Ade & Jos adventure day 23: There’s a Thai blog
What day is it? I’ve totally lost track…… It’s definitely a week day because Jo has to go to work…… Oh it’s Thursday.. Cool.
Jo feels better today, the bites on her legs (NOT BED BUGS!!!!) are looking less angry and she seems happier in general today, down for breakfast in the bistro, again it’s calmer today, it’s our last but one breakfast here at the Marriott as we move into our apartment properly on Friday.
I walk with Jo to work, again the streets are busy and traffic shows no signs of ever calming down, there’s an abundance of blind beggars singing today (blind people with decent sound systems are all over the place in Bangkok…. really good sound systems tho.. I’d like to get a look at what make they are.. But pretty sure someone would think I was taking the piss), seriously we must have passed about three of them on our way to work, each one strategically placed at the stairs at the bridges… Footless is going to have some stiff competition today me thinks… Jo got her coffee from the nice lady at the coffee shop and promptly walked off toward her office without saying goodbye to me… I stood there for a second or two thinking “she’ll turn round in a bit” but she didn’t… So I resorted to shouting “I’ll see you later then?”.. Jo, at this point remembered she’s married to me and came over to say goodbye…. She must have other things on her mind today….
I got back to the hotel, typed up the blog (I started it off with it being a no news day.. But still managed to type out a decent amount of text… I must have mastered the art of Stephen King style waffling) .. After posting the blog I got myself sorted to take some cases over to the new apartment.. First apartment job of the day, get the Playstation set up… Connecting to the internet didn’t take anywhere as long as I thought it would… Set up Spotify to play some Alter Bridge while I set about putting this batch of clothes away…There’s something really therapeutic about hanging clothes up in a sensible order…. I’m sure it’ll not be as calming when madam gets her hands on the wardrobe.
After putting the clothes away I set about getting the surround sound system set up, when we looked around the apartment on our first visit we noticed a set of speakers by the TV, we presumed they’d be gone when we moved in.. But they were still here.. Further investigation revealed they were part of a Pioneer sound system that had been left here.. Ace!
setting up wasn’t too bad, there were a couple of wires missing, but being as I was only planing on using the sub woofer and three of the other speakers, that wasn’t a problem, I got it all wired up and wen to link it to the TV… Then I found out why it wasn’t wired up… No phono outputs on the TV…. It’s a simple fix tho, just need to get a jack to phono cable.. Shouldn’t be too hard (actually wasn’t hard, as I type this up on Friday i’m listening to Queen on a kick ass Pioneer sound system!) … Sound system put on hold I just had to test the Playstation (purely for testing purposes of course!) a couple of hours of testing later and I had to go and meet Jo for lunch.
I met Jo for lunch and for a change (and because suddenly my stomach had started cramping) we opted for something a little more “Western”.. We found a steak place near the food hall we visit, prices seemed Ok so we ordered…. Or thought we did.
The waitress came over to take our order… Me and Jo had decided to have exactly the same meal…. Jo says “Can we have two of the peppered pork steaks, with mash potato and a pepper sauce…. and two cokes” the waitress was a bit confused because this particular meal came with a free lemon iced tea… “That free” she said pointing to the picture of iced tea… Not sure if we’ll like this ice tea Jo said “Can we have two cokes as well please”.. “No Coke.. Est Cola..ok” replies the waitress… Jo says ok and the waitress wanders off…
A few minutes later the cokes appear.. and one iced tea…. I’m sure the waitress has fudged the order.. but still I have hope….. Then the food arrives, one plate… Two steaks, one portion of mash and two pots of pepper sauce…. Looks like we’re sharing then.
The food wasn’t great… We’ve had a similar meal at a place in a mall called Jeffers and that was lovely.. This was edible but not great….. Plus the staff think Jo is an evil woman who eats two steaks and lets her husband starve…. There’s possible a Thai blog out there titled “She let her poor husband go hungry”…Pity I can’t read Thai eh?
After lunch I went back to the apartment for more Playstation “testing”….I get a facebook message from Jo (facebook messenger has become a vital tool here in Bangkok, we make phone calls and video calls via it.. as long as we have internet we have communication… See? Facebook isn’t totally evil) she’s found a pub that’s holding a Queen tribute night next week.. Awesome! Should be a good night.. We shall see…..
I met Jo from work and we went shopping at “The Big C”… I love shopping… I love wandering around the aisles seeing whats on offer.. I’m looking for coasters for the new apartment but draw a blank… We did buy a Christmas tree tho…. Bonus!
We bought quite a lot on this trip, so taxi was our only real option of getting it all back to the apartment, the person in Starbucks told Jo there was a taxi rank outside the entrance, so we took our bags and waited by the roadside, after a while an dafter some Thai family totally stole a taxi that was ours (the girl in the back even looked me in the eye as they drove past…. Hope Santa puts her on his naughty list for that) we eventually get a taxi and drive away from “The Big C”.. Just round the corner by the “other” exit to the shops we pass a load of taxi’s in an actual taxi rank… seems we went out the wrong exit.. Ah well.. We’ll know for next time. It’s dark by now and all the Christmas decorations are all lit up, it looks beautiful…Could I possibly be feeling a little bit festive? We get back to our apartment bloke and are left with the struggle of getting all this shopping into the building, in the lift and up to our apartment… A security guard appears with a shopping trolley… Obviously we’re not the first to hit this particular problem… Shopping put away, trolley returned to the security guard we decide on pizza for tea… Jo orders from the pizza place we went to a while back, the app she ordered off gives a rundown of where our order is… Order received.. In the oven.. Out for delivery… Delivered…. The Out for delivery icon turned green and Jo’s phone rang, it was the delivery scooter person checking where we were.. She told him i’d meet him in reception.. SO off I went, money in hand….
I’d been in reception for a couple of minutes when I scooter appeared and a bloke carrying pizza came walking toward me…At this point another scooter turned up, again form a pizza place…. Bugger. “Is that the order for 306?” I ask the first pizza bloke (the second has wandered off somewhere)..”907" he replies…. “Not mine then” I say I wait outside while her goes and sits in the reception area of our apartment block…. I look at him, he’s wearing the uniform of the place we ordered from, and he’s carrying something that looks like my order.. SO, I go back to him “let me check that receipt again” I say (At this point I remember he doesn’t speak English).. I take the receipt off him.. And then realise i’m not wearing my glasses.. All I can see is a blurred mess of letters and numbers.. Shit… I do a comedic sort of holding the receipt at arms length to try to make out the letters.. Pizza bloke is wondering what exactly is going on and starts to protest “907!”… I’m still essentially robbing him of his receipt… “907” he says again… Thankfully the jumbled blur clears a little and I make out the number 306 on the bottom of the receipt…. “Its is mine I say”.. Throw him 1000 baht and run off with the food…. Back in the apartment I look at the receipt… The food IS ours… The name JOANNE COX is also printed VERY clearly on top of the receipt…. So I eat my pizza feeling like a bit of a dick head… There’s probably a Thai blog somewhere titled “I thought he was going to steal my receipt”.
After food and after a couple hours of relaxing we make our way back to the hotel, to be honest I think we’d have quite happily stayed at the apartment tonight.. But we have to check out tomorrow.. So off to the apartment we go….
Jo has a video call from the boys just before bedtime…. I can’t stop yawning…
Night night.