I was writing an email to a friend today and I was finally able to express what it is that I have been feeling since we have been in Thailand. Loneliness. I am lonely. It is frustrating because here I am in a beautiful, fascinating country and I cannot appreciate it. I have hired help to enable us to free up our time and to really experience what life is like as an expat, yet I am still stressed every afternoon when Marcus comes home, the kids still frustrate me and I still find myself losing my patience everyday with them and Marcus. He on the other hand has changed, he is much more relaxed and carefree which only adds to my frustration. I am still calling myself the "physco bitch" still snapping and yelling and nothing seems to be good enough for me, I am still searching for that "something" and the problem is I don't know what that "something" is.
I can imagine my friends back home reading this and saying to themselves "come on Ally, get real, look at where you are and what you are experiencing and you are still complaining!" But here is the clincher, the source of all this frustration is loneliness, I have none of my close friends around me or even nearby, I cannot just pop out for a coffee or a play date, I cant just drive down to my mother in laws house to say Hi. I share a glass of wine with myself. I have no one to gossip with, no one to laugh with, you know the type of laughter that makes you pee. I miss everything about home. I seem to have simply picked up my whole life and routine and put it all on a plane and dumped it in another country, the same stresses and worries and arguments have followed us here. When we made the decision to take this trip we were both secretly hoping to leave all of the niggling little worries and fights behind and start a new and exciting chapter. But it has not happened like that, we have a house that looks like any house from Australia, the weather is exactly like North Queensland and if I stay home for a few days and don't venture out past my front gate I swear I could be living in Cairns.
I remember reading a book about Thailand and it saying that expats have 2 ways of living in Thailand, Encapsulation, where you become a part of the community of travellers or expat community, where you live in your big house, eat imported foreign food, watch satellite TV, join expat clubs and shop in expat supermarkets. The only Thais you converse with are the maid, the driver, the gardener or the nanny. It is very easy over here to recede into your own little bubble or world and live exactly like you would if you were back in your home country.
Or there is Integration, where the visitor removes the barriers that separate him/her from the Thais and slowly stops using the expat community for friendship and entertainment and feels increasingly more at ease with the Thai people and culture. It says that the person has everything to gain this way and little to lose but their intolerance. However to integrate you need to be able to speak the language much better than I do at present and you need alot more confidence than I have.
When we moved here I imagined us to be adventuring every weekend, visiting wonderful and interesting places. But we mostly hang out at home or go to the shops, we stopped doing the tourist thing months ago. Thailand is not a country built for children, the sidewalks are for selling things on and not for walking on, the streets are very dangerous to cross especially with a pram and a small child, the public transport is even harder. I don't even know how to call a cab, there isn't a dispatcher like back home, you actually need a drivers personal phone number or if you happen to be by yourself you can take the risk of hailing down a taxi motorbike and pray you don't get killed. But since I have the kids it really slows me down in what I can do each day and I end up doing the least stressful option and go shopping in the super huge multi-story shopping complex where everything is twice as expensive as home. Whoever said Thailand is cheap was fooling themselves.
I find it hard simply to meet new people. I tried the other week at a mothers group, but most of them seemed so pretentious (or maybe they thought I was) but I only really got to talking to one other mother and that was through an introduction from a mutual friend and we happen to be from the same city. She seems really down to earth and normal so I hope to be able to develop more of a friendship with her and she also has a son who is about 4 so I am also hoping Judd can make a new friend since our only friends with kids left for home last week. It was really quite sad as Judd was really good friends with their 2 boys and they played so well together, he talks about them everyday and asks me when they are coming back. Poor kid, it must be so hard to be taken away from not only your friends but your family as well. I need to make more of an effort to make new friends not just for my own sanity but also for the kids as well.
I had these grand ideas of taking time each day to exercise, meditate and to research more about Buddhism and the art of meditation and to write, write about not only my experiences but my self discovering along the way. Well at least I have managed to write, the other stuff I still hope to do but I seem to be very stuck in my everyday routine.
I am tired of complaining, of bitching and of snapping at everyone. I feel so shallow and empty and I wonder how much longer it is going to take to fill this gaping hole I have inside and I wonder where and how this hole got there in the first place?
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Monday, December 27, 2010
Christmas Day
Christmas day was different. I mean growing up in my family we kept it pretty quiet anyway, the mornings were spent with me opening all of my presents and since I was an only child and all of my other cousins were alot older than me or lived in other cities I got terribly spoilt. After I was done my parents would either go back to bed or we would sit about and have a normal breakfast and then get ready for when my aunty and uncle would come over to share a cold lunch of ham and roast meat and salads, then my uncle would fall asleep on the couch and the parents would sit about having a beer and a wine and I would wander off down the street to my best friends house to see what she got and to eat all their food. There was no big crazy day spent rushing about from house to house visiting all the family members, it was very nonchalant and sometimes pretty boring, especially as I got older and the magic of Christmas started to fade. It wasn't until I moved to Melbourne and met Marcus that I got a sense of how busy and enjoyable Christmas Day could be. Not that mine weren't enjoyable but they were very very casual.
Now Christmas with Marcus wasn't too crazy but it was spent visiting a family members house for lunch and drinks, they would have a annual big family party a few weeks earlier to fit into every ones schedules so by the time Christmas Day came it was only a few left to get together and share gifts and a bottle or 2 of wine. But I liked the idea of big family functions, coming from a small family this was all very new to me. And especially after I started working in retail my Christmas' became very very busy and I could never celebrate too much because I always always had to work on Boxing Day and that was usually our biggest day of the year for sales. How I do not miss working those crazy hours and I do not miss the crazy desperate shoppers over spending and creating havoc.
