The continuing adventures of...

Just finished my tour of 'Nam

2010-01-09T21:52:00.000-08:00

Hey all, just got back from my Christmas vacation in Vietnam. Glad to be back in Cambodia.

I got there on the 23rd of December and went directly to Sapa. It's a little town in the North of Vietnam surrounded by hill tribe villages. It was really cool seeing the minority tribes going about their business in town. After that, I went to back to Hanoi and on to Halong Bay. I spent 1 night on the junk and 1 night on Cat Ba Island. It was worst tour I have ever done - the tour guide was arrogant and the tour was poorly planned. After that I went back to Hanoi for a couple days before going south. Hanoi was a neat city but the people in the North of Vietnam aren't as friendly as they are in the South.

After Hanoi I went to Hue and toured around the old capitol, their tombs and the coolest part was the Thien Mu pagoda where the monk on the cover of the first Rage Against the Machine album studied. He drove from Hue to Saigon in an old Austin, then got out of the car and self-immolated.

From Hue I took a bus to Danang and then Hoi An. Hoi An was my favourite place of all; the old town is really cool - good food, great architecture and nice cafes.

After Hoi An I went to Nha Trang for some much needed rest on the beach. It was nice to stay in a nice hotel and do nothing but read and listen to music.

From Nha Trang I went to Saigon, where I spent two days before going home. There isn't a lot to see in Saigon but I went to the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants Museum and the Cu Chi tunnels. From Saigon it is just a 5 hour bus ride home.

Vietnam is a cheap place to travel and the scenery and history is great. The people however seem a lot colder and more greedy than Thai and Cambodian people.

Pictures of the trip are up on my Flickr site.

Anyway, school starts tomorrow so I'm about to go in to get this ready.

Happy New Year everyone!

The Doldrums

2009-11-07T18:55:00.000-08:00

Wow...it is been 3 months since my last post! I started a post about 6 weeks ago but never finished it.

I just finished a 10 day holiday in a nice country and have to go back to work for 6 weeks. Argh.

School has been really, really busy. We are in the thick of accreditation. It makes for a lot of extra tedious work that I don't know how anyone can enjoy. The schools weeks fly by and the weekends are usually spent catching up on rest (and nursing hangovers.)

A few of the highlights in the last 12 weeks (from least to most recent):

1) Attended an International Baccalureate training workshop in Kota Kinabalu. The venue was amazing - there was a 27 hole golf course at the hotel and the food was all really high quality. The workshop wasn't so stimulating but at least I've got the piece of paper and a little more knowledge about IB.

2) 4 guys and I put a team into the inaugural FCC Nations Cup at the Angkor Golf Resort in Siem Reap a few weeks ago. It was amazing organized and the course was spectactular, even after being pounded by Typhoon Ketsana. It was a two day tournament (Saturday and Sunday.) Team Canada came in second on day 1 and then edged out the competition on day 2 to win! Looking forward to defending our title next year.

3) I adopted a street cat. His name is Umi and he is a monster. He is very clever and growing like a bad weed.

4) I spent the last 10 days in Laos. It was water festival in Cambodia and I was told everyone and their dog comes to Phnom Penh. I flew from P.P. to Vientiane and spent the first 3 days in Vientiane. It immediately struck me how quiet and slow-paced everything is there. There are some nice sights, great food and the sunsets over the Mekong were an enjoyable way to spend an evening. After Vientiane I took a bus to Vang Vieng and stayed for 2 nights. The main draw to Vang Vieng is the tubing, which was a very enjoyable trip. There are bars and rope swings and volleyball courts set up along the way and if you go at a leisurely pace it takes about 4 hours to do. Vang Vieng itself isn't a very nice town though - the guesthouses are run down and the restaurants are pretty crap. Luang Prabang was the last stop in Laos. It is a world heritage city and very worthy of the title. There are wats everywhere, natural scenery within easy access, excellent restaurants and it doesn't feel overrun with tourists. I did a mountain bike/kayak day trip to a nice waterfall, wandered around the town in awe, and took a bus ride to another beautiful waterfall. From Luang Prabang I flew to Bangkok for a night with the old gang, and then returned to a pile of work and a messy house yesterday.

There are six weeks until our Christmas break now and school will definitely be very busy until then. Reports are coming up and the accreditation work will hopefully finish up. I have to go to the village where I'm taking my "Week Without Walls" sometime this month to check everything out. That will be a full weekend of buses and boats I'm sure. I'm also going to try to get out of Phnom Penh on the weekends more often. Supposedly there are some nice sites nearby and I feel the need to take advantage of them. Finally, I am going to do the Angkor Wat Half Marathon on December 6th so I will be doing a lot more training for that. I don't know what I'm doing for Christmas break yet - either Vietnam or Indonesia - but I am attending a Khmer wedding the first day of the holiday.

One last point, this week at school Jackie Chan is coming to speak to the students. That's right Jackie Chan! (I just noticed that Umi has ruined my number 1 key on my keyboard.) He and a few other celebrities and nobel laureates are coming to Thailand and Cambodia to talk about peace and their work. Oliver Stone is slated to come in January.

Alright...picture will be put up today or tomorrow.

Where does the time go?

2009-08-29T03:09:00.000-07:00

Sua sdey everyone. Sok sabaay dtay?

4 weeks have already passed since my last update. After a week of orientation and preparation, the kids started 3 weeks ago. Things are going well. It is very busy and the "To Do" list keeps growing and growing but it's all good. I am teaching grade 8 math (intro to algebra!), grade 9 science (atoms, cells and waves), and Diploma (grades 11 and 12) chemistry. Since it is all IB, it has been a very steep learning curve but my colleagues have been really helpful.

The students are about 25% Khmer, 25% Korean, and the rest from all over. They are all really nice kids. I haven't had any classroom management things to deal with yet - other than a bit of chit-chatting.

I am running a recreational swimming club on Thursday nights and planning a Week Without Walls trip for February (grades 6-10 leave school for a week for some EOTC.) I am trying to get something going with an ecotourism group in Koh Kong province, South West of Phnom Penh, to do some mountain biking, trekking, camping, and volunteering in the Chi Phat village. Also, I'm joining a house building group that is going to build houses for needy families in nearby villages. That will be in January but we need to start fundraising now.

On top of all that, I'm going to Kota Kinabulu, Malaysia for 4 days next month for training, Bangkok the weekend after that, then Laos in October/November. Oh, and I think I volunteered myself to do something at a friend's wedding here in December.

As I mentioned, my colleague are all really great. (I am realizing how much I use that word...oh well, could be worse.) Most are married with children but still manage to go out once in a while. We have a regular group of guys that golf every other Friday afternoon. We have a "Thursday Night Curriculum" group that meets at a local bar for happy hour drinks. And we have another group that goes out most Fridays for after school drinks. Needless to say, Mr. Liver has never been happier.

I'm also really enjoying Phnom Penh. There is no shortage of bars, cafes or restaurants to spend an afternoon or night in. I have been getting around.

Anyway, I'm off to meet some friends at nearby place for dinner. Take care.

1 week into Cambodia

2009-08-07T02:39:00.001-07:00

Well, I have nearly been here a week. Let me tell you, so far so great!

I have a great apartment. I have some good/young/fun co-workers. I have a sweet maid that keeps my place clean. I have an excellent landlord that looks after things terrifically promptly. I have glorious weather (a bit humid but I'm trying to stay positive.) I have impressive restaurants and cafes to choose from. I have a highly regarded place job that I am feeling impressively calm about. And I... I don't know.

So yeah, things are going well. I rode to school today and it takes about 7 minutes. I walked the other day and it took about 10. (When I walked home I picked up one of those giant water-cooler bottles of water and walked home with it. It started leaking halfway, all down my right pant leg, so I got some funny looks from khmer people.) The school is like most others except a little more quaint. I am a little bummed that I didn't get a laptop and have to make due with a desktop. (I'm actually considering going and buying a netbook for school but I think that might be silly.)

