Category: Oh, baby!

My Own Private Loch

This is my favorite path to take on my daily sunset walks. It’s a concrete footpath bordering the canal that winds through my university’s campus. The water levels of the canals and holding ponds they feed to fluctuate quite a bit, as the norm for these times of climate change mean that long periods of drought are immediately followed by heavy and persistent rains. When the level is right, though, I can say hi to Nessie.

It’s been raining almost every day since Max settled in here for his summer vacation, but I took him here last week. He saw Nessie. I consider this to be the coolest thing to see in the whole province, and the fact that it’s hidden and impermanent makes it even better.

Mina’s new Warbirds

We picked up an incomplete set of Callaway Warbirds for Mina at the Tsuruya Golf (Japan’s golf Mecca) main branch in Honmachi. It was exactly the kind of deal I like to find in Japan, because any imperfection in a product can result in huge bargains – we scored the set for less than half off because it was missing the hood (removable top of the golf bag) and a putter. Nam’s good friend ended up gifting Mina a really nice putter anyway, so we packaged the set with bubble wrap and brought it on the plane back to Thailand. Tonight was Mina’s first lesson in nearly a month, so we were peeling the plastic off of the heads before trying each club. It was like golf Christmas.

She’s only had a dozen lessons, and she seems to really like it (which is great now that we are invested in it LOL). This range is currently the only one open in Sarakham, and it’s owned by Mina’s schoolmate’s mom: Non Duea Driving Range Maha Sarakham

Highly recommended.

I rather like smashing balls with a weighted stick (although I have no proper form and employ only brute force – I hope Mina teaches me the form part someday), so I hope we can start actually golfing soon.

Stargazy

The girls alerted me to a meteor shower happening a couple months ago, so we drove to a nearby empty parking lot (MALIN PLAZA) and proceeded to take mediocre night photos with our phones.

The blue space invaders looking thingy above the white gas station sign (with the red/blue droplet logo) was a reflection from an unknown source that showed up in all my photos there — thanks, light pollution!

Dreamliner Birthday

On our trip to the states last month, I had my first ever birthday on an airplane. It might have been my longest birthday ever because of the time difference (UTC +7 to UTC -7), although I didn’t even really think about it until a couple of flight attendants came up and started asking about my birthday – one in English, and one in Japanese. I was really surprised at first, but it ended up being very dope. Apparently, Nam had asked ANA to do something after Mina and I had checked in and went through the first security checkpoint at Suvarnabhumi. Mina knew about it since Nam had messaged her and she thought it was hilarious.

The dessert plate they brought me “from Business Class”:

The dinner that preceded it:

Mina and her soboro (ground chicken bowl) dinner:

All in all, a surprise birthday celebration on an ANA Dreamliner is a great way to chase away the boredom of a 10-12 hour intercontinental flight, and I highly recommend it!

Both Kids Now Studying Overseas

I didn’t post here for the entire trip and actually didn’t do a lot of things I normally do… Some of them I just may never do again. We have new priorities and our lives are in a state of flux – preparing for a big move back home, etc. – and we are living each day with the immediate goal of joining our family together again. Standing in our way is a long list of big things like selling our house, getting Nam’s green card, finding new jobs, and transitioning to new cultures and lifestyles again… Adventure awaits!