Chatuchak

After spending the week unpacking, I decided I deserved a break, so I went on the After the Boxes trip to Chatuchak.  Chatuchak has some things going on during the week, but what it's really known for is the weekend market that starts on Friday.  You can get pretty much anything you can think of in Chatuchak.

It seems like most people park at JJ Mall which is at the top of the map.  It has a big parking garage, and as long as you get there early, there's plenty of parking.  

Chatuchak is huge and is loosely organized by what's being sold.  Luckily, the group I was with all agreed that we wanted to go to the ceramics section.  

My goal was to find Benjarong ceramics, a beautiful Thai enamel style.  We found several stores, and it was as beautiful as I had thought it would be.

There are lots of different colors and patterns to choose from.  They are also made in different qualities of ceramic from every day to fine bone china.  I decided I'll shop around some more before I make my big investment, but as I was walking around, I saw this beautiful piece sitting on  shelf, and since it was only $10, I decided it had to come home with me.

After several hours of walking around and looking at pretty things, we all decided we were hungry.  Of course, on the way out of the labyrinth, there was a shop that several people wanted to look at.  I was really thirsty, and there was a guy with a cart selling "bubble tea" so I decided to try the coconut flavor.   The coconut bubble tea is neither carbonated nor caffeinated, which made me want to figure out why it was called bubble tea.  Once I got home, I did some research.

The first ingredient is tapioca pearls.  Which are made from gelled and dyed tapioca.  

They are also called boba.  When I told Young I had bubble tea, she said, "Oh, boba tea!"  This leads me to the conclusion that bubble tea is the western butchering of boba tea, and it helps explain why there are no bubbles in it.

The second ingredient is the smooothie part, which I guess was originally just iced tea, but then branched off to other flavors like coconut.  Finally, you can top it all off with some gummy bits.  I was so thirsty, I drank it without taking a picture, but here's the finished look:

                                    

The coconut part was yummy, but I'm kind of on the fence about random tapioca gummy balls in my drink.

After my bubble tea experiment, we finally made it to lunch.  Most of the easy dining at Chatuchak is the standard Thai set up of the "kitchen" being a table with some hot plates and pots, and the "restaurant" being tables and stools set up under an awning.  The food is usually really good though, so that's what we did for lunch.

For dessert, I had green mango.  You can see a slice of it on the edge of my plate.  It's similar to an apple in texture and flavor, and, like an apple, you can get VERY sour ones, so it's good to be cautious when buying it.

I had fun shopping at Chatuchak and will definitely go back, but my favorite part of the day was the culinary experimentation :-)

Sea Freight!

It came on Monday.  First the truck pulled up.

Then they took off the snazzy yellow Asian Tigers wrap and underneath were the exact same crates I waved good by to in Arlington three and a half months ago.

We were ready for them.  We had labeled the bedrooms with numbers, per our friends' advice.  Jeff and I were positioned in the doorway.  Jeff had a copy of the inventory list and a pen.  His job was to check off boxes as they came in to make sure everything arrived.  My job was to tell the movers where the boxes should go.  Elena was hanging out in her playpen in the laundry area (yet another perk of enclosing it!), so that Young could keep an eye on her and the kitchen arrivals.  

The movers worked fast to get all the boxes in, since the sky looked like rain.  The result was a box pile up.

They unpacked a little, but then it was time for their one hour lunch break.  It was torture, since all my stuff was right there, but it wasn't getting unpacked.  Luckily, my kitchen knives were out, so I grabbed one, and started hacking away at the brown paper wrapping.  One of my main goals was to find all of my green and red Christmas boxes and stash them all the way under the stairs, so that I could put other things in front of them.  I worked on that while the Asian Tigers hid from the rain under our covered driveway and ate lunch.

After lunch, they made quick work of getting everything unwrapped and out of boxes.  They were also very efficient about clearing out all the wrappings and empty boxes.  In fact, they were too efficient.  I was trying to save a couple big boxes for my friend's haunted house, but they were gone the second I turned my back.

Jeff took off from work on Tuesday as well, which was a huge help.  His tallness came in very handy when we were unpacking things in our kitchen made for giants.  We had to order dinner on Monday, because the kitchen was not functional, but by the end of the day Tuesday, the house looked pretty good, and we could use the kitchen and dining room for their intended purposes.

