Category Archives: Thailand

First of Three Trips to Move My Things

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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

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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.

Apartment Hunting in Bangkok

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Tawn has started apartment hunting in Bangkok.  His goal: to scout out apartments that meet our combined criteria (mission impossible!) so that when I’m there in late September we can select a place.

 

I’m not being very helpful.  I found a web site called Mr. Room Finder, set up by a Bangkok local who wanted a site that listed apartments that real people, not overpriced expats, could afford.  So I send Tawn links from my searches, fully realising that I don’t know Bangkok neighborhoods all that well.

 

My recommendations are not always very useful.  Like personal ads, these apartments listings are sometimes… generous.

 

We’ll see what turns up, though.  He’s found a few places that look nice, have a decent location, and are teeny-tiny.  But that’s the reality there, I think.  Especially when we don’t want to spend more than US$ 400 a month on rent.