Canadian Count tripled in 1 Evening

Hello All,

I am still able to get wireless in our room, however the signal is very weak. I will post what I have so far, and hopefully will be able to post more tonight.

Since I last wrote, we have had quite the adventure. After we were done our laundry at 3pm, we realized we had not eaten all day and we had nothing here to eat. We got ready and were headed downstairs when we realized we were locked in the building! This building is like an old warehouse, and everything is barred up and chain locked with padlocks. The garage like door that serves as our main door is padlocked shut. All of the children and house staff were gone, to what we later found out was a funeral. We panicked as we were so hungry and the food in the fridge was not cooked or not edible. We ran upstairs to find that SiJie was also not home yet. What are we going to do? On our way back up to our room, I walked by two key chains full of keys. We tried about 12 key until finally one worked! We took that key off the chain, put the rest back and we were off. We decided we needed fattening western food. We hopped on bus 46, remembering that it went past Tesco, Carrefour and A&W. Sure enough it did but the next stop after we found the A&W was after a big overpass which would have been an incredibly long walk back. We made a quick decision to stay on the bus and get off when something appealing caught our eye. Well, we took the bus to the end of the run, where the bus drivers tried to ask us in broken English where we were trying to go. Imagine trying to communicate to the bus driver that you don’t know, and not that you don’t know what they are saying, but that you got on a bus and don’t know where you really want to go. They had quite the look on their faces. We had to repay to stay on the bus, and we were too far in the middle of nowhere to get dropped off, so we ended up taking the bus back the same route and getting dropped off right at the door of A&W.

As we were entering, our cell phone rang. It was Nick from the CDN Embassy, calling to tell us what time we would meet him tonight and where. Well the time he gave was in the next half an hour. We panicked. We were still quite a ways from home, absolutely not ready, and then still had to take the sky train for a few stops to meet him. Let’s just say it was a grab and run type of meal, and the fastest getting ready in our history.

We met Nick and a fellow Canadian and then went on with our route, picking up another Canadian along the way. The party was for one of his coworkers who was turning 30 years old. It was held around the pool area of an apartment building that one of the members of the Embassy lived in. This was our first time seeing and being in an apartment building in Thailand. Let’s just say it was very very high-so. The in-ground 8 foot deep pool and waterslide attested to this. The rent for a one bedroom apartment in this building was 86 000 baht, which is almost $3000!!! And on top of this, they hire cooks, cleaners, and nannies! Many of the workers did all of this on a single income!

The guests at the party were all Canadians, most whom worked at different Embassies throughout, and have been friends with each other for years. Several people flew in to the party from neighboring countries including Singapore and Tokyo. We had a great time conversing with everyone and hearing about their experiences working in other places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Tokyo, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Kenya, etc. The travel opportunities when working with the Embassy are amazing! I think this may become my new Plan B for life.

The food at the party was also very delicious, and the drinks were plentiful. All in all it
was a great time, shared with great people.