When we had the kids was when Christmas took on an altogether different meaning for us, it became exciting again, special and I love shopping for gifts to treat the kids with and I love telling Judd the stories of how Santa comes to visit in the middle of the night on a sleigh drawn by magical reindeer's and if he is a good boy he will get many special gifts from him. To see the excitement on his face makes all the effort worthwhile. To take him out on Christmas Day to visit the family and to get hugs and kisses and more presents and to basically show him off to everyone is really fun, and I know Marcus loves it too.
Christmas this year was different but no less special, Judd really understood the stories of Santa and he knew what was going to happen and he woke up Christmas morning disappointed that he missed seeing Santa because he tried to stay up to catch him. Lillie doesn't know the stories but she does know how to unwrap a present and she got stuck straight in as soon as she woke and finished her bottle (as nothing comes between her and her morning bottle). I asked Santa this year to bring Lillie some girlie toys as she mostly plays with Judd's old ones. Watching her play with her new baby doll and her shopping cart and play house she has turned overnight into a little girl, no longer is she my little baby. She may wear nappies but she knows how to give her baby her bottle, put her to bed, put her handbag over her shoulder grab the shopping cart and go shopping. It is so sweet, she takes her baby everywhere now, in bed and in the car. She cuddles it so tight it makes my heart melt.
Judd got more grown up toys this year, boxing gloves, Lego and more Thomas trains. But he still insists on taking Lillie's toys from her, even the baby doll. He always wants what the other kid has despite how many great toys he has himself.
Our day was spent with a slow morning of unwrapping and playing with toys, a light breakfast and then Skypeing our families to wish them Merry Christmas. Skype is a wonderful thing, for the kids to be able to see their grandparents and aunts and unlces is so special, and it makes us feel not so far away when we can now just dial up and have a chat whenever we want. Afterwards I went out to get our Christmas lunch which ended up being 2 pizzas and some fish and chips for the kids, then it was nap time and then we decided to get out of the house and head into town for a Christmas dinner. It was such a simple, private and calm day. It wasn't any better than our usual Christmas Days but it was different in a good way.
Boxing Day was another matter altogether which I wont go into now as I don't have the emotional energy to go on about it, lets just say there was a miscommunication between adults and a fight ensued followed by some serious sulking.
Now Christmas with Marcus wasn't too crazy but it was spent visiting a family members house for lunch and drinks, they would have a annual big family party a few weeks earlier to fit into every ones schedules so by the time Christmas Day came it was only a few left to get together and share gifts and a bottle or 2 of wine. But I liked the idea of big family functions, coming from a small family this was all very new to me. And especially after I started working in retail my Christmas' became very very busy and I could never celebrate too much because I always always had to work on Boxing Day and that was usually our biggest day of the year for sales. How I do not miss working those crazy hours and I do not miss the crazy desperate shoppers over spending and creating havoc.
When we had the kids was when Christmas took on an altogether different meaning for us, it became exciting again, special and I love shopping for gifts to treat the kids with and I love telling Judd the stories of how Santa comes to visit in the middle of the night on a sleigh drawn by magical reindeer's and if he is a good boy he will get many special gifts from him. To see the excitement on his face makes all the effort worthwhile. To take him out on Christmas Day to visit the family and to get hugs and kisses and more presents and to basically show him off to everyone is really fun, and I know Marcus loves it too.
Christmas this year was different but no less special, Judd really understood the stories of Santa and he knew what was going to happen and he woke up Christmas morning disappointed that he missed seeing Santa because he tried to stay up to catch him. Lillie doesn't know the stories but she does know how to unwrap a present and she got stuck straight in as soon as she woke and finished her bottle (as nothing comes between her and her morning bottle). I asked Santa this year to bring Lillie some girlie toys as she mostly plays with Judd's old ones. Watching her play with her new baby doll and her shopping cart and play house she has turned overnight into a little girl, no longer is she my little baby. She may wear nappies but she knows how to give her baby her bottle, put her to bed, put her handbag over her shoulder grab the shopping cart and go shopping. It is so sweet, she takes her baby everywhere now, in bed and in the car. She cuddles it so tight it makes my heart melt.
Judd got more grown up toys this year, boxing gloves, Lego and more Thomas trains. But he still insists on taking Lillie's toys from her, even the baby doll. He always wants what the other kid has despite how many great toys he has himself.
Our day was spent with a slow morning of unwrapping and playing with toys, a light breakfast and then Skypeing our families to wish them Merry Christmas. Skype is a wonderful thing, for the kids to be able to see their grandparents and aunts and unlces is so special, and it makes us feel not so far away when we can now just dial up and have a chat whenever we want. Afterwards I went out to get our Christmas lunch which ended up being 2 pizzas and some fish and chips for the kids, then it was nap time and then we decided to get out of the house and head into town for a Christmas dinner. It was such a simple, private and calm day. It wasn't any better than our usual Christmas Days but it was different in a good way.
Boxing Day was another matter altogether which I wont go into now as I don't have the emotional energy to go on about it, lets just say there was a miscommunication between adults and a fight ensued followed by some serious sulking. Thailand doesn't have the Christmas vibe to it like Australia, considering their mostly Buddhists that's understandable so in all honesty the 25th Dec could have been any other Saturday.
