not the street we were looking for......... Now I am getting lost all over again. Suffice to say we were not happy puppies that we couldn't find this major BKK shopping plaza.
Bright side, as we walked along finally on track and low and behold there is a Jim Thompson retail outlet. Beautiful silk everything. Expensive yes. But sooo beautiful. Would have made great Christmas gifts, ;-) but we were headed for the golf shop, remember.
Thaniya Plaza . So with only one more little stroll to far down the street, and some help from the locals we finally found the plaza. Actually, if we had looked across the street when we got off the MRT, we would have seen it. Totally unbelievable experience. Not alot of fun.
Bright side, I found the putter I was looking for and it will be in the bag after Christmas. Thanks Deeds!!
We were now pooped and homeward bound. (Side bar: There is a great outdoor market at Thaniya called Patpong Night market. A return is inevitable.) On the train home we decided to take a walk down Sukhumvit one station away from ours and see what the street vendors had to offer. (I was actually looking for some Titleist golf shirts I had seen earlier in the week. Like Deeds said. "Oh yeah, you need another golf shirt Jer!!"). We got off at Nana and walked back. Found all kinds of stuff that will make its way back to Canada. Bags and packages in each hand we stopped off at Scuda, our favourite basic thai restaurant in the area. And then an unbeknownst tradition developed at this eatery. You will do this when you are here. It goes like this. If you are unsure or do not announce what you want before you get to Scuda the menu falls into the hands of milady. Deeds has done this on at least three occasions now at this particular establishment and she must do it every time. What great choices she makes. Especially the beer at the beginning, no seriously, great food groupings and different dishes. Not always same same. No pressure Deeds, keep up the good work.
The major attraction for our weekend was on Saturday. We had booked a full day tour to Ayutthaya. I will have many pictures on the Picasa web site soon, and another blog all about that wonderful trip. This is one that you will also go on. Hope this finds you all very well.
Sawadee Krup
As I sit and pen this latest effort it is raining very nicely in BKK. Might clear up later in the day which will make it steam bath city, but a good day to tell you about our last long weekend in BKK. The weekend before we head home took a few twists right at the end. We had decided that we should get out to play a game at BGC and since Friday was a holiday what better time to do that. Ooops. Waited to long to get a tee time. Best I could do was 2:45, which meant only 9 holes, so we kinda bailed. Tried to set up a game for Sunday but that put us into another reorg of plans so no golf was played on the weekend. I am hoping to get out tomorrow, Tuesday for a game. Will have to check it out. I cut my hand washing dishes on Sunday. Darn wine glasses are some flimsy is came apart in my hand. Nice little gash, lots of blood and some decent sympathy from Deeds.
But I digress. The weekend played out like this. Friday, since we had no golf meant a classic BKK stand by replacement activity > Shopping!!!!
I have made one simple request for a Christmas present, a new putter. I love my white hot, but it has been six years and every golfer knows that new equipment means lower scores! So I have been scouting Canadian websites for prices to see if I can save the tax and buy one here. So going down to Thaniya Plaza to check out the golf stores was on our list to do on Friday.
Deeds had volunteered a trip to the famous thai silk company Jim Thompson. She even had a coupon for the factory Christmas sale. Unfortunatly the factory was a 30 minute bus ride after the last stop on the BTS Skytrain. Not a ride that either of us was looking forward to. So we changed it up. We hit the pool and tried to brown up, then out to the street for some great Phad See Ewe (Siew). The folks across the street are awesome and have become a weekend favourite for us.
From a good lunch we jumped on the MRT. The plaza that we were looking for is located at the corner of Lumphini Park and Rama IV Road. No trouble getting there. Got off the train walked up to the street. Then we commence to put our left foot in, take our left foot out, somehow we turned ourselves all about with the resulting hokey pokey costing us about 45 minutes. Man it was unbelievable. We had our phones out, with GPS signals flying all over the place we still managed to walk in the wrong direction. Holy mother or pearl. We got to one corner and there is this other farang asking a tuk tuk driver what street he is on. The tuk tuk drivers here always start or answer with "Where you going misser" Where you want to go misser" Well what we heard the driver tell the guy was, more or less, if you want to know where you are get in, if you no get in then you someplace else misser. So of course we put our right foot in and took our right foot out, and turned around and starting walking the other way thinking that he was telling him that the street we were on was not the street we were looking for......... Now I am getting lost all over again. Suffice to say we were not happy puppies that we couldn't find this major BKK shopping plaza.
Thaniya Plaza . So with only one more little stroll to far down the street, and some help from the locals we finally found the plaza. Actually, if we had looked across the street when we got off the MRT, we would have seen it. Totally unbelievable experience. Not alot of fun.
Bright side, I found the putter I was looking for and it will be in the bag after Christmas. Thanks Deeds!!
The major attraction for our weekend was on Saturday. We had booked a full day tour to Ayutthaya. I will have many pictures on the Picasa web site soon, and another blog all about that wonderful trip. This is one that you will also go on. Hope this finds you all very well.
Sawadee Krup
Give a guy some cred will ya!!
Hey how do ya like that Don Cherry. Goes and steals my photo and uses it on HNIC - Coaches Corner and doesn't give me a byline. WTF!
Man o man. There is going to be some talkin with this guy when I get back to TO.
Remember, you saw it here first!!
Man o man. There is going to be some talkin with this guy when I get back to TO.
Remember, you saw it here first!!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Weekends in BKK-2
So the next big weekend was part of the long weekend holdiay for the Kings Birthday. I showed you a few of those pics in the last blog.
It was originally planned that we spend the weekend with my T Bay friend on his boat and just hanging out. This got cancelled at the last minute due to an illness with his friend in Phuket. He ended up flying there on the weekend. So it was alternate planning mode for us!
This is no big deal for Deeds and I to plan. We can very easily slip into a stay at home relaxer weekend. In fact it is the kind of weekend we enjoy. We do this alot even back in the Big Smoke. We don't mind if it rains sometimes cause it allows us to just sit and read the paper, drink some tea, chat some. In the fall especially. Deeds can get to putting together her famous beef stew, or just a big ole pot of veggie soup. Is a good life when you can enjoy like that and it is what Deeds and I can do! Hard for some, easy for us. Simple things.
But before we got there I had checked out some of the hotels in Pattaya to see if we should chase down there to the beach. No was the final answer so we started the weekend out with relaxin on our minds. We just stayed home. I have a few recipes with me that we have come to enjoy as staples. I have scouted out the stores to see if I can access something close to authentic ingredients and that was to be part of the weekend. A feast on "Blokes fussili" right out of Jamie Oliver's cookbook that Lena gave me for Christmas last. Maybe throw in a game of golf, the first for Deeds and we have a weekend!
Saturday we were down to our own pool early (sun window is 9:30 to 12) and read our books and tanned and dipped in the pool. I missed the Habs game. For some funny reason it was on two hours ahead of normal. Not to fear Habs won and I watched the Leafs take down the hated Bs in a shoot out. Well done lads.
Deeds got in a phone call to her mom, I did the same with mine. We chased notes with Lena, she is in the middle of end of semester stuff so we spent less time with her than we wanted. As Shelly has said Lena may have moved her bed to the library. She is there alot! But we understand, this is what Lena wanted to do the most, go to University. Live away from home. We respect and admire her for it.
For lunch we decided to try some street food. There was some good activity to the north of us on our Soi so we wandered down to take a look. Fantastic we thought as we approached. All kinds of Thai folks from the neighbourhood. Security guards from nearby apartments, taxi drivers pulling over to have something or take away. All the right signals. When we started asking questions we got all kinds of offers. He had fresh chicken breast, some pork, a handful of fresh prawns, anything you wanted he would make. I decided on a plate of Pad Sewei. Broad noodles, veggies mixed in with pieces of fresh chicken just cooked especially for me. Deeds went with the daily special which was laid out in a pan there on the cart. Roasted pork with veggies over rice. All this came with a fantastic bowl of chicken soup with a clear coloured squash chopped up, kinda like potatoe but not. It was an awesome lunch. Total for the two or us = 60 baht. Yep two bucks!! I have no idea how they do it.
Saturday evening was movie time and we curled up to watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Sunday was to be a golf day for us at my club. I had booked a tee time for early afternoon and expected to play with Deeds and then have dinner at the club. We had lined up our driver for the day. And then at mid morning I got a call from my golf buddy Kuhn John. This is the Thai gentleman who helped me secure my membership at Bangkok Golf Club (BGC). He asked if we wanted to play with him at Chuan Chuen a club not far from BGC, he said it would be a fivesome as he had invited his friends Kuhn Ni and Kuhn Don. We figured it would be a hoot so we agreed.
This turned out to be the highlight of the weekend for us. Ni and Don are fascinating people. She is a former Thai airlines hostess who now works in administration for the airline. Kuhn Don is everything. He has his own plastics business, is the Managing Director of the Thailand Industries Association, which is an appointed position and is therefore well connected. So well connected that he told Diane to say hi to Chaiwat the CEO of Siam City Investment Bank (the one that was purchased by BNS and the reason we are here). You remember Chaiwat, went to Louisville University, the Cardinals!! Yeah, exactly. Even when you are in Thailand it is a small world after all. How the heck could we have met someone who knows someone we met and knows him very very well. Don knows Chaiwat so well he said "Tell him pe Don said hi". Pe meaning older brother. Which is how they refer to each other as they both went to school together at Chulalongkorn University. WOW!
After golf was the best. We had loads of fun on the course which is a Nick Faldo design, lots of water as always in Bangkok, but when we finished we ended up in the grill / snack bar area of the clubhouse. It was dark, 6 pm when we all met. The King's birthday celebration was on the TV and they were explaining things to us about the ceremonies. Extremely interesting. But it was the conversation, the food and the wine in that order and combination that made the evening. We were asked questions from, "So what do you think of the Thai economy?" to "When can you get out to play golf in the morning Diane?"
These were the nicest people. They shared with us, made us feel absolutely fantastic and carried on like we were old friends.
The thai dishes kept coming out of the kitchen even though the whole place, except for us, was empty. They had even turned out lights in the other area of the restaurant! We had fish, thai beef (a little tough but great dipping sauce), a german dish they called pork knuckle, what we call a ham hock (with real mustard!!) and we finished off with a huge plate of pad thai. Marvelous.
To drink, Kuhn John had wandered out to his car and brought in two bottles of a chilean cab that was perfect for the occasion. John apparently buys it 60 cases at a time from a buddy of his who is a supplier in Thailand.
He also apparently keeps a case in his car! I played golf with him on one other occasion and he produced another bottle for the table. Of course I put in an order for 2 cases the next time he is buying. Wine here is taxed to the nines. Very hard to get a good wine under $18 cdn. This was a good wine and the price should be about 13 per bottle when bought by the case!
Can't honestly remember what time we got home, sure was glad that it wasn't a school night, cause there is no way we were getting up before 7 on Monday morning. Nice relaxin day on Monday. The weather even cooperated, not rain but it was cloudy and cool (28) all day. I went out for a walk in the afternoon to do some specific shopping for our special dinner. Deeds was getting into finalizing the iDB books for 09/10. We had a glass of wine while making dinner and a glass with. (our house brand right is Three Penguins, very nice cab that goes with anything). We settled in and watched Eat, Pray, Love. That's the weekend.
And now you are pretty much up to date.
I did play golf on Tuesday. It was in a tournament to raise money for the National Defense College here in Bangkok. This was a fund raising tournament. 18 M Baht was raised. The tournament is so big it is held over two days. A 6:30 tee time for the morning tournament on a 36 hole course, kinda like Lion Head golf course, two groups per tee box = 288 golfers. Then there is an afternoon tee time at 12:30, same same. You are fightning the morning crowd showering as you come into the locker room to change. Then they do it all over again the next day. That's how you raise $600,000 in two days! There was dinner and prizes for each tournament! John brought in his own bottle of wine!! Nice day.
Hope this finds you well. Nine more sleeps!
Sawadee Krup
It was originally planned that we spend the weekend with my T Bay friend on his boat and just hanging out. This got cancelled at the last minute due to an illness with his friend in Phuket. He ended up flying there on the weekend. So it was alternate planning mode for us!
This is no big deal for Deeds and I to plan. We can very easily slip into a stay at home relaxer weekend. In fact it is the kind of weekend we enjoy. We do this alot even back in the Big Smoke. We don't mind if it rains sometimes cause it allows us to just sit and read the paper, drink some tea, chat some. In the fall especially. Deeds can get to putting together her famous beef stew, or just a big ole pot of veggie soup. Is a good life when you can enjoy like that and it is what Deeds and I can do! Hard for some, easy for us. Simple things.
But before we got there I had checked out some of the hotels in Pattaya to see if we should chase down there to the beach. No was the final answer so we started the weekend out with relaxin on our minds. We just stayed home. I have a few recipes with me that we have come to enjoy as staples. I have scouted out the stores to see if I can access something close to authentic ingredients and that was to be part of the weekend. A feast on "Blokes fussili" right out of Jamie Oliver's cookbook that Lena gave me for Christmas last. Maybe throw in a game of golf, the first for Deeds and we have a weekend!
Saturday we were down to our own pool early (sun window is 9:30 to 12) and read our books and tanned and dipped in the pool. I missed the Habs game. For some funny reason it was on two hours ahead of normal. Not to fear Habs won and I watched the Leafs take down the hated Bs in a shoot out. Well done lads.
Deeds got in a phone call to her mom, I did the same with mine. We chased notes with Lena, she is in the middle of end of semester stuff so we spent less time with her than we wanted. As Shelly has said Lena may have moved her bed to the library. She is there alot! But we understand, this is what Lena wanted to do the most, go to University. Live away from home. We respect and admire her for it.
