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penelope
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Posts posted by penelope
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It is apparent that a many on here seem to view Thailand little more than a glorified cheap knocking shop & in fact have little regard for the real Thailand or people.
By exploiting an economic advantage they seem to revel in exploiting young girls/boys misfortune, where as at home they cant hold down a relationship; let alone get a partner ( i use that word very loosely).
Let me Explain something about the attitude of many back here in the UK
There was a Thai girl who worked at my friends restaurant to earn some extra pocket money whilst she finished her masters degree. When she finished and told the customers that she was going home to Thailand the majority asked the same question.
"Do you have to go and work in a bar now?"
Every time Thailand is shown on the television there are always images of the Pat Pong or Pattaya bar scene.
I was even asked on my wedding day here if i found my wife in a bar!!!
It p**ses me off that so many have such little regard for Thailand and its customs and in fact could never stay there if it was not for some young thing playing with their manhood because of their economic superiority.
Get real people most of you are being taken for a ride: no money no honey!!!
how many of you have partners the same age as you or older?
END OF RANT
You are never going to remove the stereotypes, people will think what people think.
Metaphor : Tiger Woods is great at golf because of his ability to focus on the task at hand, and block out all the distractions, nonsense and BS around him.
A good BS filter is essential in this day and age
PS: my wife is older(by 2 months), wealthier and has more degrees than I
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Hello! This is a GREAT endeavor andI'm sure that this will be useful to expats! For it to be truly useful, may I suggest two uses of this card:
1) AS a DEBIT CARD (visa electron) please ensure that this card can be used to PURCHASE ONLINE or on the INTERNET, like all debit cards issued in other countries. So far, only Bank of Asia debit cards have the capability to do this, but as a foreigner it is a little difficult to open an account with Bank of Asia (unless your payroll goes through it).
OR
I would also consider to make this like a "virtual card" wherein u can fund it a certain amount so that it can be used to purchase online and it debits on the funds u put into it. I have seen an advert in the Bangkok Post (in the calssifieds) offering virtual card services here in Bangkok... so it must be possible!
2) Another thing is to set it up as a "SECURED" credit card, such that a bank will secure a certain amount of deposit (fixed, can not be withdrawn) from you, and that amount of your deposit becomes the same amount as your credit limit. You can use it as a credit card and pay off monthly. If u fail to pay, the bank simply forfeits ur fixed deposit, and closes the account until u can replenish your fixed deposit. And please allow it as low as USD 150.
The thing is, it should really solve purchase problems on the internet for a number of farangs here who for one reason or another, can't get credit cards, but would like to purchase online.
Thanks...
What about the sizable expat population who are in LOS on proper visas and permits, have bank accounts and credit cards(local ones and foreign ones) etc... What would be the incentive for them to swap over ? Or is this more of a visa runners card ?
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I'm trying to fit expats into an emerging theory of translocal identity politics and flexible citizenship commensurate with a global economy.
Want a bigger challange? Try to fit the average expat into Thai-size trousers.
Or try to find shoes you like THEN try to find those shoes in size 12.
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I'm trying to fit expats into an emerging theory of translocal identity politics and flexible citizenship commensurate with a global economy.
Do you get out much ???
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...or you could buy one of these: and then you wouldn't look like this: but like this:
Yeh, but Brucey is also in great shape,ripped and has porcelain davinci veneers
Bit different to some fat smelly lard with a shiner on walking street
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Surely this gap could be filled if Thaivisa produced some FAQs on top subjects as e.g.. Visa applications, Visa runs etc..
This I know has been suggested elsewhere, but like all new projects, FAQs will take time and effort to produce and maintain.
There is one, Thomas (Thaivisa.com) but see my previous posting (and george's - oops, missed it).
My error.
But surely this ought to satisfy the OP's problem: for accuracy (when updated) go to Thaivisa.com; for opinion, often innacurate, but sometimes not, take your salt cellar to Thaivisa's forum.
Well for personal use, I dont really care..my wife and mother in law are complete "know it alls"
But for newbies, some solution is surely beneficial..and it looks like George has his finger on the pulse.
Cheers.
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Maybe there is a gap in the market for a new forum, well not really an open discussion forum like what TV is, but more of a synchronous web based Q and A, where anyone can pose questions in particular subjects but only a select group of reputable sources can answer to those subjects.
