Walk Around

I have been doing some walk arounds. Today I took some pics I will share with  you. The first couple are about Traffic. You gotta see the green light bingo that happens with the motor bikes here. Because they sneak through the traffic all the time, they end up all at the front at a red light. These ate either personal vehicles or often taxis. Yes the best, fastest way to get around town is on the back of a 125cc Kawasaki, driven by a mad man, who calls himself a taxi driver. Ladies usually sit side saddle, CRAZY!!!, as these guys manuver around cars, trucks, up onto the sidewalk, sometimes the wrong way for a short distance, on a major street. They are nut bars. But they get you there with a little wind in your hair.

Check out the timelapse photography on the red light above and then it turns green above right.

It's just like a grand prix race!!












The pics under are just shots of traffic. We are located very near a major intersection. That one above with the motorbikes. It is Sukumvit Road at Asoke. The light actually has about 8 stages. The red light lasts for 180 seconds. Yes there is a countdown letting drviers know how long until their light turns green. Needless to say the pedestrians all use overpasses. I took these pics from the overpass at this intersection at around 11:30. Check it out.

To the left here, This is looking towards downtown. The intersection for the motorbikes is right ahead of you.
















The next picture, I just walked to the other side of the overpass.
That is traffic people. As far as you can see back up Sukumvit Road there are cards waiting. Also the reason when the light turns green it stays green for like 2 minutes, just to clear out all the cars. And all the little feeder streets off of this are plugged as well. All draining into this main road. And because the light is red you don't see many motorbikes do you! They are all lined up at the front. They don't stay in line like in TO, they weave there way to the front.

So that's your BKK traffic lesson for today kids.

Rainy Season

Uhuh. Yes tis. Haevn't really mentioned this for the first week cause it actuallly didn't rain. Last three days, uhuh! Shore nuf is rainin. Usually starts to get serious cloudy, big black ones, come rollin in from the west / south it seems. Lotsa bangin and some serious lightnin as well. (Notice I sorta went western on ya there for a minute).

We got stuck over at the thai place across the street. It poured. Number of people had to vacate their seats out the front case of flooding. Deeds couldn't go to the washroom cause it was rained out. Hahaha. So when there finally was a break in the action, not pouring, just raining, one of the waitresses got an umbrella and walked us across the street. Awesome service!

FOOD

We haven't mentioned much about this yet because we don't feel like we have experienced that much. We have had a number of dinners at a couple of great thai restaurants across from the Somerset residence we are staying at [(google map freaks, Somerset Lake Point 16 Sukhumvit 16th Khlong Toei Bangkok Thailand). All of that means that we are staying on a sidestreet (soi) off of a main road named Sukhumvit. Not far for Deeds to go to work downtown either by car or by the Skytrain (runs right down Sukhumvit)].

So back to food. Thai food in particular. It is as most of you know fantastic food. Thailand has a goal to be the "Kitchen of the World" as we were told by one local.
We have told some of you that we were delightfully surprised back in January when we travelled to Phuket Island to find out the Thai food we ate there tasted exactly like the Thai food we ate back in TO or Mississauga. Same great and fantastic food. Expanse of the thai menu is what we have here in BKK. A lot of dishes that we may not see in the thai restaurants in TO. We are not yet aware of any north or south style of cooking but I am sure we will see/hear that in the future and maybe even decide on a fav.
Of course my particular MO is street food! I have not bravely gone as yet. I have ventrued, if you call chicken venturing. The round little ball things, that are deep fried or the long one on a stick also deep fried. Not yet! Soon though. Especially if I find a guy who can talk a little english. I don't want to eat something that I don't know I am eating, You know what I mean? If I am going to eat duck beak, I want to know it. Simple.

As far as other food. BKK is a very cosmopolitan city. Nearly 13 million people. From everywhere. And they all open up restaurants! We ourselves have already had a reasonable schnitzel with spetzel if you can imagine. But you know I just may not be able to eat rice every night! Maybe by after Christmas, but not right now. Thank goodness for Big Salad Night!
More to come on food when Deeds and I get to start cooking at our own place. These digs we are in now are not equiped so we will continue to eat out. Besides, when you can have a dinner for two for $10 CAD why would you want to try! Eating out is cheap here, on the street, even cheaper hahaha!
We will share some great recipes with you and you can cook along with us.
Ciao.

