Mental Challenges Before Moving

Posted on by
1

After three weeks (a bit more, actually) out of the office, I show up at 8:00 am to astounded looks from colleagues.  “Oh, you haven’t left for Thailand?” is the greeting of choice.

It is hard to get a lot of work done as I’m feeling swamped by things to-do.  About 2:00 pm I head home and work from there the rest of the day, finally hitting my productive peak after dinner.  Between jet lag and being preoccupied, I’m losing my mind.

My process for organizing around the house is this: make piles in the lviing room of things that I’d like to move to Bangkok.

Pile 1: Must be moved on this trip

Pile 2: Would be nice to move on this trip but could wait until December

Pile 3: Definitely wait until December

Pile 4: Wait until some unspecified date in the future to move it

I’m sure my parents will be overjoyed when they arrive later in the week to discover piles of things greeting them.  Well, it is a method to the madness.

Reflections After a Toronto Visit

Posted on by
Reply

Wow – back home in Kansas City this evening after three weeks on the road.  Two in BKK, one in Atlanta and Toronto.  I’ve been quite busy and have had minimal personal email access so haven’t had the time to update the blog.

Toronto is always a favorite place to visit because I think the food scene is vibrant.  Lots of good eats for a good value.  The city is widely recognized as the most diverse city in North America with more than 80 languages spoken by its residents.  The diversity influences the cuisine and I made sure to get dim sum and jok (congee – rice porridge) while there.

 

The best eat in terms of food was the Jamie Kennedy Wine Bar.  This “small plates” restaurant is overseen by the hottest chef in Toronto.  No reservations are accepted and it is one of “the” places to eat.  Nonetheless, it has a reputation for great food.  We headed down there on Saturday night, fully realizing that the wait would be long.  There is a lounge so we figured we could drink and nibble our way through the wait.

Sure enough – “ninety minutes to two hours” greeted us at the hostess stand.  Not disuaded one bit we entertained ourselves with a bottle of the 200 Alizan Tempranilla from Spain and an order of Yukon Gold Potato Fries (amazing!), olives and spices pecans.  We noticed that tables and seats at the bar regularly opened up and were left empty for long periods of time – unusual if the wait was really 90+minutes.

Thirty-five minutes later the hostess came over and told us that she had space available for us at “the chef’s table” (pictured above) – a secondary open kitchen area where some of the dishes are prepared that is surrounded by a high bar with seats.  So our 90 minutes evaporated and we were soon seated and enjoying what could best be described as a “leisurely” pace of service.

While the place was busy, the friendly server seemed rushed.  But it was never a problem, allowing us plenty of time to watch the action in the kitchen.  The small dishes we tried included Braised Beef Cheeks with Soft Polenta; Sautéed Duck Livers with Apples and Sherry Sauce; Rabbit and Duck Rillettes with Prune Compôte, and an Entrecôte of Beef with Sweet Potato Pavé. 

With dinner we had an Edmeades Zinfandel from Mendocino, California.  An old favorite, hard to find sometimes, and a brilliant wine.

The beef cheeks were the best of the lot, tender and flavorful.  The duck livers were nice but veiny.  The rillettes – essentially a paté of duck and rabbit – were tasty and nicely complemented by the prunes, but we were getting full.  The roast of beef had been finished on the grill when we arrived and we watched it resting in all its glory, so had to try it.  It was excellently flavored, just a touch too rare (and I love my meat red, so I do mean “rare”), and the sweet potatoes were a nice addition. 

For dessert, despite an absence of space ini our bellies, we tries the Marscapone and Sugar Pear Shortcake.  This was a flop, because the pear was completely raw and the spoon and fork were inadequate for slicing it.  In fact, it nearly slid out of the bowl more than once. 

We accompanied dessert with a serving of the 2004 Bonny Doon “Viogner Doux”, an amber dessert wine that smells of nothing so much as candied apricots.  It was nice in and of itself and would have done better on its own without the over-crunch pear.

So it was a fun time.

But now it is time to get back to reality in KC.  I have bags to pack, magazine subscriptions to modify, and much to do in the ten days or so I have left.

Twenty-Seven Hours of Travel

Posted on by
2

Twenty-seven hours of travel… all times Central Daylight Savings Time

Sunday 5:50 pm – arrive at Bangkok airport after having slept only 5 hours because of an evening arrival from Singapore.  Almost miss my 6:45 flight and am the last to check in.  Flight is smooth and comfortable.

