Our (rainy) beach weekend

This Memorial Day was the first weekend that we actually went out of town.   It has been difficult to get out as it’s just confortable to stay home where we get so many amenities included in our cost of living.  Leaving means that not only we’ll be paying for a nice hotel in Bangkok where we leave our stuff, but also we need to pay for another hotel wherever we happened to be going.  Sucks but what else can you do?

In a previous visit to Thailand we had focused on the culture and nature of the north of the country.  Rather than spending any time in Bangkok or the South we headed straight up to Chiang Mai.  So this time we started by going to the beach for the weekend.  Us and ½ million other expats from Bangkok. 

It was a long weekend here as well, on Friday the country celebrates a big religious holiday commemorating the birth of the Buddha.    Since Thailand is mostly Buddhist, it goes without saying that this was a very important holiday. 

Another reason that I wanted to head South this time was that we are waiting for the rainy season to begin relatively soon so I wanted to beat the rains before they start happening on a daily basis.

I may have missed the memo on that but it seems like the Phuket area is already in their rainy season as our flight was diverted from landing in Phuket because of rain and the rain was always a cloud away during the first two days we were there.   Since we don’t have the time to be returning to the same locations, we figured that we should see what we could out of the area and deal with the rain as best we could.  So, under the rain pretty much we walked to a tour/travel sales office and negotiated on the best possible 1 day tour of the bay islands for Sunday.    There are many, many options to go but we felt safest in a bigger boat with roof and A/C so that at least we would stay dry during the trip.

Sunday arrived and we were picked up early from our hotel in Karon Beach.  The rain had subsided but the clouds were building up behind the hills.  They drove us to the port in Phuket Town and there we boarded the big boat.  Just as we were leaving the port, the rain started coming down.  We thought for sure, glad we chose this boat over the other choices.  However, we may have thought too soon as the day started to clear up quickly and it turned out to be a cloudy but dry day pretty much until the end of the cruise around 5pm.

Probably because of the change in the weather, the sea was not smooth as silk as they show it in the brochures, but it was fairly smooth sailing throughout.   

Thinking about it, how many times we make decisions based on the information we have at the time, we feel safe that we made the correct decision under the circumstances.   That’s normally how I handle decisions.  But then you get situations like this one, we made a decision based on this being probably the only opportunity we had and we were going to do the best of it regardless.  It could have gone either way, but lucky for us this time, we took the risk and were rewarded with a nice day.  Wish it was always that way but I know better.

Our American neighbors

Did I push it too hard or did the off balance caught up with me?  Or more than likely we encountered some stomach bug in one of our recent meals, but whatever it was, both B and I were out of commission for the whole weekend.  So it was basically watching movies on TV and eating some fruits that I went to get at the Tops supermarket in the building.  This was our 4^th weekend in BKK and probably counting the 1/3 of the way into our stay here.   So this was our way of celebrating our one-month anniversary.  Monday is already looking better, B is already at work and I feel a little better although not 100% just yet.

Even though I was not in the mood for eating, I went to accompany B to have her lunch so I took the usual daily walk by passing the American Embassy.  We’re actually surrounded by the Americans, well, not quite, we’re surrounded by embassies but it happens that the Americans take a lot of space.   Actually walking north on Wireless Rd (that’s our road) you’ll find the Vietnam Embassy pretty much the next building after ours. But right across the street is the American Ambassador’s residence.  A really nice spread that looks more like a park than a residence.  But going south towards B’s work you pass on the right hand-side of the street, the American Embassy and on the left-side of the street is the Consular Section of the American Embassy.  There is an elevated walkway between both sides of the streets and on top of it there is usually a Thai guard wearing an American uniform.  Of course, there is so much security that some times I don’t even want to look to either side of the street for fear of being confused with someone thinking the wrong thing, but quite often I do make eye contact with either the guard on the walkway or any of the ones guarding the front entrances, and they all seemed like very nice and friendly young people.  Not what I was expecting but nice to see.  Not sure if they are just being Thai, which usually means that they are just  nice people, always smiling, or whether that may actually be in their job description, to be nice to people so the locals don’t feel resentful of the Americans.  Of course, I haven’t done the research to see if they see me as a foreigner anyhow and only foreigners get that treatment, but regardless, I’d be a nice strategy to keep the American-looking Marines and guards inside out of everyone’s views and keep the friendly local guards outside smiling and being watchful but nice.