For lunch we decided to try some street food. There was some good activity to the north of us on our Soi so we wandered down to take a look. Fantastic we thought as we approached. All kinds of Thai folks from the neighbourhood. Security guards from nearby apartments, taxi drivers pulling over to have something or take away. All the right signals. When we started asking questions we got all kinds of offers. He had fresh chicken breast, some pork, a handful of fresh prawns, anything you wanted he would make. I decided on a plate of Pad Sewei. Broad noodles, veggies mixed in with pieces of fresh chicken just cooked especially for me. Deeds went with the daily special which was laid out in a pan there on the cart. Roasted pork with veggies over rice. All this came with a fantastic bowl of chicken soup with a clear coloured squash chopped up, kinda like potatoe but not. It was an awesome lunch. Total for the two or us = 60 baht. Yep two bucks!! I have no idea how they do it.
Saturday evening was movie time and we curled up to watch The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
Sunday was to be a golf day for us at my club. I had booked a tee time for early afternoon and expected to play with Deeds and then have dinner at the club. We had lined up our driver for the day. And then at mid morning I got a call from my golf buddy Kuhn John. This is the Thai gentleman who helped me secure my membership at Bangkok Golf Club (BGC). He asked if we wanted to play with him at Chuan Chuen a club not far from BGC, he said it would be a fivesome as he had invited his friends Kuhn Ni and Kuhn Don. We figured it would be a hoot so we agreed.
This turned out to be the highlight of the weekend for us. Ni and Don are fascinating people. She is a former Thai airlines hostess who now works in administration for the airline. Kuhn Don is everything. He has his own plastics business, is the Managing Director of the Thailand Industries Association, which is an appointed position and is therefore well connected. So well connected that he told Diane to say hi to Chaiwat the CEO of Siam City Investment Bank (the one that was purchased by BNS and the reason we are here). You remember Chaiwat, went to Louisville University, the Cardinals!! Yeah, exactly. Even when you are in Thailand it is a small world after all. How the heck could we have met someone who knows someone we met and knows him very very well. Don knows Chaiwat so well he said "Tell him pe Don said hi". Pe meaning older brother. Which is how they refer to each other as they both went to school together at Chulalongkorn University. WOW!
After golf was the best. We had loads of fun on the course which is a Nick Faldo design, lots of water as always in Bangkok, but when we finished we ended up in the grill / snack bar area of the clubhouse. It was dark, 6 pm when we all met. The King's birthday celebration was on the TV and they were explaining things to us about the ceremonies. Extremely interesting. But it was the conversation, the food and the wine in that order and combination that made the evening. We were asked questions from, "So what do you think of the Thai economy?" to "When can you get out to play golf in the morning Diane?"
These were the nicest people. They shared with us, made us feel absolutely fantastic and carried on like we were old friends.
The thai dishes kept coming out of the kitchen even though the whole place, except for us, was empty. They had even turned out lights in the other area of the restaurant! We had fish, thai beef (a little tough but great dipping sauce), a german dish they called pork knuckle, what we call a ham hock (with real mustard!!) and we finished off with a huge plate of pad thai. Marvelous.
To drink, Kuhn John had wandered out to his car and brought in two bottles of a chilean cab that was perfect for the occasion. John apparently buys it 60 cases at a time from a buddy of his who is a supplier in Thailand.
He also apparently keeps a case in his car! I played golf with him on one other occasion and he produced another bottle for the table. Of course I put in an order for 2 cases the next time he is buying. Wine here is taxed to the nines. Very hard to get a good wine under $18 cdn. This was a good wine and the price should be about 13 per bottle when bought by the case!
Can't honestly remember what time we got home, sure was glad that it wasn't a school night, cause there is no way we were getting up before 7 on Monday morning. Nice relaxin day on Monday. The weather even cooperated, not rain but it was cloudy and cool (28) all day. I went out for a walk in the afternoon to do some specific shopping for our special dinner. Deeds was getting into finalizing the iDB books for 09/10. We had a glass of wine while making dinner and a glass with. (our house brand right is Three Penguins, very nice cab that goes with anything). We settled in and watched Eat, Pray, Love. That's the weekend.
And now you are pretty much up to date.
Hope this finds you well. Nine more sleeps!
Sawadee Krup
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Weekends in BKK
Deeds and I have just had another fantastic weekend and I still haven't told you about the last one!
Our first great weekend that I will tell you about was as a result of workload. No, no not me, you people just jump to conclusions. It was for Deedles.
I am actually coping very well with my workload, especially now that we have a maid coming in three times a week! But seriously we had talked about our wanting to get to see some places in and around Thailand. Most trips, especially if they take a bit of travel we will wait until Lena gets here so we can experience these together. Is only fair. But there are some things that you want to do more than once. And Pattaya is one of these things. It was Pattaya this time, may well turn out to be Hua Hin in the future and then these will be the places that we recommend to you as short get aways from BKK hustle and bustle. Enjoy the sun, surf, food and just do some good R&R. Lay around at the pool kinda thing. This is what Deeds and I did two weekends ago.
We woke early and Phatsin (our driver) had us on the road by 9. The two hour trip took 75 minutes. Phatsin is good! We also stayed in the north of Pattaya so that may have shave 20 minutes or so. Deeds took to looking for an upgrade the moment she stepped up to the registration counter. To kill a little time before check in we had a tour of the good rooms available and then selected one that was already made up and said "So if the room is ready and that is the one we want can we drop our bags in there right now?
"Oh certainly Madam"
We were at the beach by 11.
Now these are standard resort pools. You know, people come down at 6:45 in the morning and put their towels on the chaise lounge and then don't show up until 1:30, stay for 20 minutes and then go sit at the bar all day!! So at 11 in the morning most chairs are still empty but they are "taken". So we had to do some cruising and keep a watchful eye out, all the time starting to gear down and relax.
We managed to get poolside by about 1 o'clock. Good thing as well. There are these nasty little ants or flies, not sure what, out on the sand at the beach and they prey on white meat. Which is Deeds, not me. And of course Deeds loves the ocean and swimming so she actually wants to be on the beach, me not so much. I am a lot better than I used to be what with the problems I had with water when I was younger and all, but that is a story for another blog! Besides, the locals think I am one of them (until they see my eyes), I am a darker shade than most! So these bugs do not even come close to me.
The pool was marvelous. Dinner that evening at the hotel (Pullman Asiawan Pattaya for the interweb freaks) was seafood buffet, eat all you can as they say down here. Bump the price by 400 baht to 999 per person and they threw in a bottle of decent cab. We ate, drank and had a great time.
Next morning Jer was up at 6:30 down to the pool and reserved two lounge chairs in prime sun spots and went back up to bed. We sunned and swam until 4 when Phatsin came to pick us up. Back at the apartment by 6:30. Out of this world. We love it. So much so that Diane is laying out a 20 night offer to the hotel over a one year period. We'll but 20 nights up front if we can get a really good rate from them.We will / we must go to some place like that once a month. It is so relaxing. Felt to us like a weekend up at Pineaires!! Just draws all the city and stress out of you and you relax. Soooooo nice. You will try it for sure.
Next blog I will let you know about our holiday weekend, how we passed the time.
It was the King's birthday on Sunday so this past Monday was a holiday, no work for Deeds.
As I have said before the Thai people love their king. They also are very deep in traditions. To show how much love they broke a tradition on this birthday. The normal celebration is a lot of marching at the royal palace as the king looks on. He is very ill and in hospital every day rather than at the palace. So the decision was made to have 500 boats float past the hospital he is in to honour him rather than have him be in the sun. The king still came out and made an appearance and said a few words. Happy 83rd!!
And this coming Friday is Constitution Day. So in Thailand this is a three day work week. Sweet. We were thinking of maybe sneaking away this coming weekend for some sun and fun but have decided it is too close to our departure and we have stuff that needs to get done. So we will go to our own pool for a few hours every morning.
Hope this finds you well.
Sawadee Krup
Our first great weekend that I will tell you about was as a result of workload. No, no not me, you people just jump to conclusions. It was for Deedles.
I am actually coping very well with my workload, especially now that we have a maid coming in three times a week! But seriously we had talked about our wanting to get to see some places in and around Thailand. Most trips, especially if they take a bit of travel we will wait until Lena gets here so we can experience these together. Is only fair. But there are some things that you want to do more than once. And Pattaya is one of these things. It was Pattaya this time, may well turn out to be Hua Hin in the future and then these will be the places that we recommend to you as short get aways from BKK hustle and bustle. Enjoy the sun, surf, food and just do some good R&R. Lay around at the pool kinda thing. This is what Deeds and I did two weekends ago.
We woke early and Phatsin (our driver) had us on the road by 9. The two hour trip took 75 minutes. Phatsin is good! We also stayed in the north of Pattaya so that may have shave 20 minutes or so. Deeds took to looking for an upgrade the moment she stepped up to the registration counter. To kill a little time before check in we had a tour of the good rooms available and then selected one that was already made up and said "So if the room is ready and that is the one we want can we drop our bags in there right now?
"Oh certainly Madam"
We were at the beach by 11.
Now these are standard resort pools. You know, people come down at 6:45 in the morning and put their towels on the chaise lounge and then don't show up until 1:30, stay for 20 minutes and then go sit at the bar all day!! So at 11 in the morning most chairs are still empty but they are "taken". So we had to do some cruising and keep a watchful eye out, all the time starting to gear down and relax.
We managed to get poolside by about 1 o'clock. Good thing as well. There are these nasty little ants or flies, not sure what, out on the sand at the beach and they prey on white meat. Which is Deeds, not me. And of course Deeds loves the ocean and swimming so she actually wants to be on the beach, me not so much. I am a lot better than I used to be what with the problems I had with water when I was younger and all, but that is a story for another blog! Besides, the locals think I am one of them (until they see my eyes), I am a darker shade than most! So these bugs do not even come close to me.
The pool was marvelous. Dinner that evening at the hotel (Pullman Asiawan Pattaya for the interweb freaks) was seafood buffet, eat all you can as they say down here. Bump the price by 400 baht to 999 per person and they threw in a bottle of decent cab. We ate, drank and had a great time.
Next morning Jer was up at 6:30 down to the pool and reserved two lounge chairs in prime sun spots and went back up to bed. We sunned and swam until 4 when Phatsin came to pick us up. Back at the apartment by 6:30. Out of this world. We love it. So much so that Diane is laying out a 20 night offer to the hotel over a one year period. We'll but 20 nights up front if we can get a really good rate from them.We will / we must go to some place like that once a month. It is so relaxing. Felt to us like a weekend up at Pineaires!! Just draws all the city and stress out of you and you relax. Soooooo nice. You will try it for sure.
Next blog I will let you know about our holiday weekend, how we passed the time.
It was the King's birthday on Sunday so this past Monday was a holiday, no work for Deeds.
And this coming Friday is Constitution Day. So in Thailand this is a three day work week. Sweet. We were thinking of maybe sneaking away this coming weekend for some sun and fun but have decided it is too close to our departure and we have stuff that needs to get done. So we will go to our own pool for a few hours every morning.
Hope this finds you well.
Sawadee Krup
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Heading down the stretch
We are only a few weeks away from travelling back home to see family and friends. Kinda exciting. Really looking forward to that cold blast of winter that will surely wake us up. Back to reality. Rather than this constant heat and humidity.
No complaints at this point though. The weather has really mellowed out. More wind coming out of the north will cool things down even more in the weeks ahead I am told. Deeds and I might miss a good portion of that cool down as we head back to Mississauga.
My gosh. I hope my car starts?
Snow, is there a hint of snow yet? Any salt trucks out. Ohhhhh I can't wait to see the salt trucks coming down Johnathan Drive. What a site that is for sore eyes. I'll tell ya....................
No not really, just pulling your leg.
I golfed on Monday and Tuesday this week. Thinking of playing again tomorrow.
Deeds and I had people over for dinner last night.
We sat out on our deck for about 75 minutes drinking cold beerz and chatting away. Was very enjoyable. Wandee cooked us up some green curry with chicken, threw on a pot of rice, made a little papaya salad to start with and closed the deal with some coconut sticky rice with cut yellow mango on top. Mmm. mmmm. mmmm.
This weekend is a long weekend. Kings birthday is on Saturday so Deeds gets Monday off. We were originally supposed to go sailing in Pattaya but that deal has fallen thru. So we are going to hang around BKK. Drink more beerz, wine and stuff, kinda gettin ready for going back home, hahaha. Maybe we will play golf on Monday, do some sun tanning cause we wanna look the part when we get back to Canada. I know you all would be disappointed if we didn't have a little colour!
Nothing much more to report at this time. Just cruzin and thinking about Christmas. Lots of people in BKK have their balconies decked out with lights and little green trees. Stores and restaurants also all decorated up. All anticipating the onrush of christian travellers (Europeans) who come here starting this week for about the next 12 weeks. High season as it is referred to. Christmas and New Years are the top weeks. You all remember the tsunami when it hit on Boxing Day, 2004. Lots of vacationers in this part of the world at that timeof the year.
Hope this finds you well. See you sooner than you think
Sawadee Krup
No complaints at this point though. The weather has really mellowed out. More wind coming out of the north will cool things down even more in the weeks ahead I am told. Deeds and I might miss a good portion of that cool down as we head back to Mississauga.
My gosh. I hope my car starts?
Snow, is there a hint of snow yet? Any salt trucks out. Ohhhhh I can't wait to see the salt trucks coming down Johnathan Drive. What a site that is for sore eyes. I'll tell ya....................
No not really, just pulling your leg.
I golfed on Monday and Tuesday this week. Thinking of playing again tomorrow.
Deeds and I had people over for dinner last night.
We sat out on our deck for about 75 minutes drinking cold beerz and chatting away. Was very enjoyable. Wandee cooked us up some green curry with chicken, threw on a pot of rice, made a little papaya salad to start with and closed the deal with some coconut sticky rice with cut yellow mango on top. Mmm. mmmm. mmmm.
