|
|
| Thursday, March 22, 2007 |
Before I get into Bangkok, let's first by saying I took a little holiday to Ko Phi Phi, one of the resort islands of Thailand to visit the Swedish girl and her friends. It was a great, albeit expensive trip. I waited to long to book my flights and paid double what I should have. These Swedish girls are really only wanna be backpackers! They spend money like it is going out of style and buckets of alcohol are expensive. But, no worries, because now I have a job, Uncle Sam gave me back 600 extra dollars, and I just found 300 dollars in an account I forgot I had. So no worries.
Phi Phi was great. Basically I spent 5 days on the beach, in the ocean, watching football (Manchester destroyed Bolton. Aresenal still sucks. and Liverpool are still wankers), and drinking buckets of alcohol. I ran into an English couple I meet in Vietnam there. Very random but they were leaving the next day.
The island was filled with Swedish people. When I was there in November, it was totally different- now it feels like Scandinavia in the tropics. If they weren't Swedes, they were from Norway. There was only a sprinkling of English and other people around. Given how much I'm not a fan of Swedes (ironic huh?), I was a little annoyed. I've meet some great Swedes but mostly they stick to themselves and talk Swedish! Bastards! I know you speak English! I'll say this though- After Phi Phi, I need to move to Sweden. I've never seen such a high percentage of hot girls in any one nationality. I got whiplash. Even is just beautiful. Even the ugly Swedes are still hotter than most American girls. I also saw God there too. He was in the form of a Norwegian girl. How do I know that was God? Because only God could be that perfect.
Now I'm back in Bangkok. I started work today. It's weird trying to teach someone the English language and having to explain what words mean and grammar. I've been reviewing the classes and course material. I've come in early a few days to create a cheat sheet for me so I know the proper names and definitions for all this grammar. So far my schedule isn't that full but I'm promised I'll get 40 hrs. I hope so. I need to work at least 40 hours in order to keep traveling. I can always find part time work too. During the summer where it gets 40 degrees or more, I have no problem working 8 hrs a day, 7 days a week. I'll earn a lot of money and not sweat all day.
Sadly though, I had to quit my Thai classes. Work was getting in the way and work comes first. I have about half the hours I bought left and got 6 months left to use them. Hopefully I will find time to do so. I keep practicing and before I left, I made the teacher just teach my sentence structure and grammar. I can learn vocab on my own but I really need to learn sentence structure. So for now I just practice on my own and when out on the street, though I still am not used to thinking in Thai.
Since I will lead a boring life for most of the week, I decided on the mandatory day off, I will explore Bangkok and visit tourist sights and one of the many, many shopping malls here. This way I have something to write about. Plus I'll blog on all the bootleg movies I see and the restaurants I eat at. So without further ado, here are this weeks picks:
Restaurants of the week: Fuji (Japanese), Mai Kadee(Thai). Fuji is the big Japanese restuarant chain in Bangkok. Sadly, Thailand lack a lot of good Japanese food and the best places also tend to be chains. Fuji is pretty good. Compared to the US it is cheap but here a meal costs a lot. I like the food there. The miso soup is pretty good. The sushi is good but they lack a good variety of things to get. The menu is pretty basic. Mai Kadee is a Thai restuarant I first found I when I came here 2 years ago. It's a vegetarian place right near Khoa San Rd. It's in all the major guidebooks. Whenever I come to Bangkok I always eat here. This is some seriously good food. I take wheoever I am with here. Everyone always love it...even the meat eaters. Some of the best food I have had in Thailand and I trade any visit to Fuji for ths place. Now, I leave near it and I'm very happy about it!
Mall of the week: Pantip Plaza. Need a computer? Ipod? CD? Camera? At Pantip, you can get it all. Pantip is the elecontrics mall of Bangkok. Everything is sold here and everything is cheap. I bought my laptop and Ipod there. It's an electronic lovers orgasam here. You can get whatever you want cheap. If you come to Bangkok, stop here and pick stuff up cheap!
Bootleg movie of the week: Ghost Rider. This wsa a made hollywood summer movie. Once again Nicholas Cage proves he can't make a good movie. National Treasure was better than this and that's saying something. The movie was great quality though. They must have gotten a digital copy because this was not shoot in a movie theater by some sketchy guy. In fact, I was more impressed by that than the movie itself. Don't waste your money on this film...it's so bad.
THIS IS OLD SITE!!! CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY NEW ONE!!!!
|
posted by Nomadic Matt @ 6:17 AM  |
|
|
|
| Thursday, March 08, 2007 |
Since my last post, I've been settling into Bangkok. I've had my first week of classes and my head is swirling with new Thai phrases. Pom mi Puat Hua!! (I have a headache!) But, I'm getting the tones down even though MAA said 5 different ways still sounds the same to me. Say one word the wrong way and you insult someone. Speaking of which, I know how to call people ugly, stupid, and tell them to fuck off. I'm picking the language up and that is cool. I have class all this month and by the end, I hope to have a good enough base to be able to understand and say most things. Since I'll be here for awhile, I'll get practice.
I found myself a guesthouse in a predominetly Thai area. Incidently enough, the hotel I stayed at 2 yrs ago on my first trip to Thailand is down the block. I guess everything comes full circle. It's cheap enough but I wish it had A/C.
