TheLaughingMan

Thankyou

I suddenly have to leave to take care of a sick mom but just had a thought are they doing weird things at the airport in regards to asking for tax money? I'm on a retirement Visa and haven't kept up with the latest Tax the foreigners situation. I have not worked back home in the past 2 years but have transferred money to Thailand to live. Are they asking long time residents about taxes when we leave the country? Already stressed out enough so just want to make sure this isn't a possibility. Thankyou

Hey can you tell me where you copied this from? The lawyer Im dealing with says there is no financial requirement whatsoever for Canadians to sponsor a thai person, and Im arguing with him but realised I dont have any proof and just went on hearsay, I cant find financial requirements or anything like what you copied and pasted here. As long as there is no child in the picture all canadian websites say no financial requirement needs to be met but vaguely eludes to needing to be able to support the sponsored person, so how on earth do they decide if you can support them? lol

I brought my girlfriend to Gogi Seki BBQ buffet on sukhumvit 39 across the street from Fuji Supermarket 2, it was amazing and I'll be going there regularly. The standard buffet is 400 and premium 500. We went with premium because I wanted the good beef, was not disappointed, the beef is incredible, very tender and tasty, many things were good but for me beef is my main interest and havent had beef this good pretty much anywhere else. Normally beef in thailand is chewy and cheap tasting so was very happy to find this place. Another thing that made me love Gogi Seki is the service, an employee cooks all your food at your table, I would have still been happy cooking my own food as that is what I was expecting but the girl assigned to my table cooked everything perfectly and we just relaxed and ate, was nice. So does anyone else have any BBQ buffet recommendations? Or just good BBQ that isnt a buffet. Korean or Japanese or anything really. I ask because Ive been to a couple in the past and they werent even close to as good as what I just tried, so looking for the hidden gems.

Im pretty sure thats the same service my mother used, she was very happy and they called her later to explain the results in detail, very good service.

