Dim Sum and Stinky

A couple of weeks ago I made an entry called new new house in which I included pictures of our new mansion style house. In one of the pictures, on the stairs, there was a little hair ball that goes by the name Dim Sum. I have wanted to put pictures up on the internet so you can see what he looks like but until today I only had a “spare” unsecured wireless internet connection coming from somewhere and it kept cutting out.

Dim Sum became a new house member during half term. We went up to Minks village and I was told we had to go look at something. We got on the motorbike and went down some very small dark roads and ended up at some old woman’s house. It seems she had two cats, a big hairy monster cat and another normal sized cat. Said cats had had some kittens but these kittens had been killed by local cats and dogs in the area, one remained.

The one that remained had a massive swollen toe that was all red and covered in pus. It seems he had been attacked by some bigger cats and his wound had been left untreated. Mink and Jik played with the cat for about 5 minutes whilst I refused to and then I said it was time to go home. I’m not always stupid, I know that we went there with a view to taking the cat home even if Mink and Jik refuse to tell me that was the reason.  When we get home the Thai’s are having a conversation with each other and a price of 500 baht is mentioned for the baby cat. I’m still playing dumb, i’m good at that game.

We are all sitting outside the front talking and having a drink when I finally decide to ask Mink about the cat. She tells me he is 500 baht and that we can take him as soon as we want. I had already been inside and got 500 baht and put it in my pocket and told Mink to tell the woman we would take him but not until the morning as we were going home the next day.

Morning time came around and we got the cat, got in the car and started the 7 hour drive home. The cat wasn’t best pleased to be in a box so we let him out and he pretty much sat down and slept. In the car we were trying to think of names to suit him and tried all sorts of names. One of them stuck for about half the journey home until I said something to Mink about him and all she heard was Dim Sum. Thus the cat was Christened. Or not as it is a Buddhist country, but you get my point.  As we arrive in Ban Chang I tell Mink that the first thing is to get his foot looked at as it looks like it will be okay but left much longer and bad things might happen to it.

I go home and see Stinky and she is fine, a bit annoyed that Mink and I had gone away but otherwise fine. Mink comes home and Stinky saw Dim Sum and then girly mardys happened. You know the ones, the mardys that girls have. This went on for a few days. However we also moved in this time so Dim Sum had chance to put his smell around the new house and so when we took Stinky to the new house she was going into his terrain instead of vice versa.  After a day or so they could both be in the same room together but whilst Dim Sum wanted to play with Stinky her reply was “bugger off”. However after showing Stinky that Dim Sum was not a replacement for her she started being nicer to him.

Roll on a few days and they are play fighting together and becoming friends. Two weeks on the are the best of friends. Stinky doesn’t come to bed so early now as her and Dim Sum have to spend a lot of time downstairs exploring the new house and playing and generally jangling about.  Stinky had to have an operation a week or so ago on her girls bits and when we brought her home Dim Sum was very worried about her and the next day, they were kept separate that night, he was around her hoping she was okay.

Now wherever you find Dim Sum you will find Stinky and wherever Stinky runs Dim Sum is not far behind. Dim Sum is a very placid character, just kind of sits there and accepts that he is going to be hugged and kissed which I think is due to him playing with a little girl when he was younger. Mostly he is just hair but he can certainly pack the food away and has put weight on since moving in with us.

Stinky loves it. She has a new playmate but she also knows that in the night when it gets a little chilly she can still come upstairs and snuggle next to Mink in bed. I don’t know if it is because she is a little older, if she has had the operation or if it is the influence of Dim Sum but she is less fiesty now and pretty much also accepts that hugs and kisses are going to bestowed upon her whether she likes it or not. Secretly I think she likes the attention as she never moans when I get home from school.

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Updated with a youtube video of them playing and being friends

An eye update

Yesterday, Sunday, I had to visit the hospital for a one month check up after my eye surgery. I had the usual instruments, the orange background thing with the letters and the circle that goes in and out of focus, the machine that blows air into your eye and then the traditional eye sight test. My vision in my right eye is still the line below 20/20 and my left eye is also the same line but not quite as crisp.

 

I then had to see the doctor who looked into my eye with different machine and said that my eye is healing perfectly and that I no longer need to use eye drops everyday.  My next appointment is on the 16th January, which apparently is d day because of the reason that my prescription was so high that it will take 3 months for my eyes to fully settle into a normality.

