what a week..

For past 3 days I didn't sleep much. Plus those meetings I attended. I don't think I'll be able to host anyone until October! It was quite tiring for past month. And I got sick from having not enough rest too. Very nice..

Some people need to be prepared before they left home for travel. I admit that sometimes when I travel I have such a "I-wanna-go-home-I-hate-this-place" moment too. But never that bad. I usually get over it in couple of hours. Besides, I agree with James that we shouldn't leave the place while we still hate it. Give it a chance. Try to relate to stuff around you a little bit. I'm sure everyone can manage.

It's like you go around Burma and wonder why people speak Burmese here? why don't they speak English to me? what a sucky place! nah... you gotta be really ignorant to believe that you can go explore the world by yourself and expect people to understand everything you say. That's just way too naïve.

I really do feel sorry for people that they can't find the way to enjoy their trip after all. But nobody can help but themselves. Or final solution is.. going back home. I really can't understand people who force themselves to finish the trips even they hate it. Why bother? just quit it

fish can think

Food for thought: fish can think

Sydney (dpa) - People who claim that goldfish can't remember things that happened more than three seconds ago are talking nonsense, an Australian biologist said Sunday.

Fish that Sydney academic Culum Brown has experimented with could find their way out of a trap he set them - and remember how they did it for at least a year afterwards.

Macquarie University's Brown told the Sun Herald that his fish could negotiate an underwater maze by spotting the difference between signs with green triangles and those with red squares.



The smartest in the school read the signs and reached the stash of fish food quickly but even the slowest got the hang of it eventually and found their way to the feeding station.

Even out of the laboratory, fish display intelligence. Brown found that, to get away from what they thought was a predator, fish in rocky pools at the seaside would jump from one pool to another; they couldn't do that unless they had a mental map of where the different pools were.

That fish aren't completely stupid has implications for how we interact with them, Brown said.

If fish can learn to read signs, they can learn to steer clear of fishing boats and fishing nets. And perhaps figures for fish stocks ought to be adjusted to take into account the capacity of fish to keep away from those doing the counting.

Brown reckons that people who keep tropical fish as pets ought to take cognizance of his research and start setting brain-teasers to keep their fishy friends alert and happy.

"I move the tank around every so often and introduce new rocks and plants and logs," he said. "If you look at the amount of activity they engage in afterwards, they are far more active. The change can be a bit stressful for them, but afterwards they love it."

Lazy

Well, lot of stuff has been happening here but I'm too lazy to blog it. Some I already forgot. So.. hm well.. see some photos? nah.. maybe later

Horror of a fan

My guest almost got killed this afternoon. Well, by a fan! ok ok maybe i'm being too exaggerated but it was quite a horror. When I was working on my computer, Lore was getting ready to go on a sight seeing. Since there's not much space in my room and she didn't expect that fan was turning towards her. She bumped a fan a and before I realized. Broken parts of that fan was flying in every direction! lol damnnnnn..I'm so glad she didn't hurt herself! Or I would have been the first host who got a guest killed! *yikes*


Having breakfast at Wild Orchid behind. Phra Athit.

Got a call from James (one from Philippines, not from from NY or Barcelona!) on Saturday that it would be a meeting at Suanlum (Lumpini) night bazaar. Actually it was 'medium size' meeting which is good. Not too many people we all had chance to talk around a little bit. So it was 8 of us. I and my guest (Lore from Belgium), James and his guest (Anne from Germany), Nammon and his guests (Maya and her brother), one filipina, another girl from Germany(?) and followed with Teonk.

After one 'tower' of beer we went to Khaosan road and everybody agreed to go to Brick Bar but Anne is still only 19 (and 11 months!) so she wasn't allowed to get it. We moved to Gulliver's instead because they don't check foreigners' passports. Place was OK but as you know that place is such a meat market. But as long as you don't pay attention. Whatever.. I just wanted my beer!


Want some more tower?

Ended up that night everyone moved to my house just sit here and drank Belgian beers Lore brought with her (nice girl! hehe) and some drank Thai wine I bought from OTOP expo. We browsed some people profiles on HC and CS some profile I know on HC got a bit of shocking comments (very negative) from some guests which is not very usual. That's amaaaazing. I wonder what he has done to them to make them that pissed?


