Wow, its been almost a month since my last post and a lot has happened since then. Three of my best friends here, Chris, Beth, and Jurgen have left, and two new people have arrived, Ruth and Rich. Chris’s last night was amazing because we all had far to much of this –
this –
this –
and this –
The highlight of the evening was definitely Chris’s rendition of ‘With or Without You’ by U2. Chris went out with a hoorah that can only be summed up by quoting Lil Jon, “OOOKEY” “YEEEAAAA” and “WHHHAT?”
Just a few days later Beth had her going away party to a more cyvalized tune. Here are some pictures.
Beth and I
Ruth (one of the new ones), Jurgen (Beth’s Dutch boyfriend), and of course Beth
Jurgen and Beth again. I still think its funny neither of them really remember meeting each other… Here is to short-term memory loss!
The next week a friend from college, Maryanne, made a stop in Singapore while on a post graduation tour of Asia. I think all in all we had a pretty fun couple of weeks including a few good nights out, a few good meals, a few zoos, a few drinks that were drunk in quick succession, a few good conversations, and one trip to Bangkok. Lets start out with some pictures of the zoos.
Any one ever see the movie Congo? I did, and sitting here with all these monkeys looking at us was a little unnerving.
This little guy was only about 6 inches tall and looked like he was ready to jump one your head, luckily he didn’t…
It’s the whole family.
The biggest bat in the world were kept in a big room just flying around. Lucky for us they only eat fruit.
Duncan when he found out he was going to be let out of his cage at the zoo. Ok not really, this was later on in the evening after a few drinks. We went to one place called the clinic that had a medical theme. The shots were poured using syringes, the lighting was made using toned down surgical spotlights, the wait staff was dressed like nurses, etc. Unfortunately the service was lousy and the decorations were creepy; making this just another example why you shouldn’t make a bar in the design of the place everyone hates most.
Believe it or not, the drinking didn’t stop… This here is Rich, the other new British guy.
Being an equal opportunity embariser, I suppose I need to include pictures of myself too…
Here is what the whole group looks like from an arms length away, oh my.
Duncan wondering where all the hooters girls went… Maybe next time Duncan, maybe next time.
Remind me again why drunks love their hats so much?
Sometimes this is the only form of communication that seems to make sense.
Despite what my blogs may look like, drinking actually takes up a very small percentage of my time and energy – and YES for those wondering, I do actually work in Singapore too. If you really want, I could upload all of my weekly updates I sent to my boss, that would provide a good dose of Saturday afternoon pool-side reading.
In the meantime, I will talk about Bangkok. Maryanne and I spend 4 days in Bangkok, and furthered my belief that Thailand is a magical place. Our first day was spent in the historic part of Bangkok with all the temples. These two pictures were taken first thing in the morning from the same place and show the juxtaposition you see all over the city – new high tech construction next to 3rd world history. I guess that’s what defines a emerging economy.
Next stop were the temples. These next few pictures are from the Grand Palace, the Thai King’s historic home and Thailand’s most important Buddhist shrine.
This shows the detail that covers all of the walls in this temple, absolutely amazing.
This building houses the emerald Buddha, the center of the complex.
The detail goes all of the way to the ceiling.
I snuck this picture in, it shows the front doors of my vacation home in Malibu.
We only saw one real elephant in the street; this is just a statue.
We went to another temple next door, Wat Po, that houses the enormous reclining Buddha.
That night we stumbled on Soy Cowboy. Now in the Thai language soy means road, and as best I can guess cowboy means… coyboy. This street was a huge brothel and was a sight to see. Needless to say, we didn’t stay long.
That night we stumbled on Soy Cowboy. Now in the Thai language soy means road, and as best I can guess cowboy means… coyboy. This street was a huge brothel and was a sight to see. Needless to say, we didn’t stay long.
The next morning we went to Chatuchak market, the ‘weekend market’ which would have anything you want, anything. Its hard to describe how big this market was, probably at least as big as a large mall with its parking lots and every inch was filled with stalls selling everything from household goods, to art, to pets of all types, to food, and more cheap clothes than I have ever seen. It was a good way to spend the day.
Our last day we went to Jim Thompson’s house. Jim was an American that moved to Bangkok right after WWII. He pretty much single handlely started the Thai silk industy, and in the process got quite rich and brought a lot of wealth to Thailand. His house was built using typical Thai teak houses that are built on stilts. Here are a few pictures.
The house is built on a canal. At one time canals went all over Bangkok and gave it the nickname “Venice of the East”. Most of them have been covered up now, but a few remain.
Our last stop was Bangkok’s answer to central park in NYC. Here are some pictures.
Our last stop on this post is the Southeast Asian National football/soccer championship this past Wednesday. Singapore and Thailand were playing in their first game of a two game series. This game was a lot of fun, I was with a group of about 12 British people who all know and love football, and love going bonkers at football games. The Singaporeans love football too, but because they always watch European football aren’t used to going to games, furthermore they aren’t a very excitable group in general taking on a sort of reserved mentality. This is the recipe for a good time. Duncan was wearing a Singapore national jersey that he had the Singaporean term for “western wanker” put on the back. As expected the locals loved it and everyone was talking to him all night. Every time he tried to start a cheer the Brits would instantly join in as loud as they could, just like they would at home, and the locals would all just start laughing. Eventually he did get one decent cheer started but only after about 50 attempts. More pictures
This picture shows the bizarre ending of the game. With about 5 minutes left Singapore was about to make a shot on goal when Thailand was called for a controversial penalty. In protest, the coach made all of his team walk off the field and threatened to forfit the game. Naturally, the fans went crazy and everyone was booing. This went on for about 20 minutes when they finally decided to play ball. Singapore scored off the penalty kick to win the game. The finial is tonight in Bangkok so we have to wait to see if Singapore is the southeast Asian champions.
