30 days out of Canada

Miss the hockey, miss the leaves, miss the coolness nippin at your nose. Miss my garden. And of course all the people.
But we are moving forward, no one has suggested that there are 542 sleeps before we come home, that would just be the wrong way to look at this. And that wouldn't make it an adventure either.
This weekend as you all already know is a long weekend in Thailand. We have plans for one tour into the city. One of those temple and palace tours that BKK is famous for. Have to take one before our first boatload of Canadians arrive here on Oct 29.
I also have my first golf game booked for Saturday. Yeah I know pure relief. You were all getting worried weren't you. Well now you can relax as I will finally be hitting the links again. I will borrow clubs, will need to go and look for some place to buy a box of Top Flite, Extra Long Super Soft Dead Straight GET IN THE HOLE golf balls. Shouldn't be too hard. It is BKK afterall. A shoppers paradise. Wish me well. I will hit the links with only half of my usual attire. All real golf related equipment, hats, glove, etc is still in impound down at Customs and Immigration.

You have heard about the floods here in Thailand? Well I hadn't until by the pool yesterday morning. Trying now to look on websites to see if the floods are heading towards BKK. Floods are in northern Thailand right now as far as I can figure.BKK is very flat and only abaout 10 meters or so above sea level. Kinda like New Orleans. A river Delta. The area that we are in was all rice paddies in the 60's according to one pool side resource. (Hey you get information where you can! Deeds is always askin me How do you know this stuff? There you go, resources!!)

I will go downtown to meet Deeds this afternoon to present our visa's to the Immigration Dept. Had to get six extra pictures taken in a panic last night. We have a special resource here who will pick up our visa info and go and stand in line for us down at Immigration to present the material. Our meeting is scheduled for 1. This is progress. Every little step like this gets us closer to getting our stuff out of hock and I can use my own golf equipment.
Looks like ETA for the apartment is November 1. Last discussions with the landlords rep ended in "The lease starts November 1, I would think you will move in November 1. We will try to have the place ready before that, but........."
There is a quick little update, 30 days out of Canada!
Sawadee Krup

Even the locals are surprised

Yeah, how many times have ya heard that about the weather. So it is here in BKK. Clouds, everywhere and then rain too! Season is suuposed to come to an end this month but just keeps hangin on. Bummer for me. Keeps me in doors a lot.
In case you have forgotten my regular routine. After a quick call with my mom (8:45 am BKK time > 7:45 pm Lethbridge time) I usually click around on the internetz for awhile and then head downstairs to the pool. Out for lunch streetside and then off for a little walk perhaps. Although the exploring is dropped off lately, seen alot and don't want to see too much without Deeds. (Will just have to go back and see it again when she wants too!) So pretty much nothing.
Oh and of course shopping!
Yeah I pretty much do all the shopping. We are trying to eat in 3 times a week at least. Big salad takes care of one night guaranteed. After that is up to me to create. And it ain't gonna be Thai food cause the people on the street cook better than me and do it a lot cheaper!! And besides, I haven't found a Thai market yet. Hopefully I can locate one close to our new apartment. If I can buy more local stuff I might be able to cook some Thai based dishes.
(Regarding the apartment no news yet, so we wait. No golf as a result of the wait. We are running out of stuff cause we thought 2 weeks, three tops. It has now  been four weeks. We actually arrived here in BKK 4 weeks ago today!)

We try to eat in three times a week even though it is hard to cook with limited utensils, kinda restricts the things you can cook. Also we don't have stuff. Simpple stuff like salt and pepper! So you have to shop to get the right stuff to put together a meal. Watch how this goes.................
I bought a bag of elaichi, looks a bit like fusili only smaller, and they attached a can of Prego sauce as a promotion of some sort. Great! Now at back at the apartment I pop the holy trinity into one of the two pots we have (diced carrots, celery, onion) let simmer for 5 minutes and then pour the sauce over top and let bubble. You all know how to make spag sauce I'm sure. In addition I have a small bag of green asparagus, it is very very thin, chopped into small pieces and dropped into the sauce for about 5 minutes before serving.
A romaine salad with some Paul Newmans own caesar dressing and a loaf of french bread.
We have found a delightful Australian cabernet called the Little Penguin. Voila. Dinner.
Don't ya wish you were here!!!

