The Adventure Re-begins, or, There and Back Again

And we’re back…

Hi everyone, and sorry for letting the blog go dormant so long. We settled into a routine (fittingly, my last blog post, nearly a year ago, was about routine), daily life was consistent, and then the U.S. election happened. Anyone who knows me knows where my politics stand, and needless to say, I was rather distraught, and the only thoughts I was able to jot down for a while were based in the negativity associated with the horrible situation unfolding back in the States.

With all that being said, and with a sad form of acceptance that the country I grew up in will likely be beyond repair during the rest of my lifetime, I want to make a concerted effort to bring this blog back to life and focus on the positive parts of my, and my family’s lives. And there is plenty!

This is a long one, so tuck in.

First thing’s first, a recap of the last few weeks, then I’ll try to get into what we’ve been up to over the last year.

We just got back from the U.S! We left Bangkok on July 7, arrived in the States on July 8, and then flew back on the 25th, landing on the 27. Both ends were marked by some solid jetlag. It was a whirlwind tour from Maryland/Virginia, Rochester, NY, and an all-too-brief visit to NYC. We used a service called Trusted House Sitters, where we stayed for free in an absolutely wonderful house in Maryland in exchange for watching three sweet kitties. We were able to visit Kate’s father and his partner, which was lovely as always, as well as Kate’s childhood friends, and our crew from our neighborhood in Virginia. It was weird, and surprisingly difficult to see our house and not be able to go inside as we have tennents renting it (thankfully). Being gone for a year, it was so odd how time seemed to stand still. We slipped right back into things almost like we didn’t leave. Bangkok almost seemed like a dream. Almost like we live two completely separate lives. But we knew the U.S. was a very short visit back into our past lives and dimension. I was also able to hang out with a saxophone friend and picked up a couple new mouthpieces from him that he made for me, which was super fun. Henry got to visit some friends, which was wonderful. It’s not easy for him sometimes, because he really misses his people from the States, and he had a great routine there. He did some rock climbing with one friend, and another hosted our whole family for dinner. It was great. Unfortunately for Miles, his bestie has moved to New Hampshire, so he didn’t get to see him. His mom is a previous colleague and friend of Kate, and the hope is that they pay us a visit in the next year.

And what trip back to America would be complete without the obligatory trips to Costco and Trader Joe’s? We stocked up on a bunch of things we brought back that we can’t find here.

The possibly most important part of the trip, however, was emptying out our storage unit in Virginia, loading everything onto a 20 foot shipping container, and sending it here to Bangkok. Presently, our belongings are somewhere on the Ocean, expected to arrive in early September. Other than our house, we are now fully untethered to the U.S. We had to, again, go through all of our belongings that were still in the states, repack everything more securely, and label every single box, of which there are nearly 60. China sets, cookware, winter clothes, stereo equipment, a fake non-denominational, winter solstice-ish holiday tree, lots of books, memorabilia, and other assorted things. It was a somewhat unpleasant reminder of just how hard it was emptying our house in preparation for the move. Not something I’m looking forward to doing anytime soon.

Now would probably be a good time to mention that we moved out of the apartment building we spent our first year living in, and moved into a lovely house in our most desired neighborhood we wanted to live in. I’ll revisit the house in a bit, but for now, back to our U.S. trip.

After our lovely time the DMV, we made our way north to Rochester to visit my family and, as lucky timing would have it, my 30th high school reunion. It was wild seeing so many faces from so long ago. I hadn’t kept in touch with nearly everyone I saw there. My closest friends that I do keep in touch with weren’t able to make it, but I was able to catch them briefly in NYC later in the week. It was great, though, seeing all my classmates. We had a great class with a bunch of really solid people.

Generally, I think the theme of this trip was largely a big mind fuck. Time is weird. Getting old(er) is weird. As time goes by and you revisit things and having lived full lives, so much swirls through your mind.