Week Done

Hi again. Sorry for the stutter step. We had a very busy weekend. The biggest part of our excitement for week one began on Saturday at 10 in the morning. We went house hunting. In all we viewed about 15 different places in the day. Our dreams of a house here in Bangkok with a pool out the back door died a slow death as we looked at each place. Houses are built on top of each other as in gated townhouse complexes and the proximity means that neighbours are always directly outside your window and closing blinds all the time seemed necessary. It didn't feel right.
There also seemed to be a preponderance of "super soaker" water guns laying about!
Little bicycles lying in the banana groves and basketballs, skipping ropes, etc. At one locale when viewing the ground floor we heard........

"HEY ITS NEW PEOPLE"
"WHERE?"
"THERE, THAT'S A NEW CAR!!"
"COME ON RACE YA!"

Kinda makes your heart warm doesn't it? Well no! We thought that to be in a close community with little ones running around until night fall, or worse, wasn't on our list. So thus ended the "house" hunting and allowed us to open to the apartment hunting experience.
The inventory is extensive, but we had an awesome real estate team working for us and they helped us hone in on the type of place we ourselves didn't know we wanted, could afford or beleive that we could actually..... live in a place like that!
We are close to finalizing a property that is absolutely unbelievable. Bigger than bigger! (I actually did not know how big 400sq m is until dinner last night!)
So with only a night time visist to the property (make sure the area allows sleeping) and one last tour through the inventory to ensure something even more ostentatious isn't available we may have our place. They are renovating the apartment now (is actually a penthouse suite), installing new air con, redoing the floors, etc. We have some say in colour of furniture, bed boards, that sort of thing and we may be in the place within 3 to 4 weeks. It is worth the wait, trust me. Lena will go crazy when she sees this place in February.
We will keep you updated, even supply some pics as we move forward.

Nothin

That's what I did on Thursday. Went up to the pool around 10ish, read my BeBook, splashed in the pool. When I got too hot, like every 15 minutes, I splashed in the pool then read my BeBook, splashed, read, splashed. You get the picture.
You see, it isn't easy doing nothing. Really. It takes practice. So is reading a book and splashing in the pool for 3.5 hours doing nothing? I figured yesterday it was.
Diane on the other hand had another ramp up day at work. Getting to know more players and being plugged into the project a little more. She met our driver yesterday. Khun Phatsin. Nickname - Duke. I met him this morning as he picked Diane up to take her to her other office. Yes our little Deedles has two offices. One in the main office at MBK and the other out at the Data Centre. I will let her tell you all about that in greater detail when she gets a chance.
I have hooked up all the Skype requirements to meet commitments. Called my mom today for the first time since I left Canada. Was good to hear her voice. Had a wonderful talk with Tammy and George V and that was followed by a quick talk and see with Lena. I just love technology!
Today I am going to do some pool again, I have an appointment today with a tailor to get a suit made for the ball next weekend.  
 
The Ball?! Yes folks we have been invited to the Maple Leaf Ball hosted by the Thai - Canadian Chamber of Commerce. So I need to get something a little more formal than the golf shirts I brought with me.
The Ball will be a post all it's own!! Hehehe, have fun talk soon, enjoy!

Sa-wat-dee

Hello in Thai. Sa-wat-dee, is the pronounciation, trying to remember this basic of greetings is additionally tough because it is polite to add the male or female to the end. Male is "krup", female is "ka". Sa-wat-dee krup.
We will make it there, sooner or later, biggest trouble is that in the service industry a large number of Thais speak english, so it is easy to fall back into the trap of being a tourist.

Went out on my first adventure yesterday. Walked for about two hours up and down two major roads in the area of our digs. No misadventures. No dogs chasing after me, came close to getting run over by some scooters but still nimble enough to get out the way.
Street food, yes I had street food. Simple bit of grilled chicken. Not into eating duck beak or anything yet, or ever perhaps. But going native as best I can. Still alive today so that blows out one caution.
I thought I would drive here after Christmas, you know once I got to know the city a bit and was comfy. Horse**** to that. The roads here are clogged, blocked and in gridlock. Would be too frustrting. Traffic in TO is backwater compared to this place.
Example: on Tuesday night we were picked up at 6:30 to go to a Korean restaurant. The drive took nearly 40 minutes. Yesterday afternoon, barely knowing where the hell I was, I walked to the restaurant in 11 minutes. Thats traffic baby!!
Talk to you soon

Day one of normal time

Today is Wednesday. Day one of normal time here in bkk. Diane and I went to the restaurant downstairs and had breakfast. Robert who is on the project met us and the two of them were waiting in the lobby to get a ride into the office. Diane is off to work!!
Jerry is off to BKK, I'll tell ya all about that in a few hours..................

