Jim Thompson House

My fall classes officially start on Tuesday, but I can access them starting tomorrow.  I know I'll look at them tomorrow and start stressing about the work I have to do, so I decided that today was my last day of freedom, and I should use it well.  I wanted to do something downtown, and all the guidebooks recommend the Jim Thompson House, so I decided that would be my something. 

I knew it would be more fun with friends, so I talked two of my neighborhood friends into coming downtown with me.  One of them had a husband who was driving in, so they gave us a ride to the embassy.  The Jim Thompson House isn't too far from the embassy, but definitely too far to walk, so we needed a taxi.  Using the training I got from my friend the last time I explored downtown, I looked for taxis with the red light in the front, and I waved towards me rather than "hailing" with my hand up the way you would in the States.  Sure enough, the first taxi I tried it on, put his hazards on to show that he saw me and stopped and picked us up.  Yay!!  I said "meter" he said "ka" and nodded.  Then I said, "Jim Thompson House?".  That was not as easy.  I could tell he wanted to say yes, but he wasn't sure what I was saying.  We tried a couple more times, until I think he understood us, then we got in.  I used the power of Google to pull up a map, and used it to double check that we were going the right way, which we were.

There was a ton of traffic, so our crafty cab driver cut through a Tesco parking lot to go down a side street and avoid a major intersection.  That involved getting a ticket to get the barrier to go up, driving through the parking garage, and then giving the ticket to the person on the other side, so that we could get out.  I'm sure he saved us quite a bit of time, but I was really glad I had my Google maps up to let me know that he was on the right track.

After slogging through some more traffic, he stopped in front of a little alley and pointed down it.  We figured he knew what he was doing, so we got out.  A tuk tuk driver was sitting in the alley and offered to take us to the Jim Thompson House for free, so we said sure and hopped on.  It just took a minute or two of going down the alley to get there, but it's definitely one of those places that if you didn't know it was there, you would never be able to find it.  As is to be expected, the tuk tuk driver offered to wait for us and then show us around the city, but we said we were fine and gave him a tip.

The house and the gardens are an oasis in the crazy, crowded city.

We decided to have lunch first.  There is a lovely restaurant there, right next to a pond, and we had some delicious food.  

I especially enjoyed the Mango Tango, which was a yummy mango smoothie.

After lunch we looked around the store, which had some beautiful things (no pictures allowed, sorry), but the prices were quite high.  There are also Jim Thompson outlets, so I'll need to get to one of those.

The tour was about 40 minutes long and very interesting.  There are no photos allowed in the house, so I can't share those, but the Jim Thompson website has some pictures.  Jim Thompson came to Thailand and started a business exporting Thai silk.  He had a background in architecture and used it to collect traditional Thai houses and combine them into one luxurious house.  He then disappeared mysteriously while visiting friends and was never heard from again.  It was a beautiful house with a great story.

Once the tour was done, we took a golf cart ride back to the main street, quickly found another taxi (yay, two for two!), and got back to the embassy.  We had a little bit of time before the family shuttle left, so we did a quick trip to the commissary and then headed back to Nichada.

Tonight was also Vivian's open house / back to school night.  We got to go and hear her teacher talk about what they would be learning this year.  They have writing workshop, guided and independent reading, and they're using Investigations for math.  Overall, it sounds like they'll be learning a lot and I"m excited for the year Vivi has ahead of her.

It was a great day, and I'm so glad I got to go exploring with some wonderful new friends :-)

Anniversary :-)

Yesterday was our eight year anniversary, and it was a darn good day.  It started with my anniversary present, the installation of glass doors and windows to enclose our laundry area.  We're still perfecting the space, so I'll have to save pictures for a later blog.  Basically though, we have a covered porch area out of our kitchen door that is open on two sides.  The washer and dryer are out there as are Young's bedroom and bathroom.  Since it's open to the elements, it's hot and sticky out there during the day and swarming with bugs at night, so overall, not really a usable space.  The family at the end of our street had hired contractors to come and enclose their porch in glass, making it a clean, climate controlled space.  Once I saw how nice theirs was, I decided I really wanted it for our house too.  It took some time for everything to come together, but it arrived just in time for our anniversary.