But the Thais do celebrate New Year and the do it in a big way, Marcus gets 5 days off this weekend and their are festivals and markets and concerts popping up everywhere, its going to be a noisy and rowdy weekend and I cant wait, we are hoping to get a room in town to be amongst it all and to hopefully see the fireworks display they are having out on the bay. But being the peak season for tourists I may have to do some serious hunting to find the right place that suits us and the kids, either way I am sure we will have alot of fun.
But the Thais do celebrate New Year and the do it in a big way, Marcus gets 5 days off this weekend and their are festivals and markets and concerts popping up everywhere, its going to be a noisy and rowdy weekend and I cant wait, we are hoping to get a room in town to be amongst it all and to hopefully see the fireworks display they are having out on the bay. But being the peak season for tourists I may have to do some serious hunting to find the right place that suits us and the kids, either way I am sure we will have alot of fun.
Christmas Eve
Today is Christmas Eve and I am all alone in bed utterly exhausted after spending all day chasing last minute Christmas food and gifts and the ever elusive wrapping paper so I could sit up all night wrapping all of Santa's gifts for the kids. Marcus is off at the work Christmas party something I am not at all happy with. It may sound selfish but I am upset that the kids and I have to spend tonight alone in a foreign country with no friends or family around to enjoy this special time with. I don't see why the party had to be held on Christmas eve other than the Director is a bachelor who has no family here and no idea whats its like to be away from those he loves. This man is not in my good books lately for reasons that I wont go into on my Blog as they involve Marcus and its not my place to comment openly. To top off my discomfort our next door neighbours have been away for 3 weeks and their maid has been house minding during the day and today she discovered that either last night or early this morning someone has broken into the house, not stolen anything, but locked the bathroom door from which he entered through from the inside so that possibly he could return with help and a bigger truck, who knows. But the simple fact that he has been sneaking around only meters from my bedroom window breaking into their house (our houses are really really close) has got my shackles up and I am very nervous about being home alone. I have already checked on the kids and double checked all the windows and left all of my outdoor lights on but I cannot rest so I may as well just wait up until Marcus gets home from his party in Bangkok.
Also I thought I may have had to take Lillie to the hospital this afternoon, she was trying to follow Judd into the bathroom and he shut the door and accidentally jammed her thumb in it. Now Lillie is a real tough cookie, she fell off the bed the other day and collected the side table and then hit the floor and only cried for minutes but today she screamed and screamed and kept holding her poor little hand, I was almost certain it was broken and that we would be spending Christmas eve in the Bangkok Pattaya hospital. But thankfully after dinner and a bottle of milk she calmed down and started to play again so I figure that it just must be bruised and sore rather than broken. If it was really broken she wouldn't have used her hand to grab and play with her toys (I hope).
On the up side of today I asked Judd if he would like to go through his toys and pick a few that he would like to donate to the local orphanage here in Pattaya, the Father Ray Foundation. He was so good he went through all of his toys and gave me plenty to give away, he even tried to give away his Toy Story collection of toys, but I had to say no as they were gifts and he should really keep them. We ended up with 4 bags of toys, clothes, shoes and baby blankets. He came with me to the orphanage and spoke to the ladies there and carried the bags in. I really think he understood what we were doing and how the other children were going to benefit from his toys. I hope to be able to do this with the kids every year for Christmas and birthdays just teach them about charity and to also help them value their gifts more.
Also I gave our nanny/driver some days off to go up to her home town up in north Thailand to visit her parents and her children, so I am now doing my own laundry, ironing and cleaning for the next 2 weeks. This will come as a shock to the system because I haven't done any serious cleaning since we got here. I will enjoy it though, sometimes I feel like my job has been taken from me, but the plus side of having some help around the house is that I have more time to play with the kids and to give them the Grade A attention that they always deserve.
So we had our ups and downs today but as I go to sleep tonight I have that tired feeling that only comes with a busy but productive day and I look forward to the looks on the kids faces when they realise that Santa came while they were tucked up warm in their little beds.
Also I thought I may have had to take Lillie to the hospital this afternoon, she was trying to follow Judd into the bathroom and he shut the door and accidentally jammed her thumb in it. Now Lillie is a real tough cookie, she fell off the bed the other day and collected the side table and then hit the floor and only cried for minutes but today she screamed and screamed and kept holding her poor little hand, I was almost certain it was broken and that we would be spending Christmas eve in the Bangkok Pattaya hospital. But thankfully after dinner and a bottle of milk she calmed down and started to play again so I figure that it just must be bruised and sore rather than broken. If it was really broken she wouldn't have used her hand to grab and play with her toys (I hope).
On the up side of today I asked Judd if he would like to go through his toys and pick a few that he would like to donate to the local orphanage here in Pattaya, the Father Ray Foundation. He was so good he went through all of his toys and gave me plenty to give away, he even tried to give away his Toy Story collection of toys, but I had to say no as they were gifts and he should really keep them. We ended up with 4 bags of toys, clothes, shoes and baby blankets. He came with me to the orphanage and spoke to the ladies there and carried the bags in. I really think he understood what we were doing and how the other children were going to benefit from his toys. I hope to be able to do this with the kids every year for Christmas and birthdays just teach them about charity and to also help them value their gifts more.
