Orientation Day

Khun Angela (Khun means Miss in this case but can also be used for Mr. or Mrs.), one of our relocation consultants from our moving company here in Thailand, came up to Korat to meet with us on our first day here. She is a really friendly Thai girl and is very helpful. Angela is her nickname and it seems most people in Thailand go by a nickname, we even know a Tom, Joe, Cherry and Cartoon! Angela had to go through our move in check list (making sure everything is clean and working properly) and then she took us around Korat and gave us a little tour. We had done this with her once before when we came for our "look see" trip. First, she took us to a pottery village outside of Korat called Dan Kwain. It was a really neat place and if you come visit us I will take you there! They have all sorts of handmade and hand painted pottery for so cheap! We ended up buying a wall plaque that has elephants on it and is painted bronze... it's really pretty and cost us maybe $4! Then she took us to another village east of Korat called Pak Thong Chai. Pak Thong Chai is known for it's silk... they have a huge silk factory where you can see how the silk is made and then a store where you can buy yards of silk or already made garments.

Afterwards, Angela took us to a restaurant for lunch. We went to a place Chris and I never would have stopped at on our own. For one, it's a shack on a lake with picnic tables outside (that also means a lot of bugs), so it's definitely traditional Thai food and they don't have an English or picture menu which we have to look for when we are on our own. Angela ordered a whole bunch of different foods for us to try which is always fun, because a lot of it, I wouldn't have dared to order and it's not half bad. She never believes Chris when he tells her he LOVES spicy food... that hotter the better... I even told her how I dared him to eat a whole bowl of jalapenos at once, and she still didn't believe us! :) She had one dipping sauce that she kept keeping away from us and said we didn't want to try it... Chris thought she was saying it was because it was too spicy so of course he kept trying to get it from her. Come to find out it's made from a certain type of bug! She wasn't sure how to explain it to us, but just hearing it was from a bug was enough to turn me off... Chris had to try it anyway. He said it wasn't bad... but then again he is looking forward to trying the fried grasshoppers at the next market we go to! Tom Yum soup (a spicy lemon grass soup) is by far my favorite thing here! Thai people put meat in everything. At home I would normally order things with chicken... not so much here... they put different cuts of chicken in different things. The cashew chicken is delicious but Tom Yum Gai (Gai means chicken) is disgusting! They just chop up the whole chicken, skin bones and all and throw it into the pot! I now learned that whenever I order anything just to order it "goong" which means shrimp, then I can pick the shrimp out and give them to Chris! :)

After lunch, we went to the IT mall (there are like 10 different malls in Korat alone) and got new cell Thai cellphones! I am so glad Angela was there... I don't know how we would have figured that out on our own! They didn't speak any English and we only know what Supot has taught us in Thai. :) Plus, cell phones work a lot differently here. The phones are expensive like they are in the States (if you want a good one), but the minutes are extremely cheap. We had to buy "pay as you go" phones to start since Chris doesn't have his work permit yet, but Angela said if we want to, she can easily change them over to a monthly plan once he gets it.

Our last stop of the day was to Tesco Lotus where we spent almost 4 hours going through every aisle! Tesco Lotus is the Super Walmart of Thailand. We needed to buy supplies for our house and it was great having Angela there to explain to us all the different foods and what they are. Some things are written in English but most are written in Thai... a lot of times it is easy to figure out what something is, but other times it's a challenge.

Angela is coming back in a few days to take us to get our Thai bank account! That should be interesting!