Saturday, September 29, 2007
Left on the shelf

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One by one, my friends and people around me are getting hitched, attached, or even married. My lonesome soul stands alone, unconcerned by all that's happening around me. Contrary to popular belief, there are in fact more couples than singles around, around my life at least. Ever the sensitive person I am, there are boundless times I felt as if I'm left on the shelf like an unwanted teddy amongst hundreds of similiar ones on a display shelf in a mall. Three years or so ago I might press the panic button and seek even a temporary solution just for the sake of not wanting to be left behind and be where others are.

Nowadays, those envious feelings generated at the sight of happy couples doesn't even materialize. The thought of getting attached doesn't strikes my mind as often as before. Since the day I learnt to see the bigger pictures, I've seen light at the end of the tunnel and life no longer seem a black and white potrait without love. I haven't turned gay overnight, neither have my heart became frozen. I've just learnt how to differenate between like and love. All too often people fell in love within a short period of time thinking it's love when it wasn't. Thats where all the problems start and thats also where you pick the wrong one. There just isn't a point in rushing love because if people were to develop feelings so easily for nearly everyone they meet then those feelings probably aren't genuine. I find it pretty amusing when I read a SAF forum about a guy posting his relationship problem saying that he feels he's started to like a girl he'd only met once just because they chat and sms daily. How pure can this kind of love be? What kiind of ending is it going to be? I don't forsee anything good coming out of it. Then again I could be wrong because one should never estimate the power of love but 9 out of 10 times in such a situation, it's just like and not love.

When I'm attached, people always say: "new gf again". And when I'm single, people always ask: "where is ur gf"? When I'm attached, people say I've got lots of gfs and when I'm single people aren't having any of it. The truth is that I've been happily getting on with my life for 10 months and in these 10 months I've had some of the best days of my life. I've seen nothing and certainly nobody have been able to convince me that I should get attached. This is what makes love so special actually. Because it would take a really special person to get me to give up all that I've got and get into a relationship. If any Mary, Nancy or Jane could get me to change my mind and love them, then the 'special one' status would not worth much isn't it?

There are of course girls around me whose characters make a perfect gf but when I don't feel anything for them it doesn't makes any sense to woo them. It's like you place a million dollars in front of me asking me to kill my own family member. Much as I would love to take the money, my heart wouldn't allow any of my fingers to get near the money. If I ever remain single all my life, then so be it. Sometimes things are just predestined you've got to accept it but I also know the next time I fall for someone, it would be a very special person and for this reason alone I know I will do all I can to make sure we it would be a timeless affair.

Left on the shelf? Hardly at all, not when life's beautiful.
posted by mango at 4:01 PM 0 Bitchings
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
"We love farang"!
!Warning - lots of pictures, may take time to load!

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In the land of smiles of the city that never sleeps, we are known as farangs, which translates to foreigner in thai. As you can see from this sign hanging in a taxi, thais really love us because we bring them lots of bahts! Realistically speaking, no farangs = no bahts!

Yes I'm finally home, it seem like I've been away for quite sometime even though it's only a couple of days. Blame it on the truckloads of fun, entertainment, chaos and interesting stuffs there, I'm definitely not over with Bangkok! It's definitely been a fruitful and fun trip, to the extend that I had to drag my reluctant body onto the plane back to Singapore. There's certainly too many pictures (i finished 1GB worth of pictures, thank god I brought 2 cams there!) so I shall keep my entry short and according to roughly what we did from start to end.

First let have the 5 main casts - myself, my gay roommate alvin, owen and gf LK and sg turned bangkok boy irwan (doing his ns there..what a lucky bastard!!).

First, the journey to bangkok seem to take ages and yet somehow ironically, the return journey to Singapore seem lightning fast! Like most people, we Alvin & I couldn't resist the cheapo duty-free and yet nice boxes of cigarettes at DFS. We got ourselves a nice box of David Doff menthol lights (20 packets) for only $22! Damn it if only we could buy some of these back home......

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Wasted alot of time walking around the departure longue, cam whoring and browsing around as well before eventually boarding the flight. I don't know about other flights but the seats on Air Asia's plane is a little too upright for me at least. The flight to Bangkok took longer than it was supposed to, overshot by about 45mins....grr!

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Gucci....I love Gucci!

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That is what girls always do in toilets right? muhahaha

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Before we boarded the plane

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View from my seat

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Goodbye s'pore..

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Love this view!

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Hanky planky business!

