Shane Gets Another New Surfboard

Shane has purchased a new surfboard... so, we now have Betty:

 And Sheila

I figure that this grants me explicit permission to buy all kinds of things, seeing as this is an equal partnership, for example:

• 1 pony, roughly the size of 2 surfboards (also both can be ridden)

• 67 pairs of shoes costing 200 baht, plus one pair at 100 baht
• 134 -100baht watches
• 2 dogs (to be redeemed at any point I deem appropriate)

Any other suggestions are welcomed. Also if you want one of these pairs of shoes, I don't think they'll all fit in the luggage home.

In other news, Shane's brother is arriving in Phuket on Wednesday! We are SO EXCITED for his visit, we can't wait to show him all the craziness that Thailand has to offer!

Also, here are some gratuitous cute shots of dogs from the soi dog shelter on Friday. This week Shane came to meet the dogs, and of course take some pictures. 

Shane accidentally, maybe goes to a house of ill repute

Since arriving in Thailand, Shane has become a big fan of Thai Massage. Being tall isn't all about reaching things on the high shelves, it is sometimes hard on your body. Massage here is totally cheap and great for the body, and there are a lot of really wonderful, legitimate massage places. There are also some massage places where you can opt for a wider range of services.

After a long day surfing, Shane's neck was feeling a little sore. As he often does, he set of to find a Thai masseuse. It should be noted that this would be the first massage had here in Phuket, and therefore we don't have a place we regularly go. After looking around our local area, he walked into a place that seemed pretty legitimate... but now we're not so sure.

The Shady Details:
1. After changing into the usual massage outfit (basically pyjamas) he was led into a private room... usually the massage areas are separated only by a curtain.
2. Things seemed a little less professional (and traditional) than usual, for instance, the masseuse was wearing what might be termed a provocative outfit (by Thai, not Western standards) rather than the traditional garb that is usually worn.
3. There was a TV in the massage room, which the masseuse watched the entire time.
4. At the end of the massage, the masseuse suggested that Shane have a 30 min. nap, and then she would come back and finish the massage. This is not normal... where was she going? Why was she coming back?

At this point, Shane said a polite kup-kuhn-krap (thank-you) and got the hell out of there, checking to make sure nobody we knew was out on the street.
We need your help, ladies and gentlemen. Please join us in voting for whether or not Shane almost received some of the wider range of services mentioned above. The poll is located near the top of the blog, you unfortunately have to have a google account to vote...

Snack Foods: Canada VS Thailand

Sometimes here in Thailand we find things that are almost like home... except that we're in Thailand, so of course they're a little bit different. Take Pringles for instance. At home they come in flavours like: salt & vinegar, sour cream & onion, BBQ. In Thailand they come in: nori seaweed, spicy shrimp, and Hazlenut & Blueberry.

Although we enjoy most food here in Thailand, I would not recommend Blueberry & Hazlenut Pringles. Overall in the chip category, for our tastes, Canada comes out on top (we even had my parents smuggle us a bag of ketchup chips and a bag of dill pickle chips over on their visit).

Another thing that Thailand does differently is popsicles. However, this time I might have to give the leading edge to Thailand. In Canada, popsicles are only popular for a few months of the year. Consequently, nobody ever gets tired of the same old flavours and they can keep putting them out year after year; a clear popsicle pete monopoly. In Thailand, you can eat a popsicle in any month... so they have become a little more ingenious with trying to make their popsicle stand out from the crowd. For instance, the Eskimo Monkey:

This popsicle has a frozen jelly outside, that you peel like a banana, and a vanilla ice-cream centre. Being Thailand, the yellow jelly tastes like grape (not banana). Delicious!

I love my Fino

Breaking news this mother's day sunday... we have become the proud owners of a motorbike! No more grocery shopping at 7-11, now we can get out to Tesco! No more taking SUPER SLOW buses to the beach, now we can get there ourselves. It is also convenient to be able to go places that are outside walking distance from the apartment. We are definitely looking forward to increased mobility.

