More family adventures

It's going to take me awhile to catch up on everything that happened while my family was here. We had a lot of fun but their troubles didn't stop with flight times. I did my best to keep them out of trouble but I did have to work a lot during their trip so I'd plan things for them to do during the day while I wasn't around.

The first day I told them to go shopping at the MBK and Siam center. There are tons of shops all close by and really great prices. But they found a nice old women who offered them advice on some tailors and gem stores. She even negotiated a cheap price with a tuk tuk driver to take them there. The tuk tuk took them to both where they bought some things and then were driven around the city for awhile for 30 baht (less than a dollar). They didn't realize they had been ripped off until I explained the details of the scam to them and how they all get kickbacks. Luckily they didn't get too much and it wasn't that big of a deal.

The next day I told them how to go to the Grand Palace and specifically warned them not to talk to any Thai people outside the Grand Palace. But they did and fell for the "Grand Palace is closed scam." So they believed it really was closed and were driven to a temple in the middle of nowhere and again to a Tailor shop and a gem store. Nothing was purchased this time though and they did end up making it back to the Grand Palace before it really did close.

Now the next day I decided that I was going to tighten up the plans a bit to make sure they kept away from the scams. So Natalie gave me the number of a driver she knew that would take them to the floating markets and some other places nearby. The driver took them to possibly the most expensive boat ride I've ever heard of here in Thailand and then not only to the Tailor and the gem store again. But to the same exact ones as the first day! My family said they knew they weren't going to buy anything and only did it because they felt bad for the driver who kept insisting he take them their for the free gas he gets for bringing them. So at least nothing was purchased but I was disappointed they had their time wasted like that.

That's it for the scams but more family stories to come...

Time zones are tough, but not this tough

Today I went to the airport very early this morning to pick up my mom, her husband, and my little sister. I was glad I'd be able to go get them, take them back to my place, and then still have time to get to work at a reasonable time. Now I've messed up with scheduling things because of time zones many times making people wait for me or I'd miss them by an hour because of daylight savings time etc. However, my mom told me she'd be arriving Wednesday the 18th in Bangkok. She wasn't leaving until Wednesday the 18th from LA and thought that since she was leaving the 18th she'd be here the 18th. I searched the airport for them for about an hour and was really worried. Finally I called my mom's cell in desperation and she answered and told me she hadn't left yet. Their flight comes in Friday. Two days later than she said!

I guess genetics are an explanation for a lot of my travel stories.

Phuket Marathon

Last week some friends of mine invited me to go with them to Phuket for the weekend. There was a run going on and a lot of them were doing the 10k, half, or full marathon. I really had no interest in running anything in the Thai heat but I hadn't been to any beach here yet, it was an hour's flight for under $100, and it just sounded like more fun than another weekend in Bangkok. So I figured I'd go and hang out with the non-runners and enjoy some drinks by the beach. Well when I got there the marathon sounded like a good idea so I signed up. I can't explain the logic behind this. Running a marathon requires months of training. I did the Cincinnati marathon over two years ago and can count the times I've run since then on one hand. At least you'd think I'd have had worn in running shoes. But since the choice was between flip flops and a brand new pair I could buy at the sign up, I went with the second choice.

So I woke up at 3 am and was pretty out of it until I started running at 4. The magnitude of my mistake came to me slowly. The first few kilometers were great. There was no sun and it actually felt pretty good running. Plus they gave out these great ice cold sponges that kept me pretty cool. Then at about 10k I started realizing my legs were far less strong than they needed to be to handle the rolling hills of Phuket. But I still mostly felt ok so I kept going and figured even if I only do a half marathon that's still pretty good all things considered.

Then around two hours and 22km in to it I was feeling mixed about my situation. On one hand I made it half way through a marathon but on the other hand I felt near death and realized I was in the middle of nowhere making my quiting option less feasible than I first thought.

So I ran a few more kilometers and then started half running half fast walking for the next 10km or so. I asked someone what time it was and they gave me a time I found out later was completely wrong and made me think I wasn't going to finish before the course closed. But since I didn't know this I started only running again.