Yesterday also ended up being a double eat out day, since it was the only day one of my friends and I both had free to get together for lunch.  I've really been wanting to try a place called Three Mangoes, so we went there.

The decor was great.

This is what I got when I ordered "blended pineapple juice", yum :-)

And we got lots of delicious food.  Pad see ew of course (the English version of the menu called it rice noodles with soy sauce) plus garlic pork.

For appetizer and salad we got som tum, which is papaya salad, and cheese won tons with sweet dipping sauce.  I decided it was the Thai version of mozzarella sticks.

Luckily we ate early and spent most of the time talking, so I had no problem going out again for dinner.

This was our first time leaving Young alone with both girls.  I have no problem leaving her with Elena, but Vivi can be a handful.  Turns out Young was totally up to the task, not that I should be surprised.  Vivi is fascinated by the newly enclosed porch and wants to hang out there as much as possible, so I think she and Young spent quite a bit of time out there.

Jeff and I went to the restaurant at the Nichada club for dinner.  It looks out over the lake, which was lovely.  We were the only diners there, which was both nice and private and a little weird.

The food was good (that's a kiwi banana smoothie :-), and it was nice to have some quiet time to ourselves.  

We might try something more adventurous over the weekend, but this was perfect for an easy week night dinner that still felt special.  Happy anniversary to us :-)

Magazine Planning

Jeff and Vivi went to the pool both days this weekend, and Jeff took this beautiful selfie of the two of them on the way home.

I made tomato sauce as best I could on Sunday and got hit by a massive wave of homesickness in the kitchen.  I miss MY kitchen.  Even though this one is probably twice the size of the one I have at home, I like my stove with the smooth surface and my deep sink with a garbage disposal and a detachable nozzle to spray down pans.  I know I have no true complaints about my life here, but I think it finally became real yesterday, and it made me sad.

Jeff, ever the awesome husband, cheered me up be rewatching episodes from last season's Downton Abbey with me.  I've been trying to figure out how to get it here on the UK schedule.  It's still a work in progress, but I've got a month.

I really didn't want to go walking this morning, because I was still in a funk, but I knew it would make me feel better, so I dragged myself out the door.  It worked.  Eighty minutes of walking and talking is highly therapeutic.

After my walk, I had to rush to get cleaned up, so that I could be at ISB by 9:00am.  I volunteered to help out with the school magazine, Touchstone, and today was the first meeting.  The quarterly magazine is put together by the PTA and booster club.  I volunteered blindly and ended up in charge of coordinating the middle school section.  I think it will help me get a feel for the school, which will come in handy if there end up being any openings I'm interested in.  The meeting ran two and a half hours, which was pushing my attention span, but it was intriguing to see the similarities and differences between this school and the ones I'm used to dealing with in the States.

Most of the articles are write ups of school-wide events that teachers/sponsors will do, but I suggested doing an article on the databases available from the school library (mostly because I'm curious about this myself), so I'm excited to talk to the school librarian about it.  I know, geekfest ;-)

The afternoon was spent playing with Elena again.  She's been rolling and grabbing things, and this afternoon she grabbed her activity mat and rolled herself right up.

I was laughing so hard, I barely managed to take the picture.

Gunshots, a Downpour, the Marine House, and a Pool Party

So yesterday was quite a day. It started off calmly enough with the 6K walk I've been doing most mornings with my neighbor.  There was a morning yoga class in one of the rooms near our pool, so after our walk we did the class too.  It was pretty intense, but I felt virtuous afterwards.

Young and I had planned to go to the plant store and to Makro, but we had to wait for Elena to wake up from her nap.  Of course, that meant she took an extra long nap.  I'm not going to judge though, since I fell asleep in my comfy chair during the wait.  We were a little worried because while we were waiting for Elena, the skies kept getting darker, but Young and I decided to go for it.