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This forum is a pretty good source of all sorts of information about Thailand. There are many different people providing information and the quality of this information varies from being 100% accurate to being hearsay and presumption. I might be wrong, but I would guess that many people are forming important decisions based on the information they mine from this site and others. What am I proposing...well some sort of certification system where a poster gets given an information credibility ranking based on his or hers history of providing factually correct and useful advice. Therefore for example, if someone was looking for information about business start ups, work permits etc... and they saw that "Indo Siam" provided some advice and had a credibility ranking of 100% or 5 star or some relevent ranking system...then they would know to take that advice over another poster with a low ranking.
Feedback ???
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I am definitely interested. I travel to Thailand several times a year as a tourist, have a condominium and partnerships in companies there, and might even apply for a residence permit if legal restrictions are eased and if good health insurance is available.
There may be many other non-resident expats like myself in Thailand who can benefit from your proposed card. Having a bank account in Thailand to which the credit card statements can be debited may pose a problem for these people (special paperwork for every debit to a non-resident account) but your card issuer (bank) should be able to find a solution.
Xakero
How does a tourist qualify for residency ?
As far as the immigration requirements component of residency is concerned you need AT LEAST 3 years of non-interrupted 1 year Non Immigrant permit extensions.
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Satellite map attached.
Big red circle is Mo Chit bus terminal complex.
Small red circle is Mo Chit Skytrain.
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'You've got to find what you love,' Jobs says
This is the text of the Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered on June 12, 2005.
I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story is about connecting the dots. I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college. And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting. It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example: Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life. My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over. I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together. I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle. My third story is about death. When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes. I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now. This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept: No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true. Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.
Thank you all very much.
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Hi!
I'm a young anthropology PhD student in Bangkok for the summer. I'm doing research on expatriates who live in Bangkok, looking for their perspective on life and living abroad.
The only problem is that I need to meet some expats!
Anybody have any suggestions for friendly expat hangouts around town where a farang girl won't be looked at funny? Or any organizations that would be good to contact?
I'd love to hear from you!
-Asya
Alpine Country Club , Rajapuek Country Club. Many companies with expat corporate transferees have corporate memberships at these golf clubs.
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attached is an mpeg of my google earth user experience, taken holding a sony camera up to 43" pioneer plasma. Movie quality is a bit crappy, compressed mpeg, but you can get an idea of the smoothness you should expect with good bandwidth,good graphics system,display panel, dvi output etc.... This movie is a fly in on the british embassy in bangkok.
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Are all your wife's family's members disabled?...otherwise why are you thinking you need to give them money?
There are those who adopt a thai and those who marry a thai.
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What is considered "normal", standard or reasonable in terms of a farang assisting (providing money) to 1. The Thai "traditional wife. and 2. Other family members, ie. parents, brothers, sisters on a monthly basis? How much and to what extent should the daughter, ie my wife be expected to dole out to her family each month??
In my case, and some other thai/non-thai couples I know, "normal" is zero dollars. My wife and her family are financially independent.
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Farang roo mak....mai dee!!!
That's a stereotypical bar girl response to a farang who can speak Thai, in other words they can't pull the wool over your eyes. If you speak Thai with a 'normal' Thai they are more than impressed that you've taken the time to learn the language.
My wife would disagree with you on that one. She has told me that many Thai's do not like Falangs who know too much about anything, not just the language. You could be talking about car mechanics, farming, breeding dogs, anything really and when you display a superior knowledge to them they back off and do not want to know any more.
I have seen this once or twice but know it does not apply to most.
AFAIC, they type of thais who have the "farang roo mak mai dee" attitiude are undesirable as aquaintences (unless you like a complete lack of genuity in your interpersonal relationships)..especially abroad, thai women who say and think this may as well walk around with a sign on their head saying "scamster" (and their "farang mai roo" partners the sign "sucker").
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I recently bought :
http://www.sinsiamelectronics.com/Image/pi...dp-435hdgb.html
It is a high defintion plasma panel. When running a dvd into the HDMI input, the image incredibly clear,sharp and precise.Best 43 inch on the market. Also great for using your PC....1024x768 XGA, very crisp.I can sit on my sofa 12 feet away and read the screen perfectly.I also connect my home pc to it use DVI rather than VGA input, all digital path, no lossy A/D converions. WMV HD and DVI HD movies are great aswell !!! Component, s-video and composite input sources are also accepted, but as this plasma is designed for hi def digital input, these sources wont be as sharp as 720p/1080i dvi or hdmi input sources.