Not too shabby! We ended up buying it off a guy who was upgrading from this to something fancier for his girlfriend :) which meant the price was definitely right.

So, for all you prospective visitors, come on down and you can go for a spin (seats up to six lol)! : )

Ladyboy Dance Off

This weekend we went to one of the big shopping centres around here to do a little birthday shopping... little did we know that by walking into the mall this Saturday we were walking into a Ladyboy dance off. There was a huge crowd gathered around a stage in the middle of the mall, watching group after group of Thai teenagers dance and lip-sync their little hearts out. Here is a transcript of a conversation we had while watching:
Shane: "This group of girls is really tall, wait, I think that one in the front is a ladyboy"
Hannah: "Um, I think they're all ladyboys... yup definitely ladyboys."
Shane: "Those ladyboys have way more feminine sex appeal than that girl group." 

Unfortunately we did not bring a camera!!!! So no fabulous pictures. Some of the groups had a lot of fabulous teenage attitude and some of them were great dancers, overall a very entertaining way to spend part of our afternoon... eating gelati and watching the dancers. So very Thailand :)

Things from the market

Since our school is a temple school, it shares its grounds with a temple... sounds pretty simple. Because of this it is both a school and a sort of community centre where community events are held, such as the morning market on Tuesday and Friday mornings. You may have heard us mention the market before as it is somewhat a bone of contention with us teachers here... not because we don't enjoy purchasing fresh produce or delicious sticky rice but because sometimes the vendors seem to us to be selling questionable items to children of such a young age. On the primary side of the school this seems to be less of a problem but the poor matayom teachers really get the short end of the proverbial market stick.

The first example of this was the fireworks incident. A market vendor was selling firecrackers to students, and as mentioned in a previous post they were detonating these mini bombs all around the school. Shane lost the hearing in one ear for the better part of a day as the result of one of these charming fireworks.

The next item children were purchasing before school was hair elastics. Sounds harmless right? Not when they are strung together to create a slingshot from which students shoot tiny paper balls at each other. Watch out or you might lose an eye! However, I suppose you can't really fault market vendors for selling hair elastics to children like you can for selling them explosives.

Following the hair elastics incident came the BB Guns. Shane was collecting them to arm the staff in case of a students' revolt but they started taking up too much room on his desk, so they have now gone to the tough Thai music teacher (who is known to be liberal with his "pia" -a bamboo rod used to smack unruly students). In order to reclaim your BB gun you must go through him, I will be curious to see who actually gets their guns back.

Probably the most hilarious thing that kids have bought at the market though is pets. Here is a conversation we had recently after market day:
Shane: "So, did any of your kids have like, gerbils in their pockets today?"
Hannah: "Um, no... did yours?"
Shane: "Yeah, I think they got them at the market and they were keeping them in their backpacks or pockets or something. There were gerbils all over the place all day."

Oh yes, the old pocket gerbil. I wonder if they cleaned their pockets after having a rodent pooping in them all day. So far on the primary side the biggest surprise that we have had is fish. A student marched proudly up to the front of the room saying "teacher! fish!". Indeed, he had a bag full of fish which he then proceeded to stuff in his desk. I later saw him with the same fish in a water bottle. Their chances of survival are probably slim.

 Kids selecting fish before school

 More fish

 These kids are looking at the vendor's selection of BB guns like, these are garbage! Where is the guy from last week?

Debauchery and Weekend Adventures

Another exciting weekend in Thailand! This weekend we ventured down to the MBK centre to check out what a mall in Thailand looks like. Parts of it are very similar to a mall back home, and then there are floors that have more in common with the market we visited last weekend with huge crowds of shoppers, narrow aisles and cheap knock-offs of brand-name goods. After some shopping we decided to head to the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Centre where we were told that if we stuck around until six thirty there would be free food, wine and entertainment to celebrate the opening of a really wild art exhibit of crocheted trees! Very reminiscent of The Lorax...

The wine and food were excellent, the entertainment... well we'll let him speak for himself. Here are a few clips of the musical entertainment we saw on Saturday night...

