The days of rain, clouds and overcast were banished from the Kingdom at 5:30 this morning and sun – bright, pure, unadulterated and incredibly hot – bathe the streets of Khrungthep.

This is in stark contrast to Tuesday morning, when I went to Union Language School to get signed up for my Thai language classes which begin next Thursday – the day after my 35th birthday.  When I emerged from the Metro at Si Lom station (or “Silom”, if you prefer – lots of flexibility in the Anglicization of words here) the skies were dark and very threatening.  You could smell the rain hanging heavy in the air, about to fall. 

One of the many international primary schools was on a field trip to Suan Lumpini (Lumpini Park).  There were perhaps seventy or eighty students all around the age of six or seven, divided into regiments of a dozen students each and maching in uniform lines – each soldier holding hands with his or her buddy.  All were properly equipped with rain slickers, which are very lightweight here owing to the heat, and one teacher or monitor was in charge of each group, seemingly holding all of their hands at the same time, herding them away from the myriad hazards one finds at one of the busiest intersections in the city.

A few minutes later, as I sat in the registrar’s very 1960’s-era office on the 10th floor of the CCT building, I looked out the window to see that it had started to pour torrential buckets of rain (multiple metaphors).  Imagine the field trip: children either cowering under whatever minimal shelter they could find at the park or else running about splashing with joy in the puddles as their minders fretted and tried to regain control and move the herd to higher and drier ground.

After signing my life away in triplicate (literally three diferent, nearly identical forms – the Thais are a bueuracracy-loving people) and paying my 6200 baht (about US$155) I am official enrolled (no refund!) at this Southern Baptist-founded language school.  In their own words, “registered by the Royal Thai Department of Education as meeting the high standards of informal education.”

Last night Tawn arrived home very late from work, after 8:00.  As he was wrapping up at the office, his manager (the Director) asked if he was free to meet.  The meeting lasted two hours and the substance of the conversation was… me!

Tawn’s company, the USA-based public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton, is taking all of their Bangkok employees on an appreciation trip for four days to Seoul, South Korea in December.  As part of the deal, employees can bring their spouse (but no children, parents, or boy/girlfriends) if they would like to pay the added expense – about 28,000 baht all-inclusive.  Tawn’s friend Mon, who also works at H&K, had let slip the day before that Tawn was planning on bringing me along as his spouse.  Tawn’s boss was concerned about how to handle things, especially as Thai culture doesn’t really have the concept of “domestic partnership.” 

So Tawn’s boss had consulted the various oracles including the older, conservative, and very straight director of finance, and finally sat Tawn down to discuss the situation.  Fortunately, Tawn didn’t have to get Margaret Cho with her.  She decided that H&K should be a very progressive organization and that if Tawn said I was his spouse then she was looking forward to meeting me.  Secretly, I think that she is interested in the possibily of hiring me to do some English-language work for her.  But they wouldn’t sponsor a work visa nor pay me at US pay rates so that might not work!

Anyhow, it looks like I’ll be going to Seoul.  Unfortunately, it is about the same time that Aaron Wong will be in town. 

As promised, here are some photos of the Bangkok Pride festival this past weekend at Lumpini Park.  It really was a small affair, but they had badminton and volleyball competitions going on and the volleyball players were really good. 

We ran into a former United Airlines colleague of Tawn’s and he told us that the players (or one of the teams, perhaps?) were former national-level competitors.  Of course, the first thing to come to mind was the movie Iron Ladies based on the true story of a championship volleyball team composed of gay men, transgendered people, and one straight man. 

The second thing to come to mind was Alan Leung, Anita’s cousin in Toronto.  He is quite the volleyball player, but recently injured his ankle and is recuperating.  He’s a very accomplished interior designer / architect – check our his website.

This afternoon the handy man is supposed to arrive to… drumroll, please… hook up our clothes washing machine.  Remember that this is sitting out on our balcony and there is no water nor any power source nearby. 

The plan as I understand it to run water through the ceiling from the main line in the bathroom and have it exit on the balcony.  Sounds a bit crazy, right?  There is a conduit and closed box on the balcony so I think that there is either power in it or a line could be run to it relatively easily.  In either case, I’m hoping that by this evening I can wash clothes because there really are very few laundry services available.  There is one service that picks up at the condo office, but it took a week and cost 700 baht for 15 pair of socks, 15 undershirts, and 20 pieces of underwear.  I think that’s a bit outrageous as I can wash those perfectly well.

Stay tuned for more details. 

