Surroundings

A few shots from my balcony just before it gets dark :)

Fruit of the day

Have had my first I-didn't-know-it-existed fruit: rose apple.

Very fresh, tastes slightly like an apple (hence the name), but with a texture like the inside of rhubarb. 

P.S. It is also called Java Apple.

Culinary description

Just back from lunch. People eat lots of fish here (not sure though if em' little ones we get served quite often are freshwater or saltwater inhabitants); first its cheap and second - there is large variety to choose from - not the sad & expensive  situation in Denmark, where the regular choice is between salmon, trout, cod and salmon. Maybe Im exaggerating; have only bought frozen fish, since fresh one is like way out of my budget, but no matter what supplies fish stores in Denmark can get, there is a slim slim chance the assortment here can be beat. I hate the fishbones though...I can just see myself going into coma with that thing up my throat.

The dessert of the day brought me down the memory lane. The dish itself consisted of some fruit pieces in a red/pinkish syrup. The taste is a whole lotta different story. During my childhood me and my brother would occasionally got this sugar candy (like lollypops but without the pin), which had the most artificial flavoring ever. So, after like 20 years long break, I have, again, experienced a flavor thats is not far from tasting like plastic :)

Candy and drinks are much sweeter here than in Europe; closer resemblance to products sold in the US market. Too sweet for my taste; Im "delightful" enough already - it would be a disaster to OD :)

Strong, strong sun today. People cannot really understand the reasons behind me wandering outside during the lunch break. Local's try to avoid being outside as much as possible, at least during the scolding noon sun.  I need to change the surroundings and I find the 20 minutes of sunlight reenergizing (despite "boiling").. once I get home, the sun is on its descend and all thats left is darkness. 

Femme Fatale

Couldn't resist scrolling through PhotoBooth... I think the title above is so in the bulls eye, don't you think? :)

Good old times - some unforgettable moments; through fire & water.

Free as a bird

This is the first day with a breeze rustling the palm trees right underneath my balcony; pleasant to feel the air move. Isn't that the perfect evening for a beer? :)

Singha - it's one one the famous ones here; tastes nice, but also like many other lagers. Since I have done purchase of the month - a bottle opener - the bottle opening process isn't that complicated anymore. Initially I managed to get one open with a knife; probing each one of em' little hooks.. Maybe getting close to 30 is a good time to finally learn the lighter-trick. Better later than never :)

Tomorrow there will be no "company car" picking people up, so I think I will stay and work from home. The liberty to look like something cat has brought in for a whole day will be refreshing, hehe. It also means that I can stay up late reading free eBooks; have stumbled on a page (www.planetpdf.com) with relatively many literature classics free to download. I'm after Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" - I have read the book when I was around 16 or so (had this period where all the Russian classics were in my top five); I recall I liked it back then. Reading it again after all these years should do me good.

The Night Out

Friday night - lets say that my first night out was a good indicator of the events coming up in the future. A tiny network of new friends (more precise acquaintances at this stage) has been created - some local folks (oh, there was this Thai guy called Jo-Jo (think - Mo-Jo, Austin, Mo-Jo!) and he had the wickedest afro I've seen in a long time!)), 2 canadian "kids", one american and then I got a "friend request" on Facebook from a person I don't remember talking to, but I guess I did... eerrm :P

The taxi rides.

Oh my whatever..On my way to the On Nut station (the closest SkyTrain stop), the taxi driver must have confused his daily job with being Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cops"! There are lots of small bridges and elevations here and, if you drive fast enough, it is possible to make one's car jump a bit. Well, lets just say that I was wishing for the seat-belts to reappear (for some reason in most of the taxies the seat-belts on the back seat have been removed:P), hehe. I was also hoping for all the scooter and moped drivers to vaporize :P Couldn't resist from having a peek at the speedometer - 90 km/h. In the city. It's completely legal. Here, if technically possible (normally traffic is slow and jammed), you can do 90 all over the place. Ok, that was the first ride. Now the second one was more exciting - the drive was not more than 10 minutes; and I should have known better - check out if the meter is running a.s.a.p. Until now, I have never seen it not being turned on (and I have had a fair share of taxi rides), but in this case the meter was on when I got in the cab and miraculously turned off while I was in it :P