It started sprinkling a little when we got to the plant place, but it actually felt refreshing, so we forged ahead.  I mentioned already that the plant place was associated with the Thai military in some way.  Young explained (since she can read the Thai signs) that it's an army training facility.  Luckily, she explained this before the gunshots started.  The guy who was helping us seemed completely unfazed by it, so I concluded that people were just practicing at the shooting range.  Young and I checked on Elena, who also seemed unperturbed by the sound.  We kept shopping with one guy following us with a cart to put the plants on, another guy with a big, blue umbrella which he insisted on holding over me and Elena, and the intermittent staccato of gunshots.  Definitely one of my most unique shopping experiences.

As we finished up, the rain started to really come down.  Luckily, by that point we were under the tin roof on four poles that served as the check out area.  It was quite the torrential downpour, and our helpful umbrella friend picked up a shovel instead and worked on repositioning the dirt around us, so that the water wouldn't flood into our little sheltered area.  Our plants were totally soaked because they weren't under the roof, and I didn't think there was any way we could get them into the trunk without getting completely soaked ourselves, so Young arranged for us to pick them up the next day.  She also told me that the man she talked to said we should go home now because the roads were probably going to flood soon.

I put up my umbrella, which kept my head dry while the rest of me got all wet, got the car, and pulled it right up to the roofed area, so that Young could get Elena and herself in while still under the shelter.  The guy was right, and the roads were starting to flood.  I managed to stay towards the middle of the road to avoid the worst of it, but we definitely drove through some pretty deep water.  Luckily, the CRV handled it like a champ, and we got home safe and sound.

I had about an hour to recover before Viv got home, and we went off on our next adventure.  There was a welcome party at the Marine House for new and returning families, and the CLO provided a shuttle for Nichada families, so Jeff and I decided we should be sociable and go.  I gave Vivian a snack after she got off the bus, and then she, Elena, and I took the one hour ride downtown on the shuttle.  It wouldn't have been so bad, except that the shuttle was full of kids, at least half of whom were screaming at any given moment.  To maintain my sanity, I finally separated Vivian from her friends and made her sit and do iPad for the last part of the trip.

Once we got to the Marine House we had a good time and met lots of new people.  Elena was a big hit of course, but she's just started her "stranger danger" phase where she doesn't like new people to hold her, so there were a few tears.  Jeff and I passed her back and forth for most of the evening, but she kept going for our drinks, so we had to be careful.

The shuttle ride back to Nichada took an hour and half, but it was nice and quiet since the kids had been running around like crazy people at the Marine House and wore themselves out.  Our neighborhood was also having a pool party last night, and as soon as the shuttle pulled up, Vivian saw people at the pool, so of course she wanted to go to that party too.  We went home, got her bathing suit on, and headed back out again.

By that point though, Vivian was pretty tired, and so she had a little trouble with her swimming, which she is still working on.  I saw her struggling in the deeper water, so I got the attention of one of the older kids and asked him to help her to the side of the pool.  She was really upset that she "couldn't swim right", so I was worried she would have a meltdown, but instead she decided to milk it and have the older girls carry her around the pool.  She was having a great time, but at about quarter after eight I figured we should call it a night.

I thought for sure she would sleep in this morning, but nope, she was up at 5:50 am, which is even earlier than she has to get up on a school day.  Sigh.  To keep her busy, Young and I took her with us to pick up the plants.  We also took our belated trip to Makro where we got lots of jumbo sized bottles of cleaning supplies.  Vivian was complaining that she didn't like Makro until we found her a free sample of grilled pork on a stick.  She ate two and conceded that Makro had its good points.  We were going to buy a big case of beer for Jeff, but hit the alcohol no fly zone again.  You can't buy alcohol before 11:00 am and it was 10:30.  Eventually I'm going to figure out this alcohol thing.

It's nice to have the plants home.  I think Young and I are going to go back one more time to get a few more plants, but we've started positioning them inside and outside.  We got two that are little now, but that will eventually end up growing over the big open staircase.  We also got some for the corners in the living room and a few for outside.  They make me happy.