All of us at the meat market on Khaosan road "Gulliver's"

Weird, I have 5 couch surfers in my room.

Next day we slept in until 1 PM! and then went to have one hour facial massage. Anne came to join us too because James had to stay in and work on his papers which he was supposed to get them done since last Friday! After that we went to OTOP expo but too bad we didn't have much time there as we arrived 1 hour before closing time.

Lore walked around food center and she came back with very local food "SOMTAM"! So funny that a guy at the shop she bought somtam was a ladyboy..she just kept talking and talking to Lore..hehe

Lore and Anne having lunch..er..or dinner..?

Deep fried ice-cream! :-D

Teonk came to meet us there at Muang Thong Thani since it's not so far from where he lives. I thought it would be plenty of food to buy there and we would eat altogether at Teonk's place. But that time they were closing their booths and not much of "ready to eat" food left there. It's ended up Teonk had to stop by at "Gai pa Toi" ("Aunt Toi's chicken".. which he claims that it tastes 1000 times better than KFC..and it's true) bought 100 baht of fried chicken and a few packs of sticky rice. We couldn't even finish all of that chicken.


Chilling out Teonk's place. (Second picture he looks a bit pimp..lol)

And yes, he can play piano!

We hanged around at Teonk's place until midnight or something. Time to leave. He dropped us around Rangsit University to take a cap back home. Since it was really late already. I thought it would be better for Anne to stay at my place instead of going back to James's (besides, she didn't wanna wake him up. James had to get up very early to go to work too) So both of Lore and Anne crashed here.

Since we slept in too long this morning. We were still quite awake by the time that we arrived my place. So we just sat there and talked and planning "Things to see" for both of them, until almost 4 AM and then it was really time for us to go to bed.

Monday traffic is killing. We all know it. But since I left full time job (one that I had to be at the office by 8:30 AM) years ago I COMPLETELY forgot how bad traffic was going to be. Ended up we stuck in traffic for soooooo long and ofcourse nothing was moving. I think Lore felt like pulling her hair off :-) hehehe

Lore's friend would be at police station on the corner of Khaosan road by 8 AM and that time we were still only half way to temple we were going to visit and it was 7:30 already. So she decided to walk back to Khaosan road with Anne (which it was pretty right decision) I carried on to the temple by myself. Spent almost and hour on meditation, took some photos and went to bookstore to fetch new issue of National Geographic.

Wat Benjamabopit in the morning.

Met Lore again on Khaosan with her friend who came with a bf. Lore was right. This girl is always well-dressed! (How many times that you will see farangs on Khaosan road wear high heels?)

I had to work a bit today so I dropped Lore at the pier to meet up with Anne. Was thinking that we might meet up later or dinner or something. But I got SMS from Ivica that we was flying back home. So I decided to go to meet him at the airport instead. Teonk came along too since airport is really close to his house. He also bought stuff I forgot at his place last night with him too.

Ivica was flying to Zurich with Swiss Air. He said that whenever we gonna visit Serbia just let him know he would come to meet us anywhere in Serbia doesn't have to only Belgrade. But the city he lives it's only 20 Km from Romania and Bulgaria. Sounds really cool! Hope i'll have chance to visit him there some day.

Even he spent only 17 days in Thailand but looks like Ivica will be back in Thailand pretty soon (all the time he was holding that girl's hand. One that he met in Samui) We didn't wanna sit there between them so after dinner we just said goodbye and left them alone.

Got a call from James about Anne wouldn't be able to go to RCA because she's not yet 20. I completely forgot about that! I got home around 11 PM and got SMS from Lore that they were with James playing pool :-D Her friend and a bf went to RCA by themselves.

James was online today (one from New York..u know.. James with a tiny backpack and homeless-look plastic bag) LOL ~ Kidding, James! (but u know I meant it, don't you?) looks like he's partying hard as usual and he just said "I just like to dance" oh yeah right :-P He'll be in China soon (finally!)

