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I Got My Christmas Wish!

Thu, 24 Dec 2009 08:12:08 GMT

Christmas Eve in the Big Mango. With all the lights and Christmas carols playing, you would swear you were in a ~~Buddhist~~ Christian nation. And yet, you are not.

Decorative lights adorn the pedestrian bridge crossing the Ratchaprarop - Rama I junction. Louis Vuitton's shop at Gaysorn plaza is in the background.

Stephanie arrived from Melbourne yesterday morning about 5:30. Going back eleven years, Stephanie was one of the managers with whom I worked when I was based in Hong Kong opening the AMC Festival Walk 11 cinemas. A few years later she moved to San Francisco for several months and lived with Tawn and me. She has since moved to Australia and we see her every second year or so here, there or elsewhere in the world.

She'll be our first guest in The Annex which means I'll be working from my laptop instead of my office armoire. That's okay as the weather is nice and I've set up on the balcony overlooking the pool. If it wasn't for the construction noise from that new seven-level condo going up down the street, it would be quite peaceful.

Last night we met Tawn and headed to Central World Plaza for dinner. While walking through the mall I spotted a large sign covering the entire storefront of what used to be a fondue restaurant. Opening 2010: Din Tai Fung!

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he is bringing me the best xiao long bao dumplings in the world. Let's hope this branch of the venerable Taipei chain will be better than some of their other foreign outlets, which are reportedly inferior to the locations in Taiwan.

I was so excited to see this that I wanted to text message Andy and Sugi immediately, which would have been about 7 am for them. Thankfully for them I didn't have their number on my phone. Whew!

This evening Stephanie's sister and brother-in-law arrive with a dozen of the in-law's family members. I'm not sure what the plans are for holiday dinner but we will see. I suspect that Christmas celebrations will be minimal but we are planning something big for New Year's Day.

No Hong Kong for Christmas

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:20:36 GMT

The big plans for Christmas this year were a long weekend in Hong Kong, since Christmas falls on a Friday and Gary, W and Eric were going to be there from LA. To top it off, Aaron was going to be there, too, and Angel as well. What a perfect time to meet up with everyone. Sadly, it won't be happening.

Tawn's managing director decided that no more unpaid leave would be approved for the rest of the year. It seems that twelve paid vacation days a year aren't enough for Tawn, considering that we burned through those in the first six months of the calendar. So we had to squash plans for our Hong Kong trip, postponing it until April.

The upside is that our friend and former roommate Stephanie is in town from Melbourne and had we gone to Hong Kong, we would have had to leave her to her own devices for a long weekend. Now we'll be able to enjoy spending time with her through her entire holiday here in the Land of Smiles.

Rather oddly, the maintenance people here at the condo erected two Christmas trees on either side of the swimming pool, extension cords for the lights taped down along the terra cotta tiles. It is very pretty just after sunset when the lights are on.

We've set up our own Christmas tree, too, something we do some years and not others. It is an artificial tree, of course, and one that I think looks particularly artificial. In fact, there is a point where the whole thing becomes a bit of a caricature of the holiday tradition since neither Tawn nor I really celebrate Christmas. I think we put the tree up some years more as a decorative item than anything else.

The plan is to call the nieces on Christmas Eve their time and report that, since Thailand is some 13 hours ahead of Kansas City, Santa has already arrived here and has said that he is heading their way. Let's keep that childhood innocence alive as long as possible.

December Odds and Ends

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 16:01:00 GMT

As the month nears its end, I feel like there are a lot of things to catch up on. All these little bloggable odds and ends that, thanks to a busy schedule and pneumonia, I fell behind on sharing with you.

First off, I baked a really nice loaf of sandwich bread. This one was made with some dried milk, an ingredient I was surprised to find in my local market. It makes a really nice texture for sandwiches, even though I usually prefer a more rustic loaf.

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A few months ago, in an attempt to make the Annex more comfortable as a living space, we purchased a TV and then a DVD player. Since our DVD collection spans the globe, we needed a DVD player that can play discs from all regional zones. The initial one we purchased, despite the salesman's promises, couldn't. When we brought it back to the store for him to unlock it, we discovered that something else was wrong and it wasn't playing any discs at all!

