CNY

I'm beginning to feel that my New Years are doomed and that travel problems are just going to be part and parcel of them in the future. It is Chinese New Year and we have yet another long weekend. You won't hear me complaining, oh no, although it would be nice if they told us more than one day in advance so that we could make proper plans and book a hotel etc, but you know, it's a school, why should they have their academic calendar prepared more than two days in advance? that's just crazy talk.

Our friends were heading off to Khao Sam Roi national park somewhere in the south. Didn't know anything about it and neither did they so we thought it would be fun to join. When they asked if I thought traffic would be bad I had a clear lapse of stupididty and said, "well, traffic is always abd in Bangkok why try and predict it?".

It wasn't until Friday morning that J reminded me the hell that was Chinese New year in Korea when a normal 30 min ride home turned into a 2 and a half hour nightmare. But, you now, there were six of us going you think one of us would have thought tha far ahead if it was going to be a problem.... mmmm.

We left school bright eyed and bushy tailed on Friday and immediately hit nauseatingly slow traffic. The greenhouse effect is awful. The air con int he car works but the sun is hitting you so hard it makes you want to puke. We had to stop off in BKK to get some things and we were an hour ahead of the other to make it to the bus station so we didn't have any worries. We even stopped off for a coffee and a snack once we got into the centre because we thought we had time to kill.

Well, not a single taxi would take us to the bus station and even tuk-tuks refused. When a tuk-tuk says no you know you are in serious doo doo. Our only option was to make it as close by public transport adn then try again for a taxi. The others were still stuck in traffic in their own taxi.

We made it to the river and tried in vain again to get a taxi. We then waited in the hugest queue ever for a boat to take us up river to get to the other side and then try and get a txi up there. Finally we were within a couple of miles from the bus station but still no taxis. The others got there and we told them to leave without us as there was no ope of us making the bus. It took us over four hours and them 3 and a half solid hours in a taxi and then there was a 5 hour bus ride ahead of them and we thought it would be best to hang out in BKK instead. We were exhausted with all that trundling around, hadn't had any dinner and were in desperate need of a beer.

We made it into Khao San road and found a nice hotel. We didn't bother shopping round too much as we just wanted to get rid of the rucksack.

We decided to check out things we hadn't seen in BKK yet. We might leave, so now is as good a time as any.

Here is the photographic evidence:

This is Wat Arun. One of the most famous Wats in Bangkok. It means temple of the dawn thus named because that is when the King showed up in BKK to turn it into the capital. It is decorated with pottery.
















Now, I've seen some signs in my time and I've ad some warnings but "don't dangle your doll" what does that mean??

















It is believed that evil spirits can only travel in straight lines. Many corridors and walkways are built in a zig zag to stop them from being able to travel.
























These monkeys also protect the temple.














Here is a classical example of life along the river in Thailand. Houses on stilts and there are always loads of clothes hanging out to dry...













Now, I have often encountered some stupid toursits, but really. They are at a national monument and not content with taking a photo of the cat they are videoing it for good measure!!!










Feel like you learned something today??

Why...

It has been a while. Apologies. Only 26 more days of teaching so the rush is on to get a solid plan into place, find a new job possibly a new country etc. Yes. yes, I know it must sound teribbly exciting to some of you but trust me, the novelty wears off after a while. If only I could just at least decide if we are going to stay here or leave then I could get into "I am leaving need to get shit done" mode or the opposite but instead we are keeping our options open so I have to think of everything from every angle. I want to make sure that the new jobs we have are as good as they can be. We made sacrifices on our priorities to be here and we resent it, we made sacrifices in Korea and we resented it. For once, I want to be 100 percent sure that the job I am doing is what we need from all possible stand points. Professional development, career advancement, adequate accomodation, local amenities, variety of lessons, schedule, school, resources, adequate pay, location the list goes on and on and on and on and on. OK you get the picture. Half the job ads don't even vaguely include any of the information we need and how do you even tell over the internet if a plce is good or not. hmmph.