Tuesday morning my computer, for the second time since I was “downgraded” to a 5-year-old laptop for work (don’t want to risk me being out of the country with a computer still out on lease), wouldn’t power up.  I kept pressing the power button but to no avail.  Finally, after the eleventh attempt the motor actually kicked in and the computer came to life.  It is probably an issue with the power switch. 

Fortunately, I picked up a 120 gb Seagate external hard drive that includes software to conduct automatic backups.  I’m at the internet cafe right now because I’m backing up all of the My Documents and Program Files folders – about 11 gb of my 20 gb of internal memory.  Not taking ANY risks here.

Since my computer only has the old USB ports, about 1/50th the speed of the new USB 2.0 ports, most of my morning has been reserved to get the backup performed.  Fortunately in the future the backup will automatically determine what has been changed since the last backup and will only copy those files, saving a great deal of time.

So I’m off to find the Union Language School on Thanon Surawong, near Silmon and Rama IV – right near the infamous Patpong District (think ping pong balls) and, oddly, the Bangkok Christian Hospital.  This is where good Christian doctors remove ping pong balls lodged in unfortunate places.  Union Language School is a Christian-based organization that has a good reputation for structured Thai program, different than the approach of American University Alumni Association, which is total immersion and no structure. 

Supposedly AUA students take longer to learn but speak with a better, more authentic accent.  ULS students learn quicker but risk speaking forever like a farang.  Many people go to ULS to get a structured start and then make a transition to AUA after a few months.  Some people continue to do both at the same time.  Since ULS courses are 4 weeks in length, 5 days a week in the mornings, I’ll do one between now and Christmas and then evaluate whether to continue in January.

Also, I’m off to Central Department Store at Chit Lom to find a container to hold our silverware.  Also, some sort of racks to organize dishes would be useful.  Right now our cabinets are a bit of a mess.  

This is what constitutes the 10% of things left to be done, having already completed the critical 90%.

For those of you wondering, the weather is quite bearable.  Highs around 33 C which I think equates to about 86 F.  Light breezes throughout the day except right around sunset when the wind dies down.  We’ve been having some rain, usually light showers, in the mid-afternoon which helps to cool things down a bit.  They say it takes 6-12 weeks to acclimate fully.  One down.

Finally, received a call from Rick Yang, a UA flight attendant based in NRT who lived for a decade in Bangkok with his Thai partner.  He’s been a good source of perspective on the challenges of moving to Bangkok and not speaking the language.  The good year is that after a decade he is fluent in Thai so I figure that sometime before 2015 or so I’ll be at least conversant!

Sunday was totally exhausting – as was today – but Tawn and I got a ton of to-do items knocked off the list:

• Application for DSL and phone service submitted


• Laundry done (well, we found a place that would do it for us same-day)


• Purchased a 17″ flat screen monitor for the computer, 120 gb external hard drive for back-up storage, and a USB port splitter.


• Went grocery shopping


• Purchased a few other outstanding items for the house


• Located an inexpensive computer desk, only 1199 baht on sale at Big C


• Went to Bang Po (furniture wholesale district) and found a desk chair done similar to the old-fashioned, swivel desk chairs from the 1930s, except with a seat cushion and no wheels.  Only 1600 baht for solid wood.


• Started new phone service for my mobile phone.  Still need to get the international calling plan purchased.


• Stopped by Lumpini Park to see the Pride festival.  Very small event and will post pictures of the volleyball competition later.


• Went to Chatchuchak Weekend Market to return a pair of “custom made” sandals that didn’t fit.  I think they didn’t actually make them from the tracing of my foot.  A new pair will be ready next week.  Also picked up some supposedly hearty plants for the balcony.

Slowly, but surely, it is coming together.

An overcast afternoon in Khrungthep with a threat of rain that has hung over us for about six hours.  It continues to feel like the rain could begin falling at any moment and the denizens of this crowded metropolis reach nervously for the reassuring feel of their umbrella handles at the slightest hint of precipitation.

Today – yes, a Saturday – Tawn had to conduct two seperate interviews with opinion makers in the Thai-Chinese diaspora.  The first was with a lawyer and Thai Senator who plays a significant role in the ethnic Hokkien community (a specific Chinese immigrant group) and the second was with a specialist in Chinese language and culture who is also the president of the Rainbow Sky Association – very similar to the Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center, where Tawn volunteered while in San Francisco.  The second interviewee is also a very outspoken and visible member of Khrungthep’s gay community.

Coincidently, tomorrow marks the start of Khrungthep’s annual GLBT Pride Week.  There is a festival in Lumpini Park – the Central Park of Bangkok – that lasts most of the day.  Then there are different events each day of the week, culminating in a parade along Thanon Silon (Silom Road) next Sunday.  We’ll try to stop by and see what there is to see.

