DogNo1

This is the gazillionth discussion of how to change money on TV.  There is some risk associated with carrying cash.  I withdraw Thai Baht across the counter at Bangkok Bank with my no-foreign-transaction-fee Visa credit card and incur no fees of any kind.  Today I withdrew 20,000 Baht and got an exchange rate of 34.8 Baht per US dollar.  If my credit card is lost or stolen, a prompt call to my bank will prevent any loss.  Interest is charged on the cash advance right away so I always make a payment to my bank before I withdraw.   I always carry $1,500 in my pocket coming over to tide me over a cancellation and replacement of my credit card if necessary.  If you can't get a credit card with no foreign transaction fee, cash is probably the next best thing but, as already noted, there is a limit to the amount that you can legally carry.  Incidentally, if you have a credit card with no foreign transaction fee, it is always better to make your purchases in Thai Baht.  If you charge in your own currency, you will get the exchange rate that the store, hotel, etc. uses which will usually be less than the Visa exchange rate.

Look out for fake drugs at Walmart!

US Medicare doesn't cover treatment outside of the USA nor does the Veteran's Administration.  US citizens above seventy simply can't get local insurance so they must self-insure.  Accident insurance only covers a limited amount for short-term treatment so elderly Americans must find a way to pay for their own treatment.  There's been quite a lot of discussion of this predicament on ThaiVisa.

My 90 day report takes me about 15 minutes in the comfort of my apartment.  The concierge mails it off and I get my acknowledgement slip in the mail about 15 days later and staple it into my passport.  I have never spent the time required to go somewhere and report in person.

I haven't had any problems with the Zen UI.  I don't know about the speed of the updates though.  I did replace the Zen keyboard with gboard.  Great new keyboard from Google!

ASUS Zenphone 2 Max (6")

I paid 5,800 at Best Buy.  No bottons on the side so no accidental volume changes or screen off mistakes. Great screen and icon choices with the latest Zen UI.  Good camera and sound. Miracast works well.

Thanks for clearing that up guys.

I just received the receipt for mailing in my ninety-day report which was due on February 7th.  They have dated my receipt on the day that they received it, January 31st and set my new required report date to May 1st, not May 6th as I expected.  Is this a new dating procedure?  On a positive note, they returned all of my photocopies to me so I won't have to make them the next time I mail in my report which will be on April 16th (14 days in advance.)  I wonder if they will then make my next report due date to be 90 days after they receive the report.  Supposing that they receive my report on April 22nd, will they then make my next report due date to be July 21st?  I thought that the procedure was to make the next report date to be 90 days after the present one was due.  Is anyone else having this experience?

Taxis in Japan have meters which issue receipts.  People use them for, among other purposes, to get their transportation costs paid by their employers.

BTW, most train stations in Japan have elevators for the disabled.  That's probably coming to Thailand.

A   friend says that the south of Spain is pretty boring now with a huge population of retirees. He will be spending more of his time in Phuket.

BTW, the California state tax is not insignificant. Along with a high sales tax, it can make a significant chunk of your money disappear.  Also, is it only citizens of other countries who are mentioning being liable for US tax after four months of residence?  Americans must pay US tax no matter where they live.

Portugal sounds intriguing but I don't speak Portuguese.  I do speak Thai.  

Yes, Navy Federal Credit Union has a very nice no-foreign- transaction-fee Visa card with a good rewards program giving you the option of cash back among other rewards.  I've been very pleased with their service.  Emails are answered within 24 hours.  They have a $600 max cash advance amount but you can get an additional advance two days after the prior one.  If you get the advance across the counter at Bangkok Bank, you pay no fees at all.  I don't mess with money transfers since I can pay for most things with the credit card and only need a moderate amount of cash.

I have Medicare Parts A & B.  I bought Part B because, although I am a permanent resident of Japan, my Japanese National Health Insurance would lapse if I need to return to the USA for assisted care or 24-hour care.  I inquired about buying a Medicare Advantage plan in the US but was told that I can't do it unless I transfer my residence to the USA.  I would need to be living there physically.  In the meantime, my Japanese Health Insurance pays for everything including dental care although it won't pay for implants or premium bridges.  It pays for root canal procedures and porcelain crowns though.  My Japanese health insurance also pays for my care while I'm here in Bangkok but I must present the proper receipts translated into Japanese.  Also, it won't pay the actual cost of medical care here, only what the procedure would have cost in Japan.  It's a good deal for old people like me because the co-payment is quite low.

I will be curious to hear how the elderly Vietnamese people that the OP knows are able to have Medicare.  My hunch is that they are low-income individuals and actually have Medi-Cal.  OP, please let us know what you find out.

To qualify for Medicare Part A, you must have worked for 40 quarters.  You don't have to make much, so a part-time job would probably do.  If your friend has some working years left, maybe she can accumulate enough quarters to be at least partly covered.  She could ask for a statement from SSA to see how many quarters she presently has.  Medicare has no earnings test, so if you have 40 quarters of employment during which you pay SSA tax, you can draw at least the minimum benefit no matter where you live.  You must also purchase Part B (if you want it) when you start drawing Part A.  Part B cannot be used outside of the USA but Guam is in the USA.