I work in a field where I have to gain and lose weight sometimes, so have dropped 20 kilos or more in a short amount of time MANY times, and tried various methods and they all work it just depends on the time length needed and/or the hell and suffering you have to endure. I have one particular method that works wonders and is the easiest for people like me that loves food and has a hard time sticking to diets that require only healthy foods or diets like keto etc. A diet is only as good as its sustainability, if its impossible to stick with long enough to get the desired results then it absolutely doesn't matter how healthy and beneficial it is when you quit 3 days or a week into it. Might as well not even have tried, that's why I advocate the Big Mac diet! Yes sounds like a joke, but its not lol. Let me explain. SPEED OF WEIGHT LOSS IS CRITICAL: Almost all diets are hard, they suck in one way or another, you must suffer in some way to get the results, unless you are willing to lose 20 kilos over a very long period, in that case then you wont suffer too badly but can you really keep your more healthy diet and lower calorie consumption going for 2 whole years? I cannot and I think a lot of people are like me. If you want or need results FAST then there is definitely suffering involved in some shape or form. The reason FAST is so important is because of the psychological aspect of seeing results happen, if you can't see the results in a timely manner it is hard to keep going with the planned diet, and even impossible for people like me, if I don't see results I will give up, its as simple as that. In order to see results you need to see the scale dip by half a kilo a day, or anything close to that, as long as you see your weight dropping chunk by chunk every morning on the scale, you will get the motivation to continue suffering. WHAT TYPE OF SUFFERING IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU?: Can you hold to a healthy diet and low calorie consumption while training every day for a long time? If you can then great do that as its immensely more healthy then the diet I am going to suggest to you 😄. To me that's hell, a higher degree of hell than the suffering I endure on my Big Mac diet. The reason its hell is because of my personality, I LOVE FOOD, I need tasty things, I need my burgers, pizza and ice cream, living without them is hell, not everyone is like me, some people get great joy and satisfaction out of eating healthy foods, or vegan or whatever makes you happy, all those things make me sad as a kid who just lost his puppy and I don't see the point of living with such unhappiness lol. I cant do it. So the following diet is for people like me, the ones that have the willpower to suffer up to a point while still satisfying their urges and happiness. You need willpower for all diets, I just find the Big Mac diet the EASIEST way to quickly lose weight and retain my happiness. BIG MAC DIET: Basically its this, you could literally eat an extra large Big Mac combo EVERY DAY and lose a significant amount of weight EVERY DAY on the scale. But that's all you eat, so its actually an OMAD diet, OMAD stands for One Meal a Day (24 hour fast between meals, drinking only water between meals). The difference with other omad diets is you can eat complete crap as your one meal and it still works wonders. You can replace "Big Mac" with whatever poison of your choice, so one day its a pepperoni pizza and large coke, next day maybe you crave pasta and icecream for desert, next day fried chicken and doughnuts, WHATEVER. The point is to satisfy whatever urges and cravings you have, the reason this is important is it helps with sustainability, if all cravings are met, you can keep this diet going MUCH easier than most others (assuming you have a personality like mine). There IS some suffering, but I can handle this level of suffering much much more easily because my cravings are met and I know the reward of my next meal 24 hours after the last will be tasty fun food I want. Knowing that is coming to me every day makes the hunger (suffering) in the evening easy to deal with. That and the psychological boost of seeing my weight drop on the scale so quickly, I'm motivated to keep going because of the daily rewards of seeing my weight drop and looking forward to eating whatever the hell I want at my next meal. FASTING IS HEALTHY: So yes you are eating poison almost every day. I actually don't crave burgers and pizza and ice cream every single day when on this diet, sometimes I crave grilled chicken and Hummus and greek salad, some days I crave broccoli mixed in some asian noodle dish with shrimps and chicken or beef.... every single day isn't actually a Big Mac extra large combo, I'm just saying it could be, but I find my cravings call out for all kinds of things and I just follow them and satisfy them. When you stop eating any calories for extended periods you have started a fast, fasting has many health benefits and if you want to know more then google it, but even healthy slim people do fasts occasionally for the healthy results. Autophagy which is renewal and replenishing of your cells is one of the benefits, but really, for our purposes its just some gravy on those fries lol a bonus to the sustainable weight loss which is the primary objective. CAVEATS: Ok so there are a few common sense rules here. You WILL shorten your lifespan if you ate like this for the rest of your life, but if you already were eating like this but 3 times a day... well then this actually will increase your lifespan lol 😄 But ya if your goal was to lose 20 kilos fast, and you accomplish that, then its time to turn to moderation in your diet, add healthy meals mixed in with the not healthy meals. The hard part is over, you lost the weight, now you want to live as long as you can so don't eat JUST poison, still enjoy the foods you want, but add in healthy choices too. This diet is about quick results, its not about a life long eating habit. Do not double the size of your meals, there's no point doing OMAD if its not lowering your caloric