Computers, visas and insects.

Update

Four years ago I was in the south-western part of The People's Republic of China. The city of Kunming is Yunnan province's self-congratulatory City of Eternal Spring. On this very day I was on a spectacular all day boozing binge where I even managed to get lucky with a stunning Beijing lass going by the name of Lemon. Nice memories.

Three years ago I was in Taiwan. I was in the Taipei sub-district of Shulin. I'd only been in the country one week when I experienced an earthquake. It was terrifying as I was thrown around my bed at 4am. I'd also just embarked on my teaching career. I was teaching English to Primary kids. Little did I know I was going to fall for gorgeous Zi Ting in Tainan Province and end up doing a flit from this position. This nullified the contract and prevented me ever working legally in Taiwan again.

Two years ago I was chilling on the idyllic paradise island of Perhentian Kecil, just off peninsular Malaysia's north-east coast. I had kayaked around the island and spent many sunsets fishing for squid. I swam with sharks, sustained hideous injuries and passed the PADI SCUBA four day course. You can read all about my 25 days in paradise here: http://blogs.bootsnall.com/stevieblunder/25-days-in-paradise.html.

Last year I’d found a Geordie bar on Thailand’s tourist mecca island of Ko Samui. I stayed at Aussie Jeff’s guest house in the bustling Hat Chaweng on the eastern coast. I got plastered with the expats before heading to Ko Pha Ngan to catch up with some old friends from when I spent two months there in 2008. I was enjoying a nice break from my first job in Thailand as a Maths teacher in Trang.

This year I’m looking forward to a two week holiday next month. I’m feeling the need to get off Phuket Island for a while. I would like to visit Trang to see my old buddies. I haven’t seen them in over five months. I’m also thinking of my brother’s imminent wedding next weekend. Craig will be the first of my five brothers to tie the knot. Good luck to him and Joanne. I hope their union provides a solid foundation for their new daughter Gabrielle.

Youtube

I have discovered a video of me singing Rhinestone Cowboy on the internet. See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcbmiWSwKKM‏ for this embarrassing episode. I only feature in the first 40secs. I was totally oblivious to this since the group who filmed it were unknown to me. They even complain that 'some British guy grabbed the mic first'!

Visa

On Tuesday 24/8/10 I had my visa extended until 31/3/11. The 24th August was the very same day that my initial visa expired so there was no room for error. Now, I have a job, visa and work permit for the next 7 months (until March 2011) which is cool.

The immigration office was a modern building full of Westerners. There was even a Western volunteer policeman (from Middlesborough) to help bewildered Falangs with any problems. I was grinning as I compared this with Trang's antiquated provincial immigration situation. In Kantang (a small town in Trang province) there is a small wooden shack with an old fat woman slouched in a chair who appears to do nothing. A young lad will stamp your passport for you if you offer him some fruit or something even though you are probably the only 'customer' they will see that day. The chances of seeing a Westerner there are slim.

Chinese festival

There was another festival in Phuket Town last month. Brett and Mick went for a butcher's while I supped beer in the Tricycle bar. Mick came back some hours later with a big stuffed panda bear. He gave it to me to use as a pillow - I was over the moon. I wish I had a pic. My bed looks ridiculous with a big conspicuous panda peering at you from the top of the bed.

Talking of beds, my current rack is rock hard. It's like sleeping on a tiled floor. I'm slowly getting used to it again as my complaints to the apartment staff seem to fall on deaf ears. Even Oi finds it uncomfortable and she's Thai (meaning she can sleep on anything, anytime, anywhere)!

Another walk

On one of my frequent dusk strolls around Phuket Town I snapped the following pics:

This large golden dragon marks the entrance to a small park near my room.

This is the clock in the centre. Can you see the Thai numbers?

Everywhere in Thailand, sunset seems to be an excuse for middle aged women to dress in unflattering clothes and do aerobics to a backdrop of hard core dance music.

Toon and creepy crawlies

Here's Joey Barton receiving a yellow during Wolves 1-1 Toon. I watched it with Oi on a big screen in a bar in Chalong. Even though Chelsea were on the small TV and more people were watching it, they let NUFC remain on the big screen since I was the only guy actually from the same place as my team! There were no CFC fans from London!

