Jeremy's Adventures

Hey all!

2007-05-21T12:08:00.000+07:00

Hey, I'm really sorry I haven't updated in a long time... The thing is, I've been waiting for photos from Cambodia, because we shared cameras, Hong is going to mail me a CD of all the 900 or so photos we took. The trip was amazing, let me tell you. Once I get the photos, I can post with all the details of the trip... In the meantime, in case you don't already know, I'M BACK IN CANADA! Yes it's true. Sorry I never mentioned it, but I had decided to surprise my parents and friends. I had decided a few weeks previous that I was ready to come back, I mean I've been having so much fun in Asia, but I was getting low in money and felt ready to re-join the working class back in North America. That being said, I'm not working yet, even though I've been back in Canada since May 3. I'll let ya know when I get a job heh.

So I surprised my parents completely. They had absolutely no idea I was coming back. Most of my friends didn't know either. So it was pretty fun to surprise my parents!

Back from Cambodia!!

2007-05-06T12:02:00.000+07:00

Hey everybody, so I'm back from Cambodia. Angkor Wat, Siem Reap and Phnom Penh were great! I'd love to write about it all, but don't have time for a bit. I am still waiting on the photos from Hong, so as soon as I get those I'll let you guys know and upload them ASAP.

Thanks, Jeremy

Off to Cambodia

2007-04-22T23:34:00.000+07:00

Hey everyone. Well I'm flying on Air Asia to Phnom Penh tomorrow morning. I should be getting into Bangkok no later than the 28th. I'll try to update my blog a bit if I can, but not sure how much access to the internet we'll have.

Talk to y'all soon :)

Singapore photos!

2007-04-18T20:12:00.000+07:00

Ok, so it's been a long time since I said I'd post some photos haha. Sorry about that. So I finally uploaded some. They're pretty much all from clubs because unfortunately there isn't a lot to do during the daytime in Singapore. But wow, do Singaporeans sure know how to party at night. It took a bit to keep up with them that's for sure. I had a great time though!

Click the link below to see all the photos:

Singapore photos

King's Palace / Koh Pha Ngan

2007-04-08T21:15:00.000+07:00

Hey there. Well I thought it was time I posted some pictures of another trip I took to the King's Palace. I had went a few weeks back, mainly because Sacha's friend was in town from Canada. So Hong, Me, Mai, Sacha and John went. I took a few cool pictures and thought I would share them with you. The King's Palace is quite important to the Thai and Thai Culture. Important historical gatherings would occur here and the architecture and infrastructure is truly beautiful!
Thai women like to take photos with their hands to their face such as Sacha is doing, and Thai men make the gesture that I'm doing... Not sure why exactly, but I guess its "cool".Ha ha Mai is being cheeky with the guard. They don't move at all. She was trying to get him to laugh, but guarding the King's Palace is a VERY SERIOUS job not to be taken lightly. Haha oh well...Mai being silly again...

Sacha, John and I had also went to Koh Pha Ngan, I didn't take many photos because I have already been there, but was able to get a few great sunset photos.
So that's all I really have to say. Not much I know, sorry. I had a great time and spent more money haha.

I love Singapore!

2007-04-03T13:42:00.000+07:00

Hey all. Sorry about the delay in posting. I've been in Singapore the last week. You may ask, "why a week?" "Isn't Singapore boring?" Well the answer is "because" and "yes and no".

I was fortunate to have a Thai friend who had moved to Singapore. I think without him to help plan stuff, I would have found Singapore boring. It is a remarkable, beautiful country with lots of stuff to do and see, if you know where to go and how to find it. Unfortunately I don't have my camera with me but I'll post some pictures as soon as I can.

Everyone tells me Singapore is a boring place to visit. I liked it however. It's difficult to see Singapore for the city it is. Given one's fixation on individual freedom, Maybe it's seen as a police state. You can't help but look around and study the city for signs of authoritarianism. Getting out of the airport, you look around in bewilderment. Is this city for real? It seems so clean and civil. If this is a real city, where's the Asian street vendors, where's the poor people and the grime?

Singapore is clean, that's for sure. It was refreshing to be in a city where you can actually walk on a crosswalk and have people stop for you. The cars don't billow smoke and there aren't motorbikes driving around frantically. So you can't help but wonder if Singapore really is boring or if it's just because people have told you it's boring. After being around for a while you start to notice the government ads for being caring and maintaining civility. You almost feel this sense of being brainwashed into being respectful of others and keeping the city clean. Everywhere you go, you see signs telling you to keep Singapore clean and never litter. You wouldn't dare to litter or do anything, or you'll be fined. There's a fine for everything you could possibly do wrong in the city. Eat or drink in spots prohibited to eat and drink and you face a possible fine of $500 SGD (roughly $350 CND). It was very interesting to see an Asian city with such restrictions. I didn't mind what I saw however. The city is so clean and the people are so civil, the would never risk doing anything bad or they could face fines. It felt like I was in one of those movies like "demolition man" where the people are model citizens, never swearing and always being polite and well mannered, perhaps even oppressed. Nonetheless, I really enjoyed being there because I like things to be smooth operating and clean and tidy.

The first few days I was there, I stayed in a little hostel. It wasn't very nice, but it was ok for a budget room. I had to stay in a "dorm" style room with 5 other people. There was this strange man who seemed to be living there. I'm pretty open to different and interesting people, but he was truly bizarre. I also met some nice people from around the world. I met a girl from Holland, so she and I hung out for a few days. My Thai friend (his name is Art) took me and a few of his friends to Sentosa Island. This island is Singapore's "claim to fame". The island is entirely fabricated and they boast it to be the southern most point of Continental Asia. Woohoo. We went there and hung out on the beautiful perfect little beach, specially designed and constructed with aesthetics in mind.

I finally checked out from the "hostel" and was fortunate enough to be able to spend a few nights in Art's apartment. He lives with some girls he works with, so we all hung out. We spent the next few nights going out at night and seeing the night life. I must say, Singaporeans although may appear boring during the day, the sure know how to have fun at night. We went to this club called "Zouk". I think it was one of the largest clubs I've ever been to. The place was massive, with endless rooms and corridors and areas to hang out. I unfortunately have a foggy memory of that evening so I can't describe it in too much detail haha.

In a city where "nothing seems to ever go wrong" I was fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to have experienced an emergency situation almost first-hand. Picture this for a moment, the perfect little city where police officers and fireman are probably bored to death because nothing happens. Well in the apartment I was staying in, a group of us were hanging out, having a nap before we went out for the night and I could faintly hear some kind of building alarm in the background. No one else seemed concerned until I looked outside and people were stunned in disbelief as part of the 20th floor was on fire. WOW, I don't think Singaporeans knew what was going on. We decided to exit the building as we had no idea what was going on. It really wasn't that bad, it was just an apartment that had a cooking accident, however judging by the amount of emergency vehicles that showed up, you'd think the whole building was ablaze. Within a few minutes, this funky emergency vehicle with the slogan "civil protection" on the side showed up. The fireman/women jumped out of the vehicle and headed into the building. Then after that an ambulance showed up, then a few police cars, then a huge fire truck with ladder showed up. I think half of the "civil protection" force showed up to aid in this tragedy. It was kind of humorous really. But the little cooking accident seemed to be under control and we re-entered the building.