The little red haired girl! She sent me a note yesterday and all is forgiven, hopefully on both sides. Here is the story, even the ugly parts (she's a Leafs fan). Diane had in fact recieved an email from Jenny commenting about the blog and that she was loving it. My darling wife just forgot to send it to me. Oooops!
That's Jenny there on the right. The princess looking one. All is right in the universe.

So the price that I had to pay for calling Jenny out on an internationally famous blog was a plague upon my house. Well not actually she just made some reference to the fact that the Leafs have won the cup this year, already. And being a Habs fan that would put me all in a flutter.
Actually, no, not at all. I can think of a whole number of teams, well a bunch or is it a couple, well actually one team that I definitely put in front of the Laughs on the list. The hated B's
So I am OK with the fact they won the cup already. Especially since I am not in the country to see all the celebrating and vandalism on Yonge St. It's disgraceful.

What with all of this meandering I forgot to mention that today was a decent weather day. I was out at the pool at 10 am, stayed to near 1. Done nothing the rest of the day, except went shopping and writing this blog and cooking dinner. Hehehe.
Sawadee Krup

Blogging!!

Want to say hi to all and thank you to those faithful followers that have the cojones to advertise that they are actually following this blog. I am humbled. I also want to call out to some who talked about how cool it would be if I did blog. You know of these people or persons yet unnamed and that they have not visited as yet.         Please encourage them to follow along and let them know that there is fun to be had by all here at "In Asia".

 

And finally I would like to give a shout out to that one special individual who must take a major responsibility for the creation and the inspiration to do this blog. She seems to be anonymous since the inception of In Asia. Kinda missing in action our dear little red haired friend is.

Ohh don't be thinkin you know who it is or isn't just because Jer has mentioned the infamous red haired girl.
I tread very softly on that ground (having been a Charlie Brown when it comes to red haired girls for way too long, gosh there's one story from Grade 2, ask me one day). No this is someone who urged on the writer over a few glasses of Liberty red wine up north in the Muskokas and again most every chance that was available. She was right by the way this blog is a gas, but I wonder why she has not made herself public herein and cast her vote. Me thinks that her silence is disapproval and it saddens me!!


Enough about that folly and on to what is happening hereabouts in BKK.


Well it can be summed up recently in a word. RAIN. It is the rainy season afterall. And folks it is raining. Every bloody day this week. Some days more and longer than others. I haven't had any pool time. Tan is fading fast. No not like those back in Canada, poor fools. I still have a tan, so does Deeds. That's how much tan you get here. But we do need to recharge and soon, the rain is getting just a bit boring.
Otherwise our lives are starting to fall into a bit of normal. Meaning we have some routines down pretty good. Have nailed a few necessities like, girl to do the waxing, hairdressing, threading, dry cleaning and of course you know that I found a tailor!
We are keeping our fingers crossed about our apartment. Plan was to move in round about the 15th. Hehehe, today is the 16th soooo we are waiting. Hoping next weekend cause I am really starting to get the urge to play some golf. It is actually more like the shakes!
I have not played a round of golf since mid Septmber back in TO. A month it has been and usually in October back home I would play 20 games. It's usually perfect weather, all the part timers and hackers have packed it in and it would be just the serious hackers like me still out there.
Heres hopin
Sawadee Krup

It is that hot

I have to tell you that I went out and bought some anti-perspirant the other day. Now I am not a proponent of this stuff. All full of zinc and things that actually plug up your pores. That's why you don't perspire. No holes in your skin for it to come out! But I had too. I couldn't stand myself. Really. The manly, swarthy, European thing just doesn't work for me. I just do not believe that one should be aromatic if you know what I mean. I think I have told you about the perpensity here to take showers. It's part of the solution but hey I may have found another partial solution to the heat. People say you should dust up with baby powder. This is an internet tip I found. Makes sesne yes! I am going to try this is to and see if it helps. Anything to be fresh.

