#193 Thailand & Singapore

As I write, I am in Pattaya, Thailand. I have just completed cutting the last of my ties to the US government, in terms of banking. I went to Singapore to be interviewed, believe it or not, to open an account there with a well established international bank, and here in Thailand, I effected the removal of my former United States identity from my local bank accounts. A huge relief.

In addition, I have filed my paperwork with my U.S. financial institutions stating that I am no longer an American citizen. And I went ahead and applied to get my Social Security payments started since I passed 62 1/2, and I can do that. For those who are interested, renouncing one’s U.S. citizenship does not mean that you cannot get Social Security and Medicare. You can, since you paid into it, which makes sense to me. So, I went ahead and decided to get my payment started right away. Why not?

I have been using both my Saint Kitts and my Argentinian passport for travel, and thus far I have to say that they both appear to be equally useful. It was funny that when I went to Singapore, one has to fill out a online immigration form before arriving, and Saint Kitts isn't actually listed as a country, so I selected ‘Others’. But there was zero problem. I did not even talk to an immigration agent, they have automated immigration scanners. I scanned my passport and it said, “Welcome Anthony”, a green arrow lit up, the gates opened and off I went.

I have said this before about Singapore. It's a nice place to visit, clean, efficient, but I I wouldn't want to live there. Because …

As I went in this time, all bags end up being scanned by customs, and a customs guy came and said “Sir, do you have a flick knife in your bag?”, and I immediately said no. And, because I probably look pretty innocent, and I was an older guy, he kind of smiled and said OK. And let me go. It was only later that I realized I probably had exactly what he was asking for in my tool kit that I always bring with me. When he said “flick knife” I assumed he meant something like a switchblade with a button and a spring. I think what he actually meant was the kind of knives that I did indeed have, which have a small knob which you can use to extend the blade with your thumb. I really hate that. It's probably not as bad as Denmark but all the gods damn them anyway for thinking that it's OK to restrict what kind of a weapon I can or cannot bring anywhere that I want to be. That may sound arrogant, but I don't really care. I'm a responsible individual. I know I'm a responsible individual and to hell with them and their families unto the nth generation if they think that it is OK to tell me I can’t have my knives! It is not a projectile weapon! It's a knife. I should be able to carry a knife anywhere in the world that I want to. Arrrrgggghhhhhh! F#CK THEM!

The hotel Duxton Reserve … Beautiful hotel but more an ‘experience’ thing as opposed to a practical place to stay. Lovely staff though.

I swore to myself after the trip to Europe that I was going to avoid doing trips where I only stayed for a very short period of time in any one country before traveling again. And then, one month later, here I go and do it to myself again, traveling to Thailand and then to Singapore and back. Combined with some problems that involved the hotels and emails, that had me being woken at odd hours to be able to respond to security codes, I didn't get much good sleep for almost five days in a row. And boy! I could feel the effect of not getting good sleep.

I finally decided to rent a condominium here in Pattaya. I will come back at the beginning of August to move in.

Why? I realized the other day that my days in the Philippines are numbered. I may or may not have written about it in an earlier post, but the house where I have lived for the last 13 years is going to be razed to the ground in a few years by the Clark Development Corporation. Totally understandable, they can make thousands of times the revenue from putting up a call center in that space than they can from people that have individual houses. But it would be very hard to find any house of that quality, that safe, and that quiet in Angeles City. So, I decided that I am going set a date of two years to move out of the Philippines and here to Thailand permanently. I'll see how that works. That means it would be the end of 2026 when I end up clearing out of the house in the Philippines. I'm not 100% sure, I may still maintain the house in the Philippines until they decide that they're not renewing the lease, which would actually be 2028 but I think that my involvement in other stuff in the Philippines will probably be done by then or getting close to it, and at that point I think I would prefer to live where I feel more comfortable, which is here in Pattaya.

I will be sorry to leave behind the three people I am super close to in the world, my partners and my friend Steve. But, it will be easy to come back to visit as well. And I can just stay in a  hotel on Clark.

Having said all that, I just bought myself a sauna cabin for the house on Clark. It's an infrared deal. It works astonishingly well. I did look at trying to get some kind of a cold pool to go with it, but they are horribly expensive, and very bulky. I figured out that having a large garbage can filled with water, and then dumping a couple of bags of ice from the local 7-11 into it, works just as well. I have to admit it's not quite the same as immersing yourself, but eight to 10 scoops of 10°C water over your head seems to have the same shocking effect. The reason I decided that the sauna cabin was OK, was because it was not an installation. It's a beautifully made single person cabin with a glass door that the company delivered and assembled inside the house, and all I have to do is plug it into an outlet. Which means that when it is time to vacate the house, it will be easy to just sell it to somebody else.

My health appears to be OK. I started a three-month program with a personal trainer / physical therapist in San Diego, who is helping me with calisthenics and trying to get a lot stronger and more mobile. I am on week four and the program has pushed me, there is no doubt about that. I have been shooting weekly videos of my progress, which has been interesting in and of itself. A very good way to be able to judge one's progress.

I went to see my physical therapist here in Thailand a couple of days ago, and she told me basically I didn’t need her anymore. I did have an interesting anecdote, however. She had recommended to me, probably almost a year and a half ago now, that I had to wear a heel lift in my RIGHT shoe because of the difference in the length of my legs. [Incidentally, this is the OPPOSITE leg that the physical therapist in Mesquite, Nevada had told me about during the COVID era]. I noticed that I had a really irritating muscle knot forming in my lower right back almost constantly. I finally remembered that I used to have this a long time ago, and at that point the light bulb went on above my head, and i realized I had been running around for three weeks in Europe without using the heel lift in my right shoe. I put the heel lift back, and within three days, the muscle knot and the attendant pain had disappeared. I was relieved, but it is a salutary lesson that once one has a fix one should be very cautious about stopping to use it.

A final story about my time in Singapore. During the 24 hours that I was there I took four different taxis going hither and yon, and all four drivers were relatively friendly and chatty. And I swear, I did not initiate any of these conversations but once they heard my accent and realized, or thought that is, that I was an American, I had four identical conversations that centered around, “Where the hell is the leadership in the United States?”. Because Trump is evil, and Biden is barely competent. These are not my words. These are four completely independent Singapore taxi drivers. I'll leave that there & sign off for now.

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#194 Health and Political Commentary

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#192 European Trip Finale