I must say I could definitely see myself living in Singapore one day, if I were to choose a city in Asia. It almost comes across as this rich snob city because people all seem to be well off, with nice cars, nice clothes and are very civil and obedient. Oh well, we'll see, maybe one day.

I had a great time there; thanks Art for taking me around! I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Amazing pictures!

2007-03-25T21:12:00.000+07:00

Hey everybody. So I went down to Koh Tao, Koh Samui, Koh Pha Ngan and Koh Nang Yuan. We had a great time! Hong, Sacha and I went with Sacha's friend John from Canada. I don't have much to say because I've been to these places before, except this time I was lucky to be able to use Hong's amazing digital SLR Camera. He has a Nikon D40, which as you'll see, takes some amazing photos. I hope you enjoy them.

So I have 77 images so I thought rather than post them all on here, I'd embed them using Picasa and google web albums. Click on the image below to be taken to all the photos :)

Koh Tao

Back into Bangkok

2007-03-20T19:32:00.000+07:00

Hey all. Sorry for the lack of postings or pictures. I have been in Koh Tao, Koh Pa Ngan and Koh Samui. I have some great pictures to show you, but I'm waiting to get them off of Hong's Flash Drive. So as soon as I get them I'll let you all know :)

Hope everyone is doing well. I'll update soon!

Koh Nang Yuan is amazing!

2007-03-13T19:18:00.000+07:00

Hey there! Well I had a moment to update this so I thought I'd upload this image. I went to this island beside Koh Tao called Koh Nang Yuan. This place is amazing, the most beautiful location I've ever been to. I can't belive it. So I will have more images later, but here's one for now.

Check out the website www.nangyuan.com.

Ok, that's all for now, I'll update as soon as I can. :)

Koh Tao

2007-03-11T22:02:00.000+07:00

Hey guys, I went back to Koh Tao for a week or so. I took the bus down last night with Hong and we met up with Sacha and her friend John. Sorry, won't have an update for a week probably, but Hong has let me use his awesome digital SLR camera so we should have some wicked shots, can't wait!

Ciao all!!

Jeremy

Malaysia (continued)

2007-03-08T20:36:00.000+07:00

Well the next part of our Journey was going to a large outdoor park where we saw some wild monkeys. This was quite interesting. The monkeys seem so cute at first. They were a bit apprehensive to get close to us but once I found half an orange, this one feisty dude came up and snatched it right out of my hand. He was standing there eating it, only a few feet away. I thought I'd get closer, maybe he likes to be petted. Well he sure doesn't. Haha in fact the second I was within about a metre of him, he tried lunging at me and was hissing and looked quite mad. Suddenly he turns from being a really cute monkey to a pretty scary monkey. Heh that was enough for me heh I wanted to high-tail it out of there. So we continue on our adventure around this "park". There were some neat paths and creeks, it was really lush and tropical. Kind of reminded me of Vancouver. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore everything.
Our next trip was to the Penang Butterfly farm. In Westbank, we used to have a place called butterfly world and it was quite similar to this. I got some great shots with my camera, I have new faith in the abilities of my camera haha.
So after we were done in the lovely city of Penang, we headed across the water back to the mainland to the city of Butterworth. There we were to get on a sleeper train to head to Kuala Lumpur! I was pretty excited! So for 38 Malaysian Ringgit (about $12 CND), we stayed in a 2nd class overnight sleeper train. It was fairly small, as shown in the picture above, but it was relatively comfortable. We arrived the next morning at about 7:30am, into the main train station (Sentral Station) which is the hub of KL in terms of the transit and transportation is concerned. From that railway station, we hopped on one of the many public transit lines that could take us to areas of the city. We stopped off in China town as our Lonely Planet "bible" told us that there
I find Kuala Lumpur (KL) to be quite a beautiful city. The city seems to sprawl in the middle of a rain forest. I took the above two photos when walking around downtown to get to the Petrona Towers. The above picture is just outside the Petronas Towers buildings. It was so amazing to actually be here, something I've always wanted to see.
We also went to the KL Communications Tower. This tower is the 4th tallest in the world and has quite a nice view. We went to the lookout tower at night and took some amazing pictures of the surroundings.
Ok, so enough photos of the Petronas Towers haha. I figured I might as well capitalize on the fact that I have a camera and it seems to work well.

So we spent some more time in Kuala Lumpur doing random looking around the city. We met quite a few Canadians staying in the same hostel as us. So we hung out with them for a while and shared stories.

And then it was time for me to get on the plane back to Bangkok. I flew Air Asia for about $58 CND with all taxes. And we're talking a 2 hour plane ride on a brand spanking new Airbus A-320. The plane was so nice, leather seats and everything. Air Asia is Malaysia's huge discount carrier, they're based out of KL. We always fly them for our inter-asia flight needs because they're so cheap. Usually they aren't too delayed. You don't get any food, not even water, unless you pay for it.

As we were flying and during touchdown I decided to snap some more photos. The water on the airplane window turned out really well so I thought I'd post it. So long Kuala Lumpur and Hello Bangkok. I had a great time and hope you enjoyed my photos. I enjoyed taking them!

Malaysia!

2007-03-03T16:26:00.000+07:00

Well, after our adventures in Southern Thailand, we made it to Malaysia. Malaysia is a federal constitutional Monarchy, believe it or not. It has substantial Chinese and Indian Minorities mixed with the Malay culture. The population is about 26 Million, 57% of the people are Malay while the rest make up the Chinese/Indian subset. Malay is the official language, but when we were there, almost everyone spoke some form of broken or fluent English. Manufacturing constitues the largest single component of Malaysians economy. Tourism, palm oil, petroleum, natural rubber and timber are other major contributers to the economy.

Now that you've been briefed on some facts of Malaysia... Our first stop was the island of Penang. On the map you'll see the small arrow pointing to the island, right above Georgetown. Don't be fooled by its small appearance, the island houses millions of people and is quite beautiful. I loved it here because its so tropical and serene in nature. The skyline envelopes tall skyscrapers mixed with lush tropical forest beside small houses on stilts and other interesting architecture. Because Malaysia was once colonized by the British, there is also some European architecture that can be seen throughout the cities.

In Penang, we stayed in Chinatown, a large area close to "Little India". We found a great little guest house called the SD Guest House. It was basic but nice and clean and looked pretty new. It was only 35 ringgit (which is about $12 CND). The staff was really nice and helpful. We went on a day trip that was organized because we had tried to do our own thing the day before but it was difficult to organize and took a while for us to get around. So we paid this guy about $60 ringgit each and he took us to 5 or 6 different areas of Penang. Our first stop was at Penang Hill now referred to as "Bukit Bendera", one of the historic sites apparently built by some British Colonials originally in the early 19th century.
These are some of the pictures from the Train and views from the top. It was pretty nice up there except it was still early in the morning so there was quite a bit of fog which limited our view. There were some cool temples at the top as you can see in the picture above. After this, we headed off to a famous Chinese temple. I forget what it's called unfortunately but it appeared to be quite famous. It was quite beautiful, it overlooked the city and was on a hillside surrounded once again by lush tropical rainforest. Quite the impressive site to see.

That's one thing I definitely enjoy about the Malaysia culture, there is so much of it. There are many different temples and mosques to visit.