He gave us the display model as a loaner while he ordered a replacement. A few weeks later he said the new DVD player had arrived so I brought the display model in for a swap.

In what has to be the perfect example of Thai problem solving, the salesman used a hair dryer (from a display in the store, nonetheless) to carefully remove the manufacturer's label on the display model and on the newly ordered DVD player. He then swapped the labels so I went home with the new DVD player that had the display model's label and serial number on it. He then shipped back the display model with the new player's label on it back to the manufacturer.

You following this? Kind of crazy, huh? I least I now have a DVD player that works and can play discs from all regional zones.

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It's time for another edition of "Overloaded Vehicles of Thailand."

This week's entry in the motorbike category is shown above, with no less than six milk crates and two additional boxes strapped onto the back of his bike. I can only imagine how poorly this bike handles with such a high center of gravity.

In the truck category we have this pickup truck which is overloaded in such a silly manner, it ceases to be funny. What is in the boxes? Lay's potato chips. So the truck isn't overloaded by weight, necessarily, just size.

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December 5th was His Majesty the King's 82nd birthday. Yellow is the color normally associated with His Majesty, as he was born on a Monday, the day associated with the color yellow. However, in the recent political tumult in Thailand, the royalists appropriated yellow and are now known as the "yellow shirts." Because of this, yellow is too partisan a color to wear to celebrate the King's birthday. It seems that this year, pink was decided upon.

A concert at Tokyo department store at MBK shopping center. Note the prevalence of pink. The two-letter script that looks like "WO" in English is the Thai word for "father" - HMTK is affectionately referred to as the father of the nation. Father's day coincides with his birthday.

Here's a closeup of the crowd watching the concern. I've never seen these LED signs before but I guess they are kind of a grown-up version of Lite Brite. I take it from these signs that the artist who is performing is known as Dan.

On the walkway from MBK shopping center to Siam Discovery, I saw something I have never seen before in Thailand and hope to never see again: mimes.

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Speaking of things you've never seen before. take a look at this picture and see if you can tell me what about it you've never seen before.

Scroll down for the answer...

...

Me wearing brown shoes. After some prodding from Tawn (and an amazing find of wide shoe sizes from Clarks, something else I've never seen in Thailand) I caved in and bought a brown pair of shoes. I have not owned brown shoes since maybe high school. In university I did have a pair of blue Doc Martens but other than that, my leather shoes (with the exception of sneakers) have been black. No confusion, no fuss, no trouble matching the belt.

You may not fully appreciate how earth-shattering this news is, but you should know that snowballs are starting to feel like they have a fighting chance in hell.

A House with Shade

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 04:30:00 GMT

I mentioned in a previous entry that the mid-Sukhumvit area in Krungthep (Bangkok) used to be on the outskirts of town, home to the weekend homes for well-off residents of Rattanakosin Island (the old city) and Yaworat (Chinatown). Here is a perfect example of the type of home from the 1950s and 1960s that were quite common on the sois of Sukhumvit.

This is the house located in Sukhumvit Soi 12 on the same property as the Crepes and Co restaurant that we enjoy having brunch at. The house could be described as "modern Thai tropical" and is typical of the old houses in our neighborhood including the one that was just torn down behind us.

While the house itself isn't that exciting, I love the grounds. Cool, shady, tropical. To some extent, this property reminds me of the one my paternal grandparents lived on in suburban Kansas City:

This is taken one morning in the summertime probably sometime around 1990. The row of elm trees branching over the street provides nice shade, a look that I associate with midwestern suburbs. I lived in this house for fourteen months before moving to Thailand and while I was disappointed by the lack of good sunshine for a garden (except in a small plot in the back), I really liked the shade afforded by the trees.

Whether in Thailand or in the US, I'd like to live somewhere with nice shade trees. Or vines.

A Room with a View

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 16:01:00 GMT

Just a little bit more about the stay in the hospital. I shot a lot of footage but didn't get the opportunity to share all of it with you during my stay.