I shouldn't lie, I'm feeling a bit nervous about starting on Monday. I'm sure things will be fine and I have done a lot of preparing this week but I don't feel totally prepared. The staff has been really helpful and everything is going as planned - the bank account is set up and money is going to be deposited, the passport has been sent away for the visa, the classroom is ready, some work is ready, etc.

So yeah, all is good. Come visit everyone! You will love it!

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The time has come

2009-07-28T11:39:00.001-07:00

Well, I have been home for 3 weeks to the day and now it is time to head back. To the heat, to the noise, to the smells, to home I guess. It's been a good visit; fairly eventful; saw lots of friend's and family, ate lots of good food, played a few rounds of golf, drank a bit too much.

Last weekend I went to Toronto on a rainy Saturday to see the Six String Nation guitar. I had heard about Jowi Taylor's project - to get bits and pieces from historic people, places, and things, then build a guitar out of them - back when I was in New Zealand. Well, it was unvieled a few years ago now and has been making the rounds to festivals, concerts, and workshops ever since. I was lucky to be around for this one! We listened to Jowi tell the project story and then got our pictures taken with the guitar. (If anyone has seen the book or the website, the pics should look like the ones found there.) I was so glad that I was able to attend because this was honestly the first time in my 29 years as a Canadian that I have felt like part of my country's history, rather than reading it, hearing it or looking at it.

Also while in Toronto, we went to a new pub that was written up in "The Globe and Mail" a few weeks ago called "The Ceili Cottage." One of my pet peeves is going to an "irish" pub and not really getting the feel of anything irish at all. This one felt very authentic, down to all the servers having a bit of a brogue. I would highly recommend it.

Besides my trip to Toronto, while I was home the old boys of Renison had the second annual "Old Boys Olympics." Ian took the gold this year, with Oliver coming up second, and Randy and myself tying for bronze. It was great having 6 competitors this year, rather than the paltry 3.5 in the inaugural year. Keep up the tradition boys!

That's about all from this trip home. Sorry I couldn't catch up with everyone. You are all welcome to come visit me though!

Round the world

2009-07-08T07:45:00.000-07:00

I realized yesterday that it has been almost 2.5 months since I last updated my blog. Sorry everyone...I am slipping. Looking back over the 75 days, a lot has happened so this might be a long blog.

Where to begin, where to begin...

-got a new tattoo.

-went night golfing a few times. (It is the most fun thing ever - the course is lit up with giant stadium lights and you play as normal. The temperature is perfect. The caddies are all about having a good time. The Heinekens are ice cold. And it is cheaper than regular golf!)

-went to Chiang Mai to visit a friend in June. (We went on the Flight of the Gibbon. It is a zipline adventure through the rainforest north of the city. Very fun but not all that exhilarating.)

-went to brunch again. (Mmm...brunch.)

-saw a few movies.

-finished my contract at ELC Bangkok.

-Randy came to visit and we went back to Cambodia.

He came after school ended and we had a few nights in Bangkok where I showed him the sights. We took a water taxi to the Grand Palace, and Wat Po. Got "taken" by a taxi to Vimanmek mansion, King Chulalongkorn's palace. We went out to the Ancient City and rode bikes for an afternoon. While he was in Bangkok I had to pack up my apartment and move out. (Jess had left for Canada on June 19th, as soon as school ended.) Then on Saturday June 27th, I started moving things over to Cambodia with Randy's help. We flew into Phnom Penh and got settled at Hotel Cara. This time I started with the sad things: Choeung Ek and Tuol Sleng, followed by a good lunch at Friend's. We finished the day with happy hour at the FCC and dinner at a great Khmer restaurant, Khmer Borane. (In case you are wondering, Khmer food is similar to Thai food in a lot of respects but more bland. Although, we found that if you add extra chili it brings all the flavours out and makes everything a lot yummier.) The next day we dropped the bags we had brought off at my new apartment. I met the girl who currently lives there and bought some things from her (including the most comfortable couch ever! in case anyone wants to come and visit.) I also met the land lady and signed a lease. Then we went for another great lunch at Java cafe. (I will just stop myself right now. All the lunches and dinners we had were great. There are a lot of great restaurants, bars and cafes in Cambodia and oh, oh so cheap.) After lunch and a siesta, we went to the National Museum, Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda. I'm still very excited about moving to the city.

We left Phnom Penh and headed south to Kampot. The main draw of Kampot, besides being a quiet little backwoods set on a (slightly) attractive river, is there is an old, abandoned casino, built by the French, on top of a mountain near Kampot. However, on arrival we found out that it would take a 3 hour walk up, followed by a drive to the top, just to see the place. THEN we would have to walk back down. Now I'm all for a little physical activity and hiking is one of my favourite things, but when it is nearly 40, and full sun, I just don't have the motivation. So instead we drank and read away the afternoon and night.

The next day we took a mini bus ride to Sihanoukville. Along the way, the driver and his co-pilot (I can only assume) stopped at their village at the foot of the Bokor Mountains and asked us to come with them. Fearing for our lives, we politely refused and stayed by the van. Randy played some water bottle soccer with some local children and attempted to learn Khmer from them. About an hour later, the driver returned and we carried on our way, picking up only 1 hitchhiker. The drive to Sihanoukville was mostly very pretty. We passed a lot of typical South East Asian scenery - rice paddies, wats, palm trees, and small thatched homes. But we also passed through a few really sad and dirty "towns" that reminded us how poor and undeveloped some places still are. Sihanoukville is your typical "Gulf of Thailand" beach town with bungalows and guesthouses on the beach, BBQ's at night, warm, clear water and sun. The difference is is that it is so cheap because it is Cambodia. Our accommodation was $25/night (the most expensive place we stayed in!) and the BBQ dinner was $12 USD (for 2 dinners and 4 pints each.) Apart from me getting a terrible sunburn, it was a great place and I will definitely go back on weekends I need to get out of the city.

Taking the night bus to Siem Reap was our biggest mistake on the trip. It was pack, cramped, noisy, and took too long. But we were both really looking forward to Siem Reap and the temples of Angkor city. We found a place to stay, had some breakfast, found a tuk-tuk driver, and then headed out to the temples. On the first day we explored Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom (which consists of numerous temples itself), Ta keo, Ta Prohm, Srah Srang, and Banteay Kdei. At risk of sounding like a guide book, nothing can really prepare you for the temples. Having seen Pompeii and the churches of Europe, I was still blown away by the grandeur and detail of these structures, built almost 1000 years ago. You could spend a day in each temple if you were so inclined. (We weren't.) The other thing that you cannot prepare yourself for is the constant barrage of tuk-tuk touts, and children selling cold drinks, postcards, bracelets, scarves, and musical instruments. We must have been harassed at least 100 times a day while in Siem Reap.

The next day our trusty tuk-tuk driver, Mr. Lam, took us to Kbal Spean, the headwaters of Siem Reap river, where the Khmers carved scenes and lingas into the riverbed in order to bless the water as it flowed to them. After that we went to Banteay Srei, East Mebon, Pre Rup, Ta Som, Neak Pean, and Preah Khan. It was another full day of mind-blowing architecture and carvings but after it all we were templed out. More good food and cheap beer was in need.

Our second last day in Cambodia Mr. Lam took us to the floating village on Tonle Sap lake. It was an enjoyable hour-long tour of the village. The people live in floating houses with fish farms underneath. There are floating schools, floating mechanics, floating grocery stores, and floating restaurants. In the dry season they move everything out into the deeper water of the lake and in the wet season, they move everything farther up river. (The water level changes by 15 metres in some places!) After our tour we went to the Angkor National Museum, which was a very modern and beautiful building, filled with many statues and artifacts that had been returned to the Khmer after being looted after the Khmer Rouge regime. (This officially museumed us out though.)

The last day in Cambodia was spent drinking coffee, eating and reading at a few cafes in Siem Reap before flying back to Bangkok. It is a great way to spend a day. We flew back to Bangkok and stayed a friend's apartment before flying home to Canada via Hong Kong. I'm home for 3 weeks now, before I go back to Cambodia to start my new job in August.