After the performance we went to an open-air food court near the Victory Monument in Bangkok and had some Kau man gai (rice with steamed chicken and a delicious ginger-chili sauce) and a couple of drinks (supplied of course by the local 7-11). Not feeling quite ready to head home yet, we started brainstorming about what we should do to close out our Saturday night... Since we had a friend with us who will not be in Thailand long we thought that we should try to get the most experience out of Bangkok possible, and therefore the only logical choice was to visit Soi Cowboy, Bangkok's seedy red-light district. One can easily imagine what goes on in Soi Cowboy, so we will leave it up to you... if you can't imagine I am sure that Google has a great deal of pertinent information. Needless to say, we didn't stay long. After feeling like we'd had our fill of the underbelly of Bangkok it was off to bed... after a short encounter with a crazy cab driver (drove much too fast and laughed when we asked him to cha cha ... slow down). Another interesting weekend in the land of smiles.

Shane Nearly Kills a Guy...

What a busy first weekend in Thailand! On Friday night the company that owns and manages our apartment complex held a " Your Dreamland 2010 Party" for all their "foreign" guests. It was basically a photo op for them so they can sell condos and apartments using our shiny white faces... However, said photo op came with free food, booze and traditional Thai dancers... and the traditional Thai pastime of Karaoke.

Although cheesy and slightly strange (as is everything about where we live... more on that another time) this provided an excellent opportunity for us to get to know some of the other local farang. The Dreamland party finished at ten and we all took the party elsewhere... to the sidewalk by the 7-11 to be exact!

Yes, not only can you buy beer at the 7-11 in Thailand, but the clerks actually have bottle openers behind the counter, just in case you want to drink while you browse the fine selection of merchandise. They obligingly opened our beverage and we went outside to the sidewalk where we hung around with a crowd of folks before deciding what to do. We ended up going to sit on some benches outside by the Arc de Triomphe where Hannah got eaten alive by mosquitoes (and Shane got ZERO bites) before deciding to head to "The Clink" a local bar. The bar was a bit of a bust but the night overall was a great success as we met some new friends and got a chance to check out the local area.

The next morning we met up with our new friends to head down to the Chatuchak weekend market. This is the biggest market in Thailand with between 5000-15000 vendors (depending on your Internet research lol) and where around 30 million baht per day are spent on cheap knockoff goods (say hello to my new fake Lacoste wallet), pets, appliances, electronics.... basically anything you could ever want can be found at the Chatuchak weekend market. It is a wildly crowded place full of locals, tourists, and the occasional palm reader wearing all black with a sword strapped across his back. We spent several hours shopping and being generally overwhelmed by everything and came out with a small number of purchases.

After a quick bite to eat we started to head out but were waylaid by the sweet melodious sounds of a Thai guitar player singing various English alternative covers. We sat down and had a couple beers while listening before heading home.

And as for Shane almost killing a guy, have we mentioned the madness that is Thai motorcyclists? Let's just say, next time you see a movie with a wild motorcycle stunt in it, the stuntman is probably somebody's Thai grandma out for a Sunday drive... These guys have no concept of rules or regulations on the road, a fact which Shane learned when he almost killed a motorcyclist opening the door of our cab. Trying to exit the cab (on the curb side I might add) Shane had barely cracked the door when it was hit at full speed by a flying Thai motorcyclist who then performed a stylish quick dismount from his bike before getting up, shaking his wrist and glaring at Shane, and then continuing on his way... just another day on the outskirts of Bangkok. Needless to say, we have now learned to LOOK BEHIND before opening any door of the vehicle. Just because you are on the sidewalk, doesn't mean you're safe.