Starter Massage

Last night was rough.  Viv woke up three times with "bad dreams" and Elena woke up twice for baby reasons of her own, so around 5:30am, I gave up and made myself some coffee.  Luckily the only thing on today's agenda was my first massage since we moved here.

I'm a massage wuss.  I've been too afraid to try the Thai massage, since it's supposed to be pretty intense.  Apparently they stretch your arms and legs in ways that I'm sure are helpful, but since I'm basically one tense muscle ball, I'm afraid it'll hurt.

I decided to ease into massage by getting a Swedish massage at the Bamboo Spa here in Nichada.  It's much more expensive ($27 for a 60 minute massage) than the Thai massage places outside the bubble (I've heard $5-$10 for 60 minutes), but I figured I could splurge, since it's MUCH less expensive than what I would pay for the same thing in the States.

The spa itself is small, but very nicely decorated.  They had a choice of four essential oils for the massage.  Since I was sleepy, I went with a citrus one hoping it would keep me awake.  A friendly Thai woman took me to the small massage room which was clean, pretty, and dimly lit.  My masseuse came in a little later.  She didn't talk very much, but she smiled and seemed nice.  She did a good job, deep but not painful, and I left feeling relaxed and smelling like a lemon.  I may try the Thai massage next time.

When I got home, I gave myself permission to read and play with Elena for the rest of the day.  Yesterday I learned how to drive to two different places, and I spent a considerable amount of time on Chaengwattana  (which is the crazy busy street where motorcycles come at you going the wrong way), so I figured I could take the day off today.

Yesterday's first adventure was learning to use the flyover to make a right onto Chaengwattana.  This is the faster way to get to Makro, but I passed the u-turn point and kept going to get to Tesco Lotus which is kind of like Target to Big C's Wallmart.  The last time I was at Tesco, I bought a memory foam pad to put in the kitchen.  Young likes it a lot, so I wanted to get another one, so that we could have one for the sink and one for the stove.  Jeff likes it too (he says it makes his feet happy), so I got one for our bathroom as well.

After Tesco, I had to drive straight across four lanes of Chaengwattana (no light, why would there be a light on a busy road?).  On the other side of the street is a great plant place, that is somehow connected to the Thai military.  There was a huge selection and most of the plants were in the $2-$3 range.  I'm going to go back with Young tomorrow, so that we can pick out some for the house.

Elena and I have spent most of the afternoon playing.  Her favorite toy for the day, my water cup. 

I Can Drive!

In Thailand, they drive on the left hand side of the road and vehicles have the steering wheel on the right hand side of the car.  When Jeff and I were trying to figure out what to do about a car here, we decided it would be safer to go with the flow and get a car with the steering wheel on the right.  Also, it's very hard to get American cars serviced here, and our trusty Ford was going on eight years old, so we knew it would need some kind of tune up in the next three years.

In the end we bought a used, Japanese Honda CRV from a departing embassy family, and now my job is to figure out how to drive it and how to get to all the places I need to get to around here.  There are a few challenges to this, starting with getting in the correct side of the car, which I did not do this morning.

Other things to practice, the rearview mirror is on my left not my right, and the turn signals are on the right of the steering wheel, not the left.  I'm getting better about signalling rather than wiping, but every so often I forget and the wipers go swishing across the windshield.  

As if that wasn't enough fun stuff, Thais park backwards.  In some parking garages it's required, but in most it's just standard practice.  That's what the little mirror on the hood is for.  I've been practicing this as much as I can, but at the grocery store, I've decided it's ridiculous, and next time I'm not doing it.  This is an older CRV where the back opens sideways like a door, so if I park backwards like I'm supposed to, I can barely open my trunk to put my groceries in.  