It's the end of the week now, and there are still some boxes to be tackled, but it feels MUCH more like home.  I really want to hang all the pictures, but that will have to wait for next week.  For now, I'm happy that the play area is set up, and most of the books are unpacked.  The girls are enjoying it.

Catch up and Kidzania

After Mom left, I cracked down on my school work and the blog totally took the back burner, so now I have to try and do a succinct update on the last week and half.

First of all, Mom left, which was sad, but we're comforting ourselves with the thought that she'll be back soon, and she'll be bringing more fun people with her.  I was very negligent of my school work the first part of the week, so I had to scramble the second half to finish my paper for my Research Theory class comparing two educational theorists.  I wanted to branch out and do something a bit unexpected, but without a good library as a resource, I had to stick to the basics, so I compared Vygotsky and Piaget.  I am officially turning into someone who reads theory for fun.  Oh dear.

I took a break Friday night to go to a new friend's birthday party.  She's German, but grew up in the States, and Vivian has made friends with her daughter who is also in first grade.  They're really nice, and their entire roof is a patio looking over the lake, so it's perfect for partying.  We stayed there until after midnight dancing and singing at the top of our lungs.  Young watched the girls, so we had a guilt free, great time.

On Sunday night I got to have my first Downton Abbey viewing party.  It turned out just being two of the closer friends I've made since I got here, which was actually perfect.  I won't spoil anything for my American friends, but we had plenty of things to offer commentary on, and we got through a bottle and a half of wine, so it was a good night.

On Monday, AtB had an outing to the Jim Thompson Outlet.  I really wanted to go, but I knew that Vivian would have Thursday and Friday off this week for parent teacher conferences, and I didn't want to get into another school work bind, so I decided not to go.  I figure I'll go another time and do a strategic hit instead of spending the whole day there.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were pretty quiet.  I did school work, tutored, and hung out with the family.

On Thursday, we had big plans.  Vivi and I were going to go to Kidzania (since we've already gone to the Funarium, love these names), and I was going to do my first drive downtown while my friend sat next to me as my copilot.  Unfortunately, the plan hit a slight snag.  By mistake, Jeff took both sets of keys to work with him.  I was really bummed, but decided to keep calm and carry on.

I figured my friend could drive, but she wasn't answering her phone, so Viv and I drove over to her house in our golf cart only to find that her car was gone.  Turns out her husband went into work late and took the car.  Whoops!  Vivian was oblivious, because by that point we were at her friend's house, so they just went off to play while my friend and I tried to figure out Plan C.

There was one other mom with two kids who was planning to go with us, and she had a big vehicle, but her husband was also going into work late and leaving work late, so he was planning to take the car.  It took some wrangling, but we finally figured out a husband carpooling system, that would allow the wives to have a car for the day to take the kids to Kidzania.  My take away from the morning was it's fine to make plans, but don't get too attached to them.  I had to keep that in mind throughout the day.

When we finally got to Kidzania both Viv and I were very impressed with the set up.  It really was like a miniature city.  The only weird part is that it was a night time city, which I didn't really care for, but you got used to it.

At first, Vivian was enjoying herself.  She went to the bank to get her Kidzania money.

Then she and her friends wanted to learn to be fire fighters, so we got in line and waited for a while until we realized that Vivian wasn't going to make the cutoff for maximum number of kids and would have to wait another 20 minutes.  She and I decided to explore and find something that didn't have as long a line, so she learned how to pump gas

and change a tire,

but it was really crowded and loud, and she started to have a bit of a meltdown.  I thought she might need some food and a change of venue.  I knew there was a Subway in the main part of the mall, because it's the same mall that has Ocean World, so I asked if she wanted to get a sandwich, and she said yes.  I also asked if she wanted to go to Asia Books at Central Mall, and she said yes.  She said she "hated" Kidzania.  I think it's probably worth another try on a day that isn't also a Thai school holiday, so it won't be so crowded.  

But, in the moment, I had an upset kid, so I went to plan, what are we on now, maybe J?  I got her to Subway and fed her which perked her up a bit, and then we walked on the sky path above the main street to Central World which is on the other side of the Wat.

We got to Asia Books, and she went right to her happy place with a book.

I sat next to her for a while until my stomach growled, and I realized that while I had been very diligent about feeding my child, I had forgotten to feed myself, so I bought her some books and we walked over to the dumpling place at the mall.  

She read while I drank carrot/celery/pineapple juice and ate dumplings, 

and then we walked back to Siam Paragon to meet up with the friends we came downtown with.  She was very happy by that point, so I think the day was saved.