First off, I noticed that I could view our condo from the hospital. Well, we could see the "B" building of our condo complex, the more easterly of the two buildings. We're in the "A" building.

Don't you just love buildings that have large labels on them? It makes it easier to tell where things are. One of these days, thanks to augmented reality, we'll be able to slip on a pair of spectacles and view the world in just such a way.

Skyline looking towards the mid-Sukhumvit region. The tallest building on the left is the Emporium Suites in Phrom Pong. The two matching buildings on the right are two of four condo towers that have recently gone up on Sukhumvit Soi 16 called the Millennium Condos. The lighted building with a triangle shape is the headquarters of Kasikorn (formerly Thai Farmers) Bank, which is located on the other side of the Chao Phraya River adjacent to the Rama IX bridge.

A brilliant red sunset over Sukhumvit as viewed from the hospital room.

Tawn and I try to do a self-portrait on the balcony of the hospital room. The sliding doors to the balcony were locked. To get them unlocked I had to sign a release form, indemnifying the hospital from any injury, temperature discomfort, insect infestation, etc.

I mentioned in response to a comment that I had one bad meal while in the hospital, the final breakfast. Departing from the all-Thai menu, I ordered a Japanese breakfast on Sunday morning. What arrived was awful. Just awful.

Teriyaki salmon, as dry as cardboard with sickeningly sweet sauce; stewed beef and tofu; Soggy cabbage; incredibly salty miso soup.

Now, I realize that getting food from the kitchen to the rooms and keeping it warm is a challenge, but I was a bit disgusted by the congealed fat on the surface of the stewed beef and tofu. Thank goodness for the microwave in my room, so I could reheat the dish, melt the fat and enjoy the dish.

Here's a short video that contains some new footage along with part of the hospital room intro footage I previously shared.

Changing Landscape

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:36:20 GMT

This morning I went for a bicycle ride, enjoying the breezy weather and using the opportunity to see what's changing in Wattana, the larger district in which Tawn and I live. This area, with its large expat and middle-class Thai population, is forever changing. In what used to be the outskirts of town forty years ago, well-off Thai families built their weekend homes here along the canals and fruit orchards.

The canals and orchards have long since passed with condos, restaurants and spas taking the place of the 1960s style modern Thai family homes. One of these homes, located in the property to the north of our condo, has just been torn down. The condo's management has checked with the district office to see what is planned for the property but no plans have been submitted yet.

Interestingly, most of the demolition was done by a team of a half-dozen laborers. It was only shortly after the point shown above that a machine was brought in to tear down the final walls. The result, weeks and weeks the sound of breaking glass, cracking concrete and tearing wood. Made it a bit hard to record audio for some training programs I was working on.

Something I noticed from our side of the property was that a poster of His Majesty the King, something that pretty much all Thais put on a wall in their house or place of business, was still attached to the wall even as demolition commenced. Is that kosher to do?

At the end of our soi (the small alleys that branch off the main roads) another large property has been cleared and construction fencing erected. According to the sign posted on the front of it, a seven-floor condo is being built there. More neighbors.

Riding through the Wattana neighborhood, I spotted several interesting things. On Sukhumvit Soi 33, which is in an entertainment area geared largely for the Japanese community, I noticed this massage parlor. Based on the various massage services offered ("Lady of the Night Massage"?) I would assume that it isn't the most legitimate place to find practitioners of traditional therapeutic Thai massage.

My riding took me up along the train tracks that run parallel to Petchaburi Road. For four years now the Airport Express ("red line") elevated rail line has been under construction. Bear in mind that the airport itself opened three years ago. Word is that it will be running either in April or August of next year. As most of the physical construction is complete, the frontage roads that parallel the tracks of the traditional railroad (the red line being built above the right-of-way for the regular train) has been rebuilt after having been shut down during construction.

There is a lot of housing built adjacent to the train tracks. I'm sorry for the people who live there; I'm sure the noise of construction was terrible and the noise of the trains not much better.

I was able to follow the train tracks about 8 kms to the east of my house to the Hua Mark station (just shy of halfway to the airport) before the paved road runs out. I then turned around and pedaled back, overshooting my house and going to the main in-city Makkasan station, located at Asoke Road.