Well I think I need to break this post up into a few. This one is quite long. So I'll leave this one at this for now, upcoming I'll talk about the monkeys, the butterfly farm, and the lovely amazing pictures of the Petrona Towers!!! Can't wait!

Koh Tao / Krabi / Koh Lanta!

2007-02-27T15:29:00.000+07:00

Hey guys. I'm back into Bangkok, I flew Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur back to Bangkok yesterday. I had a blast, my latest adventure was pretty cool. The total trip time was about 3 weeks. I left Bangkok with some Thai friends because we were headed to the island of Koh Tao. To get there, we took an overnight VIP bus to a port down south and then took a high speed ferry to the island. It was pretty nice and convenient, only cost the equivalent of about $25 CND to get all the way over there.
The reason we were going to Koh Tao was because the island was having one of their annual island celebrations called the "Koh Tao Underwater Word Festival". I was happy to go because the purpose of the festival is to promote environmental responsibility for the island and includes the annual underwater cleanup project along with other initiatives to sustain the island (such as recycling all the islands toxic waste like batteries and whatnot).
So me, Frank, Blue, Pim and her boyfriend stayed on Koh Tao and we met up with another friend named Art. All of us had a great time. Frank and I participated in the underwater cleanup dive where we pulled out quite a bit of garbage from the ocean. We also scuba-dove at a beautiful location just off the island. Later the next night we had the foam party where they filled up this big outside area with a bunch of foam and we danced the night away, soaking ourselves in foam. And yes, apparently the foam was biodegradable and environmentally friendly :). I absolutely loved Koh Tao, it is one of the most beautiful islands I've seen in Thailand so far. I have a few more to see.

I had to leave a day early to take a bus to Krabi, another area of Southern Thailand. Brett was already in Krabi and I was meeting him there. So I arrived via an overnight bus to the town of Krabi where I met another Canadian on the bus traveling as well. We exchanged information and stuck together for a bit because traveling as two is better than one! Once I met up with Brett, we went over to the island of Lanta, called Koh Lanta. It was a beautiful secluded area of the island with lush tropics surrounded by steep mountainous terrain. It was definitely one of the more beautiful serene locations I've been to in a while. You almost forget what the rest of Thailand is like when you've been spending time in the noisy, stinky, loud, polluted city of Bangkok. So Brett and I stayed at this cool little "resort" called "Yaya Resort". It was only about $20/night CND to stay there. The resort had a restaurant and played movies at night. We spent a few days here lounging on the beautiful beaches as shown in the two beach pictures above. We also would spend our nights finding random restaurants on the beach serving a variety of Thai, Western and other interesting cuisine.
So that's about it for my Krabi/Koh Lanta trip. We went to Malaysia right after this, and I'll post that in a new entry as soon as I can. Malaysia was a lot of fun, can't wait for you to see the pictures of it!

Oh those Americans!

2007-02-22T11:20:00.000+07:00

Hey, it seem like i'm becoming obsessive with feeling the need to update this but I guess it makes mom happy. Anyways, I got this youtube video from Hong so I thought i should post it because it's just too funny. Any chance I get to make fun of americans.

Pictures!

2007-02-20T18:35:00.000+07:00

Hey so I don't really have a lot of time to write an update, I will soon I promise! But I'll upload some pictures to tide you over.

I made it into Malaysia

2007-02-19T22:30:00.000+07:00

Well hello once again. I have a few minutes so I thought I'd let everyone know I've made it into Malaysia. I'm on an island called "Penang" and in a city called "Georgetown". I've been really impressed by the interesting culture so far. Everyone appears to be really nice. And not the kind of nice where you know they want something in return, just plain NICE. People are always helping us on the streets without wanting us to buy a suit or a tuk tuk or ANYTHING. And it's so nice and clean here, not as much pollution as say...Thailand. Anyways, we took a small cramped bus from Krabi to Malaysia today. So we made it into this really nice little guest house. It's quite cheap and really quite cool. The guesthouse is really cheap and fun, lots of people around. Oh, there are people waiting for the computer and I've been a while, I'll try to post pics soon!

Going to Malaysia

2007-02-18T21:02:00.000+07:00

Hey guys. I just wanted to leave a quick post to say I'm going down and over to Malaysia tomorrow. We're taking a bus to "Penang" which is an island in Malaysia. After a few days there, we're going to head to Kuala Lumpur! I'm so excited! I've always wanted to go to KL, so this should be good. Anyways, I hope everyone is well!

Jeremy :)

Sawadee Khrap!

2007-02-16T19:48:00.000+07:00

Well hello. Sorry for the lack of updating but I have been travelling around on remote islands where there is no internet, or the internet is really expensive. Anyways, I've been in Koh Tao for the last 5 days, it was really fun! We of course did some more diving, I did 4 more dives to make my total 11 now! We saw some amazing sea life, including a shark. Yes that's right, a shark! I also saw a giant sea turtle that was bigger than me. The marine life in Koh Tao is amazing that's for sure! We went to the Koh Tao Underwater Festival which is an annual celebration of the island. I got to dive and cleanup the ocean floor, we picked up quite a bit of garbage. So that was pretty cool! We also then went to the foam party and that was a gong show. After that, I left my thai friends and went to Krabi to meet up with Brett. We've since been travelling and island hopping around. It's been great so far, unfortunately I don't have any way to post photos yet but I will in due time! I have to renew my visa in a week so that should be interesting. Anyways, hope everyone is doing well, ciao for now.

I'm going away

2007-02-08T18:08:00.000+07:00

Hey guys. Well I'm leaving to go to Koh Tao, Krabi and Ko Phi Phi for a week or two. I'm not sure exactly how long but I'm going with some Thai friends so it should be fun. My friend Brett from Vancouver ended up coming to Bangkok a week ago and stayed for a few days and now he's trecking in Chiang Mai. So the plan is to go to Koh Tao for maybe a week and then meet him in Krabi and do some mor traveling.

In Koh Tao, they have a diving/restoration event this weekend. I guess once a year they have a festival where they clean the waters by removing garbage and educating people on how to respect the environment around them. Plus at night they have huge foam parties. It should be a blast, i'm excited to be going!

Of course I'll have my mobile on me, so don't hesitate to call me (preferably not in the middle of the night for me) and we can chat. Love you all, be well!

Jeremy

Ayutthaya

2007-02-07T18:38:00.000+07:00

Well hello again. I guess it has been a while since I've updated my blog. I've been meaning to but haven't had the time exactly lately. I had gone to Ayutthaya with Sacha last week. It was really culturally enlightening. Ayutthaya is an area where many Kings have ruled and fought and many temples were created and destroyed. It was a good time to go because I had just watched King Naresuan movie which follows the time when the soon to be King Naresuan is growing up in the mid 1500's in Ayutthaya.The graphic below shows the headless Buddhas that now exist in one of the main temples in this province. The reason for them is when a battling tribe had conquered the temple, they cut the heads off. The Buddha image is very well respected and to deface a Buddha image like this would certainly have upset the Thai.

My Grandpa!

2007-01-31T15:06:00.000+07:00

I just wanted post this as a tribute to my Grandpa who has recently passed. I will always love him and he will forever be in my heart. Grandpa, I'll miss you!

