Today's song is: 82 Minutes of Leonard Cohen .. Sit back and Chill out ..
I have been in Canada for 10 days now and I am getting a little bored. I have seen my daughter 3 times which is great and I am supposed to see my son Jordan tomorrow, Friday and then my good buddy Paul Cotton on Saturday. Then Sunday, it is back to my sister Ann's log house on the lake in the woods with Jaime and Jordan. So I am keeping busy.
On Saturday I met some friends at Big Rig, my favourite brew pub in Ottawa. I met Debbi and Bob Grils, along with Don Burke and Bill Fox and Terry Nolan, whom I had not seen in a least 10 years. We managed to reminisce from 4 pm to 9:30 so it was a good time.
Don (Little Dude) and Terry Nolan
Deb and Bob
Unfortunately Billy left early so a glass of Gold will have to do.
I am out of food now so it is off to Farm Boy I go tomorrow to stock up for another week. Of course, I will get my run in first and perhaps some programming. That is the boring part. Meeting with friends and family is great :-)
Pour yourself a glass of red wine, sit back, and relax.
Today I visited my sister's house out in the country. She lives in a restored house in the woods on a lake. It is a beautiful idyllic setting.
Roast Beast
My daughter Jaime
My sister Ann is a great cook and best of all she had roasted up some potatoes and a rib eye roast that melted in you mouth. Very yummy, especially as I do not eat much red meat or potatoes in Thailand. Topped off with a few glasses of red wine :-)
Monday is a work day with my partner at his house. Tuesday is an exercise day, starting off with a run along the Ottawa River Parkway. Wednesday is a pub day with friends, Debbi, Bob, Bill, Matt, Don, and Terry. Should e fun.
I dropped my sister off at the airport at 8 pm for her flight to England to visit her cousin Jill and spread my mom's ashes on the beach where she used to play as a child. That leaves me all alone with the 5 resident cats plus the one free loader who comes by during the night for his feed of kibbles. Each cat has his own dietary needs that I have to keep track of.
The cats are Caissie and her bay Kit Kat, Smokey and her sister Katie, and Mr. Tibbs who lives in the garage. I don't think the free loader has earned a name yet. Along with the 5 cats are 5 kitty litters which must be cleaned daily and 2 electric water supplies that must be maintained.
The bird feeder must be kept full as must the water container they drink from. The flowers and plants inside and outside must also be monitored and watered.
It appears that it is back to nature for me which is a big change form the bar scene in Bangkok. :-)
My sister Elaine is back on the 26th and like the little train, I keep repeating to myself, "I thing I can, I think I can ...".
Today, Saturday, I am meeting my daughter, Jaime for a walk along the Canada Trail in Stittsville and a look see of the model house that she just purchased and takes possession in the summer of 2018.
Tomorrow, Sunday Jamie and I are also travelling over to the Quebec side for a dinner and a few glasses of red wine with my sister Ann and her better half, Bill.
My business partner and I got some work done in our school board which left me some programming for Friday which I managed to get done, which means Brent has some testing to do.
All in all, I am staying busy. Oops, forgot I visited Chapters and purchased a science fantasy for reading in between feeding the cats and changing their litters.
I also get the use of Elaine's car while she is in England and Italy. It is a very sporty Honda.
Vroom, vroom, vroom .... just have to remember to stay on the right side of the road!
I chat with Thavorn and Jaidan daily via LINE. Next week they will take the overnight buss from Bangkok to Pha-Ngan (near Phuket). to stay for a week with her sister and her significant other Pom. They run a small ice cream shop. That should make a week go bye for Jaidan and her quickly.
Today's song is: A Medley of Tom Connors songs (33 mins)
I am back in Ottawa and today is my first full day, having arrived last night at 8:30 pm. My sister was waiting for me and we jumped in her car and headed off to her home. We had a great chat and some laughs over a couple of glasses of red wine and my head hit the pillow at 1 am and I immediately fell asleep until 8:30 am this morning.
The next morning I headed out for a short run along the Ottawa river bike path and arrived back for a couple of coffees which did not help much and I started to nap about 3 pm until 5 pm when my daughter Jaime and my sister Ann arrived to pickup Elaine to go see Cirque du Solei. They suggested I buy a ticket but I told them I doubted I could stay awake for the whole show.
The weather is sunny and about 25 degrees which is cool for my Thailand adjusted body.
My flight was uneventful for the most part and Air Canada gets the reward for the best food beating out ANA of Japan. However, it remains one long ass flight and I had to pop two Advil to get through the flight. I just find it hard to sit for 25 hours, despite getting up to stretch every 2 hours. The movie supply was bad despite listing many flicks. I settled for watching 'Fate of the Furious' for the second time and 2 other soon forgotten titles. Unfortunately ANA and Air Canada had the same list of movies. However, Air Canada (new 787 dreamliner) had some great games that I played to pass the time.
When I arrived at Pearson International in Toronto, I cleared customs very quickly and immediately visited Tim Horton's for my medium double double fix :-)
Tomorrow (Thursday) is a work day as my partner Brent and I visit the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board for our annual support meeting. Good to be in Canada, but missing my Thai family.
Today's song is: Leaving on a Jet Plane .. Timberlake
From the sort of good news department, Stickman's column is running for another week:
'I don’t like ambiguity and I really don’t like uncertainty. I don’t like not knowing what is going on when there’s a direct effect on me. I hate not being about to plan ahead. 24 hours ago I thought this was the end, the last column. I had written a long goodbye message outlining everything in detail….but things started happening and now I don’t know what is happening. I never intend to mislead anyone so when I say that I genuinely do not know what is going on or what will happen next, that is the honest truth. What can I say, other than tune in next week for the latest instalment in the Stickman journey to, well, who knows where'.
