Reading my last blog, it's hard to believe I live with the same cat. Masala is completely back to normal, and it's actually a little sad to be reminded of all that he went through. He is no longer on any medicine or special treatment, and is back to his crazy self. In fact, because he lost so much weight through his ordeal, he has been on a "food plus" diet to get his strength back. Looking at him, he's getting a little chonky, so we're going to need to slowly cut back on his diet.

Please don't tell him that, though.

He has a 5 word vocabulary now. He recognizes his name, and will often come or at least look at you when you say it. He also knows "Pss!", a sound we make when he is doing something naughty, which usually makes him stop. He knows "Ah ah!", which is a sound I make when we can play. He knows "food", which will make him perk up and run to the counter. And finally "tree tree" (treat treat), where he will run to the fridge. Treats usually follow us picking him up or trimming his nails, two things he is not a fan of, but we're trying to get him to enjoy (or at least tolerate) it.

Unlike the last blog where we didn't have many adventures, this time we have too many. Like, I don't know where to begin? I suppose we'll start with a visit from my sister and nephews, who stayed with us for a month. While they made their own excursions, it was go go go for 30 days. Now sitting in a coffee shop on a weekend morning, it feels incredibly weird to have free time again. Whew. If you're the person who wants to have children, more power to you - but I think it's not for me. I like to go slow and at my own pace, and enjoy my quiet.

So let's talk about all the not-quiet things we did.

On the day they arrived, we put down luggage and went straight to Lumpini Park. Why Lumpini Park? There is a large monitor lizard population that lives there, and the boys wanted to see them. I mean, Lumpini Park is really nice by itself, but seeing the lizards there always gives me a laugh. You see, they're considered very unlucky in Thai culture, so much so that their name in Thai is a curse word. So instead, people colloquially call them "black and golds". When Ella and I first lived here, the government said that they were going to expel all of the lizards from the park. About a week later they declared victory, which had the same vibe as GW Bush standing on the aircraft carrier. They had decidedly not won that war, with the lizards mostly unfazed by the government's efforts. Now, Bangkok has completely given up. There is even a monitor lizard statue in the park, and they've just rolled with it that tourists like them, even if locals don't. Walking around you can't go for a few minutes without seeing one, especially if you hang out near the water. I admit they do look pretty cool, and we even saw one eat a field crab. The boys liked them so much they went back again the next day, and maybe a third time.

Actually now looking through my photos I just realized this is going to be a very animal-heavy entry. The next day we went to Chatuchak Market, in particular their pet section. I knew of the existence of a pet section at Chatuchak, but I did not realize how extensive it was. Pretty much any pet you can think of they have, and also some you wouldn't normally consider a "pet" - like a giant tortoise, raccoon, and meerkat. But we were awash with cats, dogs, hamsters, hedgehogs, snakes, rabbits, fish, sugar gliders, birds, beetles, and god knows what else. And of course, accessories and whatnot to go along with them. I want to naively say it's the largest pet market in the world, because it did go on seemingly forever, but I'm sure there is larger somewhere.

Trying Thai mango for the first time

But I mean, it's Thailand. So, wouldn't it be great to just play with animals, even something like a lion? Well, the L-7 Cafe has you covered. As long as you eat there, you get 5 minutes with their baby lion plus all their other animals. As unique as it was to interact with a lion, my favorites were the meerkats, who were really curious and cuddly. In fact, they climbed all over Michael, forming a cuddle puddle on his belly. They also have raccoons, which are another favorite of mine. Crazy smart and cute little guys, it would be cool to have one as a pet - until you remember they are crazy curious and dexterous as all get out, and that your house would be torn apart in no time. I'll stick to seeing them in someone else's house. Anyway, photos are more interesting than my musings, so best that I post a few.