I think there must be some thai celebrities arriving or it's just the thai way of greeting their friends/relatives arriving back but I was quite amused to come out of the arrival gates to a bunch of waving and noisy crowd on both sides of the gates, tightly guarded by security. So this is how it feels like, as a superstar! We booked a little SUV taxi to get us to Bangkok, not before being asked to take those BMW or limo taxis by those irritating touts. From the journey to our hotel I learnt and experience the crazy 'no rules' style of driving, speeding, cutting lanes and whatever u name it! I also learnt there's no need to signal or wear helmets when u ride a bike and that taxis can take up to 6 passengers at a go!! You really need alot of common sense, patience and skill to drive there without coming home with only the steering wheel!

The taxis there are all Toyota and look really cool from the outside, with wings and all sorts of stickers. Those with English speaking drivers will have a big sticker pasted with the words "I love Farang, speak English!" But most can hardly speak more than a sentence of broken English as I found out later on.

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Outside Suvarnabhumi airport

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In the taxi

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Pink taxi!

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Hotel reception counter

We spent the rest of the day shopping around the central areas nearer to our hotel before visiting the sinful Nana Plaza where the infamous gogo bars are located. From the time we stepped off the plane, we were treated with lots of hospitality and that's what I really like about Bangkok, they treat u like a king in fact! People are all generally friendly and always smiling. As cameras were strictly prohibited in Nana, I'll give a short description on this happening place and the rest is up to your imagination to visualize it out.

The stretch of road leading to Nana Plaza is filled with some bars, food stalls beggars, and freelancers (prostitutes if you don't get it). There's even an elephant! Nana Plaza is a 3 storey building where majority of the bars are gogo bars except for 1 or 2. Walk in and you will be touted by all the door bitches or bastards, trying to get u into the bar. We visited afew and this is how it works in a typical or rather popular gogo bars. The stage is usually in the center and it's filled with poles. Girls in black bikini, thongs and high heel boots will dirty dance on those poles, trying their best to catch any potential customers' eyes. Most prefer Japanese guys as they are known to be more generous and bigger spenders. Each girl will have a number tagged onto her bikini and if you fancy any, all you need to do is to get any waiter or mamasan over and tell them the number of the girl and in a few minutes she will come over and entertain you. If you intend to take her out, you will have to pay a bar fine to the bar, usually around $15 - $20 SGD and the rest, whether u're gonna screw her or mainly just for companion, is up to you to fix a price with her. Whether or not we did anything there is up to you to guess though. As for the quality of the girls, quite a couple are really hot, nothing but hot with their pan asian looks and curvy figures. Some gogo bars are katoey(ladyboy) bars though and I actually did see people going in!

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Bangkok's biggest shopping mall - MBK

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Outside Siam Square, our first stop

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Some thai movie....!

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Dinner menu...just look at the words!

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Steamboat dinner

We spent the second day visiting temples along the famous chao phraya river, doing some shopping and watching Cabaret shows (ladyboy shows). As Alvin and I didn't wanted to take up the persuasive lady's offer for a boat tour, Owen and LK went by themselves while Alvin and I had a torturous time locating the cheaper express ferry. People we ask either couldn't understand a simple word of English or will always try to persuade us to take those expensive river tours. Finally we found the express ferry and made our way to visit 2 of the most famous temples in Thailand. It's not a very comfortable journey though, Alvin huff and puff his way there, sweating buckets in the process until his entire t-shirt is all wet like he's just came back from a downpour!

We visited Wat Arun, where the tall temple, a national symbol of Thailand is located and Wat Pho, the temple of the giant reclining buddha is sits. Along the way, we met some other tourists, most notably a group of cute Korean girls which I borrowed a map from. It was really funny because Alvin and I kind of lost our way and these girls hardly understand English so this was how I asked:
"you.....map (point at their map)......borrow me (using hand sign).....10 min...ok?"

They got the message and handed me the map and soon after we happened to bumped into them again. There were also other Japanese tourists (girls) who came in pairs just like us, not a bad reward for climbing up the high, demanding and tiring temple Wat Arun. This is what I like about Japanese, you can simply smile to them and they will return you a smile and maybe even exchange a greeting or 2. Definitely no stucked up body languages or attitudes. The journey to Wat Arun was kind of an adventure, 2 guys from Singapore without a boody map trying to find a temple in a bloody foriegn land with hardly anyone able to understand much English. But it was definitely fun and a nice memory!

Also, we unfortunately experienced one of those scram gems factorys or whatever. This bloody taxi driver halfway trough the journey insist on taking us to this bloody gems factory before taking us to the river pier for just 20 bahts. I insisted on not going but we ended up there anyway. Went in and simply walk around pretending to browse, with an irritating and bad tempered sales girl following us around like a dog. When we came out after around 10minutes, the unhappy taxi driver drove us halfway before droppinig us off and we had to take another cab to our destination. Crap!