 

Two things that I had to refrain from saying:

 

Nurse “You can do exercise and swimming again now no problem” Me ” Exercise is a problem”

 

And when I walked into a chair on my way out of the doctors room I managed to stop myself from using the excuse of having bad eyesight.

Visa Application Successful

At the beginning of October we started the process of getting everything sorted for Joe’s visa to visit England at Christmas. Firstly we needed to get him a passport to put his visa in. This was not as easy as we thought though because when Mink and Joe arrived at the passport place early one Friday morning they were told that they could not apply for a passport without the signature of his dad or the local village headman of the place that we live. We had neither so Mink and Joe had to return home again.

 

A week or so later they returned to the passport place and met Joe’s dad there who co-signed the passport application form. Simple, and a few days later the passport arrived at home. A couple of busy weeks went by where I didn’t have time to complete his visa application but started getting some of the documents, i.e. a letter from his school giving permission for a holiday, a letter from his dad stating he knows he is going out of the country and other bits and pieces. I also, possibly rather foolishly, booked our flights and hotel accommodation in London.

 

Half term week gave me the chance I needed to complete the paperwork and so we submitted the details online. Due to new stringent biometric requirements Joe had to go to Bangkok with Mink to give his fingerprint scans and also to provide any supporting evidence to his application. The supporting evidence was where we failed many moons ago the first time we applied for Mink to get a tourist visa so I made sure that we covered every angle from financial requirements, to travel details, a letter of invite from Flo, explicit reference to the reason to return, copies and photocopies of passports, visas, birth certificates, marriage certificates etc. I also provided a checklist of all the documents on the front and detailed if they were originals, copies or both. At the top I included a note stating that if anything was not in the application form then the people at the VFS that accept the the applications had told us to take it out and so it wasn’t our fault.

 

We submitted everything on the Thursday morning and the courier returned the passport with visa attached the following Wednesday meaning that Joe will be going to England at Christmas. Luckily for him I brought back a hat and a scarf when I went home a couple of weeks ago.

 

Scanned copy of his visa will be included once my laptop starts working again and I get an internet connection at home.

New new house

So as some of you are aware we have been house hunting for a new house. I was asked last week by the maintenance manager if I would be willing to move out of the house that the school gives us as they either want to put some new boarders into our house or put the new teacher into our house. We said no problem and we went looking for one. However as you know currently the school do not want us to move out until January. We have found a house after much searching and we have decided that we will take it because it is such a nice house. For some reason our room doesn’t have a balcony, but we do have a bath so i don’t care, i’ll use either Joe’s balcony or the spare room one. Comments in the comment section or via email, thanks!

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Nomads

It’s been a while since the last update because apart from a quick trip back to England which you all know about nothing much has happened anyway. However this week coming is half term and suddenly a relaxing week of doing nothing has become a week of many jobs.

Monday involves Mink, 2 other teachers and myself are going to the driving licence place somewhere near Rayong to try to get ourselves Thai licences to drive the car and Thai licences to ride motorcycles legally, which will be nice. I am predicting, however, it to be extremely difficult and to be coming away with only one licence or possibly no licences at all.

After the licence trip Mink and I are going to Buriram for a couple of days as I am yet to go up their since arriving in Thailand on the 26th July. We are only going for a short visit and were planning on coming back on Friday.

HOWEVER, I also had an interesting discussion with the maintenance man at school the other day who basically said that the school are going to ask me to move out of my house as they need it for some new boarders starting in January. At the time it was all very up in the air but on Friday afternoon he confirmed with me that they either wanted to put boarders in our house or a new teacher that starts in January. As Mink and I understand Thailand and have transport and as we are also the next house along for the boarding house to expand into then we had the conversation about moving out.

At the moment there are two schools of thought, the maintenance man wants us out as soon as possible whilst the school admin want us to stay here until January so cut down on their expenses as they will have to pay us a housing allowance.

Due to this week being half term Mink and I decided that we would have a a look around places to rent to get a feel for prices and sizes in the local area. Friday after school we found a house that we liked the look of from the outside but once we went inside it seemed a little cramped compared to the house we live in. It was cheaper than our housing allowance but neither of us were particularly impressed.