Also I gave our nanny/driver some days off to go up to her home town up in north Thailand to visit her parents and her children, so I am now doing my own laundry, ironing and cleaning for the next 2 weeks. This will come as a shock to the system because I haven't done any serious cleaning since we got here. I will enjoy it though, sometimes I feel like my job has been taken from me, but the plus side of having some help around the house is that I have more time to play with the kids and to give them the Grade A attention that they always deserve.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
A day of shopping
Spent a lovely day today in town with Marcus. We have been wanting to get out and do some market shopping without the kids for quite some time now and I finally got around to arranging to have them stay with the nanny so we could wander around and shop at our leisure.
It was nice, we started our day with breakfast at one of the many beach side restaurants then jumped onto a baht bus that took us a bit further up Beach road to a set of markets and Marcus hit the ground running buying some lovely Calvin Klein underwear and aftershave and bartering with the girl until she gave in with frustration. He loves to haggle and it drives the Thais crazy because he has no problem walking away if they don't bring the price down enough. I have been doing a bit (well actually alot) of shopping since we arrived so I am over all of the tourist junk that these markets sell, sometimes you can find something nice and of value but alot of it is just mass production tourist junk that devalues the real genuine crafts and gifts that the fine hands of Thailand make. Their hands are so nimble, especially the ladies, and some of the hand made crafts are just wonderful to look at, but you have to be able to find a stall or shop that sells them to be able to see the fine difference there can be in comparison to the copies. For instance there is a lovely little alley that is called Artist Street which I have mentioned before, and today I wandered along watching the artists work on their portraits and landscapes with such fine detail, it was fascinating. I have decided that I want to buy one of these pieces however Marcus wants to choose one for my Christmas present, but the problem with buying someone else art is that they can never be 100% sure that the receiver of the gift is going to like it. I showed him the one I liked, it was a scene from up country Thailand of a small river flowing over rocks, some traditional Thai houses perched along next to it and a wonderful mountain skyline above, it is a piece that I could just sit in front of and stare at for hours. I then walked along and compared this to the many reproduction pieces that the other shops sell alongside their own original work and portraits and they all seemed the same. I mean I could walk into any westerners house here in Thailand and I could bet money that 99% of these homes would have something similar hanging on their walls. I don't want that, I want a piece of art, it has to mean something and it has to look and feel real. I am sure Marcus will choose well (at least I hope so) but our tastes are really quite different.
After the markets we jumped a baht bus down to Pattaya Tai and visited Tech Com, a big I.T Super store selling thousands and thousands of copy and real phones, computers, movies, music and anything else that requires electricity. We are looking at getting another lap top for me as this one I use now is so slow, it almost doesn't work. But there are so many stalls and choices that I get dizzy and cant concentrate let alone choose a new computer that will set us back a heap of money, so we wandered back up to Beach Road after a lovely Japanese lunch of noodles, soup and dumplings and we treated ourselves to a foot massage each. Before we knew it it was time to head home to give the kids their dinners and bed times. A day like today doesn't come along very often and I think we made the most of it and got to have some special "couple time" that was sorely needed.
It was nice, we started our day with breakfast at one of the many beach side restaurants then jumped onto a baht bus that took us a bit further up Beach road to a set of markets and Marcus hit the ground running buying some lovely Calvin Klein underwear and aftershave and bartering with the girl until she gave in with frustration. He loves to haggle and it drives the Thais crazy because he has no problem walking away if they don't bring the price down enough. I have been doing a bit (well actually alot) of shopping since we arrived so I am over all of the tourist junk that these markets sell, sometimes you can find something nice and of value but alot of it is just mass production tourist junk that devalues the real genuine crafts and gifts that the fine hands of Thailand make. Their hands are so nimble, especially the ladies, and some of the hand made crafts are just wonderful to look at, but you have to be able to find a stall or shop that sells them to be able to see the fine difference there can be in comparison to the copies. For instance there is a lovely little alley that is called Artist Street which I have mentioned before, and today I wandered along watching the artists work on their portraits and landscapes with such fine detail, it was fascinating. I have decided that I want to buy one of these pieces however Marcus wants to choose one for my Christmas present, but the problem with buying someone else art is that they can never be 100% sure that the receiver of the gift is going to like it. I showed him the one I liked, it was a scene from up country Thailand of a small river flowing over rocks, some traditional Thai houses perched along next to it and a wonderful mountain skyline above, it is a piece that I could just sit in front of and stare at for hours. I then walked along and compared this to the many reproduction pieces that the other shops sell alongside their own original work and portraits and they all seemed the same. I mean I could walk into any westerners house here in Thailand and I could bet money that 99% of these homes would have something similar hanging on their walls. I don't want that, I want a piece of art, it has to mean something and it has to look and feel real. I am sure Marcus will choose well (at least I hope so) but our tastes are really quite different.
After the markets we jumped a baht bus down to Pattaya Tai and visited Tech Com, a big I.T Super store selling thousands and thousands of copy and real phones, computers, movies, music and anything else that requires electricity. We are looking at getting another lap top for me as this one I use now is so slow, it almost doesn't work. But there are so many stalls and choices that I get dizzy and cant concentrate let alone choose a new computer that will set us back a heap of money, so we wandered back up to Beach Road after a lovely Japanese lunch of noodles, soup and dumplings and we treated ourselves to a foot massage each. Before we knew it it was time to head home to give the kids their dinners and bed times. A day like today doesn't come along very often and I think we made the most of it and got to have some special "couple time" that was sorely needed.
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Korean students, body builders and food!
