1st day in bangkok

So here we are in Bangkok for a couple of days. The flight here was relatively uneventful. We flew the cheap-o airlines, which only allows 20kg of luggage per adult, but they let us bring our (many more kg) luggage without charging us the $1/pound that they made us pay last August.

We are staying at the Evergreen - furnished apartments - and ours is a one-bedroom, with access to the bathroom set up so that we don't have to walk through the bedroom where Alex is sleeping to get to the bathroom. It's really nice (we stayed here before, in August.) After arrival yesterday, we did some grocery shopping at Siam Paragon and picked up some dinner there (pizza) and got Alex home later than we should have. One little snag we ran into - an ATM ate my card! Fortunately, Angela's is OK, and I have a card from another account as well (and other, more pricey backups.) Had to call PNC this morning and have it cancelled.

I tried to stay up after we put him in bed last night but fell asleep on the sofa, woke up & got into bed around 8. We all slept until 4 or 5. Alex took a morning nap & Angela left to go to the hospital to do her work (lecture, etc.) while I called PNC & got that all straightened out. When Alex woke up, I gave him a snack (oh, I've been forgetting to include the mundane food details! Breakfast was instant oatmeal with honey in it, and his snack was fresh mango and rice cakes with peanut butter on them, and banana slices with peanut butter.) Around 12:30, Alex & I went down to the 8th floor to the restaurant where I had green curry and Alex had stir-fried ginger with chicken, which turned out to be a bit on the spicy side, but he still mostly liked it.

Then we headed out to go to Jim Thompson's house (famous teak building) but tried to get there via canal boat, which took us too far, so we just walked for awhile & did some shopping. We'll go tomorrow. Tonight we are going to a Japanese buffet dinner with doctors that Angela is working with here. We'll leave in a bit - Alex is taking a 2nd nap.

When we walk, Alex is generally riding in my smaller backpack, which he has nearly outgrown. Sometimes we let him out, like at the mall, but it's tough to keep up with him when he's trying to run around & pull things off of shelves. I wish we could let him out more, but...we just can't. Sometimes we will walk with him & hold his hand, but if he won't do that then into the pack he goes. Fortunately, he also really likes riding in the backpack, usually, except sometimes he gets hot in there (today he was on my back & said "HOT".) It is in the upper 80s in the middle of the day here.

Speaking of speaking, Alex has been getting very good at enunciation. He no longer says 'bu' for bus - he says 'bus' - well, sometimes he says 'bust' or 'bussy', but mostly 'bus'. When he's done eating he says 'all done' & we can distinguish 'done' from 'down'.

We are here in Bangkok today and tomorrow, and we leave early monday for Koh Phangan.