20100726 - Hong Kong

I feel that while there are many cities in the world that hold universal appeal, there are only 5 major ones that are set in a marine environment with stark contrasting mountains, a positive, energetic environment, great food and tons to do. San Francisco, Vancouver, Cape Town, Rio and Hong Kong.

A 2 hour 45 minute flight from Bangkok, Hong Kong is accessible (if only in distance). Hong Kong has tons to offer, from great food (dimsum), shopping (the malls are out of control) and sights (Victoria Peak, Kowloon, etc.). What a lot of people don't realize is that Hong Kong has some amazing natural sights as well, with great mountain biking and hiking trails just a short trip away on several outlying islands.

our whole point of going was to visit good friends who were passing through asia, but had just passed through bangkok last year. it was great catching up with sarah and Erik, and i'm sure that they will have a blast in indonesia and singapore (the rest of their trip).

as we had less than 72 hours, we decided to focus mainly on the food and alcohol part, with great dim sum trips to Maxim Palace at city hall and the mandarin in Kowloon. We also splurged (as if $70 USD set lunch at the mandarin isn't "splurging" enough) at Bo innovation - a molecular chinese influenced restaurant that was absolutely amazing. We also hit all sorts of crazy bars, most of which i really can't remember the name, but do remember the $20 USD cocktails.

the city retains a distinct english feel, complete with people with bad teeth, crappy little roads, where people insist on driving on the wrong side. also of note are the double decker street cars - which i find amazing! speaking of which, as a whole, the public transport is very comprehensive, even including over a kilometer of a moving escalator, although in general, it's a little more tired than bangkok's BTS and MRT.

i did my part for the economy, splashing out on some cole haans (although, $200 shoes really isn't splashing out in hong kong), and was mildly amused when i found out that they were made in India!

All in all, I think that Hong Kong is a great city to splash out in for 48 hours (a little like Las Vegas, but way cooler), which is why I would rank it 5th out of the 5 cities listed above.

20100720 - Work (a 1-year anniversary post)

Today is my 1-year anniversary working for the US Department of State. it's been a very rewarding 1st year, having met a lot of folks and learned a lot about how an embassy functions. it's also been challenging, with different obstacles than in the private sector. it's been a year of starting over, coming from a career where i could make decisions without going through layers of red-tape to a culture of "full accountability to the tax payer". i'm not making a statement on which system is better, but it's been a challenge adjusting to a different system.

i'm looking forward to year 2 - spent wholly working within Thailand!!!

20100715 - home sick

I'm not one who gets sick often, but when I do, i'm a big baby.

this particular cold started a few days ago, and i've been very good at getting plenty of water and supplements to fight it off.

my guess is that the stress of work, the air pollution, the odd sleep patterns (world cup games were at 130am here in bangkok), and the lack of actual nutrition in thai food caught up with me. plus, at 33, my immune system isn't as strong. anyway, i'm home, trying to log into the rather crappy citrix environment at the state department (with no luck so far). i should take it easy, but my mind doesn't agree with my body.

wow - that was a boring post.

20100714 - Night Golf

"Golf is a Good Walk Spoiled" - Mark Twain.

I like golf. Having picked it up in Junior High, and having the body type for it (I'm white, therefore I golf), oops, I mean; tall, lanky, long arms, I have a naturally decent swing. This is the opposite of my basketball game, which is horrible. Anyway, this isn't about basketball.

Golf in Thailand is great. It's culturally acceptable to play, the Thais love golf (Tiger is half-Thai), and the grass grows really well here. The Thais also don't let something like the sun get in the way of having enough light to be able to see the ball. Quite a few golf courses in Bangkok are lit at night, so you can get in 18 after work.

My friend Bhishma introduced me to Summit Windmill, which is in Bang-Na Trat, 20 km East of my house (a 200 baht ($6 USD) taxi ride). The course is well maintained (although the greens are not to my liking), and it's a pretty challenging course (143 slope, I think).

Usually I can get in 9 holes in the light, and it starts to get dark at the turn. The course "marshalls" are Thai, so they don't really monitor the flow well, and the back 9 usually gets backed up.

Caddies: From what i've been told, the caddies (all Thai women) are available for a "19th hole", but in my experience, it's very easy to avoid this altogether. they are nice enough and they know the greens very well, even though they don't actually play golf! i find that a lot of "businessmen" from Korea or Japan are more interested in flirting with the caddies than playing golf. this is likely why these countries tend not to have many players on the PGA, and probably why the "19th hole" discussion comes up quite a bit.

at any rate, Night Golf is fun, and playing at night, you avoid the blazing heat of the day, even though it's still well above 90F at night, and the mosquitos are an issues.

20100711 - Singapore

Short version: I find Singapore to be a wierd combination of Las Vegas, Los Angeles... and a maximum security prison.

Longer version: Having only visited Singapore once (in 2003), I had found the city to be a bit distant, as if I was missing something, or the entire population was away during my time spent there. 7 years on, there was a little more development, but the same sameness still blanketed the City-state.

To be fair, I wasn't there to be a tourist. There is NOTHING that Singapore has (that I'm interested in) that is more appealing that Thailand. I was there to see my cousin Marcus. Freshly graduated, and taking his first tour of Asia, I really wanted to catch up, hear about his studies, his plans for the future, and his impressions of Singapore and Hong Kong.

