Home Sweet Home

View from the bus driving into Nakhon (only two minutes before we hit the city) I can't wait to explore the area more!

Andrew and I are finally getting settled. Over the past few days we have acquired an apartment, a motorbike, and I got myself a job. It feels good to have those things secured. Although, the bike didn’t start the morning after we got it so that actually may not work out. The guy who sold it to us is nicely giving back the money and taking it to the shop to figure out what’s wrong with it. After we find out what’s wrong we may or may not actually have a motorbike. That’s alright , the sorng-taa-ou and our good ol’ walking feet work fine for now.

            Sorng-taa-ou are what Andrew earlier described as tuk-tuk-trucks. They are pick-up trucks with two covered benches in the back (I’ll work on getting a photo). They only run on the main roads in this town so I take them ten or so blocks from our apartment into the center of the city and walk everywhere else. Andrew also takes them to school until we work out the motorbike situation. To ride them, you just stand on the side of street and wave when you see one driving towards you and they will pull over for you to hop on. There aren’t any bus stops for them, they are more like public taxis. When I’m at my desired destination I push the buzzer to let the driver know to stop. I then hop off and pay the driver my ten baht by passing it through the passenger window. I could go on and on just about these sorng-taa-ous (like seeing 20+ school children stuffed into them from time to time, I think they also act as school buses) but I think you want to hear about our house and jobs!

            My job is working at as kindergarten teacher in a class of 25 students. I am really excited because the kids are adorable and I’ll get to act like a dork and sing fun kids songs with them and play and do arts and crafts. And they even have nap time, how lovely! But since most Thai schools have all of October off, I don’t start until October 25. But funny story, the classes previous teacher, Sam, had to go home (because she was sick, not funny) and the last overseas job I had, I replaced a Sam. Also funny is we ended up with her apartment.  I guess I’m meant to replace Sams’.

Bathroom, see the shower, just there on the wall.

View from the back door that leads to our balcony.

            Our apartment nice but not exactly what we had in mind. We have only committed to one month so we can move if we really don’t like it. It’s a living room and bedroom in one, with a bathroom, so like a studio without a kitchen ,so really like a large hotel room. It came with furniture, so we have a couch, a TV, a refrigerator, a wardrobe, a make up table and a very hard bed. My initial survey of two beds proved true, Thais do like HARD beds! The bathroom isn’t my favorite bathroom in the whole world. The shower head is just mounted on the wall next to the sink, there’s no separate shower area. So I’m working on a system to keep the bathroom floor dry. The shower is only cold water, which surprisingly doesn’t bother me because the bathroom is warm. Since Andrew’s job gives a stipend that covers the cost of this house, all we pay for it water and electricity, so being cheap we use the fan instead of the air conditioner. This way our monthly rent will be around $50 instead of $150 USD total.  We are slowly turning the place into a home (by unpacking and sewing pillows) and daily I like the place more and more. But we will see how we like living here and take it month by month.

Our place, view from the front door.

            Andrew seems to be enjoying his job. He has worked two days. The school has been waiting for him to arrive in Thailand so he was thrown into the job before the students have midterms. He’s doing a great job reviewing with the students and preparing them for their midterms on his first week. He probably has better stories that he can tell you himself. He’ll be much less long winded about it as well.

Dressed to teach in his tailored clothes (tie is missing though)

It’s bed-time. We can actually sleep because I bought a mattress pad for our hard bed! Tomorrow while I am not working I will blog about the fun things we have been experiencing. Oh so many! I’ll loose sleep wanting to tell the stories about the elephants and monkeys and festivals!

The mattress pad aka sleep saver, although the bed is so hard mattress pad may need a friend.

--Jenny