Moving on before I find more questions to ask myself. My kindergarten have finally discovered my boobs. I am surprised that I got away with it for so long it has to be said. Needless to say a quick grab of the breast is not a parting gesture I am used to and don't intend getting used to, well not from my students of course. I can't seem to stop them , just when I think I have deflected one little so and so creeping in from the left another jumps up from the other side and grabs on for dear life. It's just not a good look. 4 year-olds are not supposed to be boob furniture and I'm concerned they are going to speed up the procees of gravity.

To add to their growing list of 'cute' little foybles. They now think it is hilarious to talk half English half nonsense with me:

Me: " How are you today Pattawee?"

P: " Happy Walloon"

Now correct me if I'm wrong, but I doubt he is trying to tell me what a happy little Belgian he is. I dread to think what it actually means if it has any significance in Thai. My helper (in the loosest posibble sense of the word) doesn't crease up with laughter so I think I'm fairly safe from secret abuse.

I don't know much about kids really. I learn something new every day even now, but last time I came into contact with one before I plunged headlong into teaching them, I don't recall the "why?" phase being at 9 years old. I swear my cousin hit it at about 3/4. One of my 9-year-olds is driving me round the bend. Soon the conversation in class will go like this:

AB (annoying brat) : "Teacher, why is the paper cut like this?

Me: because I'm cack-handed and try as I might I can't cut straight and who cares anyway.

AB: Teacher, why do I have to colour the picture?

Me: because I said so

AB: Teacher, why did you write that word in a different colour pen?

Me: sigh....

AB: Teacher, why can't I be on the same team as the other god English speaker?

Me: sigh....

AB: Teacher, why can't I change my team name?

Me: - huge audible kerfuffle

AB: teacher, why is there a pair of scissors in my eyes?


honestly, I just can't take it some days. There are petty children, fussy children, children who take an eternity to comlpete a sentence but this one can actually communicate! Nightmare.

Long weekend this weekend and braving 'the Thai nature'. I actually have my camera this time. So, brave yourslef for some pics.

Spinal Crack

This should come with a warning of: Don't do this at home! However, I am kind of asking you to do just that. I shall therefore do the disclaimer now and say that any injury incurred is not my fault.

I was getting my weekly Thai massage yesterday and still marvel at the woman balancing on my arse. Now I am not sure if I am just incredibly inflexible -although after this many I shouldn't be - or a weakling. Basically I need evidence that it is not just me who suffers in this particular position.

So, grab a partner and choose wisely. I passed a Thai woman weighing herself on one of those electric machines (why do people do that in public??) and I caught sight of her weight: 31.8 Kilos!! That's like 4 and a half stone! 60 pounds! So bear this in mind whilst choosing a partner, don't do it drunk and don't do it when you could end up in one of those dodgy 'oops I snogged him and didn't mean to situations now we need to have a little chat' I also don't claim responsibility for any situations arising...

Got someone? Good.

Lie on your front face down on a pillow and lie on something soft like a matress (this is typically where Thai massages take place) get you partner to stand on you thighs. I am not joking. Wrap you legs (calves) around your partner's calves. Wedge your legs in place using your toes. Comfy? You shouldn't be!

Now, the person on top leans forward and lands on your shoulders with their palms and simultaneously yanks forward and upwards your legs.

Does that hurt like hell? that's what I want to know.

They do this to me every time and by the time I have squinted round to check how she balances up there the yanking begins and I lose all sense of time and space.

Weird.

Literally Speaking

It came to my attention a while back that every time my kids saw a cat they pointed and said Miaow. This happens alot because here are several cats who hang around the school, they like to sleep outside my window so the kids are always trying to spy on them. It became so frequent that I started to wonder if it is indeed the word for cat in Thai.