A few reasons to love Thailand

2009-04-24T02:39:00.000-07:00

Bangkok has really grown on me. Coming back from Nepal, an even more frenetic, noisy, dirty place, made me realize how good I have it here. Some more evidence:

1) My lunch today cost me $1 Canadian Dollar. I had so much I am still full (at 4:30pm) and I have some for dinner.

2) I booked a flight to Chiang Mai for a weekend. It cost me $60 Canadian Dollars to fly there, return, for the weekend. It would cost me that much to drive to Windsor and Back at home.

3) I just took a motorcycle taxi home. It took me 30 minutes to get from school home. No helmet, sun on your face, weaving in and out of traffic. So enjoyable.

Come visit!

Namaste

2009-04-14T18:05:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a great trip to Nepal. We left on April 4th and were there for 10 days. Jess and I arrived in Kathmandu and were immediately taken aback by how undeveloped it was. There are very few stop lights - people just use their horns to announce their arrival at an intersection. The butcher shops all had a number of goats tied up outside the shop and were slaughtered on the street. There is a lot of poorness there but the people still seem quite happy and colourful. I haven't been to India yet but I think this was good introduction to it.

On our second day we did a Kathmandu tour. We visited Boudanath - a buddhist temple high in the hills around Kathmandu, Durbar square - one of the former palaces of Nepal's monarchy, the Hindu cremation grounds, a giant stupa that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and we were blessed by the world's only living goddess. It was quite a day...let me tell you. After this long day we were glad to be leaving for Pokhara.

We flew to Pokhara from Kathmandu (the airport was complete chaos - trips going everywhere in Nepal, delays, yelling, pushing.) On the way we got some excellent views of the mountains through the clouds. Pokhara was very similar to Taupo (where I lived in NZ) in many regards. It was much quieter than Kathmandu. We were only there for a day before we started our trek but it was very relaxing.

Our trek was 6 days and 5 nights. Not as hardcore as a lot of people we met on the route but still a good length of time. By my calculations, we walked about 46km through the Himilayas and climbed about 3000m. On the first day we walked from Nayapul to Ulleri and stayed the night there. It was a big climb for the first day but we still had fresh legs so it wasn't too bad. The guesthouses in general are very nice - not like tenting it or huts at all. Most had proper beds, attached bathrooms, and a dining hall where you got anything you wanted to eat (even steak!) On the second day of the trek we walked from Ulleri to Ghorepani - another big climb. Ghorepani was my favourite of the little mountain villages that we stayed in. The towns-people were building a stage and seating area for their New Years celebration (it is Nepali New Years today - Happy 2066!) That night in Ghorepani, it rained, snowed and hailed. We were really worried that we would have to walk in it the next day.

The thing to do in Ghorepani is to climb up Poon Hill for sunrise. From there you get a great view of about 7 or 8 peaks. When we woke up at 4:45am though it was really cloudy and there was no point in going up. Luckily on our walk that day from Ghorepani to Chuile we climbed to the same height and by that time the clouds had cleared so we could get our first really good views of the mountains. On the way to Chuile we descended and climbed and descended and climbed some more. We saw Langar Monkeys, birds, buffaloes and cows. We made it to Chuile just before it began raining and hailing again. The guesthouse was a bit sparse to put it nicely but once they started the fire it was quite cozy. On day 4 of the trek we walked from Chuile to Jhinu. By this time we had very heavy legs but we got a lot more great views of the mountains and the weather had cleared completely - this was our favourite day of the whole trek. We arrived in Jhinu and immediately went to the hot springs where we soaked and chatted with a bunch more trekkers. That night we had a big campfire in the front yard of the guesthouse.

No trip anywhere in Asia would be complete without a bout of Dehli belly and mine hit that night subsequently making the next day's walk the hardest. We had to walk from Jhinu to Dhampus, which ended up taking us 9 hours. Jess' legs were very heavy and sore, and I didn't have any energy because of the food poisoning. But we made it and are better people for it. Dhampus was the biggest village that we stayed in. On the way there, we talked to a guide who said, "Dhampus is very noisy with all the 'Beep, Beep!'" We asked "Oh, are there cars there?" And he replied "Well, one, sometimes." But we stayed outside of the town and it was very quiet. On the final day we walked from Dhampus to Phedi and caught transportation back to Pokhara. It was an amazing walk and I am really looking forward to going back and doing something else in Nepal.

We arrived at our hotel in Pokara and as soon as we got in the room I sat down on the bed and slept for 1.5 hours. It's amazing how your body knows that once it can stop moving and rest, it will. That day we slept some more and wandered around Pokhara some more. Our last day in Pokhara we met up with our guide again and he showed us around a bit. We went to Devi's Falls and cave near it. We went to a Tibetan refugee village and helped them weave some carpets. (She said I was a natural! Must be all my knitting experience...) Then we went for lunch and finally got dropped off at the airport to return to Kathmandu. We were in Kathmandu for the night and then flew back to Bangkok yesterday afternoon.

Some of you are probably wondering if Bangkok is okay, and yes, it it. We saw some military presence by the airport on the way home but nothing else. It was, in fact, the smoothest ride from the airport to home yet! It is the Thai new year here so Sawatdee Pii Mai everyone! Thai new year is called Songkran and is celebrated mostly by giant water fights. This originally has to do with the ritual of pouring water of elder's hands as a sign of respect but has turned into giant water fights. (One of my students gave me a super soaker on the last day of the term.)

If anyone is planning a trip to Nepal, I would highly recommend our guide. He has a website but I can't remember what it is so just ask me for his email.

I have updated my Flickr photostream with pictures from the trip. I tried to trim it down as much as possible but there are still 128 photos. Sorry.

We go back to school on Monday and I have only 42 days left. So happy about that. Bring on the summer!

Kanchanaburi, Floating Market, Ancient City

2009-03-21T21:27:00.000-07:00

We have been busy being tourists for the past couple weekends. Last weekend we went to Kanchanaburi because Jess won a night's accomodation at a hotel there. We left right after school on Friday night and made it there in 3 hours. (Going anywhere after school on Friday is always tricky because of traffic.) By the time we made it there though, we had just enough time to have some dinner and then go to bed. On the Saturday I went out to Erawan National Park and walked up the 7 tiered waterfall. It was beautiful! Very clean and quiet. You could swim in each of the pools if you wanted to and in some there were those fish that eat the dead skin off your feet so you could also treat yourself to a pedicure! (They are very tickly at first.) That afternoon I did the toursity stuff around the Bridge over the River Kwai. So the story goes that the Japanese wanted to make a railroad from Thailand to Burma and they used POWs to make it. Heaps died in the process and there is a great big war cemetary in Kanchanaburi (which is an immediatly odd sight because you don't see cemetaries here since everyone is Buddhist.) The original bridge, made during the war, was destroyed by the allies near the end of WWII (the Japanese knew the bridge was supposed to be bombed so they filled it with POWs in hopes that this would stop the bombers) and the one that is there now is the replacement. There is a great war museum with heaps of stuff that the POWs and Japanese troops left behind. After walking back out to the resort, the rest of the day was spent lazing around.

We decided to leave early on Sunday morning (mostly because there was nothing left for us to see) and stop at the Damnoen Saduak floating market. We got there and hired a long boat to take us around the market. It was quite pretty but very touristy now - mostly souvenirs for sale. Worth doing once...

Yesterday we decided to go to the Ancient City. Apparently, a wealthy Thai man bought the land for it in the '60's and started making replicas of important sites around Thailand. It's kind of like a giant, open-air museum now. There are a lot of "creative designs" from Thai buddhism as well. You get bicycles for the entry fee (300 THB for foreigners, 50 THB for Thais) and we spent the morning cruising around the place. It's well worth a visit if you come to Bangkok.

I put picutures of both Kanchanaburi and the Ancient City on my Flickr page.

2 more weeks until we head out to Nepal. We are very excited. I will try to make another update before then but it will most likely be after we return. Stay tuned.