Nonthaburi Province

2007-01-26T21:11:00.000+07:00

Hello again. Wow 2 posts in one day. I'm hoping for a third, we'll see if time allows. This is a smaller post. Last week Hong, Sacha, Mai (pronounced 'my') and I went to Nonthaburi Province (not too far away from here) and we saw a little more of the Thai culture. It was interesting because it was more of the "native culture" not spoiled by huge shopping malls and farang. We were the only white people around. The island we specifically went to is called "Koh Kred". The dominant trade in this area of Thailand is pottery. There was quite a bit of pottery and we were able to see some artists shaping and moulding their artwork into some nice clay pots. The image below is a picture of Mai, Hong, and I (Sacha is taking the photo). The gesture we're doing with our hands is what the Thai do to show they're handsome. Haha it's a Thai thing I guess...

King Naresuan

2007-01-26T20:35:00.000+07:00

Hey. Ok time for some serious posting. So ever since I moved here, with each movie I've seen, before the movie there is ALWAYS this preview for a movie that is being heavily promoted in Thailand. The movie is called King Naresuan. I think I've seen the preview over 100 times between the previews in theaters and the trailers while on the BTS Transit and at other public areas.
I almost wasn't going to watch this movie but I'm glad I did. The creators had hoped this movie would be hugely successful in Thailand because it is the first of a trilogy and it touches on the culture of the Kingdom in the mid 1500 AD period. I believe the hope is that if this movie was successful, it would promote Thailand and make its history more well known others around the world. This movie mixes in a lot of impressive action with quite a bit of history (which I'm assuming is quite accurate as it portrays Thai history). Although about 1/3 of the 3 hour movie was devoted to the civilians paying respect to their king, which does take quite a bit of time each time you have to bow down and show respect or be executed.
The above image is of the young, soon to be King Naresuan on the left learning the teachings of a monk.
As you can see, the people have to show respect to King. The King would always sit physically higher than anyone else. Anyways, that's my plug on the movie, they were hoping if it was successful in Thailand that it would show worldwide, so hopefully you guys can see it one day.

Lack of new posting

2007-01-26T00:51:00.000+07:00

Well hello, sorry I haven't said anything exciting lately. I was kinda in a negative mood so I had to vent with my opinion on the airport. Then I was ticked off about the political happenings with the ousted PM Thaksin and the current Government censoring the media (so much for a democracy). The initial ousting of PM Thaksin, although most Thai would agree his ousting was necessary, the way in which they did it was sneaky and very un-democratic. Basically the military had secret funds of millions of taxpayers dollars, collected by a democratic government and used the money to fund a secret anti-democratic coupe against a government that was democratically elected. I just find it all very interesting to see this stuff going down. So I think I'm done bitching haha.

Anyways, I went to a city called Ayutthaya yesterday. It was really awesome! Lots of Thai temples. I'll post an entry about it tomorrow cause its late here. I'll put up photos too! Anyways, I wanted to include this video below to "tide" you over until I can post something interesting. This is funny, enjoy:

A great way to network!

2007-01-22T14:43:00.000+07:00

Hey, ok so I just got my facebook profile all setup. It's a great site to network with friends and share pictures and stuff!

Suvarnabhumi Airport...

2007-01-17T14:52:00.000+07:00

Well, it's been a few days and I think it's time to update my blog. There's a lot going on in Thailand right now, political happenings for the most part. I think it's important to be aware of what's going on around you because people have the ability to impose change. I'm often finding myself wondering if others are as questioning about some of the current situations happening around us.

The new Suvarnabhumi airport (pronounced SOO-wanna-poom in english) has been plagued by problems since before it even opened. The word Suvarnabhumi actually means "Golden-land" and is supposed to usher in a new era of truly international travel for Thai citizens and attract much needed foreign-currency into the Kingdom.

According to an article I read on nationmultimedia.com (A Thai-english newspaper), Sumet Jumsai (a professor/planner and well-known international speaker) goes to say that the planning of the airports location was done quite poorly. He mentions that the land is quite undesirable and due to certain environmental issues such as global warming, the airport will be 3 metres below sea level in the next 3 generations.

This is a quote taken from him:
"The Suvarnabhumi development in Cobra Swamp is the sum total of everything that should not have been done. But because it has been done, we have to do our planning in light of its reality. Nonetheless, nature was substantially sidelined when the project to develop the area started. Huge investments in infrastructure work became necessary, mainly as corrective measures in an area that is basically a 5,200-sq-km lake. It also meant building on top of the worst subsoil conditions, and a watery terrain that will eventually be three metres below the mean sea level. This event is projected to take place in three generations' time and the factors involved are global warming and rising seas, and the subsidence of the swamp." --Sumet Jumsai (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/08/28/opinion/opinion_30012103.php)

This is an excerpt from Mr. Sumet's closing speech at the recent International Symposium on Suvarnabhumi organised by a group of Thai universities led by Silpakorn University.

I was shaking my head when I read this other article of a "traveller's lament". He identifies many issues with the new airport due to its faulty construction. I found the article quite interesting: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2006/10/01/national/national_30015084.php

Their was a fire in the catering-facility during construction which was 90% complete. There was also a major crack identified during construction in the passenger terminal, which caused "problems".

Literally a month after opening, the Airports of Thailand president acknowledged a major problem with the lack of toilets for travellers due to the scathing criticism by the public. They approved spending 40 million baht (about $1.3 million CND) to increase the number of toilets by 200. How could the planning of something so basic be so lacking? They happened not even a month since the first flight comes into the new airport.

I could go on and on about the problems faced by the Airports of Thailand authorities.

It's interesting to see the problems faced. I mean we're not talking about one or two minor mistakes but multiple mistakes probably costing people way to much money to fix. I find it very interesting to see how a society and culture deals with these problems and I wonder if anyone is learning from these mistakes as gathering from the opinions of others, it would appear mistakes are continually made like this in Thai society. There are many cultural implications which I won't pretend to understand nor am I criticizing, however I believe this idea of Thai culture facilitating the concept of non-confrontation in the wake of a "problem" contributes to some of the societal and political issues that develop when huge projects such as the Suvarnabhumi airport are undertaken. More to come... :)

In my next post I'll talk about the latest happenings with the ousted Prime Minister Thaksin and the so called democratic government censoring the media.

Check it out

2007-01-11T10:57:00.000+07:00

Just to let you know I've updated my blog with something called "RSS feeds". This cool, fairly new concept comes at a time when people were becoming annoyed with having to manually update their website with breaking news. So the solution was that you can put a piece of code in your website that will pull the latest news/information from the source you want. On the right of my page you will notice "understory.ran.org" and "NationMultimedia.com". The cool thing with the headings I have on the page is that as soon as the two websites update their news, the links automatically get updated on mine and everybody elses page that subscribes to it. So you can always check my page on the right and see the latest Thailand headlines from The Nation newspaper or see the latest environmental news updates that I am trying to stay on top of.
Ciao
Jer

New apartment, Blood Diamond

2007-01-09T00:03:00.000+07:00

Hey there. Well I finally have my own apartment. By apartment I mean a 30 Sq M cute little studio. It's nothing fancy that's for sure, but it'll do the trick and it's closer to the way in which a Thai might live. The website for my apartment is http://www.rpguesthouse.com/ but keep in mind the webpage does a great job with trick photography and lighting to make the rooms look so nice.

