New Home, New Motorbike, New Life

We have been in Thailand for three weeks now and have completed an extraordinary number of things.  First off Richard (Gramps) arrived from California, he left us back in the beginning of August   when we were still in Guam.  Richard spent three months in the states visiting family and friends and getting a few things sorted out such as his retirement visa for Thailand.  It's good to have him back, the kids really missed him.

Not having transportation was really eating at me.  I cannot remember a time since I owned my first car that I did not have one.  About a week into our stay I went motorbike (scooter) shopping.  Ayden and I went to a local Honda dealer one morning and we picked up a new Yellow motorbike.  Yellow just happens to be my favorite color and they had exactly what I was looking for.  We picked up a Honda 125i Click, I chose this model because it has a foot platform so the smaller children could stand in front.  It's a lot of fun, Jeremiah and Sofia love riding on it, and I love being able to get around town easily and being able to explore our new city.  I was pretty nervous when we left the dealership as I have never driven on the left side of the road.  It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, and so far, no issues.  The driving compared to USA standards would best be described as crazy, but luckily, I previously lived in Naples Italy and in my opinion the Thai's are amateurs at crazy driving compared to the Neapolitans.

16 November 2019 we moved into the house we rented.  Our realtor Keith had taken us around looking at some beautiful homes and we finally settled on this meager five-bedroom, five baths with a swimming pool and maid quarters.

Oh, I forgot to mention the pool upkeep and landscaping is included.  Keith is happy he doesn't have to take our 4 Tasmanian devil children to look at houses anymore.  The kids love the pool slide, Christina loves the walk-in closet that is bigger than the kid's bedrooms in our Guam house.    I enjoy sitting pool side, listing to the water and enjoying all the birds chirping.  Guam doesn't have many birds due to the invasive brown tree snake and I missed the sounds of birds singing.  Keith also took Richard around, but he ended up going with condo found via some friends at the VFW.  He rented a two-bedroom condo in Central Pattaya, it is in a great location surrounded by shops and eateries.  Everything in the condo is new or almost new, the owner completely gutted the unit and redid it top to bottom.  It is a corner unit making for great breezes and has two balconies perfect to relax on and people watch.

Since moving into the house, we have been doing lots of shopping trying to get the house the way we want it.  The house came furnished with furniture but that was about it.  So, we have been out finding stores and for the various things one needs when moving into a new home.  We purchased a washing machine to wash our socks, underwear and towels.  The washing machine looks a little different, it an inexpensive model with washing on one side and a spinner on the other. The rest of the laundry is being done by Siam Laundry; a local laundry shop owned by a Thai/American couple.  Roughly every three days we call to have the laundry picked up/dropped off.  This is one of the advantages of living here, low cost services, so we can afford to send out our laundry and hire a housekeeper, which we are still searching for.  Pretty sure we will find one soon.

We can also afford to have prepared meals delivered by one of two popular meal services, Grab Food or Food Panda. We hired a teacher to come to the house three times a week to provided Thai language lessons. She works during the day as a primary school teacher at one of the top international schools.  So far, we have had four lessons and are enjoying being able to greet people, say, thank you, ask for directions, and find out where the toilet is. We really look forward to our language lessons every week.

Also, since our last post Christina and Richard attended a local driving school to get their motorbike license.  There is a lot to write about their adventure so we will make that the next post.

Until next time, thank you for being a loyal reader and hopefully I will get another post out in a few days, instead of weeks, now that we are mostly settled.

  

Finally Made it to Thailand

Hello loyal followers!  We have made it to Thailand after 2 months of preparations and it has been an exciting but very busy 2 weeks.

The last week in Guam was busy and very stressful, we spent the week trying to fit our life of needs and wants in 12 suitcases and a few personal/carry-on bags, which ended up being 13 suitcases and my diving travel cases.  A lot of things we wanted to bring just didn't make the cut but it will be cheaper to purchase new than pay extra baggage fees and buy more suitcases.

So what has happened so far and how did we do it.  Our last few days on Guam we stayed at the Pacific Island Club Hotel.  Mainly as a reward for the kiddos and to make the move exciting.  The hotel has a decent sized water park and the kids had a great time on the waterslides and play areas.  The hotel provided free shuttle service to the airport so we took advantage of this and let them handle all the luggage.  United Airlines was awesome helping us get everything check in and I am glad to report the flights were uneventful.

We arrived in Bangkok around 10:00 pm, quickly made it through immigration utilizing the express line for people with infants or the elderly.  Jeremiah is not an infant anymore but he was in a stroller, lucky we were not turned away.  If you haven't heard the immigration cue in Bangkok can be up to an hour wait at times.

By the time we made it to baggage claim all of our luggage was there waiting for us.  We asked for some assistance from some airport workers and loaded everything onto four luggage trolleys.  Off we went to meet our ride which I prearranged the week prior.  Our flight was a little early so we waited about 20 minutes for the driver, which was perfect because it gave us a chance to get some drinks and use the restrooms prior to our 2 hour drive to Pattaya.  The driver arrived and he was wonderful in loading all the luggage.  He must be a Tetris champ because he somehow fit all the luggage into his van utilizing about every available space possible.

2 hours later we arrived at the Atlantis Condominium, a two bedroom that we found on Agoda, we have it booked for 2 weeks.  This was the only hiccup as the property manager for the unit was not there to greet us.  Several phone calls by the driver and one of the condominium guards and finally we found out what unit we were in and where the keys were at.  6 trips with a luggage trolly from the van and up and down the elevator we made it into the condo around 3 am.  Time for some showers and much needed sleep. Lucky all the kids crashed, unluckily only for about 4 hours.

Mom Dad we're hungry!!  We were not really jet lagged as the time zone change was only three hours but we had been up for about 24 hours.  Christina and I really wanted to keep sleeping, but the little ones had a different idea.  So off we went exploring, a quick check on Google Maps and we located the nearest strip of restaurants.  Of course as soon as the kids saw a pizza sign we knew where we were eating brunch.  Nui Pizza is this great little pizza shop that also serves pancakes!! Banana pancakes to be exact, and when they came out what I thought was cream in the hazy low res menu picture, was actually a scoop of ice cream!!  Needless to say, all the kids have wanted to go back to Nui's to eat for the last week.  We have eaten there three times so far.

That pretty much sums up 24 hours.  Yes I left out parts about the kids whinnying from time to time, and the couple of minutes of stress involved trying to get on and off the airplanes, but overall it really wasn't that bad.  And banana pancakes and with an ice cream topper makes you forget about all those little negative things.

We will let you know in our next blog about the house hunting, scooter shopping and grandpa (gramps) arriving. If you are enjoying our story so far please like and share with your friends.