Living in Bangkok

Lately, we've been keeping the windows open all the time instead of using the AC. Cross breezes flow through the apartment, and we can hear roosters and birds and the hushed roar of traffic below. Sometimes the winds blow strongly and scatter the pictures I have up around my desk or ruffle the bedspread, and sometimes the rain will fall hard and water will collect on the window sills and floors, but mostly it feels airy and relatively cool and a little less sealed-off than an air-conditioned apartment. Now! Onto What We Ate This Week! I've been cooking using the ingredients we bought at the Khlong Toei market on Sunday. I made a pad sew ew ish dish—I used more Chinese broccoli and tofu and fewer noodles than you'd have in a real pad see ew, but the sauce was the same: I wanted to do something with the rest of the shrimp and the fresh petai beans (AKA stink beans ), and when I looked up recipes for shrimp and beans online, several Creole recipes using lim...

We've moved out of durian and jackfruit season into mangosteen and rambutan season, it's warm and muggy and often rainy here, and life under lockdown goes on. On Fridays we eat doughnuts. We walk in the direction of Phloen Chit to a cart set up near the train tracks. I don't know what time in the morning this guy starts, but while he's there, he works nonstop—cutting up the fresh dough into small pieces, frying it in a hot, oil-filled, wok, and then scooping out the puffed-up pieces of dough to cool in their metal tray before customers come to scoop them up.  Even early in the morning, it looks like hot work. But by 9am or so he sells out and closes up shop. The vendor makes Chinese doughnuts and little round doughnut holes and we usually get some of both and a container of condensed milk dipping sauce, all for 30 baht (about 90 cents). And here's lunch at the cart just outside our condo. One of the women who works there spea...

Well! I haven't written a post in a while and I'm sure everyone is just dying for an update! Our routine hasn't changed much—we take morning and evening walks, we lesson plan and teach, I write fiction and cook most of our meals (the rest we pick up on the street or get delivered). We do a bigger grocery shop at Foodland or Villa Market or the wet market, and then supplement with fruit and vegetables from the local vendors on our street. We are finding new side streets to explore on our daily walks, and sometimes we get caught in the rain. Roman went to his school to pick up some books, and visited a couple of his fellow English teachers on their apartment rooftop. I also had to pick up some materials from my school, and took pics of a pretty building, and of a vendor selling mangosteens from the back of his truck. I could also share some pictures of our meals? Here's a lunch I made — salmon with asparagus, yogurt-cucumber sauce, sticky rice, and lime (would you ...

Not much new to report...but I did get some pics of Animals of Bangkok ... Western Union cat The local crew of adolescent kitties A frog at the frog pond--or is it a toad? Kitten hiding in a closed-up food cart Close-up We also went on a big exciting Bangkok adventure (meaning, we had to get passport photocopies made and look for a couple electronic items, so we actually left our usual 2-mile walking radius). We took a few more photos then. Green stairs Cowboy Mall art Mall Art, Part Two And that's it for now...