home alive

I'm home alive and well. The tv's in the back of economy were broken so I had to read, sleep or watch the TV 200 feet up the aisle for the 9 hour flight from Tokyo to SF. But that's pretty well the biggest highlight of the trip home. I got in at 8 this morning (Weds, Mar 22). I left Bangkok at 6 this morning (Weds Mar 22). Go figure! I thought about going to work, but have decided other things are more important. Namely that I only had 42 pages left in my 679 page book, so I finished that up and just in case anybody wants to know, the judge was corrupt but his son burns the disk at the end and the butler was innocent.

I wanted to list a few things that I've appreciated or chuckled at this morning:

1. After a month in places such as Cambodia and Laos, known for civil unrest, mass killings, significant restrictions on personal freedoms, and police corruption, to name a few, the first time I have even heard of any sort of police action is at the San Francisco airport BART station: "All trains will be delayed 15 minutes due to a police action at the West Oakland BART station". Nice to be home.

2. I walked home from the 24th St. BART station with my rolling backpack and another bag strapped on top. I crossed all intersections at intersections with lights. All streets were paved. There were no open sewers large enough to swallow you whole. No scooters or tuk-tuks tried to run me over. I didn't hear a single horn. And every intersection had handicap ramps so my bags never had to be picked up. It was all really quite boring.

3. I very much enjoyed going home and having a glass of water from the tap without worrying about whether the result will be a forced close proximity to the toilet for the next couple days.

4. I went to the bath room and didn't have to bring my own toilet paper and wonder whether there would be a hole in the ground or an actual toilet seat. (note that I also used an excessive amount of toilet paper and disposed of it in the toilet!!)

5. It took me about 45 minutes at home before I made a break for a mid-morning veggie burrito at Cancun on 28th St. The similarities and differences between the Mexican (e.g., salsas) and Thai spices (e.g., curries) are quite interesting. I think both are great, but damn that was a good burrito!! To keep costs under control, I had a glass of water (from a pitcher on the counter with ice, again not worrying about the toilet issue), yet the meal still cost me well over my Thai daily spending allowance for food.

6. Page 3 of the SF Chronicle has a big article about the protests over the Thai Prime Minister and the upcoming elections - I wasn't sure if it was getting any coverage here. Will be interesting to see where this goes...

7. I had a Cafe Au Lait earlier and, now, having changed coffee shops for variety in life, I am having a Chai Latte. These two drinks together cost the same as any of the below:

- an hour long Thai massage
- a typical lunch and dinner in Thailand, breakfast too if alcohol is not ordered
with the meals (breakfast usually has non-alcoholic shakes)
- a good day's wage in Thailand
- a good week's wage in Cambodia
- the cost of my half hour taxi ride to the Bangkok airport yesterday morning
(which was actually this morning in a literal sense)

8. The thought of work tomorrow is quite depressing...