So I've pretty much settled into my apartment, it's nice. I have to be more cognisant of costs now such as water and electricity. Electricity doesn't seem to be very cheap. It's quite expensive to be running air conditioners all the time. I'm interested to learn how Thailand acquires its power because I'm sure it consumes quite a bit. Hopefully the power comes from clean sources such as wind or solar but I'm somewhat doubting that. I'm trying to be ever more energy-consious. I'm not sure if you've heard but in Texas, plans are in the works to fast-track the approval process for 11 new Coal burning power plants. The power plants are in the works to be approved before the legislation comes into affect to mandate tougher restrictions on the effects of pollution caused by operating such plants. The problem is that these 11 plants would use the cheapest and most pollution causing technology on the market. I could bitch about this for a while but needless to say it's important these plants don't get approved. These 11 power plants by themselves would contribute to the equivalent of 10 million Cadillac Escalades being on the road. Boo.

I highly suggest visiting sights such as www.ran.org to stay current with some of the world problems affecting the environment.

On another note, I saw "Blood Diamond" tonight with Hong. Happy birthday Hong! It was quite thought provoking and defnitely opened my eyes to a worldwide problem I hadn't really known existed. I know, how naive of me... I'm trying to better myself through intellectual conversation and via the news and other articles, so it's coming along. I must say I enjoyed the film for the main fact that it opens viewers eyes to a global issue that has been going on for some time now. It's entertaining but also delivers a strong message. I highly suggest watching it for its portrayal of ethical and moral dilemna in the modern times. I'm not sure of the historical accuracy, however the official webpage does direct us to many external sources for additional information: http://blooddiamondmovie.warnerbros.com/

Ok, sorry no pictures this time, hope everyone is well. :)

Koh Chang!

2007-01-06T20:36:00.000+07:00

Hello once again. I hope everyone is enjoying the near freezing weather in North America. I had the luxury of spending the new year's weekend on Thailand's second largest island Koh Chang. Directly translated, Koh Chang means "elephant island". Sacha and I took a bus and ferry over there and it was quite relaxing. I'd compare it similar to Koh Somet in terms of the quality of the beach and the atmosphere. It was nice to visit there because there were quite a few more native Thai people hanging out and vacationing. Usually when you go to a beautiful beach, it's full of North American, European, Australian, or other non-natives.

We had decided not to pre-purchase a room beforehand because everyone we spoke to in Bangkok said they were heading up to Chiang Mai because the Thai like to visit the "colder" areas of Thailand for Christmas/New Years. (Colder in Thai terms is like 20C) We bought our bus ticket from Khao San Road for 350 baht including the transfer from the ferry to the island. To give you an idea, 350 baht roughly converts to about $12 CND; keep in mind this is a 5 hour bus ride. So for $12, you get a bus and ferry ride totaling about 7 hours of travel time. What a deal!

We arrived on the island later in the afternoon so we quickly tried to secure a room for ourselves. It was difficult as almost every place was full. We finally found a place in a little bungalow for 300 baht/night or roughly $10 CND. See the picture below of our cute little bungalow.

The first night we were there, we saw the most incredible sunset ever. The whole sky was lit up as shown in the picture above. It was really a marvelous sight, this is the actual image, I didn't enhance the colours. The entire sky was lit up with beautiful pastel shades of pink and orange. We took a bunch of pictures and they almost look fake because it just looks to amazing to be true.

We stayed on Kai Bae beach, an area of Koh Chang. The funny thing was that for every hotel being fully booked, the bars and restaurants at night were almost all empty. There was almost no one visiting the Kai Bae area at night. We definitely weren’t complaining however because it meant more peace and quiet because Bangkok is just so noisy and it was great to get away from the crowds.

We spent New Years here which was nice and quiet; both Sacha and I didn’t really care too much for partying it up for New Years so we spent it at a local bar called the “Sweet Witch Bar”. We went to bed pretty much right after midnight because we wanted to get up somewhat early the next day to explore more of the island.

The next day we went to one of the main beaches to explore the beach there and we took many pictures and hung out on the beach getting a bit more of a tan.

Because this island doesn’t have metered taxis everywhere like Bangkok would, it was surprisingly difficult to find a taxi to take us back to the pier where we could take the ferry back. The taxi’s on the islands usually consist of a small truck with the back of the truck outfitted with seats to carry up to 12 or 14 people if need be. We waited and waited and as we were waiting a British couple who was also waiting for a taxi back to the pier joined us in the hunt for a taxi. They were needing a taxi back to the main land to get to Cambodia. We exchanged stories and it turns out the lady, Lis, used to teach English in Bangkok a few years ago. She gave me the number to the company she worked for as she said she had a great experience with them. We hopped on the ferry and went back to the mainland where we caught a bus to then take us back to Bangkok. Overall it was a nice visit but Koh Samet was just as nice and the bus ride took about half the amount of time.

Regarding the situation in Bangkok

2007-01-03T21:09:00.000+07:00

Well hello once again. I'm sure you're thinking "Jeremy, come back home, Bangkok is dangerous..." Well I guess it is; driving your car to work is also dangerous. Golfing during a storm is dangerous. Changing a light bulb is dangerous too. But not to worry, I'm keeping an eye on the situation and if it looks like things are getting out of hand, I'll head for the hills.

P.S. Often the situation is over dramatized in the media. The Canadian Government website advises against travel to Thailand but it's really not as bad as it may sound. :)

I'm OK!!

2006-12-31T20:12:00.000+07:00

Hey there. Well I just checked on CNN.com and apparently there were some blasts in Bangkok. Just to be clear, I'm OK and no where near Bangkok right now! I'm on a small island about 5 hours away from Bangkok. You can call me if you're worried. Peace and Love to all, New Year's is about 3.5 hours away for us :)

Going to Koh Chang

2006-12-30T00:38:00.000+07:00

Hey all, just wanted to give a quick hello and say that I'm going to Koh Chang tomorrow morning, bright and early. 6:30am Saturday morning is 3:30pm PST friday afternoon. I may or may not have a connection to the internet during this time but I will have my cel phone. Good 'Ole Asia has cel phone reception everywhere, even in the middle of the water in between islands. So I'll be good to go on the mobile. Sacha and I are going, we've already booked our bus ride out there. It's about a 5 hour bus ride (could be 7 or 8 Thai hours).

I hope everyone has a great new years celebration. I'll get to celebrate it 15 hours earlier than you folk! Cya Tuesday...

Lost in translation part 1

2006-12-29T01:53:00.000+07:00

Hey! Ok, so it's quite late here, like 2am here. I tend to work better at night when I have just my thoughts and my laptop. I'm going to grab some V8 and I'll be right back.

I've been drinking nothing but V8 juice for the past two weeks so I can "cleanse". Hahahaha who are we kidding, I just love the food here too much to ever do something as silly as that. Today I had some really good Cashew Chicken and vegetarian Lasagna at what was called a "Thai Oldies" restaurant. It was ironic because the restaurant had all kinds of Asian cuisine but yet it was styled as an old diner such as one you'd see in the movies or at a modern "old style diner" you'd see in the US.