It’d be interesting to know if this would be the same opinion that the dozens of people that are lining up every morning at the doors of the Consular Section waiting for their dreams of a visa to come to reality.  I’m just glad to be a foreigner at a place where they actually don’t mind foreigners and on the contrary †end to be nice to foreigners and locals alike.

A little off balance

Things started already different this week.  My new routine encountered a few hurdles and I found myself off balance.

Monday morning started a little different from the get go.   We were rushing to start our usual routine.  B was running a little late and I had an urgent call that could only be answered in one of the rooms in the apartment.  B didn’t want to be late so she left my ass, literally, on the throne.  So, not having the encouragement of having to drop her off, I simply skipped the exercise for the day.  Bad start.

For lunch we went to the small food court on the 11^th floor in her building.  This is another food court like the one we have here in our building that is mostly for locals.  I mean, the food courts that I’ve been referring to before are the big, fancy kind.  Like a whole floor of a mega mall, with all the bells and whistles of a major brand store.  The food courts for the locals are simple.  The signs are all in Thai, and only in Thai.  No photos, just maybe a few sample plates on the front counter or maybe just the ingredients to be used but no idea of what you’d get.  Regardless, we feel a little more adventurous and dare to get whatever they give us.

So, the lunch was that good that I didn’t even need dinner.  That was a first.  Skipping diner in the food heaven we live in.  Well, that was the first thing that put me off balance.

Then this morning, I dropped B off at her job and headed to Lumpini Park a little more energized than the day before (since I hadn’t ran since last Friday).   I started to run as soon as I got into the park and away from the car fumes.  Did my usual 2.5 KM jog and as I was approaching the end a fellow runner caught up with me and stayed at my pace.  It was kind of weird. I kept going at my pace and he was jogging right beside me.  Every so often I discretely looked his way but no communications of any sort.  As I finished my run and started to slow down, the guy turns around and tells me to do one more.  At least that’s what I thought he was saying.  So, I kept going and we did another round (2.5 KM).  It was his 4^th round for the day.  Apparently he’s some sort of Thai boxer doing his usual training.   He seemed to know a lot of other joggers as many people recognized him as we were going around.  At the end of my second round I was definitely done so he turned around and say good bye and I said “Sa wad dee” and went out of the park to cool down on my way home.

Weird but in a way glad that the boxer encouraged me to push myself a little more than the usual.   The peer pressure made me complete the second round and I felt just fine with it. Now, would this be the new balanced day or will I go back to my regular jog?  We’ll see tomorrow.

A Balancing Act

Having a lot more time than I had the last few months I was in Miami, I decided that it’d be a great thing for me to get more physically fit since I have the TIME and the facilities in the hotel gym and Lumpini Park nearby.

B and I have always managed to take time for some physical activity during the day. For years we have walked in the morning a total of about an hour or more.  Not too strenuous but it gave us the chance to stay fit and also to catch up with each other as we walked and talked during that time.

During 2012, we managed to keep the exercise routine but it kept suffering when I’d received urgent calls from work or the staff at the factory was waiting for an ingredient that I had to buy on my way to work.    The routine suffered even more when our eldest son arrive in the scene as I wanted to maximize our time together by carpooling, then our walk evolved into a more leisurely walk in the evenings with his family and our grandson.  Fine by me but not so fine by my body.

In the last 6 months before we left to BKK our exercise routine was almost nonexistent and I could feel the weakness in my muscles and bones.  So what I great opportunity to rebuild my physic (I don’t even know how to spell this, let alone having one), regardless, I want to stay alive to see my grandson get married so I better start working on it.

As you can see, I had the best of intentions.  And then I found “the Thai FOOD COURTS”.  And that was the end of my idea of getting my body to where it has never been.

My new plan is more sustainable.  I have already started my exercise program, but my goals are less grandiose.  I’m not aspiring to much just to stay somewhat healthy to stick around for a while.  I have been jogging every week morning after I walk B to her work.  The “jogging” part is about 2.5 KM (sounds more if I use the km instead of miles), which is the route around the Lumpini Park.

