Bangkok Life Update: Videos and Things

The new semester has begun. For the past week I've been back at the office and working on my transformation from Vacation Michael into Bangkok Michael. I've got a few new posts in the hopper ready to put out over the next few weeks or so. I've been kind of lax lately in my updates. My first year, I wrote a lot about my experiences in Bangkok. Everything was new, exciting, and exotic. By my second year, Bangkok didn't feel so foreign anymore, so I focused more on describing school life here in Thailand. Now it's my third year. So far I've written on and off about some of my travels, but lately I've been finding it more and more difficult to find new and unique things to write about.

Now, this blog isn't meant to reach a wide audience. It rarely gets more than 25 views on any one given post, and It's not meant to. The idea of this blog is really just to keep in touch with my friends, but especially my family back home. I don't really feel much pressure to publish frequently, especially when I have nothing to write about. Coming up soon, I have a series about my recent October holidays to Myanmar (Burma) and Cambodia, so I'll still be getting that out soon. As it happens, I really use this blog more of a travel journal so that I can remember my own adventures better! But lately I've been thinking more about trying to put out some short videos for my family, so that they can get a better feel for what my life is really like here.

I've done it before. When my former colleague, Ryan, and I went to Japan in April, we decided to make a film of our trip just for fun. It made the short stopover really memorable. Even though it was one of the shortest trips I've ever taken, it is one I'll never forget. Most of the video, I'll admit, is kind of... boring. But we've compiled some of the sights and experiences into a sort of montage here:

I'm working on something similar for my recent trip to Myanmar. Really though, I want to put out an occasional update showing aspects of my life here in Bangkok. I want my family to see and hear what I'm up to. A video gives a much better feel of a place than my words could describe. I'm not trying to be "Youtube famous". To be really honest, these videos are for my family and friends to watch. I realize that some things that seem normal or mundane to me now could seem exotic and interesting to someone who has never been to Thailand. Sometimes living as an expat presents me with challenges that lead to funny experiences, like how to celebrate Halloween in a country where that's just not a "thing":

I don't expect it to be a super regular thing. Maybe I'll show you around my neighborhood. Maybe I'll show what Thanksgiving is like here. Maybe I'll show some strange and unusual Thai snacks. If you have any ideas of something you'd like to see, let me know! I hope it can be a fun and interesting way of interacting more with my friends and family back home.

I most likely won't talk about the videos much here, but if you are interested, you can follow my updates at:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKOwG6KE6wA7EOym9jEm58g

A subscription and a like would be very encouraging!

-Michael