My New Home

2009-02-19T05:41:00.000-08:00

Back to school, back to school...

It has been a busy month since we arrived back to school. A few short weeks, an open evening, checklists, CD Roms, etc.

Two weekends ago we had a nice, long weekend to celebrate Macha Bucha, a Buddhist holiday that no one could really explain to me (Wikipedia says that it has to do with commemorating a sermon that Buddha gave.) That weekend we went to Phnom Penh to see my new home town, as of this coming August. We arrived on Saturday night and went to a local watering hole called the "Foreign Correspondents Club" or FCC for short, then to a Khmer restaurant recommended in Lonely Planet (I might take some flack for this but Khmer food is kind of like Thai food but a little more bland.) The next day we met up with some friends from ELC who used to live there. We went for breakfast at Java Cafe and Gallery, then to Tuol Sleng, the high school cum prison used by the Khmer Rouge during their 4 year reign of terror. Most people that were interned at Tuol Sleng were either tortured to death or tortured, then walked 15km, killed, and buried in mass graves (The Killing Fields.) It's a really powerful place. It's kind of like after the Khmer Rouge walked out they just left it. There is so much evidence of the atrocity there is it mind blowing. After that we went to the Russian Market for some retail therapy. You can find everything and everything there all stuff into this claustrophobic, crampped market. Then, if the day wasn't eventful enough already!, we went to Lucky Supermarket to see what you can and can't get in Cambodia. And you can get everything. Especially really cheap, tax free alcohol. A 26 oz bottle of Jose Cuervo is only $11 USD! (I'm going to have a great big house warming party in October if anyone wants to come!) After the supermarket Jess wanted to do some shopping so I wandered around Street 240, while she checked out the local clothiers (of which you would be surprised.) Finally we had lunch at "The Shop," a great little cafe. That night we went to the "Elephant Bar" at Raffles Hotel and then a great french restaurant called "Le Marmite." (There is a great French influence in Phnom Penh so there are lots of French restaurants and nice, wide boulevards.)

On Monday we went to the National Museum and made out like we were Tomb Raiders. Pretty rich history. Followed by "Friends Cafe" for lunch, a NGO run place that teaches street youth the service industry. Awesome tapas! Then I went into the school to meet and greet. All the staff I met were really helpful and my classroom is...adequate. I'm really happy to get back to high school. That night we met up with some other friends through ELC. They are both teaching at ISPP and are loving it. It was great to get the scoop from somewhere living there now.

On Tuesday we went to the Royal Palace in the morning, then out for lunch to another cafe near FCC. I popped back into the school to show Jess the place and then we took a Tuk-Tuk to the airport and flew home. What a weekend! I'm actually really looking forward to moving there. Even though there was a horrible genocide only 25 years ago there, the people seem quite happy and forward looking. There is a great cafe culture there and you can pretty much find everything you need.

The next big trip is coming up in April. We just finalized everything for Nepal. We are doing about 5 days of trekking on the Annapurna circuit and a couple days in both Kathmandu and Pokhara. I am really looking forward to it.

The weather here is starting to warm up. It was mid 30's all this week. It feels even hotter when you have to where dress pants and a dress shirt to work. Everyone says April is going to be brutal. Good thing we are escaping for a while.

That's all for now. New pics are up at my Flickr site.

I love this town

2009-02-04T05:39:00.000-08:00

I really like Bangkok now. I just got back from my epic Wednesday but am in very high spirits. I was at school from 7 until 4, then I tutored a grade 3 student for 1 hour, then a grade 11 student for 2 hours. I usually arrive home at 8:30pm to 9:00pm but tonight I decided to take a motorcycle taxi home. I got home 30 minutes earlier, and found a new route from my friend's apartment to the bar strip! Amazing!

On top of that I have a 4 day weekend this weekend and am going to Cambodia. How exciting is that? AND I just got confirmation from my trekking guide in Nepal for my Songkran holiday in April!

If only the school I was at wasn't so ridiculous, I would stay here a long, long time! It's true what people say, for men, the first 6 months here is crap and the rest is great. (For women, it's the other way around.) It just kinda sucks that I'm just now starting to really like it here when I know I'm leaving in 5 months...

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

2009-01-18T03:23:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a busy 2 weeks since we returned to school. The children came back on January 7th, and were around for 3 days before the weekend. Last Saturday to Tuesday I attended the Bangkok Search Associates job fair. It was a wild, wild experience. There were about 350 very qualified teachers (not quite sure how I got an invite...) trying to impress, smooze, and bribe their way into around 85 different international schools from around the world. I'm not sure if any of you have been to a job fair like this before but let me tell you, it is quite an experience. Firstly, you have about 60-90 seconds to impress the recruiters enough for them to give you an interview. Then, if this is successful, you get to have 1 or more interviews with them, where they may grill you on pedagogy, or just talk about their school for a half hour (the latter is my favourite type of interview.) Due to my stunning good looks, I secured 6 interviews with schools from Cambodia, China, Germany, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, and Switzerland. Switzerland, Germany, and Korea shot me down, but Cambodia, Laos, Kuwait, and China all offered me jobs.

So...the good: I accepted a job at the International School of Phnom Penh. I'm pretty excited, as are they (by the sounds of it.) It will be a great career move - once I have had IB training and experience I will be able to write my own ticket to anywhere in the world. (I'm not being cocky, I'm very modest actually, there just aren't a lot of chemists teaching internationally. It's great for me.) It will also be a pretty exciting adventure. Cambodia is about 20 years behind Thailand, as far as development goes - Pol Pot helped them lose that race - so it is a very frentic, developing place to be.

The bad: I will have to leave Bangkok in the summer sometime. That means all you people that want to come and visit, do it soon. Otherwise you will have to come to Cambodia. Jess will still be here for next year though so if you are nice, she might let you sleep on our futon.

The ugly: There really is no ugly...yet. Life is good right now. Work, Eat, Sleep, Tiger Woods '09, go out on the weekend...what more can you ask for.

Come visit while you can!

Tri Country Chirstmas Tour 2008

2009-01-03T20:00:00.000-08:00

Jess and I just arrived home from our Christmas trip and since we have a day left of freedom before we have to go back to school, I thought I would update everyone about our travels.

We left December 17th and flew into Singapore. The flight was only 3 hours but when we landed, it was like we were on another continent. Singapore is very much like a western country - very orderly, parks, sidewalks without vendors or potholes, no strange smells or soi dogs... Initially it appealed to me but the longer we stayed the less time we wanted to spend there. The first night we met up with my friend and his girlfriend for dinner at a 'hawker centre.' There were 83 different food stalls set up around a bunch of tables. We had a bunch of different dishes and all were great! It was the best food I had on the trip I think. Day two saw us visit Little India, where we had lunch at an Indian restaurant called Banana L eaf Apolo. The food was served on giant banana leaves set in front of you. It was amazing. That afternoon we enjoyed some very expensive Singapore Slings at Raffles Hotel. (You gotta do it when you're there) and a Trishaw tour of Chinatown that night. It was very interesting since most of Singapore's inhabitants have Chinese origins. The next day we spent the morning in the Asian Civilizations Museum. It has an extensive collection on all things Asian. Well organized and interesting. By that afternoon we were ready to leave the city though. We had seen and done all we wanted to see and do. So we left the next day.

We took the bus from Singapore to Melaka. The bus driver was possibly the saltiest character I have ever come upon. I think he lived on the bus as it looked like he had a bed and his towel hanging in the window. Occasionally he would bark an order at us, like "Customs! Leave things!" or "Toilet!" He showed the most violent film I have ever seen on a bus. It was horrible. Upon arrival we went for a walk to find some dinner and wander through Chinatown. Jess had her fortune told - she found out that I was born in the year of the Monkey and am a Jungle Monkey to be exact and I should be an engineer or architect, not a teacher. (I knew I took a wrong turn somewhere!) The next day we wandered around Melaka some more until the heat became unbearable. We found an old church that had been used by the Portugese and Dutch that St. Francis of Assisi had been interred at. There were lots of old tombstones inside the church from the fifteen hundreds. That afternoon I personally played PSP for 3 hours and slept for 2 hours.