This weekend is a long weekend. Kings birthday is on Saturday so Deeds gets Monday off. We were originally supposed to go sailing in Pattaya but that deal has fallen thru. So we are going to hang around BKK. Drink more beerz, wine and stuff, kinda gettin ready for going back home, hahaha. Maybe we will play golf on Monday, do some sun tanning cause we wanna look the part when we get back to Canada. I know you all would be disappointed if we didn't have a little colour!
Nothing much more to report at this time. Just cruzin and thinking about Christmas. Lots of people in BKK have their balconies decked out with lights and little green trees. Stores and restaurants also all decorated up. All anticipating the onrush of christian travellers (Europeans) who come here starting this week for about the next 12 weeks. High season as it is referred to. Christmas and New Years are the top weeks. You all remember the tsunami when it hit on Boxing Day, 2004. Lots of vacationers in this part of the world at that timeof the year.
Hope this finds you well. See you sooner than you think
Sawadee Krup
Friday, November 26, 2010
The Girl's alright
Hey, thanks for askin. Yes Deeds is doin fine. She is busy. Ole faithfuls (Barb and Steve) check in on the blog everyday and never seem to miss a comment or ribbing. Also seem to be laughing quite a bit as well. Man you guys are good for a fellas ego. Thanks. I love that you love reading it.
In fact it might be time for me to humbly say thank you to all that read and pass comments along to me in one way or another that you are enjoying the blog. I am flattered.
But I did want to put in a word for poor old Deedles. As Barby mentioned how is the old girl doin anyway. Well the project is in the final stages of gap analysis. What the jello is that? Well it is the difference between what the new system / processes will do or does do and what you wanted it to do. So if it doesn't do it all then there is a gap. Well before you move on you had better identify the gap or else customers may not get what they paid for or some such.
OK? Good! Glad you got that!
Anyway, Deeds is working a solid 5 days a week. Which is a big adjustment for her. You remember that she works 4 days a week back in Canada. Been doin that for about 9 years. So movin up to 5 days is like changin from welter weight to heavy weight class. A whole different ball game.
And of course our original plan was to have an alternate blogger. Kinda give you the womens vivew of what is going on. Another angle as it were. Wellllll, maybe once in a while we can get her to write a paragraph or two, we'll see.
Bottom line on all of this is that Diane is great. She is doin great. Loving what she does! Some people call it a job, not Deedles. The catch up is not as severe now as it was a little while ago and that helps too.
It also becomes easier because we are enjoying Bangkok. I am enjoying the golf, even though I am playing like a putz right now. Deeds and I enjoy our reshaped life, we still do alot of the same stuff that we did in Mississauga just with an Asian twist on it. We eat out a little more than before. Not as many snacks around the house which may be the cause of us both losing some weight. Less snacks is mostly because some of the stuff they call snacks here ain't snacks! Really ya outta see what they put in plastic bags over here!?
We enjoy the apartment. We have that awesome deck which has taken the place of our deck back home. (This is what we look at when we turn on our laptop. So we are never too far from what we cherish. )
Only now when Deeds comes home from work we sit to have a pint before dinner and we look at this, along with the Bangkok skyline!
Remember it is usually dark when Deeds gets home, it's after six so the skyline is all light up. And yeah I know, the Muskoka chairs are a little more fun then the beach chairs we have out there right now. But a pint and some gabbing works no matter where you have your butt parked.
And we will do it all over again this Friday night, November 26!
Let me put this evening into perspective for you. Kuhn Wandee, our housekeeper has promised to make us a dinner tonight. Looks like it will be a green curry chicken over some basmati rice. Deeds and I can't wait for this. She will cook for us whenever we want something. Wandee tottles off to the market before she arrives here and picks up all the ingredients, puts it all together for us and all we have to do is cook the rice and bingo we have authentic Thai food right in our own place. And yes I will be in the kitchen taking tips and watching what she is doing. Not that I haven't been able to put together a few plates here and there myself. My latest achievement was some Thai Sweet rice with Mango whcih I made on Wednesday for Deeds. Was awesome. Apparently I will have to make some for Doug senior, Deeds thinks he will love it.
So now you know Deeds is great even though she is missing in action from the blogger reports. We are nicely settled in and stuff is starting to grove for us. I have a weekend in Pattaya to tell you about and how that may manifest itself.
This weekend we hope to get out to Chatuchak and order some lamps and some patio furniture. Also have to start looking at getting a basket full of Christmas gifts. We come home in three weeks!!
Sawadee Krup
In fact it might be time for me to humbly say thank you to all that read and pass comments along to me in one way or another that you are enjoying the blog. I am flattered.
But I did want to put in a word for poor old Deedles. As Barby mentioned how is the old girl doin anyway. Well the project is in the final stages of gap analysis. What the jello is that? Well it is the difference between what the new system / processes will do or does do and what you wanted it to do. So if it doesn't do it all then there is a gap. Well before you move on you had better identify the gap or else customers may not get what they paid for or some such.
OK? Good! Glad you got that!
Anyway, Deeds is working a solid 5 days a week. Which is a big adjustment for her. You remember that she works 4 days a week back in Canada. Been doin that for about 9 years. So movin up to 5 days is like changin from welter weight to heavy weight class. A whole different ball game.
And of course our original plan was to have an alternate blogger. Kinda give you the womens vivew of what is going on. Another angle as it were. Wellllll, maybe once in a while we can get her to write a paragraph or two, we'll see.
Bottom line on all of this is that Diane is great. She is doin great. Loving what she does! Some people call it a job, not Deedles. The catch up is not as severe now as it was a little while ago and that helps too.
It also becomes easier because we are enjoying Bangkok. I am enjoying the golf, even though I am playing like a putz right now. Deeds and I enjoy our reshaped life, we still do alot of the same stuff that we did in Mississauga just with an Asian twist on it. We eat out a little more than before. Not as many snacks around the house which may be the cause of us both losing some weight. Less snacks is mostly because some of the stuff they call snacks here ain't snacks! Really ya outta see what they put in plastic bags over here!?
We enjoy the apartment. We have that awesome deck which has taken the place of our deck back home. (This is what we look at when we turn on our laptop. So we are never too far from what we cherish. )
Only now when Deeds comes home from work we sit to have a pint before dinner and we look at this, along with the Bangkok skyline!
Remember it is usually dark when Deeds gets home, it's after six so the skyline is all light up. And yeah I know, the Muskoka chairs are a little more fun then the beach chairs we have out there right now. But a pint and some gabbing works no matter where you have your butt parked.
And we will do it all over again this Friday night, November 26!
Let me put this evening into perspective for you. Kuhn Wandee, our housekeeper has promised to make us a dinner tonight. Looks like it will be a green curry chicken over some basmati rice. Deeds and I can't wait for this. She will cook for us whenever we want something. Wandee tottles off to the market before she arrives here and picks up all the ingredients, puts it all together for us and all we have to do is cook the rice and bingo we have authentic Thai food right in our own place. And yes I will be in the kitchen taking tips and watching what she is doing. Not that I haven't been able to put together a few plates here and there myself. My latest achievement was some Thai Sweet rice with Mango whcih I made on Wednesday for Deeds. Was awesome. Apparently I will have to make some for Doug senior, Deeds thinks he will love it.
So now you know Deeds is great even though she is missing in action from the blogger reports. We are nicely settled in and stuff is starting to grove for us. I have a weekend in Pattaya to tell you about and how that may manifest itself.
This weekend we hope to get out to Chatuchak and order some lamps and some patio furniture. Also have to start looking at getting a basket full of Christmas gifts. We come home in three weeks!!
Sawadee Krup
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Another golf
Ok, so I will try and not make every blog post about golf. Just because golf is what I do I know that everyone out there doesn't want to hear golf all the time.
But you have to know that my life experiences will lean towards golf. You get that right. I mean, I play golf. I do not do it for a living. I do nothing for a living. Playing golf is what I do though to get away from my job, just like you would. It's relaxing. Gets my mind off the routine. Exercise, fresh air and comaraderie. Well not so much of that here, but still it is exercise. If you walk.
The other day I am at my course. I took a few pics with the bb, they aren't the greatest quality but good for putting up here on the blog. No pics of the caddies! I will put up one to get over the mind picture that some of you have of this experience. Trust me, you are wrong. They are caddies. How many of the caddies on the pga tour are you staring at? Right, same here!
The first shot with the club house behind is of the 18th green, you can see the pin which is sitting just off to the right side of the picture here.
This is the landing area / fairway of the 18th hole. A good drive from the whites (235) would put you here with only a wedge in. I play from the yellow tees most often and would have about 8 iron in. Fairway slopes hard left to water so you need to play the ball up on the right hand side. Then you hit across the pond into the green. Nice way to finish with a medium difficulty par 4.
18th green again in the shot to the right, I took two pics of this one because the first time I played the course I stuck a wedge to within four feet and made the putt to finish the round with a birdie. Wahoo! A perfect end to my first round.
In this picture, I believe it is the fairway on # 9 you may have to look real close but you will be able to see to the right of the cell phone tower another tower just sticking up between a u in the trees. This tower has got flood lights on it. Yes, the other reason I joined this course is because it has night golf. In the heat of the summer it may not be possible to play in 42 degree heat without passing out, soooo play at night when the temperature drops to a fresh 33. Wonderful. I am sure that first round will be a blog all to itself. Caddy should earn her money that day.
Go find my ball!!
Hehehe.
This is the short par 4 #15 dog leg left. Big hitters go for it over top of those trees on the left. I aim just left of those two tall coconut trees (all palm trees are referred to as coconut trees by farang like me) and try to fade the ball into the middle of the fairway. Leaves a comfortable 7 or 8 iron into a tough front to back sloping green. Greens here are firm and do not accept a low shot well. If you want the ball to stop better be hitting it Tiger high coming in. Playing the ball to the front edge of the green is what I try to do so the ball has a chance to stay on the putting surface.
Speaking of big hitters, last time out I played with two young Thai fellas. I would put them at about 23 - 25. Both of them pounded the ball about 270 - 80. They played the tips. And I mean the tips. To heck with the tee blocks. These guys stood at the very back edge of the tee box to tee it up. Playing from the Gold tees left me just 10 or so yards behind them in the fairway.
When I met these gentlemen on the first tee I think they gave me the old Bowery Boys shuffle. Cause when they introduces themselves I heard their names as "Bip" and the other was "Bap".
Yeah, so now what do I do? Hey it's bad enough when two guys you have never met before in your whole life are named Larry and Gary and the third guy in the group is, well I don't know, because I forgot that already. But "Bip and Bap". Come on. That's a set up.
It goes something like this:
"Nice shot Bip"
"Uh sorry misster, he Bip methap."
"Sorry what, you're methupt, I thought your name was Bapt, orrr...."
"No Bap"
"Bip"
"Uh what, uh who's away, I think its............... one of you guys?" He says pointing
So on to Nice Shot, or Yeah Baby, no name mentioned. And as always at the end of the round. "Gentlemen, thank you very much for the game. Pleasure, Great to meet you . Thank you. Korp Koon Krup. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Much bowing and bobbing of heads.
Under his breath as he walks away he whispers, maybe we should wear those red and white tags with HELLO MY NAME IS: on your shirt. On the back of your shirt anyway!
Sawadee Krup
But you have to know that my life experiences will lean towards golf. You get that right. I mean, I play golf. I do not do it for a living. I do nothing for a living. Playing golf is what I do though to get away from my job, just like you would. It's relaxing. Gets my mind off the routine. Exercise, fresh air and comaraderie. Well not so much of that here, but still it is exercise. If you walk.
The other day I am at my course. I took a few pics with the bb, they aren't the greatest quality but good for putting up here on the blog. No pics of the caddies! I will put up one to get over the mind picture that some of you have of this experience. Trust me, you are wrong. They are caddies. How many of the caddies on the pga tour are you staring at? Right, same here!
The first shot with the club house behind is of the 18th green, you can see the pin which is sitting just off to the right side of the picture here.
This is the landing area / fairway of the 18th hole. A good drive from the whites (235) would put you here with only a wedge in. I play from the yellow tees most often and would have about 8 iron in. Fairway slopes hard left to water so you need to play the ball up on the right hand side. Then you hit across the pond into the green. Nice way to finish with a medium difficulty par 4.
18th green again in the shot to the right, I took two pics of this one because the first time I played the course I stuck a wedge to within four feet and made the putt to finish the round with a birdie. Wahoo! A perfect end to my first round.
Go find my ball!!
Hehehe.
Speaking of big hitters, last time out I played with two young Thai fellas. I would put them at about 23 - 25. Both of them pounded the ball about 270 - 80. They played the tips. And I mean the tips. To heck with the tee blocks. These guys stood at the very back edge of the tee box to tee it up. Playing from the Gold tees left me just 10 or so yards behind them in the fairway.
When I met these gentlemen on the first tee I think they gave me the old Bowery Boys shuffle. Cause when they introduces themselves I heard their names as "Bip" and the other was "Bap".
Yeah, so now what do I do? Hey it's bad enough when two guys you have never met before in your whole life are named Larry and Gary and the third guy in the group is, well I don't know, because I forgot that already. But "Bip and Bap". Come on. That's a set up.
It goes something like this:
"Nice shot Bip"
"Uh sorry misster, he Bip methap."
"Sorry what, you're methupt, I thought your name was Bapt, orrr...."
"No Bap"
"Bip"
"Uh what, uh who's away, I think its............... one of you guys?" He says pointing
So on to Nice Shot, or Yeah Baby, no name mentioned. And as always at the end of the round. "Gentlemen, thank you very much for the game. Pleasure, Great to meet you . Thank you. Korp Koon Krup. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Much bowing and bobbing of heads.
Under his breath as he walks away he whispers, maybe we should wear those red and white tags with HELLO MY NAME IS: on your shirt. On the back of your shirt anyway!