That bitch called again about the web project. I'm so sick of this. But at least ai Not was fixing it for me. I just hate the way that when she wants it she kept calling and calling. But when I want feedback from her she just fucking disappeared. Very typical. I'm not gonna call her back again for tonight. Enough!

Oh, Talked to Soren couple of days ago. This guy is craaazy. He just came online and told me that he woke up on the street this morning (in Tokyo!) with a Japanese guy using a "broom" to wake him up (imagine when you use a stick to rake something that you don't wanna touch! lol) Hilarious!

But yeah I agreed with him if he posted this on his blog his mom would get a heart attack for sure. That's fucking serious. Passing out on the road where you have NO IDEA where it was. And woke up with some guy raking him with a broom! lol

OTOP

Yesterday I went to help P' Sakchai at The Best of OTOP exhibition. From 11 AM til 9 PM. It was quite OK but it would be better if he didn't have to share booth with other exhibitor. Overall, it was pretty quiet and he got such a bad location for displaying. But still got some prospects exchanged business cards for trading (which is good) Most of them are involved in Beauty care and Spa business. One of them is doctor and he looks 18!

Weirdest one was a man in his 50s, chinese look. He came by when P' Sakchai was away and I was there alone. He started throw me millions of questions. I just answered whatever I could. While he was browsing photos of products he saw a loaf of soap lying around and he asked if he could try to slice it. I told him..yeah but if you do, you have to buy. Otherwise the owner will blame me for this. He was like "ahh come onnnnnn! he won't!! well! OK! I'll do it myself!"

That's it he just went straight to the soap and sliced it up "Oh wow! this is pretty cool!" That was almost a 100 Baht that he just sliced and almost 600 Baht for that loaf. That's it and he left. Anyway,I managed to got his business card and email address and stuff.

What a fucker.

Exhibition was held at Challenger Hall which is newest hall of MuangThong Thani. Inside is very neat and spacy. And it was SO COLD. Everyone walked in there dressed like they're trekking in the north pole. Don't know why it had to be THAT cold.

Scarf in Bangkok? Oh Yes





"The Challenger Hall"

Display of "winter flowers" from Narathiwat! (Malay border province)

And Thai massage service (200 B./session)

I went to pick up some important documents for next exhibition for p' Sakchai. And there served free coffee and snacks. (sweet!) cake was way too sweet but coffee that was all I needed!



Meeting for BIG+BIH exhibitions (Will be held in December)

Got a postcard from police man! said "I found your wallet! Contact me this number to get it back" turned out he's a police man who's stationed at RCA everynight. I was really surprised. Tonight I'll have to go there and pick up my wallet. And ofcourse.. bring him some 'gift' (actually it's not needed. I don't need to bribe police to get my wallet back, do I?) but anyway, I just want to say Thank you to him. So I'm bringing a bottle of red wine (cheap! but tasty!) for him tonight.

Meeting up with Rich, Maya and bro. and Nutty+ Not tonight. Toenk is joining too (for 'bottle of Red Label's sake!) lol We'll see. It would be nice to have dinner together.

Dance girls + Chinese dumpling

Last night we all went to "Mai Aek" where there're dancing girls on the table. (I don't fancy that, but since the rest of us are boys! so I was minority) :-P But good enough we had one bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label left there (Thanks to Toenk's advice!) so we could just go there and chill out, drinking whole bottle. Many places, boys have to pay entry fee but here it's other way round. GIRLS have to pay entry fee 300 Baht (and get 1 drink)

It's kinda 'ok' to watch dancing girls but I don't think I can just sit there and watch them for hours though. But watching some old dudes (and bald) dancing with much younger girls can be entertianing though. At least it makes you feel like "Damn I'm so respectable compared to that people" And this place if guys wanna have those girls to come to 'talk' with them at the table. If "PR" (means, girls are working there but don't dance) they charge 450 Baht/hour just to 'talk' to you and for 'dancers' you have to pay 700 Baht/hour. What a stupid thing (to me at least) paying someone just to sit and talk to you so you are allowed to touch them a little bit. It's just... nah.....Thank Buddha, no one in our group actually did it. Eventhough James and Ivica were so tempted to get some girls to come to 'talk' to them.