The next day we travelled to Kuala Lumpur, the capitol of Malaysia. KL was still a bit more orderly than Bangkok but what I realized by that time is that I kind of like the disorder in Bangkok - you never know what you will see. In KL we went to the Batu caves, which are the caves that have become a Hindu shrine. You have to walk up 27o some odd steps to the first cave and inside it there are all sorts of altars. Outside there are lots of monkeys doing their things and some very odd statues. We wandered around the colonial part of KL and it's Chinatown. We realized, while walking through all of these Chinatowns, that you can get the same knock-off/souvenir crap anywhere. Unfortunately it is very hard to find any indigineous souvenirs anymore. The last day we were in KL we waited and waited and waited until it was our turn to go up to the Sky bridge between the Petronas Towers. (Another thing you have to do I guess.)

Day nine was our most epic travelling day. We were up at 4:30am to catch a train to the airport so we could fly to our next destination. Sounds easy right? No. No it wasn't. We took a taxi to the train station, a train to the airport, a bus to another terminal, a plane to the nearest airport, a taxi to the ferry terminal, a ferry to the island, and a taxi to the hotel. But we finally arrived at around 2pm and proceeded to lay on the beach for the next 3 days. That night we had an amazing Italian "Christmas" dinner at L'osteria. We spent most of our days in Langkawi on the beach, recharging our batteries from all the cities. Our last day in Langkawi we rented a scooter and drove to the cable car. It takes you about 700m up a mountain to some spectacular views of the island.

On day twelve we flew back to KL then on to Phuket. The next day we spent the full day at the beach. It was sunny and hot and the water was perfect. While in Phuket we did an Island tour to Ko Phi Phi Lai, Ko Phi Phi Don and Ko Khai. All were nice (except extremely overcrowded) and you realize that once you see one island, they are all the same - sand, palm trees, water, etc. When we got back to the mainland we realized that the power was out all around us. It stayed out until about 8:30pm which made for an interesting dinner. Luckily we found a place that was running on gas. By day fifteen I was ready to get back to Bangkok. I can only take so much sloth and sun.

We spent New Years in Phuket and it was nice and low-key. We went out to a seafood restaurant and had lobster, then went down to the beach a lit of paper lanterns and watched some fireworks, then we went home to bed by 11:00pm. On New Years day we went to the beach in the morning and it was nearly deserted but by lunch the crowds had returned so we left. We went for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant and then I came down with food poisoning...again. The next day we had to check out of our accomodation at noon (we stayed at the 3rd Street Guesthouse, by the way, and it was great!) so we spent the afternoon in a mall (not my favourite way to spend a day.) We flew out of Phuket at 8:30pm and arrived at our door at 11. All in all a good trip.

I have also updated my Flickr site with more photos.

Happy New Year everyone!

Sawat dee

2008-12-12T02:16:00.000-08:00

Yes...I realize it has been a while - the past month has been very busy. Today was the last day of the term and I now feel that I have some time to write.

Yes...we are done for the term and year. I don't have to go back to school until the year 2009. A lot has happened in the last month or so. A female teacher was hired as a "co-teacher" for me supposedly because some parents felt that I wasn't "maternal" enough. It hasn't been the perfect situation for anyone in the class but we are working through it. Just before that happened I resigned from the job effective at the end of the school year. I decided that it isn't my niche and that I should move on to try and find my niche. My tentative plan is to try and find something either in Asia or South America for the 2009/2010 school year. If that doesn't work I will apply to some Ontario boards for September 2009. And if I'm totally burnt out by teaching by then I will go back to school.

On the home front I am having a lot more fun here. Outside of school I am tutoring about 5 hours a week, then going out for dinner a lot, and hitting up clubs frequently enough. I am finding that it is easy to be a glutton in this city though. Last weekend, we had a "Boy's Night Out" and started at a buffet dinner in the tallest building in Thailand, then went bowling and polished off a bottle of vodka and a bottle of whiskey (between 6 guys), then went to 2 after hours clubs. Now I could see myself staying here for a few years if the opportunity arises.

The political situation has calmed down some. There are still demonstrations but they haven't really affected anyone or anything since the government was dissolved. The airports are back open and running at full efficiency. The only inconvenience to me was that I had to cancel my weekend trip to Cambodia because I wasn't sure if I would be able to fly out or get home.

The airport opened up just in time for Jess and I to head away for our Christmas trip. Next Wednesday we are heading to Singapore for a few days, followed by about 1.5 weeks in Malaysia, and New Years in Phuket. We will be gone from the 17th to the 2nd. Looking forward to it immensely.

Last weekend Jess and I went to Ayutthaya for a day trip. Ayutthaya was the kingdom of Thailand until 1767, when it fell to Burmese forces and the King moved to Thonburi and then Bangkok. It was nice to be a tourist - easy day trip from Bangkok, pretty scenery, history, and another buffet.

Last weekend we also went to see "Twilight." Don't do the same. I did however buy 3 albums - Shad's "The Old Prince", Priestess' "Hello Master", and Band of Horse's "Cease to Begin." All are amazing and I would recommend them to anyone with good taste.

Finally, I just had my first (and probably only) suit made. We are going to the Thai-Canadian Chamber of Commerce Fire and Ice Ball this Saturday so I needed some fancy dress. To tell you the truth, it was a pretty neat experience. You go for 3 fittings (more or less depending on how picky you are or how good the tailor is) and come away with a tailor made suit. It looks great. I also got a few shirts made, which look a lot better than the Value Village rags I have been sporting. All up it cost me less than $500 dollars for tailor made clothes. Pretty awesome.

That's about all for now. I think that has been a good catch up. I need to get ready now for Jess' birthday party. Take care all.

Surrealism

2008-11-14T04:01:00.000-08:00

One of the amazing things about this city is that you are constantly bombarded by so many surreal sites. Here are just a few examples as of late: (I wish I had some pictures but the moments are fleeting. Someone should invent some sort of camera embedded in our brains that we can then plug into a computer and share the images.)

1) Walking into a bar in downtown Bangkok, past hundreds of prostitutes and a vendor cart heaped with fried insects. Then walking out of the bar 45 minutes later and instead of a bug vendor, there is a full size elephant and his mahout.
2) Motorcycle taxi driver sleeping (in rush hour traffic no less) with his head on bike, butt on a plastic stool, feet on a table.
3) Beggars with no arms or no legs, pulling them selves down the dirty, uneven, garbage-strewn sidewalk.

Check it out.

Bangkok is growing

2008-11-09T00:42:00.001-08:00

on me.

It's not the cleanest city, it's not the most "on-time" city, it's not the most green city, but gosh darnit, it's pretty fun.

Starting from last Wednesday, me and 2 other fellas went to see DJ Shadow. One thing led to the next and we were at an after hours club finishing a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black, not talking to each other. Needless to say, we weren't able to go to work in the m0rning. Last night we went to see the new James Bond movie. Movies here are fantastic - comfortable, cheap, and close by. Jess didn't like it because there "wasn't enough character development." I told her that character development in James Bond movies ended in about 1959. People go to see James Bond for action, girls, and sauveness. Today we went to the 4 Seasons Brunch. Now this isn't your gradnparents typical brunch (not that there is anything wrong with those Nan and Pops) but this was a 4 hour affair, consisting of all the alcohol you want and every ethnicity of food possible. The price tag was steep - as much as a night away but well worth it. We all felt like stuffed turkey's by the end of it and made it home, just in time for a siesta.

Work is still work but I'm thinking about sticking it out now. We'll see.

Come visit.

Pai Pai Miss American Pie

2008-10-25T23:10:00.000-07:00

We just got back from a much needed holiday last night. We went up North to Pai and Chiang Mai. Both were great - pretty, quieter than Bangkok, and inexpensive. We flew to Chiang Mai last Saturday and then took a minibus directly to Pai. It is a really windy, mountainous road there and we were glad to reach our destination that night. Pai is only about 3000 people small so it was really easy just to wander around and explore. We rented a scooter (only 180 THB for 24hours!) and toured the countryside, had some great coffee, ate some good food and relaxed. All until the third night that was, when we both came down with food poisoning. I'm putting my blame on the eggs at the resort's breakfast. Food poisoning is never fun.

