Jim Thompson's

roof tops, originally uploaded by Dianthus.

After the Christmas holiday, the rest of the week kind of passed by in a blur. We went out with another real estate agent to look at some other places. We knew that we liked the townhouse that we had seen the previous week, but we wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything better out there. Our agent was very nice and gave us some great tips on restaurants and a Japanese market, but we didn’t see anything that we liked more than the townhouse. We contacted Nong and asked her to go ahead with negotiations on the townhouse. Renting here is almost like buying in the US, the price is always negotiated, as are any requests (like we asked to have the shower heads moved up). We are getting close, but everyone is on holiday now. We had some surprisingly good dinners at some of the malls. Good Vietnamese at the Food Loft at Central Chidlom (that left both of us hurting from the chili sauce), delicious Mediterranean at the Emporium, and tasty chicken katsu and noodles at the Siam Paragon. I rode the Skytrain to our (potentially) new station to time how long it takes from D’s office. Takes about 25 minutes, not bad, but longer than the 10-minute walk she has now. I stopped at Central World to pursue the bookstore and marveled at their excellent selection of art and design books.

Today we were planning a visit to the boys, hoping that we could give them a bath. Our last visit had been hot and stinky and the boys felt so gross (they are shedding like crazy). It had left me feeling a little depressed, and ready to spring them from the kennel. D had also expressed interest in going to Chinatown or Jim Thompson’s House. (Jim Thompson was an ex-CIA and architect who fell in love with Thailand, decided to stay, and single-handedly brought back the Thai silk industry. His house is several traditional Thai houses put together and now a museum. He went for a walk in the mountains in Malaysia and was never seen again.) We decided to save Chinatown for tomorrow and hit Jim Thompson’s on the way to see the boys, since we get a little dirty and covered in hair visiting them. It was a short walk from the Skytrain, and easy to find. Just follow the other tourists! I had read that it was a 100 baht entry fee. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we would walk around the grounds without paying, and it was the only area we were allowed to take photos. Both D and I decided that we weren’t up for touring the museum (knowing that we would be back with some of our out-of-town visitors), and decided to have lunch at the café there. The lunch was good and not overpriced. I had a delicious salad with Larb. Nice and spicy, with great flavors of lime and Thai basil. A Thai iced tea completed the meal. Yum!

We hopped back on Skytrain and headed to see the boys. We inquired about giving them a bath, which the staff agreed to (with only a few odd looks, I think they are getting used to the weird Americans). They provided us with soap, sponges and a few towels. The boys were brought out one at a time, and after some initial freak-out from both of them, they settled down and each took the bath rather well. We stayed and played and lavished them with attention after bath time. I think they felt better. They were both bouncing around and wrestling with each other, just being themselves. I felt a lot better after this visit, especially knowing that it won’t be much longer before we are all together again.

For dinner, we headed over to the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, but decided to avoid the main food area after our not-so-great experience of last time. We took a taxi over from our hotel, neither of us up for the mad dash across the road. D said that there were 3 food areas (this place is huge). We found one of the food areas that is on one of the edges and walked up and down the stalls checking out the assortment of offerings. We were obviously off the beaten track a little, since we were two of only a few farang there. We each got a stir-fried chicken and noodle dish (mine was “spicy”, D’s was “soy sauce”) with a little help from another customer since the people operating the stall did not understand English. Our meal was rounded out with a Chang beer for D and a Heineken for me. Meal grand total=160 baht (around $4.50) Add in the ambiance of sitting in parking lot with Thai rock music in the background and it was a nice end to the day.