Thread: Your wife's/so's first trip to your country

Originally Posted by ShrewedPunter

Why can't she make her own food?

I agree. In fact, holiday makers around the world could save a lot of hassle by cooking their own bloody food. Stupid restaurants.

Went to a country park and stood on the pond bank. Wife could not believe her eyes when all the numerous ducks and geese swam over to us,fearless wildfowl.She said"Farang must be Monk".

Originally Posted by S Landreth

(New York and Miami)

Would she feel the same if you lived in a trailer park in middle America?

Who wouldn't want to visit places as cool as that! Most of us aren't lucky enough to live in places like that though. I certainly don't anyway.

Police here to help people.. never take money ..

Farang baa!! Farang Crazy!

Mine will soon put her reckoning that Thai parents are more protective of their children (than farang) to rest.

We just came back from Vancouver/Vancouver Island Canada..her second trip, temp 0-11c:

"f..king cold"
"I hungry"
"I cannot poo!"
"how many days before we go home"
" nice view from up here, very pretty....snow is neat but f..king cold"
"how many days before we go home"
" I hungry dear....where we buy good Thai food"
"f..king rain so cold...f..king hell I want to go home...how many days?"

Luckily last time found a great Thai restaurant, with all Thai cooks, a block away from the Consulate..I think she wanted to move in..excellent papaya salad..ended up getting doggy bags for breakfast. They serve food north American style ie enough on one plate to feed a family of four...lol

OP: Before our first trip, en route, took her to Bangkok clothing markets and bought her a coat..she had already crochet'd herself touk and scarf.
My Aussie roaming phone bill was 350+ frickin dollars worth of calls to Thailand!

Next trip will be to Northern Queensland ..hopefully she will like it better. My phone bill will also be somewhat less methinks..

Thailazer,

The Good:
My Gal was excited to come and now here, she loves it. She has learned to navigate things very well. She loves how clean things are and the unlimited very low priced fruit. She has had a few bouts of missing certain spices and foods but I have quite a few friends at the company I retired from that travel back and forth and they mule care packages for her so all good.She really likes the quality of clothing and the low price. She was very shy in the beginning meeting people but warmed up quickly.

The challenging:
She still cant get a grasp on is the sales tax thing. Really seems to irritate her. While cars are low price she cant understand why we do not have LPG here to make it cheaper to get around. Public transportation is non existent.

All in All I am glad we are here for the near term. Great experience for her and US. I am happy to have been able to reciprocate for all the nice things she did for me in Thailand.

Enjoy your time.

^

At least she's telling you up front. Fair enough Eh.

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Public transportation is non existent.

Wait a minute JPPR, your in San Jose right? No public transportation? what happened to the SJ muni? BART, Transit authority? Just asking? Did you relocate?

Originally Posted by ltnt

Originally Posted by JPPR2

Public transportation is non existent.

Wait a minute JPPR, your in San Jose right? No public transportation? what happened to the SJ muni? BART, Transit authority? Just asking? Did you relocate?

Still right here in SJ but public transportation is really a joke. We did a few stints very early on to go to a few places and show her as in the beginning she was adamant about using it. Cost nearly $3 to $5 to do VTA, then bus and back home and took 1.5 hrs one way to go about 13 miles. In a car that is a 15 minute drive. While it is here it is very very inefficient and why most do not use it. I see empty VTA trains, empty bus's all the time. It is just far to spread out for an area that really needs a much higher presence. So they just keep building more and more commuter lanes.

Originally Posted by thailazer

And JPPR, I like your comment on reciprocation. My wife has shown me so much of Thailand and of the Lanna culture that I want her to thoroughly enjoy her month here.

Absolutely....I think sometimes we forget how much our gals do for us. They took us in, showed us around, took care of us etc etc.

^ Took you in and took care of you?? You make yourself sound like a stray dog.

Some of us are stray dogs. Today's reactions are everything is big. Doors too big and heavy to push open, silverware that's big enough to use as gardening tools, big plates, big meals, burritos as large as newborns. People are big, roads are big, cars are big. She has fallen in love with big oranges though. The mere Thailand Tangerine is quickly taking second place.

^ 555 mine fell in love with a BIG lump ,, thats me

Originally Posted by nigelandjan

BTW bloody good point someone above has just made about clothes before going ,, my missus is 4' 10" and weighs in about 45 kilo,s so its ni on impossible to get her clothes here

LOL, my Mrs had the same problem, she's about 5'2" and weighs about the same as yours. She kept seeing things she liked but it was all way too big for her.

I ended up taking her to the teen's section in some place (I think it was M&S) and she found some stuff that fitted, the sales staff in the section were cracking up at a 40 yo woman trying things on . She still bought some (expensive!) UK adult sized stuff too though and had it adjusted by the neighbourhood seamstress when we got back here.

Originally Posted by thailazer

Today's reactions are everything is big. Doors too big and heavy to push open, silverware that's big enough to use as gardening tools

Love it! Seeing my home country through my wife's eyes was hilarious and thought-provoking for me. She'd travelled before to S'pore, Brunei and Oman but staying in my family's home and just holidaying was new and it was the little things that she'd comment on that I wouldn't normally give a second thought to that were cool and funny.

My wife and step-daughter just couldn't believe how beautiful Washington State is. Driving down I-5 with Mount Rainier in view or the Olympic Mountain range on this side of the sound. Quite frankly the step-daughter started thinking she was American several years ago for some reason so she didn't feel like going to the USA the first time was odd at all. When it comes to Thai food ... no problem ... everything a Thai can want is available in the PACNORWEST.

My mates wife decalred that the UK must have ''corruption mak mak'' because the police don't carry guns.

Question:

How would your wife/GF react to meeting a Thai in your home country who refused to speak using the Thai language?

The Thai would relent and speak Thai and ask ''gin kao liang''. Nationalism and all that never goes away.

Originally Posted by Storekeeper

My wife and step-daughter just couldn't believe how beautiful Washington State is. Driving down I-5 with Mount Rainier in view or the Olympic Mountain range on this side of the sound. Quite frankly the step-daughter started thinking she was American several years ago for some reason so she didn't feel like going to the USA the first time was odd at all. When it comes to Thai food ... no problem ... everything a Thai can want is available in the PACNORWEST.

We just spent an epic blue sky day in Seattle in the middle of the Seattle Marathon. (Dodging the runners as we crossed streets.) Had Thai food last night and two seafood meals today. She is loving it. Questions of the day were "where are the markets, where are the food stands, where do people eat, why doesn't this big city have people walking around? We used the light rail system a few times and she was already sketching out where one should be put in and routed in Chiang Mai. Seattle's rail system is pretty impressive.

Middle of the afternoon we were having coffee at nice corner shop and started chatting with a Seattle policeman. The wife asked him about how is day was and he said it is just starting and that he'll end up dealing with all the crazy people on the street. Surprisingly, we ran into him a few hours later as he and a partner were questioning a bag lady that must have done something nefarious. The wife got to see some real drama.