We had a fun day of school today finishing up the group reading of The One and Only Ivan by watching the Disney film from last year. Apparently they do this in public school as well (i.e., read a book and then watch a film adaptation). The kids loved the movie and the teachers thought it was OK.
We also started our unit on major world religions. We’ll be seeing a lot of religious sites from many faiths on our travels and we decided it made sense to give the kids a grounding in what those religions are and why the sites we’ll see are important. Today was Christianity since Christmas is coming up. Next is Buddhism which is practiced by 95% of the population of Thailand.
After school, Brian wanted to go to the householdwares store that Tiffany saw on a previous outing. To his delight Suaram (@suaramj) accepted the offer to join him for the errands.
In Southeast Asia, the primary shared transport service is Grab. They recently purchased all of Uber Southeast Asia operations so they are widely available in Thailand.
Brian and Suaram summoned a Grab driver for the 15 minute ride to the store (cost was 110 baht/~$3) who pulled up in a well maintained Toyota Yaris. The driver had the app on his phone on the dashboard. The ride looked and felt exactly like an Uber.
The home goods store had a strong resemblance to a Bed, Bath & Beyond but also had a considerable hardware section if you wanted to hang some windows or tile your bathroom. We bought a gift for Tiffany which they kindly gift-wrapped for us.
Part of the reason for the excursion was to make a few small investments in our AirBnB house. As we’ve said before, we don’t mind doing it, these are things that can save your sanity when you’re spending weeks in a place. Brian got two small cushions for the couch to improve back support and some felt pads for the bottom of the kitchen chairs. To date they shriek and squeak on the tile floor whenever someone slides in or out. There no way we wanted to endure that for a month during meals and school.
Across the parking lot was a larger indoor mall where a fantastic food court awaited. Suaram saw a McDonald’s stall in the food court but kindly said to her father, “I’m not choosing that place because I know that you wouldn’t like it.”
And what happened then? Well in Chiang Mai they say, that Brian’s small heart grew 3 sizes that day. (apologies to Dr. Seuss)
They ate two plates of shrimp fried rice from a well-deserving lady with a small booth who charges 50 baht a plate (~$1.50).
It wasn’t an official Daddy-Daughter date as they really only did things that Brian wanted to do but at least Suaram got to eat a bread-loaf-sized bag of cotton candy. It only cost 20 baht and can’t be shown here today because it was consumed too fast for flash photography.
5 Adventures Together 