One man in Bangkok

Hello…..

Long time no type. I’ve been as slack as a sack full of chicken ass recently as far as doing almost anything is actually. Since I got my nw job a few weeks ago, I’ve had toget back into the swing of working every day and I haven’t liked it much. I went from working six hours a week to working between six and eight hours a day (it’s almost like a real job!).

Enough moaning though. My job is ace. I’m having such a good laugh doing it, the time goes so quickly. In other news, as everybody probably know, there were some bombs in Bangkok on New Years Eve. That was scary! Other than that Mina and I are fine. Her website is still going (she’s waaay better at updating than me it seems). Not much else has been happening really. We’ve been to some places, done some things etc etc.

I’ll try to update with some photos of recent things soon.

So it’s about time I updated this thing. I haven’t forgotten about it completely, I promise it’s just that life has been moving at about a million miles a minute for the past few weeks. I’ll try to be concise but comprehensive about what’s happened.

I said a while ago that I maybe have some good news to post later, and then I said that I had a new job. This is fucking excellent news. The new job pays much more than my old job as it’s full time, for the last year I’ve only been working part time.  I had the job interview on the Saturday before last and at the end of it the manager offered me the job, but he wanted me to start training on MONDAY!

That was great news, but straight after the interview, I had to buy a black shirt because we recieved some bad news and had to head off pretty much straight away to attend a funeral. It was my first funeral in Thailand and I was really surprised that all of the guests seemed in high spirits. Seriously, in about two hours, I didn’t see anybody cry at all! When we arrived people were going round with trays ful of soft drinks. I have to say that I felt pretty strange drinking orange juice whilst looking at a mother of pearl covered coffin. If the orange juice was  strange, imagine how I felt when about half way through they brought out pork and vegetable rice soup. Weird? Yes. Inappropriate? Maybe. Delicious? Certainly. Me with conflicting emotions? Without a doubt.

After the funeral, we decided to head to Khao Sarn Road to meet some of Mina’s friends. You can see some of the less debauched photos from that night on Mina’s website.

A very hungover Sunday saw us heading off at an ungodly hour to go to Mina’s parent’s house. Even though the time didn’t agree with me, the food did; Mina’s parents really are some of the best cooks I know. The only problem is that they are way too generous with the portions and I usually end up rolling out of their house.

Monday was training, Tuesday was the king’s birthday, Wednesday back at the old job, Thursday was pretty tiring as I had training in the morning and early afternoon, then I had to dash accross the city to get to a class for my old job again, Friday and Saturday training again. I was actually throw in to teach a few classes on Saturday as well. Saturday night was that company’s Christmas party, so I went there for a few hours and enjoyed the mirth and merriment. Sunday was a nice day spent with Mina, shopping, eating steak and getting our hair cut.

This week has been much of the same as well. I’ve been working two jobs part time and generally trying make everything go smoothly.  My new job is great, I can’t wait to get started there properly. It’s really close to my apartment, in one of the best shopping areas of the city and has some great perks. Photos next post.

I haven’t really had a lot of time to post about it recently, but the past weekend was certainly eventful. One of the most important things to happen was that I was offered a new job! Yay. I’m here right now, doing my training and go to sign the contract nad make everything official on Monday. More information, along with photos of the weekend later.

Today is the king of Thailand, HRH King Bhumibol Adulyadejs’ 79th birthday. It is also the day that Thai people celebrate Fathers’ Day, as the king is looked on as the father of the country. The king is rightly revered by almost every Thai person and this year is particularly special as it marked the 60th anniversary of his coronation. Most people will wear yellow shirts today displaying the king’s emblem, as a show of respect.

Happy birthday Nai Luang. We all wish you many more to come in the future.

I was in a shopping centre in Silom - the main business/hooker/gay area of town - recently when I came across (figuratively speaking, of course) this wonderful little thing outside a seafood noodle restaurant. I don’t think it’s going too far to say that those little guys, especially the crab, look waaaaaaay too happy to be food!

I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m a bit of a freak for my blog statistics. I’m not as bad as I was when I first started, but I still check at least once a day. One thing I like to check up on is the search engine terms - things that people have typed into search engines that linked to my site. Some of my favourites so far have been

“ladyboy sit bangkok” from a Norwegian search engine

“photo of monkey drinking beer” and

“jellyfish dead human”

However, my absolute favourite, all time best search item came in today. Somebody searched for

“one man in bangkok blog”

Yes! Somebody actually searched Google for me!! Word is spreading, I am growing (and it’s not only my waistline). You have made my day that person, thank you.