Monday 12:20 am – arrive at Narita airport in Tokyo.  Take shower at Red Carpet Club and make an easy connection to LAX.

Monday 12:50 pm – arrive at LAX and recheck my bags for remainder of trip.  Sunny day and pleasant in LA.

Monday 5:00 pm – in San Francisco with a two-hour layover.  Eat lunch, a roast beef sandwich on Boudin sourdough bread.

Monday 8:45 pm – arrive in Denver to discover that they have had snow and my flight to Kansas City is cancelled.  I am booked on the 10:30 flight tomorrow morning, meaning I’ll miss my 8:30 am flight to Atlanta.

We’ll see what the adventure has in store for me.  And who said that getting there is half the fun?

Posted on by
4

Tawn and I just returned home from a weekend in Singapore, visiting our friends Otto Fong and Han Lai.  They have been together for 8 years and I met Otto originally through another Singaporean friend, Yuen Ping Low, back in SF ten years ago.


I’ll provide more details in the next few days, but here are some pictures.  The first is of the Thai Air Asia plane we took down to Singapore. TAA is a low-cost carrier much in the style of Southwest.  No assigned seats, no inflight entertainment.  You even pay for the drinks and snacks.  But they are friendly and the prices are low.  We paid $80 each for a round trip ticket for a 850-mile flight.


The next picture is of the four of us (from left to right: Han, Otto, Tawn and myself) in front of the central business district of Singapore.  We’re standing outside the Esplanade, a new arts center that was recently built. 


The roof of the Esplanade looks like two giant durian fruit, with spikey shades that are angeled to allow in only indirect light and keep the equatorial heat to a minimum.


The third picture is at the same spot but taken at dusk.  There was an outdoor free concert happening, some rock band.  We ate dinner with another four people at the “No Signboard Restaurant”, eating the White Pepper Crab and the Chili Crab for which Singapore is famous.  Very very tasty.  Also had some Oatmeal Friend Prawns, scallops, and clams.  Yummy.


More later.

Posted on by
1

The staff at the Starbucks located in the lobby of the GMM Grammy building (just a 3-minute walk up the street from the apartment) now recognize me.  They think it is funny that I speak Thai nit-noi (a little bit).  For example:


Chris’ Thai: Sawasdee khrap – kor gran-day iced lah-tay neung foh he-ah, khrap.


Translation: Hello – I’ll have one grande iced latte for here, please. 


Yesterday morning we had another breakthrough moment: I made coffee at home in the morning.  Stovetop espresso maker plus milk (from little individual hermetically sealed self-stable packages) heated in the mircowave and frothed using my Bonour Tubro Frother.  It is beginning to feel a lot like home.  Also, I bought Quaker Oats at the Big C supermarket and made oatmeal.  A South Asian expat sought out my opinion about the different brands of oats, so I recommended the regular rolled oats from  Quaker, although somehow I ended up buying quick oats.  I don’t care for quick oats because the consistency fo the oatmeal is like paste.  Oh, well.  The container is smaller than the huge barrel of oats you can buy in the US so I’ll buy the regular oats next time.


Also yesterday, Tawn was not available to meet for lunch so I had to fend for myself for the first time.  Dodging several thunderstorms, I went to Cafe de Tu – a small Thai place across from the Interncontinental Hotel that also makes good cakes.  The prices are quite reasonable – about 80 baht for one dish.  With bottled water and a slice of cake, only about 200 baht.


The afternoon storms continued yesterday and while the rain was light – no torrential flooding as had been predicted – the breezes and cloud cover helped cool things down to a much more manageable 27 degrees celsius. 


For dinner, Tawn and I picked up his mother, Khun Nui, and took her out.  We were going to eat vegetarian food as it is the middle of the vegetarian period (Chinese festival) but the famous veggie restaurant was closed.  Talk about the wrong time to be closed!  So we ended up at a Thai restaurant in the RCA district (Royal City Avenue – an entertainment area) that looked like a Thai-Chinese version of a Chili’s – lots of antiques on the walls.  The food was actually really good, but pretty spicy. 


We had a green pork curry, a chicken and ginger dish, stir-friend watercress in oyster sauce, and a fried egg salad.  Yummy.


