Feet on the ground

Well, here I am. Thailand... Bankok... for six months, at least! I must say I'm already missing alot of my friends and family. I've gotten used to just having other people around. That may sound trivial, but it used to not be the case. I use to spend almost all my time by myself. The last few years in BR, however, has changed that.

I touched down in BKK about an hour behind schedule, at 12:30 two nights ago. I made it to the hotel by 1:10. Having been here several times before, it was easy to navigate the taxi queue and immigration. Took me probably 15 mins to get out of the airport. In a somewhat disturbing trend, the taxi didn't turn on his meter taking me to the hotel; all airport taxis are supposed to be meter based. He charged a flat 300 baht, which is a little high. Instead of haggling with him I just had him avoid the toll ways, which brought the price more into line. TASC is paying for the fair, anyway.

Yesterday I met Ross, Mike, and Gayle, the secretary. Ross and I spent much of the afternoon looking at a couple of apartments. One is particularly nice... a 17th floor apartment with a balcony. Nice marble floors. It also includes a gym and swimming pool. The other one costs about 100 US$ less, and is alot closer to the office (about a 10 minute walk rather than a 20 minute walk). The floors in the second one are also nice, wooden parquet this time. But the furnishings are not as nice as the first one, there's no microwave, no gym. The main benefit for this one is the closer location and that Ross indicated that if I chose the less expensive apartment they might be able to give me some of the difference as an increase in my stipend.

I don't know which one to choose, I go back and forth. If I was going to live here permanently I'd definately take the first one, but for a shorter stay perhaps it would be better to pocket the extra money and stay closer to the office. I'll probably have to decide this weekend.

So, that's the current situation. Ross indicated that both yesterday and today would be very light work days for me, but I might get started in earnest today nonetheless. I'm pretty awake right now, and don't have much else to do except work (and blog, of course!). The only other option would be to track down a few more apartments, which I may end up doing. My computer isn't coming in till tomorrow, so I'm having to share an office with Mike right now. This a little extra computer he has tucked away in a corner.

I'm trying to learn basic conversational Thai while I'm here; I have no class or plan as of yet, just an ambition. Nonetheless I'll go ahead and start a "Thai phrase of the day" section. I think it'll have to be a regular blog post so that I can archive. Maybe later I'll play around and figure out how to add a second archive section.

So that's it for now. Not very interesting, I'm afraid :) I do have some pictures to post, so those are on the way. Hope everyone is well back in the states!

Thupt

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