Floodpocalypse!

Well, it is starting to sound like the flooding of Bangkok is inevitable and that the only question is how bad will the flooding get. Everyone in Bangkok seems to be in full crisis mode:

Buying stores out of food and water. It is pretty much impossible to find any bottled water in the city. Eric and I stopped at Tesco Lotus in Pattaya before we came back to Bangkok earlier this week, and even they were running low on water. The stores today were packed full of people stocking up on supplies.

It's a bad sign when the overpriced imported foods are almost gone.

Scrambling to find parking for their cars. Our condo parking structure which is usually mostly empty, is packed full of cars. People are even using the elevated expressway as a giant parking structure, which is really hampering the evacuation of some areas in outer Bankgok.

Yes, those are cars PARKED on the expressway.

Building extensive sandbag walls. Last week, very few businesses in Bangkok had sandbags in front of their buildings. Now it seems like they are ALL working to protect their property from the impending flood.

Same wall in front of Silom complex from my last post

I am not too proud to admit that I've also gone crazy this week preparing for the floods. I think it's the inner Girl Scout in me that worries about not being prepared. So during the last few days I've done my best to cover all of my bases:

Stockpile of non-perishable food including dried fruit to prevent scurvy:

Check

ALL the essentials...

Bathtub full of water to use for washing and flushing toilets:

Check

Every possible container filled with boiled tap water:

Check

Purchase a butane stove and plenty of fuel canisters:

Check

I think that my paranoia about not being prepared also stems from the fact that I am now in Bangkok alone. Since the manufacturing plant where Eric works is currently under three meters of water, he is now on a plane back to Wisconsin to help the manufacturing plant there ramp up production. So, I have to deal with the floods on my own, but I think I have enough supplies and support from friends to make it though this. 

This is going to be an interesting weekend I think...

Batten Down the Hatches- Preparing for Floods in Bangkok

Bangkok is currently in preparation mode as flood waters from the north move closer and rain continues to fall. In our neighborhood, life seems to be going on as normal, with a few exceptions:

Shop owners building a concrete wall in front of a shop along Rama IV

Lumpini MRT station with new steel gates on the windows

Pile of sandbags outside the Silom Complex 

Nearly empty shelves at the local grocery store

While things may be deceptively calm here in our neighborhood, we are still contemplating going south to get away from the floods.

In a related note, the manufacturing plant where Eric works is currently under six feet of water. The flood waters broke through levee after levee and inundated the entire industrial park. We are still not sure what that exactly means for us and our stay here in Thailand. Hopefully, we will have some answers soon.

Image from The MacLeod Thaimes

If you are the praying type, please pray for all of the families that have been affected by these floods. Entire cities are currently underwater and the devastation is so immense, it is kind of hard to comprehend. 

If you are looking for up to date news about the flooding in Thailand and you are on Twitter- @RichardBarrow and #ThaiFloodEng are great sources of information.

The Epic Search for IPA

I have a confession to make- Eric and I are beer snobs. Which is funny considering that we spent many an hour during the beginning of our relationship drinking $1 pints of Coors Light and solving all of the world's problems. Now that we are older, and wiser we've come to the realization that the saying "Life's too short to drink crappy beer" is all too true.

Luckily, we lived in Wisconsin- one of the best states for great micro and craft breweries. We could go to almost any restaurant and they would have at least 10 different beers on tap, and these would be good beers not just Miller or Budweiser. The grocery stores were filled with beer not only from Wisconsin, but from all over the United States. Plus, in our city there was a home brew supply store where Eric could get supplies to brew his own beer.

* Wisconsin- Home of the World's Largest Six Pack!

 * Photo courtesy of World Largest Roadside Attractions- an awesome site!

Of course not all of the beer we liked was cheep, many a family gathering was filled with light hearted teasing from our relatives who couldn't understand why anyone would pay $12 for a six pack of beer. We in turn complemented them on their choice of beer flavored water. 

More often than not, our go-to beer would be an IPA or India Pale Ale. For those of you who haven't tried this drink of the gods, I weep for you. It has an intense hop flavor due to the extreme amount of hops used in the brewing process. It is definitely an acquired taste, but once you are hooked all other beers pale in comparison. ( Did you see what I did there?)