While the boys stayed here, they discovered a place called Harborland, and went probably a dozen times. They're a staple at every mall, and I knew they were some sort of entertainment for kids. But I had never been in one before (obviously), and wow, I'm impressed - imagine a McDonald's playplace, except the size of a football field, more extreme, and they even tuck in little amusement park rides. It's a padded climbing gym where you can just kind of go nuts, and I totally get it. For the parents, they even have a cafe with wifi and plugs where you can just chill - and the kids cannot leave without passing through the cafe. I can totally see the appeal of just letting your kids run around like monkeys for 3 hours while you sip coffee and remember what time was like when sleep was a thing you had. But as for me, I still like going on slides and swinging on ropes. Would it be weird if I went without having a kid with me?

Yes. Yes it would.

But we also went to Siam Amazing World Amusement Park, which I gotta say was just okay. There was one very fun rollercoaster, and the water park was decent, but the rest of the park was a bit tired. Michael was exactly the minimum height with his shoes on to get on the "big kid" rides, but they made him take off his shoes and gave him a kid wristband. I mean, I get it, rules are rules, but they have shockingly few rides in that category. About half were shut down, so I can't really recommend Siam Amazing World except for riding the big coaster if you're tall enough. Or just the water park. But actually that was about the extent of our bloggable outings with Kristi and the kids. Ella and I were both working, so our interactions were mostly meeting up daily for dinner. Of course they did a lot more, and even took a few trips around Thailand, which I'm sure she posted on her Facebook or whatever social media people use nowadays. But eventually our time with that came to an end, and we were free again.

In a weird twist of the calendar, pretty much everyone's birthday is in June and July, so there was a lot of merriment during that time. While many were just dinner and drinks, a shout out to Lillie, who decided to mix it up with an interactive game room thing? I kind of don't know how to describe it, there are colored lights on the floor, and you need to jump and run around to push all the other colored lights. I had a blast, it was a good workout, and I think gyms should just be this from now on. Maybe it's better just to put up a video, you can decide for yourself. I never knew about this place, and unfortunately we went about a week after the boys left. But hey, it's just something for next time.

Now, for Bangkok adventures, Ella and I went to a few different places. Actually I'm currently writing another blog entry of "100 Things to Do in Bangkok", and finding it very difficult to limit to to just 100. I think this city may be the most jam packed of stuff to do of anywhere I've ever lived, maybe in the world, so let's take a look at two places on that list. One is Wat Prayurawongsawas Worawihan (say that three times fast), a rather unassuming place in a Bangkok suburb. The main appeal though is they have a garden full of turtles, and you can feed them fruit. And they are happy to eat it. While the wat is fine, the garden is quite pretty, and wow, lots of turtles. After we visited the nearby Queen Mother park, a cute little place built in honor of King Rama IX's mother. It has a small museum about her, and is just a nice green space. It's also next to a coffee shop and Chinese temple with a nice view of the river, so it was a nice afternoon excursion.

Another adventure was to the Coin Museum. Located right next to Khao San Road, I bet a lot of backpackers skip past this place without knowing it. It's in a very beautiful old building which is nice enough to look at, but also has a ridiculous amount of, well, coins. Mostly Thai coins, but they also have a lot of things from East and Southeast Asia. There's also a lot of commemorative and other special series of coins from around the world, some being really beautiful. For me, my favorite part was the room of modern currency from countries around the world. I didn't know what an Egyptian pound looked like before, and now I do. I think overall, Maldives, you've got the prettiest pretty currency. You should take commissions from other countries.

Now the last adventure was something I was (past tense) going to put on my list of "100 things", but it has very much been demoted. Ella and I visited Wat Khun Samutrawat before, 10 years ago. It is a temple on the bay of Thailand, that is slowly falling into the ocean due to rising water levels. It was an adventure to go there, because you had to take a boat through (over?) a village which is now submerged. When you finally got there, it felt like you discovered something unique and cool, something well off the tourist track. Now it is decidedly ON the tourist track, as the boat is no more, its access cut off by a winding road. You need to take your own private vehicle out there, or pay an extortionate rate for a tuk-tuk. While the temple is free to visit, its higher tourist profile may have gotten it donations, and they built another larger, albeit pretty, building next to the old temple. While I'm happy for their success, the "undiscoveredness" and the unique journey to get there was most of the appeal of this place. Now that there's a parking lot full of coach buses, I really can't recommend it any more, and this will be the last time we visit I suppose.