Friday morning I had my conference with her teacher who had very nice things to say about her.  The only negative was that Vivian is a bit overenthusiastic and doesn't always wait for her turn to participate, but I know where that comes from (sheepish smile).  She's doing great academically and socially, and she really seems to like the school, so I'm very happy.

In the afternoon, we invited over some friends who don't live in the Prestige area and went to hang out at our playground.  We inadvertently drew our regular street crew to the playground too, so it was a big playground party.  The kids all had a great time.

Today we took it pretty easy except for an impromptu trip to the mall.  Apparently we get two True bills, but when I went to pay our bill a couple weeks ago they didn't mention anything about an outstanding bill.  Therefore I was very surprised when we no longer had cable television this morning.  I called our Nichada rep, and he called True, but the only way to fix it was for me to go to the mall.  A Thai mall on a Saturday afternoon is no joke, so I brought Jeff along.  It's a really good thing I did, because the parking lot was a bumper to bumper mad house.  He dropped me off and drove around the neighborhood, while I went in and paid the bill at the True store.  It was insane, and I have officially decided that I am never again going to the mall on the weekend.

Since tonight is the first Saturday of the month, it's Secret Garden time again.  They have face painting this month, and Young really wanted to take Vivian to get her face painted and Elena just because she loves Elena.  The party started at 5:00pm, and we were planning to meet up with friends between 5:30 and 6:00, so Young took the girls right at the beginning while Jeff and I got ready.  

By the time we got there, Vivian had had her face painted and then sweated it all off in the bouncy house.  There were slight hints of pink and white around her forehead and cheeks.  Luckily, the face painting was free because Vivian went through two butterflies (both of which sweated off) and finally ended the night as a cat.

We're getting the hang of the Secret Garden thing now.  There are long tables set up near the bandstand, and that's where you can get food and pitchers of beer.  We set up at a table with various friends we collected throughout the evening, and that was home base.  Vivian and the other kids could run around and do the free stuff like face painting and playing with play dough, and then come back for water and a hug.  Throughout the evening one of the other moms with a baby and I walked around the fair to check on the kids in their native habitat, but there were people everywhere who we knew and who knew our kids, so it was really safe and fun for them to have some independence.  We're already looking forward to next month's Secret Garden night.

Chinatown!

Mom and I went to Chinatown!

We took the family shuttle to the embassy, and then a taxi to Chinatown.  We didn't know where exactly we wanted to go in Chinatown, so when we got into the taxi I just said "Chinatown? Shopping?" and he said okay.  He dropped us off on a main street in what was clearly Chinatown (most of the signs were in Chinese), pointed ahead, and said, "Shopping."  See, no problems with communication.

We walked for a while down the main street.  The sidewalk was narrow and there were little stalls along it, so luckily we got there early when it wasn't too crowded.  The things in the store were fun to look at, but we had no idea what most of them were.

There were also LOTS of places to buy and sell gold.  There were all these long counters with people standing behind them.

We knew there were more stores on littler streets, so we took a couple detours, and then found this street that was almost like a middle eastern bazaar.  There were shops on either side with things out on the sidewalk.  You could pretty much only walk single file.  It was covered and there was a bit of air conditioning coming from some of the stores, so it wasn't too hot at all.  However, we were there early on a weekday morning.  I can't imagine how you could even walk there on a weekend afternoon.

It was a girls' shopping paradise, lots of jewelery and sparkly things.  There were all different kinds of fabrics

and places that sold every kind of bead imaginable.

We got Vivian a necklace and some stickers, and I got a shiny elephant in a really nice box frame for about $6.  After about an hour, we came to the end of the alley we had been following, and decided that we had experienced Chinatown.  Then we had to decide what to do next.  Jeff had too much work to be able to meet us for lunch, so I decided I wanted to go back to Central World mall, since it felt rushed when we went there on Thursday.

The taxi driver dropped us off at what I think is the front (although it's hard to tell with these huge malls).  There were two shrines in front, which were beautiful if weirdly juxtaposed with the mall behind them.

The first store we saw when we walked in was a Jim Thompson store.  I had never heard of this before we moved to Thailand, but it's a big deal here and with good reason.  First of all, the Jim Thompson house is a great museum.  Second, the materials and designs that are on sale in the stores are absolutely beautiful.  You can buy the fabric online, but in the stores they have purses, make up bags, shirts, baby clothes, everything.  Luckily, the next AtB trip is to the Jim Thompson outlet, so I'm waiting for that, since the stuff is NOT cheap.