Our Temporary Apartment

So this is the new digs until our new digs are ready... Fairly similar to a Canadian bachelor apartment except for a couple of slight noticeable differences... First of all, there is no proper kitchen. We are making do with a hot plate on a cabinet... Also notice the lack of food on the shelves. This is because we HAD a brand new bag of rice, unopened which apparently had a tiny hole in it. When we got home from work there was a trail of ants from a crack in the ceiling, along the wall, into the bag of rice. We aren't sure what they wanted in there but there were so many ants in the rice we had to throw the whole bag out. Now all food (including cereal and other things that do not need to be refrigerated) is in the refrigerator. Also noteable, everyone here seems to drink predominately instant coffee. We don't have a coffee maker or pot so got some for ourselves but soon realized that it was commonplace here...

 This is our breakfast nook! This is not really different from an apartment in Canada but is pretty cute.

 Our bed :) They must think farang are huge fat foreigners because King sized beds are common in our apartment complex (which houses many foreigners). Also, for some reason Thai people do not do the whole top sheet thing. When you buy a set of bed linens you get a fitted sheet and pillow cases and you can get a duvet but so far nowhere (including the hotel) has had a flat top sheet.

 The toilet and, as we affectionately call it, the "ass blaster". Since our apartment building caters to farang, our bathroom features a western-style toilet and toilet paper roll holder as well. To the left of the toilet is the shower, this is fairly normal except for the lack of hot water. Yes, all showers in Thailand (except perhaps in hotels which cater to foreigners) are cold. This will be refreshing in the warmer season but currently makes for a brisk pick-me-up in the morning.

"I don't understand 90% of what is going on around here"

Today Shane recieved an email from his brother asking if we had found a good place to get suits yet... This is a difficult question to answer because things are not like they are in Canada. For instance, in Canada if one wants to buy beer, one goes to The Beer Store and if one wanted a suit one could probably find a clothing store with some smartly dressed mannequins and make the correct assumption that suits would be inside. In Thailand you might have a store with a 90-year-old woman on a sewing machine at the door, a 14-year-old auto body specialist in the back and some sort of food vendor serving out the front. Can you get a suit here? We still aren't sure...

Teachers also fill a different role here, at least the Thai teachers. For instance, today if you were walking around the school you would have noticed many children with a stripe shaved in the back of their hair cuts...

You might think that this is simply a new fashion trend in Thailand, but you would be wrong. Apparently one of the Thai teachers decided that the children were letting their hair get too long, and in retaliation attacked them with an electric rasor. Take that Thai hippies!

PS. Dear Tim and Ian, this is my first webcomic attempt. I hope you are happy. One day I might learn how to add alt-text for you too :)

Lesson 2: supporting the Thai economy

Our second day in Thailand was all about trying to get ourselves settled into a new place. Thai apartments are different from your typical Canadian place, in part because they largely do not feature kitchens. Perhaps cooking is considered a thing that only families do, or perhaps it is merely because food for a single person is so amazingly cheap here, but whatever the reason most apartments do not come with a stove or a fridge... or a kitchen sink. Luckily, the local carrefour is brimming with excellent home appliances, groceries, and other supplies.

A carrefour is basically your local walmart on steriods. FULL of people, groceries, electronics and other goods it is a store where you can get just about anything. They also have a 5oclock mandatory Carrefour dance (hated by the staff but beloved by our employer's 19 month old son) which we sadly missed out on.

After driving back home with our purchases crammed into the tiny vehicle it was time to set up house and then go out for a late lunch. This is where we discovered our new favourite restaurant and favourite Thai lady...
The restaurant is just a little place in the Champs D'Elysees complex where we live. The food is excellent and dirt cheap (roughly $3 for our entire meal) and the owner is a lovely woman who not only helped us order but taught us how to say we wanted something spicy (or not) in Thai and how to say that the food had been delicious. Then she brought us out a plate of fruit as a complementary welcome to Thailand gesture. We now never want to cook anything again... good thing we got that hot plate.

The jet lag is still pretty harsh in the evenings once it starts to get dark (it gets dark around 6:30 here) so luckily we have our pal the Louis Lotus... our King sized bed (aparently they must think all farang (foreigners) want a king sized bed as these come standard in every apartment we looked at). We sleep so far apart we are nearly in different time zones. For your viewing pleasure, a little bit of Thai/English translation...