This is the Ramhamhaeng station located at Sukhumvit Soi 71. Oddly, there are a dozen parking spaces under the station, wholly inadequate for any actual parking needs. Also interesting: at all of the stations there are escalators that will run only in the up direction. The tracks are four to five stories above ground but passengers will have to descend manually.

When I made it to the main Makkasan station, I pedaled into the construction gate and asked the guard if I could ride around. Not surprisingly, he didn't think that would be a good idea despite the fact that the roads are all paved and perfectly safe to ride on.

Some other sights: the Terminal 21 building, about which I wrote a few weeks ago, is making quick progress now that all the foundation and underground work is done. I've started shooting weekly pictures of the progress so that in the end I have a record of this building, which is rising at the corner of Sukhumvit and Asoke Roads. Anyone need another nine-story mall, cinema, office building and service apartment? Good, you'll be glad to know a new one is being built for you.

Passing another construction project on Ekkamai Road, I was tickled that the contractor made an effort to put the sign in English. Normally I have to practice reading Thai but this one was very clear. The project is to "make new restaurant." Now, we're not going to tell you what restaurant it is. That's a secret.

Reflections on Hospitalization

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:41:07 GMT

Friday morning I had a followup chest xray and appointment with my doctor at Bangkok Hospital. After my third dose of radiation this month I learned that everything has cleared up nicely. No more antibiotics or other pills for the time-being.

This xray shows my lungs at the start of the infection, the inflamed and congested area in the left lung indicated by the circle. How anyone can read these things is beyond me, but someone can and that's the diagnosis they made.

I had expected that my stay in the hospital, my first since being born, would have elicited some insights about mortality, death, the brevity of life, etc. I expected to sit down and write a few of the "open when you are 18" letters to my nieces with all sorts of nifty insights drawn from the experience of staying alone in the hospital.

But, really, none came. Maybe I'm just deceiving myself. Maybe I'm just naive. But over the past decade I think I've already arrived at a realization about my own mortality. I don't dwell on my eventual death, mind you, but I am very conscious that my life, and the lives of all those around me, will come to an end.

The summer before I turned sixteen I lost the first of my four grandparents. My paternal grandfather had a protracted battle with what began as prostrate cancer (yes, I recognize that that is likely the battle for my life I'll face and I do get screenings) and I cried deeply after losing him.

The same thing happened with two of my early relationships. When they came to an end, I was devastated, too, certain that I would never love again.

From all this, I've recognized the pattern. All things come into being, grow in maturity, age and decline and eventually die. People. relationships, possessions - it seems to be true of everything. And at some level I have made peace with that, so nothing new to report from staying in the hospital.

Of course, I hold out the possibility that I haven't really learned anything yet, that I am kidding myself when I think I've recognized and made peace with this reality that all things go away.

Archive Photos - An Aviation Buff from the Start

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:01:00 GMT

When I mentioned in the previous entry that I grew up with air travel in my blood, I wasn't kidding. Here's some documentary evidence.

Dated Easter 1980, when I was nine-and-a-half years old, this picture shows my sister and me flying unaccompanied on a flight from San Francisco to Kansas City. Traveling on employee passes, since my father worked for United, this was probably one of our earlier flights flying solo. The plane is a Boeing 727-022. Check out the funky wallpaper!

A sneak view into First Class on the same flight. Different wall treatment up front. This was in the days when United operated a nonstop between SFO and MCI. In fact, twenty years or more after discontinuing the nonstop service, a few months ago United once again resumed nonstop service on this route using United Express partner aircraft.

After the nonstops went away (following deregulation) the name of the game was Denver Stapleton, one of United's two largest hubs. In the years leading up to the opening of the new airport in Denver, United's operations were so overcrowded they would park a second row of airplanes behind the row pulled up to the gates, leading to domino effects of delays if one of the planes in the back couldn't leave on time. Here's a Boeing 727-200 with Continental's DC-9s behind. This was in the days when United, Continental and Frontier (the previous version of it) all had hubs at Denver.