I joined an awesome gym. I take nice hot showers there. It's way better than the gym back home and I've been going everyday. I'm determined to get bulk back. It feels good to be back in the gym. I also bought an IPOD, a laptop, and have a cell phone now. It's nice to be having a settled life for awhile. I wake up go to class, go the gym, run some errands, study, and as of now, get my pictures sorted. Soon, I'll do more sightseeing of the city. Check out the 100s of malls. There is a mall for everything here. See the places and temples I haven't bothered seeing. Check the parks. I'll be living in "the real world" or as I like to think of it "the boring world." Though since I'm expat living, it is still more exciting than the 9-5 life back home.
My life is going to get more regular even soon. Why? I just took a job teaching English. Yeah you read that right. I have a job. A teaching job. My parents told me to use my degree so, instead of using the Masters they implied, I'm using the BA. Same same but different. I'm now going to be living in Bangkok until the end of the year. It's a pretty good job and I'll be able to save between 8 and 10 thousand dollars depends on how many hours I decide to work and how thrifty I am. (English teachers can get paid a lot here if they have any sort of qualifications, qualifications I apprently have. Of course now, I need to go buy some proper work clothes- T-shirts and flip flops don't cut it!)
Next month, I am going to move into a posh apartment though because I'm not living through the monsoon season without A/C. 110 plus humidity is not my idea of a good time. That will be my only real expense...that and my French classes. I decided I want to learn french as well as Thai...be quadlingual. It will help when I go back to Europe.
Yup, I'm going back to Europe too. Since Bangkok is all about working to travel, I will both work a loy and be thrifty. This way I can go to all the other places on my list, put Japan back on said list, and then go to India and Nepal (hike Mt. Everest), and go back to Europe next summer in time for the European soccer cup. I'm going to go to France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Germany, Eastern Europe, and some countries I've already been too. Probably Sweden too.
So at this rate, all of you back home will see me in September 2008. All of you in OZ/NZ,will have to wait until the beginning of next year. My European friends will see me again next year too.
BUT if you are ever in Thailand, anyone here has a free place to stay in Bangkok and I'll host any of your friends too. It's only right I return the goodwill I've gotten on the road to others.
That is my story for now. I'll post regular updates on life in bangkok. Good things to see, resturants, bars, etc.
-Matt
THIS IS OLD SITE!!! CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY NEW ONE!!!!
|
| posted by Nomadic Matt @ 6:13 AM |
|
|
|
| Saturday, March 03, 2007 |
Nothing I write here will do Angkor Wat justice. It is so magnificant, so amazing, so stupendous that any words I write will fall short and the only way to really see what I'm talking about is to show you lots pictures. Alas, I don't have them up yet. I'll be posting them in a few days (along with lots of other pictures) so for now, my words will have to do.
Angkor Wat is the massive ancient Khmer capital in western Cambodia. Active from the 9th to 12th century, it was the center of Khmer civilizaton. It ruled Cambodia, Laos, parts of Thailand, and Vietnam. It was massive. So is the capital- it has hundreds of temples. One of them required 80,000 people to maintain it. I thought Tikal was great but Angkor Wat makes Tikal look like it was built by children. Angkor Wat has over 100 temples, is spread over about 60km, and is just amazing. Some of the temples are masterly carved, contain detailed statues and reliefs about religion, politics, life, war. I took over 500 pictures in the three days I was there. I would have taken a lot more but the Swedish girl got me sick and I spent a whole day home. I only saw about half the temples I wanted to see.
I won't go into much more detail about my favorites and such because without pictures it is meaningless. Needless to say, Angkor Wat was the coolest man made sight I have ever seen. I'll post pictures very very soon. If you are into history and ruins, Angkor Wat has to be on your list. It's better than Rome.
I'm leaving Cambodia today to head to Bangkok. It will be good to go back into Thailand. I miss the country and I am excited start learning Thai. Plus, it will be nice to settle down for awhile into a routine and just take a break. I am going to miss Cambodia though. I was really excited to come visit and am leaving surprised at how much I liked it. The people were amazing, the food great, the atmosphere lovely- all in all it was way better than Vietnam. The Cambodians are super nice and ultra friendly- most of the time they talk to you it isn't about getting your money. I had a conversation with a guy in Thai once. They are so happy and go lucky. I loved it there. Though I'm upset at myself because I started to become the tourist I hate- there were more days than I would like that were spent around the guesthouse watching movies and just hanging out. Granted, by 2pm it's about 37 (95ish) and humid out so who really wants to walk in that? but I still feel guilty about it. I fully plan to come back to Cambodia and make ammends. Plus I have a whole lot more to see. I never really left the capital because I was having too much fun and missed a lot of the country I wanted to see. I wouldn't trade my fun in though and now I have a great excuse to come back.
All in all Cambodia is an amazing country and whenever you are in Southeast Asia, make sure you visit. But skip the LokLak- it's like bad beef stew. but there is great Indian food here so try some of that!
-Matt
THIS IS OLD SITE!!! CLICK HERE TO GO TO MY NEW ONE!!!!
|
| posted by Nomadic Matt @ 8:43 PM |
|
|
|
|
|
Australia
Austria
Bahamas
Belgium
Belize
Bermuda
Cambodia
Canada
Cayman Islands
Costa Rica
Czech Republic
England
Greece
Guatemala
Italy
Japan
Laos
Malaysia
Mexico
The Netherlands
Norway
Singapore
Spain
Thailand
United States
The Holy See
Vietnam
