I realize it has been some time since my last written blog post and I thought there may be some family members out there that could use some posting. Cheryl and I have been very busy for the last few months and our adventures have been grand. We have engaged in new endeavours, enjoyed the summer, and even travelled to the farthest reaches of planet Earth.
Our teaching year wrapped up well. I thought Cheryl and I were rather organized in closing our first year of teaching. Once everything was wrapped up with a nice little bow we immediately busied ourselves with our summer business selling jewelry and accessories.
We had a huge sale on Canada Day in Osborne Village. We were attempting to liquidate most of our remaining stock from last year and Winnipeg, being as cheap as it is, responded voraciously to our reduced prices. This set us up well for the next step in our summer plan; our first business trip overseas.
Once more we were packing our things to fly over the Pacific to walk amongst the Buddhists. It was refreshing to return to Thailand. Our first experience upon arrival was classically Thailand in that it required an immediate Mai Pen Lai attitude. Apparently the door to the luggage bay on the airplane was stuck. The voice on the airport intercom claimed we would receive our luggage inside of 30 min., but we knew otherwise; after all, we lived there once you know. Of course, after 30 min., the intercom once more intruded upon us to indicate further delays. This event repeated itself until about 2 hours later when we received our luggage. Mai pen lai.
Thailand was beautiful just as we remembered. We worried very little and enjoyed a lot. We even went to our old neighbourhood to check things out. It was such an interesting sense of nostalgia to return to our former Thai nesting area. We visited the Thai massage place that we loved. We ate at our favourite restaurant. We saw other falangs that were just getting their Thai legs in their new neighbourhood. It was fascinating!
Revisiting our old business contacts was a lark. They all recognized us and invited us into their shops to ply us with Thai goodies and generous hospitality. It was like visiting old friends. And we felt much more climatized to the massive market situation than when we first visited in 2007. We approached the sprawling market with a "can-do" attitude. We went in, shopped, bartered, bought, made deals, and still got out with our heads intact (a feat not easily attained amidst a market of thronging thousands).
We made sure to spend a few weeks on Koh Chang (my favourite place in the world). Although the rainy season ensured a lot of precipitation we enjoyed swinging in hammocks, reading books, swimming, motorcycles, and way too much delicious food.
When we returned to Bangkok it was a flurry of business; buying, packing, weighing, and then back to the airport. I still can`t believe how much we got away with packing in our luggage!
Upon our return home we took off to Saskatoon to try to sell our newly acquired goods. The festival was good and we enjoyed ourselves. Unfortunately, we didn`t get to see much of my folks whilst we were there as they were at the lake.
Ever since that time we have been adjusting to returning to our little house on the Prairie. Cheryl has begun her first year teaching Grade 5-6 and is enjoying it whilst I am substitute teaching and otherwise fill my days farming the garden and creating some websites for us to begin doing business online. I`ve already launched a pre-website on Etsy.com. If you go there and type in "Walk About" or "jayewert". You can see our first online products for sale. I`ll keep you posted in the following weeks about the official launch of Walk About Jewelry online.
Life goes on and we are back in the saddle. We are happy, healthy, and grateful for what we have. Between that and the fact that we have each other, I would say we`re doing pretty well. Feel free to leave a comment to tell us how you are because we always miss our friends and family.