Sawadee Krup
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
GOLF
As you may know I appreciate the game of golf. Since I have been out of the working world I have played a fair amount. Coming to Thailand was to be an extension of that appreciation what with all the cheap golf courses over here and all. Well I found out that cheap is in the eye of the beholder. My first encounter with golf here was anything but cheap. And this with a special being offered to me through the contacts at Thanachart. So I had to set out on my own to see if I could find something a little more to my frugal tastes.
I canvassed a number of courses to see if I could get a one year membership or something that would bring my golf costs down to reasonable. Remeber that at home I am paying something in the area of $30 a round plus having the convenience of not having to stand in line or line up on the phone because I am a member. This is big! Ask anyone who has to call ahead two weeks to get a tee time and then curse a streak when Saturday comes around and its pouring rain. Not me! Play when I want. Hehehehe!
So my queries were answered when I found Bangkok Golf Club. About one hour from our place, most courses are well outside Bangkok, and actually kinda on the way past one of Deeds offices. So I ride to work with her in the morning, cup of coffee, little plate of fruit, someone else doing the driving and a kiss on the cheek and I am off to golf. Way cool!
BGC hosted the 2003 Volvo Master of Asia as well as numerous Thai tournaments. Click Here Bangkok Golf Club
A short track by todays standards, the course is dotted with water and sand. Accuracy off the tee, not my strength, is a necessity. I have had some trouble getting accustomed to this course. The grass is very different here than that back home. Especially the rough. Is very puffy and you must be careful not to ground your club before you stike the ball. The ball has a tendancy to sit on top of the grass, meaning your feet are slightly below the ball. Not mindful of this fact you will hit the ball fat, kinda like being in a fairway bunker, you have to choke down just a little.
But that is something I know already. My biggest problem is the greens.
When I first played the course I noticed a sign on the edge of the practice green that gave the cut height of the rough, the fairway and a distance for the greens. That day and most others it has been 11.3 to 11.7. Now I didn't actually know what that was. I thought "Well it could be a stimp meter reading, but really, an everyday golf course with greens running between 11 and 12 on the stimp? That is PGA speed, or even US Open speed greens. Not something you would do to an everyday club golfer. Right? Wrongo.
The greens are lightning. Table top fast. Slick. Shiny, Superquick Glass like. And they are killing me. I am hitting putts past the hole 10 feet. Brutal.
But it is still golf. I walk 18 holes. My only fee since I am a member is 250 baht for a caddy and then a 250 baht tip for the caddy at the end of the round. $15 cash per round. Don't get me goin on the caddies, they do drag your clubs around in the heat and they are a reference for the break in the green, up or down hill. But that is pretty much it. No Father Patrick or farmers daughter jokes. Nothing to really talk about. But I still have stories.
#1 The day I went to check out the course I was playing by myself. I was actually talking to my mom on the second hole when I notice a single on a cart behind me. Caddy drives the cart, you just sit there. I told my caddy we would wait for him and also gave me a chance to have a word with ma. When he approached I went over and introduced myself, he was Khun John. An owner / executive of an armaments company. John of course isn't his given name as he is a native Thai, but it is a Thai tradition to give your sons a nickname. So John it is. We seemed to hit it off and chatted as best we could for a few holes. At the point that I told him I was very interested to join the club he jumped right in and said, "Let me call the pro and get you the discount" Well very nice of you Kuhn John I said thinking to myself that he is just being a bit of a blowhard, showing off a bit. He had already played nine when he joined me so he peeled off after number 9, wishing me well and telling me that he had got me 5,000 Baht off the price and don't be a stranger we can get a game together. We traded mobile numbers and I finished with a group of Swedes that were playing in front of us. Met another member in that group.
Well when I went into the club house I bumped into the Club Manager who is from Vancouver. His grandparents had actually founded the club and he had mover to Van to go to school, now was back trying to make a go of the club. I talked about K Johns offer. He looked at me like I was a highwayman and said no discount was offered. The price was the price.
Now I am in a pickle. Cause I wanted to join the club at the price. But now K John has me thinking I can get it 5K cheaper. So now I am wondering, do I join at the price or stand for the discount? Isn't that always the way. I would have been happy paying the 40,000 Baht (1,300 CDN) for a one year membership.
So a phone call to K John on Monday and he swears that Tony, the Club Manager has nothing to do with it. Go to the pro shop. They know who you are, because of me says John.
Next time in I walk up to the pros shop counter and say, with chest puffed out, " I'm Kuhn Jerry, Kuhn John has left you a note. Ohhhh yes Kuhn Jerry, no trouble, 35,000. Very nice of you to join our club, so nice to have you! ????????????????????
Reallly. I'm thinking really. Paid the money and walked out like a somebody.
Just goes to show you that even a rugged adventurer from Thunder Bay can get a break every now and then.
Fariways and greens!
Sawadee Krup
I canvassed a number of courses to see if I could get a one year membership or something that would bring my golf costs down to reasonable. Remeber that at home I am paying something in the area of $30 a round plus having the convenience of not having to stand in line or line up on the phone because I am a member. This is big! Ask anyone who has to call ahead two weeks to get a tee time and then curse a streak when Saturday comes around and its pouring rain. Not me! Play when I want. Hehehehe!
So my queries were answered when I found Bangkok Golf Club. About one hour from our place, most courses are well outside Bangkok, and actually kinda on the way past one of Deeds offices. So I ride to work with her in the morning, cup of coffee, little plate of fruit, someone else doing the driving and a kiss on the cheek and I am off to golf. Way cool!
BGC hosted the 2003 Volvo Master of Asia as well as numerous Thai tournaments. Click Here Bangkok Golf Club
A short track by todays standards, the course is dotted with water and sand. Accuracy off the tee, not my strength, is a necessity. I have had some trouble getting accustomed to this course. The grass is very different here than that back home. Especially the rough. Is very puffy and you must be careful not to ground your club before you stike the ball. The ball has a tendancy to sit on top of the grass, meaning your feet are slightly below the ball. Not mindful of this fact you will hit the ball fat, kinda like being in a fairway bunker, you have to choke down just a little.
But that is something I know already. My biggest problem is the greens.
When I first played the course I noticed a sign on the edge of the practice green that gave the cut height of the rough, the fairway and a distance for the greens. That day and most others it has been 11.3 to 11.7. Now I didn't actually know what that was. I thought "Well it could be a stimp meter reading, but really, an everyday golf course with greens running between 11 and 12 on the stimp? That is PGA speed, or even US Open speed greens. Not something you would do to an everyday club golfer. Right? Wrongo.
The greens are lightning. Table top fast. Slick. Shiny, Superquick Glass like. And they are killing me. I am hitting putts past the hole 10 feet. Brutal.
But it is still golf. I walk 18 holes. My only fee since I am a member is 250 baht for a caddy and then a 250 baht tip for the caddy at the end of the round. $15 cash per round. Don't get me goin on the caddies, they do drag your clubs around in the heat and they are a reference for the break in the green, up or down hill. But that is pretty much it. No Father Patrick or farmers daughter jokes. Nothing to really talk about. But I still have stories.
#1 The day I went to check out the course I was playing by myself. I was actually talking to my mom on the second hole when I notice a single on a cart behind me. Caddy drives the cart, you just sit there. I told my caddy we would wait for him and also gave me a chance to have a word with ma. When he approached I went over and introduced myself, he was Khun John. An owner / executive of an armaments company. John of course isn't his given name as he is a native Thai, but it is a Thai tradition to give your sons a nickname. So John it is. We seemed to hit it off and chatted as best we could for a few holes. At the point that I told him I was very interested to join the club he jumped right in and said, "Let me call the pro and get you the discount" Well very nice of you Kuhn John I said thinking to myself that he is just being a bit of a blowhard, showing off a bit. He had already played nine when he joined me so he peeled off after number 9, wishing me well and telling me that he had got me 5,000 Baht off the price and don't be a stranger we can get a game together. We traded mobile numbers and I finished with a group of Swedes that were playing in front of us. Met another member in that group.
Well when I went into the club house I bumped into the Club Manager who is from Vancouver. His grandparents had actually founded the club and he had mover to Van to go to school, now was back trying to make a go of the club. I talked about K Johns offer. He looked at me like I was a highwayman and said no discount was offered. The price was the price.
Now I am in a pickle. Cause I wanted to join the club at the price. But now K John has me thinking I can get it 5K cheaper. So now I am wondering, do I join at the price or stand for the discount? Isn't that always the way. I would have been happy paying the 40,000 Baht (1,300 CDN) for a one year membership.
So a phone call to K John on Monday and he swears that Tony, the Club Manager has nothing to do with it. Go to the pro shop. They know who you are, because of me says John.
Next time in I walk up to the pros shop counter and say, with chest puffed out, " I'm Kuhn Jerry, Kuhn John has left you a note. Ohhhh yes Kuhn Jerry, no trouble, 35,000. Very nice of you to join our club, so nice to have you! ????????????????????
Reallly. I'm thinking really. Paid the money and walked out like a somebody.
Just goes to show you that even a rugged adventurer from Thunder Bay can get a break every now and then.
Fariways and greens!
Sawadee Krup
Monday, November 22, 2010
Been awhile
Hi there, well it has been awhile since I updated you all on things in BKK. Tons of stuff goin down so I may even bust this up into a couple of posts and let you catch up.
Last big news must have been the fact that we moved into the new place. Pictures are posted at the following:
BKK Photo Albums just click on this link and it should take you to my Picasa Web Albums.
Now to try and get stuff out there in some sort of chronological order. Fat chance, but here goes.
The apartment is coming together for us. First weekend here we went down to the pool to see how that will work for us as a chill spot during the weekends. Not bad. Only gets 2.5 hours of sun, from 9:30 til noon. Water is very refreshing, not like pools that get 7 or more hours of sun, but it is ours, is not crowded and is very refreshing. Once the sun is gone around the building it is still a nice relaxing spot.
We have started a few of the compulsary walk arounds for the neighbourhood. Like all spots in midtown BKK there are restaurantts galore. We have a little mall on the corner a block and a half away that has three Korean restaurants, so brother Jonas will have to do some research with the inlaws and get the best dishes and pronouncaitions down so we can look like pros when we go over for dinner. There is a Wagyu Australian beef restaurant. Wagyu is supposed to be the competition in the area for Kobe beef from Japan. We aren't big beef eaters in the first place so we have not been tempted to try it out as yet. Of course there are numerous thai restaurants. One called Baan Kanitha is owned by a very famous Thai chef and is right around the corner from us. I believe I am going there for my birthday!!? Wahoo!
Another bonus about our location is a fresh veggie market is held outside our building gate every Friday evening starting at 6 pm. The supply is limited to veggies such as fresh carrots (best I have eaten, very sweet), potatoes, long beans, cucumbers (large and small), garlic, pea eggplant, basil, coriander, tomatoes. Stuff is brought to us in plastic packing crates and you grab a bag and help yourself. When you go over to pay there is a small scale and a guy with a flashlight strapped to his forehead. He watches it get weighed off and scriblles numbers on a piece of paper. After all is done he'll show you a number like 24 Baht. $1.00 for a bag full of fresh veggies to last a week. Amazing.
Flights home are booked, we will be back in the big smoke on Saturday, December 18. Lena arrives the same day only a little later at night. What a reunion that is gonna be. We miss her big time to say the least. Skype and instant messages aside there is nothing like a good hug. Deeds will be in town for two weeks and myself for three. Don't bother trying to get hold of us until the 20th. We want some familly together time, well at least until Lena wants to go to the bar with her buddies anyway, then Deeds and I are looking for some contact with our peeps.
Next on the list was our visitors whcih I blogged about and the walk around that we did in old BKK. Deeds and I followed up with another walk into Chinatown that was OK, but not nearly as great as the first. We kinda got lost looking for the Indian quarter in order to buy some spices and didn't enjoy much of the walk, no great chinese food so all in all not our best effort. We have a deal to go back with a guide from a co-worker at the bank which should be a lot more fruitful. We'll keep notes for visitors.
The next order of business for us was to find a housekeeper. Someone to help keep the place clean, maybe wash some dishes. Dishes are the worst. At our place in Mississauga we had our counter tops in the kitchen raised 1 1/2 inches. The bathroom vanities by 3. Stooping over a sink that is 40 inches of the ground is a killer for me. What do you think it is like in Thailand, where the average person is 5', tall people here are 5' 4". The bloody sink just makes the bottom of my pockets. Ya gotta see me, my legs spread as far apart as possible, like some kinda warrior yoga position trying to get my hands to reach the top of the water in the sink, never mind the bottom! This is painful stuff.
So we interviewed and found a maid who will come in 3 days a week to clean, laundry, iron and as she is a Thai will also do some thai cooking for us. I will be looking over her shoulder to try and get the best cooking tips I can for some awesome food when I return to TO.
Khun Wandee is a delightful lady. Laughing and smiling are her two biggest attributes. What a great addition to our household. In the interview she brought a friend with her to help with translation maybe or so that she wouldn't forget stuff, we weren't really sure. Turns out they were like a comedy duo. Between the two of them trying to remember words and things to ask they were laughing and poking each other and talking to each other in Thai. It had Deeds and I laughing at one point ourselves. We had no idea what was funny but the two of them had us smiling. It was awesome. She was hired right there. Didn't even have to talk about it later. Done! She is here this morning, I just sent her out with our driver to go and buy all the household necessitities she needs to feel comfortable doing her job.
So there ya are caught up on the domestic front. I have to check some emails and stuff and will come back to bring youup to date on my golf adventures.
Sawadee Krup
Last big news must have been the fact that we moved into the new place. Pictures are posted at the following:
BKK Photo Albums just click on this link and it should take you to my Picasa Web Albums.
Now to try and get stuff out there in some sort of chronological order. Fat chance, but here goes.
The apartment is coming together for us. First weekend here we went down to the pool to see how that will work for us as a chill spot during the weekends. Not bad. Only gets 2.5 hours of sun, from 9:30 til noon. Water is very refreshing, not like pools that get 7 or more hours of sun, but it is ours, is not crowded and is very refreshing. Once the sun is gone around the building it is still a nice relaxing spot.