This morning we have had another look around about 4 million houses and found one we like. However once finding it we had the conversation with school admin that said they didn’t want to start paying the allowance until January, but this may change if the maintenance man finds out.

So we decided to bite the bullet and for the sake of 2 months we are going to rent our new house and continue staying in the house provided by the school for free as we do not want to lose the deal.

As we will have 2 houses we are going to slowly move our stuff across starting from Friday. The downside to the new house is that although it is furnished there is no washing machine so we have just been out to buy a new one and we are having it delivered on Friday as well.

Check back on Friday once we have taken pictures of our new house and you will see why we really don’t want to lose the deal. We are excited.

My Eyes my eyes…

As many of you are probably aware I need to wear glasses because my vision is rubbish. Sometimes I wear contact lenses which helps me to play sports such as football or go scuba diving. For a long time I have contemplated having laser eye surgery but have never really had the money to do so as it is very expensive. Had I stayed in England for another academic year the government would have given me a £2500 golden handshake which me and Mink had discussed would be best spent on laser eye surgery. As we all know the story goes that I didn’t stay so didn’t get the bonus! Here is what I look like in my glasses for those of you that have forgotten, doing my best vampire impression.

Well a few weeks ago some people were talking about a special offer at the Bangkok Pattaya hospital, part of the Bangkok Hospital group that provides high quality western standard medical care, in which I could get both eyes lasered for 40 000 baht, which is less than £1000. A few people from school had been along there so I made an appointment.

Two weeks ago I went for my examination to see if my eyes were suitable for the operation. A number of drops were dripped in my eye, machines measured everything to do with my eye and air was blown into my eye. I was initially told that due to my prescription I probably wouldn’t be able to get the best vision as there would not be enough cornea to burn. My only hope was that I had an extra thick cornea. When the final results came an extra thick cornea is what I have and so I could have the laser surgery.

I had to wait 2 weeks for my appointment and so eventually yesterday arrived. i spent the morning wandering around Pattaya with dad before finally going to the hospital about 3pm for a 4pm appointment. New checks were made, eye drops put in and the doctor came out to explain the procedure.

It was time to go into the operating room and I had to leave my glasses with Mink. This meant it was a blurry walk to the operating room. I was told to lay on the bed and slowly we went through the same process that the doctor had explained would happen with her talking me through it and my sole responsibilities were to keep staring at the light and not forgetting to breath. This sounds like an easy task but I had to consciously remember to breath in and out.

After about half an hour my eyes had been opened, lasered and then closed again and I had 2 big plastic looking things strapped to my eyes to stop me touching them and which also made me look like “Flyman”. I was wheeled in a chair downstairs and Mink brought the car from the car park to pick me up.

I was told to keep my eyes closed as much as possible for the rest of the night but this accidentally falling asleep about 6pm and not waking up until about 10.30. I also blame a relaxant they had given me. However I was soon back to sleep and slept through until this morning.

Back to the hospital for a check up and my eyes are healing perfectly well and there is nothing to be worried or concerned about. We then drove back from Pattaya, Mink drove as I can’t drive until tomorrow and then by 11.20am I was back in school.

I can’t swim for a month, nor go to the gym for a week and I have to wear sunglasses whilst outside for a week to stop dust and dirt getting in my eyes. Apart from that I feel no pain and have no issues. Next appointment next Sunday 2.30pm

*********************UPDATE*******************UPDATE************************UPDATE*******************************

Below is a video I found of the type surgery, or near enough to what I had on youtube. After watching this I think that I would have been more scared to have the procedure done as it looks disgusting. Mink felt sick afterwards. When watching this video remember that it is only one eye and that I had two eyes done at the same time.

For those that can’t see the video here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4kDC4sZ5Jg

Jesters Fair

Due to being a “rich” international school in the Eastern seaboard of Thailand Garden International School likes to help the community in different ways. It has a charity in Ban Chang that it supports with donations, fund raising events and other things through the year but they also take part in events further afield. This weekend was the Jesters Fair in Pattaya, a fund raising event for a number of charities in Pattaya and Rayong and run by the local motorcycle group chapter. More details can be found at:  http://www.care4kids.info .

