Intermittent Internet

All good things come with a price. For example, this morning we took a Tuktuk to the Grand Palace. The tuktuk was so fun but we were black from exhaust fumes by the time we made it there. Another example, the Grand Palace is “knock your socks off amazing” but there are lots of scammers and pick pockets in the area.

After the Grand Palace, and losing 2lbs in sweat, we walked to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha. Holy heck, that was a large, gilt Buddha. Words can’t describe the ornateness of the building and the Buddha within. I’m thinking of taking up Buddhism because of it.

We went to “MBK” for lunch. MBK is actually an acronym for this huge shopping centre. It’s about 7 floors and each floor is for something else – housewares, clothes, electronics, etc. Very overwhelming. We found a voltage converter, which we bargained down to $7. When we got it home and plugged it in however, it started billowing smoke and now my next to new iPod speaker doesn’t work anymore. (Honestly, who knew such a little electrical appliance could smoke so much. WTF?)

The apartment has let me down slightly as well. Just after the converter debacle I noticed a cockroach on the wall. Furthermore, we have been stealing internet from an unsecured wireless network. Jess seems to always get on easily – she has even been able to Skype her family. However, whenever she hands it to me the internet goes down. And finally, this must be the noisiest apartment in the whole world - we leave the windows open for a cross breeze but the street traffic makes you think there are trucks coming through the front door

We continued the apartment hunt today. We can honestly say we have beat the pavement looking. We went to about 10 places in the area of the school asking if they had vacancies. Either they only had 3 bedrooms available, or none available, or they were just too expensive. (You can tell the kind of place you are going into by looking at the cars in the parking lot – don’t expect anything under 50000 Baht if there are Mercedes or Ferraris in the parking garage.)

Well, I should wrap this up because we are meeting some people at a pub in an hour. Hopefully dinner and drinks doesn’t come with any downfalls. I will be sure to let you know if it does though.