The New Bangkok Digs (and mailing address!)

This is a photo from the new apartment. Megan and I totally sprung for a building with a pool. It just kind of screamed "quality of life", you know? Also, I had to remind myself when making the decision, that, unlike in Québec, in Bangkok you get 12 months a year of use out of a pool. It's endless summer, baby! I mean, there's a rainy season and a hot dry season and right now it's officially the cool dry season (winter) in Thailand, but as far as I'm concerned: it's all summer by any other name.

So far I've been in every day. The building has two residential towers, and the pool lies between them on the 4th floor. Our apartment is up on the 9th floor and we look down onto the pool.
It's right near the skytrain, which is Bangkok's modern and beautiful elevated train system and the quickest way to get around downtown in a city with probably the worst traffic I've ever seen. So all told: I'm pretty much living it up. Now I've just got to start paying for this place. Stay tuned for how that works out. In the meantime, anyone who wants to make me feel more at home by sending me some mail (only 58 days 'til Christmas!) might want to write this down:

1414/257 Floor 9 (Tower B) Sukhumvit Plus
1414 Sukhumvit Road
Prakanong, Klongtoey, Bangkok 10110
Thailand

Lunch with Tito

On Friday I had lunch with Tito, a Chilean friend I rarely see. We met in 2005 in Havana when we were both on vacation there, but we haven't gotten together since then, since he's been in Santiago and I've been in Chengdu. He travels a lot, and we had a missed connection in 2006 when he actually visited Quebec and I had already left for China. So this past month he was travelling through Japan and Southeast Asia, and I got the chance to have lunch with him here in Bangkok, to meet Álvaro, his boyfriend, and they both got to meet Megan. We ate at Mai Kaidee's, a vegetarian restaurant in Bangkok with 3 locations and Thai-owned, but frequented almost exclusively by foreigners. Vegetarian food is vegetarian food, though. I'd give an exclusively vegetarian restaurant my custom even if the food was mediocre (and have) but at Mai Kaidee's it's delicious.
It was good to see Tito, good to finally meet Álvaro, and wonderful to have lunch with a friend, since Megan and I have been too busy job-and-apartment hunting to make any new friends yet.

News Flash: protests in Bangkok continue (to not affect me)

Apparently the protests are continuing, although you wouldn't know it from where I'm sitting (in a hostel in kind of a quiet neighborhood by the river).

Still I thought I'd give a little update to those of you who, like me, like to feel like they can at least fake knowing what's up in the world.

News: Apparently, some tear gas was fired.
Then again, pepper spray was fired inside Concordia University to disperse rioters when Benjamin Netanyahu came to speak. It smelled bad, but I got out of there quickly through a corner stairwell. Take home message: pepper spray works on me, I guess.*

And here's your mini-briefing. The three most recent Prime Ministers of Thailand are:

• Thaksin Shinawatra (unseated in 2006 coup. The PAD** don't like him.)
• Samak Sundaravej (tied to Thaskin, the PAD don't like him.)
• Somchai Wongsawat (related to Thaskin, guess what: the PAD don't like him.)

Now you're informed. Go be know-it-alls.

*Not that I was rioting, but take home message # 2 is that pepper spray doesn't discriminate, I'm pretty sure.
**People's Alliance for Democracy. Google it.

Bangkok: some more protests

Background: There were widespread anti-government protests in Bangkok before I arrived. At one point a few weeks ago, the Prime Minister declared a state of emergency. All that was over about a week before I arrived, however.

Anyway, applying to an English school today, I picked up a newspaper and saw that negotiations between the PAD (People's Alliance for Democracy) and the Thai government had broken down, because two senior PAD leaders have been arrested. Taking the 72 bus back to the hostel tonight, I saw a protest happening on the royal plaza. (Outside the Ananta Samakhom Throne Hall, to be more specific.) A protest complete with riot cops. Peaceful, though. The riot cops weren't doing anything - they were just there. I assume it was PAD protesters, because that's what I expected given today's news, and because they had the same yellow headbands I saw on the news before coming to Thailand. But really, I don't know, do I? So, uh, I guess I'll keep an eye on that while I'm here. Updates to follow if this affects my life in any way. Otherwise, you can just read the paper like everyone else, I suppose.

News Articles:

• The basics
  
• An update

Elections in Bangkok: Metta Temchamnarn

It's election time for the governor of Bangkok.*
I was in the fairly quiet neighborhood of my hostel (Thewet) eating some fried corn balls on the street the other day when I got my hand shook by candidate #3: Metta Temchamnarn. He wasn't dressed in all those military whites up above, though. He was pretty much exactly as he looks in the bottom-right corner, complete with scarf, cap, and jazzman shades. The jazzman shades alone are almost enough to make me wish I could vote for him. Also wearing jazzman shades was his M.C., chatting up the passers-by, just hanging out the passenger side of the campaign ride, tryin to holla at me. For all I know, every candidate has an M.C. riding shotgun in their truck, but I seriously doubt that they're as cool as this one. His man is also clearly getting blessed by some kind of fairies (see above), and has a dragon over his shoulder where cartoon characters usually have the good angel whispering advice. So again, clearly, he's the candidate who gets advice from a dragon**. (Sweet). Unfortunately, after reading up a little on the elections in the Bangkok Post, it turns out that, sadly, he's still a minor candidate. I just don't get it. What's not to like?

*Bangkok Special Administrative Area has a governor, not a mayor. I know it's hard to accept, but apparently that's just how they roll around here.
**And a phoenix?

Bangkok, Thailand (day 7)

China is over for now. I miss it, and, I'll be back, and I'm still practicing my Chinese when I need to procrastinate on something, but there's no use hiding the fact: I've moved to Thailand. It's not much more than a puddle jump over Laos, really.
The earthquake happened in Chengdu. You'll remember me posting news about that. Then a summer vacation to XinJiang (see below). But after that: nothing. Under your radar, here's what I did:

-Left China (Got out just before the Olympics.)
-Visited my family in Montreal (also: Alexia, Brendan, Stephs)
-Went to Family Camp (...totally rocks; totally rules. Let's get serious.)
-Visited Laura in Brooklyn (late summer and culinary delights.)
-Visited Santa Barbara (my first time to California. There were dolphins!)
-Moved to Bangkok.

Now I'll be posting from Bangkok. If you know any super-useful Thai phrases, please let me know in the comments. I have some books, but I'm way behind the curve on actually studying them, since I also have "find a job" and "find an apartment" on my short term to-do list. For the moment, I'm in the Sawatdee Guesthouse on Si Ayutthaya at 400 baht/night. I'll let you know how things proceed.