Then a thread of consciousness started to weave it's way through the sharpened tones of the Thai language and I realised that the word for balloon was something along the lines of bombang - could this mean that some Thai words are onomatopaeic?

Then came this: J mentioned that when he was teaching his kids they were takling about movies that they had seen. One in particular was called Err-err. Some of you can see where this is going and for others it will take a while but I shall confirm any suspicions, the film is similar to I am Sam. Scary, isn't it?

Anyway, I could verify it all in a dictionary but conjecture is more fun. Let's face it this info seeps through children who can't really speak any English, so, it might not be accurate. tis an interesting thought anyway...

Tour of Shanghai

I realise I don't really put enough pics up, they convey more than words sometimes. Just got photoshop which helps reduce them, will then move on to the other large amount of pics I have that I haven't bothered to display.



Here we are outside the mansion down in the old part of Shanghai wearing about 9 layers of clothes. The bridge we're on is called the bridge of the nine dragon tails (or something like that - D's gonna kill me for not memorising it all properly) the idea is that evil spirits can only travel in straight lines. There are all the bends in the bridge to prevent evil spritis from entering the house. Lots of steps and different levels are there for the same purpose.



This is the house. Lots of rooms to meet and entertain guests. Lots of those cool curly roofs and stuff.










This is part of the garden. As I mentioned before, Chinese gardens consider rocks to be the main feature rather than flowers.











Here are the women making 'Shaolombai' which we tried - again this is an approximation of the real word! These are like dumplings but the Shangainese will emphatically deny that they are indeed the same as dumplings. They have pork inside and then some juice and are steamed in the basket. The trick is to suck out the juice first and then eat them - no mean feat when using chopsticks!




Here is some bamboo scaffolding which they favour in China. Apparently it is stronger than steel but certainly doesn't look it...















This is the most famous shopping street in Shanghai, full of neon and modern stuff. Was quite nice to walk down a pedestrian area for change.



















This is the bund. All the buildings on this side of the road were built to represent all the European arhitecture and they are all here. They were bank headquarters and fancy hotels, check out the flags on top.












This is on the other side of the river to the old buildings. The famous view of Shanghai with all the futuristic buildings. Apparently, Shanghai has more skyscrapers alone than all other places in the world put together!


So, there you have it, a glimpse of what we got up to...

Inbound Evil Santa

After the previous delay we thought it wise to be ahead of the game and check whether our return flight on New Year's eve wasn't delayed. Usually, this would be a simple task however, after problems contacting me before I left BKK, D had called Shanghai airport to confirm arrival of my flight and was told that without a doubt, positively that we were going to arrive in Shanghai at 11pm. In fact we left at 11pm. Poor D spent four hours in beautiful Shanghai airport with nothing to do. We approached the task with a certain amount of scepticism and it really didn't provide us with any kind of preparation for what was to come.

We thought it would be kind of cool to be in the air at midnight. Long gone are the days when I get all excited about what I'm going to do for NY, it is nigh on impossible to have all the people I want together in the same room. Will have to wait till I am a millionaire and can swing by the various countries to pick you all up in my private jet for the party of the century. But where exactly would we do NY?

Fantasy land aside, let's return to the dismal reality that was my NY. We arrived at
Pudong airport at 7pm for the 10 o'clock flight and weren't shocked to see it was delayed. In fact, thought it was positive that it was actually on the board and therefore, to all intents and purposes, existed. It was delayed until 1am. Again, noone was there at check-in so we went to the only, yes only restaurant in this huge architectural masterpiece of an airport, for an overpriced but nice dinner. We eventually checked-in at 11 and everything was closed the other side. This is normal in China. When we went to the museum it shut at 5. at 4.50 the guards chucked us out of the room we were in and promptly pulled down the iron shutters and the entire building was locked down by 4.49.