The remainder of the afternoon has been spent in Tawn’s office, where I’m using the computer to… well, to update this blog, among other things.  We’ll run some errands this evening and we are still trying to find a laundromat to us as our washer has not been hooked up yet.

Update: My trip report for my JFK-BKK flight has been posted at airliners.net.  Read all about this 17+ hour journey over the North Pole on the brand-new THAI Airways International Airbus A340-500 airplane.

Roast chicken dinner.  Duck with noodles.  Ramen Cup-O-Noodles.  Finger sandwiches.  Read all about the culinary delights – plus the added adventure of my attempts to minimize traffic as people used the space in front of my seat to cross from one aisle to the other.  Fun!  Excitement!  Inspiration! 

Friday afternoon in Bangkok.  With Tawn working in Public Relations, I figured that eventually we’d start getting invited to various swanky affairs.  Last night was the first one.  We received four tickets and brought our friends Eddy and Thao to the preview week for a new event called Siam Niramit held at a complex near the Thailand Cultural Center.   It is best described as a combination of the Thai section of Epcot Center (if there were a Thai section of Epcot Center), Cirque du Soleil, and a dinner theatre. 

Built by the owners of the Bangkok amusement park, Dream World, visitors to Siam Niramit arrive in a virtual Thai village where they can wander around and watch people making crafts, preparing food, playing traditional games, etc.  There is a large buffet of traditional Thai foods, served in little banana leaf bowls.  You can watch performers playing traditional instruments and dancing traditional dances. 

Then a few minutes before 8:00 everyone proceeds into a huge indoor theatre – probably 4,000 seats and a massive interior space that looks like an IMAX theatre.  The stage is quite wide – maybe 200 feet.  Then a show in seven acts begins that depicts historical life in the four main regions of the country.  After a brief intermission in which a clown comes out and does some audience participation act that is a direct borrow from Cirque, the final three acts depict the Thai Buddhist images of Hell, Heaven and an in-between place that is filled with fantastic creatures.  It is like a series of temple murals come to life.

There is a cast of about 70 people, lots of dancing, kickboxing, spectacular costumes and lighting, etc.  After the second act, a life-size khlong (canal) appears on the stage and we are “amazed” as a villager jumps in for a morning swim. 

All this for 1500 baht (35 USD) a ticket. 

Afterwards we dissected this experience.  If it is targetted at a local audience, the high ticket price will put it out of reach of most people.  If it is targetted at farang (foreigners) it lacks any significant amount of explanation – most people won’t understand the significance of what they’re seeing or eating before and during the show.  And regardless of audience, there is no storyline linking all of the acts together so it isn’t terribly compelling.

During lunch today, Tawn and I constructed a workable storyline that would require only a modest amount of reworking of the production.  We’re trying to figure out who to call to give them our ideas at a reasonable price.

As for other news from Bangkok, things are getting settled.  Still no internet access at home, but that may be resolved in the next week or so.  I’ve spent most mornings working on the computer then gone to meet Tawn for lunch near his office.  Most of the time this means a very simple meal at a local food court for about 80 baht apiece – US$2.  Then I return home in the afternoon and continue working on the computer.

This weekend we have a long list of errands to run.  I still do not have a computer desk and our clothes washer is not hooked up yet.  Many things to do.    

That’s “Khrungthep” To You, Mister.

It is Tuesday afternoon in Khrungthep (the name Thai people call the city the rest of us know as Bangkok) and I’m nearing completion of my first twenty-four hours in the city.  The flight in from New York took 17 hours, 5 minutes.  A full trip report will be posted in a few days, but the short version is that THAI Airways does a very good job with their international Economy class service, especially on this long-haul flight.

Through some bit of good fortune, I ended up having an entire row of four seats mostly to myself. 

By “mostly” I mean that there was a man sitting in the aisle seat some of the flight, but then he went to sit elsewhere for most of the time.

While I couldn’t sleep I did doze a bit, ate two meals and two snacks, and watched several different TV programs and parts of two movies. 

Unfortunately with the Audo/Video On Demand system, I was unable to watch “West Side Story” which was one of the “Classic Movies” choices.  You can demand your movies but that doesn’t mean you’ll get them.

On the way into the country, my Non-Immigrant B visa was accepted, so I now begin the first 90-day period of my year here “exploring investment options.” 

So What Was Emily For Halloween?

For those of you who were wondering, my niece Emily went trick-or-treating dressed as Princess Fiona from the Shrek movies.  Here is a picture of her.  Notice the green ears.  Nice touch.

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.

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.

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.

Posted my first trip report to airliners.net.  This is the first of five that will cover my July trip from Kansas City to Bangkok and back.