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The king's pictures are everywhere!

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Street food, a delicacy!

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Buying drinks....they still use thos old coca cola or fanta bottles!

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River express ferry

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On the way to Wat Arun

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Even old monks wear stylo shades...

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Wat Arun

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At the enterance of Wat Arun

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Its a tough job getting up those steep stairs

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And an even tougher job getting down!

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On the way to Wat Pho, Alvin almost fell for a scram. We we walking out of the Pier finding our way around when this fella came over and asked where we were going (they always ask this question). To which I replied Wat Pho and immediately he said with the aid of using his hands "wat pho....closed...no open!" From reading those 'useless' travel guides, I immediately knew it's a bluff and without wanting to offend him, I smile and say "no" before pulling Alvin along. The fella was really irritating though, kept walking with us and trying to get us to change our minds. At 1 point, Alvin said to me "hey wat pho closed leh" and on hearing this, the man kept nodding his head but I told Alvin in chinese to "just walk, don't care him". Smiling and rejecting him a second time, he turned aggressive, shouting at us asking us to "go lar go lar go die better" (i guess so as it's in thai). I smile again, walk on and eventually we reached Wat Pho but not before encounting another Tout wearing some fake tourist guide uniform giving us the same excuse that Wat Pho is closed and wanting to take us somewhere instead.

The cabaret show that night was kinda hilarious and certainly lived up to its name. At a point, one of the performers walked up to a guy in his seat, sat on him and rubbed 'her boobs' right into his face much to the laughter of the entire theater! A pity I was sitting too far away for my camera to zoom in nicely on the stage as some of the Katoeys can really put girls to shame with their really natural and elegant looks. Some can even sing like a girl without much manly voice. I regret not taking a picture with 1 of them after the show just to prove it!

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The reclining buddha @ wat pho. Its really BIG!

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Alvin trying to strike a similiar pose

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Is this a garden? Nope it's one of the posh shopping malls!

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Look at what they serve in their foodcourts! And food is delivered to us by the waiters! Nice!

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Mambo Cabaret!

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Suan Lim night bazaar...it's big with lots of stuff to buy!

I'm getting a little lazy blogging such a long entry........so I shall just summarize it all up. We spent the rest of the days shopping, clubbing, eating. I simply love the school girls there, they can actually dye their hair all sorts of colors, and wear those short tight skirts which office ladies wear. Don't even mention that some of them have big beautiful curls to go with their pan asian looks - simply HOT! Eye candies were everywhere, including the thai guys who are good looking as well even though some of them actually apply make up - lipsticks and brushers. But they ain't katoeys, I think they are probably influenced by the movie beautiful boxer.

Cheap food, beer and sprees aside, the people are very friendly and really treat you with alot of respect and provide excellent service. We went to this club called 'Hollywood' which is similiar to Dragonfly here (in fact I feel DF copied Hollywood's concept) and were treated like kings there. It's also very easy to chat up a girl, all you need to do is make eye contact, smile and maybe raise your beer bottle a little to toast her and you've broken the ice. It's nothing like Singapore where girls see guys as perverts of have disgusting motives. Everyone is friendly down there, and fellow farangs are our best friends. The common question I got asked throughout my time there was: "where are you from?"

And if you thought the weather here is hot you should try walking on the streets for just 5minutes - it's fucking hot! The traffic is terrible as well, everywhere there are jams and sometimes there isn't any traffic lights, so like I say, you need commoon sense to succeed driving there.

I couldn't finish shopping at the biggest market - Chatuchak weekend market. There were so many stalls there that I got lost eventually. They sell all sorts of things, from clothes to wares, to shoes, paintings, flowers, food, bags, and even exotic pets like snakes or lizards! The majority of the time wasted was due to bargaining with some stubborn shopkeepers.

I've had so much fun there that I'm kinda addicted to the place and as I bid farewell to Bangkok I know it won't be the last time I do so. I will be back.......soon and hopefully this year! I'm still not over it!

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Phantip Plaza - Similiar to Sim Lim

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Some thai food....green curry rox!

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Erawan Shrine - The famous 4 face buddha

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Dancers at the shrine

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Cam whoring

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Pratunam market just below my hotel

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Find this familiar?

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BTS sky train station

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MRT ticket system...wah same as spore....

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...or not! This is actually the MRT ticket! A coin shaped micro chip!

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Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket Inside the MRT or subway as they call it

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Look what's on sale! Cute puppies!

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Taking a break during shopping

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This is a tissue box I bought muhaha!

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At the farewell dinner!

Damn it can I not go to camp tml? I may be back but I left my heart there!!
posted by mango at 8:09 PM 0 Bitchings


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