Countdown ...3, 2 ...

Yes, the countdown continues with only two weeks to go before we head off to Hanoi and then welcome our international visitors. We just can't wait. 

In the meantime, I went to pay our internet / TV / Phone bill the other day. Yes, they're all with the same provider but of course, they have to send us separate bills. Why? Who knows. Anyway, there's a self service booth at the shop. Helpfully it even has the instructions in English, you know like "scan bar-code here", "insert bank note here" and my favourite "kiosk doesn't give back change". So you'd think this was a pretty simple operation, right? Wrong. Think again - This is Thailand or TiT as I like to say for various reasons (say it out loud, you'll get it). When you arrive at the shop, you are warmly greeted by a member of staff. They're very smiley but there's not a massive command of the English language. These lovely staff members tend to direct you read foreign people to the self-service machine presumably because the counter staff have no English either.

Anyway, you can't operate the self-service machine ... yourself. You need to have a member of staff operate the self-service machine. Not only that, but because the machine doesn't give change, the member of staff goes to the counter staff and gives them the money you've handed over in order to get change. The member of staff then gives you your change and feeds the correct money into the self-service machine. Awesome!


All this excitement however is tinged with sadness as we have to say goodbye to the lovely Chantal next week. She's been an awesome addition to the Chan community and we wish her well in her next endeavour. Naturally, we spent the afternoon with our colouring-in books for some quality time. 

Orla cooking flat breads

In order to celebrate properly and there's a few other events planned, a few of us had a home cooked dinner on Saturday night and much game playing ensued. Games like bananagrams and apologies for the language shithead card game. If you've never played these games then use the links to find out how they work. There was a lot of fun and a lot of laughter.