ThaiBankie

The Old One

You may remember a post a while ago when Nok was on holiday and I told how my camera dropped to the ground and the zoom stopped working. It was at that time that I thought that it was time to buy a new one. We also decided to check at the time to see how much it would cost to get the old one repaired. The price quoted was quite reasonable, 2800Baht (40quid) so we decided to fix it. I think the camera still has some problems though and at times it struggles to find its focus and I need to zoom out a little to help it. It is still a good camera and its photos are still really good quality but after 3 years and thousands of photos it is time to retire it and get a new all singing, all dancing, super duper fancy camera.

The New One

When I decided to get a new camera my research started straight away and I noticed that Panasonic had announced a new camera at the end of January. It does everything that the old one could do, only better. It can take 9megapixel photos and has a 10x optical zoom (the old one was 12x) but for me the real selling point is that it is capable to take videos at a really high resolution. I started looking on the net to see when it would go on sale and for a while I couldn’t find anything, then a few articles mentioned Mar/Apr so as it was not too far away I thought that it was worth the wait. I had a look on some of the big American stores websites and they had it listed but it was saying that it was not available yet. On the Amazon website it had an option that they would send you an email when it did go on sale so I checked the box and entered my email address and sat back and waited. About a month later (31st March) I noticed an email in my inbox from Amazon saying that it was now available. Hurray.

My decision now was whether to wait for it to appear in the shops in Thailand or to buy it on Ebay. I had a look around the Thai websites and nothing was mentioned about it and it wasn’t even mentioned as coming soon. I also noticed that the prices on the Thai websites for other, similar cameras was much higher than they should be so it looks like Thailand is not to good a place for buying cameras. I checked on Ebay and found a few sellers that had it in stock and the price was also quite reasonable (175quid + 40quid for DHL shipping). The shipping costs seemed to be a little steep but I was willing to pay because I want the camera for going on holiday this week for Thai New Year as there will be lots of opportunities to get loads of great photos on the beach with Nok and Megan. I was also willing to pay that price because I thought that the camera would be priced about 16000~17000 Baht when it goes on sale here especially looking at the going rate for similar cameras already on sale. My total price was about 13500Baht so I think I made a reasonable saving.

I decided to buy from Digitaland who are based in Hong Kong but from all my research they seemed to sell mostly into Europe so I had a look at some of the reviews that people had given them and they looked to be quite a good company so I clicked the BUY IT NOW button. Their ad said that they would ship 24-48hours after receiving the payment so I was starting to get a bit nervous when on the 3rd day I still hadn’t received any notice from them that my goods had been dispatched. I sent them a mail and they said that their supplier was late in delivering to them and that they hoped to ship out by the end of the week or Monday at the latest. I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t get it in time for my holiday but I decided to sit tight and see if the guy could get it shipped out to me. On Saturday afternoon the email arrived to say that it was shipping and a couple of hours later I got another email giving me the DHL tracking number. By Sunday morning it was already in Bangkok and had cleared customs and I was hopeful that they would deliver it to me on the same day. Nok called them and they said it would be Monday morning that it would get delivered.

Nok called me this morning to say that it has arrived. I told her not to open it yet as I enjoy doing the opening and will do it after work. I will post some photos and videos later this week and next as I start to get used to the new camera.

After the recent success of taking Megan to the photo studio last month, Nok though that it would be good to take her again today.  The results are good but I don’t think they are as good as last time.  Megan also was not smiling as much as she was the last time.  When Uncle Paibool asked her why she didn’t smile too much she said it was because she doesn’t have any teeth….  I think she is starting to get a bit self conscious.

[Show as slideshow]

Nok and Megan went down to Rayong on Monday last week as her brother, Min, was having an opening ceremony for the new office for his construction business. All the family were in town for the ceremony, that is everyone except me as I was working. The total cost for building the office, not including the land, was just a little over 7000GBP. This sounds amazingly low but I guess Min knows what he is doing as he is in the construction business.

I think this is good info to know, especially if we decide to build a house in Thailand at some point in the future.

Megan was struggling not being at school and was getting a bit moody and maybe lonely too since she finished school a few weeks ago. Nok decided to ask her brother, Kai, if Yang and Chi could come and stay with us for a few days to keep Megan company and give her some friends to play with during the day.

For most of the first couple of days while they were here they spent most of their time in either the small pool that Megan has or at the big pool at the Clubhouse in our village which is just round the corner from where we stay. Megan was still being a bit naughty and on Yang and Chi’s first night here Megan told Yang that she wanted then to go home. She didn’t mean it when she said it, she was just a little frustrated but Yang took it quite badly and was a bit upset. It was business as normal the following morning and Yang seemed to forgive her.

Nok also took them to the play area at Yo-Yo Land at Seacon Shopping Center, the same place I took Megan a few weeks ago when Nok was on holiday. I was at work so couldn’t join them but they seemed to have a great time and it looks like Megan was a bit more adventurous than she was when she was there with me. She was jumping around a lot more and sliding on some of the larger slides that they have.

On last weekend we took them to Leoland, this is a big water park on the roof of Central City shopping mall in BangNa. We have been there before, probably a couple of years ago when Megan was much younger, I think she was able to enjoy it much more this time because she is older and less scared about playing in water. They were all a bit wary at first so I decided to get in the water with them and play with them a bit more and try to bring them out of their shells. Megan was more interested in eating and spent most of the time running between the pool and eating the food that Nok had bought. I think it was a good time for Yang and Chi to get a bit more used to being around me and they seemed to relax much more than they had done previously. Most of the time before then they would just stare at me like I was a big monster because they found it difficult to communicate with me because they speak little or no English and they also don’t get much experience being around westerners.

Yang is very much like his dad and is much more confident and is very jovial. Chi is very different and more like his mother, he is much quieter and a lot of the time you feel he is just sitting back and watching and learning. They are great kids and more that welcome to come stay with us again. I know that Megan will miss them a lot over the next few weeks.