Anyway, at the end the driver was asking 200 BHT, where the actual meter price for the distance would be around 40-50 BHT. I don't like being ripped off (especially when its so bloody obvious he took me for an idiot), so there is nothing else to do than to refuse to pay the sum asked. I also don't appreciate being yelled at, hehe, especially if its some agitated taxi driver with bad moral. Hand over 70 and get out of the vehicle quickly :P

Had fun, and thats what matters. Cafe DeMoc - small, cozy and over-stuffed with people from the MustgoPartyBangkok group. The theme of the arrangement was High School Prom-Night - a british goth-type of a guy was crowned as the Prom Queen (yeah, the queen :P). 

One "incident" that has never happened to me before - I was refused my Mojito. The reason - takes too long time to make, hehe. Well, the bartenders were some young kids without that much experience in cocktail making, so.. but anyway, what the heck is wrong with the world??

The majority of bars and clubs in Thailand close around 1.30-2am (influenced by UK?), though there are some left, where refuge for the last hours of the night can be found. None of us (what where we - like 10 survivors in the end) felt like moving direction home/bed, so off we went on a mission to a bar called Tiger. There is something about leaving the tourist filled bars on the famous streets and moving on to a tiny, very local joint behind Burger King :) On top of drinks becoming cheaper, a place like that is mainly occupied by Thai students, which have the same wish as us, foreigners - to mingle :)

Rama IX Park

Got back from having a walk - just across the street the beautiful Rama IX Park is offering the perfect place for long walks and picnics. I find it hard to recall being in a park/botanical garden as impressive and truly magnificent as this. First of all, it is very large; second - extremely well taken care off. It costs 10 BHT to enter, which, in Danish currency, is like the ridiculous sum of 1.5DKK. A large lake (or should it be called a pond instead?) in the middle with people having fun with em' pedal-driven "boats" in the shape of swans. Christina - we gonna stack up some beers and go for a ride when you're here :) See if we can drown that thing, hehe. 

The botanical garden part of the park reminded of the one in Aarhus - both have a cactus and a tropical plant "greenhouses". I cant even find the words to explain what a tranquil place it was - blooming magnolias, unbelievable palm trees and other flowers I have never laid my eyes upon before. 

Yes!

There is a 99.9% chance that I will make a great friend tonight! A Thai girl, which is just as straight forward as me, not shy and seems fun to hang around with. Great humor and attitude.

Yeah.. there are some good forces out there. 

:)

Bangkok - watch out, going out to "kill"!

Far Out

Friday at Cafe De Moc. Thats The Plan. High-school theme party - so corny, that I simple gotta attend. Perfect for me - can't forge into a cheerleader slut, but I can dress up as a teacher, who's an undercover dominatrix :P

Finish work around 5.30pm, then hurry home, get ready. If Im smart, I'll grab a bite as well before I leave - who knows how cocktails will affect me in at this humidity & temperature level (freak to be unleashed?? :P). Yeah, I better write and post this now; tomorrow headache. 

What have I been doing until now? Today I got my hands on some of the documentation (which is very limited, since everything' in Thai) regarding the company's upcoming advertising campaign; it feels great to recognize and to be able to relate to the methods used. 

Have been making some diagrams for both the mid-term and the final project. You know, I normally do not place too much faith in astrological signs and their meaning, BUT, i must say that there is one correct assumption about me: Virgo's are incredibly meticulous! Sometimes to a point of no return :P

I don't know how much time I have been using on tiny small details - the lines must fit perfectly, everything has to be align etc. Oh man... perfectionism is cool, but when enough is enough, huh? Can anybody tell me that? :P 

Soley, you're such a divine being and a perfectionist as well - enlighten me! :)