IN ASIA

We landed in Hong Kong @ 4:30 am after a pleasant 15 hour flight. Biz class is the only way to fly. Thank you Scotiabank!! Spent a few hours in the Cathay Pacific lounge reading, had a shower, a cappuccino, some nibblies, and headed for the Bangkok flight. Saw alot of Bangkok as we know it on the first hour as follows:
Smacked in the face by heat as we exited the terminal building. 32 degrees, it was 17 when we left TO. Gotta love the trade off.
Took 7 minutes to get to the main highway outside the airport. Took 30 minutes to get to our hotel/condo unit. Traffic. It is all they say it is!
Deeds and I are now resting comfortably. Have a little Wintersleep playing on the iPod in respect of the Canadian movie "One Week" that we both watched on the flight. Maybe take a spin to the pool later. Will have dinner tonight with some of the worker dudes here.
Deeds is off to work tomorrow morning, I will start my walk around and see if I can get lost and find something interesting and of course it is always my job to find a place for dinner. I love that. Won't be long before we'll be eating street food. Gotta go native!
Now, how is your Thai??!

Almost gone......

Super organized this sunny Sunday morning....limo arrived as scheduled .....at the airport by 11am in plenty of time for our 1:30 flight. If only it had been a 1:30pm flight....or should I say 13:30. But no, it was actually 01:30.
Seriously, we missed our flight.

What a terrible email to have to write all the big bosses in Thailand. A bit of a flakey start, no? But as my friend Cindy has always said.....'!@?# them if they can't take a joke'.

Anyway we have just spent a lovely afternoon wandering in Port Credit...and will chill now until we leave tonight.

....going...GONE

Early morning of the 19th. Last post until later on Monday cause it takes us 22 hours to get there. What a fantastic weekend we have had. From Barb and Al to Snowman, it was great to hear from you all and receive your well wishes. Thank you.
The personal packing is all complete.
We haven't heard the latest report from Lena about the wedding but preliminary info was it was a fantastic affair. They are headed back to Halifax today as we get on our plane.

Now just a few notes to let you all do some posting here. All you need to do is click on the "Comments" word from now on and you will be able to make a comment. I of course will be able to edit your comments...... but won't. So come along with us and do add your take. It is a nice way to stay in touch, and don't forget we also have email addresses and would love to hear more. That's because this blog is about what we are doing now but we still want to know what you are doing too.

Packed and going....

They arrived at 8 am rather than the agreed 2 pm. More decisions made for us! We did get everything out and it is now packed and gone. Yikes. So we only have to pack our cases for the flight on Sunday. Shorts and tees!!

We have said all our goodbyes, met and sat with as many as we could considering the task in front of us. We feel good about all that. Hope you do too.

Also of note Lena is off to PEI this afternoon, so the adventures include all of us. With Lena are a number of dear friends celebrating a wedding of fantastic preportions. Wish we could go to there Shelly and Carolyn. All our love and best wishes. See you soon!!!!!!

Packing Day

It's here. We are moving and we still don't have a clue! Today / tonight Deeds and I are finalizing exactly what we are having shipped to Bangkok (hethertofore BKK or bkk depending on energy level). WE ARE ACTUALLY PACKING! 
We have decided on our favourite Lazy-boy chairs. Our little quiet time every morning with tea. Gotta have that or house can't be home. Bunch of kitchen things, plates, cups, knives, all the makings for above mentioned tea (wierd that we are actually bringing tea to Asia!?!), wine glasses of course, pots and pans, yadda, yadda, yadda.
We also have all of the technology items needed to coexist in asia. Many more to be purchased there I am sure.
All decisions have been made. Well.......... alot were just events and happenings that were forced upon us but deciding not to change the result is in itself a decision. We of course did have some events go exactly the way we wanted and these achievements are to be enjoyed.
It has been a time. Both of us marvel at the fact that one hasn't smothered the other with a pillow in the early morning hours. A move like this is not for the faint of heart!

Big Step 1

Lena has finished packing all that she needs!! for 2nd year at Dal. We'll have a wee dinner tonight and she is on a plane to Halifax and a totally different year at University. In her own house! Something Lena has wanted since about grade 7. No one wants to be on her own more than Lena, and we admire her a lot for that. Good luck and have an awesome year!!

Deeds and I now move towards Step 2. Getting our act together. Figuring out what we want and need to bring to Bangkok to make our place there a home. We have a short list already that I am sure will grow. Final doctor appointments, shots, piles of needed pills, stop subscriptions, memberships, yadda yadda yadda.
Excitement is still in the offing as we are way to busy to give ourselves that luxury.

Scheduled departure is now being referred to as Sep 20.