We had nothing to do but wait. And wait we did freezing our tits off at our gate. We got a gate change at some point and I tried to bed down and get some rest. Was prodded at around 12.30 by J with a rather dreary Happy NY and that was it. Then they announced that we wouldn't actually be leaving at 1am as the plane wasn't at the airport yet. We were the only people in the damn place. Felt kind of eerie. We finally started to board at around 3am. I was so happy to be on the plane.

As we took off I noticed the smell of petrol but put it to the back of my mind, was so tired and just wanted to get going that I couldn't have cared less. We had been in the air about 10 mins when the plane started to lose height rapidly. This concerned me a little more. 10 mins later the pilot was announcing that there was a technical problem and that we had to retrun to Shanghai. We were so annoyed that we weren't indeed heading back to Thailand that we didn't notice how nervous the pilot sounded.

We had an OK landing and I looked out of the window to see 20 fire engines on the runway surrounding us, complete with police etc. This is when I realised that all was not well. The feeling was intensified when the by now obviously nervous pilot informed us that we were going to be taxied to a remote part of the aiport as far away from other planes as possible. Took a while for the following to occur to me:

They wanted us as far away fom other planes so that we didn't set them on fire if we exploded. However, they weren't remotely interested in getting 400 people off a plane before it exploded!

Nice, huh?

We taxied for half an hour, during this time there was a commotion up front and the inevitable announcement came "erm is there a doctor on the plane, if so please show yourself to a member of staff". Honestly, it was like being on a tragically rudimentary air thriller. The plane was boiling because they couldn't have anthing running and we were cooped up for a while. Eventually they let us out and we were bused back to good old gate 32 with the prospect of another long wait ahead of us. No information came, none was volunteered. There were only 5 westerners in total and we were ludicrously hovering around each other to make sure we didn't get lost and could trade any precious info we had. The same man as before had another heart attack at the gate and people just stood around and stared at him and started fanning him. Eventually, an ambualnce was called and he was carted off. But it took a long time. They left him on the place until last which I am sure didn't do him any favours.

As a Dutch guy who had been living in China for ten years said, we had hit the double jackpot of misery by flying Air India in China. It was just such a stupid situation. Eventually, we were told that we would be on a Thai Air flight at 9am and had to go back through immigration (it was 6am by now, not that there was anybody at immigration anyway) to pick up our bags and then re-check them for our new flight. erm, can't you just put our bags on the other plane? and we didn't have any either! Chinese people started getting angry and there was lots of shouting. They hadn't given us anything to eat or drink. We'd been there for nearly twelve hours and tempers were running high. It all turned out ok in the end. The Thai air flight was fabulous. I have flown with them about 5 times now and every time it has been great.

It couldn't diminish our fab time in Shanghai in any way, though. I just won't fly air India again. Still, this comes in second to four days stuck on a bus in the Ecuadorian jungle, so it wasn't that bad. I think J still gets stunned that when things like this happen I am the one who is calm and not particularly bothered and he gets angry. I just get irate at the little things.

Can also guarantee that everybody else's NY was far better than mine. So, looking forward to hearing all about it. Let's just hope that wasn't a sign of things to come for me this year...

Outbound Bad Santa

Just when you think that you've got all your bases covered and you are gazing at the bright blue sky, you stick your foot in a pothole and break your ankle...just like CZ in winter.

Well, some things were rather like that, it has to be said.

I've decided to split this into two parts for sanity purposes, but I doubt it will make it more bite-sized.

I literally hurled myself out of bed on the 27th with HUGE anticipation of heading to Shanghai, seeing D and getting some cold air in my lungs. Being me, I had packed the night before and had cleaned the place (I hate getting back from hols to a mess don't you?) and don't worry I'm not turning into some neurotic old coot, packing only involved stuffing the few vaguely wintery clothes I had into my trusty-just large enough to carry everything I need for a few weeks but just small enough to pass as hand luggage-rucksack. You just know I've got it down to fine art nowadays. Some people, not mentioning any names, still seem to leave it until the last minute and always forget their toothbrush.