After Pai, we went back to Chiang Mai. Chiang Mai is the second largest city in Thailand, but at only around 400000, it is so much slower paced and quieter than Bangkok. Our first night there we laid low because we were still feeling the effects of the food poisoning and the bus ride back. The second day we did an Elephant tour. It included a show of what the elephants could be taught (very impressive), a jungle ride on the elephants (a little scary), a ride on an oxcart (very bumpy), a ride down a river on a jungle raft (so relaxing), a stop at an orchid farm (beautiful) and a show at a monkey school (they teach them to get coconuts down from trees.) It was a great day. The next day in C.M., we went to a cooking school to learn how to make some authentic Thai food. It was fantastic. The chef was great - very helpful and knowledgeable. We made AND ate 6 dishes altogether. Needless to say, we didn't eat dinner that night. The next day we did a walking tour around the old city. There are more than 300 wats in and around C.M. so we wandered around and looked at a few of them. On our last day in town we went up Doi Suthep to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep - one of the holiest wats in Northern Thailand. The views of C.M. were worth the trip alone, not to mention the beauty of wat itself.

We are now back in Bangkok, getting ready for school tomorrow. This trip has made me look forward to the next opportunity to travel and will hopefully make the next couple months bearable.

Check out the photos at my Flickr site.

Stomach bugs

2008-10-05T20:57:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! I thought that my time off from school would be a great opportunity to make a new post.

Yeah...I have a nasty stomach bug. I finally went to the hospital this morning and got a diagnosis and some medication after suffering all weekend. I guess it is one of the downfalls of living in a place where you can't drink the tap water and have to be leary about eating street food.

School has been flying by. I'm not going to lie to you though - kindergarten is not for me. This school is not for me. It could actually be such a great place but the silly things that go on are driving me nuts. I won't go into details but I will say that you wouldn't find half the stuff that goes on here at any other school in the world! The teachers would revolt.

Furthermore, I haven't really adjusted to Bangkok yet. The heat, the pollution, the noise, the traffic, the lack of green space is all still a big hurdle for me. Sure, different food every night, and a multitude of bars to choose from is tempting. But who's kidding who, I don't booze it up anymore and I can only eat out so often. If anyone has any advice how I can lighten up and enjoy myself more, I'm all ears.

So needless to say, things could be going better here and I'm looking for a change at the end of the year (I just hope I can last to the end of this year!)

We have some traveling coming up. In 2 weeks we have a week long holiday. Jess and I are going to Chiang Mai and Pai for the week. We are very much looking forward to getting away from her for an extended period of time. I will post again after that trip.

Comin' at ya'

2008-09-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

this post is coming live from a bar, the witches tavern. amazing.

did i mention that jess has dengue fever? yeah...not fun. everyone should send her you well wishes.

Paradise is only a 2hr cab ride away

2008-09-14T02:02:00.000-07:00

We just got back from beautiful Ko Samet after a much needed weekend out of Bangkok and I have some stories to tell.

We left on Friday night. We had to leave after school and decided to take a bus because it was going to be heaps cheaper than taking a cab (180 THB each instead of 1000-1500 THB.) The bus took 4 hours to get to the ferry terminal, followed by a 30min. ferry ride, and a 5min. taxi ride (when I say taxi I mean truck bed with benches.) After all that we arrived at 9:45pm, exhausted, ready for a Singha and bed.

Saturday morning was overcast but it didn't end up raining during the day (there was a 60% chance of thunderstorms.) We had a big "American Breakfast" (included in the cost of the room) and then laid in deck chairs for the rest of the morning. The sun was never really out all morning but I still got burnt. Go figure. In the afternoon, the sun burned away all the clouds and became really hot. We wandered around our resort, found the pool, the other beach, and a giant Buddha. For dinner, we cleaned ourselves up and walked down the beach to one of the beach BBQ restaurants. You choose your meal (from Tuna to T-bones, baked potatoes and corn, or mussels and crabs), the cook cooks the meal, while you lounge on the beach in Thai beds. Once night fell at this particular place, there was a really cool fire show. All this for the less than thirty Canadian dollars! We ended the night with rotis cooked on the beach, by a vendor, on the walk home.

This morning, we rose to beautiful sunshine. After another great "American Breakfast", and another swim in the ocean, we cleaned ourselves up and got ready to leave. We took the resort's ferry back to the main land and started walking to the bus depot, dreading another 4 hours in a bus. On the way there a man on a motorcycle stopped and asked us "Taxi?" We asked how much, to which he replied "1200 Baht!" We said "No thanks!" and kept walking to the bus depot. He caught back up with us and asked "1000 baht?" and after a little deliberation we said yes. Now, immediately after getting in the cab I became leary that this was a con - the driver switched on the meter, which began rising quite rapidly. The 1000 baht mark came and went on the meter as the driver sped along the highway at speeds reaching 155km/h. (My heart was in my throat a couple times, as the driver swerved in and out of traffic, lauched us over bridges, all without the protection of seat belts as very few cabs have seat belts in the back seat.) Regardless, we made it to our door in 2 hours on the dot, for the low price of 1000 baht. Jess and I paid the driver and laughed all the way up to our apartment. Ko Samet really is close when you find a cab driver like that!

Looking forward to the next trip out of the city. It's true, Thailand - Bangkok specifically - becomes a lot more bearable when you know you can get out of the city easily.

I added some more pics from the trip to my Flickr site. Go check them out!

Rain in biblical proportions

2008-09-11T05:17:00.000-07:00

Howdy everyone. Been a while...I know.

We are settling into the routine nicely - gym, school, sleep, etc. The kids are fun, everything else isn't. But that's another story...

So because it is the tail end of the rainy season the rain is falling hard out. Everyday. In biblical proportions. And when it rains it shuts everything down. Traffic stops, cabs don't pick you up, the sky darkens, thunder rolls, etc. The other great thing is that the really torrential rain usually starts about the time that we go home from school. So great! Anyway, on Tuesday, the rain came at about 3:30pm and the sky grew darker than I have ever seen before. It was like night time. I was sitting in my classroom talking to my co-teacher when there was the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard and an extremely bright flash (in some countries they call it lightening...) Anyway, the lightening hit a transformer about 25 meters away from where I was sitting and it caught it on fire. The transformer was attached to the music room and possibly ruin all the equipment in the music room. Unbelievable.

Well...that's about all the interesting stuff that has happened here.

The land of laziness

2008-09-01T06:19:00.000-07:00

The land of smiles eh? More like the land of laziness...I am slowly figuring out that in this country anyone can find someone to do everything for them. Need a driver or a nanny? A maid or a tailor? Girlfriend or wife? All can be had for a small sum.

I went golfing yesterday and it was a very surreal experience. It may have been the heat or the hangover, or both, but it was like nothing I have every experienced. The course was about a 1.5 hour cab ride from my apartment. Upon arrival, there is a caddy waiting to take your bag from the trunk. The caddies are all petite, attractive females covered nearly head to toe (Thai women find "whiteness" more attractive than their natural colour so they try to hide them selves from the sun at all costs) in identical bright pink, canvas pant suits. The green fees and the beer were all very resonable (1450 THB + 300THB to tip the caddy + 250THB for food and drinks). The course was quite nice - lots of water and sand - and out in the country. There were cows grazing in nearby pastures, mosques calling worshippers to prayer over their loud speakers, brush fires causing smoke to engulf a number of holes, local gearheads burning around on dirt bikes, and old men swimming in the water hazards. All this in near spontaneous-combustion-like temperatures. Most of the group went to a sports bar after for food and drink but I had to come straight home for a soak in the pool before an early bedtime. On the cab ride home, our first driver stopped after 11km because (we assumed) she didn't want to drive us all the way into the city. After sitting for 10 minutes on the side of the road (with the meter running of course) she finally flagged down a cab that would take us the final 25km.

