GinBoy2

I love these threads. We ugly 'muricans, can sit back for once, break out the popcorn and watch the Aussies and Brits duke it out! lol

The long term consequences are yet to manifest. Regardless of his legal and financial liabilities for his little escapade, his name will filter through the system and he'll end up on a bunch of airline 'No Fly' lists. Best he start planning on his next road trip from Munich to Bangkok!

And for the majority who don't know WW1 history, he was Australian

I get that, it must be hard. Thankfully I've never had to navigate that minefield, all my kids are mine, well at least I think they are! But joking aside, it's a tough row to hoe, and I know for many it just doesn't work out

I've not done it myself, but I work with a guy who is raising another man's child. He loves her exactly as if she were his own. Now maybe it's because he's been her Dad since she was two years old, never knew her biological Dad, but it can work out

I'm not really a Christmas kinda guy, pretty much a grinch. But my wife always tried to make it special when our son was little, and she loved the whole Christmas tree, decorations thing. Fast forward 20 odd years, son is long grown up and now it's grandkids and the same is true, she just loves making that little bit of magic for them. For me, I work at the local airport. The holiday music loop has started, and I swear to God if I ever meet that damn Rudolf, that deer is gonna get a bullet between the eyes!

It's kinda hard to say how couples are viewed in general society. Yeah, in Thailand if you see a 60/70 year old slopping around the mall with a couple of rugrats and a wife in tow young enough to be his Granddaughter, well I'd be hard pushed to deny the stereotype. In other cultures it's not quite the same. I met my wife in Singapore, we're roughly the same age and the sight of a white guy with an asian woman is commonplace. Walk down any street in San Francisco and the same is true, and no-one gives it a second thought. Thailand however is different. The age differential is more extreme, and the abundance of the sex industry does affect folks perception about farang/Thai relationships

Awful situation and I feel for you. But as many have stated before options are limited. This happened to a friend when his wife died in a traffic accident. Basically he was OK up to the expiration of his current spousal extension, after that he had no option but to convert to a retirement extension. I think the recent post from Dan with the lady who missed her reporting date while basically dying from cancer sort of illustrates that the Thai immigration system doesn't really bend for compassionate grounds. The OP doesn't mention it, but at 90, I hope he has a Thai family who can help him through this, or it's going to be pretty bleak

Price is another thing. I've never smoked a cigarette or got a tattoo, so the prices of these thing when I find out always shocks me. One of the young pups at work came in last week sporting a freshly inked arm. He told me how much it cost, and it 'Holy Fu&^&king <deleted>' ....You paid how much!!!! Never understood it, never will

So hopefully this makes everyone wanting to process a IR1/CR1 hopping mad. Trump waged a war on all immigration, legal or otherwise (curious since he seems to have a liking for Eastern European wives) and as part of that the USCIS office in Bangkok was closed. Back then if you lived in Thailand you could get the process done in a fraction of the time it takes now with what used to be called 'consular processing' although I know that wasn't the official term. This is the timeline I'd mentioned earlier, not as a rub your nose in it thing, but more an illustration of how it could work if politicians could actually do their jobs and not be fixated on just getting an interview on Fox News

OK, so I've read this term 'Bogan' bandied about in this thread, and I've never understood what it really meant. So as a public service for others like me I did a web search.

Maybe getting tats later in life ain't such a bad thing, you don't to live with them for decades. I begged all my kids not to get tats. As I explained, I look at pics of me in the 70's wearing clothes which I thought at the time made me pretty damn hot. Wearing those same clothes today would just make me look like an idiot. Tattoo's unfortunately, aren't like clothes, and if I'd got tats with my 1970's clothes I'd still be stuck with them and my 1970's clothes long gone to a landfill For the record, all my kids ignored Dad's advise!