We stayed in a lovely AirBnB on a street between Monroe Ave and Park Ave. It was great being able to walk to so much good stuff. We were so busy, we hardly spent any time there.

With my family, the highlight of the trip was going to Niagra Falls. Kate and the boys had never been. We stayed on the American side, which was really wonderful. It’s wild just how close you can get to the falls.

We also went to Canandaigua to visit my Uncle David, my late father’s brother, and Aunt Leslie. I was really happy to see them as David has been dealing with health issues for a while now. It’s so beautiful down in the Finger Lakes. The conversation largely revolved around politics, which is typical when you get Irving men together in the same room. So it was no different with my brother, uncle and me. My mom was able to real the conversation back to other things, and it was great filling everyone in on our lives on the other side of the world.

Our last day in Rochester was spent at SeaBreeze, which is a small but fun amusement park from my childhood. Henry and his cousin Max went with my brother Dan and my mom while Kate and Miles stayed behind to get us packed up for NYC and the impending flight back. After riding the rides, we had a final Rochester dinner at my mom’s apartment with the obligatory Wegmans sub sandwiches.

Bright and early the following day, we hopped in our rental minivan and drove down to NYC. Our hotel was on Bowery in Chinatown. A pretty nice location, as the trains run up to east and west sides. Once we pulled up to the hotel, we parked illegally and feverishly unloaded the car. Kate took the boys up to the room while I drove to midtown-west to return the car, saxophones in towe. After dropping the car off, I made my necessary pilgrimage to JL Woodwinds. This is one of my favorite places on earth. Any saxophone nerd would be in heaven at John’s store. I dropped off my tenor and soprano saxophones, which I schlepped all the way across the planet just to have them tuned-up personally by John.

I made my way back down to the hotel to meet up with my family. I love my boys, but nothing makes a one-time full-fledged New Yorker feel like a tourist like dragging two rambunctious kids through the city. That brief time getting back downtown on the subway by myself was so refreshing and brought me back to so many wonderful years of living there.Oh, NYC, how I miss you!

Once I got back, we took a nice walk to the Manhattan Bridge, and walked about a third of the way across. The boys complained the whole time, naturally.

We then walked to Katz. Going to Katz was a non-negotiable for Kate and me, boys’ complaints be damned! Kate and I shared a Pastrami on Rye, and Matzoh Ball Soup. Henry got a grilled cheese sandwich, and Miles got chicken noodle soup, which he didn’t even try.

As always, the pastrami was transcendent. It’s high on my list of last meals.

After we finished at Katz, we got gelato directly across the street. Henry had a fascination with walking around in the “grid” of NYC, so we made our way up to the nexus of the universe at 1st Ave and E. 1st Street, where we got a slice of Pizza for Miles, and was quickly reminded of just how good NYC pizza is. Random pizza places on nearly every block, and it never disappoints.

We finally made it back to the hotel, where we get the boys ready for bed, and then Kate and I went to the bar downstairs to meet my good friend, George Dulin. George and I go way back to Berklee, and all of my best musical moment include him. It was great catching up, and hearing about how he, his wife and their kids doing so well.

The next day is a bit of a blur. What I recall is going to John’s Pizzeria on Bleeker, which was fabulous, and Henry carving his initials into the table we sat at. We made our way up afterwards to Union Square, where we went to Barnes and Noble, where Henry was in heaven because they have a massive Manga collection. He’s become rather obsessed with Manga recently. After that, we went to Times Square. Henry insisted, as he wanted to go to some comic book stores. I avoid Times Square like the plague, so it was far from my first choice.

After Times Square, we made our way up and over to Hells Kitchen to meet my friends Josh Lawlor, Jon Gala and Rob Penty. These are my close friends I grew up with that weren’t able to make the reunion, so I was thrilled to be able to see them in NYC. We had a lovely dinner, then made our way back to the hotel, where we were thoroughly exhausted, having amassed nearly 20 thousand steps.

