The Anniversary Experience @ the Four Seasons Spa

We celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the Four Seasons Chiang Mai spa... It's quite the serene getaway spot, in the Mae-rim area to the northwest of the city. The landscaping is divine, the hospitality unbeatable, and we enjoyed a glorious, divine, 4-hour treatment at the spa. The treatment was a "thai body ritual - composed of a Thai herbal steam, herbal garden refresher body scrub, a natural Thai herb wrap, a herbal bath and a Thai massage." I don't think I've ever been as relaxed as I was under the care of a very attentive therapist, who scrubbed me with salts, rubbed me with an herbal balm, and swaddled me in banana leaves before working out my kinks. It was a sublime experience, and a fantastic first anniversary. Thanks for the good wishes, folks. Here's to many more to come!

Where do we start?

We've been here for almost 2 weeks and if we were really on top of things we would have had this blog set up before our departure in order to track and share the entire process, but preparing for this journey was very time consuming and we're just now getting around to setting this up. It's function is two-fold, writing about our experiences helps us to process how we feel about moving far

from home and becoming ex-pat's, and it serves to communicate what this lifestyle is like for those of you wondering and asking so many questions!

But first, let me go back to the beginning, the question we've answered most often...why move? and why Thailand?

Fuad and I both love travel, separately and together we have traveled all over the world. Traveling and seeing new places as well as meeting new people is a priority for us. Before getting married we had decided that at some point in our lives we would like to live abroad, we just didn't know where or when. Fuad found this job actually, and in order to gain the experience of applying to an International School, I applied. I applied for the job in 2010, it turned out the school didn't hire anyone that year, and we couldn't have moved anyway because we were getting married...so in February of 2011 I got the email asking if I would be interested to forward my application to this year's hiring. I, of course, said yes. Meanwhile, Fuad had gotten permission to transfer to the Asian Pacific Region of Leo Burnett.

I interviewed for the job first on skype and secondly on phone with both the principal and assistant principal of the Chiang Mai International School and just after a week, I was offered

the job, this was the first week of March. Fuad got the ok to transfer to the Bangkok office, we did some research on Chiang Mai and decided to take the leap! After making the decision to make the move, we both knew it was meant to be because everything fell into place so easily. For example, finding a sublet for our apartment with very little effort, selling our car with no effort at all and receiving a phone call from one of my new co-workers with a house that's exactly what we wanted across the street from her in Chiang Mai.

Not to say that there weren't challenging parts of preparing for this move as well, going through all of our STUFF and saying goodbye to the city filled with countless friends we've both called home for over a decade.

After making the decision to move I found all kinds of blogs and web-sites about becoming an ex-pat, and how to prepare to move to another country. I was happy to find that so many others were or had gone through what we were going through. I found reassurance in knowing that there would be stages, the anticipation, the honeymoon, the culture shock and eventually the process of returning home.

http://shanghaiexpatlife.blogspot.com/2008/04/five-stages-of-culture-shock.html &

http://livethecharmedlife.com/2010/03/100-reasons-to-become-an-expatriate/

Those of you reading who know me really well...you know that I don't really make decisions without having spent time reflecting, discussing, thinking, talking some more repeat over and over in order to seek and find clarity, so this is what I did...and realized that I had agreed to move to a country that I had never been to, where I don't know a single word of the language, cut my salary by about half, give away, sell or store most of my belongings, say goodbye to family and friends, put my puppy that I absolutely adore into a crate on a plane for 24 hours, in order to move with my husband all in the spirit of adventure. At this point I feel I have to acknowledge that I firmly believe when the Universe opens a door like this, you absolutely have to go through!

So after all that work, packing and storing and saying tearful goodbyes, after hepatitis & typhoid shots, after hours spent getting new passports, acquiring appropriate visas, after all that...here I sit in our lovely home in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

So before I continue on this adventure as it unfolds before us I want to remember a few things that struck me as we left Chicago.

On July 17th we packed our car with 7 suitcases Fuad, Baxter and I and drove towards O'Hare, and out of my side mirror I saw the city skyline in the rear view. There have been some people along the way who expressed that we can always come back whenever we want to...that it doesn't have to have this finality to it...but anyone who has spent any amount of time in another country knows that it changes you. We may be able to go back, but it will never be the same city to us, because we will have changed, we'll see everything with a new set of eyes.

The next day before saying good bye to my parents, I handed over the keys to our car, I want to remember the sensation of having no keys in my possession.

Lastly, I want to remember the heartfelt goodbyes and say thank you to all the people who took this opportunity to express how they feel, how they truly feel, about friendship, about yoga, about how Fuad & I had affected them. I carry each of you with me, I see this world for you and me and I know our paths will cross once more.

Thank you.

