Blog Wednesday

It has been about a week in our home now. Things have gently unpacked and my wife went shopping and bought all kinds of food. Since she loves to cook and she knows my favorite stuff, I often get some different kind of potato for dinner. Less often is rice.

Yesterday she went and bought a Khmer charcoal grill for cooking. I had thought they were expensive but ends up being about $7. She had already bought the fuel from a guy that sells in our neighborhood. One nice thing in Southeast Asia just about everywhere are the local shops and stores. Our girl can run out and pick up some stuff we need in minutes. They also sell beer.

The house has come along nicely these days. I have directions to walk and exploring to do still. Some roads take turns and turn to dirt and then back to concrete and small town districts which I love to see. Coffee shacks dot the road and it’s easy to stop and get an Iced Latte as I want. Walking back home, Alin will look at me and decide I must shower immediately and our girl does the laundry each day for me primarily. Having our own washing machine plus the great outdoors to dry clothing is great. Used to be we paid for service and we would jokingly call our dirty clothes “the mountain”. No longer like that for us. Our kids each have chores and the girl does the laundry as often as we need.

Since this is a Wednesday it seems like a week since we moved almost. A week spent at first trying to sort out all the stuff. It was not just the stuff in our apartment. Alin had a bunch of stuff stored at her friend’s place and we wanted to remove everything since we had the room in this wonderful home to store everything and use it.

It took two days for the kitchen to get done because my wife has a certain order she expects. Now the kitchen functions and meals are cooked on a propane grill with two ranges for now. I think soon enough I will see Alin cooking on the charcoal grill and life will be back to the food I really enjoy cooked outside.

Our house is located about 1.5km from our old place so we don’t get back to the places we frequented so often any longer. Kesor restaurant is particularly missed and so is Moonrise Coffee and even my cheap barber shop where the guy is meticulous with beard trims. I think we will go back there later in the week and I can again get a beard trim for $2.

Finally is just the joy of the house. The house is so different than an efficiency apartment. We have rooms and a porch. Front yard and back. An aluminum storage area the owner built for us with concrete on the floor. Clothes drying racks. The secret with these is to put one outside and one protected. Then we all run out and get the clothes with the first raindrop and move them to the protected rack. Another joy is cooking and eating. We have not gone out to eat in weeks now since the food my wife does is better than any food I could ever want at a cafe or restaurant. We did go to Red Piano one night over on Pub Street and then got a massage. I enjoyed the massage but Alin was tender in some spots and the lady was too tough and rough. I doubt we will get full body Khmer massages again. Alin just wants foot massages.

So the whole Siem Reap Living thing has taken a domestic turn. Walks are done, food is eaten. Sometimes someone visits but not often. I am thankful for that. Admittedly I am not very social with Khmer friends that stop by. Alin just deals with it and tells her friends not to expect me to drink with them. I don’t know any expats I would invite over and I have no interest in meeting the local neighborhood flavor.

Walking is good for me. I have this road outside the house that leads to other roads and then there is a spider’s web of dirt and concrete roads I can just pick. Google Maps comes in handy most days.

I’m back to using the category for my day to day life here again. I’ll be posting photos starting tomorrow on the blog, on pixelfed, and on the photo stories page here when I wish to tell some story about a particular photo.

Thanks for reading along. I’m sure more to come but I don’t know when. I have maintained writing almost every day. I feel very good with writing both personal things and life in Siem Reap stuff or our little trips we take. Perhaps though I will tail off the daily writing and actually lets the photos and words accumulate a day or two and then post.

I just checked the temperature of this blogpost and it is ready. Hello dropbox. Your turn.