I haven’t had much time to post over the last few days because I’m supposed to be studying. I have a test on Saturday from the first book of my Thai class that I want to ace. I’ve also got a short kind of thesis to write for my other course. The other day I took a break from (*cough*) studying and went to The Mall Bang Kapi to see the parrots. There’s a little island in the middle of the shopping centre with parrots living on it. The big blue one on the middle right often makes grumpy noises, but none of them ever try to fly away.

In the water around the big birds are some enormous fish. Masive, massive, massive fish. I like them.

I can still steal internet, but only intermittently. Anyone who has proper broadband and is/was a Star Wars fan should check out youtube and search for Chad Vader for a funny spoof. Also, football fans (as in the proper football - where the players use their feet, not the hand ball, egg chasing played in North America) should search for Rio Ferdinad singing.

My fan is growling at me - should I be scared?

Yesterday I let Mina fiddle about with the computer for a while whilst I did something manly and when I came back, the clever computer had gone and connected itself to some kind of wireless broadband network all by itself. Needless to say, I was quite overjoyed about this. Yesterday I had the best home browsing experience of my life. Seriously, this unsecured wireless broadband network that somebody has set up near my home is wonderful, but the fact remains that I can’t decide if I’m stealing or not. It’s obviously something I haven’t paid for, but if I could get reliable surfing like I had yesterday, I would most certainly.

Am I stealing internet? Does this make me a bad melv?

i berry is the bestest most wonderful place in the world. The ice cream at that place is worth the trip to Thailand all on it’s own. This is Mina, looking cheesy and enjoying a double scoop of strawberry yoghurt and cha yen. Cha yen is a kind of Assam tea that is often translated as Thai tea. It’s very sweet, very milky and always served with lots and lots of crushed ice - delicious!

All the ice creams in i berry are home made (at whose home, I’m not sure) and the range of flavours changes quite often. You can sample such delights as Horlicks, rambutan sorbet, cookie malt, red bean & green tea (I’ll leave you to sample that one though - I wouldn’t touch it with your spoon!). There’s even some kind of cheese ice cream that I’m yet to try (surprisingly), you can actually see the pieces of cheese in it. I’ll let you know when I’ve done it.

I had nothing to do today, so I was thinking about spending an afternoon by the pool catching up on the adventures of Mr. Frodo and friends (I’m currently reading Lord of the Rings for something like the tenth time). Alas though, hunger and boredom drove me out of the apartment before I got the chance to do that. So, some time late this afternoon I found myself outside Lumpini Park in the central business district of Bangkok. Limpini Park is one of my favourite places to relax in Bankok, just like Regents Park is in London. Right outside the gates to the park there’s a statue of one of the great Thai kings from history, in English his name is King Rama V. He’s the king portrayed in those rubbish stories with names like Anna and the King, Anna and the King of Siam, The King and I, etc etc.

The inside of the park is massive and at times so peaceful that you’d never think you’re in the centre of one of the busiest cities in Asia. It’s also one of the best places to see the unique Bangkok skyline. In the centre of this picture you might be able to see the top of the Roue de Paris big wheel that I posted a picture of a few weeks ago. No? Well I can!

I think this cloud formation looks a little bit like the sillhouette of a man pointing at something menacingly.

There are loads of places to just sit, relax, do nothing and watch the world go by. One of my favourite things to do is watch the men play takraw, a Thai game that’s a kind of cross between football and volleyball. Seriously this is one of the most fun amateur level games you can watch, it’s so skillful. When I see guys play this game I’m shocked that Thailand has such a rubbish football team. Most of the guys I saw playing today have ball control skills that would put a lot of professional English players to shame. I was watching one game for so long today that one of the players invited me to join. Now I’ve never played this game before, and judging from my abysmal footie skills, I don’t think I’d make much of an impact in a game of takraw. The idea of showcasing my (lack of) skills against these guys was strangely unappealing so I made the best Thai excuse that I could (’Mai dai’ - I can not) and swiftly exited. (Thanks to this site for the cool takraw image - my ones are crap!)

Another thing I like to do is just walk around and look at some of the architecture there. This may well be another sala, like the one in the Loy Kratong post, I’m not sure really - I’m going to call it a gazebo anyway.

One thing I love about Lumpini park in the evenings is the aerobics. After work it seems like most of the CBD workers head down to the park to sweat out the days’ toils with their colleagues. Seriously there are little aerobics groups all over the park. The music can be annoying, but it’s fun to watch the fat businessmen sweating buckets. These were the two biggest groups today.