Cabbage and Condoms

It took a while to find this place but its really lavish and the prices reflect that. Even though I was looking for a cheap vacation I decided to splurge on my last non-airline meal in Bangkok. And Cabbage and Condoms supports local PDA programs so I feel like I'm contributing to a good cause in a country where AIDS is a big problem.

They have outdoor and indoor seating, jungle and high-class oriental themed respectively. I ordered the pork cutlet with papaya salad, steamed greens and a ginger ale. The little app they give you before your meal are these puffed chips; they're seasoned just enough so it's not to bland but not too salty either.

 Like I said earlier, there are lots of articles and "condom art" around the restaurant so before I left I took several pictures. After I had left I realized the camera setting was still on food so the glass covers blurred a couple of the photos.

~Don't be a fool wrap yo tool!

The Living Place

Before I left Chiang Mai on Saturday evening, I went to see 2 Guns with my friend. This isn't a review but you should check it out if you like Buddy Cop movies.

Instead I'll be reviewing the guesthouse I crashed at ages ago: The Living Place.

I really loved this guest house.The atmosphere was amazing; both owners are abstract artists and their work is all over the place. I spaced out looking at at some for about half an hour. One of the owners also does sketches of certain guests too. Apparently he'll go out some nights and grab some extra cash doing this to fill the beer fridge and it takes him a 10-15 minutes to complete one.

Sleeping

The living place has dorms as well as tents set up inside. The dorms fit 4-6 and the tents are all one-person, if you're under 5"10', comfortably. You also get your own fan that shoots cool air right at you. I slept in a tent each night. It's like having your own room and privacy is something I always appreciate especially after a 17-hour train ride. 

Lounge

On the main floor there're are plenty of floor seats with pillows you can nap on or patiently wait for a cabbie to pick you up for any kind of adventure. The lounge also has a fridge that runs on the honour system. They've got a house guitar (which was nice to handle once and a while), decks of cards, guide books, and lots of drums. Plenty of stuff for those days and nights where you're stuck inside because of the weather. 

Trip Selection

There's lots of stuff to do in the Chiang Mai area. TLP has tons of brochures, as you can see. One of the owners selects them based off of Trip Adviser and throws out ones that dip in quality. They've got all the bases covered from Trekking to Tigers!

The People

Ari and Vi are both super cool people in there own special way.

Vi always tries to organize bonding activities at night like dinners and Thai Boxing matches in the area. He knows the city really well and can show you where the best of the best is or the cheapest of the cheap. Sometimes it works out that it's both! He's a chill guy who has a three-hour Neil Young playlist for when he paints. 

Ari is the book keeper of the two. She's significantly louder than her counterpart. She runs a very organized ship cleaning, tidying the hostel, and organizing everybody's trips like nobody's business. She seemed very hot-headed when I arrived but she's just naturally loud and excited from 10am to 8pm. 

They also have a miniature puppy named Winnie (I think) who's adorable. She's got a doberman's colouring, and big brown eyes. Bless her protective heart but she couldn't win a fight with a mouse. There was a stray kitten, or under-nourished tom it's a tough call in this part of the world, who frequented the main floor of the hostel and it was twice the size of Winnie.

Location

The place is in a prime location just outside of the old city and going the other way is the Night Bazaar. There's a little restaurant up the Soi (laneway) that serves really good curries and fruit juices. The guest house is also right by two really nice temples one of which has the super-cheap and soothing massages.

Trash and Treasure

Like most guesthouses and hostels TLP has many people coming and going, at times people will leave things they don't need because of poor impulse buys, or a lack of space in their packs. Regardless, The Living Place has a good collection of books, clothes, hats, and umbrellas and many more things. They also loan out towels free of charge.

All in all it's a great place and I'll stay there when I presumably return to the lovely city of Chiang Mai. Just a tip of advice though: watch your head on the first flight of stairs.

Full Circle

I'm back to what I would call the beginning: that surprise dinner I had one year ago Friday welcoming me and two other new teachers to the school's staff. It was awesome and novel, much like I was to them and their country to me. Now coming back full circle (see what I did there) it seems like a lot has changed, but looking back at the draft I wrote out Saturday morning it's mostly the fact that I feel much more comfortable in this environment, but I still don't know half the teacher's by name, just their homeroom.