An interesting week, sort of. We had a young girl from Korea stay with us for the week. She normally lives with our friend Karen and her family as she goes to the international school with her daughters but as they had to leave for their Christmas vacation 1 week before school ended, Young Eun (or Marie as we called her) came to stay with us until last night when she flew home to spend Christmas with her family in Korea. She is a lovely girl, but all she did was study, every night up until really really late. I would wake up at about 12pm and if she was still up I would turn the Internet off to try and get her to go to bed. I don't know if she was on the net or not but I wondered what else could she be studying for during her final week of school? She is 17 so I couldn't just demand her to go to bed, but a few subtle hints may have been dropped. The kids loved having her with us, they would run into her room every morning and make a big noise and mess and she was too polite and shy to kick them out. But now she has gone home Judd gets to have his bedroom back much to every ones relief. We had him sharing with Lillie the first night and that lasted about 1 hour before he woke her up with his wandering around and ended up in our bedroom. I put up the portacot for him and he just fit into it with only millimeters to spare. He definitely isn't a baby anymore!
Last Sunday Marcus got his second tattoo. Ouch! He has already got Judd down the right side of his torso and to balance it out he now has Lillie down the other side. A really good job too, the writing is slightly thicker than the first one but I think it looks heaps better. Now he has got the taste for them he wants to get a full 3/4 sleeve done. We have been looking at some designs at the shop we found just off Beach Road in Pattaya next to Mikes Mall. It is the cutest little alley, all the way down it is just tattoo parlors and artists workshops. I loved just walking along watching all the artists working on their paintings, so much so that this Sunday we have the nanny booked to watch the kids while we go out shopping for the day and I plan to go back to that alley and buy a big original piece of artwork for above my dining room table. They all seemed fairly reasonably priced too.
Marcus and I have been talking about taking a day to ourselves and just walking along the streets and alleys and checking out all of the little bazaars and markets that are too hard to go to when we have the 2 kids in tow, so we figured the Sunday before Christmas we will take the whole day to ourselves and hopefully have some fun together too. It gets hard sometimes when the kids keep us so busy to take time to remember how to laugh with each other again. And to think I have seriously been thinking about adding to our stress and having another baby! Which surprise surprise, Marcus has agreed to, but only on one condition....I need to lose the weight I have been complaining about for 3 years, I have to get myself down to 70kgs before he will allow me to get pregnant. Isn't that wonderful of him? Actually it is, he has found the incentive I have needed to get off my ass and really get serious about losing this extra weight, before it becomes and permanent fixture. So the plan is to not go crazy and cut out all the good stuff in my diet, I mean who travels half way across the globe to go on a bloody diet? Not me, there is far too much delicious food and drink to be had while we are living this wonderful experience, but I do plan to take it all in more moderation, only drink on weekends and try to cut out the sugar as much as possible. Thai food is quite filling so I don't find myself over eating I just snack on far too many sweets and drink too much Coke. Plus I need to work in a new exercise routine, I would like to walk everyday but it is soooo bloody hot that I am dripping sweat into my eyes before I get one lap around the block, so I need to think of something else that fits into my day of taking care of Lillie and taking Judd to and from school and also fits in between Lillie's naps and feeding and on and on and on. Yes I have a nanny/maid but lately I have been staying with Lillie alot more and her naughty behaviour has stopped, she is eating again and has stopped having as many tantrums. So leaving her with the nanny everyday isn't really an option at the moment, not if I want to keep my sanity anyway.
I will think of something and I will reach my goal then I will stack it all back on with my baby weight with pregnancy number 3! LOL LOL!
Last night we took the kids to the big shopping mall in town for dinner, we like to do this on Fridays as Marcus works every Saturday so he wants to get out and do something before the weekend is over for him, which I totally understand. So we had dinner at a lovely Japanese and Korean restaurant, and we ate like champions, even Judd surprised us and ate a Pork Steak with his rice and then he even went so far as to eat the udon noodles from our soup! I nearly fell out of my seat with shock, this is the boy who wont even taste ice cream or chocolate and don't even think about getting him to eat a pea and here he is eating pork and noodles like he has been eating them his whole life! What a champion. Even Lillie has some rice, she is becoming so much better with her food lately too (but I shall not get my hopes us just yet as with kids you just never know). After dinner we went out to the front of the mall to get a photo with the biggest Christmas tree I have seen, all lit up in blue and purple lights, but we got outside and there was a Thai body building competition on. OMG I have never seen such ripped little (or not so little) Thai men! They had muscles coming out of everywhere, it was fascinating and of course I had to interrupt family photo time to get some pics of these men. It was weird and gross at the same time. But Lillie and Jud loved dancing to the music they were playing, it was so cute. That is what I love about Thailand, everyday there is always always something happening, something to celebrate and everyone is pretty much in a pleasant and cheerful mood. If I wanted to to I could take the kids down Walking Street and still feel totally safe and not have to deal with drunken louts stumbling around and starting fights and skanky women swearing their heads off. The word for Thailand really is Mai Pen Rai
Last Sunday Marcus got his second tattoo. Ouch! He has already got Judd down the right side of his torso and to balance it out he now has Lillie down the other side. A really good job too, the writing is slightly thicker than the first one but I think it looks heaps better. Now he has got the taste for them he wants to get a full 3/4 sleeve done. We have been looking at some designs at the shop we found just off Beach Road in Pattaya next to Mikes Mall. It is the cutest little alley, all the way down it is just tattoo parlors and artists workshops. I loved just walking along watching all the artists working on their paintings, so much so that this Sunday we have the nanny booked to watch the kids while we go out shopping for the day and I plan to go back to that alley and buy a big original piece of artwork for above my dining room table. They all seemed fairly reasonably priced too.