I know the title is Lost in Translation but I wanted to fill you in on my day today. After dinner, Sacha and I met up with Hong to go to "Health Land Spa" to get an authentic Thai massage. This was just amazing. We literally went to this really nice spa-esque building and had a full 2 hour massage for the equivalent of:

350.00 THB Thailand Baht = $11.4814 CAD

Yup, you got it, $11.48 after conversion. This is kind of expensive actually because we only get 30 baht per dollar and we used to get around 33 0r 34. I was stretched and bent into all kinds of shapes and the best part is when they twist your back around them and you hear your entire back cracking, I burst out laughing because it literally sounded like it would in the movies, where the guy bends his head to the side and you hear the cracking (which is totally fake by the way) however in my case my back really cracked and all 30 vertebrae or whatever cracked within a second. Haha too funny.

Ok onto my lost in translation depiction. This is to illustrate the attempts at possible Thai to English translation and what it really comes out as.

It's interesting to see some of the billboards and displays and advertisements out in Thailand. Ones such as "I'm cool because I speak 'Wall Street English'". I mean you just wouldn't see a sign that would blatantly tell you that you'd be cool if you spoke "Wall Street English". I mean sure North American Media will forever tell us that wearing sunless tanner will make us beautiful, however it doesn't do so by directly saying that in writing, it tries to brainwash us with imagery. Why use imagery when you can just get to the point and say that you would be cool only if you spoke "Wall Street English". Sorry no picture for that one.

Ok so the next item speaks for itself. This isn't a very good example I know but it's funny to read this stuff on a daily basis.

Or how about this one. Do you think this would entice me to "stop by" and see the sale?

I don't even understand what they're trying to get across. "Imagine very sales". To provide some context for this ad, behind the sign is a huge outlaying of various music CD's that people seemed determined to purchase.

Ok, this next image is above a payphone. It's offering a way to dial international calls and "save money".

"The Extremely Save International Call by 007". 007 is the prefix you'd dial. I guess what they're trying to say is that if I use this service, I'll save extremely? Interesting...

Ok I know that was lame, I guess I thought it was funny but my examples are limited as I don't always have my camera with me for the moment of the hilarious billboard ad. I'll practice due diligence on my part to have a camera with me more often to capture those shots. Luckily my phone has a camera.

Merry Christmahanukwanzakkah

2006-12-26T17:00:00.000+07:00

Well hello everyone! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and I truly hope the new year is great for everybody. All the best.

So I've been in Thailand for a month now. I've met some great people and had some good times. Last weekend I was in Pattaya, about a 1.5 hour drive away (if you're on north American time). If you're on Thai time, it may take up to double that. Our bus broke down on the way there so we were stuck on the expressway. Luckily they dispatched a new bus for us... My friends Blue and Hong have a friend in town from Seattle and he likes to stay at nice places, places I couldn't normally afford on an income of nothing. So he rented a hotel at the Sheraton in Pattaya. This place was so beautiful I was amazed.

Now the middle picture is one of only two rooms that have the exclusive pool inside your room so we didn't stay in that. The third picture is of the lobby and its so incredibly beautiful. I was really grateful to have been there.

This is Hong and I on our way to Pattaya. I swear I have a tan but because of the light editing it makes him look darker and me look more pale haha.

Next week Sacha and I are going to Koh Chang, it should be great. Apparently it's a beautiful island, one of the largest in Thailand too.

Well that's all for now, my next post will be "lost in translation". I just find it hilarious how the people here try to translate or put up billboards in English but it just doesn't quite work all the time. Ok, off to find an apartment. Bye :)

New Mobile number (66) 850 210 567

2006-12-19T00:52:00.000+07:00

Sorry everyone calls them "mobiles" here so when I say "Cel" they're like "WTF". So I have a new mobile number. For the price of a cup of coffee I can buy a new cel phone number here with an entirely new company just by putting the sim card into the phone. No contracts, nothing holding you hostage like North American wireless. It's great. So my new number is +66 850 210 567. Send me a message or dare to call me. This new number is on DTAC which is great. They're soooo cheap, we're talking like a penny a minute. Anyways, just a quick hello to all, I'm well and enjoying the Curry!

Ciao!

Ko Samet

2006-12-15T14:24:00.000+07:00

Well hello there. Ok I know it's been a while and you're asking, "What has Jeremy done in Bangkok so far...?" Well this is the first of a few posts to answer that question. It's been a while since my post and I do apologize. I had been waiting to post because I had hoped to have some good pictures to include in my blog.

Ok so this first post is to talk about my trip to Ko Samet with Julie. I was pretty excited because the reason I came to Bangkok in December was to travel with Julie after she was done school. So we ended up going to Ko Samet on the weekend. It involved us meeting at Ekkamai station on the BTS (http://www.bts.co.th). The BTS is a skytrain that is quite efficient. It's nice to be able to get around Bangkok using the public transit system because it's pretty efficient and quick. Traffic is disgusting in Bangkok at the best of times! They also have an underground Subway system that is only a few years old and also quite efficient. So I've been trying to find an apartment to live in that is close to a station as I would NEVER own a car here and using taxis all day could get a bit expensive.

So we meet up and head over to the bus station and we load up on goodies at the local 7-eleven. Note: there are 7-11's at every street corner throughout Thailand. It's great, at 4am if you're craving a loaf of bread, you can go and purchase one. We have a 3 hour bus drive out of the city to get to the Ocean where we then would head on a ferry to actually get us to the island. The image on the right is a view of the area once we get to Ko Samet. It's very beautiful. Hard to believe that we can go from the crazy busy-ness of Bangkok to a quiet island only in a few hours drive and boat ride.

Once we get there, a truck drives us to a resort where Julie has stayed before. It's called Tub-Tim resort. Once we arrive, we find a nice bungalow just off the beach for about 600 baht/night. We go walk around and are surrounded by hot white sand and blue water.

We spend the next 2 days lying on the beach and going out to nice restaurants. All these resorts are right along the beach and at night they have the most romantic setup on the beach. They turn the beach into these lay-down tables with mats where you can dine and drink. This is definitely the island to take someone for a romantic getaway. We just sat there in awe of the beautiful shoreline and the pleasant warm air while eating our wonderful sauteed chicken and cashew with peppers and onions on a bed of rice or sweet and sour chicken. I think my breath was taken away a few times that night as it was so beautiful. I'm sure Julie was wishing her guy back at home could have been here.

Check this out! Here is a google map of the island of Ko Samet:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&amp;amp;q=&ie=UTF8&t=h&om=1&z=12&ll=12.561266,101.46492&spn=0.163531,0.31929

Welcome to my blog

2006-12-08T21:54:00.000+07:00

Hey everybody,

Just a quick note to say hi and thanks for visiting. You can email me at iamjeremy@hotmail.com.

Please note the oldest post is at the bottom so you may want to start there and work your way up. Don't be afraid to leave comments also after each post.

--Jeremy

I made it into Bangkok

2006-12-06T13:39:00.000+07:00

I know i'm a few days behind but I'm trying to get all caught up with my postings. So I made it into Bangkok. I got in at 12:30 mid day on Nov 27. I arrived in the new Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, which is their huge brand new airport that was surrounded with political issues during construction. It's now up and running and I honestly wasn't too overly impressed with it.
It just looks like a big concrete and glass building. Very grey really. Apparently they're still putting the finishing touches on it so maybe they have to still make it look pretty.

