Hello Bangkok!

We left Hong Kong on a very "peaceful" note. We packed and repacked out luggage and weighted and calculated carefully which ones to check in. We were able to fly without paying any penalty! I love Hong Kong every time I go there. Good food, polite people, endless shopping... even though I hate shopping.

We have been staying at my aunt and uncle's house and received numerous generosity from them and cousins. We spent the last four days searching for an apartment. They said we could stay in the house for as long as we want. It is a big house but it is in the outskirt and if you don't know what traffic jam is until you come here. Last night, we saw the biggest monsoon in our lives. It poured and poured and didn't stop till 11 am this morning. Brent went out for a walk (I didn't like walking in dirty flooded streets, I mean really dirty as tons of street dogs roam around), and at one point of the street, it was connecting to the swamp and flooded and fish were swimming on the street river. Anyway come back to the traffic - we had dinner with two friends (will talk about them next) and one offered us a ride home as it was pouring and he lives 10 minutes away. It's usually a 30 minute drive, it took us over 90 minutes to get home.

Back to the apartment search. The house we are staying in is a big old house, and no internet (I'm in an internet cafe in THE MALL) and it has a yard like a tropical jungle. I stood in front of the door talking to my uncle for two minutes, and got a mosquito bite on my toe! I put repellent on mind you. Dangee fever is bad right now and the mosquitoes carry them feed during the day too...

OK, apartment. Since the dollar has devalued to the Baht, the rent here is more expensive than before, to Americans. We looked at so many apartments and our head spinned. Nice ones are expensive, even the ones that are not cheap would have roaches or crumbs on mattress. Ha, shows us that we don't have kids. Or some are in sleazy streets with tons of bar-girls hanging out. We received quite a bit of help from my cousins and their friends, as we don't speak Thai and less people than foreigners think speak English to a level that can understand our needs (such as wired high speed internet, not wireless etc). One friend Sam took us across the river to the building he used to live in. And then my cousin's wife called two days ago and said Sam mentioned a friend Ray in their church has two apartments for rent, though they are far from public transit, he would rent them out to us for cheap. Ray wasn't around till yesterday to show us the apartments. One of them was a penthouse unit with great view. He would rent it to us at less than 1/3 of market price which meets our budget! It's more than what we could have imagined or asked for. God is good!

Ray is a business man and used to be very superstitious (in his own words). When he heard about any new pretty temple coming up, he would go to pay respect. Then something happened to his family two years ago and he became a Christian. He sees now that all his possessions are gifts from God, and he gives them out generously and doesn't hold back. So we hope our friends come to visit and stay with us, that we can spread this grace around.