Each day I've learned how to get to a different store.  On Sunday, I learned how to get to Makro (Thai version of Costco).  It's actually quite close to my house, but the direct route takes you on a major, congested road and requires two u-turns.  Since it was my first trip I decided to take the longer, back road route.  I had a veteran neighbor in the front as a guide and a carless neighbor in the back to do shopping.  We made it there and back with no issues.  The only scare was when I was attempting to park backwards a lunatic motorcycle tried to speed behind me, and I almost killed him, but I'm putting that on him not me.

On Monday, I went to Big C with a different carless neighbor, Young, Elena, and written directions.  I parked backwards more successfully this time, and, since Young was really doing the shopping while I was pushing Elena around, I took some pictures.

I have no desire to eat these, but the rice bears make me happy.

These may ultimately taste good, but at this point it's just a slightly disturbing but well organized display.

Today, my adventure was going to the mall.  The first step was learning where to park my car at the mall, since I have only ever used the special golf cart parking.  It only took three back and forths to park backwards today, so I was very proud.  Next, my friend and I went to the bank to get cash.  Thailand is primarily a cash economy, and there are very few places that take credit cards, so I am having a hard time keeping enough cash on hand for all of our expenses.

This week we got our cable/internet/phone bill.  One way to pay the bill is to take it to the nearest 7-11 and pay in cash, but I did not want to part with all my hard earned cash.  The company that provides these services is called True and they have a store at the mall, so I went there to try and use my credit card.

At True they have machines for self-service or you can take a number and get helped by people behind desks.  There are also a couple people to help you with the machines.  If I had a Thai credit card, the machines would have been great, because you just scan the bar code on your bill and then swipe your card, but the machine didn't like my American credit card, so I had to get a number and wait for a person.  It took a little longer, but he had a regular credit card machine, that accepted my foreign card, so I was happy.

Vivian had another great day at school and was so excited that they got to use iPads for math.  For dinner tonight, I asked Young to make winged bean salad which is something I had when I was out to lunch with friends last week.

And here's a close up of a "winged" bean.  Jeff said they look more like legs.  Whatever comparison you want to make, the salad is yummy.

Downtown and Back Again

Vivian had a great second day of school, but was definitely calmer in the afternoon than she was after the first day.  Her second day was also a PE day, so maybe that helped.  We'll see how her first full week of school goes next week.

This is her getting on the "bus":

Friday morning was also the new elementary parent orientation.  I carpooled to the school with some other moms from the neighborhood which was fun.  A lot of the information we got was helpful, but it went about thirty minutes longer than it really needed to.

After the orientation, Elena, Young, and I took the golf cart to the mall to shop at the supermarket in the basement there.  In the short period of time we were at the mall, I ran into three people I know.  I'm not sure whether to feel settled in or to feel unsettled because I'm in the suburbia bubble.  Either way, I'm getting the hang of this, so that's good.

Saturday was a big adventure.  Friends of ours who live downtown were throwing a birthday party for their four year old daughter.  Our neighbors are also friends of theirs, and so we hired a van for the day and made the trek downtown together, which was a great treat for the kids.

The party was a lot of fun.  It seems like most of the apartments have  a floor with a gym, playground, pool, and party room.  The pool and play ground parts are covered on top, but open on the sides.  The party room was enclosed and air conditioned, so the kids would run and play outside, and then come in to cool off and fuel up.  It was great to get together with friends we hadn't seen in a while.

The family throwing the party was also the family that has been holding our car for us, so after the party, the plan was for Jeff and our neighbor family's dad to drive our car back out to Nichada following the van driver who would drive back the moms and all the kids.  We picked up one more kid at the party whose parents and brother had to stay downtown a bit longer, so the van was still a party on the way home.  Of course right before we were getting ready to leave, the skies opened up and a torrential rain started coming down.  Luckily, those kinds of rains don't seem to last too long around here, and it cleared up shortly after we got on the highway.  Jeff stayed close to the van driver who was taking it slow, and we all made it home with no incidents.

Our car in its new home:

I got to try it out this morning.  The whole family got in, and I drove us through Nichada to a nearby gas station, since the tank was getting pretty empty.  Jeff kept worrying that I was too far to the left, but I didn't hit anything, so I call it a success.  Next week I'm going to try and take it to the supermarket which will be the true test.

