Feeding Elephants in Thailand

Elephants in Thailand

During our visit to Khon Kaen, we stumbled upon an elephant and his owner. He allowed my girls to feed the elephant for a small fee. My girls have been wanting to meet a real elephant and we're so excited for this great experience. Check out my pics and video below. 

Immigration office trip, Khon Kaen

Trip to immigration office

Khon Kaen, Thailand

My family and I took a trip to the immigration office in Khon Kaen this weekend to get a 90 day visa extension. The trip was altogether successful but we did hit some roadblocks along the way. On the way there, we had two flat tires, my front tire and my husband's back tire. Luckily there are little bike shops strategically situated on the road. They are pretty much everywhere and thankfully it only takes about 10 minutes and 100 baht to get it done and back on the road. Once we got to the office, we had to fill out some paperwork and get some copies of our documents.  The whole process worked out very well and went smooth. The workers speak enough English to get by and are very clear as to what they wanted us to fill out. I really like Khon Kaen. They have good food and it's pretty easy to find western food. We ate McDonald's for lunch and had pizza at the hotel for dinner. Below are some pictures from our short trip.  

Ballet in Thailand

Yes There Are Ballet Studios For Expats In Thailand!

Before I moved to Thailand, I researched ballet studios in my area. I could not find anything and started getting worried because Rose is obsessed with ballet. When I got to my city, a coworker at the school told me there was a ballet down the road. I also found out there was another ballet studio for a total of 2. I went to sign up my girls and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they speak English.  It's not the best but I can communicate well with them. There are many people who can speak English in my city but most do not. I have pretty much learned a little bit of Thai to get by. Anyway, the studio offered to teach private lessons to my girls at no additional cost. Wow! I was astonished. They are very advanced and know what they are doing as my girls have been in ballet back in the states. I'm very pleased with the whole thing and am so glad I signed them up. It costed 1800 baht per uniform per kid and 1400 baht per kid per month. My girls go once a week for an hour. The school is called I school ballet but they do not advertise and are not found online. Although they are on "line". You can download "line" from the play store. Here are some pics. 

Making food in Thailand for your kids

Food in Thailand

My girls do not like Thai food at all so I have to make due with American food the best I can. A lot of people say Thai food is wonderful. I've tried a lot of it and only like a select few things. We have a supermarket called the Big C similar to Walmart and a Tesco Lotus like the Big C but smaller. They don't have much food there as far as ingredients. We have to be very creative. Thankfully we are. We have to be especially creative because we don't have an oven. We only have a hotplate, microwave, and we just bought a pressure cooker. Some food we have made in Thailand so far- rice and beans, stir fry, cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, minestrone soup, pizza sandwiches, fried mushrooms, peanut butter and jelly, nutella sandwiches, fried chicken, shredded bbq chicken sandwiches, fried rice, fried noodles, eggs, eggs-the mess, hard boiled eggs, egg salad sandwiches, homemade French fries, and of course spaghetti with garlic bread. I know there are other options but I just haven't discovered them yet.

 2 liter and 1.5 liter

 shredded bbq chicken, beans, and homemade coleslaw

 Thai fruit salad

 Thai salad

supermarket

Thai street cart vendors