Our final day in New York was spent getting breakfast at a great little diner, and going to FAO Schwartz and the Lego Store. Naturally, as we exited the subway to walk to the hotel, we were caught in a downpour and were all drenched. We’d already checked out of our room, so that was great being stuck in wet clothes.

Our car came soon thereafter, and we were on our way to the airport.

Whew. I’m exhausted just thinking about it. Thankfully, the next time we go back to the States, we don’t have a storage unit to worry about, so the full time will be spent visiting and doing fun stuff.

So what have we been up to during our first year in Bangkok? Honestly, life here isn’t that different than what it was in the U.S. Routine rules all. The only major exception to day-to-day life is me not holding down a job and being a house husband.

Kate is up bright and early every day, and is the first to leave to get to school, where she needs to be by 7am everyday. I get the boys up around 6:45, get them fed and make sure they get dressed and ready to go. Now that we’ve moved into a house, I’ll need to drive the boys in to school and pick them up at the end of the day. As a sign of our attempt to assimilate into Thai life, Kate just bought a cute little electric bike so she doesn’t need to rely on my for a ride to school. It tops out at 45km/h, which is more than enough as the streets she will take to get to school rarely ever have traffic going above 35km/h. On days when Miles has football practice early, he’ll go with Kate on the back of the bike.

Henry decided he wasn’t a fan of basketball, so he switched over to the Badminton team, which seems to be more of his cup of tea. I had taken him rock climbing a few times, but I know nothing about climbing, so I inquired at one of the gyms we were going to about coaching or a team. As luck would have it, we were introduced to the head coach of the Thai youth national climbing team. So Henry has been training with him for a few months now, which has been great. Despite the language barrier, he’s learning a lot. This coach is a real stickler for technique, and finding the best route using the least possible effort to get to the top of the wall. Reading routes is paramount for him, and it seems like it’s rubbing off on Henry.

Miles continued playing football, and is definitely getting better. He also did Taekwondo, which he seemed to enjoy. He’s also taking piano lessons with the wife of the music teacher at the school, who is a fabulous pianist, and excellent teacher. He has also discovered a love for engineering and robotics, so we’re trying to sign him up for as many school activities related to that as possible.

Kate is an invaluable resource at School. She probably has more institutional knowledge about the BASIS program than anyone there. Although she’s officially the College Counselor, she wears several hats, and loves imparting knowledge to the rest of the team. She really loves her job, which is great, and makes all other aspects of living in Thailand easier.

As for me? I’ve been pretty devoted to getting to the gym on a regular basis weight training. With all this time on my hands, getting myself into a better state of physical fitness is tremendously important. I’m only a year younger than my dad when he passed, which is something that always weighs heavily on my mind, especially as it relates to my sons. My folks had kids a lot younger than I did, so my time with my kids is invaluable, and I don’t take it for granted. I’ve also been playing football on Wednesday nights with parents and staff from the school, which has been super fun.

I have also been playing my saxophone almost everyday. I don’t know if I’d classify what I’m doing as practicing, but I do think I’m getting better. I just need to try and get out to see what the scene is like around Bangkok. I sat in with a fabulous drummer a few times who had a steady gig at one of the swanky hotels in town, but he is moving to Japan to be with his wife. The scene here seems to be dominated largely by local Thai musicians, with fewer ex-pats than there used to be. I think it’s pretty great, but it also feels a bit more challenging to try to break in as a farang (the term used for foreigner here in Thailand).

My other source of occupying my time has been baking. During the middle of the year, I started selling sourdough bread and bagels to Kate’s co-workers. That was a lot of fun, and a nice, albeit small, supplement to our income. In the house we are renting, there is no built-in oven. I just yesterday purchased a countertop oven. Kind of like a supersized toaster oven. But it seems to work well. I’ll put it through its paces in a couple days when I have time to make sourdough.