Oy, understandably, got a little bored with Carroll, Nolan and Co. so headed off for some snacks. She came back five minutes later with a bag full of Maleng. I laughed as she wolfed down a packet of insects like it was a bag of crisps.

Here's the bag..........mmmmmmmmmm.

I only ate the small ones. Ever seen that movie Starship Troopers?

Spicy Duck Restaurant

Oi screwing up her face after yet another mouthful of molten Tom Yam Kung. This is the Spicy Duck Restaurant just north of Patong. Oi likes the spicy minced duck here.

The entrance to the restaurant with a rip-off tuk-tuk heading to Kamala beach.

The Guru

After the spicy duck we headed to this guru's house on the northern fringe of Phuket Town near the big Tesco Lawtaat. Oi had previously been to have two tigers and a load of Buddhist scripture tattoed on her lower back. This time she avoided tattoos and went for the 'getting-splashed-with-coconut-oil-and-having-strips-of-golden-foil-applied'.

I'm still unsure as to what this is all about but Oi tells me it brings good luck?

Here's the heavily tattoed tattooist given a fat bloke a tattoo:
(How many times can you fit the word tattoo in a single sentence?)

Also note the three bar girls in the background dropping in for their weekly dose of 'good luck'. It's not too expensive at 100bt per single dose of good luck???????? Asians and their superstitions! Those small brown bottles are called M150 and are similar to Red Bull.

Now it's Oi's turn for her 5 minutes with the heavily tattooed good luck guru. He was chanting some mumbo jumbo which lended the whole occasion a sense of authenticity. Look at his array of good luck paraphenalia around him.

Oi revealing her golden foil. Since this ceremony I have won the UK lottery an amazing 12 times (according to my emails). I also have the chance to claim a fortune from an orphan of the former Rawandan president, providing I let her cash rest in my bank account for a while. I only have to send her 500gbp as a 'set up fee'. After this, I should be worth something in the region of thirty million pounds with my African windfall and 12 lottery wins!

Khao Rang

On the top of Rang Hill in Phuket Town is a restaurant called Tung Ka named after a small stream that runs through the town. It's a wonderful place with affordable food in a five star setting. This is the stairway down.

And this is the view from our table.

After this I went to O'Malley's for a Sunday night beer and ended up boozing until 6am. Needless to say I missed the next day at work and subsequently received a warning. More positively however, is that I won 100bt in a game of killer! Note to self: Take more care with the licquor. I could do with retaining my employment.

Sapan Hin

I went for a walk around Sapan Hin looking for the Olympic sized swimming pool. I found it but on the way I thought I might have been in Paris for a moment as I saw these folk playing a game of boules.

However, 'location reality' soon kicked in as a dozen youngsters were doing Muay Thai kickboxing next door.

Skit

Last Friday I headed to Karon beach to see my teaching buddies perform a skit for their young students. It was hilarious. It involved a 10 minute play about how the students behave in class and how difficult it is to teach them:

Computer

Last Sunday I bought a new computer in BIG C shopping center. I got an Acer Aspire One D255. It has:

Intel Atom 1.66GHz processor

1GB RAM

250GB HDD

10.1" screen

WIFI

Windows 7 + Office 2007 (ripped)

It cost 9600bt with a free mouse. That's 192gbp. Not too bad. I'm writing this blog entry with it now.

Here's the guy writing the 1 year warranty:

Here's me taking it out after waiting 3hrs for the software to be installed.

On Monday at school I spent all day downloading 100GB of movies and 50GB of TV shows from Mick's external HDD. I watched Avatar last night and seven episodes of South Park the night before. I have enough stuff on here to last me months and months.

Markets

This is a fresh market (Talad Sot) near Chalong. Oi and I bought Pad Thai (fried noodles) and Isaan sausages for 100bt. We took it to her room to eat. We were stuffed. I love buying food from these places:

Lingo

Oi has started teaching me the Isaan dialect of Thai. It is somewhat different to regular Thai. Oi has a Laos dialect. The following is regular Thai.

Maleng - Insect

Saduoc sabai - convenient

Talad Sot - fresh market

Mokkara - Jan

Gumpa - Feb

Meena - Mar

Maesa - April

Putsapa - May

Mituna - June

Garackada - July

Singha - Aug

Ganya - Sept

Doo La - Oct

PiJiGa - Nov

Tanwa - Dec

If the month has 30 days add yon, if 31 days add kom. Feb add pan.