Well, they’ve declared a state of emergency in Bangkok.
I have, as ever, perfect timing.
I can barely pronounce the street I live on well enough for cab drivers to understand me. I have to point and yell “THAT WAY!”, and that only works when I know where I am.
Now I might find myself in the middle of a violent protest, wandering around helplessly repeating “thank you” and “hello” and “delicious!”, because so far, that’s the only Thai I know. I didn’t think I’d need to know “Please, don’t shoot!”
Christ.
I have unreliable internet and no tv, so staying on top of the the news is difficult. I don’t know my way around or how to find my way home except for from a very few places. I haven’t found my feet yet. And now there is a bloody state of emergency.
They’ve closed the domestic airports. The international one may close as well.
On top of all that, I have found myself in a much different working environment. I was the youngest foreign teacher I knew in Korea, but at least we were all of the same generation. Here I am the youngest by far and one of only three in my twenties. The rest are career teachers, middle aged or near retirement, with families and wives and children. I don’t want to be desperate enough to ask the other two young ones to please, be my friend!, but I don’t know what else to do. I was always socially awkward, and this is not a situation where making friends is easy.
damn.
I also had a major setback in my war against the ants today. They got inside my sealed bag of sugar. The bag was ALIVE, people.
I made it to Thailand.
Nobody put cocaine in my luggage, I’m not a brothel mommy, I haven’t been sold into prostitution, I haven’t been left high and dry and unemployed, and I haven’t died of heat stroke.
Yet.
I have been here four days and three nights and I already have a functional cellphone, an apartment, and prospects for extra work.
I have no hot water or kitchen in my apartment. I’ll be taking cold showers for a year, and I have a sink out on the balcony. I will be cooking on electric grills on the balcony. Which is, actually, lovely.
There are lizards in my bathroom.
so, i’m here. i made it to south korea. the plane trip was bloody awful: the only reason i can even call the food edible is because i ate it. we chased the sun all the way to korea, flying into yesterday and then straight into tomorrow without ever hitting today.
i’m not really sure what to start with….or what to say.
i’m set up in my apartment, i’m also almost entirely unpacked, but i’m at loose ends for a while – i’ve arrived just as all of my co-workers are on their break, and so even though we all live in the same building, i’m isolated for a week as they go off travelling. i’m struggling enough with groceries, i’m going to stay put until work starts.
i did go out for dinner twice – once with my boss, and once with a teacher who was kind enough to come in on his day off to show me around. we had barbecue – we were served a plate of raw meat, which we cooked on coals at our table. with the ribs, we were given gloves to wear, rather than utensils. the other teacher thought this was hilarious – i just think it’s intensely practical. we were also given dozens of side dishes to eat with our meat – which we shared, both of us eating from the same bowl. this is a rather intimate way of eating, i think, something i’ve always reserved for very close friends. we ate on “meat street” – nicknamed thus by a., the co-worker. it’s a street simply filled with bars and restaurants, stacked 7 or 8 stories high, one on top of the other, with the street level filled with these barbecues, the tables coming right out onto the street. i’ve never seen, or heard, or smelled, so much going on at once.