One thing that hasn't changed is my co-teachers' willingness to not have fun at staff outings. One lives very far away and its far too much of a hassle for her to go further away from her home which is understandable. One has five-year old and a husband who was recently in an accident of some kind so she has other priorities but still makes an appearance for the dinners. The last one is a vegan so at this buffet she has two plates of salad and heads out with the other co-teacher.

Back to the dinner itself. Obviously, like the year before, there are new teachers coming into the school and all the main-stay teachers are talking to them and also saying goodbyes to three retiring teachers. Since there's a changing of the tides in the specialist room there are two tables, ten seats each, for the specialist teachers. I hitched a ride with the science teacher to the beautiful buffet spot in the richy-rich part of town and sat down with the new and familiar faces of the office. When my two CTs arrived they sat down at the other table and waved me over. It was just the three of us the whole dinner. It was really quiet because I don't like talking about work on a Friday night and apart from our job we don't have much to talk about.

Somehow it got worse. They sat next to each other and put their purses on either side creating a buffer. So I sat one spot over. Once the hellos and goodbyes were all said and done everyone went up to the buffet or to mingle. Since lunch wasn't very good I headed for the buffet. When I got back my co-teachers put both their purses on my chair! This was the biggest WTF moment of my life. I swear, I almost flipped the table. So I sat another spot over. Thankfully the food was delicious and I discovered there's a second side to the buffet. No more two plates of raw fish for this guy! They also had cream of mushroom soup that tasted just like Campbell's which put me back into a care-free state of mind.

Once dinner wrapped up the staff headed out to the closest Noraebong, the typical right of passage for new Korean teachers, and copious amounts of So-Mak. Then we went out for some more food and water. I had a really good time with everyone and I'm excited about the year to come with all the young new faces (there will be people my age in the office!). However, this was the evening where I had a lot of fun but in order to have a better time I should learn to speak Korean. Not just for staff parties but to enjoy more of Korea and, in typical single guy fashion, cast a bigger net.  

See-you-laters

Well it's been a full year and a couple days since I first came to Korea. Now some people I've gotten to know are packing and moving on from Korea.

I refuse to say goodbye at this point in my life; I have plenty of life to live as do the other people I've had the honour and privilege of meeting here in Busan. A goodbye to me is like concluding something and ending it. So I do my best not to say goodbye. For those of you who are leaving you're great people, I'm going to miss you but I refuse to believe that our paths will not cross one more time before the clock runs out. Best of luck and keep being awesome!

Here's to the nights we never remember with the friends we'll never forget    

Korean Encounters

In total there were 4, I think. The 3 major ones were ex-pats.

The first occurred when my friend and I hopped into an elevator in his apartment.
"Hey, here are some Koreans you can relate to, I'm sure." he says smiling at two 8 year old girls standing in silence.
I said hello and that I was a teacher in Korea and they looked at me like I was from another planet. Probably because I suck at speaking Korean.
He laughed, "They might be Chinese, I don't know."

Interaction number two was very brief outside a bar. Here are the Cliff notes.
"Oh I taught in Seoul for a year and then I came here."
"Cool," there was too long of a pause for me to keep talking to her so I simply said. "Well, I'm going to go get another drink, pleasure meeting you."

The third guy stayed in my hostel. He was really cool and really into teaching and pedagogy as a whole. He's been teaching in Seoul for 5 years and currently doing a Master's in education on the side. It was awesome having teacher-talk with him and discussing the Korean English Curriculum as a whole. He put it quite simply: it'd be good if it had an identity. The guy was really smart and absolutely loved Korea and the culture surrounding it.