Great First Day!

Today was Vivi's first day of school and she loved it!

It was really nice that she had a "practice day" yesterday.  We met her teachers, and Vivian explored her classroom and saw where she would be keeping her things.  The teacher had up a display of Mo Willems books, which was a big hit with Vivi.  She just plopped right down and started reading them, so she definitely felt at home.  We also got to meet two of her fellow students, one of whom is Israeli like my mom and the other who has the same name as one of Vivi's cousins.  What are the odds??  I took it as a good omen.

This morning, when the bus showed up, she was so excited she just ran to get on, and I had to call out twice to get her attention and demand my good bye hug.  I'm glad she's independent, but I still need my hug!  The "bus" system is completely ridiculous.  The transportation is actually vans, and the pick up system has NO logic to it whatsoever.  Prime example, I met my new neighbors today because the bus picked up Vivi and drove off.  My neighbor and her second grade daughter came out looking upset wondering where the bus went.  Luckily, the all knowing Facebook had prepared me for this, and I told her that lots of people had noticed multiple buses coming down their street yesterday.  We decided to give it five more minutes before freak out, and sure enough, a couple minutes later another van arrived to pick up her daughter.  

The same kind of thing happened this afternoon.  I was outside waiting for Viv to get dropped off.  The bus stopped in front of my house, and they took off my neighbor's child and tried to give her to me (the bus attendants are Thai and smile a lot, but I don't know how much English they speak).  I pointed to the house next door to show that she lived there.  Luckily the girl is pretty self-sufficient and just started walking home.  A few minutes later the bus with my kid showed up.  The initial bus info we got said that bus routes would probably change in the first few weeks of school.  I hope they do, because someone is paying for an incredibly inefficient system.

When I asked Vivi how her day went she said, "I had THREE recesses!"  In her mind, this made it a good day.  To clarify, after the bus drops her off at school, she gets to play until school starts.  Then in the morning they have snack and recess, and in the afternoon they get to play outside before lunch.  Lunch is included and the kids get to self-select in the cafeteria.  I was a little worried about this, but she told me that for lunch she had soup with noodles, and then carrots and corn from the veggie bar, which sounds fine to me.

After asking some questions over her after school snack, I managed to piece together that they played name games, had three read alouds, and a spelling assessment ("with cardboard so we couldn't see each other") in the morning.  In the afternoon, she had Thai class (more name games) and library for specials.  Apparently the librarian not only read them a book, but also sang them a song accompanied by a "small thing like a guitar", ukulele maybe? After that they did "math" (no details provided) and then had free time during which she and one of her new friends performed what sounds like the world's most epic animal puppet adventure.  She told me they are planning a sequel for tomorrow.

All in all she loved her first day of school and still had enough energy to have play dates with our neighbors on either side this afternoon.  I finally gave her the iPad, because while she was at school I walked 6K this morning with a neighbor, and Vivi may have endless energy, but I'm done for the day.  

Tomorrow is a PE day, so she's going to wear her other uniform and hopefully have another great day.

Thai Mothers' Day

Today is the queen's birthday, which doubles as Mothers' Day.  As you can probably figure out, Fathers' Day is the king's birthday.  I assume that monarchs always have to get married, so you always have a birthday for each gender, but it might get a little sad if the non-ruling one dies before the ruling one.  Do you still celebrate their birthday?

For now though, it's a happy national holiday, and since it falls on a Tuesday, and the military government is conducting a happiness campaign, they closed the government on Monday, so that people could have a four day weekend.  The embassy is also closed.  One of the perks of working overseas is you get American and local holidays.

Vivian and I have been going to ISB every other day to explore and check out books from the library, but Jeff hadn't been there yet, so we took advantage of the long weekend and took him with us on Monday.  He thought it was great.

As we were walking around the school and talking about how awesome it was, Vivian turned and asked us, "Why did you wait so long to move here? Why didn't we come here sooner?"  Excellent question Viv ;-)  I think she's going to be okay.

