phuketsub

Thanks for all the feedback; I find it strange that this behavior is so widespread since I have never noticed it before. Anyway, I am going to tell her to knock it off...it seems like (non-human) primate behavior to me.

Interesting. She went to a private school (Kajonkiet EP Program) for kindergarten, but I took her out for primary because I didn't like some of the behavior I was seeing in the older kids there and wanted her to be more "Thai". (she is a look kreung)...for English, she gets home schooling.

Anyway, I don't want to turn this into another thread on the relative merits of the various schools on the island: I just want to get a handle on this social phenomenon...

It's beautiful today, but next time the rain gets you down try the following recipe, which I call 'monsoon stew'.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/01/30-minute-pasta-and-kidney-bean-soup-pasta-e-fagioli-recipe.html

btw, does anyone know of a good bakery for baguettes in Phuket Town? The ones at Tops supermarket are tougher than leather, and this stew really needs to be eaten with bread...(No, I don't want to go to Chalong or Rawai or anywhere along the bypass road)

When I ask my daughter (age 7) a question and the answer is affirmative, rather than say 'yes' she just raises her eyebrows several times.

I don't know where she picked this up or exactly what to make of it, although as a parent I find it vaguely disrespectful.

My daughter goes to a municipal school in Phuket Town and she says all the kids there do this.

Anyway, I am just curious if this behavior is just a passing fad at her school or if it is more widespread on the island, or elsewhere.

A picture's worth 1000 words. Will check it out soon...

This is one of the ones that was closed when I was on my pizza-finding mission, but given your strong recommendation I will try again soon...thanks

Spaghetti & C. Not much of an atmosphere but the pasta's and pizza's are great and cheap. My favorite is the pizza salmon (160 Baht). Ratsada Road, turn left right after the Bank of Ayudhya, then about a hundred metres on your right hand side.

thanks for reporting that

Phuket FC v Nakhon Pathom United @ Surakul Stadium TONIGHT! TONIGHT!

Kickoff at 6:30pm

This will be the first match for new coach Brazilian Stefano Cugurra Teco after his predecessor forced to resign by some less-than-classy fans after the previous match, a 1-1 draw with Thai Tobacco Monopoly.

for more read here http://www.phuketgazette.net/phuketsports/2013/Phuket-FC-appoints-seasoned-Brazilian-as-new-coach-21874.html

It sounds to me like you should get a serviced apartment somewhere in a central location (Phuket Town, Kathu, Rassada, etc.) until you actually land a job, then look again. If you were to move to Rawai, for example, then got a job in Cherng Talay or Kamala (for example) you would soon find yourself spending more time stuck in traffic than wielding a spatula...

I will try Gaetano's, but it was one of the ones that was closed when I went by it a few days ago....I agree wholeheartedly with the negative comments about Hawaiian Pizza! I also haven't come across too many Thai pizza recipes that are up to snuff.

Chalong is out of the question for me; too much traffic.

I still have not gotten around to check out La Gaetana, but I was under the impression that they do not offer any pizza there. More of a fine dining place with very limited tables, so reservation is always recommended.

Been to Salavatore's once or twice and the Pizza was good. Can't remember the price, but it's not a budget place for sure. Btw. if La Gaetana does offer pizza, that won't be a budget deal either.

There is a new place a couple of units down from Farang restaurant (street behind Big C, PIH, Index), called Crust or something. Have not checked it out, but planning to do so at one point. There is also a new place in the corner unit of the same Sino-Portuguese style house, something like Flame or Bake, possibly both and driving past there, I think I read something like pizza & pasta. Then I have also seen a place called Bellini opposite Makro, to the left of Headstart. Of course you could also get a pizza at the Wine Connection in Central, which is not bad and the price is reasonable, too.

Any opinions on Crust, Bellini, the other one or any further places in Phuket town are always welcome!

Thanks for all that. Sounds like Gaetana is out of our league at the moment, but will try to check out the others you mentioned when I am over 'that way' (I try to stay off th bypass as much as possible, for obvious reasons).

That said, Gaetana is in a bad location parking-wise as well...

Part of the problem is that tourists in Karon get touted and hassled so much that they tend to tune out people who might really have important information for them. The same is true with the massive proliferation of signage in Karon, which is likely to cause some people to overlook the warning signs.

I once formerly asked ThaiAirAsia to ask their pilots to warn inbound passengers during monsoon season, but they chose not to.

I think the poster pretty much sums it up...