As for myself, I am up at 5 am tomorrow and in a Taxi by 6 am to get to Don Muang Airport for my 9 am flight to KL where I overnight and then catch my 7 am flight to Tokyo and then on wards to Ottawa via Toronto.It's never particularly easy travelling halfway around the world and 25 hours of travel time is about the best you can do. The reason I am flying out of KL is to use ANA and Air Canada all the way home. The food and service are great, and I will have a few fellow farangs on my flight.
The hardest part about going away is knowing will wake up tomorrow, an hour after I have left and will call, 'Poppa, Poppa, Poppa ...'
As for Thavorn, I asked her if she was sad I was going for a month and she said, 'Why would I be sad, you come back Jimmy!'. Thavorn did say she would miss the magic sink. I said magic sink? She said, 'Yes, i put dirty dishes in, and come back 10 minutes later and they all clean .. magic!'
I may end up writing a post halfway through the trip is some interesting observations come to light.
I must admit I am looking froward to my first Tim Horton's medium coffee, double double, and a breakfast sausage sandwich :-)
Today's song is: It's a Long Way Home .. Staccatos .. Ottawa group I grew up with ..
My last post mentioned that Stickman's website was coming to an end after 20 odd years of reporting on Thailand. Many of his readers has posted their laments and have done so, very eloquently.
Stick's readers hope he is not going to bale and will find someway to continue with his website.
On a personal note, I am packing for my yearly visit to Canada. This time, I am there from August 8th to September 9th. Hopefully the rain will be gone and I will have sunshine for the month.
I pack light, all carry on. My backpack serves to hold travel documents and my 2 laptops. My Oakley gym bag hold my sneakers, a pair of jeans, an additional pair of Oakley shorts, dry fit t-shirts, 5 pairs of underwear, toiletries and a hair dryer. It also servers as my pillow between flights. I sometimes chuckle when I see the 20ish somethings struggling down Sukhumvit with their ponderous packs. I can't imagine what they have in them. Ditto for the older tourists pushing their huge wheelies down the uneven pavement.
There is lots to think about when leaving Thailand. I am on what is referred to as a retirement visa. Whenever I leave Thailand I have to fill out a re-entry T8 form so I can get back in under my retirement visa. If I forget to do that, my visa is invalidated and I have to reapply all over again. Of course there is a charge of 1,000 baht for this but you can do it at the airport. However, you do need a current passport photo so that is another thing to remember and another 240 baht.
I use Grab Taxi (Think Asian Uber) to get to the airport and apparently they have closed the off ramp at the airport so they are recommending you leave 3 hours early for your flight. Bangkok is known for its traffic chaos.
I fly to Kuala Lumpur on the 7th around noon, overnight there and fly out very early, 6 am on the 8th. I fly from KL to Tokyo, and then Tokyo to Toronto, and then Toronto to Ottawa for a total of 25 hours flying time. Due to the wonders of the international dateline, I arrive at 9 pm on the 8th. Hopefully, my sister Elaine will be at the airport to pick me up.
Thavorn is tasked with looking after Jaidan for the time I am gone and ensuing he is in one piece, the same as when I left. I am trying to explain to Jaidan that I am going away for a long time, but he has no concept of what a long time is. However, usually after I have been gone for an hour or so he usually asks Thavorn where poppa is or sometimes, 'Where Jim Dale?'.
When in Canada we talk with the LINE app which works quite well. It has video as well as sound and Jaidan likes to see his poppa.
'Familiarity breeds contempt and children', Mark Twain.
Expats who spend a lot of time in S.E. Asia often find themselves disillusioned or bored with their host country and move on to what they assume will be greener pastures. The following discussion is symptomatic of what they think and feel. In basketball coaching we refer to this as 'The game has passed him by'. You have to adapt. Confucius summarized this by 'You can't step into the same river twice', By stepping into the river, you have changed the river, and you, yourself are changed by the river.
There is a very long running website that I always heartily recommended to any farang wanting to understand the Thai mindset, especially as it is reflected in farang-Thai relationships.
For whatever reason, Stick is shutting down. I can understand his feelings, because it is difficult to write a long running blog or website. Stick publishes once a week on Sunday and I try to get 3 posts out a week. In the next month, I will publish my 500th blog post on my experiences as a farang in Thailand. It has not always been easy, especially when I don't get out more than once a week.
Stick's last post will be this Sunday. He will be missed!
I am off to Canada for a month on August 7th for a month so you will probably see this farang's view on how Canada differs from Thailand. One difference is that Thailand gets 30 million tourists a year whereas, Canada gets far fewer. There is probably a good reason for the difference, and I chalk it up to the parochial beliefs our politicians and bureaucrats hold.
20 million looks pretty good until you notice that 13,000,000 are American's driving across the border because the Canadian dollar tanked in 2016.
Thavorn's friend Poi has landed a job at Shark Bar on Cowboy and will be making 18,000 baht a month, not including her lady drinks and pay-4-play activities. She is very shy and made a trial run with Thavorn last night to get a vibe for the bar. Poi thinks she can handle the gogo outfit with a gauze bra, and very short skirt with a g-string underneath. Time will tell.
Arthur and I are planning to attend Thursday night, her first night to buy her her first 2 lady drinks and see how shy she really is :-)
