Thursday, 19 February 2009

Thailand #3 - Singapore and Kata house

First up, I shipped the pool tourney at the Swedish sports bar! Get in! Won every game in my group, then beat a tough Danish dude in an epic (semi-drunk) final. Ship the baht! Epic 6-way game of killer later too with some great gambling rules, will definitely be playing that back home! Guys that own the bar are complete legends. Night got a bit hazy after that, we hit up some bars and ended up heading back with some ladies... I thought Craig did the same, but when I woke up I noticed this message on my laptop...

Craig says:
r u actually grinding?
Craig says:
thats what i thought
Craig says:
good
Craig says:
anyways
Craig says:
dude.. i know... im a dick
Craig says:
i went to patong tonight
Craig says:
got in at 7am and just got back from a run/swim
Craig says:
anyways need some sleepys so get brekky without me
Craig says:
will call u/msn u when im about
Craig says:
:D
Craig says:
oh yeh, make sure im awake by 1.30.. ill explain later x

The full story was after we split around 3am (all completely wasted) was that he met up with some random old bloke and they drove out to Patong and ate a bunch of Oysters, lol wtf? Anyways, they got back real late and Craig decided it was a good plan to go swim some lengths in the sea while drunk. Surprisingly the plan worked out in his favour as he ended up meeting a real nice girl from Singapore that was co-incidentally headed there at the same time as us!

Singapore
We headed to Singapore to check it out and also to visa run. Without a proper Thai tourist or work visa you need to go out of the country then back in every 30 days. Still deciding where to go next month, probably do Malaysia or Cambodia. The morning of the flight we managed to sleep in, rush packing, then got a Tuk Tuk to the airport, which turned out to be like 1 hour away. The driver did an awesome job of completely flooring it the whole way, weaving in and out of traffic and doing a bunch of crazy undercutting shit, was pretty insane. After 5 mins I decided it best to look out the back instead of where he was driving, much less stressful :)

Arrived way behind schedule to the airport, but thankful to be alive after the TukTuk ride. There were massive queues out front and we thought we were fucked for sure, but went up to ask where our airline's gate was and they ended up opening a new door right in front of us. We skipped a 45min queue that would have missed us the flight! We checked in, then went and ate breakfast at BK completely forgetting that we still had to go through passport control :S Long story short, there was a massive queue, we ended up queue jumping a bunch, and sprinted though to the terminal to make the flight 5 mins before they closed the doors!

First impressions of Singapore were that it's VERY quiet! On the tube people even when it was busy and a lot of people were chatting they still talk really quietly so there's not much noise or hustle/bustle at all, a little strange but very calming compared to Thailand. There weren't many white people in Singapore at all, unlike Thailand where there are a lot of European tourists. The island was made up of mainly chinese/singaporeans, some Thais and some Indians. Each of which were pretty different, the chinese were very quiet and passive, the Thai's were a little louder and more forward and the Indians were very starey and kind of rude most of the time really.

Singapore women
The girls in Singapore are probably the most beautiful I've seen anywhere in the world. Walking through the streets we were constantly stunned by drop dead gorgeous girls. I can't stress how amazing it was, I'd never seen anything like it there were just SO many absolutely stunning women. They all have such gorgeous tight bodies, soft skin and fantastic hair and dress sense. On top of that they're very quiet and bashful but often playful and very affectionate. Soooo cute. At the start of the trip I didn't have that much of a thing for asian girls but now I do for sure!! I'd compare some of them to girls like Eva Longaria, really slim/petite with perfect skin and asian, obviously. Even when ageing through 30s the girls are still drop dead gorgeous. Anyways...

First night
On the night we arrived we went out to a couple of bars then a Valentines party at a club called Howl At The Moon on the awesome Orchid Road with Craig's US/Singaporean friend Michelle and some of her cousins. Place was pretty cool, was a duelling pianos bar kind of like the one in Vegas where u could request music, hearing The Proclaimers - 500 Miles in Singapore was pretty awesome ;D The price of the drinks in Singapore is completely insane, a shot of Sambuca was 15$SD, roughly £7 and a bottle of Tiger was like £6. Singapore is insanely expensive to drink in (shot Sambuca £7, bottle of Tiger £6), this was unfortunate for us as we ended up getting busto'ing our Singapore Dollars getting completely trashed and dancing around like monkeys. But good times had by all... drinking, dancing and chatting up of ladies!