We went along, had a wander around and looked at some of the stalls. I was accosted for every single game that GIS were running and the 20 baht notes were slipping from my hand like confetti. I had volunteered 45 minutes of my time to help on the Garden stall and spent it trying to entice passers by to buy raffle tickets to win a bottle, due to being a school function it was bottles of coke, shampoo, water etc. We did quite well, got a number of people interested and then my time was up. Mink and Joe and the other two teacher we took with us were busy buying DVDs so i stayed on at the stall another 20 minutes to try to help raise more money.

Once we left we drove the car to Central Festival shopping centre and then waited about an hour for a table in Shabushi. Shabushi never fails to impress people when we take them for the first time and this time was no exception. Although we waited for about an hour by the time we all left, right at the end of our 1 hour 15 minute allocated time we were all stuffed full. We then took a steady drive home, going the pleasant short cut way which also involves going past two elephant camps.

I just can’t believe how quickly the weekend has gone as it is back to school tomorrow. Half term needs to come round quickly as I am not getting time to do any relaxing as each weekend we have something to do.  Sorry about the lack of picture updates, we took our camera this weekend but nobody had charged it.

Bangkok and the return of the hire car

Well the credit crunch has finally hit Soi 3 in Sinthavee Gardens. September 11th was the end of our month long car rental from Bangkok so we had to return the car. The car was hired for a month so that we would have plenty of time to look for a new car and go through the complex negotiations needed to buy the car, get the finance and finally buy the car in a westerners name. It just so happened that we decided on the car we had already seen, the car dealer was very helpful and there were no issues in buying it that were not insurmountable.

So Friday night saw a one night stay in Bang Saen, home of Siri and Dad and a meal at Cowboy family with everybody plus Chick. Saturday morning and a 9am start had me driving our car following Mink into the outskirts of Bangkok where we parked our car and took the rental one into town. The initial part of the journey was okay and we left the car at Central Shopping centre in Bang Na. We then all piled into the hire car and onto the tollway. This was going to be it, driving in the centre of Bagnkok, something I said that I would never do.  The highway section was surprisingly easy,  just a normal drive for Thailand but significantly more busy, with times of complete gridlock and no movement. Then we left the tollway and entered the real Bangkok driving.

I called Dad to tell him that if he never heard from me again it was due to being stuck/crashed in Bangkok. Although we didn’t have far to go it wasn’t that difficult and we were soon down the dodgy small road and had returned the car, no problem. We then went to Paragon shopping centre in Siam Square to meet up with a lady that is a teacher in an international school in Bangkok and gave me lots of advice on how to get a job in Thailand. We met with her and her two daughters and sat and chatted for a few hours before it came time to return to the car.

We decided that instead of getting a taxi all the way out to Bang Na we would get a minibus as this is a local, quick form of transport. The driver, it turns out, was a nutcase and drove like a complete idiot. Driving super fast, in and out of lanes, much worse than normal Bangkok drivers to the point that she almost put a brand new Nissan March into a concrete wall because it annoyed her by braking and almost making her crash into the back of it. The reason it was braking? all the traffic in front was braking. The reason we almost crashed into the back? because we were tailgating stupidly close. I think I have now decided not to bother with minibuses any more. I think I will take either taxis or the big bus.

The minibus also, rather unhelpfully, dropped us off miles away from the shopping centre where the car was parked so we had to catch a local bus as well to get there or spend about half an hour walking in the hot sun. Once at the shopping centre we got in the car and had a rather easy, if uneventful drive back to Ban Chang. Later in the evening we visited a Thai teachers house as it was her birthday and she was having a party and a number of teachers from school were there. It was good fun and I managed not to be thrown into the swimming pool.

Two teaching weeks down….

So I have been at school for three weeks now. The first week was spent learning all about Thailand, Thai language and Thai culture. It would probably have been very interesting if you were in Thailand for the first time or if you had only visited on holiday before. However the topics covered were only covered very basically and so most of it I had already picked up on previous times spent in Thailand. Although it was easy I had to do it as at the end you get a teaching licence, you need the teaching licence to get a work permit and you need the work permit to be a legal working resident in Thailand.

The last two weeks have been spent teaching the students. My timetable is made up of mostly ICT, with a bit of EAL (English teaching) and a smattering of maths. The students are very diligent students and there is yet to be any real discipline issues within any of my classes. The students also complete homework when set, with some of them handing it in early! My largest class contains around 16 students whilst my smallest is only 2. You may think that this is a good thing but with so few students they are able to complete a large amount of work so a lot of work needs to be researched and set.

