Saturday July 28th

Weird to say this, but today was a relatively "ho hum" day here in Thailand.  We still can't keep from waking up at 6 AM with the sun.  Devin was finally able to sleep in a few hours, though.  We worked around the house a bit, organizing, cleaning, catching up on laundry (now that we know how to run the machine), and figuring out our system for drying the laundry.  (No dryer...we air dry everything.)  David and I went to Tesco Lotus to do some more shopping.  I had my first American fast food.  Heck, I'm proud of myself...it took six days!  And I can even blame it on David.  He and I were at Tesco Lotus around lunch time, and right in the door is the Colonel.  Yep, Kentucky Fried Chicken.  They have the typical KFC stuff, along with a few Thai specialties that I couldn't figure out.  I almost felt guilty, but truthfully, we were the only white people in the place.  Many of you have said something similar...  "If we're the only white people in the place, it's got to be good."  Admit it...you've said that about ethnic food in Seattle, or Phoenix, or wherever you might be.  Well...we were it.  So it must be good.   The shopping was alright, but one thing that I found interesting was the length of time it took to buy stuff.  I'm not talking about waiting in line, either.  I'm talking about trying to decipher what things are here.  Many products are almost identical, with some English on the product, along with Thai.  But many products only have Thai written on them.  So finding things takes a LOOOONG time.  But at this point, it's still fun.  Ask me in a month if shopping is still fun and I might have a different answer.  The Thai people continue to amaze me with their friendly spirit, however.  That will probably never change.

I also saw another first.  A Thai person that had a belly rivaling my own.  I had never seen a Thai that was as big as me.  (I'm not talking height...but girth.)  So I'm hoping some of that will rub off on me and I'll drop a few pounds.  Certainly not today after the dinner we had also.  See the food page...as it wasn't KFC.

On the way home from dinner, we struck up a conversation with the local tailor.  Turns out he's not local either...but from Nepal.  He chose Pattaya because of the tourism...figuring he could run a business successfully here.  He's a friendly guy, and we had quite a chat, while Devin and David went up to the condo.  One of the things we talked about is being a foreigner.  I've never had the opportunity.  It's a unique thing for me, and it certainly makes me pause and wonder what my thoughts were the last time I was in the grocery line at Safeway and I heard a couple speaking to each other in their own language, and they had trouble talking to the cashier.  I have a lot of empathy for them.  Once I heard a man mutter, "Learn English" under his breath in a similar situation.  Well, I can honestly tell you that this guy has no idea what it's like to be in that situation.  The couple speaking their own language are most likely learning English.  It just doesn't happen overnight.  Every single Thai I've encountered has known more English than I've known Thai.  Hopefully that will change as we learn more of the language and culture.  I sure have learned a lot in only six days.

Time to sleep.