For me the main problem with the Hawaiian is the texture..

I will try Gaetano's, but it was one of the ones that was closed when I went by it a few days ago....I agree wholeheartedly with the negative comments about Hawaiian Pizza! I also haven't come across too many Thai pizza recipes that are up to snuff.

Chalong is out of the question for me; too much traffic.

Thanks for all your input; the pic of the buffalo has quite put me off on the swimming. Maybe I should invest in a kayak instead, As for the spelling of Ranode, I understand there are numerous different version, but I prefer mine because I think it best reflects the actual Thai pronunciation...

I seem to be having trouble finding a decent pizza place in Phuket Town. First PPizza in Samkong closed, so I started going to Romantica on Thalang Road, but now every time I go there its closed, as are 3 other pizza places downtown...

If anyone knows of a good, reasonably priced one please clue me in.

I don't consider the stuff that comes from The Pizza Company edible, by the way.

This is certainly the best time of year weather-wise to enjoy whisk(e)y in Phuket

That line jumped out at me as well; I wonder if it was an intentional double-entendre....

'Things are liquid' - Yup, that's a symptom.

I couldn't agree more with the statement "The aim is to get the kids passable at an early age and then they can learn on their own". I have been teaching on/off here for 25 years (B.SC, no Tefl certificate) and the key to success is an early start, then continual exposure in real-life situations in which listening skills and context are key.

I have been fortunate to teach some students whose parents understood this, were able to pay me a reasonable amount and were committed to long-term study, either one-on-one or in very small groups (eg. two siblings), from a very young age through until their graduation from Matthayom. In several cases the result was that when they were old enough they were not only fluent, but able to gain admission to top (Ivy League) universities abroad.

I am not blowing my own horn here; the kids and their parents that deserve most of the credit because they paid attention, put in the hours and paid me for a service.

I have also 'done time' in the mainstream education system, where classes of over 50 are common and real progress almost impossible. I have also witnessed first hand a great deal of corruption, with schools charging parents extra for their 'foreign teachers', then paying out only a very small fraction of what they collected. At one stage, while working for a well-known network of state-financed "institutes" (since upgraded to Universities, but with no real improvement in quality) I was actually forced to read>edit>rewrite doctoral theses for associate professors hoping to get full professorship credentials by graduating from a bogus, mail-order university in the Philippines.

If there is a country on the planet that spends more on foreign, native speakers of English as teachers, and gets back worse results than Thailand, I would like to hear about it.

The program described in the OP appears to have none of the essentials for real success, as far as I can see: class sizes will probably just be too big and difficult to control, especially for an inexperienced, new recruit with almost no training.

That said, that is the status quo already so I don't expect any great outcry.

Bilingualism is one of the few phenomena that has been scientifically proven to correlate with a later (statistically-speaking) onset of Alzheimer's disease and which has a number of other positive effects in the workplace, socially and business. I cannot, however, think of even a single case of a student who achieved even a modicum of fluency in any foreign language as a result of study in the Thai mainstream government education system.

In the case of my own child, who I like to think is perfectly bilingual, I view the English-language instruction she receives at her Thai school as generally detrimental.

Learning a second language, especially one that is so different than your own is so overwhelming especially for children. I have been trying to speak the Thai language for many years now and am lucky to get my point across in a restaurant. Most of the volunteers are with some kind of college degree and must have been good students to achieve it. They usually don't understand mediocre students. Most people in the world don't learn by rote. I don't understand how this will work. There is another way to learn a language and it is called “Total Physical Response” (TPR) I think young students as well as their teachers will learn with this system because it makes learning fun and there is a lot of laughing. Laughing is something (Thai) children love to do.

I think learning a second language is much, much easier for children - evidence all suggest this too. My kids speak English with an English accent and Thai with a Thai one - both fluently, both with correct pronunciations (even the difficult L's and R's for Thais and EUR and NG for westerners) - this is because they learned both languages equally (they also speak a little Latin which has been taught to them - by me - as an academic learned language, like when we did French/German/Spanish/Latin/Greek/etc at school).

The aim is to get the kids passable at an early age and then they can learn on their own - I love the fact that often films here are subtitles instead of dubbed - this means as their English improves they can move away from reading to listening and thus enjoy the film more. Books are also much more enjoyable in English (my kids tell me - same story in English is more interesting than in Thai as Thai is more matter-of-fact than flowery adjective laden imagery English). The kids either take advantage or don't, its a life opportunity like any other - one that can help with further education and a better job - or not.