Just thought I would share that with you. Sorry it it's too much information.

Traffic still amazes me. Went downtown with the driver yesterday at 10 am. Took 1 hour 15 minutes. Wow. Took 12 minutes to get home at 2 pm. That is traffic folks.

Sawadee Krup

Slow coupla days

Nothing much to report for Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. Lots of shopping, actually had dinner "at home" the last two nights. Was kinda cool just to sit down to dinner the two of us.
I had a few TV shows downloaded so we had an evening in front of the big screen. Yes that is the 19 inch lap top computer we have, though with the new GOM player I downloaded it was very easy to look at. Much better player than DIVX if anyone out there cares. Still looking for a solution to upload from the laptop to the tv screen that looks half decent. Working on it.
I have a few movies that I can cut to disc so we might even have popcorn and a movie one night soon. Just have to find a good divx converter. The player here is a DVD / DIVX so that is one bonus.
We are closing in on the apartment and will have pics of that as soon as we are in. Out to buy sheets and comforters, yes comforters. Because you have the air con blasting all the time you need to conver up or you will freeze to death. Weird huh? Getting around the air con is one of the great dilemmas around here. You dress for hot, but everywhere you go there is air con. Blasting. Cold. I actually find myself at times going outside to warm up, gotta get away from the A/C.
Haven't done a lot of pool the last three days cause of the clouds and rain. Poured last night, true tropical rain storm. Big thunder and lightning! Was a little sun today but not enough to take advantage of. So it there is any let up tomorrow I am at the pool by 10:30. Fellow needs to relax.
Sawadee Krup

Not a holiday in BKK

I know most of you are sitting around enjoying turkery sandwiches. Sweet.
Deeds and I like ours with butter on the bread, me a little mustard on one side and don't forget to put some dressing in with that turkey breast meat. Yes that's right, ya gotta have some dressin in their too. Was the Brooks clan that taught me this one, tastes great!! No I do not put ketchup on my turkey, that distinction belongs to Beaver. He's also the one who is king at brooksin-up the ketchup bottle as well. Aahhhh, but ya gotta love em though!

So Deeds is at work today I have been tryin to get my phone unlocked so I can get a local number. Just too cheap to buy a new one. Might have to though. Tried some internet service to unlock the hold Rogers has on it and may have turned it into a brick! Will let some Thai phone wizard at it tomorrow. Here's hopein.

One development that I haven't told you about is taxi scooters. These enterd our lives as must haves this weekend. At one point you just get fed up with walkin everywhere. And as a pedestrian here you fall into the same category as squirels or racoons back home. The drivers swerve to try and miss but if not, oh well!

If you are walkin you are waitin. And sweating, did I mention it was hot here! One change of clothes to do one thing. Go shopping, come home, shower, change your clothes. Now if you take the scooter taxi, you are there in two minutes. They go fast enough that you don't break into a sweat, in fact it kinda cools you off. Like a fan, only a lot more scary. So I am now ridin the scooters. The furthest supermarket costs 30 baht to get home. Is one dollar. I'm in. Deeds even had a ride on one on Sunday from the top of our street. Two guys were kinda racing down the road. Was fun, breezy and not at all like walking and sweating. And you will notice that alot of the women here actually ride them side saddle. So they are alot safer than you think.