Ok I just did some googling to find pictures of the airport and maybe it does look more impressive than what I was able to see in my quick arrival. Apparently it's now the largest airport terminal in the world! It also has the tallest control tower in the world.

Once I got there Sam (the driver) found me. I was lucky enough to have Darrell and Lynn's driver pick me up so he could take me back to their apartment. They offered to let me stay here for a bit until I get settled into a place. I must say it's pretty nice. The address is:

Jaspal Residential 2
Penthouse Suite 1
82 Soi 23 Sukhumvit Rd
Klong-Tonnua Wattana
Bangkok, Thailand 10110

They live in the penthouse suite with 2 floors. It's nice, I must say. They also have a housekeeper come every day (6 days) a week and clean the apartment. She does laundry, sweeps, mops and does all this each and every day. The apartment is always spotless. Wow how I'd love to have someone cleaning my place each day.

So for a few days afterwards, I was overwhelmed again and kinda depressed. I dunno, I mean I was happy to be here but it finally sunk in that I'm here, not in Canada anymore. I was all alone in this big city to do whatever I wanted. It was a scary feeling. So I spent the first few days exploring around the larger areas; I went to MBK Center. This mall is great. Its five huge floors of anything you can imagine. It's not like a normal mall with nice shops and whatnot, no its all kind of random people selling whatever it is they can (clothes, cel phones, bootleg music/movies/software, copies of every brand of clothing you can imagine, etc). All the prices are negotiable (as is the way with almost everything in thailand and is a part of the culture to bargain). And, they have a huge food court with every type of food you can imagine. The Pad Thai is to die for. I'll make a special trip from the skytrain to the mall just for their pad thai. It was the first thing I did when I got off the plane was go to MBK for pad thai. Heh anyways...

So after I got my fash-on at malls for a few days, I got a hold of Julie and Sacha (both Canadian friends from Kelowna but also in Bangkok) and we all went out for dinner to "Sizzler". This is a "westernized" restaurant. I quote westernized because they never quite get it right, the food is usually close, but it's missing something. Oh well, it seems close enough to the real thing for a lot of people. After going to Sizzler, we went to a night market. Now a night market is different from most things we'd see in Canada. A night market is a huge gathering of people selling random stuff again (mostly all clothes) in an open space in the city. Oh yeah this whole time we're in a place called "Pinklao". It probably won't mean much to you other than that it's an area closer to Julie and somewhat outside of the Bangkokian area. That was fun!

I can't remember if I did this next part before or after Pinklao, I think it was before. I went to a mall called The Emporium. This is a nicer, chic designer mall with lots of very unique and interesting stuff. The prices seem to be all fixed as with most higher end malls. The reason I came here today was because I needed a cel phone, or as asians call it, a "mobile". I knew this was going to be expensive because I'm picky when it comes to technology. I looked around for a while checking out Nokia's store. Sony had a store too. I was almost going to buy a Sony phone but looked at the new Samsung Slider SGH D-900 and had to buy it. It's a great phone with so much functionality. It slides to have a small profile. It comes with a 3.0 megapixel camera, a built in MP3 player with stereo headphones that double as a headset if you get a call. I was quite impressed with the features, including the little things you don't normally look for in a phone but are glad you have when you use it. I paid 15,290 baht for the phone (about $466 CND) which includes a sim card with AIS 1-2 Call. The cool thing with Asian cel markets is that you can buy a SIMcard for about $8 which gives you a phone number with the company. You then load and "top-up" your service with pre-paid cards that you can buy at almost any store in Thailand. If you don't like the cel company, you can hop to another mobile provider by buying a new $8 SIM card. If you ever buy a new phone, you insert your SIM card and immediately your contacts and phone number carry over with the SIM card. It really is a smart idea, too bad Canada's phones are locked.

Continuing on the adventure to Thailand

2006-12-02T21:49:00.000+07:00

Ok... Let me resume. So my last real post was me talking about getting on the greyhound bus to Vancouver because my Westjet flight was canceled. So yeah, that was incredibly annoying; It was difficult to sleep because the bus stopped at literally every little city on the way to Vancouver. Merritt, Hope, Chilliwack, Langley, Coquitlam, Abbotsford, etc. So I arrive at about 6:30am with almost no sleep. Andrew was nice enough to pick me up. So he picked me up and Crystal also wanted to see me before I left, so the three of us went to Moxies for breakfast. It was freezing in Vancouver and I was just counting down the hours until I was going to be in a hot climate. At that point it was about T minus 22 hours until hot weather. Crystal, Andrew and I then go to the airport and I get ready to check into my flight.

Ok, so I decided to fly Air Singapore again because they are an amazing airline. Last time we went to Thailand (Andrew, Josh and I), we flew Singapore and were quite impressed. The woman serving us on the planes were incredibly beautiful too. The service was great and the food was also delicious. I should be a spokesperson because I've been telling everyone how good the airline is. So they hug me as shown in the image above and they leave me to check in. This was the first moment of me being totally by myself. I had given my Canadian Cel phone to Andrew and now I felt completely naked. It's weird not having a phone as your life-line. So I check into the flight and make my way over to the secured area and wait to board. Now that picture of the multiple planes is actually when I arrived in Singapore, but that's a minor detail.

So I hang out for a bit and they finally board the plane about 30 minutes late. It was packed. So I get into my seat and get all arranged. I was sitting in the middle aisle seat. Nothing too exciting really, we get our hot towels before takeoff and they go through the safety video. Air Singapore is great because we each get our own TV in the headrest of the seat in front of us. We also have our own personal entertainment system with a remote and access to hundreds of on-demand movies, tv shows, music albums, etc that really make for an enjoyable flight. They also feed us quite a bit. I was afraid I'd be starving on the flight but nope, they fill ya up. So we have our 10 hour flight to Incheon Airport in Seoul South Korea where we stop over for an hour and re-fuel the plane. The flight there was fairly standard. We have to de-board the plane where we just pass through security again at Incheon and get to wait in the airport for about 30 minutes. Incheon's airport is very nice, it's definitely one of the cleaner/newer airports. Seoul isn't very warm, I think it was about +5C. We head back onto the plane for the rest of the journey to Singapore. The flight is about 8 hours from this point on. We get back on and they stuff us full of delicious chicken, salad, buns, cheese, wine, crackers, and even ice cream for dessert.

So we eventually land, I didn't really get much sleep because of the noise/interruptions/meals/etc. So at this point I'm quite tired because I've been up for the last 36 hours with only a few hours sleep. I arrive in Singapore airport which is one of the nicest airports in the world (in case you haven't figured out yet, the above blue links will link you to the subject I talk about. Click Singapore airport and it will take you to the webpage). I arrived just after midnight Singapore time and I have to wait at the airport for the next 10 hours because Singapore air's connecting flight is then. I am not allowed to leave the airport because I can't clear customs and also Singapore Air is holding my luggage from the plane until the connecting flight. So that's ok, the airport (called Changi airport) has an abundance of activities and shops to entertain and allow weary travelers to rest. I hang around for a bit, and find a spot where I can pay to use a shower and other amenities. This places comes complete with internet access and small food items. So I rest in the lounge for a bit and then use the internet and watch an episode of the Amazing Race. I swear this was the longest 10 hours of my life. It seemed to take forever, even with a shower it still feels weird to be in the same clothes for the last 36 hours. Eventually Subway opens because by this time it's like 6am. I grab some breakfast from there and then get ready for my flight. There are a lot of people sleeping in the airport. I was too paranoid that I'd miss my flight if I slept, so I didn't really get any sleep before this flight. Luckily this flight was only about 2 hours...