Excuse me one moment, I shall just remove the pole from my arse...ahhh that's much better.

Where was I? ah yes, hurling. I peeked out from the balcony to check the traffic status and everything seemed normal for a Tuesday morning. Had to be at the airport around one so I thought that leaving at 10.30 am for what should be an hour-ish journey using two taxis and the BTS (skytrain) should suffice. Two hours later we were still in the first taxi ride and I was getting predictably distraught(it took us half an hour to drive over a bridge!). The taxi driver, clearly sensing one of my most evil looks boring through his head-rest turned to me and asked if we wanted to take one of the little side roads as 'it could be faster'. Now, I said yes completely fogetting that short cuts to Thai taxi drivers mean taking an elaborate route through 'back streets' and even hospital car parks in areas I'm sure should be for ambulances only. Short cut really means anything but short and is rarely scenic. Half an hour later and feeling rather sea sick from all the twists and turns we arrived at the BTS and I noticed that the main road was still chokka. Slightly harrassed and crestfallen that we weren't going to be able to have the leisurely western lunch in BKK that we had planned we headed on to the Airport.

We eventually arrived and our flight was not on the departures board. Nothing. Zip. Nada, no matter how hard I stared. Horrendous visions of it being an utterly bogus flight and I'd handed over my money on some sort of scam flew through my mind. We went to the check-in section for Air India and there wasn't anybody there, not even a soupcon of activity suggesting a flight even existed. Someone directed us to the Air India desk. It was closed. Boarded up with newspaper in fact. I was getting fidgety it has to be said, I'd started swearing a while back.

Good old airport information, we'll try them.
-'Air India? flight AI348? my computer says it leaves here at 9pm.'
- What the bollocks to buggery are you talking about woman? write it down! Write it down! I need it in writing, it can't be right.
It was wrong, actually we didn't take off until 11.10pm. When were we supposed to leave I here you ask? 3pm. And the thing is in Thailand they never seem to care about these things. It is weird and in fact noone else appeared to be there when we were for the same flight. I don't get it. Most people tavel to China on group tours so I presume they had the luxury of being warned about the delay.

The only option was to zoom back into BKK - the prospect of spending 7 hours at the airport is never pleasant, couldn't even check-in to get to the departures lounge anyway. We contacted D to break the bad news that we were going to land around 3am and bimbled about a brand new mall they opened (in between two other huge malls) in BKK. This one, features only shops along the lines of Gucci and Armani - there were thousands of people in there none of whom had any shopping bags - and poncey restaurants, western stuff, a Gourmet supermarket akin to Harrods and lots and lots of fake plant decor, waterfalls and ponds containing the ubiquitous koi.

We returned to the aiport to discover our flight finally on the board with a discreetly flashing delay sign next to it. We finally left at 11.10pm and I was rather disgruntled that they insisted on checking my boarding pass upon entering the gate, in the tunnel on the way to the plane and upon boarding - would anyone in their right mind hang around for 9 hours just to stowaway or have waited 9 hours to discover it is the wrong flight? I think not.

I had been looking forward to the flight hoping the food would be of Indian orientation, predictably, it was not to be. However, I found the hostesses to be lovely and the flight went without a hitch. Obviously, I thought cabin pressure had done something really funny to my ears when she came round with the drinks, and when I said I'd like a beer she replied: "shall I just give you four?" I made her repeat this just to check I wasn't going mad and she just plonked four Kingfishers on my table and more than the recommended amount of nuts. Of course, the first thing I did was look around to check if anyone else was getting special treatment, nope just us. This went a long way to improving this part of the journey.

But the worst was yet to come...

Good Santa

Happy New Year everybody.

