JaThea/RaStro One Shots (Lesbian Story)

Rose of the North (2)

Lush, culturally rich Chang Mai lies in the northern part of Thailand and is fondly called "Rose of the North". A former Lanna kingdom, Chang Mai is located 700 kilometers north of Bangkok and is accessible by domestic flights, trains and long distance buses. Beautiful, languid and relaxing Chang Mai is all about flowers, temples and gentle smiles. ~ The Global Travel Community

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"Glaiza have you checked the stockroom for any supplies that need refilling?" mom, a forty-seven year old former member of a band and HRM graduate from FEU who fell in love with a Thai national business administration student in her college days asked me who just came back from my morning run around our walled community near the old Thapae gate.

It was only six in the morning and Mrs. Cristy Galura's kitchen is already busy. There was never a tourist who had breakfast at five in the morning in our guest house but then my mom always wanted everything prepared by five, just to be sure. It's always been buffet for us in the house so my daily routine of running is a must if I want to maintain my lean and toned body.

Despite our family business life here in Chang Mai has always been simple, unpretentious and easy. I was born here, my father is a Thai national who studied in the Philippines, because of his fascination about the whole country and just so he could travel around the archipelago.

They met in their senior year, mom was singing in a band and dad was able to hear her sing, good thing dad was good in Filipino and English so he easily fancied mom's singing voice and their senior year was filled with courting and falling in love, by the time of their graduation they already were together, then a few months after their graduation dad came rushing to mom's house asking her to marry him just because he was so in love with her and he wanted her to live with him permanently in Thailand since his student visa in the Philippines was nearing its expiration and because the Galura house is already started by his parents.

Dad willingly converted to being a Christian months before their marriage, which was despised by his parents, they never really liked my mother as well mainly because she wasn't a Thai national, but they can never disown their only son, so in the end they gave in and accepted them in the Galura House.

My parent's had me soon after my father's mother died of congenital heart problem, which my grandfather didn't take easily who then succumb into depression and alcoholism, he passed away even before I was able to recognize anybody because of liver cirrhosis.

I spent seven years in the Philippines with my mother's parents, it was my father's way of asking forgiveness when he took my mom away from them few months after graduation. I was given to my grandparents when I was three, and my mother told me that they were easily fond of me because I was naturally smart, talkative, polite and friendly.

I learned the Filipino language through my older cousins, they took turns on watching me while our grandparents are away and they would teach me everything. But by the time I was ten years old my parents came home to spend Christmas with us and they told me that they are going to take me for good.

I was set to study at one of the biggest elementary schools in Chang Mai after six months of intensive Thai lessons so I could keep up with subjects and my future classmates, it was tedious, because Thai language looked and felt alienating for me, but then I have nothing else to do than to learn.

It was a pretty good shift actually, away from the dull closely lined houses in the Philippines, the Galura house was an open play ground for me. My mother's worst and fondest memory of me was when I was just starting to learn how to drive a motorbike and I crashed our neighbour's bonsai plants, I was fifteen and my father just decided to certify me as a Thai by throwing me keys and pulling me out to the yard where the motorbike was parked.