In an earlier post I think I mentioned that a friend from school is opening an Italian restaurant and we were supposed to be going for a grand opening on Friday. Well, plans were changed last minute. It turns out that my friend and his partners, who are opening an Italian restaurant, were supposed to be cooking food for a bar nearby the new restaurant. On Wednesday of last week, as the renovations were being completed on the kitchen, one of the employees leaned against the meat slicer and received a fatal electrocution. Needless to say, the deal was canceled, and my friend and his partners got the hell out of dodge. Long story short, we didn't go to the opening on Friday night. Just another example to make you more than a little concerned about the quality (or lack thereof) of anything resembling regulatory bodies in Thailand.

We are into our second week at school. The pace is picking up, deadlines are coming due, etc., etc. It's only the second week into it and I'm already exhausted. And on that note it's early to bed for me.

Into the thick of it

2008-08-27T04:11:00.000-07:00

I have been maintaining radio silence lately for the simple reason that after a long day of teaching 4 year olds I just don't have the energy to do anything creative. It is really and truly exhausting.

The kids are mostly great - like most classrooms 90% are really cool. The other 10% take up most of the day. You've got your ADHD cases, your "not loved enough as a child" case, your overactive boy case, etc. But really...the good ones are so good.

I feel that if I can last it, it will be so good for my teaching. I'm already discovering (well, not really discovering...more just honing) skills that I didn't really need to use at the high school level. For example, each classroom is shared by 2 classes and with 2 teachers, 2 assistants, and 31 kids it can get really loud. Having a loud voice I would generally just yell over it all but boy-oh-boy that tires you out quickly. Instead I have learned to modulated my voice appropriately and in turn it quiets my kids down as well. I will tell you though, I don't know how Mrs. Duffy did it (my kindergarten teacher.) 30 kids to yourself, no assistant, no maid, forget it. I taught only 3 days last week and I had to go to bed at 8:00pm on Friday night!

This weekend we are going to a friend's restaurant opening on Friday night (Free Food!!!) and to another friend's house for dinner on Saturday night. Not to brag but our social calendar is full!

Dinner awaits...

Man those prostitutes can throw darts!

2008-08-18T06:39:00.000-07:00

My posting schedule has slowed down significantly, I know. We have been really busy with school stuff since last Monday. Friday couldn't come quick enough.

Jess has a friend visiting from New Zealand, en route to England. On Friday night we were planning to take her to one of the sky bars (those really expensive bars at the top of tall buildings.) We left the building in a drizzle and arrived at the restaurant Cabbages and Condoms in a torrential downpour. We were soaked and Laura had torn her pants on a vendor's table. Yes, Cabbages and Condoms is the name - they give most of their proceeds to sex education in the provinces. Pictures to come. Needless to say, we didn't make it to the sky bar.

On Saturday night we went out again, first to Indus, a highly recommended Indian restaurant, with the intention of hitting a sky bar. But Jess and Laura's marathon day of shopping caught up with them and they went home early again. But not this boy. Oh no. First we went to a little sidewalk bar that some friend's knew about and polished off a bottle of Sang Som (80 proof Thai rum) amidst those poor, poor elephants and the prostitutes outside "The Hairy Pie Club" (I couldn't make this stuff up people.) From there we went to another pub, this time with a shuffle board table, dartboards, and a proper flushing toilet. After another bottle of Sang Som, and a couple games of darts with some ladies of the night, we retired quickly after learning that ringing "the bell" in Thai bars means you are buying the next round. I just thought it would be fun!? Really!

Sunday was a day of much needed rest.

We have one more day of in-service and then the kids arrive. Did I mention that I am teaching senior kindergarten? I have never been scared of a 4 year old. But I am rather frightened of 16 of them - running the gamut from little to no English (it's their 3rd or 4th language in some cases though) to developmental challenges. Rest assured that I will post again this week to let everyone know how it goes.

Whatever doesn't kill you...

I'm working for Dr. Claw

2008-08-13T05:41:00.001-07:00

Well folks, I don't know if you ever watched Inspector Gadget but if you did, you will get the reference. I started work on Monday (a very sombre occasion) to find out that I will be teaching K2 (which is either like Canadian senior kindergarten or grade 1.) I wasn't expecting that at all - I am responsible for teaching kids to read for god's sake!?! I am warming to the fact and becoming less and less nervous about it all. I'm sure it will go swimmingly. Over the last few days at work I have learned the "ins and outs" of the school - what not to do, not to wear, not to put up, etc. A lot of nots really. The owner/director has a very firm idea of how her school should be run and everyone has been very helpful in acclimatizing me to the situation. However, I haven't actually seen the owner yet, only heard about her. It really does feel like I'm working for Dr. Claw - never actually seeing his face, just doing his bidding. Or "the management" from Carnivale. Here's hoping it all goes well when I do meet her...

On the weekend we went to a district called "Royal City Avenue." It's a strip of really trendy bars and restaurants, filled with the "Hi-So" (high society) of Bangkok. We went with some friends from school, one of which's girlfriend's friend owned a number of the bars. I have never been a V.I.P. before, and might never again, but let me tell you, it's kinda fun. At these bars you buy booze by the bottle - 2200 THB for two 26 oz bottles of Smirnoff and mix. But that was the last of the booze we bought all night.

Yesterday was Mother's Day - the Queen's birthday. We did some touristy stuff - saw the Democracy Monument, the October 14th Memorial, walked Khao San Road, took a water taxi to China Town, and wandered around China town for a few hours. It's so much work to do touristy stuff here! The heat, the congestion, the noise, etc. It makes me just want to sit in my air conditioned apartment and be a tourist at the pool and sauna once in a while. (Tempting anyone to visit yet?)

Gotta run, we're watching "The Kite Runner" tonight!

Photos!

2008-08-09T21:41:00.001-07:00

Hey all, just added some photos from Bangkok on my Flickr page. Follow the link to the left.

The Dirty Post

2008-08-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a busy few days since I have last written.

Firstly, we found a place to live through the good old internet. We came to see it on Monday and told the guy we would take it, then moved in by Tuesday. It's pretty awesome - 14^th floor in a brand new building, never lived in, spacious, close to everything necessary (restaurants, BTS, supermarket, Thai prostitutes...err, forget the last one.) But seriously, it is in the district called Nana which is the main prostitute district. Their cat calls are kind of cute actually. And, the best part is in comes complete with a very nice pull out couch for anyone who decides to make the trip over here! Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, know what I mean...

One downfall of the place though, last night we started doing a load of laundry and then went to the grocery store to do a bit of a stock up. When we came back the living room was a swimming pool and every drop of water that went into the machine seemed to come out the bottom. Once we finished furiously toweling up the water, and spinning the clothes dry, I reached into the machine to retrieve our mentionables and unmentionables (how come “mentionables never really made it as a description for clothes?) and got a shock by the now electrified drum. Needless to say, we aren't going to be doing any more laundry very soon.

In setting up our apartment we went to a local mall called MBK. This place is the palace of comsumerism folks. Imagine a place 7 floors high, each floor dedicated to a different article (housewares, electronics, clothes, etc.) and packed with stalls like street vendors. I don't think I'm getting across how massive and confusing this place is – each floor is about half a kilometer long and always (I've been there twice now) packed with people. It really is unbelievable.

Yesterday was especially busy because we went to the immigration bureau to get our visas changed to “non immigrant B” visas – which we need to work. The cab ride there and back took about an hour, but we were only in the immigration bureau for about 10 minutes. Of course we didn't understand anything going on because the secretary from the school, Pornthip, did all the talking and we just sat there smiling and trying to look presentable. (Seriously, her name is Pornthip. For some unknown reason a lot of people seem to have the name “porn” in their name.)