I'm always intrigued by those seem to think you have to love Thailand, hate Home Country or vice versa. I think there is a sizable sub section of this forum, who are older, and if their primary goal is cheap sex with women young enough to be their daughters, yep the West is darn boring, and can't stop telling you that Then there are the ones who will trash Thailand at every opportunity, and I'm sure a large proportion of those got burned in some way of another, or through bad decisions are just stuck with no way out. Both those groups are zealots, and argument is futile! Then there are another group of us somewhere in the middle. Happily married, kids, wife similar age, who see the advantages and disadvantages of both. I got bored of Thailand, but there are times I get bored in the US. We now live close to our kids and grandkids in the US, which is a joy, but we equally enjoy our snowbird trips to our house in Thailand. If you embrace what you like, and dislike in both cultures and lifestyles, for the non zealot you can enjoy both, warts and all!

Trust me, I too can't remember this morning's breakfast, but at the time I'd put together a timeline for the whole process which I'd posted on here at the time

Now it was about 5 years ago when we went through the process, but it's quick. It took exactly two weeks. Applied on May 30th 2018, and it was received on June 14th 2018 Not sure how long it's valid for, but she had her interview on June 21st, so it's not like you have to get right before the interview

Hows the once wonderful South China Morning Post doing? Don't think their editorial freedom is quite what it was!

So back to ACA... When we first moved back to the US, and before we both got jobs, I enrolled us both in a health insurance policy through the ACA marketplace. Wasn't the greatest, high deductibles, but we could both get a Doctor visit for a $30 copay and it was a safety net should something bad happen. As soon as we got jobs, dumped it for employer benefits. But it allowed us that piece of mind while we were getting settled. So no complaints from me, works as it should

I've lived in both Taiwan and mainland China, late 90's early 2000's. When I was in Shanghai it was just as China joined the WTO, and the consensus back then was that would make China look more like Hong Kong. Then at the time when I lived in Taipei, a lot believed that they could unify and would have the same one country two systems like Hong Kong. Well fast forward 20 years and how things have changed. Rather than China looking like Hong Kong, Hong Kong looks an awful lot like any other Chinese city. In Taiwan friends that used to believe in the one country two systems myth, have pretty much done a 180 and now are firmly against any settlement with the CCP, they saw how that panned out in HK, and the idea of Taiwanese identity has solidified. I'm hoping that Xi departs this world before his desire for 'a legacy' comes to pass and tries to take Taiwan by force

Well if you think it's a beach paradise the bar is pretty low!

Lets get real about Pattaya It's not exactly a beach paradise, there are many other places in the world 100% more beautiful so we can rule that out For the majority of expats, it's older males who are there for cheap sex, you just can't get around that For a female expat with a partner, well I guess access to western products in the grocery store might be a lure, but can't think of much else

I miss my Mom every day. I was closer to her than my Dad, it was her will that drove to excel at high school and on to UC Berkley My Dad was a great guy, but he would have been happy if I just followed him in the fields. It was my Mom that saw a better future for me, better than my family past. So yeah I did love my Mom more, but it's complicated and I loved both my Mom & Dad in very different ways

Even in the midst of Alien Invasion, I think I'd rather eat grass!

Never underestimate the desire for profit over doing what's right. Green Hydrogen is on the horizon, and it provides an energy source as flexible as gasoline. But the current 'green' generation can't see past the bumper sticker politics, let alone fundamental science!

So I'm gonna stir the pot between my Brit and Aussie friends. One of my favorite Aussie foodies; Marions Kitchen, does some great Thai food, but delved into the Brit vs Aussie fish n chips, plus something that I have never found anywhere outside of the UK, chip shop curry sauce. https://www.marionskitchen.com/british-fish-and-chips/

Now I'm a bit of an American Anglophile, and often British food is unfairly castigated as awful. I've had some wonderful meals in the UK, but then came Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney pie. A friends wife cooked this many years ago when I was in the UK. To this day I'm not quite sure how to describe it. I'm Hispanic so the idea of offal doesn't worry me, liver, kidneys all good. But this meat concoction was one of the most terrible things I have ever experienced. Then we get to the pastry topping. It starts off on the top as a flakey pastry but the underlying layers are some slithery goop, I really don't have the words to describe it. Not one of the export products to be proud of Gentlemen