As most of you are quite aware by now, nothing I plan ever goes without a hitch. I have a feeling that oppression haunts people. The tentacles of oppression that once stung the Welsh stretch throughout history and sting you on the backside when you least expect it. This can range from a simple slip on the bathroom rug in the morning that ruins your day not to mention the embarrassment factor to the bank cancelling your card without warning whilst you are abroad thus leaving you stranded and penniless.

Yep, there is a big one coming but I decided that today I shall concentrate on the good stuff and then go sharpen my tongue for a couple of days and get to work on describing the cloud that eclipsed my silver lining.

So, there was an office Christmas party. The photo says it all.

Anyway, Christmas was good. Spent it at home, took me 3 hours to cook the dinner in our shoe-box of a toaster oven. Got some cool presents as always and relaxed, watched movies and sipped on mimosas as I started to get to grips with my new Harry Potter PS2 game. Sad but true.

Here comes the cool bit:
On the 27th we set off for Shanghai to see David. It's been two years since he braved Korea to come and see me. Time really does fly. As always though, makes no big difference whether you saw your best friends 20 mins or 20 years ago is the same.

We arrived late, in fact at 3am which was not particularly convenient. But, we just leaped in a taxi after fighting off the drivers that try really hard to squeeze money out of you. Is similar to Thailand however the Chinese have less sense of personal space so have no problems grabbing onto you in the process. Gets a bit annoying for normal people, makes me spit out obscenities at a rate that would make Twista proud.

I had heard bad things about China before I went. People moaning about the state of the bogs and the food being greasy and the people not so nice but I was very impressed. the fist day we bimbled around the old area. Although there isn't much left as they are trying to destroy all of it to make way for more skyscrapers. We saw most of it as David's sense of direction has not improved in the last two years. It was cold but we loved it. It was so great to wander round without breaking into a sweat. My feet were rather disgruntled at being trapped in shoes and socks - haven't worn anything but sandals in 8 months. We saw an old Chinese mansion and the gardens attached which were really cool. Chinese gardens are more focussed on the rocks than the flowers.

In the evening we went for some Chinese hot pot. This is a huge pot of boiling broth that you chuck stuff into and let it cook and fish it back out again and eat it. Great for winter. Lucky to have D there as the English menu left a lot to be desired. No real food names more strange descriptions like "leaping lion" "good luck pigeon" and that kind of thing. Not that Chinese names themselves are any better apparently.



We also got to see the futuristic side of Shanghai and the museum which was really cool. It took an hour to change money in the bank because they weren't familiar with Thai baht but can't complain, when I tried to change GBP (that's real British pounds) in Alabama they wouldn't and wanted to photocopy the notes, fax the copies to Florida to confirm they were indeed real and then call us when they were ready to change it. Because clearly you can tell if a note is counterfeit just by looking at a photocopy of it. Nuff said.

It was really intersting learning about chinese culture and history. The sex shops were weird, digressing a little but whatever. They look more like Chemists, tend to have glass windows and old women running them wearing white coats. A little intimidating. I was most puzzled by an aparatus I hadn't seen before. Namely a doll like thing - miniature - designed to be used under water for 'relief'. I just dont see the point. Any suggestions? OK, dipped my toe in the sewer, moving on.

Real Peking duck was cool. I also realised how much I had missed the communist attention to detail and service. It was great that they placed your food on the table and then hurled the chopsticks at you. Nice and friendly.

Of course, it all wasn't as clean as all that. Spitting is part of the culture, they can make as much noise as they want doing it. Kind of gross but you are at fault if you draw attention to the belching or farting. Got a cool jacket. I wasn't equipped for the cold so I needed one. The Chinese take bartering to new heights. D laid on the thick sob story that we were poor English teachers in Thailand not rich westerners. Things like that. Got a good price. Bought couple of watches, one of which we had to return as the hand fell off - oops. Got some cool Mao propaganda posters. A good haul really.

Lots more to say but am in the middle of cooking. Maybe you should ask your own questions and give me a direction to head in. Hint hint. Is a web page, let's be interactive etc.