A little rewind: I had the pleasure of watching Marcus grow up, I helped coach him in soccer, skied with him (he's since switched to boarding), and I very much liked spending time with the Dufort family during my studies at Santa Clara University. I'd frequently just show up on my bicycle and check in.

At any rate, Marcus is now an adult, an engineering grad who is looking forward to more studies and changing the world. A fresh perspective is always wonderful to hear, and catching up with Marcus was great.

We explored Sentosa Island (an all-inclusive resort, a mini-Singapore within Singapore), complete with Universal Studios, Golf Courses, a fake 5-foot wave machine, street luge, and every possible other attraction to extract money from you. We took this extremely cheesy photo in front of an imported sand beach. Marcus wasn't looking at the camera because he was focused on a few co-eds who were in a bubble bath hot tub (on the beach, of course).

Besides catching up, Corina and I hit all the food places to eat (Little India, Chinatown, Orchard Road, Clarke Quay, etc., etc.). We also spent a lot of time at the Botanical gardens, and that was hands-down the best site we went to. Corina took about 400 pictures of Orchids, and we're not normally Botanical Garden fans. I also got in a great run through here on Sunday morning! Regardless of what type of travel you are into, I would recommend the gardens to just about anyone.

I get the impression that Singapore would be a great place to raise a family-in-bubble, or to press your luck with your Diplomatic immunity (I would be a gum chewer), or even better - a journalist. There would be nothing more challenging that trying to be a journalist in a city that even edits Hollywood DVDs for content.

All said, I think that I will be back to Singapore, because it would be the PERFECT place to recover from a hardship post (like Dili, East Timor, or Jakarta, Indonesia - both places I wouldn't mind being posted).

20100706 - Chiang Mai Weekend

Corina and I spent the weekend in Chiang Mai... which you could probably deduce from the title. Anyway - Chiang Mai is a a super chill place to go to. It's more laid back than Bangkok, and from a vegetarian perspective, it's WAY better than Bangkok. It also has cooler weather, mountain biking, hiking, rock climbing... so basically - it's way better than bangkok.

we got a GREAT deal at the Chedi Hotel, and if you can get the same deal, stay there. It's hands-down the best in Chiang Mai, and probably one of the nicest in Thailand. This made our stay quite nice.

We did the usual temple-spotting, but being neither buddhist nor really caring about this crap, we went mountain biking. I'd recommend the mountain biking, but if you can - bring your own bike and arrange your own transport up the hill. Chiang Mai Mountain Biking was expensive (1550 baht) and they were just way too lax with timing for our preferences. for example, we started about an hour+ late, and "lunch" was then about 4pm. corina also got stung by huge wasps, so that wasn't cool either. the guide was a decent biker, but knew nothing about what we were bking through (what crops were being planted, what the flora or fauna were, etc.). if you're a dirty hippie backpacker, or some faux-adrenaline junkie, then it would be fine, but if you're there for real, then find a different way. anyway - we also got in a good session at the bouldering wall.

one side note - i picked up 2 kilos of chiang mai pork skins for my staff in bangkok. that part was cool, since i got to practice my thai, and it was fun to buy stuff in the local market, where there were no farang. carrying smelly pork skins through the airport like all the other Thai people was cool, too.

20100702 - Elevator Hell

Being trapped in an elevator is never very fun. I got to spend 35 minutes in my building elevator today. i was heading into work, roughly 640am and the elevator came to an amazingly fast stop. i thought that i was on the ground floor, but then the elevator bounced up and down a few times. while a little rattled, i tried to keep my cool (as best as one can in a non-air conditioned elevator in Bangkok). first i tried ringing the alarm bell, which was ignored. then i just kept pushing it. this finally got the attention of the building staff. a voice over the intercom "hello?"

"hello - i am trapped in the elevator"

"hello?"

"help me (chuay duay in thai) i'm trapped in the elevator)"

"okay okay". click.

so, from my experience with thai people, this either meant that she wasn't doing a damn thing, or she was on it. in either case, i wanted a second opinion. i decided to try to use the call button. as soon as i pressed it, it broke into 3 pieces. i could tell that it was never hooked into anything in the first place. as i had my blackberry, i called my office to explain the situation, then they called the building management to reconfirm. 10 minutes later, while the rather incompetent building staff had to locate where exactly i was trapped, i tried calling corina, but the reception was pretty bad. 5 minutes later, i heard knocking on the elevator doors. i knocked back. then more knocking. i reciprocated. fun. like a game. except i'm in a damn elevator shaft!

another ten sweaty minutes go by and finally the doors are pried apart. while the story should end here, it doesn't. i was staring at 3 feet of concrete, with 10 inches below me to the 7th floor and 30+ inches above me to the 8th floor.

all smiles from the two maintenance workers.

no smiles from me.

they didn't come with an elevator jam, so if i crawl out and the elevator moves, i die. realizing that my thai isn't good enough to say "elevator jam" and they are too incompetent to know what that is anyway, i toss my bags up to the 8th floor, and then proceed to put myself into a pretty tight climbing position, toe jamming on one side of the shaft, and lifting with my opposite arm on the other. Probably a V3 bouldering move.

I get out, sweaty, dirty and pissed off. they are all smiles and try to escort me down to the front door so i can go on my merry way, but i decided that i need a shower, a change of clothes and a change of attitude.