I met the fourth person at a bar too. She had been working in Chiang Mai for about a year. She asked me where I was from and told here I was teaching in Korea. She had also taught there. In fact, she taught in Busan. Because I know I'll probably be leaving after this year I asked if she found it tough to leave. She shook her head and then went on a tangent about how she hated Korea and surprisingly Busan!
"Everyone is so into fashion and so superficial, everyone judges you on how you dress and what you look like."
Being half in the bag I couldn't give an accurate depiction of what she actually looked like. She kept yammering on and on about the shallowness of Koreans which is evident but you just accept that part of their culture, just like eating kimchi with every meal. Obviously this girl had been in a really rough spot in Busan and I asked here where she lived.
"5 minutes away from Gwangalli Beach" she said as if it could have been any dot on the map.
This is blasphemy to me. The Gwangan area is arguably the most ex-pat friendly and scenic spot in Busan. After leaving orientation my apartment wasn't ready so my co-teacher put me up in a hotel that looked out on the Diamond Bridge which is where, and when, I took the cover photo of this blog.
I realized there is obviously something wrong with this girl and have realized now that Busan isn't for everyone. Regardless, she's totally spinster bound if she couldn't meet any exciting or cool people in one of the most exciting and cool places I've ever been. In the end, I went for a burger with a bunch of people, leaving her and another guy stranded together. It only took two minutes before this guy was sitting next to us demoing a double bacon cheese.
I guess she's content in Chiang Mai, and if not, she must be from heaven originally which just doesn't make sense.

Cooking with Pantawan's Pan and Tawan.

August 9th,

After a night of shots upon shots and Connect 4 victory drinks and losing at pool drinks I was not feeling good at all the following day.

I was still up early waiting to get going to my cooking class. The slip said that I'd be picked up by 8:30. This was not the case. Pick up was at 9 so I was pacing up and down the main floor of the guest house for half an hour will one of the owners called the office with no response.

When they got to the gate I was really impressed. The owners, Pan and Tawan, picked me up in a nice van with AC and their English was spot on, no Thai accent at all. Then *we drove off to the market to learn about the ingredients we are using.

* We means the two owners and myself. The day before Pan was in a car accident. Subsequently, they decided to cut the Thursday morning class short and cancelled the afternoon class as well as Friday. Too bad for them only one person booked in advance. It made for a very awkward morning being hungover.

At the market, I learned that most Thai food contains three main ingredients Kaftir lime juice/leaves, chili peppers, and a mild type of ginger. When we got to the cooking area my breath was stolen away from me.

All the cooking stuff is on the second floor so you can look out at all the lush-green plants and the white ducks waddling around.

We made four dishes total: Panaam Curry, Pork and Shrimp Wontons, Fried Ruby Fish with Chili Sauce, and Stir Fried Prawns in a Mushroom Oyster sauce. All of them were really good. And it came with a complementary beer. Thankfully it wasn't Tiger Beer. Cooking here was a really pampered experience having Pan, Tawan, and the chef watching me chop and fry as I cradled my head in my hands and guzzled down water. After the second dish they started to chop stuff too because I was not much for small talk. All the equipment is really good and they use glass bowls so it feels like you're on the food network. Nothing got burned either. 

One problem I had with the process was I got to prepare each plate, sample it, and then we would put it on the lunch table and go onto the next dish. By the time the last dish was done everything else was cold, also if I got to eat each one after making it I would have eaten everything and not had to share. The beer made that impossible though and I brought food back to the guesthouse. Also lime juice is the best topper for any Thai food and they didn't provide that. 

I fully recommend cooking with Pantawan, they did an excellent job. At the end of the class you get a certificate (because everyone brings a folder with them when they go back packing) and an apron which now covers my bare chest when I cook bacon on the weekends :).    

Here are my meals all in one shot:

Top going clockwise: Fried Fish with Chili sauce, Stir Fried Prawn, Panaam Curry, and pork shrimp wontons. 

Half a rite of passage in Thailand

Thursday Evening,

I just like to have fun on vacation I don't like migrating from place to place, that's not a vacation for me. I have a feeling I'm covering a lot of bases in January according to my travel buddies so I'm coasting this time and my friend respected these wishes mostly because he's working through the day.

Thursday night was a great old time that brought me back to my single days of university... with an actual venue this time. We got bottle service at dinner: Sangsam liquor was $30 for a bottle and came to $40 with 4 bottles of soda water. If that's not the cheapest thing you've heard of in a restaurant, please, tell me where you live.

After dinner we were all flying high and headed down to Loi Kroh Road for more good drunken times. Since I wasn't drinking soju I can remember a good portion of the night. We went to the Full Moon bar which is associated with the ill-famed, clandestine business Thailand is known for: hookers. These were not the best Thailand had to offer which is exactly why this is half a rite of passage, because I came, I saw and nothing else.

