I took the ferry all the way to pier 3 for my outing today. After a few turns down quiet streets I found myself at the Bangkokian Museum, or Bangkok Folk Museum. It's an older house, set up like a traditional middle class home from around the time of WWII. Everything inside is from before 1957. There are four buildings to visit. When I arrived I was enthusiastically greeted by the people who work there and one of the men poured a little water on my shoulder for Songkran. I pretended he'd gotten me really wet and dramatically reacted, giving us both a good laugh. The main building is the house. The main floor is just a few rooms but the layout is very open air. Ornate slits are at the top of the walls to ... read more

I awoke early, filled with anticipation. It's my first day of staycation and I have a lot to do. There are three places on my list to see. Part of me wants to lay in bed and rest; part of me is anxious to get going. I took the ferry to pier 13 and walked to stop number one: the National Art Gallery. I'd read online on a third party website (the museum doesn't have one that I could find) that the gallery is small and would only take about an hour to see everything. However I was not prepared for the ticket price: 200 Baht. This is definitely priced for tourists. I'm sure there are a great number of treasures, but for that price I opted to skip it. The workers who'd looked so excited ... read more

When my friend messaged me and asked if I was up for a bit of exploring, I jumped at the opportunity. I love going on my own, but it's even more fun when you can share the experience. There was a wat she wanted to see and it was in the neighborhood near Wat Pho and the Grand Palace, an area I've been wanting to explore a bit more. We took the ferry up the river and walked the rest of the way, briefly stopping at a park and to look in shop windows. There were lots of interesting little spots and scenes to take in. This city never fails to yield new surprises. We finally arrived at the wat. Under the hot sun, the walk felt a lot longer than it was. But the wat ... read more

Part I It's tax season in Thailand, and time to file returns. I received my paperwork last week along with instructions for filing online. I'd been advised that the website is completely in Thai, so I should either use Google translate or have a coworker help me. Or both. Following the instructions, we found the webpage and then discovered that as a first time user of the website, I'd need to register. Simple taxes, simple account creation. No problem. There are only three things that are certain in life: death, taxes, and the in-simplicity of taxes. We three worked together to fill out the registration form. We had it filled out completely and then... nothing. We went back to the instruction. No information there. We looked around the website. Nope. My coworker finally ended up calling ... read more

Saturday, Feb 1 Hard to believe it's February already. The past few days have been nothing but Chinese New Festivities. I had no idea CNY was so big in Thailand, but once you get outside of the tourist areas, it's huge. While I was unable to make it to Chinatown (unfortunately) my local mall did have some lovely decorations. And I brought mini oranges in to work yesterday. I'm celebrating the CNY like I always do: outside of China. Tomorrow are the elections. Protesters marched through Chinatown today, possibly confusing everyone by switching from yellow to red shirts for the CNY. Tomorrow they're expected to be everywhere else, most likely including the district office and parking lot conveniently located across the street from my apartment. Tables are set up and chairs are stacked, everything blocked off ... read more