Thailand - Part 1

So it's taking me awhile to post the last 2 blogs. Read on to see the travels that ended up to me living in Thailand.

So I officially live in Bangkok, in sick house with 2 roommates, one from Australia and the other Canada. We live about 20 minutes walking to University and we have the option to take a boat taxi for 10cents across the river, or for a $1 a moped taxi ride (You might die taking one of those). Either way when you get to the University of Thammasat it has a feeling like highschool, but I like it alot (even despite the fact we wear uniforms) The classes are small and the teachers expect everyone to arrive late (usually 15 min) so it's no prob to take your time. The cafeteria is my fav. part, for 25 baht (about 75 cents) you can get a huge plate of food.

My impressions of Bangkok:
Massive city, about 10 million, loud, smelly, wild dogs everywhere, food vendors on every block, polluted, littered, but yet BEAUTIFUL and I love it here. I knew before coming here that I wasn't going to fall in love with Bangkok, but it's the poeple here that really make it special. I'm learning to speak Thai at the University (I've caught on pretty fast) and it's awesome to apply it outside of school. This place is absolutely like nothing I've ever seen before and the fact that I will be here open ended (anywhere from 6 - 8 months....possibly a year) makes me love it even more.

I've already made alot of close friends who are also here on exchange and we got the chance to travel together for the first time this weekend.

I've only been here a week, and if the rest of my time is like this I can't wait.

Here are some of my first pictures of my new home...Thailand. For my first weekend Thammasat Uni sponsored a trip to Duisit Resort in Hui Hin, which is about 3 hours south of Bangkok. We had some "team building" activities. I had an awesome room with a sick view and some of the best meals of my life.

After Hui Hin the school took most of the kids back to Bangkok but a few of us brave (half crazy/stupid) guys decided to rent mopeds and drive a good 70 miles south to another town. A few things about driving mopeds in Thailand....First, you drive on the opposite side of the road completely to the left on the shoulder, which doesn't really matter because there is a constant flow of other poeple driving towards you. Secondly it's CRAZY but totally worth it. I'm only going to scooter around Thailand anytime that I travel.

The place we got to was very nice, every hostel on this trip was $6 a night, the mopeds were $6 for 24 hours. We woke up early one morning and hiked to the top of monkey mountain (not really called that)

Check out the vids of my pad, pool, monkeys, and of course my favorite, 'HOW TO FLUSH A TOILET IN THAILAND"

Enjoy


My pool...life is rough



My Pad


The Duisit Resort



FAVORITE MOVIE!!!!



Monkeys!!


Top of the Monkey Mountain

Flying to Thailand

Sounds simple right? buy the ticket, get on the plane, land in Bangkok. So my original flight plans were to leave Las Vegas Thursday morning at 11am and arrive in Bangkok Friday night at midnight. I get to the airport and almost lost my mind to the “Ding” “Ding” “Ding” and loud noises from the Casino/Las Vegas Airport. My first flight was supposed to connect in San Fran then continue onto Beijing, China and finally land in Bangkok. Turns out San Fran had some really bad weather and my flight to San Fran was 2 hours late taking off. After I landed at San Fran I checked my next flight schedule and I completely missed it….why not? (that’s always a good way to start an around the world trip) So after going to the ticket counter I found out that since the delay was weather related the airline didn’t comp any hotel or anything which sucked because I had to wait 24 hours for my next flight. Luckily I have a good friend, Jessica, who was with me in Vegas and flew into San Fran that same day. After a couple of phone calls later I was on the BART to Oakland for the night. It actually worked out though, I got to spend a night in San Fran (unexpectedly) and was rested up for the 12 hour flight the next morning. The weather never improved in San Francisco, I think it actually got worse. I finally made it to the airport (for the second time) and checked into my international flight,,,,,,,,DELAYED AGAIN!!!! I honestly didn’t expect any different the way this trip has been going so far. 12 hours later I arrived in Beijing, China.

A few words about Beijing. They won the bid for the Olympics so the city is stoked on it and there is massive construction everywhere, but the air there is horrible. Everywhere you look are signs for the upcoming games but it’s gotta be the most polluted place I’ve ever seen, when I landed I thought there was a forest fire or something it was so smoky outside.

Being delayed again from San Fran I had another good feeling that I would be spending the night at another layover…and it happened.