I say that these girls weren't the best because they weren't great looking but were still overly friendly and nice. Traditionally, before these girls are put into the sex-trade they are taught to play games as a way to make money for their soon to be pimps or managers. These games include pool, Jenga and Connect 4. Friends in Busan who have traveled to Thailand have hyped this thing up to the nth degree. Being the game-lover that I am I just wanted to keep drinking and beat some hookers in Connect 4.  I went a respectable 3-2, but I'm really good. And they definitely majored in pool during their younger years. I sunk five balls in 3 games and that was it.

I went to Mike's Burgers, which is dynamite drunk food spot, and walked home from there solo because everyone else tuk-tuked to the other side of the city to their respective homes and more importantly for one, his condom supply. I decided to leave because
a) Respectability.
b) I'm not made of money, even in Thailand.
c) I think I like someone in Busan.  
d) I sleep in a tent.

Elephantasia

Thursday Morning,

Elephants, Elephants, Elephants! Me and two other people from the guesthouse pile into a jeep-ni and drive about an hour and a half to the Elephant camp/ conservation. The place was beautiful and seeing an elephant in the flesh is amazing.
Before we did anything with the elephants everyone put on some denim clothes. It makes sense because you get super messy and wet.

After we got a brief run down of history and the camps mission statement and other stuff I ignored as I stared at these marvelous creatures we got to go up and feed one.

This is Aura the Elephant! She came from the circus so they're trying to break some of the habits she picked up there hence the chain around her neck. She's 8 years old knows plenty of tricks. Obviously you need to speak Thai to her in order to get anything done and this is where I learned all my Thai for the trip. But she could dance, and give you kisses which is like having an industrial vacuum cleaner suck on your face. SOOOOO COOOOOL! Fact: Elephants eat approximately 1800 kg of food a week. The average human consumes 986 kg in a year.  

The other elephants were giving rides to a group that came before us so we went up to some bleachers to learn commands and how to get up and down the elephant. Then Aura and her friends came to visit us and test what we learned. As a young man I was called upon to go first with another guy. These elephants were probably 10 feet tall where Aura was about 8 feet tall. The two ways to climb an elephant are standing on its front foot and having it lift you up so you can hoist yourself up; or have them lower there head and climb over there face. I didn't want this giant to get a toe in his eye so I hopped on his foot and lifted myself up. They can also bend down and you can climb on as a last resort. Surprisingly the rider sits on their neck, not the back. This is so you have a better control of the elephant when directing it. 

Directing an elephant is pretty easy. They give you a stick to poke the elephant which reinforces verbal instruction. You also have to kick their ears for turns and forward motion. The weirdest one is "Toi," which means reverse, and its like backing up without a rear-view and the elephants aren't exactly that good at it either. Everything else was pretty smooth on flat terrain. The only thing I would have liked to know is what the pain conversion is so I know I'm not hurting them. Although I have a feeling the stick they give you would be like getting poked with a dowel.  

Once the other group had left they brought in a few more elephants so people could get paired up and start riding through the elephant course. The two I got a back story on were both much grander looking: one was pregnant 27 year-old (don't worry, she was in the first of her eight trimesters) and a 43 year-old elephant which I got to ride. Once I found this out I tried to spend as much time as possible with this elephant so it would be comfortable with me. I gave it all my sugar cane and even put one directly in its mouth! The entire time I was just thinking how big this thing is and that I'm just a speck in the grand scheme of things. As we started the trail it started to rain in sheets making this ride a little more thrilling with every muddy and slippery step. They're really slow moving though, and constantly hungry. Each elephants trainer walked beside them and tried to stop them from walking off the path to eat the greenery. Some were not successful and it made me laugh. 

Half way through the hike the elephants went into a bathing pit and we got to wash elephants with buckets of water and play with a baby elephant. We also were given some sort of natural shampoo to shampoo our elephant's hair. When I approached the 43 year-old, she just sucked the shampoo stick right out of my hand and ate it. I got worried until the guide said, "Now that you've cleaned them you can feed it to them." Then we got out of the pool and went around one more time and jumped off under the roof where they served lunch and offered the pictures they took with the company camera. If it wasn't raining I would have been reluctant to go into the bathing pit because its just like a public pool except elephants aren't ashamed to drop deuces in a public place. That's why the water's a nice poo-brown.  