Exploring The New Map

Discovered that Bing has a better grasp of the nuances of Chiang Mai than Google Maps. Today I spent the bulk of the afternoon on the back of the bike, while Becky drove. You know you've married right when your wife rocks a motorcycle with aplomb and grace and can hold her own in 3rd world traffic. Plus she looks adorable in her orange helmet. I'll post a pic in a few days. Today was our first outing, and we made the most of it, going from our home in San Sai to Becky's school on the river's east bank, and then to the old city and back. This place is starting to feel familiar...

View Larger MapDriving Directions

Thai Adventures...

Last week was really hard without any technology (besides text message and the limited time we spent at the internet cafe) As of this morning we have internet at home, a home phone and local cell phone numbers. My 773 number has been canceled, which feels very strange, I've had that number for 11 years and I interestingly had a hesitation to turning it off. It felt like one more connection to home that I was releasing from my grasp.

I need to look up another word for adventure. So many people wrote and said that word to us as we prepared to leave. And it has already turned into one...There are moments throughout the day when I feel like I'm having to learn everything over. Even the smallest things are different, and I often think, "I need to tell everyone about this..." Turning on the oven for example...we have a western style kitchen which means oven and stove are included. (most thai homes only have stove) The gas tank is sitting on the floor next to the oven/stove connected by a tube (much like a grill) It took me 5 minutes the first morning that we had a kettle (purchased at the Thai-style $1 store) to figure out that I had to turn the gas tank on before turning on the stove.

Yesterday Sue drove us to the "airport mall" So Fuad could go to the immigration office in order to register and get the title of the scooter we purchased, and so we could set up our cell phone service.

By the time we left (all of this took hours by the way...because everything takes twice as long here and I had to get my iphone unlocked, which took 2 hours and really they "jailbroke" it) the parking lot was completely FULL and by FULL I mean everywhere people doubled parked! I was like, how are these people ever going to get out???!!! "Oh" Sue says, "simple..." All the cars double parked are in neutral, if one is blocking you, you push it out of the way (straight forward or back) move your car, (usually there is another car waiting to take the spot) then push the car in neutral back to it's position! It felt much like a tetrus game. I find myself pointing out all the things that would NEVER happen in the states and getting so much pleasure from it!

This week we also experienced the walking market at the corner intersection of the main road just outside of our mooban (neighborhood) For some reason I love these outdoor markets! All kinds of things for sale! Including these really cool

lanterns made from plastic liter bottles, painted and created to look like flowers. I bought some pants for $11 a pair and I'm excited that this market sets up every Monday & Tuesday.

I'm really loving the low cost of most things here, for example, pedicure, 300 bhat=$10 including tip! We have 2 ladies from school coming to clean the house once a week, they literally clean from top to bottom, even pick up in the yard and clean outside 400 bhat for both of them=$12!!! It's nice that they work at the school, one of them apparently makes the best coffee and today she informed me that she will bring me a cup everyday! : )

We have a lead on a reputable cook/housekeeper, but she won't be available til next month. We're in discussion about what that will look like, we have some options as to how to set up the schedule and we've decided not to purchase a washing machine, but rather gainfully employ the cute lady one street over (2 minute walk) who has laundry service out of her house.

Otherwise, yes, it's hot! The sun is totally intense and it's absolutely necessary that I wear sunblock everyday even if it's cloudy. I could feel myself getting sunburned after only 10 minutes outside while learning how to drive our scooter! It's supposed to be the rainy season, but it hasn't rained in 2 days, so the humidity is fierce! Thank god for the AC in our bedroom!

The New Ride

Spent the bulk of my birthday canvassing used bike lots with my very patient and generous neighbor Yo, who obligingly test drove a bunch of motorcycles until we both ultimately settled on the bike below. I just turned 33 and bought a motorcycle. Becky informs me that it's not motorcycle (as that title is reserved for Harley's and Honda's and crotch-rockets of that nature), it's just a scooter. Well, it's got two wheels, a motor, and it's pretty badass, and I'm slightly afraid of it, so it's a motorcycle to me. Below are pics. It's a Yamaha Fino - here are the specs, for anyone curious. Now I just have to learn how to ride it...

Arrival

We were met at the airport by a crew of folks from CMIS, Becky's school. They piled our rather sizable cache of suitcases into a van, put Baxter in his crate in a pick-up truck, and dropped us off at our new home in San Sai. It was a glorious welcoming committee and I'm still getting used to the idea that we'll be living in these new digs. The house is bigger than I anticipated, and better than it looked in the pictures we first saw... Livin' large!

To Chicago, With Love

July 11, 2011

I’m experiencing what feels like the biggest countdown of my life…. This is one of those defining events, all of which have a countdown, like high school or college graduation day, or moving to Chicago. I counted down to our wedding day, and my last day as an employee at Chicago Public Schools, but this, the countdown to our move to Chiang Mai, Thailand, feels like the biggest.

In 7 days I leave not only this city that I’ve loved to call home for the past 11 years, but the only country I’ve ever lived in. I’ve never lived out of the midwest or more than 2 hours away from my parents…

I’m proud to say I’ve spent this much time here and although I’ll always be a Michigan girl, I’ve got Chicago running through these veins.