It was fun visiting with Tawn’s mother.  She’s very nice, and we spent our time picking on Tawn.  I’m sure I enjoyed it more than he did.


Update: my trip report for SFO-LAX-NRT-BKK has been posted.

Posted on by
2

Okay, some of the panic has subsided.  Pieces of the puzzle are falling into place and the apartment will soon begin to look like a home.


Here’s some “pre-furnishing” views of the apartment.  At 700 square feet (70 square meters) it is quite large for a one bedroom.  Larger than Tehlin and Chris had in Hong Kong for their first apartment.


This is a view from just inside the front door, looking toward the living area and the bedroom.  The bathroom is immediately to the right past a small kitchen area.  A storage room (about 50 square feet) is immediately to the left.


Looking back toward the kitchen and front door from the living room windows.  Tawn had the walls painted a light yellow-tan color that is quite nice.  The pictures have a very peach tone to them because the peach color curtains are filtering the afternoon light.  The entire apartment has tile floors. 


The view from the bedroom looking back toward the kitchen/front door area.  The bedroom came with a bed frame, new matress, and the closet piece.  The living room had only the TV stand and the TV.


The complex is about 35 stories high.  It is a condominium complex and has some nice amenities including a pool (shown here), small gym, and steam and sauna facilities.  They also have a company that picks up dry cleaning and laundry for a pretty reasonable price.  Turn around is 3 days.  The view from our balconies is quite nice – several other condos and a view south toward Sukhumvit Road. 


 


Our multiple trips to the Bang Po district and the Jatujak Weekend Market on Sunday resulted in purchases of a modest but nice teak hardwood dining table and four chairs.  We also bought two bedside stands.  These will turn out really nice and will be delivered Friday morning after the shop finishes them.  In the afternoon, I stopped an ice cream vendor to have an Asian-style ice cream sandwich, served in a sweet bread roll. 


Monday evening at 6:00 pm the delivery people from Index Living Mall arrived to assemble our dresser and a bookshelf.  These are IKEA-type pieces, but there were three men with power tools who had everything expertly assembled in 20 minutes.  They had moving rugs to cover and protect the floor, and tested all the drawers before leaving.  Very impressive service.  Made me feel better about the 13,000 baht it cost to buy the pieces.


Later in the evening we went shopping at Big C (kind of like a huge Wal-Mart with a grocery store and food court in a 4-story building).  By the time we left, it was pouring rain and very windy.  The streets were flooding with several inches of standing water.  As we drove down our street, Soi Asoke, there were more than 6 inches of water and as we neared our complex, we could hear the water lapping on the underside of our car.  Very scary.  The lightning was spectacular though and I watched from the balcony.  


Oh, other big news: we discovered that the apartment has hot water after all.  The water heater is kind of hiden under the bathroom sink.  I’m glad I spent some time in the bathroom poking around before we went out and bought a hot water heater! 


Well, just a few more days before we fly to Singapore for the weekend to visit friends.  I need to do quite a few more things to get the apartment organized and also want to contact a law firm to arrange for my 1-year visa.  Busy, busy, busy.

Panic While Shopping for Furniture

Posted on by
Reply

Panic, or maybe just good old-fashioned anxiety, has set in.  At first it was caused by the cost of buying furniture.  Looking at the different furniture we’d like to get in our basically unfurnished apartment, it seems that it could cost between 40,000 and 80,000 Baht (US$1,000 – 2,000).

 

Part of the challenge: most of the faux furniture (laminated particleboard) costs nearly as much as it does if purchased in the United States.  This is possibly because most of it is imported from elsewhere.  For example, a dining room table and four chairs at Index Living Mall (similar to IKEA) is on sale for 9,100 Baht.  It will last a few years as the quality is only so-so.

 

If I go to the furniture district, Bang Po, I can pay about 20,000 Baht for a custom-finished teak hardwood table with hardwood chairs padded in my choice of fabrics.  Twice as expensive but it will literally last a lifetime.

 

Part of the equation is answer the question, “How much do we want to invest in furniture for an apartment we might stay in for just a year or two?”  No sense in making a huge investment in furniture that may not fit in whatever home we eventually end up in.  At the same time, I hate to spend a fair amount for temporary furniture when the “real thing” isn’t that much more expensive.