Since it rained the guide didn't take any pictures with anyone's cameras during while we were riding so I took a bunch during our warm lunch and before we got on the jeep-ni back to the guesthouse. Here are some other pictures:

They also had pigs and ducks roaming around too

The baby elephant.

Just a size comparison.

It was so much fun and just a once in a lifetime thing. I recommend if you're not petrified of large animals this is a half day event you need to go on.  

 

The border between new and old.

August 7th

Today I went for a stroll around the moat. Each side is roughly a kilometer so with checking out wats, street vendors, and some stuff on Groovy Maps I figured it would take me about two or three hours. Also I had zero cash on me so I needed to pull money out of an ATM too. (For the record though if you have a VISA card you can go to a Kasikorn Bank and take out money for a $5 fee as opposed to $6.50 from an ATM).

The outside of the city was really beautiful  and there are plenty of wats to check out on both sides of the moat. The opposite side of where I'm staying is far less tourist-y. Peddlers, mechanics, and boarded up store fronts dominate the scene. Once I got to the North side of the city it started to fill up with more clothing stores, restaurants, trip advisers and motorbikes jammed side by side along the curb. It's a very unique and beautiful city and isn't intimidating despite the illegible serif font all over the place. The pace is very good, I could totally live here, eating 40 Baht lunches and dinners along the side of the road is something you don't get in Korea.

Here are my favorite pictures from the walk.

One shot of the moat.

Part of the old city wall

Fire station

More of the city wall.

Why isn't this in America?

One of the many wats along the way.

Some statues marking a gate to a wat.

Thais love elephants.

   

The worst day of my vacation

August 6th
Coming here one thing I was really excited about was Thai food. So far it hasn't been able to stay down. Right now the culprit looks to be Tiger Beer as its the only thing I've consumed both days here. Either way I'm watching what I'm eating and carrying indigestion pills with me 24/7.
There were some really good Mexican tacos I had for dinner along with a Tiger Beer and some half-decent margaritas (they don't hold a torch to the family recipe).

I didn't have great experiences with Thais today either:

I bought two Groovy Maps at the airport, one for Chiang Mai and the other for Bangkok. These maps are really cool they list tons of groovy places to eat, shop, sleep, explore, dance, drink and relax. They also pride themselves on the facts that the maps are waterproof, can't be ripped, and don't require a battery. After playing ball hockey in Toms the night before I really felt the knots and pains in my feet and decided to get a foot massage. One place on Groovy maps, called Best Spa, was near by my guesthouse so I walked over there. It wasn't there but there was a place across the road from where the spa should have been with the same prices for everything. I figured it had run them out of business so it must be even better!

Wrong. I went in and asked for a foot massage and I got one from this middle-aged woman. She scrubbed my feet first then got into the massage. For about ten minutes we were in complete silence. Obviously coming to Thailand you hear the rumors that if you fall asleep a 200 Baht massage of any kind can turn into a 600 Baht hand-job. I thought nothing of it initially, the parlor looked clean and not the least bit shady. Until she started shoving my feet into her boobs. It seemed pretty innocent and I pretended like it wasn't happening and doing my best to avoid eye contact. It got progressively worse when she started working my legs all the way to the inner thigh (cause that's a very important part of your feet).

Somewhere before that though we talked a little and I found out this woman has been a masseuse for a measly two months. Before that she was a farmer. This made a lot of sense because after my massage I didn't feel much better and I could still feel the knots in my right foot. This was a learning experience: Don't just dip into any place for food or massages. Your inn keepers will know the best places in the city or the area for what ever you're looking to do.

