jaywalker2

Didn't the former government pass a law requiring social media companies to delete accounts when requested? I know I had a former account deleted (that's what they told me anyway)

Thaksin's behind it.

That will never happen. There are hundreds of thousands of condos in Bangkok that can't find long-term tenants so they turn them into Airbnb's. My building has recently had an influx of Chinese, Arabs, and Russians. In Thailand, it's all about the money. Nobody gives a hoot about quality of life.

I must have missed something then, because all of the media stories seem to involve Russians and Chinese gangsters, except, of course, for David the Swiss guy who set all of this off.

Trink's column changed a lot after the Bangkok World folded and he transferred to the Bangkok Post. In the Bangkok World, if I recall correctly, at the World he had a whole page and it was all about the nightlife, which shows to see, which bars were rip offs, details about the Thermae, grifting whores, etc. That was all lost when the Bangkok Post decided it wanted to be family friendly and reined him in. Trink turned to conspiracy theories, Burma shave ads, and his obsession with HIV. He was never a great writer but he was a unique voice and one of the few things of interest in the English-language newspaper back in the late 80's.

Sure, let the Russians, Chinese, and Indians in visa free and then complain about the increase in foreigner crime. Or make the queues at the airport even longer by scrutinizing the passports even harder. If you want 80 million tourists, your country is going to be turned inside out.

I was actually referring to the retirement situation. Japan doesn't offer a retirement visa, as far as I know. In fact, when I was there, it was trying to get rid of its own senior citizens by shipping them off to senior facilities in places like the Phillipines. The fact that you and others like you haven't married indicates how much Japan has changed though. In the 80's and early 90's it was rare to find a long-term foreign resident who didn't end up married, even those who were supposedly confirmed bachelors.

If you want to live long-term in Japan, you have to marry a Japanese. Long-term visas are easy to get if you're married and you get 3 years. Japan is not an easy place to live, however, much harder than Thailand.

It depends on how you calculate. With the yen at 150 to the dollar, Japan seems a lot more inexpensive on a dollar basis. Plus, Japan has seen almost no inflation in the last 30 years. So you can live in Japan cheaply but on the whole it's still much more expensive than Thailand. In Japan, you need an income or at least 300,000 yen a month to live a basic lifestyle, which comes out to about 70,000 baht.

Not true. Foreigners are constantly stopped and checked for no reason. In fact, there's a lawsuit that's just been filed to stop racial profiling. Try renting an apartment if you're a foreigner. Very difficult.

I opened it in when I was in Japan. I have a debit card but they told me credit cards were only available to US residents. I also had an account with Citibank Japan but they couldn't open a US account for me.

Citibank has a Global Executive Account. It's based in New York. I opened mine with just a passport, I think, but that was some time ago. The cost is $25 a month or free if you keep a combined balance of $25,000 or more in investment, savings, or checking accounts. They'll send you text SMS to your Thai phone number. The service isn't that great and Citibank has just recently downsized its Thai operations but the advantage is that it's aimed at people living abroad.

Throw in brokerage services as well that you can use from anywhere.

Weird movie. Jake Gyenhaal and Conor McGrogor are great and the fight scenes exciting but the female actors are all terrible.

You do need some background in Japanese history to understand what's going on. You might want to skim the Wilkepedia entry on the Sengoku period in Japan.

I liked it and would recommend it but it is slow and most of it is talking. There are also a lot of subtexts to the narrative -- she's German, the husband's French, she uses English as her main language, the boy suffers from impaired sight due to an accident, all sorts of nuances. Some of the reviews criticize it as boring but I didn't find it that way. And I thought the ending was realistic.

Of course, it was very unusual, that's why I found it shocking. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I would not like to think you deliberately misinterpreted me to make yourself look clever (no sarcasm intended).

All the media is doing is stirring up anti-foreigner sentiment. For the most part, Thais don't distinguish and see all foreigners as alike. These incidents are outliers. Most normal foreigners are more law-abiding than Thais. I accidentally bumped into a woman in the supermarket yesterday. I was taking something off a bottom shelf and when I straightened up, I backed into her slightly as I didn't notice her behind me. I started to apologize but she gave me such a dirty look that I decided not to engage her. Maybe she'd demand compensation! The media and government are making it out to seem that every foreigner in Thailand is thug or a mafia figure.

Big island of Hawaii. It's unlikely to be in the crosshairs of a nuclear strike and you can conceivably live off the land if you have to. Plus, it's a beautiful place to live. Maui is another possibility, because then you can run over to Mark Zukerberg's bunker if trouble occurs. I doubt that he'd let you in though.

Talk about a lazy answer...

antibiotics and vitamin shots of course

Oh, you're trying to be reasonable? Good luck with that. First it was he kicked her as she sat on the steps, then it was he physically assaulted her, he violently assaulted her, his wife verbally abused her, his house is encroachiing on the beach (even though he's only renting it). What is there in this story that merits this kind of coverage? We have stories of Thais shooting at each other, killing their wives, raping their daughters and students, and it doesn't get this kind of public attention. I'm amazed. This guy has clearly become a scapegoat for the repressed anger the people in Phuket have for all the foreigners who've taken over their island. But whose fault is that?

As usual, quanity over quality and new major opportunities for graft. What, they're expecting tourists numbers that are double the local population? During covid the government bemoaned the fact that they had relied so much on tourism and had failed to diversify the economy sufficiently. I guess when you don't have any new ideas the old ones will have to do.

Wake up, half hour of power breathing, 30 minutes in the pool -- swimming, stretches, leg exercises -- typically walk between 6,000 and 10,000 steps per day, 90 minutes of aerobics in the evening. I like a drink after aerobics and that makes me feel guilty.

Let's face it, going to immigration is always a hit or miss proposition. I did retirement extensions 14 or 15 times and it never took me a few minutes. Get up at 6, take a taxi for forty minutes, stand outside the office in the queue for an hour, wait in the office for 3 or 4 hours, oops, lunch time. Come back after lunch, finally see the I/O. Twenty more minutes. Then another wait for an hour or more while the supervisor signs off on it. Then an hour taxi ride home in rush hour traffic. That was my typical experience. And that was when it went smoothly.