Welcome to our Home

Welcome! The time has finally come for the grand tour of our new home in Nonthaburi, Thailand. When we moved in on October 17 the apartment was furnished with the bed/sheets, desk/chair, and wardrobe. We asked the school to provide a fridge and sofa, which were later added. The first few days Josh and I made trips to the Big C Supercenter (similar to a Wal-Mart or Target) to outfit our new place with necessities and some food items. Each day it looks and feels more like home. We won't lie - we were a quite cultured shocked when moving in by the size and amenities of our new home. It took a few days of settling in before culture shock of this apartment subsided.

Our apartment building is on a very busy 6-lane street, this was another culture shock moment - much different from our quiet road at home. We use a walkover bridge to get to the other side of the street. It is nice to live by the bus stop. Because of the busy road we can catch a bus to go pretty much where ever we want. We've also learned how to read the Thai word for 'free' so we try to use this buses often! Other non-air buses can cost 6-8 baht, and air bus costs 12 baht - the free bus is non-air but it's free!





 

 Street Food! Behind them are the stores and hole-in-the-wall places.








The busy street is also great because of all the street food venders and little hole-in-the-wall restaurant type places. So we have many different options for good cheap meals and snacks! It is a little difficult knowing what to order or what is in the food, but we get by. Pointing and knowing a little Thai can go a long ways - and pictures or seeing the food is very helpful! Most food we've had so far has been very good - only a few misses. 7-11 is on one side and coffee shop and ice cream on the other - these could be dangerous! haha

Sunrise off our patio

We live on the 6th floor, the top floor, of our building. A security guard is always on duty at the main entrance, which is only accessible by electronic key. To do laundry we bring it down to the ground floor, this is a parking garage (no doors- all open air), ice cream stand and open-air food-cart restaurant. The machines are quite ancient looking but they work. We then bring it up to dry on our patio - it doesn't take long in the hot sun, and it actually takes out many wrinkles! Dishes are done with the tap on our patio.

 

Our school is just a five minute walk down the busy street - it's FILLED with uniformed school children from one of the 3 schools in the area. Near our school, boy/girl scouts direct street and foot traffic in uniforms, white gloves and whistles. Further down the street, 10 minute walk or short bus ride, is our gym. That's right we've joined a gym! We get the feeling its a high-class club on the 10-12 floors of a highrise service apartment complex. It has all the cardio and weights but also classes (took our first one today!), tennis, badminton, squash (we'd discovered we need to practice this one - fun though!), outdoor swimming pool (nice on the 95+ days!), sauna, steam room and full service locker rooms. It feels good to be able to workout again - even though it's not on the empty gravel road at home. Because our apartment is so small it's also nice to have another place to spend our time.

The busy bustling neighborhood has many new interesting sights, sounds, and smells but...

Somehow we've made this place our home. :)