The next inconvenience was getting a tuk-tuk to my friend's condo. I asked one driver if he knew where it was showing him the address on a sheet of paper. He nodded, took the paper, then went to another driver to ask something, then asked the security guard wandering around. I looked at him and asked for the paper back, he gave that universal gesture "hang on a minute" and went into the bank. He came out and said "Oh Huay Kaew" as if he had just discovered what I had written on the page handing it back to me, "150 Baht," he said. The day before I went there for 100 and I stuck to my guns said no and started to walk up the street. This dope decides to grab my arm, "OK 100 Baht," and hauls me toward his cart. At this point I don't care that he has wasted at least 10 minutes of my time figuring out where I want to go so I comply because he's the size of John Goodman and he's got a hold of my bicep.
When we got into the tuk-tuk we drove a different way than the night before and then I saw the apartment on the other side of the road and waited for him to do a U-turn. He was in the left lane for a very long time (remember left side drivers) and I was at the point of just jumping out and walking back. I didn't think that was super safe so I told him to pull over and paid him a generous 60 Baht for getting me relatively closer than I was to start with.
After arriving just before it started to rain I vented to my friend about the driver and he introduced me to the "cashew brain." Realistically Thailand is a country that rides on tourism and natural resources for income. Nothing is made here except t-shirts which you can rip in half with one hand because most don't have collars. The reason behind this is quite simply that Thais are not the sharpest tools in the shed hence the term "cashew brain".

Example: In CM there is a week long water fight in the moat surrounding the old city. As a resident you have two choices lock and load two Supersoakers and get ready to party; or stock up on food and movies and don't leave your house for a week. The idea alone of this event is stupid and the length makes it even stupider. My friend told me 30 people died in the last one. You'd think a lot of them them just got too drunk and drowned in the moat. That'd be a good assumption but the moat is 3 feet deep. Thirty people can't die in a week unless there's something missing upstairs when the only hazard is a moat three feet deep and a gradual decline into said moat. So when you go to Thailand and you encounter a problem you will need to solve it yourself, customer and tourist services are slow and or useless.

After laughing about this ridiculous event we went out to dinner with another friend from teachers college to a Mexican restaurant called Miguel's. The food was really good and so were the margaritas, they just weren't the best. Chicken nachos were good. Chicken Enchiladas were really good. Beef tacos was a little off and that triggered a literal tidal wave of stuff. We spent hours toasting to the hilarity of our year at teacher's college together. It's amazing to think we were all there in April 2012 which seems like eons ago. I'm happy so much has happened since then; that year was the beginning of my adventure into Asia and life itself. If I didn't get food poisoning it would have been a great way to end a crumby day, but that didn't happen. STAY AWAY FROM BEEF IN THAILAND. The only exception is Mike's Burgers and all commercial fast food places.
 
            

First Night In Chiang Mai: The Good and the Bad

Bad news first:

- Well I was striken with food poisoning. I think it was the spoiled food on the train. Or running myself stupid and drinking more beer than water. 

- The heat is crazy hot but its dry and there's no humidity which makes live slightly more tolerable. 

- I'm sleeping in a tent that's too small for me. Very bizarre.

Good news:

- I met my friend from teacher's college after I got settled in and went to his place. He lives in what they call a Condotel so he has the option of laundry and cleaning service for his condo. His place is beautiful and its got a balcony which is unheard of in Korea because of all those jumpers. It's hardwood floor, with queen size bed, and a stellar view; I'd move out there just to get a place like that because its peanuts in comparison to a shoe box anywhere in the GTA. We even have the same apartment number! We're kindred spirits I tell you.   

- Then we went out and played ball hockey with his buddies. There're surprisingly a lot of Finnish people here too. To make teams both fair and interesting we played Canadians vs. Finns. One guy on the other team didn't speak a word of English the whole time. I haven't sweat like that since Ultimate (three weeks until the new season!) Canada won 16-15 coming back from 5-11.

- Chiang Mai is a lot like Busan in the sense that it's aesthetically the prettiest city in the country and, as a fantastic result, has the most beautiful people too. I'd say 50% of the people were foreigners in the city of 150,000. But then again I might have been looking in all the tourist spots. Chiang Mai also has good number of post-secondary institutions, like Busan, as well. The duo that run the guesthouse I stayed in told me there are more tourists here than in Bangkok, I doubt that but they probably stay in CM a lot longer. 

Like any good vacation so far the good is trumping the bad like Michael Moore over the Bush Administration. 

First Impressions of Thailand

Just a little foreword: I've kept a journal for my travels in Thailand so these posts will be written in a day-by-day sequence.