We have started a few of the compulsary walk arounds for the neighbourhood. Like all spots in midtown BKK there are restaurantts galore. We have a little mall on the corner a block and a half away that has three Korean restaurants, so brother Jonas will have to do some research with the inlaws and get the best dishes and pronouncaitions down so we can look like pros when we go over for dinner. There is a Wagyu Australian beef restaurant. Wagyu is supposed to be the competition in the area for Kobe beef from Japan. We aren't big beef eaters in the first place so we have not been tempted to try it out as yet. Of course there are numerous thai restaurants. One called Baan Kanitha is owned by a very famous Thai chef and is right around the corner from us. I believe I am going there for my birthday!!? Wahoo!
Another bonus about our location is a fresh veggie market is held outside our building gate every Friday evening starting at 6 pm. The supply is limited to veggies such as fresh carrots (best I have eaten, very sweet), potatoes, long beans, cucumbers (large and small), garlic, pea eggplant, basil, coriander, tomatoes. Stuff is brought to us in plastic packing crates and you grab a bag and help yourself. When you go over to pay there is a small scale and a guy with a flashlight strapped to his forehead. He watches it get weighed off and scriblles numbers on a piece of paper. After all is done he'll show you a number like 24 Baht. $1.00 for a bag full of fresh veggies to last a week. Amazing.
Flights home are booked, we will be back in the big smoke on Saturday, December 18. Lena arrives the same day only a little later at night. What a reunion that is gonna be. We miss her big time to say the least. Skype and instant messages aside there is nothing like a good hug. Deeds will be in town for two weeks and myself for three. Don't bother trying to get hold of us until the 20th. We want some familly together time, well at least until Lena wants to go to the bar with her buddies anyway, then Deeds and I are looking for some contact with our peeps.
Next on the list was our visitors whcih I blogged about and the walk around that we did in old BKK. Deeds and I followed up with another walk into Chinatown that was OK, but not nearly as great as the first. We kinda got lost looking for the Indian quarter in order to buy some spices and didn't enjoy much of the walk, no great chinese food so all in all not our best effort. We have a deal to go back with a guide from a co-worker at the bank which should be a lot more fruitful. We'll keep notes for visitors.
The next order of business for us was to find a housekeeper. Someone to help keep the place clean, maybe wash some dishes. Dishes are the worst. At our place in Mississauga we had our counter tops in the kitchen raised 1 1/2 inches. The bathroom vanities by 3. Stooping over a sink that is 40 inches of the ground is a killer for me. What do you think it is like in Thailand, where the average person is 5', tall people here are 5' 4". The bloody sink just makes the bottom of my pockets. Ya gotta see me, my legs spread as far apart as possible, like some kinda warrior yoga position trying to get my hands to reach the top of the water in the sink, never mind the bottom! This is painful stuff.
So we interviewed and found a maid who will come in 3 days a week to clean, laundry, iron and as she is a Thai will also do some thai cooking for us. I will be looking over her shoulder to try and get the best cooking tips I can for some awesome food when I return to TO.
Khun Wandee is a delightful lady. Laughing and smiling are her two biggest attributes. What a great addition to our household. In the interview she brought a friend with her to help with translation maybe or so that she wouldn't forget stuff, we weren't really sure. Turns out they were like a comedy duo. Between the two of them trying to remember words and things to ask they were laughing and poking each other and talking to each other in Thai. It had Deeds and I laughing at one point ourselves. We had no idea what was funny but the two of them had us smiling. It was awesome. She was hired right there. Didn't even have to talk about it later. Done! She is here this morning, I just sent her out with our driver to go and buy all the household necessitities she needs to feel comfortable doing her job.
So there ya are caught up on the domestic front. I have to check some emails and stuff and will come back to bring youup to date on my golf adventures.
Sawadee Krup
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Not a rant, it's a reiteration
The dweebs at LA Music. I told you all about these people earlier.
I cancelled that order, should have been no surprise to them, and of course gave them very explicit instructions as follows..............
Order # 4579. Please cancel this order immediatlely. Refund the payment to the credit card on file. Thank you. YT Js.
Well I have been back to the website and the order is no longer on file. Not pending as it was for some 9 weeks. So they actuallly got that part right. Well.............. you do remember that they had ordered a product that was no longer manufactured so in fact the order was cancelled when it was made if you follow the logic! So maybe they still haven't actually done anything correctly.
I have been back to my charge card on a near daily basis to see if they have credited my account. Of course not. I have to chase after the dweebs from 25,000 miles away. Of course dweebs don't open for business at normal hours, theirs is 10:30 am, which for me is pm. I have tried to get through their phone system and talk with someone who has a clue, nope that ain't happening that early in the morning. And I have tried to get it done first thing in the morning for me, but it seems that anyone who has a brain, if they have anyone like that, has already left for the day. DUHH!!! This is going to have to wait until Jer gets home and goes and pays a personal visit.
Now since I am out of pocket the interest on $500 I have a little proposition for you. In order to make this money back I am going to sell tickets to my appearance at LA Music. YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS FOLKS. IT IS GOING TO BE A ROCKIN GOOD TIME! If you know what I mean. Anyone interested can contact the writer at this blog and I will send you a personal invitation to be onsite the day I show up there to get my money back.
Bunch of dweebs, holy mother of pearl.
Swadee Krup
I cancelled that order, should have been no surprise to them, and of course gave them very explicit instructions as follows..............
Order # 4579. Please cancel this order immediatlely. Refund the payment to the credit card on file. Thank you. YT Js.
Well I have been back to the website and the order is no longer on file. Not pending as it was for some 9 weeks. So they actuallly got that part right. Well.............. you do remember that they had ordered a product that was no longer manufactured so in fact the order was cancelled when it was made if you follow the logic! So maybe they still haven't actually done anything correctly.
I have been back to my charge card on a near daily basis to see if they have credited my account. Of course not. I have to chase after the dweebs from 25,000 miles away. Of course dweebs don't open for business at normal hours, theirs is 10:30 am, which for me is pm. I have tried to get through their phone system and talk with someone who has a clue, nope that ain't happening that early in the morning. And I have tried to get it done first thing in the morning for me, but it seems that anyone who has a brain, if they have anyone like that, has already left for the day. DUHH!!! This is going to have to wait until Jer gets home and goes and pays a personal visit.
Now since I am out of pocket the interest on $500 I have a little proposition for you. In order to make this money back I am going to sell tickets to my appearance at LA Music. YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS FOLKS. IT IS GOING TO BE A ROCKIN GOOD TIME! If you know what I mean. Anyone interested can contact the writer at this blog and I will send you a personal invitation to be onsite the day I show up there to get my money back.
Bunch of dweebs, holy mother of pearl.
Swadee Krup
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Visitor one is in the books
So Kara and Purdy have left for Canada. They had a great trip up to Chang Mai, trekked around in the jungle for a day and a half. Slept on the floor in a village style hut. Probably ate bugs mixed with rice and stuff like that as well that they didn't tell us about but that's ok. It sounded like an amazing trip. We dutifully picked there brains about good and bad and made notes. We also took all maps, business cards, hotel info, etc. So we are set to prompt others who want similar or partial.
Deeds and I have a two day ground package already purchased for Chang Mai and by the sounds of Kara and Purdy we may be taking that to 3 or 4 days to take in some of the stuff they did. So cool.
The first visitors was a total success in my opinion. No real issues on the innkeeper side and I hope that they both enjoyed their stay as well as the stop over style stay they did earlier. We ended the visit with a classic Jer dinner. I walked out to the street and bought four of a lot of things, except spring rolls. Kara is a freak for spring rolls so I had to buy eight knowing she would enjoy a refill. The menu was:
Spicy papaya salad - Deeds swears she will come home with this recipe. I am not sure how we get our hands on fresh green papaya back in Canada but nonetheless you could be eating this on our deck as well as here in Bangkok.
Grilled chicken strips on a stick with a hint of jalapeno and pineapple piece. This dish came with the most fantastic orange sauce. I have had this sauce a few times on other items and I have to find it. Very tasty, not too hot.
Deep fried chicken drum stick. Better than your southern momma ever made. Honestly!
Fresh corn. Corn is boiled in the husk. When you buy this they simply husk it and strip the kernels off the cob and pop it in a bag for you. Anyday, everyday, fresh corn on the cob folks!
Rice. I made about 5 cups of thai basmati rice. A bed for all the street goodies. Just plain steamed rice. You could put the sauces on the meat of mix it right in.
All this was a taste treat and plenty of food for all of us. Eat all your meat and goodies before you top up with the rice. In the future I will add a little fried rice. A Hong Kong tradition. There they eat all the meat and tasty foods. Usually no rice is available. At the end of the meal they bring around a pot of fried rice, each person is given a small bowl and you eat what you can. Just to top up! Very cool process. We have adopted it.
Ohh of course I have to brag about the cost of this. 230 baht. Which is $7.60. I bought 30 baht worth of fresh pineapple for dessert but we were too full to partake.
Well I have some more apartment outfitting to do so I am off to the department store again to buy an ironing board and looking for some potting soil. The backyard herb garden begins soon!
Sawadee Krup
Deeds and I have a two day ground package already purchased for Chang Mai and by the sounds of Kara and Purdy we may be taking that to 3 or 4 days to take in some of the stuff they did. So cool.
The first visitors was a total success in my opinion. No real issues on the innkeeper side and I hope that they both enjoyed their stay as well as the stop over style stay they did earlier. We ended the visit with a classic Jer dinner. I walked out to the street and bought four of a lot of things, except spring rolls. Kara is a freak for spring rolls so I had to buy eight knowing she would enjoy a refill. The menu was:
Spicy papaya salad - Deeds swears she will come home with this recipe. I am not sure how we get our hands on fresh green papaya back in Canada but nonetheless you could be eating this on our deck as well as here in Bangkok.
Grilled chicken strips on a stick with a hint of jalapeno and pineapple piece. This dish came with the most fantastic orange sauce. I have had this sauce a few times on other items and I have to find it. Very tasty, not too hot.
Deep fried chicken drum stick. Better than your southern momma ever made. Honestly!
Fresh corn. Corn is boiled in the husk. When you buy this they simply husk it and strip the kernels off the cob and pop it in a bag for you. Anyday, everyday, fresh corn on the cob folks!
Rice. I made about 5 cups of thai basmati rice. A bed for all the street goodies. Just plain steamed rice. You could put the sauces on the meat of mix it right in.
All this was a taste treat and plenty of food for all of us. Eat all your meat and goodies before you top up with the rice. In the future I will add a little fried rice. A Hong Kong tradition. There they eat all the meat and tasty foods. Usually no rice is available. At the end of the meal they bring around a pot of fried rice, each person is given a small bowl and you eat what you can. Just to top up! Very cool process. We have adopted it.
Ohh of course I have to brag about the cost of this. 230 baht. Which is $7.60. I bought 30 baht worth of fresh pineapple for dessert but we were too full to partake.
Well I have some more apartment outfitting to do so I am off to the department store again to buy an ironing board and looking for some potting soil. The backyard herb garden begins soon!
Sawadee Krup
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Walking tour photo update
This is a tad late but I just cleared a number of photos off my phone and noticed there were some good ones of the stuff I talked about when we went on that Walk through the old farang quarter. So I have posted those photos as well with some captions. You will have to go back to the post for "Next move Hawaii Tower" to pick up on the finer details of the walk, or you can just stare at the pictures with captions and take it form there.
Tonight Purdy and Kara return from Chang Mai. They will arrive a little late so I am up waiting to let them in. Deeds is off to sleep already. Work is tough right now and taking its toll on the poor thing. Me I am paying the price of my own life. Played golf yesterday and have to play again tomorrow. Couldn't get a game for Friday, yet! But I have met a few fellows at the course that I will join. Pics and web site connections when it happens. Nice track, a little short by north american standards. I shot 85 there yesterday with a birdie on the last. Feels good to play a course and be hitting some 8 and 9 irons into the greens. Ball does not hold with anything above 8 iron. Greens are thin, hard and fast. Even faster than Trafalgar when they are at their best. So I look forward to getting to know this course as well.
Kara and Purdy will be around tomorrow and we have plans to go out for dinner. They head off to Canada real early on Thursday morning.
Speaking of heading to Canada. We booked our flights home for Christmas today. Yeah think about that, we are already planning our short little return. We arrive on the 18th, Lena will be back from Halifax on the 19th. Just cannot wait to give that girl a hug. We skype and talk alot, but I want a hug.
I believe we are starting to fall into a bit of a routine now. Deeds has made some get to work and home adjustments. Leaving our driver sitting at a near by transit station to ferry her back and forth from the apartment. Taking the transit system to either one of her two offices turns out to be a much more effecient use of time. It is nice to sit in the back of the car and be chauferred around, but when it takes over an hour to get somewhere and you know you could have done it in 20 minutes bu subway you gotta ask yourself..... wtf. Right! So Deeds is wisking about on public transit. Oh don't feel bad for the driver. He gets to take me to the golf course. Hahahaha. I sit in the back of the car like Ernie Els going to a world golf championshop tourney. Not bad for the swarthy adventurer from northwestern ontario.
I say swarthy cause I am gettin the tan on. Wow! Thai people look at me like I am one of there own. Except maybe a little tall. Chocolate is one of the colour tones being used.
OK, time to go. Enjoy
Sawadee Krup
Tonight Purdy and Kara return from Chang Mai. They will arrive a little late so I am up waiting to let them in. Deeds is off to sleep already. Work is tough right now and taking its toll on the poor thing. Me I am paying the price of my own life. Played golf yesterday and have to play again tomorrow. Couldn't get a game for Friday, yet! But I have met a few fellows at the course that I will join. Pics and web site connections when it happens. Nice track, a little short by north american standards. I shot 85 there yesterday with a birdie on the last. Feels good to play a course and be hitting some 8 and 9 irons into the greens. Ball does not hold with anything above 8 iron. Greens are thin, hard and fast. Even faster than Trafalgar when they are at their best. So I look forward to getting to know this course as well.