Whew! I feel that I left out so much, I'll need to sort through photos for Facebook later. I would say you're all caught up now, but not at all. This week is Buddhist Lent and the King's Birthday, so Thailand added an extra day or two of holiday to make it a week long break. With our newfound time Ella and I ventured north to Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai. But this entry is long enough as is, so let's stop here and save them for next time.

Well, there's a lot to catch up on. And stay tuned for "the month where everything goes wrong".

Last time we left me, me was finishing my trip through northern Thailand. I got to be at home for about a week after that, just enjoying my time off. Mostly it was playing Octopath Traveler 0, which I'm a big fan of. In fact, I managed to finish it after a few days back, so I'd really recommend it. I'd just recommend all the Octopath games, they're the best JRPGs to come along since Star Ocean and Chrono Trigger.

But it was a short respite, because it was time to go back to China for Songkran / a late Chinese New Year. As expected, we didn't do too much (except eat). We did have one outing to a place called Cuishan, which doubles as a TV set where they occasionally film things. It has some other attractions you can pay extra for, like a glass bridge or alpine slide. We just took a shuttle to the top of the mountain and walked down, stopping at some temples along the way. It's quite pretty, and certainly not anything most foreign tourists would know about. In fact, I realized that I may be the only (or one of the very few) foreign "tourists" in Qujing at all, or at least one that has lived there the longest. So I felt a sense of responsibility to tell the English internet what you can do in Qujing if you, for whatever reason, find yourself there. So I created a page on WikiVoyage, which was a fun project. I didn't know the markup language for a wiki, so now I do! And now if you or a friend ever find yourself there, you'll be able to entertain yourself for a day or two. But after that week, it was back to Thailand.

I'd imagine Cat of the Mountain Temple has knowledge to dispense

And then starts the month where everything goes wrong.

We put Masala in a cat hotel before we left, which involved "smuggling" him out of our apartment. I put "smuggle" in quotes because it's an open secret that people have cats there. I've seen many myself. So it's kind of a "don't be obvious about it and we'll look the other way" sort of deal. Well, when we were bringing him back, a new employee with apparently something to prove decided to make a deal out of it, and reported it to the manager. The manager was cool about it all things considered, kind of like "Well... now that they reported it I kind of have to enforce it." So suddenly we were homeless in a sense, because we weren't allowed in the building, and he was just in his carrier outside. I thought I could wear management down with polite insistence, but they really wouldn't budge, even for one night. So fortunately, we have amazing friends with a spare bedroom who offered to house Masala while we tried to figured out what the heck to do.

And thus kicked off a week of me trying to find an apartment ASAP. Did you know that without exaggeration, 95% of apartment buildings in Bangkok do not allow cats? I do now. I never would have thought it was such a big deal, I figured you'd just need to pay an extra deposit. But nope. Looking at my phone, I have 97 places marked. So for about 3 days, I walked tens of thousands of steps, to each of those 97, and asked 1) Do you have rooms, and 2) Are cats allowed? The final count for question two was four. Four places allowed cats. Well, now we live in one of those four. All things considered, I don't think it was a bad move. We are very central in the city now, and are steps way from a mall, metro, bars, restaurants etc.. The apartment is also a bit larger, and is all in all more comfortable than our old place.

But the month where everything goes wrong isn't over yet. Not long after we moved in, Masala started throwing up. Now, he has done this before, on a one off, because hairballs and stuff. But he kept doing it, and realized, it's time for a vet visit. The vet wasn't really sure what was going on, but his bloodwork said that his liver is going nuts, almost like he ate something poisonous to him. I felt an immense amount of guilt at this. I really went over the apartment with a fine toothed comb, thinking what I could have left out that he could have eaten. But I really came up blank. We got some medicine for him, and went on our way. Except after a few days, he was worse. So, back to the vet. They sent us to another vet, a specialist. That vet said the same, that he appeared poisoned. I was really at a low point, thinking I obviously missed something, and that my negligence is responsible for all of this. But they ordered an ultrasound to be sure.