Next day
...we mainly chilled out I think. Hit up a great food hall for lunch. Loads of different types of foods to pick from, all looked amazing, tonnes of fresh fruit. Kind of seemed like a dinner hall, lots of different people dining together a big long tables, nice atmosphere. Dim Sum ftw. Had some ice-cream sandwiches later too, different flavours of ice cream wrapped in kind of sweet bread... pretty awesome.

We then went for a look around the city and a few beers in the evening. Harbourside is stunning, we had a few beers by the water there, very romantic :P Then we ended up walking to the Singapore Flyer, a big wheel similar to the London Eye... it's biggest/tallest observation wheel in the world. We went on that and looked over the city and night, pretty beautiful, although I was shitting myself half of the way through! Things lasted 30 fucking minutes too, I was sweating more in there than I was outside in the heat!!

Last day
Andy and I took the MRT to Singapore Zoo. It was forecast to rain heavily but we figured it probably wouldn't be too bad. As soon as we arrive and massive thunder/lightening storm and torrential rain begins lol. Decided to go for it anyways rocking baller $3 poncho's and braving the storm to check out the animals and get completely soaked. Was still a lot of fun, unfortunately we didn't get to ride any elephants as that was shut off due to the weather though... doh! But we got a bunch of cool photos.

Oh yea, Singapore pics here.

Headed out later with Michelle to see a few places. First up a great eating place with loads of cool Asian foods which we sampled. Girl cracked us open fresh coconuts and drank from them with a straw, awesome. Noodles, BBQ'd satay skewers, and some ridiculously awesome deserts that I can't remember the name of. One involved toast and this amazing coconut custard, legendary. After that we headed to Clarke Quay and hit up Medic bar which was really cool, all done out like a hospital. You can order shots on a drip! Tables all have real wheelchairs for seats, lighting is all operating theater style and hospital bed style couches.

Kata house
Headed back to Phuket in the morning and moved into our new house in Kata. We freaking love it here for sure. Place has a huge living area with a great big wrap around couch and big table which is great for grinding/beerpong. We have 4 different balconies, 2 private rooftop areas, a shared pool outdoor jacuzzi and everything has an awesome view looking down over the town of Kata, beach and out to the Indian ocean. The big rooftop area is our favourite place for sure, rigged some power and tables out there so we can work on the laptops in the evening which is awesome. Definately need to pick up a BBQ for the rooftop. I've got the huge master suite at the moment, it's got a massive balcony, big en-suite with a jacuzzi. From anywhere in the suite can see out to the ocean, it's insane. Definately the sickest house I've ever stayed in.

A few house pics at the end of the album here.

We got long term bike rentals sorted out which is wicked. So I've got a motorbike for the next couple of months, pretty sweet Honda with only 1k miles on the clock, I think we got good deals on the price too working out at close to £3/day. So that's taken us up to today, where I'm sitting having a few beers and writing this out before bed. Things are a lot more settled now for sure, and we're planning on putting a lot of hard work in over the next few weeks, running a little behind schedule for my goals for the month so it's graft time.

Loving the new fast internet here, got The Wire season2 on download and kicking off coaching tomorrow with an early morning session with Brian.

Shot of the view...
All the best.

Monday, 9 February 2009

Thailand #2 - Kata!

What upppppp, got some time for updating tonight. Now in Kata with Craig and Andy. I absolutely LOVE it here. The town is so chilled, great places to eat, beach is amazing, a bunch of cool bars. Much more things to do than Phuket Town and much less trashy than Patong. It's really quiet today, some sort of public holiday, a lot of the bars are closed so we're having a night in.

Some new pics up on Facebook.

Hotels
We stayed in a couple of different hotels before settling in this awesome guesthouse, we've got 3 rooms within this cool apartment type bit up some windy stairs. The owner's really nice, she rented us sweet new motorbikes too... mine only had 450miles on the clock when I got it! Big room with en-suite, etc and bike are working out at like $30 a day, great find. We're above a bunch of bars, they're a lot of fun and are great for eating or catching football matches, lots of nightlife which is cool and quietens down at 2-3am.

Lifestyle
So the past week or two have been a lot more chilled... with a couple of messy exceptions of course ;) At first I felt pretty weird not having as much to do around here but I started filling my days with the different things Kata has to offer and it's a lot more fun. Daily routine is something like get up around 11, grab breakfast at a nearby bar with the guys, head back and work until 4-5pm, 2min bike trip to the beach and run along it as the sun sets and it's a bit cooler, eat out at a different restaurant each night, work a bit more or go out in the evening. Loads of awesome bars to hit up around here, sports, pool or hanging out with girls it's pretty much all here, really like it. Days off at the beach playing footy or taking the bikes out to other nearby towns is cool too. Just so chilled!

