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May I introduce the newest member of our household?
Chris and I picked this side table out of a catalog at a furniture store this past weekend, and it was delivered this afternoon. $150 isn't bad for a solid wood piece furniture that I didn't have to take out of a cardboard box and assemble myself :)
Mooncake. From Starbucks, no less. Starbucks is quite prolific in Bangkok, which surprised me. Chris brought this mooncake home yesterday, and it might meet it's demise later tonight. I've always associated mooncakes with the Chinese culture, so I wasn't really expecting to see them here, but I've read that a large number of Thais are of Chinese ancestry. That might explain the adoption of the tradition.
I never realized that mooncakes sported American corporate logos, though :)
The filling is, appropriately, cappuccino.
Off topic, but I have brownie pan envy. Check out what my sister has!
From the front balconey, a view of the lake, the shopping complex with Villa Market, and the pool at our apartment building:
And from the back balconey, a view of what's on the other side of the this gated community:
Because I saw this beautiful fabric on the internet! I came across the superbuzzy site this evening, and have spent the last ten minutes peeking through the pages and pages of delightful fabric. A far cry from Fabricland, my go-to shop in Calgary and St. John's.
Best of all - they'll ship internationally for $11 :)
So, I was at the Food Hall at Central Childom (branch of a large department store) one day the week before last, and I noticed this blue box sitting high on a shelf. I thought to myself, "Hey, that mac and cheese looks a lot like Kraft Dinner!" Hee. It took a minute for me to spot the Kraft logo ...
I'm cooking half of the "family value pack" right now, for Madeline's second-day-of-preschool lunch.
I should have bought two boxes. I'm slowing learning that anytime that I see an imported food that I like, I ought to purchase it in multiples, because some imported things aren't restocked very frequently. That explains why there are three unopened boxes of Earth's Best graham toddler cookies in my pantry at this very moment :)
With some luck, I'll start practicing yoga again this week. I've been on a break for about two and a half years, and my back and hips frequently let me know that it's been too long a hiatus. If I recall correctly, there is a yoga class held every weekday at the fitness centre here at the The Compound. The only difficulty is that I fear that the office where I would go to buy a membership for the fitness centre, and thus be able to join the ranks of the Active and Flexible, is trying to scam me. When I stopped by to pick up an application form, the person working in the office listed three fees on the sheet. One for a registration fee or deposit, one was for monthly dues, and there was an additional 5,000 baht fee for something else, which I didn't completely understand. Chris insisted that there was something fishy about that one, so I went back to the office the next week, and was given the same list of fees.
Two nights ago, I checked the website for the fitness centre, and it reports only the registration fee and the monthly dues. Grrr ...
Anyway, it's Anusara yoga that's taught here. I haven't practiced that style before, and I wonder if it's going to be a little more new-age than what I'm looking for. Hopefully everything will still work out. I bought few cute things at Lululemon before leaving Calgary, and it would be great to put them to use!
It must seem a little odd that I haven't posted any photos of BKK yet. The truth is that I haven't done much sight-seeing! The closest I've come is our little drive around the palace area last night. The surrounding neighbourhood was decorated in more lights than I've ever seen aside from Disney World, to commemorate the birthday of the queen (which is today, I think). Of course, I didn't bring my camera ...
A few weekends ago, we did fly to Krabi for a little three-day beach holiday ... The sand wasn't white, but it was super-fine and soft and the beach was sprinkled with seashells, not large rocks like we found in Newfoundland ...
It's been a pretty good Friday. I got around to uploading the photos from my camera to my computer (oh, how I love that our pc has a compact flash reader!), which took an indecent amount of time. I have a big card, it was near full, and I hadn't taken any photos off since buying the DSLR.
Also cheering the arrival of three 20L jugs of drinking water. Very tired of buying two flats of little bottles of water every week, and then having to dispose of them. I haven't found any good leads on plastics recycling here in BKK yet, so they were all going in the trash bin. Which made me very sad. Of course, the jugs are too heavy for short, little me to lift onto the high water dispenser with any degree of confidence, but Chris should be home any minute now to tackle that job. I was really anxious about starting the water delivery service, certain that plenty of important info had gotten lost in translation when I called the water company, but it worked out really well. The water was delivered this afternoon while I was at home, instead of before noon as I thought the sales rep told me, despite mentioning twice that I wouldn't be home. My name is spelled wrong on my receipts, but I'm not going to be picky about that.
I found a Stitch & Bitch today, which was really cool. I was poking about the American Women's Club site for Thailand, and there it was. It's held every other Monday from 10 - noon, which doesn't work for me, but I'm nonetheless cheered that things are being made on needles here. Maybe that means that it's possible to find yarn as well :)
I should be cheering that I cleaned the largest bathroom in our apartment today, but I think that I am having second thoughts about the bathroom cleaner that I bought at Tesco. I know it's bathroom cleaner, because there's a little pic of a toilet and basin on the label, but the text is all in thai. If I could read, maybe I'd discover that it says "Leaves a film on all surfaces!" because that's what it does. Back to the drawing board.
It’s here! Our stuff! 137 boxes were delivered on Saturday. Nothing was broken, not even Chris’s Reidel or Ritzenhoff! What a mad day Saturday was – trying to keep up with the gentleman unpacking the kitchen boxes was crazy. We have way too many coffee mugs, drinking glasses, stuff we’ve never used. I ended up sticking things in cabinets randomly just to have everything put away!
And our computer is here, too, so I can post in real-time :) It's still hot, but it doesn't feel so hot outside anymore. Today was cooler, but I suspect that it was still at least 25 degrees celsius. Which I'll take over 35 degrees anytime!
