Score!! Real coffee!!

I think I have found the perfect existence here with training and science. My regular schedule is as follows:

6:45am - wake up
7am - run for 30 minutes
7:30am - 8:30am - training (5 minute rounds, shadow, pads, bag, ab work)
9am - 4:30pm - do mineralogical research, crunch data, write papers, give talks
5pm - drive home (any later and I risk driving in the dark, not a good idea)
6pm - run 30-45 minutes, ab work, maybe bag work
7pm - supper at market
9:30pm - bed

Repeat 5 days a week. Weekends include an afternoon training session as well.

The museum is closed Friday and Monday this coming weekend so it's a 4 day long weekend. New Year's party on Friday night at Ajarn Chai's and then on Monday I am going to Pattaya with Sangtiennoi to watch his son, Moses, fight. All is good!!

Today the wife of the ex-Director of the Natural History Museum came to visit and offer her New Year's greetings, so Somchai, the current Director, took her and a number of his staff out for lunch so I was invited. We went to a restaurant in near-by Thanyaburi and had a big group feast - many dishes including tom yam kung (which I am developing a serious addiction to!), deep-fried whole fish, seafood salads and roast pork. Yum!!! I am now full and feel like having a nap on my desk. However, zircon data calls to me and there is a paper to write so a coffee it is and back to work.

Luckily, I made a coffee-friend here - Lek, a botanist (expert in grasses and bamboo). She saw me making instant Nescafe coffee and offered for me to join her at 11am every day for REAL coffee! This is a treat - most coffee in Thailand is instant and isn't all that great. Starbucks does exist here, but it's as expensive as it is in Canada, and since I don't stoop to drinking Starbucks in Canada, I'm not going to start here!! Lek owns a coffee shop with a friend and they support the Thai coffee industry near Chiang Rai (which supplanted the opium industry - one drug for another I guess!) so she has excellent Thai coffee here. After a pre-training caffeine jolt in the form of M-150 or Carabao, a good coffee late in the morning is perfect.