I've realized some interesting things despite only being in Thailand for less than 24 hours:
- I didn't notice it until I looked into a car because most roads are one-way, bikes and scooter are also very common, but Thais drive on the left side of the road.
- The most modern thing in Thailand is the Airport in Bangkok. It makes everything else in this country look dilapidated. To be fair, lots of stuff is run down especially in Bangkok.
- Bathrooms are few and far between. Public ones cost money (1 or 2 Baht) to use. Better off sneaking in and out of a coffee shop. They're much nicer too.
- Toilet paper here is way softer than in the Pu Dong Airport in Shanghai. I thought about blogging about my impressions of China but it wouldn't be nice.
- There are a few Subway Restaurants in Korea, all of them are located in Seoul. When I went there one weekend it was closed when I got there (!?) so I've gone almost a year without a quality sub. That changed in the airport. I smelled something so good and I walked towards the Thai restaurant in the basement of the airport, but the smell wasn't there. It was the Subway bread next to it. I got a steak and cheese with bacon too, and black olives. Great way to start an adventure.
- Thai food is still amazing though.
- I took a sleeper train up to Chiang Mai and if you're a patient person I recommend going that route the rolling hills and mountains are gorgeous. They say it takes 14 hours but mine took 17 there and 16 back
- The fields look undisturbed but then you see a shiny new Chevy pick-up driving across them.
- Buddha's almost everywhere you go which is very different from Korea. Same goes with monks.
- All of the meals that didn't result in food poisoning were amazing and the ones that made me hug the throne were still decent.
- If you're going to get food on the train buy it the first time the waiter walks by, or else you're going to eat sun-beaten food that's a different type of warm (food poisoning occurrence number one).
- On that note stick to chicken and pork when travelling in Thailand. After looking at the cows roaming beside the train tracks there's a reason the beef is questionable (food poisoning occurrence number two.)
- I've been in Thailand for about 24 hours now and it's felt much longer. There is only one railroad going up to Chiang Mai so we have to park at stations so there aren't any collisions. These stops can take anywhere from 5 minutes to 45 minutes. In the heat of the morning it's brutal. The train goes 50km/h max, and max doesn't happen that often.

This is the first thing I saw coming into the airport.

This is a wat (temple) that is near the train Station in Bangkok.

This is an apartment complex around the Be Bo Market.

Here's a view from the train up to Chiang Mai. 

 

Sunday Sunday Sunday!!!!!! : Ansan Part 3

Just a weather update the rain came down in buckets during the night and early morning. Everything was wet by 8am and it made the morning pretty eventful laying everything out and wringing out the rest. It brought me back to the days of camping with my extended family and the unforgettable memories we share ("Did you say pass the porn!?").  

The festival holds true to the saying "save the best for last" and they certainly did. The afternoon was really solid: a bluegrass Korean band, Romantic Punch and Yellowcard.

The bluegrass Korean band was awesome. While they played we just threw the Frisbee around in ear shot and had a couple drinks. Then we floated over to Romantic Punch. I had no clue what to expect but the band was awesome. The lead singer dressed like Steven Tyler and had collagen lips like Mick Jagger. His stage persona was not Korean he acted like a party animal. The band had everything, crazy dancing lead singer, hottie on the bass, cool instrumentalists, long hair and some solid solos mixed in. Yellowcard was the last band I wanted to see in the afternoon and they played a great show. These guys rode the fame of Ocean Avenue (an album that's been out for 10 years, makes you feel old now doesn't it?) and some of the guys haven't really worked out in a while. The lead guitarist recorded the verse and chorus after playing it one time and then stepped to the side (still in plain site though) and toweled himself down. The oddest instrumentalist of my teen years, Yellowcard's electronic violinist, tried to say something in Korea but failed miserably. That tiny mistake was treated with laughs and was the only dip in their show. It was a really cool to hear songs that were around when MuchMusic played music videos before Video on Trial. After we grabbed some food we went into the evening to see some great, great shows.

Steve Vai - This guy just shreds and that's all he did. The road had aged him a little bit but he had these really silly faces while he played. Not John Mayer silly but a surprised face thinking "Wow I can't believe that worked."

