Living in Bangkok

We are back in Bangkok, and I am back at school. At least…kind of. For the last two weeks of October, my school asked all the teachers (Thai and English teachers both) to come in, even though we’re all teaching our classes online, and have done so from home for the last month and a half, or whatever it’s been. I was a little annoyed at first—I had gotten pretty comfortable with my teaching set-up at home, and it just seemed kind of arbitrary that the school was making us all come in. And it is , and we do spend the mornings sitting around doing nothing, when we could just as easily be at home. But, it also turns out it is kind of nice to actually see other human beings. As things have started to open up again, I’m realizing how comfortable I’ve gotten in my little bubble. Over the last weekend, I had lunch with Darren, and saw Kathryn, and those were probably the first occasions I’ve had to make conversation with someone IRL who wasn’t Roman in…a long time. So that part might ...

Our last two days in Pattaya were pretty typical of this vacation for us…in the morning, we had breakfast at the hotel, then I went swimming in the ocean while Roman played guitar under one of the umbrellas set up on the beach.  I also collected some cool shells… And took my time getting into the water... And did crossword puzzles... Roman also bought us some heart-shaped marshmallows from a little girl selling them on the beach... For lunch one day, we got some brilliantly orange steamed prawns from a passing vendor, which came with a spicy chili lime sauce. As we were talking to the seafood vendor, another vendor quickly appeared at our side with more offerings, and we bought some sticky rice from her, to eat with our shrimp. We also wandered Pattaya, eating pineapple on the beach, and checking out cool trees... View of the tree from below View of the tree from the front (and me, well-swathed) In the afternoons, we hung out in our room, used the hotel sauna, and played ar...

I booked us a snorkeling excursion for Sunday, and in the morning we had breakfast at the hotel, and then met up with our group at the dive shop. I was so excited—I’ve only been snorkeling once before, at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, but it was amazing. I love boats, I love getting away from the city, and I love the experience of seeing all different kinds of fish just beneath me in the water. I thought I’d have a lot of fun. Instead, I got incredibly seasick and felt worse than I have in a long, long time. Surprise! There were about twenty of us in the group—mostly Americans, Europeans, and Brits, and a couple of Thais. The instructors had similar backgrounds, and were all burly and tattooed and friendly. We all took a couple songthaews to the pier, and then boarded our little board. Before we left the harbor, one of the crew mentioned it would be a good time to take any seasickness tablets we’d brought, if we thought we’d need them. I had brought along Dramamine, and ...