Sawatdee

Colby and I have been very busy over the past couple of days. A group of the veteran teachers at the school took us for a tour of Ruamrudee yesterday, and a market. We also toured a few neighborhoods, and and they helped with all of our questions. We contact a realtor a few weeks ago, and on our first day called her up and toured several houses. I am glad we did this, as everyone else is going today and tomorrow, which gave us first choice, and some people are scrambling right now unable to find housing. We are moving into a townhouse very close to the school so the commute will be very short. It is not a very Thai neighborhood, but the alternative would have been a 45min (with light traffic) commute vs. 5-10 minutes. We'll post some pics when we move in tomorrow.

The weather has been crazy. It is not very hot (high 80's) but it is very humid, with occasional thunderstorms. The thunderstorms are not like our thunderstorms, and rain is not like Oregon rain. Oh no. All the sudden it will get dark and the sky will open up. It will dump rain so hard you can barley talk to eachother. The streets have flooded twice, making some roads nearly impassable, but this does not seem to bother the Thais. You see a little shrug, then they just power their bike, motorbike, or car right through it nearly floating away.

The food has been great. Last night we met with a family from Hood River (also teaching at the school) and someone they had met that lives near them for dinner. We ate a this open air restaurant in Samakorn (spelling) right on a lake. We had some seafood over rice, pad thai, and numerous other dishes, all delicious and about $3/plate. We ordered some Singha beer, and they bring it out with a glass of ice, and pour your beer in into the glass. Caught me off guard, but I think they do this because it is so hot your beer warms up before you can finish it. We had a glass of wine with dinner the other night, and they brought the red wine out chilled for the same reason. The beer I can do, the wine however, I am having a hard time with. At $20/bottle for the equivalent of "Two Buck Chuck" I guess we wont be drinking too much wine anyways.

During last nights dinner on the lake, I saw something swimming across the lake, which I exclaimed to the group it may be a beaver. Try a 4' long Monitor lizard! Way off. Dillon and Annika (kids of the hood river couple) had a blast watching these guys.

Today while everyone else is looking at houses with realtors, I think Colby and I will be exploring a little bit, and taking care of some errands. This weekend we are thinking about heading to Chatuchak Weekend Market (largest in Thailand).

Hope everyone is doing well, more to come! Will pos more pictures when we take them. We've been so busy.

Love Ryan and Colby

Directions