I couldn't agree more with the statement "The aim is to get the kids passable at an early age and then they can learn on their own". I have been teaching on/off here for 25 years (B.SC, no Tefl certificate) and the key to success is an early start, then continual exposure in real-life situations in which listening skills and context are key.

I have been fortunate to teach some students whose parents understood this, were able to pay me a reasonable amount and were committed to long-term study, either one-on-one or in very small groups (eg. two siblings), from a very young age through until their graduation from Matthayom. In several cases the result was that when they were old enough they were not only fluent, but able to gain admission to top (Ivy League) universities abroad.

I am not blowing my own horn here; the kids and their parents that deserve most of the credit because they paid attention, put in the hours and paid me for a service.

I have also 'done time' in the mainstream education system, where classes of over 50 are common and real progress almost impossible. I have also witnessed first hand a great deal of corruption, with schools charging parents extra for their 'foreign teachers', then paying out only a very small fraction of what they collected. At one stage, while working for a well-known network of state-financed "institutes" (since upgraded to Universities, but with no real improvement in quality) I was actually forced to read>edit>rewrite doctoral theses for associate professors hoping to get full professorship credentials by graduating from a bogus, mail-order university in the Philippines.

If there is a country on the planet that spends more on foreign, native speakers of English as teachers, and gets back worse results than Thailand, I would like to hear about it.

The program described in the OP appears to have none of the essentials for real success, as far as I can see: class sizes will probably just be too big and difficult to control, especially for an inexperienced, new recruit with almost no training.

That said, that is the status quo already so I don't expect any great outcry.

Bilingualism is one of the few phenomena that has been scientifically proven to correlate with a later (statistically-speaking) onset of Alzheimer's disease and which has a number of other positive effects in the workplace, socially and business. I cannot, however, think of even a single case of a student who achieved even a modicum of fluency in any foreign language as a result of study in the Thai mainstream government education system.

In the case of my own child, who I like to think is perfectly bilingual, I view the English-language instruction she receives at her Thai school as generally detrimental.

I will be moving from Phuket to Songklha's Ranotde District soon (I hope). I am an avid swimmer who never gets a chance to swim in Phuket because of logistical problems (mostly traffic, childcare, etc). My eventual new home will be walking distance to Songkhla Lake, so I was just wondering if anyone has ever swum there and what it's like...

My preferences for swimming are: salt>fresh>chlorine.

I am not a big fan of Gulf Coast beaches from past experiences in Songkhla's Chana District (way too much debris in the water, jellyfish, etc), so I was wondering if Songkhla Lake might be worth a try...

I look forward to becoming an active member of this forum after I move. Any advice would be much appreciated.

It may be easier to just order one from Amazon. com.

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 6 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

Amazon doesn't ship to Thailand, so if I go that route I have to inconvenience people stateside and then face shipping fees, import duty, etc.

Since we live in the world's largest rubber producing nation I thought they should have them here...we'll see.

I've had several things shipped by Amazon, some books and a replacement screen for my lap top.

Sent from my i-mobile IQ 6 using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

I'll have to check it out again...I would love to be able to buy stuff from them, starting with size 15 shoes...

Just as a matter of record, and in case it might benefit someone else with a similar problem, I found something that seems to meet my needs. It's a (rolled up) rubber bath mat that I found at Amorn shop (Basement of Big C). Ninety baht. I have used it a few times and I can definitely feel the damaged tendon working in a way that I did not experience with other PT exercises I had tried.

Just FYI.

Also, Paiboon was also quoted in that report as saying they will now install CCTV around there, so apparently they didn't have any -- or enough -- prior to this.

The explosion was the second top story in a teaser for the national news tonight on channel 3, after the latest bombing in Bannang Sata, Yala.

Also, Paiboon was also quoted in that report as saying they will now install CCTV around there, so apparently they didn't have any -- or enough -- prior to this.

The explosion was the second top story in a teaser for the national news tonight on channel 3, after the latest bombing in Bannang Sata, Yala.

MCOT Thai language site just reported that police think the bomb, which was 'not that powerful' , was probably meant to intimidate, not kill. The back this up by saying the location was in the parking lot, away from people.

The describe the device as an IED, detonated by clock: a crude time bomb.

OrBorJor chairman Paiboon quoted as saying he didn't think it could be from a conflict between any OrBorJor [elected] officials or kha ratchakaan (civil servants), but said he couldn't rule out that it could have been related to dissatisfaction over a bid outcome.