We're Back!

June 22nd was moving day at our home.

We've been back in Thailand for just over 5 days... it's hard to believe we are back! Here's an update:

We are currently staying in a hotel/apartment in a neighborhood just off the subway system. It's a neighborhood that we thought we might want to live in, but now we know it's just a little bit too Thai for us. Although it's growing on us. Nonetheless, we're blessed have a bed to sleep in, a fridge to keep our coconut yogurt cold, a decent Internet connection, a clean room, a Tecso Lotus nearby (Wal-Mart type store), and of course a 7-11 just across the street.

Picture taken from Internet

After a LONG flight (I really had forgotten how long you have to be seated in an airplane to get here) we have enjoyed getting back into the groove of city living in this wonderful country. Besides for some $20 bills Greg has stashed away for travels back to the US, we have converted all of our cash to Thai Baht. This was useful to do things like top up our train passes to get around the city.  On Saturday and Sunday we explored neighborhoods we thought we might want to live in this go around. A highlight on Sunday was taking the train to the Silom area, where we enjoyed a sushi dinner and an evening of worship at ICB. We're so happy to call International Church of Bangkok our home church again.

One big difference about being back, is that the people we had formed friendships with are mostly all gone. We did make it back just in time to be invited to a going away party for a young couple at church this Saturday that we knew back in 2010-2011. We do know this city has people coming and going all the time and we know we'll meet some new friends soon!

Monday and Tuesday we spent house hunting with a representative from a relocation company. In 2 days we saw around 20 places. We had unique requirements, Greg needs the expressway and I need the train (or be within walking/taxi/motor taxi distance) to get to work. We were told that our old building, Amanta Lumpini (that met our requirements) did not have available units to accommodate tenants bringing their own furniture. At the end of day 1 we thought we had it narrowed down to two places (one in our old neighborhood and one in a new area), but weren't excited about either of them too much. Our hearts longed to go back to our old building. So....

Long story short... On Monday night Greg emailed our old landlord to see if he had anything open in the building. Tuesday he emailed back to say, "Yes, your old unit". Tuesday afternoon we went to go see it again (a very weird experience!) and since the price has gone down a bit... we agreed to go back. Same building. Same unit. Even though we said we wanted to try something new...we know we will love it. We know our things will fit perfectly!

In our guest bedroom. 

Wednesday was a day spent together enjoying the best of what the city has to offer. First, we needed to purchase g a dry rack and do our first load of laundry. Our hotel has coin laundry for $1/load.  We then headed to lunch at our favorite Bangkok Bagels, followed by  foot massage. Ah, foot massages. We concluded our afternoon with a movie ( Turbo in 3D is cute Dreamworks movie) and walking around one of the latest shopping centers near our hotel. Today Greg was picked up in a van to travel to work and I'll meet some of my co-workers at my all day Thai-Culture class.

 We're back and we're happy to be here!