Kara and Purdy will be around tomorrow and we have plans to go out for dinner. They head off to Canada real early on Thursday morning.
Speaking of heading to Canada. We booked our flights home for Christmas today. Yeah think about that, we are already planning our short little return. We arrive on the 18th, Lena will be back from Halifax on the 19th. Just cannot wait to give that girl a hug. We skype and talk alot, but I want a hug.
I believe we are starting to fall into a bit of a routine now. Deeds has made some get to work and home adjustments. Leaving our driver sitting at a near by transit station to ferry her back and forth from the apartment. Taking the transit system to either one of her two offices turns out to be a much more effecient use of time. It is nice to sit in the back of the car and be chauferred around, but when it takes over an hour to get somewhere and you know you could have done it in 20 minutes bu subway you gotta ask yourself..... wtf. Right! So Deeds is wisking about on public transit. Oh don't feel bad for the driver. He gets to take me to the golf course. Hahahaha. I sit in the back of the car like Ernie Els going to a world golf championshop tourney. Not bad for the swarthy adventurer from northwestern ontario.
I say swarthy cause I am gettin the tan on. Wow! Thai people look at me like I am one of there own. Except maybe a little tall. Chocolate is one of the colour tones being used.
OK, time to go. Enjoy
Sawadee Krup
Many pictures
Ok so I promised you some pics of the apartment, best for me to put them up on Picasa with a link and that way you can go directly there and not have to scroll down thru the whole mess here.
Here is the link to that photo album. Enjoy!
Our apartment
I had earlier endorsed Chang beer as the beverage of choice here in Thailand. Deeds and I ended up at Suda one evening, and we ended up having a taste testing between Chang and Singha. Well folks the vote is unanimous. Singha is it. Chang is just a little too rough around the edges. This blog will now only tolerate Singha Beer. The battle between the elephant and the lion has declared a winner!
PICS OF SUDA POTCHANA OUR FAV EATERY IN BKK
.
Here is the link to that photo album. Enjoy!
Our apartment
I had earlier endorsed Chang beer as the beverage of choice here in Thailand. Deeds and I ended up at Suda one evening, and we ended up having a taste testing between Chang and Singha. Well folks the vote is unanimous. Singha is it. Chang is just a little too rough around the edges. This blog will now only tolerate Singha Beer. The battle between the elephant and the lion has declared a winner!
 | |
| Deeds waiting for the rest of our food. Service is reasonable only if you order beer! |
 | ||
| A broader shot of Scuda Potchana. Is not very elegant but good Thai food, cold beer and some decent atmosphere make it perfect for us. Gets you out the house as well with a good walk to and back. We love it. |
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Photo for You
The Wat Tours
I am still experimenting as you can see. So I finally figured out how to put the photos as an accessible link right here in the Blog. So no more 33 recipients in an email. I can just put the link up on the blog page you can view by clicking on the link. Up there, click on The Wat Tours and you will be directed to see the photos. Technology!.
And I'll also give you a stock tip. If you own any of the Google guys stock hang on to it. They are good and getting bigger. Microsoft bigger. They have their hands in everything. TV is the next one that I am waiting for!
So now that I am here I will bring you up to date on the goings on. Yes I will post pictures of the new apartment very soon. I do have a life ya know!
Friday was a laid back day for us. Deeds happy to have a weekend to decompress. She is working remember! So we hung out. Saturday we had a Hawaiian Luau party with work mates to attend. Unfortunately we had Kara and Purdy returning from Phuket so there had to be a meeting of the minds. Because they weren't able to get to BKK before the party started we went on and spent a few hours with at the Luau and came back to meet the girls, who were waiting for us on our patio. Security here isn't the greatest but crime like stealing or house break-ins is very minimal. You just take it in stride.
So Kara came and went and came and went again. Her and Purdy this time. Up to Chang Mai. They are back on Wednesday night for dinner and then they fly home very early on Thursday. We also skyped a bit MJ last night.
So last night was a beauty of a night. Kara is now off training for a few months so I saw her get a little tipsy for the first time. Funn---nnny! We talked and talked Purdy, Kara, Deeds and I, well actually the three of them more than me. I finally had to bring the hammer down around 9. Starving. So off we went to one of Deeds and my favourite new food joints. It is called Suda Potchana. A short walk from our new digs. This is an open air type of place that is lit with overhead neon lights. Tables are cafeteria style, covered with plastic table cloths. The tables spill out onto the street. The place is packed with many farang and a good number of thai customers as well. A dead give away for good quality thai food at good pricing. We love it. The menu, typical of thai restaurants is a book. Listing probably one hundred dishes, many with photographs. Everything you could want or want to try. The four of us ate plenty, had a beer each, 870 Baht total. Yeah $30. Not bad for a night out for four!
From here the adventure was on. We trekked back towards home. This brought us directly into contact with Soi Cowboy. Because this is a family blog I will not detail these adventures. I will tell you that it is something that Deeds has wanted to do for a long time. Add a tick mark to that bucket list!! For specific details, reactions, etc. please contact Ms. Brooks directly at her personal email address.
With the visitors gone, we are hanging out a bit. Plan is to go downtown, maybe catch a movie this aft, do some shopping. Holy mother of pearl. We are like 20 year old into our first ever apartment. We need an iron and ironing board. Gotta get a little fold up style clothes hangar for one of the balconies. Can't be throwing our delicates in the dryer can we!
Hey. Here is a why is that question! Women's things are called delicates and men's are called unmentionables!?
Wassup with that?
Another new week of adventure and change coming. Let you know more as it unfolds.
Sawadee Krup
+
I am still experimenting as you can see. So I finally figured out how to put the photos as an accessible link right here in the Blog. So no more 33 recipients in an email. I can just put the link up on the blog page you can view by clicking on the link. Up there, click on The Wat Tours and you will be directed to see the photos. Technology!.
And I'll also give you a stock tip. If you own any of the Google guys stock hang on to it. They are good and getting bigger. Microsoft bigger. They have their hands in everything. TV is the next one that I am waiting for!
So now that I am here I will bring you up to date on the goings on. Yes I will post pictures of the new apartment very soon. I do have a life ya know!
Friday was a laid back day for us. Deeds happy to have a weekend to decompress. She is working remember! So we hung out. Saturday we had a Hawaiian Luau party with work mates to attend. Unfortunately we had Kara and Purdy returning from Phuket so there had to be a meeting of the minds. Because they weren't able to get to BKK before the party started we went on and spent a few hours with at the Luau and came back to meet the girls, who were waiting for us on our patio. Security here isn't the greatest but crime like stealing or house break-ins is very minimal. You just take it in stride.
So Kara came and went and came and went again. Her and Purdy this time. Up to Chang Mai. They are back on Wednesday night for dinner and then they fly home very early on Thursday. We also skyped a bit MJ last night.
So last night was a beauty of a night. Kara is now off training for a few months so I saw her get a little tipsy for the first time. Funn---nnny! We talked and talked Purdy, Kara, Deeds and I, well actually the three of them more than me. I finally had to bring the hammer down around 9. Starving. So off we went to one of Deeds and my favourite new food joints. It is called Suda Potchana. A short walk from our new digs. This is an open air type of place that is lit with overhead neon lights. Tables are cafeteria style, covered with plastic table cloths. The tables spill out onto the street. The place is packed with many farang and a good number of thai customers as well. A dead give away for good quality thai food at good pricing. We love it. The menu, typical of thai restaurants is a book. Listing probably one hundred dishes, many with photographs. Everything you could want or want to try. The four of us ate plenty, had a beer each, 870 Baht total. Yeah $30. Not bad for a night out for four!
From here the adventure was on. We trekked back towards home. This brought us directly into contact with Soi Cowboy. Because this is a family blog I will not detail these adventures. I will tell you that it is something that Deeds has wanted to do for a long time. Add a tick mark to that bucket list!! For specific details, reactions, etc. please contact Ms. Brooks directly at her personal email address.
With the visitors gone, we are hanging out a bit. Plan is to go downtown, maybe catch a movie this aft, do some shopping. Holy mother of pearl. We are like 20 year old into our first ever apartment. We need an iron and ironing board. Gotta get a little fold up style clothes hangar for one of the balconies. Can't be throwing our delicates in the dryer can we!
Hey. Here is a why is that question! Women's things are called delicates and men's are called unmentionables!?
Wassup with that?
Another new week of adventure and change coming. Let you know more as it unfolds.
Sawadee Krup
+
Thursday, November 4, 2010
We r in!!
I am sitting on the big couch in the living room and it is dark out already, 6:03 pm. Deeds is bringing home some take out as she is just leaving the downtown office. Take out - that's funny. Most good food can be bought on the street here, not sure if that is take out or not?? I guess a lot of food here is called take home.
We slept in our place for the first time last night. Was really nice. What a great breeze we have blowing through the place. Deeds had a glass of wine on our monstrous patio last night, I was drinking water. Spent the afternoon representing Thanachart Bank at a golf tourney. Seems none of the working stiffs could afford to take a day off so they called retired guy to fill in for them. What a great day it was. Perfect weather, nice breeze blowin and I shot 84 with 3 three putts!! So things were good. Won absolutely nothing though. I am not that guy. They were raffling off an iPad, a 32" flat panel tv, trips to islands and stuff. I won absolutely nothing. My brother once won a toaster at a church bazar or was that bingo? Can't remember it was that long ago slansky won anything. Ow wait, I did win a draw for nephew Kyle's hockey team. Take it all back. One of the luckiest guys around. Hehehe! No seriously I feel like I am. Don't give a shite about that other stuff. Also allows me to leave early cause I know!!
Deeds gave me a call early on Tuesday morning about the golf. "Do you thinkyou could take someones place at the tournament? she asked. I had just got my clubs out of hock the night before and was itching to go. "Well let me take a look at my calendar" I said. Hmm, Busy on Tuesdays as usual, rest of the day looks like nothin, tomorrow, yep dawn till dusk, nothin. :I'm in" I shouted.
So Deeds gave me the contact info and I got hold of Kuhn Bobby to see what the details were.
"Just meet us at the hotel and you can catch a ride in the van with the rest of my staff". "What time do I need to be there" I questioned. "Well we want to be away by 4:45 so it would be good if you showed up at about 4:30"
Now you know Bangkok is a very lively town. But even BKK is closed down and quiet at that hour. This is early and it was very tough, but that is what crazy golfers do around here to tee off at 7. It was a one hour ride, breakfast and then walk out to the 9th tee for the shotgun start. I played in a fivesome. Which is rather typical here. We walked, which was nice. So like a real 18 holes for me, cause I don't push or pull a cart, I have an electronic caddy, this time I had a Thai caddy. She pulled my clubs all around. Gave advice on putts and cleaned and pampered the golf gear. On top of that I met three awesome guys from Japan. They were ex US military who have all retired there. They fly in to play in this tournament every year. A charity event that results in building schools in the north of Thailand. Great cause. Raised 1,000,000 Baht, which will build a five room school house complete with desks, blackboards, etc.
It was an awesome day with these guys. What great fun we had, teasing the thai caddies and just joking and tellin stories. After the tournament festivites I was looking for a ride home, didn't want to stick around waiting for Khun Bobby and his staff as they were kinda cleaning up. So I went to one of the Americans, he still works with the military, servicing the US embassies in asia. So he hooked me up with a van full of marines who work at the US embassy here in BKK. They had no trouble giving me a seat and being all What can I do for you sir. Are you comfy back there sir. Was real cool. They were all 20 - 24 ish. Not real tv, story book, kick you butt type marines. But marines nonetheless. Saved me about an hour and after getting up at 4 in the morning, it was a godsend for me.
I missed a chance to play with the guys from Japan on the weekend though cause I thought I was going to Phuket today. That kinda fell through because Kara and Julie lost, now they are coming to BKK a day early so I had no real reason to go there just for one day?! On top of that I have a bit of a cold coming on, been fighting it for two or three days and there was a ton of stuff to do and shopping as well for the apartment.
Things are shaping up. This blog is proof we now have internet. We got gas delivered to day and maybe have some drinking water for next week. Otherwise we just buy huge ol jugs and cart them up the elevator ourselves. In todays shopping adventure I was assisted by our driver Phatsin (pronounced pat-cin). Always helps when you have someone who can read the labels!!
Now I know I promised pics as soon as we got here. However, the place is a little bit of a mess. We are trying to clean up for Kara's return and unpack and blah blah blah. So pictures later.
Sawadee Krup
We slept in our place for the first time last night. Was really nice. What a great breeze we have blowing through the place. Deeds had a glass of wine on our monstrous patio last night, I was drinking water. Spent the afternoon representing Thanachart Bank at a golf tourney. Seems none of the working stiffs could afford to take a day off so they called retired guy to fill in for them. What a great day it was. Perfect weather, nice breeze blowin and I shot 84 with 3 three putts!! So things were good. Won absolutely nothing though. I am not that guy. They were raffling off an iPad, a 32" flat panel tv, trips to islands and stuff. I won absolutely nothing. My brother once won a toaster at a church bazar or was that bingo? Can't remember it was that long ago slansky won anything. Ow wait, I did win a draw for nephew Kyle's hockey team. Take it all back. One of the luckiest guys around. Hehehe! No seriously I feel like I am. Don't give a shite about that other stuff. Also allows me to leave early cause I know!!
Deeds gave me a call early on Tuesday morning about the golf. "Do you thinkyou could take someones place at the tournament? she asked. I had just got my clubs out of hock the night before and was itching to go. "Well let me take a look at my calendar" I said. Hmm, Busy on Tuesdays as usual, rest of the day looks like nothin, tomorrow, yep dawn till dusk, nothin. :I'm in" I shouted.