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just curious....what language do you communicate in if she cant speak english well. Are you proficient in thai ?
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Firstly to pre-empt the howls of "search the forum" - can I politely point out that I have now read everything and I am still confused about A, O Visa run etc.
If I explain what I am doing then perhops someone can tell me what I need to do?
I currently live in the UK (I am UK citizen) with a Thai wife and 2 kids (one thai one UK passport shortly to be dual passport holder). I am 45 years old they are 31, 9 and 2 respectively.
We are hoping to move permanently to Thailand a.s.a.p.
I make my living entirely from the internet. All payments are currently paid to a UK account which is transferrable to an existing Thai bank account. My Thai bank account currently has just over 1m baht in it. The monthly income is approx 216,000 baht and this is more likely to increase than decrease. I will also have further capital of around 11m baht from a house sale by the time I move.
I want to run my existing busness from Thailand but the site hosting etc will remain in the UK. Income will be derived mainly from UK sales. Income will be transfered from UK account to Thai account monthly. I will (I assume) be Thai resident for tax. I also want to buy two small businesses in Thailand, one internet cafe and one hair salon (yeah yeah just to keep her happy before you all scoff). However I will NOT own these businesses before we move to thailand so have no "existing" business in thailand at the time of the move.
My initial questions are
1. What visa do I need to get before I come as non immigrant A seems innapropriate due to the businesses not being in existence yet.
2. Where do I get the visa from
3. How long does this allow me to stay in Thailand
4. What exactly IS a Visa run and how often do I need to do it. Can you just do visa runs forever or do I have to come back to the UK at some point to renew it?
Soooo sorry guys as I know the answers are in here somewhere but for us forum newbies it is a victim of its own succes by simply being so vast.
Thanks
Andy
1 - non-immigrant category O
2- your local thai consulate
3 -A "visa" allows you to travel to and enter.A "permit" allows you to stay.1 yearly permit extensions are available, suffice to $ requirements.
4 - Visa runs are for people who fail to meet, or cant be bothered meeting the standard immigration categorys that provide for permit extensions and permanent residence. A visa runner periodically ducks in and out of the country to renew their temporary permit at a border entry post.
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Typically UK cards offer a minimum of 0.5% cash back 1% typical and the best rate is from the American Express platinum credit card of 2%.
From a personal point of view the cards offering traditional benefits are in decline, these days people go for good cash back deals (I went for the AMEX card)
I get 5% on credit balances with Visa Infinite.Not issued in the UK though.Issued from an asia-pacific region bank.
Apologies - Cash back means on each and every transaction I get; either 0.5, 1.0 or 2.0 % back, so I put everything I can on my card.
I'm interested to hear about this 5% on credit balances is this the same as an account balance yielding interest?
Yes. I load cash on it and get credit interest.Actually with my bank the credit interest rate is the same for platinum and infinite cards.
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Hi Penny, can you give us a few co-ords to look at which are 3 -6 months old?
cheers.
Am trying to figure out how to save a pic. Right click doesn't cut it.
Emailing the pic is easy.
I dont actually know.I just read on the google site aout the age variations of the image data.
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Bingo! without the - I finished up in the Sea of Japan
ok, go down to 500ft go a little due N to the railway line, it runs from N to E in a curve.
There are 4 white squares (large umbrellas) in line outside the station and 8 squares in a line od twos........ I'm waving from there and having my coffee now.
What fun........
I'm afraid the resolution isn't quite good enough udon... can't see you.
Mai me bpen har...
Hey it's looking pretty dry... I thought you were getting a lot of rain?
You do realise that is is not realtime right !!! The image data is up to 5 years old and as recent as 3 months.
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look familiar....
tried to upload attachment..didn't work.
and then you wouldn't look like this: 
but like this: 
Gym Junkie Thread
in Health and Medicine
Posted · Edited by penelope
As is a correct exercise targetted diet and nutrition program ie:consuming the right food/drink at the right time in harmony with your workouts.