FUN - This band lived on the echo from the audience and did maybe 5 "Oh Oh Oh"s in a hour set. Their album was on the plane to Korea and I listened to it twice because it's just great. Surprisingly I still knew a lot of the words to their songs and it hit me that I've been here for almost a year, the fact washed over me when they played "Carry on." The band was so, for lack of a better word, fun to watch they had an unreal amount of energy and the crowd was bumping almost as much as Skrillex. They covered the Stones "You can't always get what you want" with a horn in it and it was amazing.

Coheed and Cambria - I have to make a special shout out to Rock Band for introducing me to this band. C&C is a band I will see live every chance I get. The lead singer is such a spark plug he could play on an empty stage for an hour and you wouldn't be bored. He does runs with his guitar like a cartoon across the front of the stage and its the one guitar move I want to master now before I die. They closed with "Welcome Home" and it was so much better than the version I played with my friends. 

Foals -  I had never heard of this band and two people were in a debate about what two bands combined would exemplify the Foals. I listened to the band intently for the 75-minute set and tried to think of my own and the descriptions just sound awfully awkward (mellow Avenged Sevenfold?). They were very guitar dominant band and the sound was really clean. I enjoyed listening but like The Cure I'd just buy the album because they don't have much of a stage presence.     

NIN - The opening was amazing and so was the rest of what I saw. Our bus left at midnight so we started leaving at 11:30 to get to the meeting place. Trent Reznor has proven his music prowess to me, and his stage presence is unbelievable for such a stout little guy. The band put on a wicked rocking set. A buddy told me that when he heard about the Nine Inch Nails he thought they'd be too heavy, I said the same and then I got into Eminem. Now, standing there in the presence of 90's rock gods I felt very stupid. 

Overall this weekend is Top Ten lifetime for me. I don't know what number one would be but Ansan is really up there.  I'm going again without a doubt unless the Cure is coming back and I can rope the same core of people too along with other cool, awesome people. While we were leaving they set off some really cheap fireworks.Cheap in the sense that the casing shot everywhere too, there were pieces of singed cardboard bigger than a smart phone flying in the air. I guess that's their strategy for clearing out the crowds. There were few disappointments and loads of surprises in this little isle of paradise.

Is it July 2014 yet?   

Experiencing some Korean Rock'n'Roll ft Hungover Poetry

Thoughts so far

Sleep was good but I wish it was longer.

Max Beer's slogan here is "The climax of rich taste."

Bull shit.

At dawn the park is empty.

You see some employees and balloons floating in the sky.

The moon is still out it looks as smooth as a bingo chip.

Never mind

I think I just saw an eclipse because now it's definitely the sun.

Third glance, I'm just crazy.

I was told on a facebook feed that they don't allow aerosol cans on the premise.

I don't have bug spray or deodorant.

I'd kill for both of them right now,

And a pizza.

Saturday showcased a lot of Korean bands. Most of them were pretty good, however, one was horrible. This terrible band was PIA and they stunk. After performing a few scream-o songs they covered "Beat it." This was the point where they went belly up. There was no back-up voice in the chorus, and no crazy solo either. We left the show early.

The final 3 bands were on the same stage so we got a spot and chilled there for the first set which was a band, called NELL, that I remember nothing about except making allusions to Jodie Foster character in Nell.

The big names of the evening were Stereophonics and Skrillex. They performed back to back. It was a very interesting transition. Stereophonics was very laid back, wore a lot of leather and put on a nice show. I had never heard of them and mistook them from Stereogram which I think would have been a little bit of an upgrade. 

I'm not a techno guy or whatever Skrillex plays but being in the middle of hundreds of people dancing around you can't help but feel the music go through you, maaan. Live changing. The video accompaniment to his music was hilarious and at some points hilariously Korean. He had a great show and started the trend of the audience echoing the singer. Regardless Skirllex lit the metaphorical roof on fire that night. At the end of the performance he came out with a Korean flag around his shoulders and praised the audience. I don't know what Koreans would think of a foreigner doing this but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some uptight folk who didn't approve. The night carried on in this fancy club where all the drinks had at least one part red bull. 

Eventually the rain started pouring and we called it a night. Too bad the rain didn't follow suit.