After my previous posts about Bangkok (here and here) you may have thought we would never consider living here. And to be honest I never thought we would. After our initial week in this city I had mixed feelings about it. I could see all that it had to offer…amazing food, nightlife ranging from Khao San Road to Lebua Sky Bar, fashion ranging from off the catwalk to who knows where it came from, Buddhist Shrines on every corner, and so much history. But I still felt like it may not be the city for me. But I had a feeling that I was missing something…and boy was I right.
After a lot of discussions and consideration RG and I made the decision to give Bangkok a try for real…settling in and living our Thailand lives here for a while. When we made the decision to come to Thailand I had thoughts of living on the beach, teaching a few hours a day and traveling every weekend. We loved our time in Phuket, the apartment on the beach was amazing and hard to leave. We met some fantastic people and will visit again soon, but it didn’t feel like the right spot to settle in right now. Bangkok offered tons of public transportation, a large population of expats, and a transportation hub to travel to/from on any given weekend.
Then the job hunting in Bangkok began…to be honest, everything I read said it is easy to find English Teacher jobs…but I had no idea how easy. As soon as we started applying and reaching out we had interviews followed by offers. After a few offers we chose to go with a teaching agency in the business center of Bangkok rather than an individual school. There are pros and cons to this, but for us it is the right decision. I will write a longer post about our TEFL experience, teaching so far and how to find a job abroad soon, because I know there have been many questions and there are definitely some things that work and some that do not.
Once we had jobs and knew the area we wanted to live in it didn’t take us long to find and fall in love with an apartment. We had a wish list that we were not budging from: pool, fitness facility, modern, stove top (you have no idea how rare this is here), a one-bedroom (not studio), and close to the BTS subway system. To most of you this probably does not seem very hard to manage, but in Bangkok you would be surprised! We ended up finding a cute one-bedroom right off of the On Nut BTS station (three stops away from work) that had everything we wanted, even a western shower!!! It is a bit small, at 35 square meters…about 500 sq. ft…but we have a great view of the city, it is less than a year old and our rent is the equivalent to about $450/mo. How can you beat that?!?!?!
We have been living here for just under a month and love it. Everything in the city is just a short BTS ride away, there are street food vendors on every corner by our place, and we have two massive grocery stores down the street. We have explored Bangkok and it reminds of a NYC in the East. There really is so much to do here and we still have not explored the whole city. I have so much to tell you about, but I think I have rambled on enough for today.
Have a fabulous week!!
Nicole Guess | Drink. Dine. Discover 
Great to hear you’re settled in a cute apartment with a pool! I am jealous. It’s getting hot and humid here. This will only prove to make me delirious and start to consider joining a hotel pool for a huge sum. What is your favorite dish so far? Also, do they have popsicles? And can you eat fresh fruit without getting sick?