Marcus and I have been talking about taking a day to ourselves and just walking along the streets and alleys and checking out all of the little bazaars and markets that are too hard to go to when we have the 2 kids in tow, so we figured the Sunday before Christmas we will take the whole day to ourselves and hopefully have some fun together too. It gets hard sometimes when the kids keep us so busy to take time to remember how to laugh with each other again. And to think I have seriously been thinking about adding to our stress and having another baby! Which surprise surprise, Marcus has agreed to, but only on one condition....I need to lose the weight I have been complaining about for 3 years, I have to get myself down to 70kgs before he will allow me to get pregnant. Isn't that wonderful of him? Actually it is, he has found the incentive I have needed to get off my ass and really get serious about losing this extra weight, before it becomes and permanent fixture. So the plan is to not go crazy and cut out all the good stuff in my diet, I mean who travels half way across the globe to go on a bloody diet? Not me, there is far too much delicious food and drink to be had while we are living this wonderful experience, but I do plan to take it all in more moderation, only drink on weekends and try to cut out the sugar as much as possible. Thai food is quite filling so I don't find myself over eating I just snack on far too many sweets and drink too much Coke. Plus I need to work in a new exercise routine, I would like to walk everyday but it is soooo bloody hot that I am dripping sweat into my eyes before I get one lap around the block, so I need to think of something else that fits into my day of taking care of Lillie and taking Judd to and from school and also fits in between Lillie's naps and feeding and on and on and on. Yes I have a nanny/maid but lately I have been staying with Lillie alot more and her naughty behaviour has stopped, she is eating again and has stopped having as many tantrums. So leaving her with the nanny everyday isn't really an option at the moment, not if I want to keep my sanity anyway.
I will think of something and I will reach my goal then I will stack it all back on with my baby weight with pregnancy number 3! LOL LOL!
Last night we took the kids to the big shopping mall in town for dinner, we like to do this on Fridays as Marcus works every Saturday so he wants to get out and do something before the weekend is over for him, which I totally understand. So we had dinner at a lovely Japanese and Korean restaurant, and we ate like champions, even Judd surprised us and ate a Pork Steak with his rice and then he even went so far as to eat the udon noodles from our soup! I nearly fell out of my seat with shock, this is the boy who wont even taste ice cream or chocolate and don't even think about getting him to eat a pea and here he is eating pork and noodles like he has been eating them his whole life! What a champion. Even Lillie has some rice, she is becoming so much better with her food lately too (but I shall not get my hopes us just yet as with kids you just never know). After dinner we went out to the front of the mall to get a photo with the biggest Christmas tree I have seen, all lit up in blue and purple lights, but we got outside and there was a Thai body building competition on. OMG I have never seen such ripped little (or not so little) Thai men! They had muscles coming out of everywhere, it was fascinating and of course I had to interrupt family photo time to get some pics of these men. It was weird and gross at the same time. But Lillie and Jud loved dancing to the music they were playing, it was so cute. That is what I love about Thailand, everyday there is always always something happening, something to celebrate and everyone is pretty much in a pleasant and cheerful mood. If I wanted to to I could take the kids down Walking Street and still feel totally safe and not have to deal with drunken louts stumbling around and starting fights and skanky women swearing their heads off. The word for Thailand really is Mai Pen Rai
Monday, December 13, 2010
Bits and Pieces
A few things have been happening this past week. Marcus got his cast off and is now walking normally, his leg is still sore but at least the break has healed and in time he will be back running on it again soon. Our friends from New Zealand have gone on holiday and have asked us to board their international student from Korea, Marie. Well her name is Young Eun but we call her Marie. She is 17 and is a lovely girl, she mostly stays in her room and studies so its almost like she isn't here at all. The kids love her too, they are constantly running into her room and climbing all over her homework and she is too polite to kick them out. Marie is only staying with us for one week until school finishes then she flies home to her family in Korea for Christmas break.
We also found a lovely beach not far from our house (well 40 mins drive but that's still pretty close) it is on a navy base in Sattahip, we have to get a day pass at the guard house and pay a National park fee and also we cannot drive down to the beach we have to catch the complimentary taxi bus over the hill to the beach. Its called Sa Kaew beach and it is the most clean beach I have seen on the mainland, the water is clear and completely free of rubbish and plastic bags, the sand down by the water is white and clean, it is what you would expect a beach to look like when travelling to Thailand. We have been twice so far and plan to go alot more. Saturday we met our other friends from New Zealand, they are a family of 5, down there and the kids played and swam and had the best time. Lillie loves running in and out of the waves and she thinks its hilarious when they knock her over, she doesn't even mind when she goes under. We have to watch her very carefully as she has no fear of the water. Marcus and I got to relax while the waiter brought our food over to us, the beers were cold and the sun was nice and hot, it was the perfect day.
Anyway she now tells me she wants to buy a massage business from a friend and work it in her free time, I feel this will be good for her to set herself up with a business that can support her in the long run, if she manages it correctly of course. Even if she ends up quiting working with us, I wouldn't mind knowing that she is taking care of herself and making enough money to send home to her children.
