We arrived here on September 6th , 5 white bodied , slightly anxious Californians , with just a glimmer of fear (or hope depending who you were looking at) in their eyes as to how the next 6 months would pan out.
Happily just one month in we are settled in as if we have always lived here. There have been some major differences to tackle and it has been a real learning curve but the real answer to it all was just to relax and let it happen , don’t fight it. It’s new and different, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
Some of the differences have been in the house. The lack of hot water coming out of the faucets was awkward at first but because there is a tankless water heater shower , that can provide hot water for dishes and hand washing clothes (that just happened to be splattered with hot oil from a wok , whilst the cook was frying spring rolls with wild abandon!) 
The water from the faucets are not potable water and so we take water from a filter unit on the wall and boil it in large kettles each morning to dispense into plastic 2L containers. 
We make this a routine as we don’t want to buy bottled water ( less for the landfills).
We hang the washing outside on a clothesline and it dries in less than an hour. Showers can be hot or cold water as it’s a relief to have a cool shower in this heat. We have air conditioning in the bedrooms that are used at night and fans throughout the house. Electricity is somewhat expensive here ( no solar yet) so we have made ourselves very aware of turning off lights and AC when not using those rooms. Lots of cool sitting areas outside in the shade , or we go to the mall where the AC is free and the Dairy Queen ice creams are only 25c each. McDonalds does a lovely coffee float ( afogato style) again only $1. 
Currency confused us as it does most travellers. We stood in the grocery store aisles calculating just exactly how much was that block of cheese at 250Bt ,even pulling out our smartphone calculators to check. One month in and we are now determining whether it’s cheap enough, based on grocery experiences , not based on the exchange rate.
Getting used to kilos and kilometres is also new for us here.
There are so many similar shopfronts and chains in Thailand and the USA but the offerings are so fantastically different. 
Starbucks offers Thai tea along with the PSL.
KFC has a delicious spicy fish bowl with rice.
Burger King burgers are generally made of pork and chicken. Their coffee is freshly ground and $1 per cup.
Cinnabon Thailand has their own spin on their products also.
The different menu choices are fabulous but the Western chains tend to be pricey and costs are the same with the currency exchange. A burger can set us back as much as 3 of us eating Thai food in the food court across the mall. Once in a while for a treat though !
It doesn’t seem odd now to order food and ask for ‘no ice , not spicy, no seafood, no fat, etc’. Most are very accommodating in the restaurants and we’ve learned a few names of the dishes we like and that is always a source of amusement to the waitresses when we say it in Thai. Wish we knew more but it’s a very tonal , many more vowels and consonants than English, and some words to our ears sound the same but because of a rise or drop in pitch means 4 or 5 different words. My favorite example is that the word khao means ‘rice , nine , snow and white’ dependant on the way it is pronounced. We have no hope.
The toilets were a source of amusement for the kids. Toilet paper isn’t to be thrown into the toilet to be flushed but instead placed into a small trash can in each cubicle. The sewage system here is ancient , poorly constructed and probably flows directly to the sea. The crazy part of the small trash can for me is that it is always behind the door of the cubicle hindering my way into it. Why they don’t put it at the side of the commode , I cannot fathom. Try squeezing a curvy foreigner like me carrying my bags into a toilet cubicle is never that easy but cutting that entrance in half is irritating. I move the can each time and I’m sure it’s back in behind the door with the next ‘customer ‘.
Emmalynn needed a wee at a rest stop and so Alex being a good big brother took her. He came back upset telling me that the toilet was weird and Emmalynn got all wet from sitting on it. 
A quick tutorial on how to use these and not wet your feet was our next lesson ( as well as always having a tissue in your pocket) ! The feminine hose at the side is staying right there and all I use ours in the house for is cleaning the toilet.
We enjoy a cocktail of an evening and the alcohol here is 2-3 times the price of the USA. We have bought local vodka , gin and tequila and after a taste test , concluded that it’s all the same white spirit with a different label and a dash of color added. 
Happy hour on the upstairs balcony.
Nowhere on the label does it say tequila , to be fair , and we didn’t go blind…yet.
We joined the Hua Hin Trash Heroes and go out with them on a Sunday afternoon to clean up the local beaches. 
We very much had hoped to find something constructive to do as a family and this fits us perfectly. It’s a fifteen minute walk to this beach and just over an hour of our time. The energy was good and lots of cheering at the end as we weighed and sorted through large sacks of trash that would have polluted the sea and beach for years to come. People came up to us and took selfies and asked us what we were doing. No one complained once , not even little Lala who made a game out of finding plastic bottle tops. Dinner is at a market stall afterwards.
The house has a small stove that uses gas tanks. We ordered one on the Main Street using my step mom for translation as to directions and within the hour this little motorbike with side car turned up and delivered and installed it. 
We all enjoyed that experience !
We are not so timid now , embracing the way of life and the differences that have suddenly become our norm. The bodies are tanning and freckling , we are not heat exhausted as much and the food isn’t an irritant to our tummies anymore ( except too much coconut milk for some ..).
Thailand , we love you , your differences and happy smiling people , your own Thai time, way of doing things , the opportunities and adventures you still have in store for us , thank you for letting us be a part of your country.
Seven Months in Siam 