My excuse is that I don’t want to jog on the sidewalks of BKK, one because I could get killed by the motorcycles that love to ride on the sidewalks, and two because BKK air is so polluted by the thousands of cars riding its streets, that you could easily get some clogged arteries just by breathing the air, let alone, breathing heavy while jogging.  So, for health reasons, I’m not jogging beyond the required by the distance of the jogging trail inside Lumpini Park.  The argument works for me, take it or leave it.

When I return to the hotel, I’m usually still sweating, not only for the jog but because BKK is VERY HOT all the time.  Once in the A/C building, I head straight to the gym where I do some stretches, a few push-ups and a couple  of abdominal exercises and with that I check that box faster than a I can hop onto the elevator on my way back to our room.  So, like everything in life, it’s not good to overdo anything.  Everything is a balance and I have found my new balance, a little exercise to compensate a little Thai shopping mall Food Court.

Lunch is so 2012

We have tried doing the lunch thing in so many ways and I’m finally narrowing down which ways don’t work and other better ways that may eventually be where we’ll focus our attention.

One of my attempts early on was to cook some sort of meal at “home”.  We do have a microwave, a two-burner electric range and a refrigerator.  We also have a few pots and a bunch of plates and utensils.  So I thought, I’ll just go to the grocery store which we have in the building and buy a few things to cook ourselves a lunch.

Bad idea.  When you start from scratch, you have nothing.  So I needed to buy a little salt, except that no one sells “a little” salt.  I needed some oil, same story.  You get the point.  I just bought some eggs, some vegetables and, you guessed it, some noodles.  That should be simple, right? 

Well, the pot for the egg was not the Teflon type so half of it stayed on the pot.  I was able to boil water, so the veggies and the noodles were OK.  Seasoning-wise wanting, but at least edible.

I set up the table with a couple of bowls, spoons and chopsticks.  Looked nice but very bland and unappealing.

Today was my second attempt at having a “home meal”.  B agreed to come home for lunch at about 12:30PM.  So, around 12:00 I get up from my desk and rushed downstairs to the shopping mall attached to the hotel.  They do have a number of restaurants in addition to a Thai food court.  This particular food court is more for the local population, not the fancy type of the other malls, but just various Thai food from each vendor.  That food court is a little bit more of a challenge to me as I usually have to go based on the pictures the descriptions are exclusively targeting the locals and not so much the expats in the area.

So, I went looking for the restaurants instead.  But, what would B want for lunch today?  Don’t know, I’ll guess.  The first one was a Chinese Restaurant, not the ready-made Chinese as back home but more of a formal sit-down kind of restaurant.  I looked at the menu outside and decided to go for it.  Ordered a Chinese broccoli, a curry king-prawn dish and an some white rice to go.  Please wait 15 minutes.  So, I’m thinking, it’s almost 12:30PM, I ordered only one main dish.  How about if that wouldn’t be enough for two.  I walk out of the Chinese restaurant and find a Japanese not too far a walk from the first one.  They advertised some “Take Away” lunches, so I thought, let’s take some sushi/sashimi to go along with the Chinese.  Why not?  Sirs, it’s going to be a 20 minute wait.  OK, that’s cutting into my lunch time.

I head back to the Chinese, by this time it was almost ready.  I waited, paid and took it to the room.  I set up the plates and set up the meals ready to go in case B got home before I returned with the Japanese food.  Rush out again, find the Japanese restaurant.   Wait another 5 minutes, pay and rush home to set up the remaining food on the table.

As I’m putting the last chopstick on the table, and panting as a mad man that just saw a ghost, just then B opens the door.  Catching my breath, I do the “Sawadee Krap” with my “praying posture” to greet her, and she walks in to see the nice spread on the table.

It was a good meal, even though I ended up mixing a couple of cultures (Chinese & Japanese) along the way.  We had a good time.  We even ended up eating with our hands as we had to clean up those long king prawns before eating them.   A mess but we enjoyed it.

After we were done, we still had to clean up after ourselves.  The cleaning person doesn’t come until tomorrow so I can’t leave all those dishes just sitting there.  So, clean up and tidy up some.

Good lunch?  Yes.  Cheap? Not really as I ended up getting more than we needed.  Worth it?  Not at all, especially when you include the stress of getting it here and the cleaning afterwards.

So, in conclusion, neither of the ways that I have tried to have a “home meal” have worked.   Tomorrow we’re back to the usual hang outs and maybe we’ll take time to visit yet another Food Court at a Mall nearby.  Eating at home is so 2012.