Flash forward to our arrival in Bangkok. During our preparations for moving overseas I spent many hours reading expat blogs and forums- so I knew that finding IPA beer in Bangkok would be difficult. I just never realized just how difficult it would be.

Our first place to look for IPA was at the usual place people go to look for beer- local bars. After some searching on the interwebs we were able to find two bars that might carry IPA. Our first stop was at "The Londoner Brew Pub", a bar on Sukhumvit Soi 23. The Londoner actually brews it's own beer at the pub and one of the beers is a Cream Bitter, which we thought might be somewhat similar to an IPA since hops have a bitter taste. Boy were we wrong. The beer itself was pretty good, but it was absolutely nothing like an IPA. So that was strike one.


Our next attempt was at a bar called "The Office" which is located off of Sukhumvit Soi 33. We read on a couple of expat blogs and forums that they carry an IPA. This interesting excursion did not lead to an IPA beer ( the forums mistakenly called a Pale Ale beer IPA- completely different beers, people) it did lead to us experiencing something that I knew existed in Bangkok, but had yet to see for myself. 

When you walk into "The Office" the first thing you see is a long bar. Instead of the usual selection of booze and beer you find behind most bars, this one had a selection of scantily clad women wearing numbers. The actual bar with all of the alcohol was shoved into the corner out of the way. So while we were drinking our Pale Ales we could watch beautiful Thai women do exciting things, like text on their phones and talk to each other. Of course, we did go at 6:00 in the evening, so I am sure it is much more exciting later at night. 


So that was strike two.

Strike three came when we attempted to find IPA in the grocery stores. Bangkok actually has quite a few grocery stores that cater to expats and carry a wide selection of imported goods we can't live without- like Doritos and salsa. We searched high and low, asking everyone we met if they knew of a place to buy IPA beer, but our search came up empty.

We did find Boone's Farm though. Notice the anti-theft devices

Stay tuned for the thrilling ( I swear it will be thrilling) conclusion to our Epic Search for an IPA...

The Big 3-0

National Stadium BTS stop/MBK Mall at Sunset

This weekend I celebrated my 30th birthday. I can honestly say I never thought I would celebrate the big 3-0 in Thailand! On Friday I was able to spend the entire day with Eric because we had to go to the Immigration Office to get a work permit. We arrived there at 8:30 in the morning and spent most of our time sitting in uncomfortable chairs as Jintana, the HR person from Eric's work ran from line to line, making sure we had the correct paperwork and the correct payments.

We finished with everything around 3:30 and headed back to the apartment for a quick swim before our friends Greg, Mary and Suwat came to pick us up for the night. We went to a German Restaurant located along Sukhumvit Road, the main expat area of Bangkok. The food was wonderful and the German beer was excellent! After dinner, Suwat took us to the Royal City Avenue (RCA) Entertainment Area. It is a street filled with different bars and clubs. We went to Route66. They had a couple of great Thai bands playing. They mostly played Thai music, but every so often they would sing English songs like "Billionaire." It was a lot of fun, and of course I forgot to take pictures, but there are some on Mary's blog.

On Saturday Eric and I had dinner at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar. This was our third time eating at the bazaar and this time we decided to try the beer garden out. The beer garden was similar to many of the food courts found in Bangkok. You exchange your money for coupons and then you can select food from any of the vendors that surround the seating area. There were several large projection screens showing soccer as well as a stage in the front where several bands performed. They had some awesome dance moves that reminded us of our brother- in- law Matt.

Food vendors at the Chang Beer Garden

On Sunday, Eric and I decided to do some shopping at MBK, a mega mall. We spent quite some time searching for a store that carried "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" an awesome TV show that we both love. Unfortunately, it seems like there are some things you CAN'T find at MBK. We did end up getting the fist seasons of Chuck and Dexter, so now we have something to watch when HBO is showing "Lost Boys: The Tribe" for the 20th time. We finished up the night eating room service and watching TV.  It was the perfect way to end a great birthday weekend.