#008 Thailand Update: Oh Where, Oh Where Has Our Home Shipment Gone?

Ah, the weekend! Finally it has arrived. The Thais refer to the weekend as the “Holiday.” Many of them were asking me what I planned to do on my holiday. What will we do? Whatever it is, it will definitely involve pictures.

It is Saturday morning, and this is the first update I’m writing where I’m not on a plane or in a moving vehicle. I’m sitting here at the desk in the playroom next to the master bedroom. It is a weird sensation to be typing this without bumping, braking, or accelerating. Maybe I need to start bouncing around in my seat to simulate it.

Ah, that’s better.

If you haven’t noticed, I am writing this to you at 8AM. Much better than 6AM. I am writing this shortly after I woke up, which means I slept in until 8AM. Actually, I slept in until about 6AM, and then laid in bed for two hours while I listened to my kids run around the apartment with heavy feet and high decibel voices. I got the impression they were trying to tell me something, so I woke up.

Mildew
Okay, I just finished the sweep of my apartment where I open every sliding glass door and every window. Why? Because if we don’t do that, the humidity in the air causes a musty, mildew smell to start building up in the apartment. We have to “air out” our apartment each morning. I guess we do this until the heat of the day is unbearable enough to warrant us turning on the air conditioner. Tangent: Did you know that A/C is not a common word in Thailand? When I say that, no one knows what I’m talking about. I have to actually say “air conditioning unit.”

I just finished the second sweep of my apartment where I turned OFF all my ‘air conditioning units.’ No use cooling off the entire outside, right? I am interested in seeing what our first electricity bill will be.

The Over-Nighter
Remember how I told you Esaiah was going to be gone all weekend? As it turns out, it’s only for a night. We get to pick him up at 11:00AM this morning. I am very curious to see how that all turned out for him. I’m sure he’ll have lots to talk about. Maybe you’ll hear all about in update #9.

Swimming
I’m hoping that sometime during our holiday, we’ll be able to get down to our pool and do a little swimming. We’ll need to pick up another set of shorts for Christian though; he left his at his swim party with his classmates. Because he’s so young, they only have an afternoon event rather than an over-nighter like his older brother. When we first got here, Christian asked to go swimming everyday, multiple times in the day. I kept telling him that my swimming shorts were in a box at my office (I left my clothes from my previous trip at Microchip), and that I couldn’t swim without them. His response?

“Dad, why don’t you just go down to the pool and watch us swim?”

I tell ya, that kid’s gonna be a politician someday. For some reason, sitting next to a pool I couldn’t jump in while in high humidity and very hot weather just didn’t seem pleasing to me. I know, I know; I should have sacrificed for my kid’s sake, but I’ll gladly take the “Bad Parent of the Day” award in place of that particular sacrifice.

Printer Saga Continues
As I’m leaving work Thursday night, I get a report that my printer repair shouldn’t be too bad. He didn’t believe it was a power supply; it was probably just a component that burned out. I get a report back on Friday stating that repair will cost about 75% of the cost of the printer.

Lovely.

They also report that they think they can still get it done for around 7,500 Baht (nearly $200 US). They are looking into that now. I must repeat my statement from Letter #07: Thanks HP.

Our Home Shipment
I’m starting to believe we do not have a home shipment. It is beginning to become a legend to me. I’ve been telling you a tale of this mythical shipment containing amazing things from a country on the other side of the world. Strange new foods, tools, and household items. Things you just cannot get in this country. Is it true? Could this shipment possibly still be coming. Let’s find out, shall we?

I ask about the shipment, and as it turns out, it has problems (surprise, surprise). It seems some of the food items are being questioned. I’m sure one of the questions is “why did you ship melted chocolate?” We also got questioned about our medicines that we sent over. We decided to pack things like Children’s Motrin so we wouldn’t have to worry about how to doctor on our kids while over here. Unfortunately, since it’s a “medicine,” it has to get clearance from the Ministry of Medicine. The Traffic people have sent our content over to this Ministry for approval. I think the overall goal is to have the entire contents of our shipment as a public record for all to see. I’ve grown past being embarrassed about anything on it now. I’m thinking about getting a billboard in Bangkok and posting it there. Maybe it would expedite things. Probably not. I would probably have to get approval through the Ministry of Billboards and have all my contents translated into Thai, and then gain approval through the Board of Advertising. I think I’m starting to figure all this out.

The very nice lady in Traffic sadly reported that our shipment would not be available on Friday. She did say it will ship on Monday though, which is quite promising.

“So, it will DEFINITELY ship on Monday, or it will MAYBE ship on Monday.”

“Oh, so sorry Khun Roger. I think MAYBE.”

Yep. That’s kinda what a I figured. I smiled at her as she left my office, and then banged my head against a wall in silence. If only I had a pillow to scream in to. I think the frustration is building. I know it is with Livonia. She has to keep buying things she knows already exists on the shipment. In our original plan, the shipment was going to arrive two days after we did, so weren’t too concerned about much. Now, we are starting to question how good some of the things will still be when they get here. For example, my kids absolutely LOVE pancakes, so we packed a big bag of Bisquick. This bag has been sitting in customs since August 14. Do you think it’s still okay to eat? Yeah, me neither. Sorry kids, no pancakes for you. Now be quiet and eat your fishcakes.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures
I took a couple of pictures this morning, just so I would have something send.

SwimmingPool.jpg I wanted you to see the swimming pool that Christian is drooling over. It’s actually a pretty good sized pool, along with a Jacuzzi (I’m assuming the Jacuzzi is rarely used). You can see if from our balcony. Sometimes I catch Christian looking over the balcony at it. We’ve been here since the 13th, and we still have not
gone to the pool. The picture is a bit washed out, but unfortunately I cannot control lighting conditions outside. I’m workin’ on it…

BoysInPlayroom.jpg A picture of Nathan and Christian playing on their Gameboys. This picture was shortly followed by me tickling Christian until he lost his guy. That’s what Dad’s are good for: messing up your Gameboy high score.

ViewFromEsaiah’sBalcony.jpg This is the Nichada Thani area. I know all it looks like is a bunch of rooftops and trees, but what do you expect from the sixth floor? If I remember, I’ll take more pictures as we walk around. I still want to get a picture of their school. I think it’s pretty cool looking.

ViewFromDiningRoom.jpg This is yet another roof and treeline view of Nichada Thani from the other side of our apartments. Isn’t it lovely?

Until next time…