To the students who crossed the threshold of my classroom door over the past 11 years at Chicago Public Schools, I’m forever grateful for the lessons I have learned as your teacher, for it is you that led me here.

To the students who roll out their mats week after week at Moksha, my eternal gratitude for allowing me to lead you through this practice that I hold so dear.

To Moksha for arriving on my path at just the right moment, for sharing the sacred teachings of yoga and for leading me to the man I’m so blessed to have as my life partner, my love Fuad.

To all the folks I’m so lucky to call family & friends, thank you for the endless memories & boundless support, for just the right amount of unconditional love mixed with tough love, for the laughs & tears over glasses of wine, for late nights dancing, days at the beach, for movies and dinners and brunch and parades, the list goes on & on…for all of you, may our paths cross again.

New students await…there are new rhythms calling in the distance, new resonances to be found, and new practices to be taught.

Forever the teacher, where there are students I’ll go…

Love Letters to Chicago-Exit with Intention I

Less than a month away from a looming departure to a new life in Asia, and my thoughts linger heavily over the hard reality of leaving this lakefront I call home. Chicago isn’t just a place for some of us, it’s a state of mind and being, an endless love affair with an unpredictable beast of a city that will shade all the subtle places in your soul if you let it. This place defines me. I wanted it to. I latched onto the rich lineages of this town with a vengeance, and learned my craft studying the legacy of those who came before. I came looking for the blues and got swept up in a crew of DJs so sick their beats are born into the world as contraband. Once you’ve really tapped into the rich throbbing vein of Chicago’s sound, and drunk from its many tributaries, there’s no escaping its sway on your life. You become part of a heritage that’s been passed down through generations, of blues refined and plugged in and beats distilled and tweaked into something fierce enough to keep you warm through vicious wintry nights. I may not choose to live here anymore, but this is not the kind of city you can really leave behind. The sound follows you…if you let it…

This is one of the reasons we’ve chosen to leave. Becky and I came here as musicians…the music brought us here, provided us with jobs and gigs, sustained us through a dozen years of hard work and toil, and ultimately it led us to find each other on parallel journeys, fingering the same chords and pounding complementary rhythms. Now it’s opened up a doorway for us across the world in Thailand, and so we go where the sound takes us, to ply our wares and beats for new strangers soon to be friends.

But in all honesty, that simplifies and romanticizes the reasons why we’re leaving. Why leave a city this good? Why leave our great jobs? Why put so much distance between us and the friends we’re so blessed to know and love? You don’t leave your family behind on a whim, nor do you walk away from entire communities without considering the folly of what you might be doing. We are leaving our home, where we have roots and careers and infinite love, for an adventure into the great unknown of Southeast Asia. Perhaps a deeper explanation is in order…

A couple weeks ago I was having dinner with Becky and we were talking about this move, and all the emotions it’s dredging up, and about how so many people we know are experiencing similar profound transitions. Not a lot of our friends are moving, but a whole slew of them are having their first kids and getting hitched and settling into parenthood and property ownership and new stages of their careers. It’s a spectacle to behold, really, this process of adjusting into adulthood, and I found myself telling Becky it scares the bejesus out of me. Domesticity may be inevitable, but we do have a choice of how it manifests. All our lives are on trajectories, and as we age the infinite array of possible futures starts to narrow down. The more you root down in one place, the more likely certain options are to unfold. This is why a new horizon and new challenges sound so appealing. We’re not ready just yet to settle into our lives here, into a mortgage, a family, predictable retirement worries, and the standard formulas for middle aged chitown hipsterdom that would be so easy to embrace. We want something else.

What it is we do want? Well, we want to travel. We tasted enough of the world to have the hunger in us for far horizons, and wanderlust is both a gift and an affliction that spurs people on to increasingly stranger quests for novelty. We dream of a place where the sun comes down strong the whole year round, where the local cuisine is infused with spices that caress and burn the tongue, and where time moves at a leisurely meandering pace. We want to explore, and to reboot and redefine ourselves, seeking out new levels of awareness and understanding amongst new circles of people. Is that so hard to understand?

Becky and I both came to Chicago as different people, innocent in so many ways, untested and raw, and the city broke us down and rebuilt us in its image. We lost parts of ourselves here, and learned who we were in the process. It took us a dozen years of seeking and wandering to find each other, and now that we’ve joined our lives together, we want to remake our maps and plans and start fresh in a different place and see what a new context will do for our love and lives. Everyone deserves a clean slate every now and then, right? F.Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote that “there are no second acts in American lives.” Well, that might have been true a century ago, but it’s not true for us, beholding a far different future. There are many acts available to those of us not hemmed in by borders, who teach across tribes, and who are tapped into the mysteries of sound and rhythm… Those second acts just need to be sought out....