We do have a long weekend coming up. October 23 is actually a dual holiday. Firstly it is Wan Ok Pansa which is the celebration of the end of the rains retreat. It is held on the first day of the waning moon of the eleventh lunar month. October 23 also happens to be Chulalongkorn Day. Because these two days coincide this year Chulalongkorn Day will be celebrated with a holiday on Monday, October 25.
King Chulalongkorn the Great or Rama V, passed away on October 23rd 1910 at the age of 57. He had ruled what was then Siam, for 42 years. Chulalongkorn was educated by Thai and European tutors including Anna Leonowens who later became famous after she was portrayed in the movie ‘The King and I’. The boy prince in the story was a portrayal of Chulalongkorn. That is his picture on the back of Thailand’s 100 Baht note.

Sawadee Krup

Awesome Weekend

Hey again folks. Deeds and I just got back from the pool it's 4:30 in the afternoon and we might be in for a little nap before we decide whats for din din.

We have had a great, great weekend in BKK.
Friday night was laid back. We walked down the street to the Parrot Cate, had a cold Corona on their tiny little patio, did a walk around to see if we could find any shortcuts outta the holtel area to other environs.  For dinner we decided on a Korean restaurant a few paces further down Soi 16 from the Parrot. It too was a taste treat and we were home by 8.

Watched a little tv, only a little as there really isn't anything of interest, some movies is all and I was off to bed earlly. Deeds hung around and read.

Satruday morn was a typical tea for two start for us. We love to have our tea in the morning, usually accompanied by the newspaper. Haven't got that going yet. My job as CIO of iDB Technologies is to hook up our ereaders to download The Star and Globe. This should happn next Sunday, we will read the Saturday versions of both of those papers on our readers. I'll let ya know how that goes.
We also had a great treat Saturday morning when we got to Skype with Honey and Tony. This is amazing technology and really keeps us connected. Don't know how people lived without this.

We had heard about TIFF not far from our residence. Ohhh yeah Thailand International Furniture Festival. Really! It opened at 11, we were there at about 5 after. Walked around and found some fantastic stuff for the new apartment, just now trying to figure out if it works somewhere back in Mississauge before we actually buy it. Left there and we were back for a little nappy before our big dinner extravaganza with fellow Thanachart Bank employees.

The event took place in the Hawaii Towers.
This will ring bells because our new place is in these same Hawaii Towers. The dinner was hosted by Ajay and Sonali. The food was truly Indian and was totally awesome. I for one ate too much. And ow my tummy vas vedie sore. I also drank too much red wine. Yes I know that comes as a surprise to alot because I have not embibbed much in the last 7 or so years. But this night I lost control. Paid the price as well, so I am back on the wagon. Til next time!!

 

Sunday morning we were late out of bed. Having tea, with no paper to read we started browsing the Bangkok Guide we bought in TO. We noticed that Chatuchak Market is held on the weekends and is said to be quite big and fantastic. Now Deeds and I are old hands remember. Coupla trips to Hong Kong. These are world famous markets such as Tung Choi Street (knock offs),  Stanley Market (clothes and lots of other), Wan Chai............. well I could go on. And these are really great markets with negotiating (Deeds in her glory here folks look out) and walk away ploys and all that stuff. We thought we knew markets. Chatuchak or JJ Market (Jatujak) as it is also known, THIS IS A MARKET. Holy mother of pearl.  The place covers 35 acres! We are talking sod farm here folks. There are over 5,000 stalls and they expect at least 200,000 people on each day it is open. There is a map of the place above and all the stalls are gathered together based on product. Took Deeds and I only 40 minutes and we were lost. But talk about great stuff, cheap. Example we bought pairs of flip flops for 59 baht/ $1.90.
You cannot do this place in a day, or two even. You need to check out the map, pick your target for the day and go. Come back for the other stuff next time. Wow! It is hot and the stalls a crammed together, with tarps for rain over top, so we are talking steam bath type heat. We will go back now that we have a clue.


Pool was great, resting now and looking forward to the event of the week. We Skype with Lena tonight. Our favourite. Hooray.
Sawadee Krup