As I write this I'm sitting in front of our huge windows, looking out on the scene below, and I keep thinking about all the crazy/weird/amazing/sad things I have already seen and I have only been here a week. There are people right now, outside this very window, bathing themselves from 55 gallon drums on the street level below. The beggars here are hard up – I saw a guy yesterday selling lottery tickets with no arms and only 1 leg! Everything you can imagine you can buy from a street vendor – religious amulets, bits of metal, airport metal detectors (the hand held kind,) fruit, brooms, wicker baskets, and more. Sometimes I feel very overwhelmed but most of the time I'm just trying to hide my amazement.

We have a pretty busy social schedule in the upcoming week – we had a get together for new staff last night, there is a “going away party” on Friday night, a costume party on Saturday night, and next Tuesday is a holiday so we are going golfing. I need a pay cheque soon!

Off the Sidewalk, I'm a motorist!

2008-08-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

So lastnight we met up with some colleagues from Canada at a local watering hole. They gave us the scoop on all sorts of stuff about Bangkok – where to live, where to shop, who to avoid, who to befriend, etc. All of this was done at “The Dubliner Pub” - an Irish pub. It was interesting walking into the place and ordering a pint – it felt like you were at some pub in Ireland or England, or at least a good pub in Canada. I mentioned to Jess that it was a nice “respite” from Bangkok, to which she agreed. I think places like that are going to become ever more important as the time wears on.

On the way to the pub we were walking down the “not really a sidewalk, but the closest Bangkok gets to one” and a motorcyclist came barreling straight at us and yelled something in Thai. I can only imagine that it was “Off the sidewalk! I'm a motorist!” Apparently pedestrians no longer have any rights here.

Speaking of traffic, Bangkok has lots of it. We have seen some pretty precarious situations on the road, motorcycles swerving in and out of cars stopped at stop lights, all sorts of vehicles traveling on the wrong side of the road, what look to be ridiculously unsafe loads on top of trucks and motorcycles (including people) and many more. I was thinking about getting a bicycle or a scooter but my sense of self-preservation kicked in and has made me think otherwise.

While at the pub, in the midst of conversation about our new city, our friends asked “Have you seen an elephant yet?” We replied no, as it was the most logical answer – this being a city of 14 million people (last time we checked elephants live in the forests of Northern Thailand and the plains of Africa, not in dense urban centres.) They mentioned that you see them all over the place, usually at night, around Bangkok. The funniest thing is, as they finished saying this they looked out the window to the street and said “I think that is an elephant right there!” We ran down to the street and sure enough, it was an elephant, dressed in what looked to be a cellophane tutu, and his handler, a mahout. Apparently for 40 Baht you can feed them sugar cane. (A little exploitive I feel.) You can only shake your head sometimes...

P.S.- It is currently 4:30am on Sunday August 3^rd. Still reeling from jet lag.

P.P.S.- A car just sped by the apartment blaring it's horn. I can only imagine that he was thinking “Everyone wake up! I am a motorist!” WTF...

Intermittent Internet

2008-08-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

All good things come with a price. For example, this morning we took a Tuktuk to the Grand Palace. The tuktuk was so fun but we were black from exhaust fumes by the time we made it there. Another example, the Grand Palace is “knock your socks off amazing” but there are lots of scammers and pick pockets in the area.

After the Grand Palace, and losing 2lbs in sweat, we walked to Wat Pho to see the reclining Buddha. Holy heck, that was a large, gilt Buddha. Words can’t describe the ornateness of the building and the Buddha within. I’m thinking of taking up Buddhism because of it.

We went to “MBK” for lunch. MBK is actually an acronym for this huge shopping centre. It’s about 7 floors and each floor is for something else – housewares, clothes, electronics, etc. Very overwhelming. We found a voltage converter, which we bargained down to $7. When we got it home and plugged it in however, it started billowing smoke and now my next to new iPod speaker doesn’t work anymore. (Honestly, who knew such a little electrical appliance could smoke so much. WTF?)

The apartment has let me down slightly as well. Just after the converter debacle I noticed a cockroach on the wall. Furthermore, we have been stealing internet from an unsecured wireless network. Jess seems to always get on easily – she has even been able to Skype her family. However, whenever she hands it to me the internet goes down. And finally, this must be the noisiest apartment in the whole world - we leave the windows open for a cross breeze but the street traffic makes you think there are trucks coming through the front door

We continued the apartment hunt today. We can honestly say we have beat the pavement looking. We went to about 10 places in the area of the school asking if they had vacancies. Either they only had 3 bedrooms available, or none available, or they were just too expensive. (You can tell the kind of place you are going into by looking at the cars in the parking lot – don’t expect anything under 50000 Baht if there are Mercedes or Ferraris in the parking garage.)

Well, I should wrap this up because we are meeting some people at a pub in an hour. Hopefully dinner and drinks doesn’t come with any downfalls. I will be sure to let you know if it does though.

Exhaust Fumes and Incense

2008-08-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

Well we made it to Bangkok Thursday night at 10pm. By the time we got to our apartment it was midnight – the perfect time for a quick stumble around the neighborhood. The school had booked an apartment for us, which is directly across a small lane from the school. It is massive (too big for little ole’ us really) and came complete with Kit Kats in the fridge (thanks to our vice principal.)

And just so everyone knows, jet lag is no fun. Jess and I woke up at the crisp hour of 6:15am this morning and surprised everyone at our school by showing up just after 7. What else are you going to do really? The school grounds are really neat – a bit of a sanctuary amidst the hussle and bussle of Bangkok. Some buildings are ultramodern, some are teak and 100 years old. Looking forward to working there.

After our visit to the school we began to acclimatize ourselves to the city. We walked to the BTS (skytrain) and set ourselves up with passes, we found some grocery stores, and Jess found a mall. The city isn’t really what I expected (most experiences never are really…) – you can find anything and everything here if you look hard enough. Chuck T’s, Oreo cookies, Irish pubs – you name it, this city has it.

We started “The Great Apartment Hunt” today as well. We contacted an agent who took us around to about 7 different places. We were pretty excited about the last few but they are a bit far from the school, which means more money spent on transit. We are seeing more on Sunday hopefully.

“The Great Apartment Hunt” took us until 6pm so we treated ourselves to dinner and a massage. (It was either eat out or have P.B and J sammies because we have no cookware.) Thai food in Thailand just tastes better. (That should be a tourism add eh?) And for the equivalent of $7 CAD, we had a Thai foot massage that ended up being more of a full body massage, lasting an hour. I barely made it home on my own jelly-like legs.

That’s all for now.

C&J

The First Leg

2008-07-31T17:00:00.000-07:00

So here I thought that the flight to Bangkok would be shorter than the flight to or from NZ. Well, I was sadly mistaken. Why do I subject myself to these dreadful experiences? 12 hours in the same seat can’t be good for anyone! And is it just me or do airlines try to make this the most painful experience ever? Hassling Jess over 0.5kg and 2 cubic inches, horrible lineups at check-in and security, and so on.

Anyway, I’m writing this in the Tokyo Narita Airport and so far I have to say that Japan has lived up to expectation. The randomest crap in the duty free store, radical vending machines selling next to everything, strange television commercials, and a language that must confuse people that have lived here for years (Pete?) (I really want to take some pictures of random Japanese stuff to put in this entry but don’t want to look like a total gringo tourist so everyone will have to imagine what it is like. I will leave it for a later date when I return to Japan.)

5 hours left until Bangkok. Hopefully Thai Airlines lives up to it’s expectation as well…

More to come soon.

The next step

2008-07-04T08:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I have been in Canada for a little over 6 months, and as the original plan dictated, I am moving on. For those of y0u that don't know, I will be leaving July 30th for Bangkok, Thailand. I will be teaching at ELC-Bangkok for the next 2 years.

I am very excited and nervous at the same time - the prospect of moving to a country like Thailand (slightly more foreign than New Zealand) and teaching small children is a little daunting. Jess and I have been scouring the web for information on the country and quizzing friend's that have visited.

I don't have an address yet but once I do I will post it here so you can all send me care packages.

I will put all photos up on my Flickr site and I will also put a link on the homepage of this blog.

More to come...