So Deeds gave me the contact info and I got hold of Kuhn Bobby to see what the details were.
"Just meet us at the hotel and you can catch a ride in the van with the rest of my staff". "What time do I need to be there" I questioned. "Well we want to be away by 4:45 so it would be good if you showed up at about 4:30"
Now you know Bangkok is a very lively town. But even BKK is closed down and quiet at that hour. This is early and it was very tough, but that is what crazy golfers do around here to tee off at 7. It was a one hour ride, breakfast and then walk out to the 9th tee for the shotgun start. I played in a fivesome. Which is rather typical here. We walked, which was nice. So like a real 18 holes for me, cause I don't push or pull a cart, I have an electronic caddy, this time I had a Thai caddy. She pulled my clubs all around. Gave advice on putts and cleaned and pampered the golf gear. On top of that I met three awesome guys from Japan. They were ex US military who have all retired there. They fly in to play in this tournament every year. A charity event that results in building schools in the north of Thailand. Great cause. Raised 1,000,000 Baht, which will build a five room school house complete with desks, blackboards, etc.
It was an awesome day with these guys. What great fun we had, teasing the thai caddies and just joking and tellin stories. After the tournament festivites I was looking for a ride home, didn't want to stick around waiting for Khun Bobby and his staff as they were kinda cleaning up. So I went to one of the Americans, he still works with the military, servicing the US embassies in asia. So he hooked me up with a van full of marines who work at the US embassy here in BKK. They had no trouble giving me a seat and being all What can I do for you sir. Are you comfy back there sir. Was real cool. They were all 20 - 24 ish. Not real tv, story book, kick you butt type marines. But marines nonetheless. Saved me about an hour and after getting up at 4 in the morning, it was a godsend for me.
I missed a chance to play with the guys from Japan on the weekend though cause I thought I was going to Phuket today. That kinda fell through because Kara and Julie lost, now they are coming to BKK a day early so I had no real reason to go there just for one day?! On top of that I have a bit of a cold coming on, been fighting it for two or three days and there was a ton of stuff to do and shopping as well for the apartment.
Things are shaping up. This blog is proof we now have internet. We got gas delivered to day and maybe have some drinking water for next week. Otherwise we just buy huge ol jugs and cart them up the elevator ourselves. In todays shopping adventure I was assisted by our driver Phatsin (pronounced pat-cin). Always helps when you have someone who can read the labels!!
Now I know I promised pics as soon as we got here. However, the place is a little bit of a mess. We are trying to clean up for Kara's return and unpack and blah blah blah. So pictures later.
Sawadee Krup
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Next move >> Hawaii Tower
It looks like the day has finally arrived. Payments have cleared both sides of the ocean and our friends at Asian Tiger have informed us they will deliver our goods to our new address this morning. Yehaaa! Because I am off to Phuket on Thursday morning to see Kara and Julie play some volley ball. Diane gets to unpack!
The move is just in time as well. I like The Somerset. You are pampered here. Great pool. Amazing amount of sun. And Sukhumvit Soi 16 is a great neighbourhood. Some great upscale restaurants like Kuppa and Ten Sui where we went last night. But we need to settle in. Have a place we can call ours.
Restaurant Review: Ten Sui is Japanese. Featuring sushi, shashimi, miso soups, tempura, etc. etc. The restaurant itself is very beautiful. A gracious looking place that is set back from the street. They have misting ponds that appear as if you are in the mountains and a flowing stream in front of the building to the front door. Very elegant. The food was for me surprisingly good. I am not a sushi guy. I like sushi a little bit but fell away from it because of the extra glutoneous rice they use. But here in the land of rice, you must get with the program. My only complaint with this restaurant as with many if not all if BKK is the air conditioning. Some like to show their prowess with buying big fast cars, in BKK it is having the AC on to the point that the customers nearly freeze to death. Ten Sui is a winner in that category. It was freaking cold. (Yes colder than George and Tammy's back deck on Melton. If I coulda I would have been wearing my purple coat.). For those who are coming and enjoy good Japanese food make sure you put Ten Sui on your list of places to go. I hear that the lunch is probably the best as it features a set plate that is reasonably priced and a good representation of different dishes because the dinner is a tad expensive
A Walking Tour Through The Old Farang Quarter
Back on the weekend we took a walking tour out of one of the many Thailand travel books we seem to have laying around. This one had a good mix of different things that make BKK into the cosmopolitan place it is. On this tour we saw a buddhist wat (temple), which is no surprise in BKK, a muslim mosque and the largest catholic cathedral in BKK. The tour we did added about half hour of extra walking as is our want to do. We meandered down a major street at 8:30 in the morning on Sunday. A very quiet day in BKK and a good one to get out into the downtown core.
The first destination on the walk was the River City Shopping complex. Now you will get sick of these books talking about places to shop in BKK. There are hundreds if not thousands of malls as we call them. Of course many here are grand. The Eaton Centre holds it's own but may be a little tired compared to these. But shopping compleses are part of the program.
River City sits on the Chao Phraya River. This main river in Thailand runs right through BKK. It was my first glimpse of the river. It is a back and forth river. Running hard into the ocean at low tide and nearly flowing backwards at high tide. River traffic is abundant with many ferries to take you across or up and down. There are many piers along the river and you can hop scotch all the way along. There are also the famous long tail boats of thailand. These boats are taxis, sightseers, etc. You have to see these to believe them. The motor sits right out on top of the stern shaft. The long tail boats navigate in Bangkok canals or near beaches. They use a car motor engine to be propelled. They run quite fast, loud and are a nice way to discover the canals around Bangkok or Thai coasts.
And like every taxi in BKK, when they see farang they pull over, even on the river. I was standing on the verandah at the Oriental Hotel and they came buzzing over. While walking around we were shooing away tuk tuk drivers every ten minutes. It gets to be a little annoying that you can't walk down the street 100 feet without someone asking you where are you goin mister. I take you for 50 baht 2 hours. Were are you goin mister!
From River City we expolered some side soi and saw great antiques and ideas for furnishing the apartment. We walked on, saw a glimpse of the Portugese and French Embassy. We continued on to another area of the walk were we saw the Haroon Moseque as well as Assumption Cathedral. Assumption was a very large area encompassing schools and other buildings in the complex.
Nestled right next door and only a step away from the river was an abandon building that a local said closed about 30 years ago. This building housed the old East Asiatic Company. A walk around the corner from there and we were at the Oriental Hotel. This is an upscale place. At one point I had to duck into the washroom. No paper towels here. There were linen hapkins to wipe your hands with. Major cool!
We finished off the day strolling back to the Mass Rapid Transit station and heading on home. Even had enough time at the end of this day to head to the pool for a refreshing swim. Great day!
Sawadee Krup
The move is just in time as well. I like The Somerset. You are pampered here. Great pool. Amazing amount of sun. And Sukhumvit Soi 16 is a great neighbourhood. Some great upscale restaurants like Kuppa and Ten Sui where we went last night. But we need to settle in. Have a place we can call ours.
Restaurant Review: Ten Sui is Japanese. Featuring sushi, shashimi, miso soups, tempura, etc. etc. The restaurant itself is very beautiful. A gracious looking place that is set back from the street. They have misting ponds that appear as if you are in the mountains and a flowing stream in front of the building to the front door. Very elegant. The food was for me surprisingly good. I am not a sushi guy. I like sushi a little bit but fell away from it because of the extra glutoneous rice they use. But here in the land of rice, you must get with the program. My only complaint with this restaurant as with many if not all if BKK is the air conditioning. Some like to show their prowess with buying big fast cars, in BKK it is having the AC on to the point that the customers nearly freeze to death. Ten Sui is a winner in that category. It was freaking cold. (Yes colder than George and Tammy's back deck on Melton. If I coulda I would have been wearing my purple coat.). For those who are coming and enjoy good Japanese food make sure you put Ten Sui on your list of places to go. I hear that the lunch is probably the best as it features a set plate that is reasonably priced and a good representation of different dishes because the dinner is a tad expensive
A Walking Tour Through The Old Farang Quarter
Back on the weekend we took a walking tour out of one of the many Thailand travel books we seem to have laying around. This one had a good mix of different things that make BKK into the cosmopolitan place it is. On this tour we saw a buddhist wat (temple), which is no surprise in BKK, a muslim mosque and the largest catholic cathedral in BKK. The tour we did added about half hour of extra walking as is our want to do. We meandered down a major street at 8:30 in the morning on Sunday. A very quiet day in BKK and a good one to get out into the downtown core.
The first destination on the walk was the River City Shopping complex. Now you will get sick of these books talking about places to shop in BKK. There are hundreds if not thousands of malls as we call them. Of course many here are grand. The Eaton Centre holds it's own but may be a little tired compared to these. But shopping compleses are part of the program.
River City sits on the Chao Phraya River. This main river in Thailand runs right through BKK. It was my first glimpse of the river. It is a back and forth river. Running hard into the ocean at low tide and nearly flowing backwards at high tide. River traffic is abundant with many ferries to take you across or up and down. There are many piers along the river and you can hop scotch all the way along. There are also the famous long tail boats of thailand. These boats are taxis, sightseers, etc. You have to see these to believe them. The motor sits right out on top of the stern shaft. The long tail boats navigate in Bangkok canals or near beaches. They use a car motor engine to be propelled. They run quite fast, loud and are a nice way to discover the canals around Bangkok or Thai coasts.
And like every taxi in BKK, when they see farang they pull over, even on the river. I was standing on the verandah at the Oriental Hotel and they came buzzing over. While walking around we were shooing away tuk tuk drivers every ten minutes. It gets to be a little annoying that you can't walk down the street 100 feet without someone asking you where are you goin mister. I take you for 50 baht 2 hours. Were are you goin mister!
From River City we expolered some side soi and saw great antiques and ideas for furnishing the apartment. We walked on, saw a glimpse of the Portugese and French Embassy. We continued on to another area of the walk were we saw the Haroon Moseque as well as Assumption Cathedral. Assumption was a very large area encompassing schools and other buildings in the complex.
Nestled right next door and only a step away from the river was an abandon building that a local said closed about 30 years ago. This building housed the old East Asiatic Company. A walk around the corner from there and we were at the Oriental Hotel. This is an upscale place. At one point I had to duck into the washroom. No paper towels here. There were linen hapkins to wipe your hands with. Major cool!
We finished off the day strolling back to the Mass Rapid Transit station and heading on home. Even had enough time at the end of this day to head to the pool for a refreshing swim. Great day!
Sawadee Krup
Friday, October 29, 2010
First of Many?
Today Kara and Julie arrive. That's right, our first visitors. And guess what. We are not even in our apartment yet.
APARTMENT UPDATE: Dateline Bangkok. The lease has been signed by the bank and will be in the hands of the landlord by Monday.
Hold it. Monday. Monday is the 1st. We kinda thought we would move casually over the weekend. Now we have to negotiate an additional days stay here at the Somerset! This might give you some indication that things are just a little laid back here in Thailand. No rushing around trying to get things done a week early to get some extra revemue. So it looks like we won't be in the apartment until at leastTuesday. We have all our own new sheets and pillows, comforters. So beds will need to be made and of course we still have to get all our dishes and pots, etc out of customs/storage before we can think about having our first sleep in the place.
So here's hoping we are in the apartment by Wednesday. I guess we will have to play this a little by ear.
So our first visitors. Kara and Julie arrive tonight at 6. Deeds will meet them at the airport express train that comes into downtown. It only takes 15 minutes from the airport and hooks up with both of the major mass transit systems that are running through BKK. Takes a lot longer by car and so is the preferred method of getting out of the airport, trust me. So expect to be taking the train when you come to BKK and we will meet you at the train station or at the airport and accompany you on the train into the city. So much easier for all!.
The hotel/apartment we have is a two bedroom so we should be able to cope with our guests. Not much living space or kitchen space here but they are only in town for two sleeps. Out to Phuket first thing Sunday morning. Their VB tournament starts on Wendnesday. Go to this link to follow Kara and Julie http://web.me.com/volleyocity/Dream_BIGG_1/Home.html
We should get into some site seeing or assistance to same with K & J on Saturday. Not sure how they feel. Julie was a little under the weather a few days ago, hopefully better now.
I will be skooting down to Phuket myself on Thursday to take in a bit of the action, fly back on Saturday. Kara is sticking around in Thailand for a few days and will be stopping with us again. Hopefully this time it will be in the apartment.
To all the regular followers I sent out a bunch of photos of our Wat tour. Hope you enjoyed those. Pics of the apartment will obviously have to wait until we are in the place.
Keep enjoying
Sawadee Krup
APARTMENT UPDATE: Dateline Bangkok. The lease has been signed by the bank and will be in the hands of the landlord by Monday.
Hold it. Monday. Monday is the 1st. We kinda thought we would move casually over the weekend. Now we have to negotiate an additional days stay here at the Somerset! This might give you some indication that things are just a little laid back here in Thailand. No rushing around trying to get things done a week early to get some extra revemue. So it looks like we won't be in the apartment until at leastTuesday. We have all our own new sheets and pillows, comforters. So beds will need to be made and of course we still have to get all our dishes and pots, etc out of customs/storage before we can think about having our first sleep in the place.
So here's hoping we are in the apartment by Wednesday. I guess we will have to play this a little by ear.
So our first visitors. Kara and Julie arrive tonight at 6. Deeds will meet them at the airport express train that comes into downtown. It only takes 15 minutes from the airport and hooks up with both of the major mass transit systems that are running through BKK. Takes a lot longer by car and so is the preferred method of getting out of the airport, trust me. So expect to be taking the train when you come to BKK and we will meet you at the train station or at the airport and accompany you on the train into the city. So much easier for all!.
The hotel/apartment we have is a two bedroom so we should be able to cope with our guests. Not much living space or kitchen space here but they are only in town for two sleeps. Out to Phuket first thing Sunday morning. Their VB tournament starts on Wendnesday. Go to this link to follow Kara and Julie http://web.me.com/volleyocity/Dream_BIGG_1/Home.html
We should get into some site seeing or assistance to same with K & J on Saturday. Not sure how they feel. Julie was a little under the weather a few days ago, hopefully better now.