So there I am standing at the Air China counter with about 6 other stranded passengers being told that we missed the last flight to Bangkok and we have to spend the night in China. I never thought that I was going to stay in China, but hey I’m here why not? Since none of us stranded passengers spoke Chinese it was an adventure. The staff took a liking to me and for some reason would only speak to me and put me in charge of the group, whenever they wanted us to do something they would tell me and I would lead the others. We walked around the airport, which smells like smoke and completely abandoned at 8 at night. Then the woman asked all of us for our passports and boarding passes and took off. Rule of thumb when traveling “Don’t let go of your passport”

The 7 of us our sitting down on a bench wondering where our passports went, introducing ourselves and telling stories how we have all missed our flights when an official looking man comes up and asks us for our passports….well didn’t have them. Needless to say he didn’t have the best “bedside manner” and his response was “OH MY GOD” yeah he could barely understand us and vice/versa. It ended up working out though the lady came back with our new flight assignments….1:30pm the next day!! Not cool, all I could think about was where the hell am I going to sleep in this airport and why is it taking so long to get to Thailand? I shouldn’t be this hard.

Props to Air China though. I felt like a diplomat or something, we were all escorted to the baggage claim found our bags then informed that we are being taken to a hotel in Beijing for the night for free. Outside of the airport Beijing is freezing cold, smoky as hell and completely foreign. It was a lot of fun though. China Air hooked us up at a nice hotel called Landmark and gave us a free dinner at a restaurant next the hotel.



About the group of people I’m traveling with right now. There are four of us on the same flight to Bangkok, 2 of them are named Eric and the other Erica, and then me. One of they guys Eric lives in Bangkok and teaches English to Thai students. Since we all stayed at the same hotel we thought it’d be cool to wake up at 5am and check out Beijing. So 5am this morning we split a taxi to the “Forbidden City” which is some ancient square with some cool buildings and where the Mao’s body is preserved. We get there before the sun even came up, freezing cold, walking around and not knowing what the hell we are looking at, just stoked to be in Beijing, China. Walking around the city and all of the sights we got harassed constantly by street venders trying to sell us useless watches, crap, and all of the Beijing 08 Olympic clothing you could ever want. The highlight of the city was seeing the raising of the flag, which was literally that, but amidst hundreds of camera hungery Chinese people. The taxi back to the hotel was cool, we got to see a lot of the modern city, which surprisingly is very clean, just extremely polluted. Since we got back to the hotel so early we got hooked up again with a free breakfast sponsored by China Air. The funny thing about it though is that the restaurant is use to people being delayed on flights and they have a special menu with A B & C options to choose from. Except the title of the menu was “Fright Delay” not “Flight” every time I look at that picture I laugh. It’s common to pronounce “l’s” as “R’s” I was reading a magazine add for a car which is “Gramorous every time” hahaha

I still can’t believe that I spent today in Beijing, I am 3 days late to Bangkok, school starts tomorrow and again I’m starting another semester homeless, just this time it’s in another country.

I’m on the plane right now, about 3 hours out of Bangkok with my new friends who I feel like I’ve known for along time. Even though I’ve missed every single flight that I was supposed to make everything has worked out for the good including a free stay and tour of Beijing. I can now say I have been to China.

Check out these vids of China. One is driving in a taxi and viewing Beijing, the other is the raising of flag ceremony in the Forbidden City.

Las Vegas

Las Vegas
To start off I spent about a week in Las Vegas with my brother and some friends to watch the UFC 79 fight and spend New Years.

I’ve never been there before and I’m still not sure what to think about the place. First of all we stayed at the Stratosphere which isn’t the nicest spot on the strip and we crammed 6 people into a room…good thing we only had to sleep there. For those who don’t know about the Stratosphere it’s a gigantic tower about 110 stories above the strip with three thrill rides on top. A s soon as we landed in Vegas we were “Ballin” well almost. After taking a limo to our hotel (one of many limousine rides of the weekend) we bought these wrist bands for $40 for a club at the casino that were supposed to be for all you can drink…Well after a couple of drinks later we decided to head to the top of the Stratosphere and check out…Turns out in order to get to the top you’re supposed to purchase separate tickets for the elevator ride and then for the rides. Being our crew we passed through all the lines and just kept saying “But we have the wrist bands” these wrist bands had no correlation to the stratosphere but we went with it. Our first ride was the Big Shot…109 stories about the strip, 40 MPH straight up into the air. This is also the tallest thrill world. (check out the stratosphere link to see some pictures of these rides) Shortly after I rode the roller coaster which teeter totters over the edge a couple times….prob one of the dumbest ideas ever for a ride, but a lot of fun. And of course I couldn’t pass up the final ride for free with no lines since “We have the wrist bands” which literally hangs over the edge and spins out of control. All of this was FREE thanks to the wrist band (I didn’t take it off until my last day).
This was the view and our reactions from the first ride.

The rest of the trip was good times, the UFC fight was badass and I can’t wait to go to another one. Check out the video of St.Pierre winning. New Years on the strip was also a bit insane and I would highly recommend Vegas for New Years, just bring a coat because it gets down to 30 degrees at night.

But after 6 days of Vegas, a sweat at the MGM and a Cirque DuSulea show I was ready to start my trip to Thailand (or so I thought)