intake, so ONE Big Mac extra large combo, NOT TWO AT ONCE 😄 Mornings are easy, your hungry but for some reason its acceptable, then you eat your one meal in the afternoon and have 4 hours of blissful happiness, I suggest eating 5-6 hours after waking up or more if you can handle it. The later you push the one meal the easier evenings become. The hardest part of this diet for me is night time before sleep, you get VERY hungry, your body is burning fat and crying out for sugary yummies like icecream and potato chips. But I'm able to ignore it as I start planning in my head what I will eat for my next meal tomorrow. I find going to sleep hungry quite easy, its actually an escape and maybe the fasting helps but I don't have a problem going to sleep in this state, and like I said when I wake up I feel a lot better, the hunger is only bad at night before bed for some reason. The first few days are the worst, your body is used to certain things so when you change it then your body will rebel, this might show up as a headache later in the day for a couple days, but it does go away and your body adapts as it burns through the sugar you ate earlier and then moves onto fat as it just learned to do from the past few days fasting. I also find the amount of hunger I feel drops after the first week, so it actually becomes easier the longer you keep it up, thank god. The fatter you are the more this diet works. When I'm 230 pounds (104 kg), I drop weight extremely fast but when I get down to around 200 pounds (90kg) this process slows down, and getting down to my normal weight of about 180 pounds (80kg) is a lot slower. The closer I get to my ideal weight the more healthy choices I take when it comes to my meals, not so much because it helps the weight loss but I actually crave it too. Also at this point fasting for 24 hours feels like kids play, its incredibly easy and I'm barely hungry at night, so I ramp it up, I start increasing my fasting period to 36 hours even some days 48 hours. The 48 hours felt bad, but the weight flew off. By bad I mean tired and weak on the second day hours before my next meal, I just did it some intervals because it dropped weight super fast again like when I first started the entire process at 230 pounds. Training helps a lot, if you are doing this diet AND training fat burning excersises every day... well its faster. Also training stops hunger, I don't know why, I don't know the science behind it but when I'm starving at night and feeling bad, I go to the gym and as soon as I start some activity all my weakness and hunger go away for a couple hours, its quite incredible actually. Weight training will slow the process down. Building muscle actually makes the weight loss a bit slower, a lot slower if eating tons of protein in your one meal a day as you will put on muscle that is heavy, but that's actually healthier and will make you look better but not show the results on the scale as quickly as not weight training, possibly because while on omad you are seeing weight fly off because you are losing a lot of fat AND some muscle, whereas working the muscles keeps them from losing size as quickly and eating a lot of protein and working them will actually make them bigger so the scale wont show results as fast as your adding muscle weight while losing fat weight. I'm not a scientist I'm just a sometimes fat guy that knows how to lose weight quickly 😄 and has tried it while weight training and not weight training, not weight training is a lot more satisfying at first because your weight drops so quickly but weight training while fasting made me look great over time. The longer you do the omad diet the smaller your stomach feels, you get full faster so don't fight that, if you no longer feel comfortable finishing the entire meal you used to enjoy then don't finish it just because you are a completionist lol, this is a benefit and will lower your caloric consumption further, just go with how you feel. So the breakdown: 1. Eat anything you want once a day around 1000 to 1500 calories (an extra large Big Mac combo I think is around 1400 calories) This puts you in a caloric deficit and the weight loss starts. 2. 23 to 24 hours between meals at first, later you can extend that to 36 or 48 hours if you are serious but the 24 hours will see quick results for the first chunk of weight loss, for me it was about the first 15kg. I looked completely different going from 230 to 200 pounds (about 15kg), fat protruding belly was gone, after that I just looked leaner and healthier and more muscular the further I dropped from 200 to 180 pounds. 3. Only water between meals and a lot of it helps, I read coffee is ok without cream and sugar but I don't drink coffee so I don't know. 4. The later in the day you eat the easier the night time hunger is to deal with which is the only "suffering" part of this diet. 5. Eating Big Macs (or whatever your craving of poison for the day is) every day is definitely NOT healthy so do not use this as a diet for a long term lifestyle, its just an easier way to lose weight, as its sustainable while pursuing your weight loss objective. After that you should eat healthier to some degree. I find it easier to eat healthier when I'm thin, my body just craves healthier more than junk food when I'm leaner. I wrote this up for people that struggle with even thinking about losing weight as it seems unsurmountable to them. A lot of society is overweight or even obese in some countries, I think for a lot of people they have a similar mindset to me (love tasty food, discouraged easily with slow weight loss programs) and have tried healthy diets and gave up, its just not sustainable to them. This one I described WAS sustainable for me. By sustainable I mean to achieve your wight loss goals, after that sustainable has to mean keeping the weight off which I don't discuss here, that's a whole different ball game that has a lot to do with how you feel, its easy to keep the weight off if happy, a bout of depression can derail you completely 😄, I just advise you on how to lose it quick in the short term.

