We arrived yesterday morning at about 6:30 am, cleared immigration, got our baggage, cleared customs and were on our way. We made it to our temporary apartment by about 8 am and spent some time unpacking. We then hit the Carrefour, which is like a French Walmart, but not not as nice, to go grocery shopping, pick up a cell phone, etc. That was quite the experience! I'm still not quite sure what some of the things are that we bought and though we looked for stuff that we know, there were still some surprises, like the bag of potato chips that we bought that we thought were BBQ chips but it turns out are "hot chili squid" chips - go figure! Rick tried some and said they aren't so bad! Since we couldn't find everything we needed there (maybe its there but on a busy Saturday morning with all the kids along and all of us exhausted, we weren't willing to look too long) we headed back here and I went to the local little grocery store here in our community to get a few more things. One thing we noticed....it will cost us A LOT more to eat here than it does at home - I spent about $70 on what normally would have cost me about $25 at the grocery store - ouch! (Partly that is because I was shopping at our little local grocery store here in Nichada, where we live, and it caters to foreigners and costs more because of it.) The other thing we noticed....we draw a lot of attention here and the kids are really fussed over! From the time we got off the airplane and all through shopping, we drew a lot of attention. People were counting heads and congratulating us (mainly Rick for some reason - like he's responsible?) on having four kids! People also constantly were touching the kids, especially Leah and Nate, and trying to talk to them. Lots of stroking their hair - I think the blonde hair and blue eyes are a real draw!
Below are a few pictures from where we live. They have places we would like to live in, and some where the locals live. If you look at the second picture we are the blue house. Just Kidding!!!. That is a group of local houses though. Actually, in the first picture with the houses right on the water and the edge of the condo tower showing (we live in an identical one across the lake), just to the left of the condo tower (a little pink corner of house is showing) is our house. The white building along the lake in the middle is club house where the pool, stores and all the other activities are.
We went by the house last Sunday with the kids. They are pretty excited. We also met our first neighbor. Her family is from Cincinnati (I think). She had 4 kids, 2 in college in the US and 2 here, one of them Tim’s age. It was interesting that she works here and her husband was a stay at home dad. He is currently back in the US with the kids so she was here by herself. We put all of our travel power converters into our Air shipment which has not arrived so we don’t have Wii yet. Luckily she lent us one. She was very informative. She told us how to get McDonalds, Burger King, Swensons and Pizza Hut home delivered. I guess you just call a number and they bring it to you. Very Handy!! She also informed us about why you get a maid in Thailand. It is not so much for the cleaning and kid watching, but more for when you go to the store, and out to do things, to have a reasonable interpreter. The Thai maid may cost a few hundred dollars a month, but if she cooks, and you let her do the shopping, she can save you hundreds a month in food costs. That local grocery here will drain the wallet faster than anything. It also looks like there are tons of kids on our new street. When we were leaving, there was a group of adults with about 8 kids playing in the street down at the other end. We were tired and trying to go by ISB with the kids so we did not stop, but it looks like the street we live on will be similar for the kids to the one we left. As for the lady from Cinci, she has been here for 1 year and they love it. She said it will take a couple of months, but once we get our bearings, things are really good here. That was nice to hear.
For the rest of our first week, Rick worked (Monday through Friday) and I hung out with the kids. It was a LONG week since we were stuck at the apartment (no transportation unless he sends the driver back for us...and by the way, his name is Yai [rhymes with "sigh" and not Chauncey!] and even if he did, we didn't really know anywhere to go but the grocery store and you can only go there so often! We spent the week walking around the community, playing in the park, meeting just a few people (around Thursday the place started filling up fast as people arrived here for the start of the school year), etc. The kids had fun playing with a couple of Italian kids here in the park next to our building a few days ago...they are hoping to see their new friends again soon. It was kind of funny - the mom was telling her kids, in Italian, how old my kids are and Leah later said to me, "Mom, that lady was speaking Spanish...I heard her use numbers!" Pretty good pick up for a four year old, I though! Anyhow, here's a few pictures of where we live, taken from our balconies on the 11th floor (we have one in every room!) I'll fill in more later on what else we've been up to, with a few new pictures, too!
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