My last post summarized my feelings about the many transitions I’ve had this year and just being really glad to have gotten to the end of the school year. But I’ve also had friends and family ask, What’s it like living in Thailand?
For starters, covid is still coviding and although many countries are opening up and people are getting their vaccinations, that’s happening here too, but at a much slower pace. There are still various lockdowns and thee cases per day are still fairly high…1600+ cases as of June 28th in Bangkok and 157 cases in Saraburi.
In Bangkok though, I don’t feel that my personal day to day movements are impacted. Malls, grocery stores and businesses that I frequent are still open, but reduced open hours. Gyms, pools and other entertainment are also closed too. It was a good thing we went to the movies when we did because I hadn’t been in a theatre since Aquaman came out!
The day to day experience and energy of a person living in a country is different than when you’re there as a short term visitor. When you’re on vacation, you want to take in as many sights, sounds, food and other unique experiences given your limited time. When you know or at the very least feel like you have more time, you don’t try to squeeze all these things into one or two weeks of living in a place. When I used to tell people I’m from The Bahamas, I would see the glee in their eyes wishing they could only visit for the taste of paradise that is my home. And there is a sense of pride I feel when I say where I’m from, but my living experience is definitely not the vacation experience.
Back in my undergrad, when I would visit home for the summer, most times I would have to squeeze in catching up with friends and family in between work, because I needed to work and save money. I could not afford to just chill the whole summer, definitely not in Nassau.
But I say that to say, that most of my days are filled with the mundane stuff. Visiting temples isn’t my jam like that and hanging out in malls leads to unnecessary spending. I also don’t live all that close to any parks, which only recently opened. But again, covid is still coviding so I’m not tryna be all over the place, really.
I’m not all about galavantin’ and spunglin’. I’m home, in loungewear scrolling through FoodPanda for different foods to try for dinner. Tonight’s dinner is prawn curry with white rice and coleslaw.
The living part of living in a foreign country is creating a new routine and finding joy in the little things and fun in the mundane. The other day I saw a sea grape tree while walking home. That was exciting because I would have never thought of all the (what I presume to be native Bahamian) things to find while walking the city, that it would be that since I live no where near a beach.
Speaking of beaches, I’ve not been to any beaches here (yet). I hope to do so one day, for comparison sake… we Bahamians feel like only us have good beaches (lol).
So yeah…no crazy adventures here except the occasional moment of getting lost trying to find a place and then having to take a moto taxi to get there before the rain comes down. But that works for me. Could I do more, I’m sure, but for now this is good.
Life of Neu 