 

The anxiety is heightened when I start thinking about the costs of flying back to Kansas City for the holidays.  At first, Tawn and I had taken it as gospel that we would go back to KC and make a side trip to San Francisco over Christmas and New Year’s.  There are many, many reasons we should do this.

 

But as we’ve been researching air fares, even for flights that depart on Christmas Day, we’ve been shocked.  To include just a trip to Kansas City may run a minimum of 95,000 Baht and as much as 155,000 Baht (US$ 2800 – 3800) if we include a side trip to San Francisco.  That’s the equivalent of between five and eight months’ rent here in Bangkok.

 

It really puts the furniture issue into perspective, doesn’t it?

 

It is now 5:00 am and I’ve been awake for about two hours.  My stomach is a gnawing pit and I’m sitting in the hotel bathroom writing this journal entry.  Through the vent I can hear music coming from the room of some other sleepless visitor.

 

For the moment, I think consideration of the Kansas City trip needs to be set aside.  I can worry about it in another week or two.  In fact, I can work at more options once I am back in the US.  In the meantime, the focus needs to be on getting the apartment organized and furnished to at least a minimal level.

 

Maybe we can take up a collection for our trip back to KC and SF at Christmas: for $50 a person we’ll come visit you.  If was can get about 60 people to contribute, the trip will be paid for.

 

See what living overseas will do to you?  And I haven’t even moved here yet.

 

 

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

 

In the United States, it has become quite popular to express disdain for the so-called “big box” retailers.  Named for the large concrete shells they occupy in suburban strip malls across the country, Walmart, Target, Bed Bath & Beyond and others are seen as homogenizing the American landscape and undermining independent, family-owned businesses.

 

In fact, I’ve jumped on that bandwagon to some extent, especially in the case of Walmart, a company whose sheer size gives it incredible leverage in determining what products vendors manufacture.  Additionally, their workforce practices are very anti-worker, forcing the larger community to absorb the extra costs of healthcare for their tens of thousands of uninsured employees.

 

Nonetheless, it is the process of setting up a home overseas that cures me of some of that big box phobia.  Trying to answer questions as basic as, “Where do I buy plastic clothes hangars?” leave me wishing that there were a nearby Target to which I could drive.

 

Sure, some of this is just a matter of landscape unfamiliarity.  I’ll learn soon enough just where the Thai populace buys plastic hangars (surely they don’t use wire?) along with towels, clothes racks, futons, and paint brushes.

 

And I’m aware that even Thailand has its share of big box retailers, although they are noticeably European in nature.  So I may be heading to a Carrefour, Big C, or Testco-Lotus sooner rather than later.

 

But in the meantime I’m taking a deep breath and savoring this moment of sublime self-awareness, as I appreciate the contradictions that moving overseas brings to the surface.  Now if only I had some plastic hangars, I could unpack my suitcase.

 

Signing the Lease on the Bangkok Apartment

Posted on by
2

Bangkok, my new home.  I arrived on Monday evening after a very long 24-hour journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles to Tokyo to Bangkok.  The LAX-NRT leg was not upgraded so I was squeezed into Economy class.  Not so bad as it could have been but I was unable to sleep and arrived in Bangkok very tired.

On Tuesday Tawn and I went to our new apartment to sign the lease and pay the deposit plus the first month’s rent.  The apartment that was decided upon is at Asoke Place tower, about a 5-minute walk north of the Sukhumvit / Soi 21 (aka Asoke) intersection.  At the intersection is both a Skytrain station and an MRTA (Subway) station, so it is quite convenient to everywhere.  Also, traffic is not too bad along Asoke and we’re on the side of the road that heads into the city.

The apartment is quite large (about 700 square feet) and is a 1-bedroom with an additional small storage room.  Tawn was able to choose paint before the handyman repainted, so the walls are a light yellow in the living area and a light khaki in the bedroom.

We spent most of Tuesday shopping for furniture and have so far made absolutely no decisions.  The big question is, how much do we want to spend?  Furniture of decent quality is cheaper in Thailand than the US, but that doesn’t mean it is inexpensive.  At the same time, we don’t necessarily need to buy permanent stuff right now.  So we are going through the joint priority-setting process.