I also took advantage of Jeff being home on Monday to leave the kids with him and go shopping with Young.  We gave her Tuesday off, but she said she would prefer to work on Monday, and then take some time off when we go on vacation.  She doesn't have any children, and her mom lives about eight hours away, so she didn't want to go home for the four days.  We're always happy to have her around to take care of us, so that was fine with us.

Since I was baby free at the veggie stand, I could take some pictures of what it looks like.

Most things are laid out on tables.

Pumpkin is sold by the slice.

You get a plastic basket, and then put your selections in it.

The backups are under the tables, so if you're a savvy shopper like Young, and you don't like the looks of what's on the tables, you go for the bags underneath.

They also sell dried fish and have raw meat sitting out on plates.

I didn't take a picture of the meat, and I didn't buy any fish, but I know that Young eats them.

Our basket was full, and then we had a couple extra bags on top of that and the whole thing came to about $15.  When we went to Big C for our major meat and dairy shopping, we got all the way up to $40.  That means our weekly shopping for meals is coming in at a little over $55 dollars a week.  I love living in Thailand :-)

Also, since I haven't put up a picture of super baby lately, here she is living the good life in Mommy's chair.

Happy Thai Mothers' Day to all the mommies out there!

ISB

Vivian is now officially registered at ISB, and we are so excited.  We had an appointment on Friday to submit the rest of our paperwork and meet with her guidance counselor.  The counselor was really nice and gave us tons of useful information.

We also got Vivi's uniforms while we were there.  Her schedule goes back and forth between P.E. days and foreign language days.  She will be taking Thai this year, since the Thai government requires that anyone living in Thailand take at least one year of Thai.  Next year, she will probably take Mandarin.  On P.E. days, she wears her P.E. uniform to school, and on foreign language days she wears her regular uniform.  Ironically, after Jeff banning all my red clothes from my wardrobe, the elementary school shirts are bright red.  The P.E. shirts are yellow, which was the other color in the recent Thai conflict.

Vivian is required to wear a hat every day, otherwise she won't be allowed to go outside for the two recesses they have.  She's also supposed to bring a water bottle every day.  They take the heat seriously here.  In fact, older students are required to have an EKG as part of the standard school physical form.

Since Friday was a bit hectic, Vivian and I didn't really have time to explore the campus, so we went back on Monday.

It's all an open air courtyard system, which could get interesting in one of the heavy rains we've seen, but I assume they have a rain plan.  One of the things Vivian is most excited about is that after the "bus" (read van) that picks her up at our house drops her off at school, she can leave her backpack in her classroom and then go play on the big playground until the bell rings.  In Arlington, she had to sit quietly on the floor in front of the classroom.  I think this will be a much more active daily schedule, which is great for my super energy child.

It looks like she'll also have some great quiet reading time though.  The library has a really cool design and a great collection of easily accessible books.  They have an Elephant and Piggie display right near the front door, so Vivian grabbed a few and plopped down in one of the swinging pod chairs.

In the foreground, you can see part of a book basket.  They have baskets by series and topics, right at kiddie level, so it will be easy for Viv to explore.  I think we will probably go back again this week.  The upper school library is supposed to be equally awesome, and I'm allowed to check books out with my parent ID, so I'll have to figure out how to do that.

Overall, we're really excited for school to start next week.  Vivian has already played with three other kids who are going into first grade, and I'm sure she'll have tons of friends by the end of the first week.

Medical Appointments and Air Freight!!

On Tuesday, the whole family had to go to the medical unit at the embassy for our check in process.  That meant that the girls and I had to use the family shuttle to get downtown and back.  Unfortunately, several other people had the same idea, so in both directions we had to wait for a second shuttle even though we arrived well before departure time.  In the morning we waited twenty minutes, and in the afternoon we waited half an hour.  That is a lot more outdoor time than I would like for my baby in 90 plus degrees weather, so I've definitely soured on the whole family shuttle idea.  It didn't help that no one offered to give up their seats and wait for the next one, so that the baby didn't have to wait in the heat.  Not a good experience overall.

