Friday, April 30

Time to catch up on the last couple days! On Thursday we ran some errands, did some walking around Bangkok, and ate some food...

We ate lunch in a hidden street food court just off Silom. I got some kind of rice paper wrapped around ground pork and vegetables (it reminded me a little of Vietnamese bánh cuốn), Roman got soup with egg noodles, pork, and wontons, and I also got us some kanon krok (little pancakes made from coconut milk and rice flour) to share.

For dinner, we went to a place in the neighborhood for shrimp wonton noodle soup, and stared at each other through one of the plastic dividers that had been set up on every table.

Bangkok, as well as a few other provinces, will be going into a stricter lockdown starting tomorrow—in-restaurant dining will no longer be allowed, and no one can meet in groups of more than 20 people.

I do feel a little disappointed by the situation. Roman doesn't start work until May 17 and I don't start until June 1, but we can't travel anywhere. And not being able to go to parks or restaurants limits what we can do a little further. Don't get me wrong—the numbers in Thailand are accelerating rapidly and I think the restrictions are smart. But, you know, Pandemic Times. Always gotta be prepared for things going differently than planned.

Today (Friday) I got an email from my first choice school (Fun Language—remember them?) apologizing for the delay and offering me a position.

Hahahaha. Well, I sure went from feeling like I had no options to having too many. Although I accepted the job with Thai Christian School, I haven't signed a contract yet, and I do think I could change my mind (though I'd feel bad about doing it!). Still, it felt like a weird kind of second chance after I made the decision too hastily on Wednesday (when I chose Thai Christian School over the school in Silom without giving myself a chance to sleep on it).

I think Fun Language is offering a better position than the school in Silom—the pay is better, it's not being arranged through an agency, and the location is pretty close to the school where Roman will be working.

I got back to FL, thanking them & letting them know I'm considering another offer, and can I get back to them on Monday? So now it seems, remarkably, like I have a chance to do what I didn't do on Wednesday—take my time making a decision between two good job offers.

But...if you were relieved we were finally done talking about ESL jobs, you might wanna skip ahead to the next food pics!

Here's the gist: Fun Language is closer to Roman's work. We'll probably look for an apartment in that area, anyway, since it's more affordable than the locations closer to TCS. So my commute would be much shorter (and cheaper) if I took the job with FL. They aren't a school—they bring their ready-made, super active language program into the schools. So I would be working at 4-5 different schools a week—which would mean more students, but also the opportunity to learn about teaching different age ranges. They also have very clear teaching methods and lesson plans, so it wouldn't require me to devise much on my own (and there is no religious element for me to feel ambivalent about).

On the other hand, Thai Christian School pays better—my guess is at the end of my contract, I'd earn $2,000-$4,000 more than I would from FL. And they were generous with me—offering more than the minimum of their salary range. I'd be teaching the same kids every day, which carries more responsibility than the once-a-week-fun-English-teacher role, but would also give me a chance to get to know the students better.

And also...I went online and read some great reviews of Fun Language and also some really really bad ones about how you might spend two hours commuting every day if you end up at a far-away school and how you end up taking home a lot less money than is promised because of the ways they can dock your pay (for taking sick days, etc), which I found...discouraging. It sounds like it's easy to meet other foreigners since it's a big company...and also like they have a high turnover rate.

I think the thing I found appealing about FL is that you're kind of a piece of a machine, and there is some ease in that. Except...that's how I felt at Whole Foods and I hated it! Feeling like a part of a machine is one of the terrible things about capitalism!

In the end, I think either choice that I make will be fine. And I feel lucky that I got this kind of remarkable second chance to make this decision, and make it the right way. Now I can stop feeling bad about choosing TCS too hastily, when, given the chance again, I would still choose them (I mean, we all know that's where this is going).

Anyway, here are some pics of Friday's lunch!

Roman--grateful for the approaching fish sauce (our word for the day: nam pla)

Roman applying fish sauce to his prawns with glass noodles; at the bottom
of the pic is my dish of glass noodle salad with seafood and mushrooms

In the evening, we headed to Jay Fai for dinner, walking the surprisingly quiet streets from the metro station to the restaurant.

You might have seen Jay Fai on Street Food: Asia, or Somebody Feed Phil, or on one of the many YouTube shows about her. Jay Fai is both the name of the restaurant and the nickname of the owner and chef, who started as a street food cart vendor, and has become famous for her food (especially the crab omelet), for wearing a beanie and ski goggles as she cooks every single meal ordered at the restaurant in a fiery wok, and for earning a Michelin star two years in a row.

The restaurant is also famous for its very long lines, but this being Pandemic Times meant we were able to show up and get a table. They asked customers not to get too close to the chef (again, Pandemic Times), so we only got one surreptitious photo of Jay Fai.

One of the most famous people I've ever seen

We waited a while for our crab omelet—everything in that restaurant really does come out of one of Jay Fai's woks—but it was worth it.

The crab omelet was absolutely stuffed with lump crab meat, shrouded by a very thin, very crisp layer of fried egg. At 1,000 baht it's expensive (for Bangkok), but so delicious.

After dinner, we headed down to Chinatown, passing this impossibly-romantic looking bar along the way.