Taken with mobile phone, so quality is quite bad..hmm

Once we finished a bottle we were ready to move to RCA. But Ivica wanted to stay there! lol damnit! I had to convince him that come onnnn let's go to RCA there're girls there too and they're not "working" (well, even some are) by then Ivica was seriously thinking about coming to work from Bangkok a few months a year! :-D Well, why not? he can work from anywhere!

We went to Slim (fuck, not again) but they wouldn't let Rich in because he wore sandles. So we moved to good old Route 66 eventhough it's Tuesday but the place was packed as usual (but not as bad as Fridays and Saturdays) After a few beers we were all a bit tipsy (don't forget we just had whole bottle of Red Label) I was a bit tired. So was Rich. So we ended up having lot of popcorns outside the club. Talking about how popcorn pops. Amazingly that popcorn topic could lead to other topics like politics and humanity stuff..lol

James and Ivica wanted to stay a bit longer (I'm pretty sure that Ivica will start looking for an apartment to rent and move his butt to work from Bangkok instead of Belgrade! lol) but I and Rich we were half dead. After one cup of hot coffee we catched a taxi back.

This morning Toenk called. I don't even remember what he was talking on the phone as I was half asleep. But I had to get up anyway to get ready for meeting at 12 Oclock. We all agreed to go for lunch before James will fly off to KL and Hong Kong and Ivica and Rich are taking a train to the south to go to Koh Tao. So we arranged to meet at 1:30 PM around Siam. Traffic today was killing me. It was soooooo sick. Could barely move. I hate Bangkok traffic!! it's damn right decision to quit fulltime job! who wanna stuck in Bangkok traffic twice a day??!

Well, I arrived Ploenjit Center half an hour late.

After meeting we all went to "Giew Jeen" (chinese dumpling) restaurant on Sathorn road. It's small place but food is amazingly good. (Thanks to Toenk again. This guy knows where to eat!) they even have "Egg plant french fries" which looks like french fries but made of egg plants. Very weird but it was very yummy.


At Chinese Dumplings place. Doesn't look like a restaurant from outside.

Chinese Pizza (Sorry we had finished the rest of it..only one piece left)


Me, Teonk, Rich, James, Ivica

James wasn't even sure what time his flight was (very James) but it was something like 5 PM as he could remember.(amazing..) Toenk was going home anyway so he dropped James at the airport on his way back home. Rich, Ivica and I took a cap back to Khaosan road. I was thinking about taking my car and drop them at train station but car wasn't there. (damn) so we parted at Khaosan road. They're coming back anyway. For James I won't see him until October or something.

But we'll see :-) This is such a small world.

HC+CS meeting at Crêpes & Co

It was a bit crowded meeting since we didn't expect to have that many participants but it turned out there were 13 of us. From CouchSurfing. Me, Rich, Mark, Callum, Peak, James, James and James (actually "Jaume") and others from HC I don't have list here but Ivica (from HC) brought big bottle of booze straight from Serbia! sweet! and we finished that bottle real quick :-) hehe

Then it was some of us went to RCA (Toenk's idea .. he has a whisky left there) so.. the 3 of James,me, Toenk, Rich, Ivica and James' chick. We finished another big bottle of Black Lable. Good fun!! (and so drunk too) except that I forgot my wallet in a locker there and ofcourse it's gone. Ah well, shit happens.

This morning I'm pretty sure we were all dead. But in the evening Toenk managed to take us around for resto hobbing. One of places was Mai Aek which is packed with girl dancers and this place has no other beers but San Miguel! So we ended up buying 2 bottles of Red Lable instead.

I really need a massage!


"The triple James" (James NY, James Philippines and James Barcelona) too many James that night :-) Interesting that last 2 James(es) have many similar words in Tagalog and Spanish

James, Toenk, Rich and Ivica

This chinese dude sat next to us. Since it was not enough stools so it's easier to merge 2 groups together. (We were way to drunk to know who is who anyway)

Hey hey she's taken!


Bunch of drunk people

I know Ivica would never wanna go back to Belgrade..haha

Big bottle of Black Label, finished

Look at James' face. How happy he is with my ciggie.