Last week Marcus also took his workers out for beers and dinner as a sort of thankyou. They just went to a local restuarant (well a man and a gas burner, an esky and some tables and chairs and you have a resturant in Thailand) it was out near their factory. I drove out later to meet him with the kids and had a couple of beers and some yummy BBQ pork. Much to my distaste they had a plate of fried grasshoppers, worms and crickets that they were snacking on like entrees. Judd even picked one up and pretended to eat it. Marcus ate a cricket just to save face in front of the Thai men who were all munching them down like peanuts.
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| Fried grasshoppers |
If Marcus and I had of been taken to a side of the road restaurant like that 4 months ago, we would have nearly vomited, but last week we were comfortable and happy and we let the kids run around and play. Even though most of the men couldn't speak any English and we speak no Thai we all had a good laugh and the kids of course were the main attraction. If it wasn't so late and Lillie wasn't so tired we could have stayed there much longer. And to top off the evening it only cost Marcus 2100baht to feed about 11 men, including many many bottles of beer.
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| Fried worms |
This week I plan to organise my time a bit better, the past couple of weeks I have been doing alot of running around without achieving much. I would like to start going to the gym in the mornings, then head home to hang with Lillie for the afternoons. And I also need to plan our holiday in May to Phuket for our friends wedding. We cant wait to see some family and friends.
Oh and I almost forgot to mention, Judd can now count to 5 in Thai! Clever little man he is and Lillie can do the Wai - hands together and bow the head. When someone says Sawatdee Ka she makes the Wai in return, its so cute and the Thais melt over it.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
My Birthday
Ok so my 30th came and went with no world ending Big Bang. I did however wake in the wee hours of the morning to my husband rushing to the toilet with a case of Thai Belly. I felt sorry for the guy, only just last week I was doing the exact same thing, however I did feel a bit smug because he has been saying the entire time we have been in Thailand that he wishes for a bit of Thai belly to "clear him out", ha, I bet he isn't wishing for it now. I had rough plans in my head to spend the day getting massaged and going shopping and all the lovely things that girls like to do, luckily the nanny turned up for work and I instructed her to take care of Lillie and pretend like Marcus isn't home, as he was not leaving the bedroom, while I took Judd to school then headed out to spoil myself. The down side of being up and ready so early in the morning is that nothing i Pattaya opens until 11am, 10am if you are lucky. So I had to kill over an hour wandering around boring grocery stores until the massage parlor opened. This left me with only a handful of hours to have a delightful and surprising body scrub and aromatherapy massage. It was surprising because as I lay on the massage table with nothing covering me but a towel while the masseuse worked on my legs she moved up and proceeded to remove the top half of the towel and massage my breast area! Well she didn't cover the nipple area but even so this was very weird for me as having been with Marcus for over 9 years now it felt very unsettling to have someone else touching me there, especially a woman! She was very professional and I didn't feel that it was in any way sexual, but it was really quite a nice massage and after talking to my other expat friend here she also told me that she has had the same experience so I didn't feel like I was the only one.
After my massage I tried to do a bit of shopping but my time was running out and I needed to collect Judd from school. I managed to squeeze in 2 glasses of wine with a friend then I was off again to go hunting for ID photos for our work permit and visas that we had to drive to Bangkok for the next morning. When I arrived home, Marcus had arranged for someone from his work to deliver my birthday cake, we sang happy birthday and I opened my presents. Marcus and the kids got me a new very fancy camera that takes excellent photos, Rainy, our nanny, gave me a collection of snow globes from Thailand and even our maid who works for us on Saturdays gave me a lovely picture to hang in my kitchen. I was very touched by this, I didn't expect anything from either of the ladies who work for us and their kindness and generosity touched me.
So all in all I had a very busy, pleasant birthday and somehow managed to wake up the next day feeling no different to how I felt when I was 29 and life is just rolling along like normal.
We did have to drive to Bangkok that day, so the morning was spent arranging the kids for the long and boring drive. Marcus had mapped out our route but of course a quarter of the way there we discarded our plans and changed highways, not once but twice and ended up lost in some part of Bangkok, then once we found the road we needed to be on we sat in the worse traffic I have ever experienced without a 3 car pile up and a fatality at the end of it. We literally moved about 1 km in and hour. The way they sequence the traffic lights in this country is ridiculous, they leave the red for far too long and there is this unwritten rule that at every intersection you can turn left at all times, even when facing a red light. So the traffic keeps filling up the intersections until the other lights turn green and then that oncoming traffic cant move because the intersection is full of people who illegally or not ran the red lights. Confused? I am, constantly.
So after not murdering anyone out of frustration we managed to squeeze our way through the traffic, narrowly avoiding colliding with 2 buses and hundreds of motorbikes and we reached our destination but had to park on the opposite side of the road and just as we were about to run the gauntlet of traffic with 2 kids, the pram, Marcus on crutches and the nanny, Judd started crying and peed his pants. So back we went to the car and thankfully I had his school uniform shorts in the boot from the day before and was able to at least put him in some dry clothes. This time our second attempt at crossing I was hot, sweating, pissed off and had zero patience left and I just walked straight out through the traffic and held my hand up for the cars to stop and let me pass. It worked too, I think they could see the flames coming out of my ears and the devil horns appear over my head with a sign saying "don't fuck with angry farang".
Once in the airconditioning I was able to cool down, calm down and go to the toilet. We then had to sit in a waiting room with heaps of other people while our representative from the law firm who was handling our permit took care of everything. We then made it to our interview, but the officer didn't even ask us anything, he only wanted to know how Marcus broke his leg, he then stamped his papers and that was it. No interrogation about what our intentions are while living in their country, no security questions, just a stamp and a nod and 60 secs later we were out, paid our fees and that was it.
