Sunday, June 6

Even though I've only been working for a few days (and I've been working from home, making videos on my own schedule, at that), the weekend really felt like that—a couple days off to do whatever we wanted.

On Friday, we headed down to Chinatown, and wandered a few blocks north of the metro stop. I was looking for a recommended street food-style restaurant, but as we circled the block, looking for where it was supposed to be, we ended up in a hidden back alley, where a couple men sat around on lawn chairs, drinking beers and playing with their phones, and two women fired up steaming stir fries on a couple hot woks.

It seemed the restaurant I was looking for was shuttered, but the little street food stall was busy with people picking up to-go orders, so we decided to eat there, and had a seat amongst the trees in the alley.

And it was so good! They made dishes we'd never had nor heard of—cooked wide rice noodles that were shallow-fried with oil and egg and pieces of chicken. We had one served plain and the other with an egg on top. It was such an unusual dish—crispy and hot on the outside and soft and chewy on the inside.

After dinner, we headed down to Yaowarat Road, which had been deserted the last time we visited (on the last day before lockdown). It was busy again—nothing like during normal times, but there were many open street carts and plenty of people walking around and stopping to eat or shop.

We walked to Pa Tong Go Savoey, a famous Chinese doughnut cart, where the guy was cutting floured doughnut dough by hand, before deep-frying it.

We got a bag of doughnuts and some pandan custard, and ate them in a nearby alley. They were piping hot and delicious dipped in the sweet custard sauce.

On Saturday, I met up with Kathryn, and we headed out to Chatuchak, where she took me to a shop with the best and cheapest essential oils, and then to have very good cheesburgers at a hotel restaurant in Silom.

In the evening, Roman and I went out in search of dinner, but most of the carts in Nana were shut down on Saturday night. We headed to what felt like a kind of small industrial lot and ate stir-fried squid with basil and stir-fried green vegetables.

We also walked to a nearby grocery store...and had our first sighting of Cheez-Its in Bangkok.

Only $6 a box

On Sunday, we headed out before the heat of the day to walk to a fruit stand near Asok, where I bought mangos, rambutan, orange, and pomelo segments. I haven't found whole fruit super near to the house, so I figure I'll just stock up when I do find it.

We had a Zoom call with Martin and Ellen, and then relaxed for several hours at home, only going out to get lunch at our regular spot in the neighborhood.

In the afternoon, I went over to Darren's, where he'd arranged a tea party with Mickey (a Thai composer and conductor), Nina (a Thai actor) and Nick (an American friend). We drank tea and had sweets and talked about the theatre and arts scene in Bangkok and started scheming about creating some kind of musical theatre festival of short works.

I have some reservations about the idea—even though this was kind of my brainchild, I don't want to be the producer—I don't have the tools or desire to produce something like this in a foreign country I just arrived in, where I don't speak the language. And also, I don't want this to feel like a colonialist project—foreigners come in and show Thais how to sing in English and perform in a American genre, only to have whatever money is earned go into the pockets of those foreigners.

But. I'm getting ahead of myself. I don't have to produce anything, and this doesn't have to be a foreigner-led project. And it doesn't have to be exploitative. Also, what money?? This is theatre!

And the idea of creating something while I'm here is awfully exciting.