Google Earth

Umm.. what happens when one's parents finally get connected to the Internet, learns how to manage Skype (after figuring out the "Big Button" pushing) and discovers Google Earth? Maniacal behavior! Zooming in and out on Bangkok, talks about "driving" here and there, and "push the blue spot" - unbelievable in the most positive way possible! :) 

Another hilarious discussion took place - tried to persuade a very timid person to just go somewhere with me this Saturday (be a bit spontaneous - jump in a taxi, go to the Sky-Train and get out, when a nice area comes by) - nothing extreme or anything, right? Outcome - like if I had fired off a horse tranquilizer! :) 

But, with some additional persuasion, the "adventure" might actually take place. I was so amused - maybe the challenge to make it happen (and yep, even a simple thing like that can transform into a challenge under certain circumstances) was too attractive to just let go. As with everything else that's hard to get :P

Anyway, as a plan B, I have contacted (bow to Facebook inventors) some foreigners living here - and, no matter what happens with the original agenda, I WILL go out this weekend. Mojito and Mai Tai as promised :P

Daily food miracles - where is the angel?

Sometimes packaging can be so impressive than the quality of product itself becomes a secondary concern. Check this out - would there be even a tiny chance that you would walk away from this extremely cute little banana-leave "purse" without having a peek inside? :) Banana leaves and a toothpick - can anything be more charming, really? :) And inside - coconut milk in thick consistency with a core of sweet, dark brown mass of something. Absolutely wonderful. 

For some reason almost every afternoon some type of tasty little thing shows up - let it be a simple cookie, fruit or something as exquisite as today. There must be an angel walking around here in this building showing off her gourmet skills :P Have to meet her and hope that some of the magic will rub off on me too.

Home sweet home and noodles

Home sweet home in a rather abstract sense - even this isn't so called MY room and even though I have only been here for 6 days, there is a "homey" air around this place. My "spot" with my socks secretly tucked underneath the sofa :)

Big day today - finally I got an idea for my final project; I have to find out, which of the current and coming advertising strategies can be deemed as the most effective. Or something in those lines.

What else... Finally, I think, I convinced my female coworkers that I'm not all that grown up, hehe. On the way home we struck up a conversation about cocktails (what a universal topic) and it seems thats the way to go with em' shy Thai gals. I was asked if I ever "used" alcohol and, hmm, what was the question again? :P Anyway, there is a cocktail party on its way; that might turn out the occasion where the girls become more confident about communicating in English and we might get to know each other better.

Noodle soup - my standard dinner. Low fat, low cholesterol and no additives; basically The Way to Superior Health :) Did I mention the price? 2DKK. Plenty left for shoes!

All right, its time to sleep. 

And on we are!

Hereby I can solemnly declare that I have transformed into a "network wiz"! From now on network configuration is peanuts, so I can be online from "home" too:) Here is a dark picture of my room and me in it as well - a proof that all this isn't just one big joke.

Funny, during late evenings and nights the air gets a completely different scent to it - becomes somewhat sweeter and more intoxicating. Maybe there are some flowers/plants underneath my balcony that only bloom when night sets in. All I can see is a few palms surrounded by construction workers living across the street. 

Residing maybe is a strong word, if proper housing is required to use that term. They have built, what can you call that.. lets say sheds from steel plates. There is a large stone basin in between the sheds and it is used for washing. I guess those are poor people from countryside, which have come to Bangkok with their families to look for a better life. And this is what they get. Squeezed between grand buildings with their few possessions. But you still hear them laughing, see them having dinner together and it's admirable that that little still can make these people to appear relatively content with what they have. Maybe that is only accomplishable when no illusions are left. 

Food

I have just tried two new things: jack-fruit and Lod-Chong, which is a dessert. Lets check out the Fruit de Jack first. When not divided, the "thing" is actually huge, resembles a longish pumpkin except the color and and the spiky surface (hmm... maybe there is no likeness between the two after all). The tricky thing is that, once opened, there are many "mini-versions" of the big mama inside. The smell is not too attractive, but it tastes good - I would say it tastes like a mixture of bananas and pineapples. Rather sweet and sticky too.

