Wednesday, March 31

Breakfast was strawberry toasted buns from Yaowarat with jackfruit. Presided over by a kitchen gnome.

We had a kind of...how do you say...stupid journey this morning. Roman wanted to go to the Apple store to get an issue with his computer looked at, and I saw that next door to that shopping mall complex was a shopping mall complex I wanted to go to on Easter Bunny business.

Kitties of Si Lom

So we headed out...and when we got to the BTS station, we realized Roman had left his computer at home. We decided to forge on anyway, splitting up when we arrived to check out the different shopping complexes. And then we both walked up to shuttered buildings--neither mall opened until 10:00am. It was 8:30am. And then Roman's phone wasn't able to send texts, so it took us some time, and some wandering in the already-rising-heat, to find each other again. Stupid.

We headed to a Cafe Amazon (a local chain) in one of the malls to get Thai iced teas. The people in front of me in line were using sign language to communicate their orders. At first I thought it was because we're all masked, but eventually I saw the signs:

I tried to figure out how to sign black tea, fresh milk, iced, a bit sweet, but I was hopeless. Thankfully, the woman working there had a laminated menu card we could point to. I was impressed that everyone else in line seemed to manage it effortlessly, though.

We waited until the malls opened at 10:00am and went our separate ways again, to mixed luck. When we met up again, I convinced us to try looking for Easter candy at yet another nearby mall, which turned out to not be all that nearby after all.

On the walk there, overheated and irritated, I felt myself wonder if I really wanted to live and work and commute in Bangkok. It is so hot and so busy and more expensive than, say, Ho Chi Minh City. When (if) I get a job, how many hours a day will I have to spend on trains or walking with a crowd down busy streets, constantly spending more money on train tickets and meals?

I think every time I've landed in a new city for any extended period of time I've felt doubts, so I know enough not to read too much into these feelings. It was, like I said, a kind of a stupid morning.

But as always, there were interesting things to see.

Street food carts near the entrance to the sky train

City skyline

Flowering trees

Back in Silom, we stopped in at our favorite lunch time street food cart alley.

Roman went to one cart, and I went to another. I pointed at an image of a dish with shrimp and bean sprouts and...other stuff, and the woman working there quickly cooked it in a wok while the guy looked on.

I met Roman at the far end of the food hall, where he was waiting for me.

I had ordered my meal to go, and they wrapped it in a piece of paper, stapled it up, and put the package in a plastic bag. I opened it up at the table and I'm pretty sure it was pad thai. It was full of head-on shrimp and tofu and tee tiny dried shrimp and it was delicious.

Tiny shrimp with Roman's pinky for comparison

Roman got a soup with pork, intestines, fish balls, and some unidentifiables.

Oh I do like Bangkok. The heat, the crowds, the malls, and the necessity of spending money in a new place just got me down a little. I don't want to rush to any judgment. Also, we can't go to Vietnam, and we're in Thailand, so we might as well make the most of it!

We had a long rest at home. I did laundry, worked on the blog, and took a swim in the pool under the pomelo trees. I also dyed my hair—I'll miss the blue, but I need to start looking for a job soon, and I think most schools don't want to hire a blue-haired teacher.

For dinner, I wanted to take us to an Issan style street food cart I had read about. I took us the long way there—threading through narrow alleys lined with small shops selling little tchotchkes, cats slinking through holes in fences, and a strong smell of sewage in the air. It gave me a thrill—much of the Bangkok we've seen so far has been so wide open, gleaming, and modern, and it's fun to get a glimpse of hidden alley life.

My dinner location was a bust, though. Either the place is no longer there or the menu and prices have changed drastically, but we weren't interested in checking it out.

We ended up picking up some skewers from a cart right by our place—chicken breast, chicken wing, and pork, with a spicy and pungent fermented fish & chili sauce.

It was good—just-cooked and tender. I would've like some sticky rice and pineapple with it (or, better yet, a papaya salad) but then I'm always looking for a well-rounded meal.

After dinner, we took the train to Sukhumvit to check out an open meditation session (in English). It was a small friendly group—a couple Thais, a couple Brits, and one other American. It's called Diamond Way Buddhist Center of Bangkok and they do a meditation technique I hadn't tried before, with specific visualizations and some chanting. But the more remarkable thing was being around other people! We were the first newly-arrived foreigners they had seen since Covid started, and I think we were all quite curious about each other. I had kinda forgotten that I am real to other people. 

And then we headed home.

I've been thinking...after today, I might change up this blog a little.

The daily reporting really served me well during the quarantine doldrums, but I think the structure I've created can make me feel obligated to report on every thing we did and every thing we ate on every single day, and I think I've boxed myself into a setup that might be a little constricting? And not always the most entertaining for you guys? Especially since we're not visiting new cities every few days, like we have in the past. And since we're here long-term, we're not trying as hard to fill every day with fun activities or exciting food. As a result, it's like, do I have to post a picture of the toasted bun with strawberry jam? No one's interested in that!

So maybe I'll try posting a couple times a week. Then I can focus more on the highlights, which will probably be more fun for all of us.

And on that note, goodnight.