After our visit to Chinatown, I was craving dumplings again.  Luckily, I have a nice Mom, and she humored me.  I picked this restaurant, since it looked like they were really serious about their dumpling making.

Sure enough, the dumplings came out yummy.

We also had blended watermelon juice again.

I think the place at Siam Paragon was better, but I got my dumpling fix, so I was happy.  We explored the mall a little bit more after lunch, but I wanted to hit the commissary before taking the shuttle back home, so we didn't stay long.  I've decided I'm going to come downtown one day and just try to explore all of Central World.  It is my favorite mall so far.

We used a foot bridge to cross the road, so that it was easier to get a taxi back to the embassy.  In the middle of the bridge, I looked down and had a moment where I realized, oh my gosh, I live in Bangkok! 

Pretty cool.

Lazy and Crazy

After our Thursday Ocean World excitement, we ended up having a pretty tame weekend.  Jeff took Friday off , which was very nice.  He and Vivi went to the pool a couple times over the weekend.

Mom, Jeff, and I spent quite a bit of time rewatching old episodes of Downton Abbey.  Turns out we'll get it on the local TV on UK schedule, so it starts tonight, yay!  We're recording it, and then it looks like I'm going to have a whole bunch of ladies over on Sunday for a viewing party.  A lot of people didn't get local cable, so they won't have it at their house.  It should be fun, but we might have to move the television into the living room to make space for everyone.

On Saturday, we tried to go to the Paulaner beer garden for lunch, but it turns out they're only opened for dinner.  Since this is our second attempt to go eat there, I'm sure our next one will be a success.  We opted for the good old Nichada Club again.  Vivi likes the pasta, and she gets to feed the lake fish afterwards, so it works.

I spent a large part of the weekend finishing up my reading for one of my classes.  I'm reading Tinkering Towards Utopia, which is a book about the history of educational reform.  It's an easy and interesting read, but it was hard to balance getting through the book with family time.  A couple times I just went to my room and closed the door, but of course Vivi came looking for me.  She was good though.  She got her iPad and lay down on the bed next to me to play quietly while I read.  It was actually kind of nice to have company.

I finished up my written response to the book this morning and then managed to catch the last part of the After the Boxes meeting on medical and travel.  I got tons more handouts and ideas.  I'll have to process it all slowly.

After that, I took Mom to the Three Mangoes for lunch.  She's been asking about it since she got here, and I think she thoroughly enjoyed the food and the experience.  We even got a piece of tiramisu to go.

When we left the house, we had to squeeze the car out between two big moving vans since both my across the street neighbor and my next door neighbor got their sea freight today.  I'm kind of jealous and kind of not, because I only want about half the stuff that's coming.  The other half is just going to be a pain to deal with.  Oh well.  It'll happen eventually.

After lunch, I had a little bit of time to get ready to tutor.  After tutoring, I had to go pick Vivi up from her play date with a new friend.  She's the daughter of a German couple, and she only speaks a little English, but she and Vivi seem to get along great.  The mom actually grew up in the States and speaks fluent English, so I was surprised when I found out she was German.  She and I have crossed paths at several of the newcomer functions and she's very nice, so I was glad that the girls got along too.  They have a house that's even bigger than ours and has its own pool, so Vivi got to go swimming again today.  She was very pleased, but it was hard to get her to leave.  When we finally got on the road, I realized we had forgotten her backpack.  I turned around to head back to her friend's house, only to see them coming towards us in their golf cart waving her backpack.  We had a good laugh about it.

We got home, had dinner, and then I wanted to take Vivian to the pharmacy.  She's had a rash on the inside of her elbow that I think is eczema, and I wanted to get something for it.  We also stopped by the grocery store, and then when I got home, I went over to a neighbor's house to work on a school magazine article with her.  I feel like our weekend was lazy and today was crazy.  Tomorrow Mom and I are going to attempt Chinatown, so I'd better call it a night.  I've got another crazy day tomorrow!

Ocean World and More!

ISB is closed today for a teacher professional day and tomorrow just because, so I knew I would have to keep Vivian busy.  Lots of friends had told us that Ocean World at the Siam Paragon Mall was awesome, so I decided today was the day to go.  Verdict: Awesome!