Yesterday was my first day coaching the year 6/5 football team. I made the mistake of not taking my sports kit so I ended up standing out in the sun in my shirt and trousers and it was absolutely boiling. If you had thrown a bucket of water over me afterwards it wouldn’t have made me any more wet.

Overall it has been an enjoyable 2 weeks but I am already ready for half term and it is 7 weeks away! I think this is because by the time of arriving in Thailand and having a quick break on Koh Chang there was a bit of down time when we couldn’t really relax as we were going to be moving and then once we moved I started working straight away. I am also still getting used to the 6.50am leaving the house and starting school at 7.50am. I have already done registration and first lesson before I used to start school in Skegness!

New Car

Approximately a week or so after arriving in Thailand Mink and I started looking for a car to buy. Financially it makes no sense to keep renting a car as we are planning on staying here longer than the 2 year contract so we were looking to buy. However we were torn between getting a small family car or a pick up truck with a double cab as they are both similar in price. We spent many an hour driving around the different car dealerships in Sattahip/Rayong/Pattaya/Ban Chang and narrowed it down to two different vehicles.

A Mitsubishi Triton Double Cab 2.5 Litre and a Honda City 1.5

Eventually we decided upon the City as it was a newer car and we also thought that the litre difference in the engine would save us a lot of money in petrol. Plus I just liked it more!

So we went back and had another look and then asked about payments. I wanted to leave a 44%ish deposit and pay the rest on finance over a 2 year period. It seems people don’t pay over 2 year periods and so a few phone calls had to be made. The figures that came out of it were figures that I had already decided upon in my mind so I let it be known that I was very interested and that we should discuss things with the finance man. This is when it gets complicated.

I can’t buy the car because I am a westerner. Mink can’t buy the car because she has no job. I can buy the car if I have somebody to guarantee that I will pay and they will pay if i don’t. It has to be somebody local. BUT because we are married Mink can act as my guarantor. So, if i can’t afford to pay I don’t need to worry because they will call Mink, who has no job, and she will pay. Does it make sense? No, does it help me get my car? Yes. Nuff said.

The man selling the car also tells us that somebody wanted to buy it that day. We have now been interested in the car for about 3 weeks whereas these people arrived that day and wanted to buy it. Credit to the man selling he said that a westerner had already agreed to buy it. Normally he makes people leave a deposit on a car they want but he made a special case for me.

Right so the finance man comes down, we go through everything and it is all going swimmingly. Can I provide my work permit please? Nope is the answer as I have only just completed the culture course that you need to get the teaching licence that you need to get the work permit. This wasn’t a big problem, just pop to immigration and prove residency. So Mink gets the form and takes it to my school to sign. But they cant. This is because although the school own the house that we live in due to it being a company all the documents are kept elsewhere, it will take a week to process.

We decide to go to immigration anyway and with Mink being very polite and me being very handsome and smiley the lady in immigration didn’t completely abide by the rules and allowed us to apply for the residency paperwork by using my  contract as proof. So far so good but then they notice a problem with my passport. It seems that when i arrived in the country the man stamped me in until the end of October 2014 instead of 2010. This was an issue and required a bit of questioning and then lots of discussion and then some more stamps in my passport, some more forms to fill in and finally the return of my passport. We head back to the car seller man and provide him with all the paperwork. The car is virtually ours, I could have given him money and driven away but I wouldn’t be insured until today, Friday.

After school today Mink and I headed back out to the car dealer man with just under £4000 in cash as the deposit for the car. We also took all our documents in case there were any problems. There was one. The car tax had run out on the 25th August. Today is the 27th August. “Apparently” the car tax will arrive at 6pm this evening but we don’t want to be sitting around for two hours. If we get stopped by the police we can get them to call the car seller man, he has connections with the police!

The car seller tells us that we can pick it up later or the next day as we will be passing but he tells us that he can also bring it to us tonight at the place we are going for a meal. Crisis averted we hand over the cash, he hands over the keys and we drive away. Mink drove the rental car home and I drove our new car home. Later on we are in the restaurant eating and we hear somebody talking to us. We look up and it is the man with the car tax, we had forgotten to call him but he lived nearby so he just popped it. So everything is sorted. Now we just need to wait for the paperwork for the finance and for the car book to arrive and then we are complete.

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