Lod-Chong is a dessert, which causes the immediate reaction - there is no way I'm eating that! But, as we all know, first impressions can easily be very very misleading and subjective (though I still must admit that the image of some green "stuff" swimming in some "white" stuff is not very appetite awakening :P). Basically, Lod-Chong consists of green dumplings in sweetened coconut milk sauce; why the dumplings are in that particular (slightly unattractive) shape is a mystery to me :)

P.S. It is served with ice in it. 

Work News

Aye, aye - my other Danish colleage has arrived. I didn't expect myself to be so pleased about it; I guess I still feel slightly lonely and unfamiliar with the Thai culture and all, so to see a familiar "face" somehow means a lot.

Picture of the office. You won't believe it, but, if I look out through the windows facing backyard, I can see people living in complete slumber. Wealth and destitution within one spot.

The Language

Last Friday I decided to make the crucial step and pursue the road of happiness - get familiar with Thai language.

I went to a book store, so I could by some maps of Bangkok and one of those Easy-way-to-Thai-language books (with 2 CD’s for pronunciation purposes). Well, I just had a short look into it and my conclusion is – OH NO! There are 5 different tones, which means that each word in Thai can have 5 different meanings in different tones, though not all words use all 5 tones. Eeerrm, right… go figure. And it said “EASY” on the cover! Liars...

Now, what they mean by tones is that you’re supposed to change your intonation from rising to falling, to flat and increasing and what else? Also, for me, as a female, at the end of each sentence I have to say “kha” – just the sound one makes when an alien object has gone up one’s nose (for all the males out there – practice “ khrap”). 

Most of the books of this type are organized in situation sections - you know, out dinning, shopping and so forth. This edition was "updated" with the so called "Love" category :P - the big sales trick! Since I have seen some fun stuff like that before, I was in for a good laugh and, guess what, I got what I was looking for: under section “Love” the clear winner is: “Khrang raek rue palo?” – Is this your first time? Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the sentence saying “Do you want to come and see my stamp collection?” And how “appropriate” for the “Love” section to end with “See you in my next life!” :)

Lost - in a mall? How silly is that?

Good morning, everybody!

The weekend is over and one thing that I have been fighting with is jet-lag (let's get the silly complaints out of the way first :P). Initially, six hour difference doesn't seem like an awful lot, but check this out - I'm not getting my highly essential beauty sleep before 4 am or so. My new buddy Mr. Insomnia. Normally (Christina - you will know), the most efficient sleeping medicine is one beer or a glass of wine; I had the beer, but I guess I shouldn't have bought one that says "Light" on it - completely useless for this particular purpose :

For the guys out there - you can skip this section. For the gal's - operation code "SHOES"!

Several times I have been asked if I'd gone shopping - I think that people here are as much into it as tourists. Well, it had to happen at some point, so this Saturday Wikana (the girl, that has sort of taken care of everything involving me coming here) and I got to it. Now, mind you, how cool is that to take a taxi to and back from a shopping mall? :P Felt like the worlds biggest capitalist. Anyway, we got to this enormous shopping center and no kidding - Bruuns Galleri is for kids, if compared to this giant. 

As a real western woman, I, of course, had to go on my own silent&secret mission the day after as well (it didn't feel right to force Wikana to suffer through my browsing). Lets just say that the personnel at one particular store might get to know me quite well in the future - take a guess - a shoe store! :P Oh man, I will simply have to use postal service to send em' babies home! Also, some day I will have a walk-in shoe closet, therefore, anything I buy now, is a future investment and thus justifiable. Another thought - if anybody is a foot/shoe fetishist, Thailand must equal paradise.

 Anyway, the whole process resulted in rather many shopping bags - relatively heavy to carry, you see. Since the Murphy's Law is always working, the inevitable happened - I couldn't find my way out, not on the right side of the mall, anyway! :) All jokes aside, I estimate that I was wandering through that place for at least like 30 minutes going from one exit to another. This was just another proof that I do, indeed, suffer from topographic idiocy. Embarrassing, embarrassing and once more - embarrassing (secret message - doesn't beat the blueberry muffin, though :P). 