We are now in possession of a work permit and long stay visas until at least May when we have to renew them all again. The contradiction that irks me is that even with the 12 month visas we still have to have them stamped at immigration every 90 days just like we would have had to do a border run with the tourist visas, the only difference is that we don't have to leave the country we can just send our passports to the law firm in Bangkok and they will get them stamped for us then send them back. So no wonder alot of expats don't bother with work permits and visas and just stay here on 90 day tourist visas. But there is some relief that we don't have to make the border runs anymore, that in itself makes it all worthwhile.
Now my next project will be to get all the paperwork together to apply for Thai drivers licenses. Technically we shouldn't be driving without either a Thai license or a international license, and I am dreading the day that the cops pull me over to check my papers and I have to try and talk and buy my way out of having to go to the police station, where it is said to cost more than double what it would if I just pay the guy who pulls me over. And there are benefits too, apparently once you have a license and you show it at certain places around Thailand you get the "Thai price" not the "westerner price".
As for this weekend it is the Kings Birthday long weekend and we plan to rest, relax and try and find a beach down the coast in a town called Sattahip that is said to have clean beaches and clear waters. I have asked a couple of our friends to join for a sort of belated birthday celebration and the kids will absolutely love a swim and a chance to play in the sand.
After my massage I tried to do a bit of shopping but my time was running out and I needed to collect Judd from school. I managed to squeeze in 2 glasses of wine with a friend then I was off again to go hunting for ID photos for our work permit and visas that we had to drive to Bangkok for the next morning. When I arrived home, Marcus had arranged for someone from his work to deliver my birthday cake, we sang happy birthday and I opened my presents. Marcus and the kids got me a new very fancy camera that takes excellent photos, Rainy, our nanny, gave me a collection of snow globes from Thailand and even our maid who works for us on Saturdays gave me a lovely picture to hang in my kitchen. I was very touched by this, I didn't expect anything from either of the ladies who work for us and their kindness and generosity touched me.
So all in all I had a very busy, pleasant birthday and somehow managed to wake up the next day feeling no different to how I felt when I was 29 and life is just rolling along like normal.
We did have to drive to Bangkok that day, so the morning was spent arranging the kids for the long and boring drive. Marcus had mapped out our route but of course a quarter of the way there we discarded our plans and changed highways, not once but twice and ended up lost in some part of Bangkok, then once we found the road we needed to be on we sat in the worse traffic I have ever experienced without a 3 car pile up and a fatality at the end of it. We literally moved about 1 km in and hour. The way they sequence the traffic lights in this country is ridiculous, they leave the red for far too long and there is this unwritten rule that at every intersection you can turn left at all times, even when facing a red light. So the traffic keeps filling up the intersections until the other lights turn green and then that oncoming traffic cant move because the intersection is full of people who illegally or not ran the red lights. Confused? I am, constantly.
So after not murdering anyone out of frustration we managed to squeeze our way through the traffic, narrowly avoiding colliding with 2 buses and hundreds of motorbikes and we reached our destination but had to park on the opposite side of the road and just as we were about to run the gauntlet of traffic with 2 kids, the pram, Marcus on crutches and the nanny, Judd started crying and peed his pants. So back we went to the car and thankfully I had his school uniform shorts in the boot from the day before and was able to at least put him in some dry clothes. This time our second attempt at crossing I was hot, sweating, pissed off and had zero patience left and I just walked straight out through the traffic and held my hand up for the cars to stop and let me pass. It worked too, I think they could see the flames coming out of my ears and the devil horns appear over my head with a sign saying "don't fuck with angry farang".
Once in the airconditioning I was able to cool down, calm down and go to the toilet. We then had to sit in a waiting room with heaps of other people while our representative from the law firm who was handling our permit took care of everything. We then made it to our interview, but the officer didn't even ask us anything, he only wanted to know how Marcus broke his leg, he then stamped his papers and that was it. No interrogation about what our intentions are while living in their country, no security questions, just a stamp and a nod and 60 secs later we were out, paid our fees and that was it.
We are now in possession of a work permit and long stay visas until at least May when we have to renew them all again. The contradiction that irks me is that even with the 12 month visas we still have to have them stamped at immigration every 90 days just like we would have had to do a border run with the tourist visas, the only difference is that we don't have to leave the country we can just send our passports to the law firm in Bangkok and they will get them stamped for us then send them back. So no wonder alot of expats don't bother with work permits and visas and just stay here on 90 day tourist visas. But there is some relief that we don't have to make the border runs anymore, that in itself makes it all worthwhile.
Now my next project will be to get all the paperwork together to apply for Thai drivers licenses. Technically we shouldn't be driving without either a Thai license or a international license, and I am dreading the day that the cops pull me over to check my papers and I have to try and talk and buy my way out of having to go to the police station, where it is said to cost more than double what it would if I just pay the guy who pulls me over. And there are benefits too, apparently once you have a license and you show it at certain places around Thailand you get the "Thai price" not the "westerner price".
As for this weekend it is the Kings Birthday long weekend and we plan to rest, relax and try and find a beach down the coast in a town called Sattahip that is said to have clean beaches and clear waters. I have asked a couple of our friends to join for a sort of belated birthday celebration and the kids will absolutely love a swim and a chance to play in the sand.
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