Using the search function here and google with Aseanow only brings up old threads over 5 years. Im surprised if thats legit and people havent talked about this in the past 5 years so asking here now. Does anyone have any advice or experience with tooth whitening in Bangkok? Price is less of a concern, the priority is safety and then results. I know if done badly you can hurt your teeth and I absolutely wouldnt want to risk that. Dont mind paying more for a legit safe procedure. Or paying less for a simple yet safe and effective home treatment. Whats peoples advice and experience? Thanks

I am.....shocked and now totally depressed finding out that it is going to be next to impossible to bring my girlfriend to Canada to visit even if I married her, in fact marrying her would make it MORE difficult which seems like complete insanity to me. Especially considering Canada lets in new immigrants and refugees by the thousands every year. But wont allow a citizens spouse in... Im flabbergasted. I came to Thailand about 2 years ago to hopefully find a wife, I had lived here before for over 10 years so was used to long term relationships with Thai women. I met my current girlfriend about 18 months ago and we have lived together for over a year now. We are deeply in love and want to get married and start a family. I wanted to bring her to canada just to visit and make sure the idea of living there fulltime would be ok in the near future. I knew that tourist visas were very hard to get for Thai women but always assumed that if worst came to worst I would just marry her and get her a marriage visa..... that visa no longer exists thanks to the conservative government back in the day. And its now actually impossible to get a tourist visa if shes married to a canadian. As they will be convinced she will stay past her tourist visa expiry to live in Canada full time. She has no ties to Thailand and quit her job recently so absolutely no way she can get a tourist visa. As for marrying her.... Im totally willing to do that, its the plan anyway, but I have been in Thailand the past 2 years, the requirement to get her spousal sponsorship is that I show my notice of assessment showing my income, I did work a bit but spent most of my time in Thailand with her as this relationship is currently the most important thing in my world, I want to make a family, Ive never been married or had kids before. So my income will not show the required amount to sponsor her. Regardless of the amount in my bank account. Correct? Its all about the money you are "currently making?" to prove you can sponsor her? What really freaks me out is even if we had 3 kids together, and I brought the kids (canadian citizens) to Canada, she wouldnt be allowed to visit her own kids... this is insanity to me. And same if we have kids and they are in Thailand I will be forced to go live in canada for a year or more and work to prove I can sponsor her and THEN she can come with my kids and I dont get to see them for over a year? more insanity..... The whole system seems completely bizzare, its a non starter that I have to leave the love of my life or my potential kids for an extended period of time to get to live in my own country with my family. So ya if anyone has more info I would be greatly appreciative. Can I sponsor her SOMEHOW if we get married even though my current notice of assessment will show a low income? Whether by a large sum in my bank account or a cosigner or something? Is there ANY WAY to help her get a tourist visa such as money in her account, or is it all simply about her ties to thailand such as property, job, whatever to try to prove she will return. I saw the old threads about this topic but am looking for fresh recent information since things do change as time goes by. I mean at one time Canada had a marriage visa.... Thankyou

Actually it does because I needed a bank account to get a retirement visa, its directly connected, and thats the reason I started this thread and the reason a lot of visa seekers will check this thread. Its needed information for visas.

oops

Im not sure, its Siam Legal

:D the agent simply prints out a referal letter from their lawyers firm that the bank management has obviously agreed to honor. You do understand youre in Thailand right? Corruption is the way most things are done and cash has always smoothed the way to get what you want. I had a nice chuckle at your outrage over "illegal" lol

I used Siam legal, but apparently they can no longer offer this service.

Oh, thats bad news then, lucky I got in under the wire.

I opened accounts for me and my family in early 2023, absolutely no bank would do it normally, I tried at least 10 walking in and asking at different chains, they all refused, so used an agent that cost 5000 baht per account. They let you open an account at Bangkok Bank on Sukhumvit in Bangkok.