Vivi, my mom, and I took the family shuttle downtown.  I was going to try to walk us to the BTS station, but Vivi really wanted to take a taxi, so I caved.  She had a BIG meltdown yesterday, that was triggered by one little thing, but led to all kinds of other stuff coming out, so I decided that today was Vivi's day.  Plus, the taxi was air conditioned and cost about a dollar fifty to get us to the mall.

Unfortunately, since we were so fast, we got to the mall well before its 10 o'clock opening time.  There are two huge malls right next to each other, Siam Paragon and Central World.  In between them is a beautiful temple complex, Wat Pathum Wanaram.  We decided to walk over and explore until the mall opened.  It was very strange to walk around a temple in the middle of all the big modern buildings.

Closest to the mall was a building that was locked up, and had golden Buddhas lining the walls.  In the middle was a huge tree wrapped in shear material.  I don't know what it was all for, but it was really beautiful.  We went there to kill time, but ended up thoroughly enjoying our unexpected detour. 

By the time we got back to the mall it was almost ten.  We sat on the steps leading up to the mall with all the other people waiting for it to open, which seems to be my typical mall going experience.  I had told the taxi driver we wanted to go to Ocean World, so he dropped us off at the door right next to the entrance to it, which was really helpful because the mall was another typical labyrinth Thai mall, and if we had been on the other side of the building, we never would have found Ocean World.

I used my shiny new diplomatic resident card to get Thai price, which was still almost $40 for me, mom, and Vivi.  But, to keep things in perspective, the stores in the mall are Gucci, Prada, etc., and they have a Rolls Royce "dealership".

Ocean World was totally worth the price of admission though.  All the signs were in English, so we could see what everything was and learn about it.  The set up was really well done too.  There was a shark learning area with big projections that you could touch to select a shark, spin it around, and learn things about it.  Of course, these big screens were on the wall on the other side of a glass floor that looked down into the shark tank.  Mom and I didn't walk on it.  Vivian eventually did, but very tentatively.

I took lots of pictures of the fish, but between their movement and the lighting, only a few came out really well.

Towards the end, there was a penguin area which Mom got really excited about and an indoor playground which Vivi got really excited about.  While they were having fun, part of the giant group of Thai school children caught up with us.  We first saw them when we got to Ocean World.  There were easily a hundred little kids, somewhere around three years old.  They were all wearing uniforms, and they walked in rows with their hands on the shoulders of the person in front of them.  They were super cute and really well behaved, but they were excited and numerous, and therefore loud, so we tried to avoid them most of the time.

When we got to the really cool part where you walk under the tank, the school group wasn't with us, but they were close enough that their excited squeals echoed all around.  Still, lots of fun.

After our fabulous time at Ocean World, we realized we were hungry.  Luckily, the escalator brought us right up into the food court area.  Vivian opted for Subway

while Mom and I explored some of the more exotic options

We wanted to try the roast duck, so we got a little bowl with noodles to share.  It was tasty, but had lots of skin and fat.  We decided to save our appetites in hopes of finding the dumpling place my friend had told me I had to try.

We walked around the mall after lunch and had fun looking in the fancy stores.  Mom especially wanted to price check the Coach purses.  We had so much fun at the Coach store I forgot to take pictures, sorry!  Vivian decided that she needed a Coach purse, and so one of the salespeople helped outfit her with one.  He also showed her where the sunglasses were.  She proceeded to strut around the store and talk to herself in the mirrors with much disdain for those around her.  Next time pictures, I promise.  Needless to say, we didn't buy the six year old the three hundred dollar purse or sunglasses, but she certainly enjoyed trying them out.

As we were getting towards the top of the mall, I saw it, the dumpling place.  It's called Paradise Dynasty, and, as promised, the dumplings were delicious.

I've also seen these things that look like super dumplings, and I've been really curious about them.  They're apparently called "buns", so Mom and I tried the pork ones.

The insides were tasty, but there was too much dough.  It was really thick inside, with just a little pork ball and some broth.  I decided next time I would just stick with dumplings, but I'm glad that now I know what's inside these.  Since Vivian sat patiently through our dumpling/bun experiment, I caved and got her a Krispy Kreme doughnut on the way out of the mall.

For our final adventure, I wanted to go one block over to the other gargantuan mall, Central World.  They have a really big Asia Books there that has almost all its books in English.  I had also heard that they have a good kids' section.  They do :-)

Vivi's final treat was a book which she read the whole way home on the shuttle.  

Another great day in Bangkok :-)