The first evening - Accommodation/Shopping

In da' "house" there is this huge room (well, I think its large by any standards, but, if I compare it to my last room, this is humongous!) and just when you walk in, you get this feeling that yup, Thailand it is. There is something about the paneling and the way the furniture looks - it has some oriental "air" around it. A cute little balcony as well. The bed basically consists of two 1.40m beds (or so I estimate) - basically anybody sleeping in it better be "wide" than tall :P So, for the next 5 month I can practice all the rolling I feel like - and Christina, when you come - don't worry about blankets (I don't see the point of having one there in the first place). Maybe it becomes a requirement in April, which is the hottest month of all (can easily hit the 40 degrees Celsius margin, I was told) - what a load on air-condition...
The building itself is located approximately 10-15 minutes drive from the office; until now I haven't really seen anything else besides the studio flat, local convenience store and the office, so I'm not sure what else is in the neighborhood.

Last night I realized I had to do some emergency shopping and managed to find the local store. It's been a while since shopping for simple goods has taken that much time :) It is fortunate that, at least on the majority of the products, descriptions in English are easy locatable (proximity of Singapore?), nevertheless the whole shopping process is rather confusing. No luck with milk or any other dairy product, so opting for soya-milk (I have to watch out not to get too healthy - that would be a killer:P)

GTH is offering free lunch for its employees - so my first experience with original Thai food happened just 4 hours ago. It was amusing to see how everybody was throwing sneaky looks in my direction to see, if I will eat it or not - people worry the food might be too spicy for a pale European like me. Tasted great - a soup rich with flavors from lemon grass, galanga and kaffir lime leaves (I recall I once cooked a curry that tasted very similar to this) and some unidentifiable green vegetables. Mr. X (the only nickname form the IT department that I remember - since Thai names are very long, everyone has a nickname or a short) mentioned the name, but it, of course, didn't ring a bell - it did resemble see weed a bit, but tasted nothing like it. And don't forget the rice!

This and That

Well, well - it is a weird day today. For some reason I was picked up 5 minutes to 8 this morning and brought to the office, despite the fact that the person I need to discuss my main project with is not here today. On the other side, I had the pleasure to meet everybody else, who works here. The introduction process has made me realize that I am even worse with remembering people's names than I thought I was (keep in mind that I have never had any illusions about myself in that aspect :P) - the pronunciation is so different from what my ears are normally used to, that Im having a tough time deciphering the individual sounds, not to even mention how its all put together. It is funny, all right, though Im just waiting for and fearing the situation, where I will make a complete fool out of myself because of being unable to hear "through" the peculiar accent :) Before I came here, I read that Thai people are very shy and now I can without doubt say: that is absolutely correct. One of the girls from the office here was so shy that, instead of saying her name (during the introduction process), she started to giggle and would not stop :) Well, all I could say is "Maybe next time" and walk away smiling. Extremely polite and helpful people (I guess that can be said about most of the Asian cultures) - you don't see such a level of consideration and politeness in Europe very often. The man that picked me up at the airport, for example: the sweet soul actually took my luggage trolley out of my hands! And to do that after like 2 hours of waiting (the queues for the passport control were extremely long)! My patience would have run out like ages ago :) Such a simple thing to do, but as with all the "small" things - makes a tremendous difference. You cannot avoid warming up to the Thai people :)

Welcome!

Well, how shall I start this? And should I in the first place? I have never had a blog of my own and I have never been the type to search the web to find any. I will also say Im not sure I understand what the fascination with blogging is all about - posting thoughts that, lets face the truth, not too many people care about anyway, spending time on editing, wondering if anybody is reading the stuff in the first place etc. - how much fun can that be, huh? Im all about reasoning, right - so the perfect explanation for me "joining the club" is - I'm not particularly impressed with me repeating myself all over and over again in e-mails to the people I care about. Keeping track of what has been written to whom is just way too complicated (with a high probability of errors, mind you!), therefore I have decided to do this instead - lets take the easy way out, shall we? :P