fin

It's been two weeks since I left Bangkok. Acceptance -- and boredom -- have set in.

In the last two weeks, I've read three novels, applied for a job as a donut baker's helper, cooked two dinners, gotten over jet lag, helped with a garage sale, and sopped several inches of standing water out of the dishwasher with a towel.

It's high time I reflect on what I've learned in the last 10 months, in the form of newly acquired skills I might add to my resume. They are, in no particular order:

zookeeper
animal trainer
competitive athlete
event coordinator
environmentalist
translator
travel agent
detective
professional buyer
chef
crash dummy
barista
diplomat
mind reader
crisis manager
editor
taste tester
exterminator
propagandist
entertainer
graphic artist
financial planner
dancer

This list is scattered, bizarre, and disconnected -- so appropriate to how I felt for much of my time in Thailand.

So what did I learn?

I guess I learned that living abroad and working with locals requires you to be ready for anything and prepared to find creative solutions to whatever problems you face.

I also learned that it's not as difficult, stressful, or intimidating as people may think.

Really, there's too much to say. It's been fun, Thailand. Thanks for teaching me to eat spicy food and dance to pop music. Thanks for the daily sauna treatments and the rainy season soakings. Thanks for the memories. No thanks for the fish balls. I hope to see you again sometime.

shopaholic

It just takes one look at Bangkok's shopping malls to know that Thai shoppers mean business. The two malls nearest my apartment, Siam Paragon and CentralWorld, make American shopping malls look like a joke.

According to Wikipedia, Paragon has 10 floors with 400,000 square meters of retail space. That's over 4 million square feet. CentralWorld has 11 million square feet of retail space. And these two malls are within walking distance of each other!

Shopping is the Thais' favorite hobby. They're pros. It used to boggle my mind; I was never a big shopper in the U.S.

Now that I'm home, I've found I have a much better understanding of the Thai shopping obsession.

I think it's due in part to the fact that life in Bangkok is basically one big shopping spree. As soon as you walk out the door, you're shopping. It can't be helped. The streets are lined with vendors selling anything and everything, from puzzles to ties, sunglasses to lingerie, massages, fresh honey, fake watches, donuts, flowers, cashews... everything!

In the last 10 months, I bought myself more earrings, scarves, and clothes than I know what to do with. Of course, now that I'm back in the land of the dollar, I've gotta curb my habit.

ขี้เกียจ

I've been home for a week now and haven't left the house much. I promptly fell ill after my roommate's outdoor wedding in Houston. The (comparatively) dry, cold, pollen-saturated air was too much for my tropically acclimatized lungs to handle.

I'm improving. Yesterday, I was well enough to go out for my first meal of Tex-Mex at Ta Molly's. It was divine. I tried hard not to convert the meal price into baht in my head. Sheesh. I won't be eating out much, that's for sure.

I noticed that I've become used to a different standard of customer service. I ate half my meal and told the waiter I needed to take the rest to go. I started to hand him my plate, but he walked away and returned with a styrofoam box in hand. I was thrown off for a few seconds, as I'm used to having waitstaff box up my food for me.

Another slightly galling fact of life here: I have to prepare my own food if I'm at home and hungry. In my Bangkok apartment, I could pick up the phone at any time and order something from our first-floor restaurant. They brought it to my door in 30 minutes or less. It was so easy!

Or I could walk down the street and have a takeout box full of pad thai in about six minutes for less than 80 cents. Or a pineapple half, or a slice of cold watermelon, or papaya, guava, and all kinds of other fruits. I could walk to the corner and have a fresh fruit smoothie or a latte with cinnamon. Oh! How I miss that!

Even in the heat, humidity, and pollution, walking to get food was easier and quicker than driving or -- heaven forbid -- making it myself!