DogNo1

My strategy now is to buy on iHerb when items are on sale. I get emails from them frequently announcing sales. I wait for the Sitewide sales or sales of brands that I like. this double taxation is rampant in Thailand. Tax on service charges, tax on tax, etc. My laundry charges at the hotel include 7% included in the per-item charge, then the whole bill is taxed 7% by the hotel after a service charge is added. Incidentally, about two years ago, most of my shipments from iHerb were not taxed. Now the advance tax makes sure that all shipments are taxed no matter what the value of the shipment is. Now even items express shipped by my daughter from Washington are taxed even though the packages are not opened. I don’t know how they calculate the value. The tax that I paid recently was about 7% of the postage charge. Taxing is now pretty aggressive. Medicine shipped to me from India just is not delivered to me. I guess that it is seized by customs without notification to me.

Many of the beggars at Wireless/Ploenchit are repeat beggars. They sit on the stairs and put their cups far in front of them making it difficult for walkers who need to grasp the handrails when they navigate the stairs. I feel sorry for them but they make walking safely difficult especially when their children are with them.

Late love is better than no love at all. If the reunion makes the father and daughter happy so much the better.

Please pardon my poor memory. 😟. Natsu is indeed the word for summer.

Abandoned children of Americans who were left in Vietnam were called “Buoi Doi,” the Dust of Life. The US brought many of them to America under the Orderly Departure Program in the 70’s. A song about them was included in the musical Miss Saigon. I don’t know whether Thai children were included in the program.

Corruption has a long history dating back to the Mandarins in China. Their pay was very poor and they were expected to make a living by charging for their services. Indeed, when I was dealing with the Vietnamese government back in the 60’s, it took an appropriate bribe to get anything done expeditiously. When I visited Vietnam in the 80’s, the local newspapers were full of stories about scams and incidents of corruption. The positive side of corruption is that it enables you to do many exceptional things that would not be possible without the payoff. In fact, many posters on this site willingly accept using agents to get extensions of stay knowing that there will be corruption involved. Perhaps we are hypocritical.

Actually, Natsu isn’t a bad name in Japanese. It means fall (the season.). I have known several women named Natsuko.

Right. Christian cults can extort huge donations from elderly members. Believing in Christian dogma makes the believers vulnerable to scams by unscrupulous leaders.

Care must be taken when cracking down on this group. Central World could be burned again. BTW, I would be willing to wager that Russia is not behind the burnings in France.

Yes, you can go through the steps with the bank which originally received the money to prove that it came from a foreign source.

As a permanent resident of Japan I can confirm that you must be a resident or citizen to apply in Japan. The embassy staff that I dealt with were pleasant and efficient but eventually I found it easier to travel back and forth with a retirement-based one year extension of stay.

My bad. It is FTT. My memory is unreliable these day. Immigration requires that the money comes from a foreign source each month. For the retirement-based extension of stay, you must wire in at least 65,000 each month with no months skipped. Some money transfer services wire money to a different bank and then transfer the 65,000 to your bank account. This is not acceptable to immigration since the transfer code in your bankbook will not be FTT.

Mostly raw food. Once in a while I will microwave brochette of lamb or chicken.

If you wire in 65,000 each month, you do not need to keep any money in the bank. Be sure that the code indicates that the money comes from a foreign source. The Bangkok Bank code is TFT. If you want to extend your permission to stay, either partially or completely based on money wired in, I think that you should start wiring it in now. Any combination of money in the bank and money wired in should get prior approval from your IO just to be safe.

I eat microwaved beef and fish, sometimes chicken. I rarely eat supermarket takeout food. I have learned to microwave it thoroughly before I do. Food prepared in the morning collects a lot of histamines as it sits in the store at room temperature. About five years ago, I developed histamine intolerance and an increased number of allergies so I must be very careful. Apparently many people have similar conditions. I recommend watching the video “Change Your Diet - Change Your Mind” on YouTube.

America is a flawed Republic. On rare occasions, the state electors vote for a different that the one who won the state’s popular vote. During the 2020 presidential election there were apparently many irregularities with many due to COVID. The Bush vs Gore election was very close with hanging chads becoming an issue. In the end, the Supreme Court had to decide who would be President. I hope that there is not too much cheating this time. If a material amount of cheating is discovered, the decision should be made by the Supreme Court. It is likely that there will be a large amount of rioting and damage done no matter who wins. With disempowered police, it could be extremely disruptive.

Diet makes a big difference. Since I switched back to a strict carnivore diet, my obsessive thinking has mostly gone away. I’m very pleased. For a discussion of how the carnivore diet has helped the patients of a Harvard-trained psychiatrist see the book Change Your Diet - Change Your Mind. There is also a video with that title on YouTube. It would be wonderful if people could stop their obsessive thinking with a single decision but that doesn’t work for many people.

Is it alright to just abandon a package at Chaeng Wattana Customs? I have been notified that I must go to customs to open a package which recently arrived. It contains 360 tablets of Bupropion ant-depression medicine sent from India. I have no prescription from a doctor so I think that the contents would just be seized after I open the package. Chaeng Wattana is a long way from Ploenchit and I would like to save myself from making the trip. Will there be any penalty or fine if I just abandon the package? I would appreciate some advice.

I would like to recommend the book Change Your Diet - Change Your Mind. Also,The Center for Mindful Self Compassion online. You can google for them. Ignore the scornful and simplistic comments on this thread.They are made by people who are ignorant about mental health issues. A huge number of people have problems with excessive thinking. It can’t be stopped by a single decision. Good luck.

I have never had a mailed in TM47 rejected. Once a receipt wasn’t returned to me. When I went to CW, my receipt was handed to me and the new amount that must be put on the envelopes was explained to me. I didn’t have to pay a find. The postage is now 37 baht each way. Since then I have had no problem. A good way to fill in your TM 47 is to open the form in a PDF editor such as Adobe Acrobat and using the proper mode (edit or fill-in) fill your data on the form, save it with a new name such as the date, eg. 240708, then print out as many copies as you need. For those who don’t have the required equipment, there are offices around that will complete the form and mail it in for you for a price. It’s a little bother to do that but better than having to do a trip to CW and wait in the long queue there.

Well, there’s the Thai Culture. I don’t think that the government will let the liberal progressives mess it up. Many Asian countries guard their cultures against foreign influence.

I'm pretty sure that I read this post several years ago. Maybe it has been posted again as a troll topic.

I’ve had two good implants done at the St.Louis Hospital Dental Clinic. They are still chewing strong after a couple of years. They used to cost about 70,000 each a few years ago but may have gone up. They have been absolutely trouble-free. The dentists are amicable but have busy schedules. All of their equipment is now hnew since they moved to the newly remodeled 23rd floor. There are many competent dentists in Bangkok but friendliness is important in my estimation. Good luck with whomever you choose.

RIP.

The time that I didn’t receive a reply, I had put on a ten baht stamp. When I went to CW, they told me that the new postage requirement was the cost of sending the return envelope by SMS - 37.5 Baht. Apparently that amount in stamps is OK too.