One thing I’m most excited about having a house is that I was able to get an outdoor propane powered pizza oven. I really missed making pizza, so this really made me happy.

Another exciting thing we did is got our Thai drivers licences and rented a car! That’s right! I’m driving in Thailand! Right side of the car, left side of the road. It took some getting used to, but once I got the hang of it, I actually prefer driving here rather than the U.S. There is more of a natural flow to driving here, I find. Honking is exceedingly rare. People cut in all the time, but it’s expected, and people just accept it. The motorcycle and scooter drivers are absolutely insane. It’s not uncommon to see families of three, or even four, on a single bike. And they are fearless. Traffic, especially downtown, can be horrible. Rush hour is particularly bad, and if it rains, forget it. You're best just staying put where you are for another hour. On the street that leads to our housing community, there are two large 4-way intersections. There are no stop signs! It’s this dance to try and figure out if it’s your turn to go. Typically, a string of cars goes through each way at a time, then the other side goes, etc…

One thing we wanted to do while we’re out here is travel. As a family, we have made it to a few places around southern Thailand. Hua Hin was my favorite. It’s a lovely beach town with good shopping, and a decent amount of good western food. We also went to Kanchanaburi when my mom came to visit in January. That was a lot of fun. We got to walk across the Bridge over River Kwai. We also went to an elephant sanctuary and got to swim with the elephants. The week before my mom visited, we went to the Philippines to visit Kate’s brother, Glen, in Baler Beach. It was a super long drive to get there from the airport, but we had a great time. Glen has opened a bar and brewery. We helped him can something like 500 cans of beer, and the boys really had a lot of fun doing that. Henry went surfing, and we took some beautiful hikes.

We hope to get to Japan over Christmas time this year, and hopefully pop around more countries in Southeast Asia. Kate has done more traveling solo for work. She went to South Korea and Singapore for conferences, and chaperoned a student trip to Shanghai, China in June.

The boys both finished the school year strong, and got really good grades, which Kate and I are really proud about. BASIS is a really challenging curriculum, and not everyone is cut out for it, so we’re really happy they are doing so well.

School wrapped up in mid June, and Kate was at work through the end of the month. We had decided around February that we wanted to move out of the apartment that the school put us up in. We didn’t want to share an elevator anymore, and just have more space and privacy. We looked for a few months, but couldn’t find anything that was exactly what we were looking for. But, as luck would have it (and we seem to have more than our share of good luck), one of Kate’s co-workers has a friend who owned a house in our the neighborhood we most wanted to live in. There are very few housing communities within a 5 to 10 minute drive to school. Only one that we actually know of. So Kate’s ccolleague let us know about the house that had just become available. We went to look at it, and it was perfect for us. Exactly what we were looking for. Three bedrooms, three full bathrooms. A nice indoor kitchen. Lots of closet space. Great outdoor space. And it was within our budget for the housing allowance we receive from school. We jumped on it and moved in the last week of June. We’re pretty close to being fully settled, but we have our shipping container on its way. I’m quite nervous because there is a lot of stuff in that container! I’m assuming we’ll still purge a lot of stuff here as we gradually go through it all. But it’ll be nice to have all of our stuff back with us.

So that pretty much covers what’s been up over the last year, more or less. I’m sure I’m leaving out a bunch of other stuff, but it’s too much to try and remember for the blog right now.

I guess to summarize, life is life. Shit needs to get done, regardless of where you live. School, work, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc… But I like it here. People are lovely, but I always feel like I’m floating somewhere in the periphery, and never really immersed in life here. I imagine that will be the case until I ever learn the language. Thais are lovely people, and very welcoming and quick to want to help, and incredibly nice and friendly. There is always a sense, however, that it’s hard to break into the inner workings of life here if you’re not from it originally. I suppose that’s likely the case in almost anywhere in the world, though. This just happens to be the first place I’ve lived outside the U.S.