I will be skooting down to Phuket myself on Thursday to take in a bit of the action, fly back on Saturday. Kara is sticking around in Thailand for a few days and will be stopping with us again. Hopefully this time it will be in the apartment.
To all the regular followers I sent out a bunch of photos of our Wat tour. Hope you enjoyed those. Pics of the apartment will obviously have to wait until we are in the place.
Keep enjoying
Sawadee Krup
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Boycott LA Music
Hey, you have a blog, you blog about stuff, or as my American poolside buddy says, aboot stuff! Hahaha, Huh?
Anyway, I have to tell you the story of Lena's keyboard case. You may know that Shelly and Carolyn were nice enough to cart Lena's keyboard to Halifax for her. Lena loves the piano and years ago she talked aboot how hard it would be to leave her piano when she went off to school, wouldn't it be cool ma and pa if I had a keyboard so I could take that with me to school and keep on playin! So we did buy her a keyboard. The mother of all. An 88. Just like a real piano. So it is huge. Not just the kinda thing you strap on your back and go hikin with. When it came time to think about transporting this thing, if you don't have a van (like Shelly and Carolyn did) you will need to fly with it. Thus the need to buy a keyboard case.
(NOTE: Lena playing the piano is one of the things Deeds and I miss the most, hearing her play when she first walks in the door from anywhere, or just in the evening. It is part of what makes our house a home. Miss it!)
You know like the Rolling Stones have. Silver rim, black bullet proof vinyl, various handles and wheels.
I searched all round and finally ended up getting a decent price and free shipping at LA Music down on the Lakeshore. I have bought drums there, now in the custody of Scott, guitar that Lena has at home and now I ordered a piano case from them.
I placed the order just before leaving for BKK.
Piano then Lena had safely arrived in Halifax. LA promised free shipping on items over 100 bucks so I was good. I ordered the case on September 7. Two weeks delivery I was told. Perfect (see Deeds doing that arm swing right there, Perfect!). I told Lena to expect a call from a delivery type person and left for BKK all happy like.
By the end of the month I was Skype calling LA Music. Wassup! Daughter says no piano case. "Yeah well it has been ordered should be shipped to Mississauga and we will turn it right around to Halifax, one to two weeks, tops". Skyped again two weeks later. Order still shows up on the internet as processing. Finally got some email addresses and started bombing them (James Ricci) with emails. Well they apparently don't like to look at emails and certainly not to answer emails at LA. Seems to offend their artistic abilities. Maybe break a nail or something.
So you gotta phone, on Skype thank goodness or it would have cost me a fortune. Got the same run around, so finally I had enough and on Tuesday morning, Monday night October 25 in Canada, I sent an email saying I wanted my money back. Cancel the order.
Lena then lets me know that LA finally called her that same week. Turns out the case I ordered is no longer manufactured. The manager or whoever who finally twigged to this was upset according to Lena. It took them 7 weeks before they realized that the product I had paid for was not available!!!! Imagine how I feel!
What a group of nimwitted bolt headed bozos do they have working there? How can you order something from a supplies that they no longer supply. And how do you keep telling a customer it's on its way??????
Got some great advice for ya folks. Don't ever eat seafood that has flown farther than you have and DO NOT SHOP OR BUY ANYTHING EVER FROM LA music. They are awful.
Sawadee Krup
Anyway, I have to tell you the story of Lena's keyboard case. You may know that Shelly and Carolyn were nice enough to cart Lena's keyboard to Halifax for her. Lena loves the piano and years ago she talked aboot how hard it would be to leave her piano when she went off to school, wouldn't it be cool ma and pa if I had a keyboard so I could take that with me to school and keep on playin! So we did buy her a keyboard. The mother of all. An 88. Just like a real piano. So it is huge. Not just the kinda thing you strap on your back and go hikin with. When it came time to think about transporting this thing, if you don't have a van (like Shelly and Carolyn did) you will need to fly with it. Thus the need to buy a keyboard case.
(NOTE: Lena playing the piano is one of the things Deeds and I miss the most, hearing her play when she first walks in the door from anywhere, or just in the evening. It is part of what makes our house a home. Miss it!)
You know like the Rolling Stones have. Silver rim, black bullet proof vinyl, various handles and wheels.
I placed the order just before leaving for BKK.
Piano then Lena had safely arrived in Halifax. LA promised free shipping on items over 100 bucks so I was good. I ordered the case on September 7. Two weeks delivery I was told. Perfect (see Deeds doing that arm swing right there, Perfect!). I told Lena to expect a call from a delivery type person and left for BKK all happy like.
By the end of the month I was Skype calling LA Music. Wassup! Daughter says no piano case. "Yeah well it has been ordered should be shipped to Mississauga and we will turn it right around to Halifax, one to two weeks, tops". Skyped again two weeks later. Order still shows up on the internet as processing. Finally got some email addresses and started bombing them (James Ricci) with emails. Well they apparently don't like to look at emails and certainly not to answer emails at LA. Seems to offend their artistic abilities. Maybe break a nail or something.
So you gotta phone, on Skype thank goodness or it would have cost me a fortune. Got the same run around, so finally I had enough and on Tuesday morning, Monday night October 25 in Canada, I sent an email saying I wanted my money back. Cancel the order.
Lena then lets me know that LA finally called her that same week. Turns out the case I ordered is no longer manufactured. The manager or whoever who finally twigged to this was upset according to Lena. It took them 7 weeks before they realized that the product I had paid for was not available!!!! Imagine how I feel!
What a group of nimwitted bolt headed bozos do they have working there? How can you order something from a supplies that they no longer supply. And how do you keep telling a customer it's on its way??????
Got some great advice for ya folks. Don't ever eat seafood that has flown farther than you have and DO NOT SHOP OR BUY ANYTHING EVER FROM LA music. They are awful.
Sawadee Krup
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
The Wat Tour
I changed the background. Lets you see the pictures a little better than the dark one I had before, hope is ok.
So on Monday morning at 8 am we were wisked away in a large Toyota van, just Deeds and I to go on a tour of three famous Buddhist temples (Wat) in Bangkok.
The temples are in order: Wat Traimit - The Temple of the Golden Buddha, Wat Pho - The Temple of the Reclining Buddha and Wat Phra Kaew - The Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Wat Phra Kaew is on the grounds of the Royal Palace and so a walk around of these structures was also included on our half day tour.
I have included as many of the photos as I could here without making this a pic blog rather than a word blog. For those who are into Facebook, I have an album there.
It was a gorgeous day, sun was beaming down on us as we ventured in to see the Golden Buddha.
The story is that the Buddha image was kept from invaders for centuries because it was covered with plaster, appearing to be a normal plaster buddha. One day when the image was being moved it was dropped and workers discovered a shiny surface inside. They discovered a buddha image of 5.5 tons of solid gold.
You can see the wall behind the buddha. The walls are hand painted. Amazing work and detail all around the temple.
Our next visit to Wat Pho was equally amazing. The temple of the reclinging buddha holds an image that is 46 metres long.
The image is covered in gold leaf. Again the detail of the walls, roof -which is always painted red in temples, and even the bed the buddha is on is extremely intricate. The feet of the reclining buddha has inlaid mother of pearl depicting 108 different pictures.
Foot to head view here, with some view of the mother of pearl inlays.
This view shows the size of the feet and the intricate inlay of mother of pearl. Amazing stuff.
Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Ratchaworamahawihan or Wat Pho as the Thais call it is also home to more than 1000 buddha images, the most any wat in Bangkok holds. The wat is also home to a bodhi tree which claimed to be a cutting of the original tree in India where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightening.
Prior to the temple's founding, the site was a centre of education for traditional Thai medicine, and statues were created showing yoga positions and there are plaques all around the walls of a school building showing the methods to traditional thai massage from hundreds of years ago.
Wat Pho is part of a working monastery and there are monks coming and going. Here is the temple where prayers are held twice daily.
From here it was off to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Which by the way is not emerald at all. Wat Phra Kaew means Temple of the Holy Jewel and it houses the holiest of the buddha images in Thailand. This temple is the most sacred place for Thais. Full pants must be worn out of respect and no one gets in without, including yours truly. Deeds had a beautiful wrap over her shorts. And as I had mentioned off the top it was a beautiful sunny day. Which in Bangkok only means one thing. It was brutally hot and the sweat was rolling down my back. Then I had to put another pair of pants on overtop of my shorts. Sweat! Enough said.
This is Deeds at the Grand Palace grounds. The shrine is in the background, check out the cute little parousel she bought outside. Had to have it, the sun was that hot.
This is a shot of the interior of the shrine. The large gold dome houses relics of the buddha.
And below is the picture of the emerald buddha I acquired on the internet.
My shot is over on the right.
This Buddha image is small, just over 2 feet tall, made of green jasper or perhaps jadeite ("emerald" refers to the intense green color, not the specific stone) and since no pictures can be taken inside the temple the shot I got from outside is very tiny. Next time I will bring my telephoto! So the pic I have here is procured from places unknown and hopefully not illegal to reproduce.
There is a library on site that houses the buddhist scripture, one is on gold and the only version that sits in the library.
All through this tour we were taking pictures on our phones and sending to Lena in Halifax. Kinda like she was right there with us, kinda! Was way cool though, when you think about it. Technology is soooo cooool!
There were many more cool things at this place. Definitely I will go again to see this. I took many pics of all kinds of things, way too many to put up on the blog at this time. This last one here is of the Palace. It is only used now to host special events, when foreign dignitaries come to town, that sort of thing. This building was commissioned by Rama V. He had travelled extensively in Europe and brought western architecture to Thailand. They call this building europe with a thai hat!
So that was a hot a very interesting day for us. Wow, lots of cultural stuff, wetted your appetite about buddhism. Cool day. We were glad to get home and hit the pool to cool off. Actually brought a couple of cold ones with us and had a beer pool side. Nice! Enjoy
Sawadee Krup
So on Monday morning at 8 am we were wisked away in a large Toyota van, just Deeds and I to go on a tour of three famous Buddhist temples (Wat) in Bangkok.
The temples are in order: Wat Traimit - The Temple of the Golden Buddha, Wat Pho - The Temple of the Reclining Buddha and Wat Phra Kaew - The Temple of the Emerald Buddha.
Wat Phra Kaew is on the grounds of the Royal Palace and so a walk around of these structures was also included on our half day tour.
I have included as many of the photos as I could here without making this a pic blog rather than a word blog. For those who are into Facebook, I have an album there.
It was a gorgeous day, sun was beaming down on us as we ventured in to see the Golden Buddha.
The story is that the Buddha image was kept from invaders for centuries because it was covered with plaster, appearing to be a normal plaster buddha. One day when the image was being moved it was dropped and workers discovered a shiny surface inside. They discovered a buddha image of 5.5 tons of solid gold.
You can see the wall behind the buddha. The walls are hand painted. Amazing work and detail all around the temple.
Our next visit to Wat Pho was equally amazing. The temple of the reclinging buddha holds an image that is 46 metres long.
Foot to head view here, with some view of the mother of pearl inlays.
This view shows the size of the feet and the intricate inlay of mother of pearl. Amazing stuff.
Wat Phra Chettuphon Wimon Mangkhalaram Ratchaworamahawihan or Wat Pho as the Thais call it is also home to more than 1000 buddha images, the most any wat in Bangkok holds. The wat is also home to a bodhi tree which claimed to be a cutting of the original tree in India where Buddha sat while awaiting enlightening.
Prior to the temple's founding, the site was a centre of education for traditional Thai medicine, and statues were created showing yoga positions and there are plaques all around the walls of a school building showing the methods to traditional thai massage from hundreds of years ago.
Wat Pho is part of a working monastery and there are monks coming and going. Here is the temple where prayers are held twice daily.
From here it was off to the Temple of the Emerald Buddha. Which by the way is not emerald at all. Wat Phra Kaew means Temple of the Holy Jewel and it houses the holiest of the buddha images in Thailand. This temple is the most sacred place for Thais. Full pants must be worn out of respect and no one gets in without, including yours truly. Deeds had a beautiful wrap over her shorts. And as I had mentioned off the top it was a beautiful sunny day. Which in Bangkok only means one thing. It was brutally hot and the sweat was rolling down my back. Then I had to put another pair of pants on overtop of my shorts. Sweat! Enough said.
This is Deeds at the Grand Palace grounds. The shrine is in the background, check out the cute little parousel she bought outside. Had to have it, the sun was that hot.
And below is the picture of the emerald buddha I acquired on the internet.
My shot is over on the right.
This Buddha image is small, just over 2 feet tall, made of green jasper or perhaps jadeite ("emerald" refers to the intense green color, not the specific stone) and since no pictures can be taken inside the temple the shot I got from outside is very tiny. Next time I will bring my telephoto! So the pic I have here is procured from places unknown and hopefully not illegal to reproduce.There is a library on site that houses the buddhist scripture, one is on gold and the only version that sits in the library.
All through this tour we were taking pictures on our phones and sending to Lena in Halifax. Kinda like she was right there with us, kinda! Was way cool though, when you think about it. Technology is soooo cooool!
There were many more cool things at this place. Definitely I will go again to see this. I took many pics of all kinds of things, way too many to put up on the blog at this time. This last one here is of the Palace. It is only used now to host special events, when foreign dignitaries come to town, that sort of thing. This building was commissioned by Rama V. He had travelled extensively in Europe and brought western architecture to Thailand. They call this building europe with a thai hat!
So that was a hot a very interesting day for us. Wow, lots of cultural stuff, wetted your appetite about buddhism. Cool day. We were glad to get home and hit the pool to cool off. Actually brought a couple of cold ones with us and had a beer pool side. Nice! Enjoy
Sawadee Krup
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