There’s also a few odds and ends that need to be ironed out.  Anyone with any expertise in these areas is welcome to provide advice:

  • The refrigerator (about 2/3s of full size) sits more than 10 feet away from the nearest power outlet, which it would share with the TV, stereo, etc.  I get the impression that there wasn’t a refrigerator there before and it was placed there as a selling point rather than a practical consideration.  Can you put all that equipment on one outlet without a problem?
  • Similarly, the plugs in the kitchen (which are all under the counter, no idea how you run a cord under the counter as there are no openings!) all feed into one circuit, if I’m not mistaken.  So that would be a 2-burner stove, microwave oven, rice maker, and coffee maker (or combination thereof) on one circuit.  Problem?
  • Our clothes washer was originally in the bathroom, but it takes up a lot of space and was on a wall that have no drain, no power, nor a water supply.  The next logical place is on the balcony (makes more sense that it might sound) but there is no water supply and the power is just a closed junction box.  Landlord seems to think it is an easy problem to overcome.  I’m curious to see how.
  • There’s no hot water heater in the bathroom.  Cold showers, anyone?  We’ll ask the landlord on Friday whether we can pay for installation of a water heater, which will run about 5,000 baht plus another 800 for installation.

Truly, none of these are challenges we cannot tackle, but they are interesting “oh, I hadn’t considered that” situations.

Another lesson I’ve learned.  If you want to pay your credit card at one bank with money in a bank account at another, the only way you can do this is to withdrawl the cash from the first bank and then take it to the other bank and deposit it.  So we went to the bank to withdrawl our deposit, first month’s rent, and money for paying some billes.  110,000 baht total.  It is worth noting that the 1,000 baht bill is the largest denomination available.  Yes, we were carrying 110 bills in a wad in my pocket.  That’s pretty crazy.

Well, the adventure is just starting, I’m sure.  I’m extending the hotel stay by a few days because we won’t have all of the necessary arrangements made by tomorrow morning.  Plus, other than a bed and an armoire, we have no furniture.

First of Three Trips to Move My Things

Posted on by
3

So I packed my bags for my San Francisco – Bangkok trip last night.  This is the first of three trips on which I’ll move most of my things to Bangkok in order to set up residence there.

This is where I’m at: three suitcases, two large and one 22″ trolley bag packed with clothes, six bottles of wine, and several hundred CDs in cloth binders and CaseLogic pages.  Bag 1 weighs 60 pounds; Bag 2 weighs 50 pounds; Bag 3 (the trolley) is a more respectable 25 pounds.  Add to this a backpack and a small carry-on bag for a glass vase I want to move.  That’s a lot of bags to handle.

As a 1K on United, I’m allowed three bags weighing up to 70 pound each, so I’m technically on safe ground.  But the bags are still quite heavy considering I will need to handle them in San Francisco by myself.  So my first thought is that I should take a few things out and lighten the load a little.

Here’s the problem: if I take some of the heavy items out, that will just create more heavy items I need to move on later trips.  This is especially true because the quantity of heavy items far outweigh the quantity of lighter items.  In this trip I’ve already moved many of my clothes, but I still have two more boxes (10x13x4) of CDs plus about 8 binders of DVDs.  Not to mention a few kitchen implements I’d like to move.

And I thought I had thinned out my possessions when I moved from San Jose to Kansas City a year ago!  Time for a more ascetic life!

Breaking the News of My Move

Posted on by
1

Sorry for the delay in posting – I spent most of the weekend at Jennifer and Kevin’s new house, painting shelves, lining other shelves with contact paper, and trying to make myself useful.

 

Last night I babysat Emily, my 2-1/2 month old niece, as Jenn and Kevin were off at a training class at church for people who work in the nursery.  Emily was quite well behaved (a change after the past few weeks of “terrible twos” behavior) and we watched the Kiki’s Delivery Service by noted animator Hayao Miyazaki.  She was very engaged with the movie, which may be just a year or two over her head.

 

Yesterday I conducted a conference call with my team of 10 employees and announced that I’ll be moving to Bangkok at the end of October and taking on new role with IKON.  I’m very fortunate that my manager has a lot of faith in me, and has found a position as a Program Manager that I can fulfill remotely.  It is quite similar to what I currently do, minus the management of trainers.  I’ll focus on designing, developing, and updating the various programs and training materials we use.

 

The reaction by my team of employees was largely stunned silence.

 

I guess this makes it real, doesn’t it?  The train has left the station and is chugging towards the future.