And there it is. The dummy swallowed a toy ball. And not just recently, a toy he had and we took away when he was a kitten. This had been floating around in his stomach for months, and I guess he grew enough that finally it could enter his intestine and get stuck. Now, on the one hand, I felt an intense sense of relief that I didn't poison our cat. On the other hand, the only way it comes out is surgery. To be honest, he was in real bad shape by this point. It was evening, and the vet said we should not delay this until morning. But they didn't have a surgical ward, so they phoned a colleague, who agreed to stay open if we came right away. By this time it was around 10pm, so off we went across town, followed by a very nervous few hours to hear the news that the surgery was successful.

He stayed in that animal hospital for about a week while they monitored him. And it's not really a place for visitors, it's more like an ER. I crammed myself onto a small stool by his cage, spending pretty much all day there. I'm sure they got a little annoyed that this foreigner would take up their space, but I really didn't want to leave him alone. And I'm glad to say he bounced back without complications. He actually bounced back too well, as the vet said he should take it easy for one month. Masala didn't get that memo, because about one week after he got home he was jumping on things and running around the apartment, thrilled to be out of the vet's cage. But his recovery wasn't over yet. He needed medicine or special food every 3 hours, so it kind of put us in a bind on traveling anywhere together for a while. Thankfully after he finished one of the medicines he needed attention every 6 hours, but it was still quite inconvenient. At the time of writing he's on his last day of special food, thank goodness.

It's also back to normal at work, with the new academic year starting. I don't have too much to say about that, except overall this year I'm happier than last. As a recap, I'm divided between working at two schools, some days at one some days at the other. Between School A and School B, I liked School A and thought School B was so-so. Fortunately I've been reassigned from School B, and School C is a big improvement. Not only is it a better location, but the management is more communicative and things are organized better. I'm also teaching almost all computer science classes, which is a nice change of pace from English. Since I'm not as experienced teaching computer science as I am English, it is a little more work starting out, but I'm starting to get the hang of things and getting faster at planning. At the very least, it's flexing some muscles and developing some skills that I haven't really used in a while.

Anyway, for more interesting stuff, we did manage to slip out during those limited "Masala attention" windows. One trip was to Wang Lang market, a place on the Thonburi side of the river. I had never been there before, but apparently Ella had. It is a pretty interesting market, in that it seems designed for local tourists instead of foreign ones - tucked back into a bunch of alleys, it seems like a place that someone from northern Thailand would stop by compared to an American. But that's also what made it interesting, because it had some stuff I didn't expect. Like, a bakery selling pieces of apple pie and brownies for 10 baht (30 cents) each. I also tried salak, a fruit that I've had the flavoring of but never the actual fruit (not a fan, tastes like a jackfruit, or not-sweet pineapple dunked in alcohol). Even at 10am there was no shortage of stuff to eat, and it would be a great place to visit daily if you lived nearby.

After the market and way too much coffee, we crossed back over the river to visit the Queen's Gallery. Set up by Queen Sirikit (who recently passed way) to showcase local artists, this place is right in the historical part of town. And yet despite walking past it hundreds of times, I never knew it existed. It's too bad as well, because it was remarkably cool. I know I'm not an art guy, but this is one of my favorite galleries I've visited. It's only about $1.50 to visit, and just has a lot of personality. The art is creative without being weird, and absolutely worth your time.

And unfortunately that's about it for adventures, but now I think you (and I) are all caught up on things. That will probably change in a big way starting next week - some family members are visiting Thailand for a whole month. I'm sure there will be a lot of touristing, so stay tuned for the "what to see in Bangkok with kids" rundown.