Once we got to the embassy though, the medical appointments were fine, and even had a fun twist.  The nurse who called us in looked really familiar to me, and she was looking at me like I was familiar to her.  We went through our lists of where we'd lived and what we'd done, and it turns out that she was the school nurse at Swanson about eight years ago.  I think it's hilarious that I move halfway around the world and bump into someone who used to work across the hall from me in a middle school in Arlington, VA.

The whole family received a clean bill of health, although my blood pressure was a little high.  I've taken this to mean that I definitely need a spa day next week.  After the medical unit, we walked over to the commissary since Young told me to get her American stain remover for the laundry.  It's great that she knows American and Thai brands, so she can tell me what's fine to get at the local grocery store, but she also knows about things like Shout and sends me to the commissary for that.  We are so lucky to have her.

We are also lucky that we were in the same building as GSO that day.  GSO handles things like air and sea freight and car registration.  I wanted to check about our car registration, but I thought I would also ask how the air freight was coming.  The man who is coordinating our files, had missed an email from me and was very apologetic about it.  I'm not sure if it was that or the fact that we have baby stuff in our air freight, but when I asked about it, he told me to wait a minute, got on the phone and spoke to someone in Thai, and then asked if it was alright if they delivered our air freight the next morning.  Obviously I said YES, with lots of kop khun kas.

We figured it would be best to have Vivi out of the way when things arrived, so she went off to a play date with our neighbors.  Our six boxes arrived shortly after that with several men to help unpack them.  They didn't actually bring the boxes into the house, but opened them in the covered driveway and then handed us things, so Jeff and I were running back and forth from the door depositing things in various rooms.  Young was in charge of the kitchen stuff, and did a great job finding a place for everything.  She then proceeded to do massive amounts of laundry, so that we could have our own sheets and blankets on our beds for the night.

It didn't take more than half an hour to get all the stuff in the house, but I spent most of the day deciding where things should go.  Luckily we had shelves in the pantry already, so it was easy to stack up our cases of formula and coffee.  I am so happy to see my Keurig machine.  We also packed a memory foam topper for our bed, so I sleep well and wake up to good coffee now.  It's the little things that make all the difference.

Elena had her six month check up on Thursday, but after Tuesday's family shuttle experience, I decided to try taxi transport.  I got a taxi driver's number and had him pick us up at the house, wait for us during the appointment (Elena got three shots), and then drive us back home.  The peace of mind was wonderful, but I was bummed that he totally overcharged me.  Money is strange in Thailand, because it's like there are two different economies here.  There are Thai prices and then there are Western prices.  By Western standards the 1000 baht he charged me was not a big deal.  That's about $30 for three hours worth of driving/waiting.  But by Thai standards, it's ridiculous, and I probably should have paid closer to 500 baht.  I looked the driver in the eye when he gave me the price, and told him he was overcharging me, and he went into this big justification of the expense.  I wasn't going to argue with him, so I paid him, but I'm going to find someone with better prices for next time.  I realize that in the grand scheme of things it's a good price for what I got, but I don't like being taken advantage of.

While Elena and I were jetting around in a taxi, Vivi was playing at a friend's house and Young was supervising the installation of our cable TV.  The technicians showed up at the same time as the taxi, and they were still working when Elena and I got back.  They got everything hooked up, but we had asked them to put cable in Young's room too, which apparently had required a lot of work on their part.  Once they finally got things wrapped up, we all had some lunch, then I took Vivi to another friend's house (are you sensing a theme here?), and Young, Elena, and I got a ride with a neighbor to Big C.  We needed some things for the house, and it seemed like the best place for Young to buy a television that would be the right size for her room.

Thursday was a crazy day, but after dinner, everyone got to relax and enjoy our new cable television with tons of channels, at least half of which are in English.  We got the package with Disney Junior, which was, of course, the most elaborate one, but it also has HBO, so we should be all set when Game of Thrones comes back on :-)