If you live in Little Saigon,  you can probably get some Vietnamese doctors and dentists to give you lower prices for treatment.  You can stop by the Lien Hoa Temple on Bixby Ave and ask the abbot, Rev. Chon Thanh, to introduce you to some medical people.  Here's a link to where it is.

https://www.mapquest.com/us/california/business-garden-grove/chua-lien-hoa-temple-303618742

Ericthai: I believe that you have a misconception about excluding the first $102,000 of your income if you reside abroad for 350 days in a year.  That exclusion is only for foreign earned income.  You must pay regular taxes on any income derived from US sources no matter how long you live abroad.  Also, if persons have any foreign-based prescription drug coverage (as in national prescription drug coverage - in my case Japanese National Health Insurance,  ) they can likely have their Part D penalty waived by by submitting evidence of their foreign prescription drug coverage.  

The Women at a shop in MBK are sloppy and spend as much time talking loudly with each other as the do cutting har.  Funny - the same woman was doing a much better job last year.  I' m looking for a new place.

If you use a VPN, you can sign up for CBS All Access for $5.99 per month and watch all of their popular shows including Blue Bloods, Bull and the three varieties of NCIS.  If you want no commercials at all, it is $9.99 per month.  For many other TV shows and movies, install Kodi and the appropriate add-ons.  You can learn everything about Kodi and add-ons by Googling.  There are instructional videos.  Finally, either connect your computer or tablet by HDMI cable or buy a Microsoft Wireless Video Adapter from IT City or Lazada online and cast wirelessly.  I prefer the HDMI cable.

Finally, you can install the VPN and subscribe to CBS, install Kodi and the add-ons and mirror all of those plus local terrestrial digital TV to your Big Screen using the ASUS Zenphone Go TV.  It's an amazing little phone with a terrestrial digital TV tuner in it that can receive digital TV broadcasts in a large number of countries.  You will, of course, need to have the Microsoft Adapter attached to your TV to do the wireless mirroring.  Happy watching!

Good move if the students taking the distance learning are organized and managed well by a classroom proctor.

Tramadol is not a particularly strong opiate unless you take many capsules.   Limiting the number of capsules sold will deter kids from getting high all of the time.  I suspect that pharmacists will sell a greater number of capsules to regular customers whom they know have a legitimate medical condition.   Let's be clear - taking five Tramadol caps and driving would not be safe. Your sense of balance and situational awareness would be significantly impaired.

Just thinking about this... Maybe it would be good to take some assertiveness classes there in the bay area and go after girls who are not too easy to pick up.  I have in the past chosen Asian girls who were very easy to get but now wish that I had been more assertive and gone after a quality girl.    The easy girls were easy to manage.  I could pick them up and dump them easily but I didn't get the quality of relationship that I wanted.  There were other girls around but I wanted the girls I could twist around my little finger.  Sometimes the girls who you have to work to form a relationship with turn out better in the long run.

You need to go up to the areas in LA where a lot of Thais live.  They do congregate in certain areas but my memory is fuzzy.  You need to develop some personality requirements so that you can vet the women that you meet.  Don't rush in lustfully and optimistically only to find out later that she's not really the girl that you wanted.  Keep in mind that in the LA area, there is Little Saigon in Garden Grove and Westminster, small Korea Towns around here and there and then there is Monterey Park full of Chinese.  As I remember, there are plenty of Asian girls eager to hook up with a white guy.

I just noticed that you live near Berkekey.  There are many Asian girls enrolled at UC Berkeley.  Frequent some of the coffee houses near campus and you'll meet some girls.

So far as going to Thailand to find the girl of your dreams, be aware that there have been many, many posters who came here to work and live and find a Thai girl who found themselves coming to crunch time when they approached the age of sixty without enough resources to get them through 30+ years of retirement.   You really must provide for your retirement.  You don't want to be destitute in your old age.  Money has a way of disappearing over here.  I keep all of mine in America and only bring over what I need.  Good luck?

Why not leave most of Thailand as a place where the Thai people can live as they choose without having to cater to tourists?  It IS their country and their culture.

Has any poster here ever been young?  When I was her age,  I did a lot of risky things.  For half of my life I have had no health insurance. 

In America,  the issue is not fake degrees but low-quality degrees.  My daughter got her BS in psychology without attending a single class. It was all distance learning done in front of her computer.  There were no televised classes.  It was all written work.   She was already working for a social service agency and her degree was actually accepted without question.   They like her work and want her to continue at the agency.   Unfortunately,  most people who get degrees from for-pay colleges can't get work.  I paid for my daughter's degree.  The number of degreed but unemployed people deep in debt is a national scandal.  Bernie Sanders talked about it a lot.   Too bad he didn't win. 

Jingthing: Believe me, when the s---t from China hits the fan, Russia might make a pretty good ally.

craigt3365:  Jeesh!  You don't know about the long history of state-sponsored disinformation?  I could recommended a couple of books.  Incidentally, whether the leaks disclosing DNC communications were selectively leaked or not, they were not disavowed by anyone so they are apparently true and not made up.  True election interference comes when a foreign power releases disinformation -falsehoods - about political contests.  During the time period of the Posdesta leaks, the DNC was grubbing up every bit of defamatory information about Donald Trump that they could find and releasing it to the press.  So who cares whether the material was dug up by the DNC or a foreign government hacking operation.  All of the information seems to have been true.