Going to Koh Somet

2006-11-30T08:24:00.000+07:00

Hey guys,

Just wanted to drop a quick line to let everyone know that I'm going to Koh Somet for a few days. I may or may not have internet access. In case you want to get a hold of me, I do have a cel phone here now, It's really cool!!! My number is +66-89050-8340.

You can send me international text messages for usually 25 cents. It's free for me to receive messages and phone calls but costs money for me to send them out so I may not be able to keep replying to you guys but definitely send me a message. If I have the chance, I'll check my hotmail address.

I've started a blog too, haven't been able to fully update it yet but I thought I'd let you guys preview it. The address is http://jeremyinc.blogspot.com.

If I have some free time in Koh Somet, I'll update it. Oh yeah and sorry about the lack of pictures, my SD card isn't readable in my laptop for some reason... I'm going to try and find another place to load my pictures and then see what's going on with this card... Ok talk to you all later.

Love Jeremy

Friday and Saturday in Kelowna/Vancouver

2006-11-29T11:20:00.000+07:00

Ok this was a crazy day. So on Friday I basically spent it finishing laundry and packing. It took longer than I thought. My dad was still in Calgary visiting his sick father and he wouldn't be able to make it to say goodbye before I left. He was quite worried about this but I said not to worry because I'll be here for a while, his dad won't. So I got all packed up and had to be ready for about 6:30 cause my flight was at 8:30 to fly from Kelowna to Vancouver. I got everything all ready to go and my mom took me to the airport. It was snowing like crazy. We arrive at the airport and the flight was already delayed about 30 mins. This was ok, as long as I could get there eventually I was happy. So we get to security screening and my mom has her moment of saying goodbye/crying. Just as I'm about to say goodbye and pass through security, some people walk out and say the Vancouver flight was cancelled. Cancelled? What, how could this be? I've never had a westjet flight cancelled, this couldn't be. So yup, it was true, they cancelled the flight. Uh oh... What to do? I can't miss my flight the next day to go to Singapore and onto Bangkok. So we left the airport and were told to call westjet customer service and they'd "take care of us". So I called them and the next flight they could accomodate me on was like 2 days later... Not going to work. So I called Greyhound with a low battery and thought we'd try that route. It was either Greyhound or we'd have to take the envoy to Vancouver (Which my mom was really not wanting us to do). My sister had offered to drive me through the night, which was really nice! So I got a hold of Greyhound and they said there was one bus ride tonight from 11:15 to 6am. This would probably work except that the office to buy the ticket doesn't open until 11pm and even then there was no guarentee I could get a seat because they don't reserve seats, they just sell the tickets for travel anytime. So we wait at my sisters new apartment on Burch for a bit, and then go to the Greyhound bus station. Remember the manager at Joey's that was so apologetic and nice? Yeah she was waiting for the bus too because she was on the Vancouver flight. So we buy a ticket at 11pm and the bus comes and thank god there is room. It was a gong show. The people waiting there were......interesting..... Definitely a different breed of human that's for sure. Ok so thank god I'll get into Vancouver at 6am, my flight to Singapore wasn't until 12:35. Oh, gotta go, I'll update more in a bit...

The beginning of my Journey

2006-11-27T01:10:00.000+07:00

Well hello there! This is my first post to my new blog. I finally decided to jump on the bandwagon and get with the 90's so I created one...

So the reason I'm creating a blog is to try and document as much as I can in regards to my new trip. So I decided I needed a change at work, don't get me wrong I enjoyed working for Interior Health, but couldn't handle the repetition. I can only help so many nurses set up their Outlook Calendars before it becomes mundane. I still enjoyed working with great people and love providing customer service but decided I needed a change. Hence now.

So I quit my job from Interior Health after unsuccessfully trying to get an LOA, I would have had to work there 3 years full time before I could even request an LOA and even then there are restrictions. Ironic I think, they are looking for great staff but HR doesn't leave a huge incentive for someone to come back to work after an absence. Oh well, nonetheless my boss said she would re-hire me if/when I come back. So that was re-assuring, I am re-hireable after all.

Ok where am I headed with this? Hopefully I haven't bored you too much yet. After much consideration and humming and hawing, I decided to book a flight overseas. I had been to Bangkok/Singapore in March of 2006 with Andrew and Josh and loved it so I decided I was going to start with what I knew and go from there. So I booked another flight to Bangkok on Singapore Air (the best airline!) even though it was a bit more expensive than Air Canada (I refuse to fly with them...No offence to anyone that works for them!). As I'm writing this, I'm actually in the Singapore airport, I'll get more to that in a bit.

So I think I'll skip ahead a bit to the part where I am about to start my journeys. So I talk to my parents and go over all the stuff I would need to to travel and they're surprisingly calm about it... But as we get closer to the day my mom was getting visibly more worried, heh love you mom :).

I'm listening to Brian Eno "An Ending (Ascent)" right now, it's so peaceful and great to reflect to. I highly suggest downloading it!

Ok continuing on... So I decide to give a months notice at work, my last day was November 22, 2006. So Dave sent a calendar invitation at work for "drinks at Joey's" for Nov. 22 with the reason being because it's "belinni Wednesday"...hmm coincidence it was on my last day? Probably. Haha no actually a bunch of work people went to Joey's that night, it was so cool. I honestly didn't think anyone really liked me and maybe they don't haha but they still showed up and we drank to my leaving IHA. It was really quite a bit of fun. I bought one drink and then Morgan and Kristine bought me a flaming Lamborghini (In case you don't know what this is, OMG it's a quick way to get drunk). You start off with a martini glass with some type of alcohol in it and the server lights it on fire and then you put a straw in the glass and she pours 5 other shots in it and you drink this back in about 6.2 seconds. So needless to say after that I was happy and people were buying me drinks all night. There was a hair in my food and so I casually pointed that out to the server fully understanding that this stuff happens (I've worked in the restaurant industry before) and just asked for a burger. Next thing I know the manager comes up to me apologizing profusely and telling me I won't pay for it. She was really nice and I must say adorable! So it was all good, we ate and had fun. My work colleagues bought me some cool Roots gear with Canadian emblems on them and a "stop global warming bracelet" which is perfect haha.

After that I went to Breakers with Dave, John, Matt and I. We play some pool, it was fun. I then had to get my mom to pick me up heh cause I had had a bit too much to drink. OK stop laughing, yes, my mom picked me up. Haha

Ok so that was Wednesday night. Thursday was my first day of being unemployed. I went out with Kristine, Karla and Karla's sister Leanne. I got to see Savannah again, she's so cute, I'll miss her growing up. (I took this picture of Savannah when I was "babysitting" her for a couple hours. This was taken in late November 2006)!

That's all, I'll post another entry for the next few days.