When I last posted, I was on Kaosahn road, the most touristy spot in Bangkok, feeling absolutely ill, but super excited to see Thailand. Since then, I’ve explored a bit, but really been taking it easy and trying to spend more time with people rather than just see as many places and things as I can. I spent the first week or so staying at my cousins’ house in Bangkok. Whenever meeting distant family, you never really know what to expect, and with this new family, I was thrilled to meet a wonderful set of creative, talented, amazing people. Fay is my first cousin twice removed, or second cousin once removed, or something weird like that… who cares? She dropped out of school at 16 to pursue ballet in NYC with one of the main companies at the time. While there, she met her husband Pu, a Thai studying art and design. After a while, through Amway, they moved back to Thailand. Now Fay runs a successful dance studio in Bangkok, teaching ballet and putting on shows. Pu is one of these multi-talented, highly creative kind of guys; he is an amazing artist, has coached beauty queens, is the captain of the Thai national Kendo team, recently became a major motion picture actor, working his way up the ranks, is a great cook, sells his own brand of salad dressing, etc… They have a sweet 9 year old son, Aaron, who is obsessed with legos and all these MMOWOT (massively multiplayer online waste of time) games that some evil geniuses managed to create to suck in and destroy today’s youth. Damn you webkinz!! It had been a long time since I spent some quality time with a young kid. It can be tough but it’s definitely rewarding. I am extremely lucky to have family here and was so thankful to have a real home to stay in while I was recovering from my stomach bug. It had been 6 months since I was in someone’s home! Just being surrounded by art, by couches, having a fridge full of food, it’s something we really take for granted when we are in it and until you’ve been living out of a bag in shitty hostels for a while, it’s hard to really learn to appreciate it. So I have a lovely home base in Bangkok and some new family that I hope will stay in more of a long term relationship kind of perspective rather than just a passing through, nice-to-meet-you-thanks-bye kind of a thing, but I suppose that’s largely dependent on whether I return and spend some more time in Thailand or not. At the moment though, I’m really thinking about coming back here. Often. It’s amazing. I love the culture, the food, the people, the lifestyle, the art, everything. Thailand is such a great place to chill out, and being the privileged westerners that we are, it’s extremely accessible to come here and live a simple, beautiful, fulfilling life.