In 1992 as United was phasing out its Boeing 727-022 aircraft, it donated this one, its first 727 (note the registration number N7001U on the engine) and in fact the first 727 ever produced, to the Boeing Museum of Flight in Seattle. One of her sister ships (N7017U) was donated to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, where it remains on display to this day. In preparation, mechanics repainted the plane to its original paint scheme, hand-taping all of the logos and detail work. I had the opportunity to visit United's Maintenance Operations Center in San Francisco and walk around taking pictures of this plane.

The Global Soul

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 16:01:18 GMT

Travel, especially travel by air, is in my blood. My father worked more than thirty years for an airline as did his brother. After high school I worked for a while for an airline. Tawn worked for a few years for an airline. My first flight was when I was a month old and I haven't stopped since.

You may be aware of the new George Clooney film, "Up in the Air" about a man who is addicted to the frequent flyer lifestyle. I can relate. For many years before I moved to Thailand, I was one of those "100k" flyers, booking more than 100,000 miles a year.

While it was very wearing, I have to say I still enjoyed it. The sense of escape, of adventure, of moving, of going somewhere new and different.

Recently a friend posted the following short film, a twenty-minute bit called "Frequent Flyer" that interviews some of the seriously obsessed frequent flyers. These are the people who aren't flying a lot for business necessarily, but are flying a lot in order to fly a lot and in order to achieve "status" with a frequent flyer program and the perks that go with it.

Frequent Flyer from Gabriel Leigh on Vimeo.

While I'd like to say that they are crazy, I recall a few times that I would go out of my way to earn miles in order to meet a status deadline. When you have to fly so much for work, you don't want to miss out on the benefits that come from having an elite tier of status - upgrades, lounge invitations, priority standby for flights, etc.

There was one time when, shortly before moving to Thailand, I realized I was going to be a few thousand miles short of the 100,000 mile threshold. At that time, shortly after jetBlue had entered the transcontinental market flying SF and LA to NY, United and American (the dominant carriers on the route) offered ridiculously low fares to get people to fly them.

A single roundtrip from SF to NY would get me across the finish line in terms of miles, so I paid about $200 for a Saturday afternoon flight, spent the night at an airport hotel near JFK, then flew back on the first flight Sunday morning. I earned about 5,000 base miles plus an equal number of bonus miles, about half the miles needed for a free domestic ticket. If you want to read the full story, it is here.

Author Pico Iyer wrote about the concept of being a global soul: someone born in one place, raised in another and living in still another place. At some level I relate to that concept. Maybe not quite as global as some people but still having the experience of living and working in countries and cultures besides the one I was raised in. It makes for many disconnects and strange senses of belonging and yet not belonging.

One of the frequent flyers being interviewed in the short film above said, upon arriving in Japan, "This is one of my favorite parts, fresh off of a transpacific flight, a bit bleary-eyed, and somehow it is more fun knowing I'll be leaving in a matter of days."

There are times when I feel exactly like that.

To close, let me share with you some photos of a proposed expanded international terminal at Los Angeles Airport. I like the bridge connecting the terminals, under which airplanes can taxi.

Free Ride on a Fruit Cart

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:03:30 GMT

Nearly everywhere I go in this city, I keep a camera handy. That's one reason I don't have an SLR and instead go with a smaller point and shoot camera: I need to be ready to take a picture the moment one presents itself.

The other evening, walking with my Thai tutor back towards the Asoke Skytrain station, I watched as a fruit vendor rolled past us in the street, his son sitting on the shelf under the cart. "Oh, he's selling children and fruit!" my tutor exclaimed.

Allusions to child trafficking aside, it was a pretty funny image. When he stopped to sell some pineapple to a tourist, I snapped a photo.

The young man hitching a free ride didn't seem amused. I wouldn't be if I was riding around in the bottom of a fruit card, either. But not a bad deal, if you think about it. With ice in the display cases, it was cooler than being out on the street, and with dad doing the pushing, you could just enjoy what little breeze there was.

Still, it reminds me that I was fortunate to grow up in better circumstances than this. I hope the young man finished his studies and has the chance to go to university.