Health
Eating a lot healthier here than back home. Thai food is real healthy for sure, meals are really good and eating pretty much no snack type food. Drinking tonnnnns of water. Started exercising regularly too running along the water at the beach with Craig. Managed to run 6 lengths of the beach today in 60mins. Will keep beasting the cardio to lose a bit of fat until next week then hopefully join Kata gym and work in some weights.

Hustling Locals
Getting pretty skilled at haggling now, you can get pretty much everything here cheaper with some bartering skills. It usually involves you picking out the item you want and asking the shop owner how much. They'll then bring out a chunky calculator and type in the price, you then do your best to act offended and discouraged by the price they give you and they normally chop some off right away. After that you clear their price and type in something ridiculously low, they bring their price down again and eventually you meet in some middleground... if you're doing it right usually half of their original offer!

Looking forward to the next couple of weeks. We're headed to Patong Boxing Stadium tomorrow to watch what looks like a good Muay Thai card. Place looks like something out of Streetfighter! Night after there's a pool competition on at an awesome bar down the road owned by some real nice Swedish dudes, we usually hang out there to watch the footy. The staff and people are just so nice and friendly they always chat a ton, the food's fantastic too.

New House
On Saturday we fly out to Singapore for a few days, then when we get back to our house in Kata will be ready to move into. Can't wait, the place is so sick. It's on the side of a huge hill that overlooks Kata, 3 bedrooms over 4 storeys including a rooftop with completely stunning views over the town/beach. Master suite is massive, practically on a floor to itself with a jacuzzi and a huge balcony with the same awesome view... not sure how we'll figure out who gets that yet. Will post some pics when we arrive, didn't take any when we viewed as we needed to remain unimpressed to negociate a good price! We're very lucky to have the place.

Coaching
I've started work with a new student, Jay aka Cheers Self from Adelaide, Australia. He seems like a really nice guy. Check out his blog from the links on the right. To all of my students: apologies I've not been available for coaching over the past few weeks. I was expecting to have the house sorted out sooner, but I will definitely be available from the 17th onwards for sessions.

Right, I'm off, there's some crazy pro gamer tv channel on this TV... has Warcraft 3 matches with strategy commentary, maybe it's Korean or something. They have Pro Evo and Guitar Heroes in the arcades here, how sick is that!
Actually... some random stories involving Thai girls...

We're relaxing on some big leather couches streetside at a Shisha bar watching people go by. This Aussie looking guy and a Thai chick walk past and they're looking over at us a ton, eventually they stop and come over for a chat. The guy asks what's in the Shisha we're smoking wondering if it's weed or something and Craig and I explain. At the same time is Thai chick rests herself on Andy and asks if he likes to smoke, Andy tells her that he likes to smoke a little weed now and then at which point the Thai girl blurts out that she likes to smoke crack. lol, q shock and amazement! ... they leave shortly after.

This was just before some girl came up and tried to sell us innocent looking home-made wristbands... until looking a little closer and they had some funny sayings on them... one of them was "I *heart* RAPE" lol! I'm sure an I *heart* rape wristband would go down well on nights out.

That reminds me... we were at some pool bar and Andy's chatting to a crazy Thai girl who offered him 500 baht to sleep with her lol. Then she extends her offer by saying that if he's shit in bed she'd CUT HIS DICK OFF! We were killing ourselves laughing, Andy looked a little worried!!

Some of the Thai girls are pretty nuts, but most are really chilled and approachable. We went out for dinner a couple of hours ago and as I got on my bike and started it up a cute Thai chick jumped on the back and started messing around and asking where we're headed. A little more forward than the UK for sure :) They're really giggly and playful and stuff, I liiiiiiike! The bikes are wicked for messing around too, driving past chicks tooting the horns and shouting random Thai phrases is hilarious... especially in our attempted Thai accents that sound like Borat.

Oh yea another story actually... jeez this post is gonna be a beast by now... I got pulled over by a Thai cop a few days ago for not wearing a helmet. I explained that the helmet was locked in the bike and we were taking it back to get it fixed, he tried to get the compartment open but couldn't... thank god. He seemed pretty sound and let me go without a bribe or having to show my lisence, etc. Speaking of bike stuff Craig semi-crashed his like 5 days ago when a car stopped quickly in front of him and he lost control while emergency stopping, only a few cuts and bruises though. God the bikes are sooo much fun to ride, so quick, squeezing the throttle back full to overtake never gets old.

Right, I'm gone... will post from the house after we get back from Singapore. Hope all is well in the UK/US!

Peace!