At this point I was about 3/4's of the way done. I started realizing the wet sponges they gave me weren't so great. Between the sweat and the water from the sponges, the ibuprofen in my pocket dissolved and my feet were soaked. Wet unseasoned feet in brand new shoes is a very bad thing and having that bad of blisters made running pretty tough.

But despite all of this I did manage to finish in about 5 hours and my goal of getting in before the course closed after 6 hours was well completed. The rest of the day was spent limping around the beach and laying by the pool. While I really had a great time and running around an island is actually a lot of fun, I'd strongly suggest a few practice runs first. :)

Songkran water fights

I can't resist writing a little something about Songkran here in Thailand. It's Thailand's New Year, but they celebrate it in a fairly different way. They decide to have a country wide water fight that lasts for the better part of a week. This may sound so innocent you may wonder how a few hundred people were killed this year like every other year. ( http://enews.mcot.net/view.php?id=3858 )

Well this isn't a normal water fight. It's basically a water fight on the streets. So you have drunken people on the street throwing buckets of ice water at drunken people hanging off of pickup trucks and at motorbikes speeding by. Now make no mistake, I'm not complaining about any of this. It was probably the most fun I've had acting like a 5 year old since I was 5. (Plus I'm pretty sure hundreds of people are killed on motorbikes every week in Thailand anyway).

Since I had a few days off of work I decided to take advantage of it and go to the north of Thailand with some people I met through work. Natalie actually got this set up and then ditched out so I got to go on the road trip with all the Thai women on my own. It was about an 8 hour drive in which I received a tour of the ancient capital of Thailand, some much needed sleep, and many hours of free Thai lessons. The reason we headed to the north was to go to the city of Chaing Mai, the best and craziest place to go to enjoy the Songkran water fights. We also toured a few other cities but the highlight was for a whole day I did nothing but take buckets of water from the canal and throw them at people in pickups. The other great part was wherever we went we kept buckets of water and filled water guns in hand. Nobody ever suspected a van. So when I'd spring open the window to surprise the unsuspecting with a bucket of water in the face they were truly shocked.

Hunting with water in the van

Aftermath of the sneak attack

Songkran 2008 Crew

Back to the blog

I'm officially going to fill this out regularly again. Ever since i've been back from China I've been more than a little busy with finishing up the semester and with work. But I actually do miss writing this regularly. The other reason I haven't been is that I've lost my camera. But I have a few pictures from Natalie's camera and some from some friends. Plus i'm just going to go buy one from Tesco tomorrow because not having one is making me crazy!

I have so much to write about I really don't know where to start. It's been a crazy few months, but in a lot of ways things have started to settle. I'm not living in a hotel anymore for one. Instead I'm living in a two bedroom condo in the center of sukhumvit (the big expat area). It's a two bedroom place so if anyone finds themselves in Thailand needing a place to crash let me know. It's actually a really nice place that's convenient to everything and has a roof top gym and pool. I've also made some friends here, started taking Thai language lessons, and started learning muay thai at a gym in town. But I'll get to that over time. For now I'll show all of you the pool and a picture of Natalie and me with a local. I also need to catch you all up on the songkran water fight road trip and the madness that was my China MBA trip. So I won't be running out of things to tell you about for at least a few weeks.

The roof top pool

Ladyboys aren't always hard to spot

I can't be exposed to my thoughts

I just realized I can post to my blog, but not view my own blog while in China. All blogs have to be resistered in China so I'm very surprized they're letting me post at all. So could someone shoot me an email and let me know if this is going through?

Thanks!

The office men's room

While in a stall in the rest room the second week I was in Thailand I suddenly started hearing all women's voices. Knowing the way I am, I immediately feared the worst and decided to wait until they left so I could leave the women's bathroom without having to deal with the combination of the language barrier and an incredibly awkward situation. Well I waited then left and was glad to find out I'm still somewhat sane and was in the men's room after all. But what I couldn't figure out was why I heard women's voices so loudly. This stayed a mystery for the next week or so until one day at a urinal a woman walked right in. Given my circumstance I was sure she was the wrong one, not me, until she began washing the sinks. So mystery solved.