goodbye thailand

i remember my first impressions of bangkok as i rode in on a van from don muang- i was amazed at how modern a city it was, having expected a 'developing nation' to look fundamentally different. but here was a city filled with shopping centers, recognizeable restaurants, a mass-transit system was under construction overhead, and bmws and mercedes benzes filled the streets.

our group of ten new mba graduates initially stuck together like a platoon moving through enemy territory. every trip to get food or go shopping was a group activity. but after a while we grew comfortable with our new home and built our individual lives here. thailand was 'discovered' bit by bit, from lumpini park to chiang rai, from tom yum to larb moo, from jintara to da jim, from kreng jai to sia naa.

fast forward 5 and a half years and i'm one of last two of the original ten still here. now a new adventure awaits me in china and today is my last day as a resident in thailand. strangely enough, i had expected to feel strong emotions as i leave my friends and start a new life, but i still don't feel like i'm really leaving- i feel more like leaving on a business trip.

perhaps i'm just not ready to say goodbye.

new office

last week we moved into our nice new office and held a 'liang pra' opening ceremony. nine monks came to bless the office and our staff and i sat through about 15 minutes of prayer before the pain in my legs from kneeling was too much to bear.

the new space is a huge improvement over our old office and of course the temporary space we were using. it's amazing what one has to consider when renovating- everything from the types of light bulbs to the height of partitions to the location of toilet rolls in the bathroom. but in the end there's a lot of satisfaction to see a layout that was designed on paper not so many months ago turn into reality.

the design is similar to our headquarters, an open-plan center will glass walls for the meeting rooms, showrooms, and offices. one problem with all the glass was our staff forgetting (or not seeing) where the glass was. we've since put some tinted film on the glass which was necessary, as before that i'd hear a loud thump at least once a day as someone walked into a door or window.

this was my office for the past couple of weeks- no sooner have i settled down it's already time for me to move again. moving from the temporary office to the new location was a big undertaking, but moving to the shanghai office will be as simple as filling a carton full of my things and mailing it to myself in china.

paeng maak

a couple of months ago i went to try the new thai restaurant at the peninsula hotel, thiptara. it's located outside near the river, with a nice view of the oriental hotel opposite.

aside from my snowfish, our meal was very much standard thai fare- so i was a bit surprised to find the bill came to almost us$40. substitute 'plaa kapong' for snowfish and we could have had a similar meal at a local restaurant on my soi for 400 baht. a 10 baht bottle of water was 160 baht... yikes!

not for the faint of heart or wallet but venturing down to the river made a nice break from hanging around sukhumvit all the time.

futon

the newest ubc 'red screen' jingle is from a song by futon, a brit-thai-japanese 'electro-punk' group i saw live at bed supperclub's new year party last year.

at midnight they got up on stage (actually the catwalk sometimes in place downstairs) and launched into their most successful single so far, the catchy remake of 'now i want to be your dog'. have a listen for yourself by clicking here.

after numerous glasses of booze and champagne i thought they were absolutely hilarious. the singer was jumping all over the place, the music was in thai, english, and japanese, and there was a tall man in the back dressed in a jacket, hat, and shades doing a goofy dance one would expect to see in an early 80s video. to add to the hilarity and madness there was a very large fat man dressed up like a white rabbit, hopping around downstairs.

if you get the chance to see them here in bangkok, don't pass it up. here's a couple of gig reviews, in thai and in english and here's their upcoming schedule.

awol

sorry for the total lack of posts, folks.

being busy is always a poor excuse for not keeping in contact, but the past few weeks have been an absolute frenzy. between the office move, transitioning my business to a new manager, and sorting out all sorts of issues before i leave work has been overwhelming- 9am to 9pm skipping lunch every day, with a couple of later nights throw in. i've been returning back to my apartment and having the energy only to eat and watch a bit of cnn before collapsing into bed.

the good news is that although it looked impossible a few weeks ago i've managed to tie up almost all loose ends in the office, even finishing some work i'd been procrastinating for a long time. also managed to get a fair amount of personal things done. bad news is that i'm due to fly to hong kong tomorrow early afternoon but i've not yet packed and still have a bit of work left to do in the office tomorrow am.

today was supposed to be a day of packing and running last-minute errands, but thanks to an impromptu goodbye party from my friends i spent today in hangover recovery mode trying not to make any sudden movements.

separated at birth?

flash gordon's spaceship from the 1930s and today's x-prize winner, spaceshipone

night turns into day 2

recently it has been raining almost every day - always beginning early evening just when people are thinking about wrapping up the day's work. today was no exception with a big storm passing to the north of the city at around 7pm. as sukhumvit was on the edge of the storm i managed to get several good lightning shots without rain getting in the way. this was by far being the best and brightest of them all. click on the thumnail or here for a full-size pic (2500x1800, 770kb).

the cluster of tall lit buildings in the middle is all seasons place, thailand's largest real estate development project at a total cost of around us$500m. the tallest building in the center is called the china resources tower and is the building where cracks were found after last year's burma earthquake.

looks like the lightning struck somewhere between the all seasons place and the almost-completed central world plaza building in the distance. there's some sort of very thick cloud near the ground blocking out the lightning- not sure what it is as there weren't any low clouds around at the time.

construction

as my target readership is friends and family i've decided to get this blog back on topic- my life here in asia. so future posts will focus more on local stuff and my personal experiences.
when i first moved here in 1999 thailand was still reeling from the asian financial crisis. all over town stood buildings like the one on the left-hand side- construction that was halted due to debt issues. when the baht floated, it dropped in value from 25 baht to the dollar in january 1997 to over 53 baht to the dollar in january 1998. companies that had borrowed in dollars but received revenue in baht saw their debt double whereas income stayed the same, or in the case of the construction industry dropped as property valued rapidly declined.

since that time thailand has done a good job of restructuing it's non-performing loans (npls), and the economy has performed well in the past couple of years. the property industry has really picked up over the past 18 months or so, with halted construction being completed (such as the central world tower) and new buildings like this very large one on sukhumvit soi 6 sprouting up.

some buildings in good locations, like this one next to the nana skytrain station and the one at the corner of asoke and sukhumvit roads (a major intersection) remain 'abandoned'. i heard that a lot of the npls are still being worked through the court system and in the case of multiple owners and/or layers or ownership the procedures can drag on a long time- so good building sites like this one remain untouched while nearby new buildings are started.

you can see a line of traffic in this photo- every morning there is a long line of cars stretching far back into suhumvit soi 6. the new buildings will of course add to the problem. our new bangkok governor has promised (as have all the past governors) to address the traffic issue here. it's a very difficult job as the traffic issue touches so many industries and vested interests.

also visible is a line of street vendor carts, parked in the abandoned building's lot during the day to be taken out in the evening where the vendors sell their wares until around 10pm or so. one really has to wonder where they'll go when all of the abandoned buildings and vacant lots are filled up.

in the vacant lot on the right is some new worker housing that has been going up over the past few weeks. not certain but i suspect they are the workers for the soi 6 and soi 8 construction projects.

here are some workers playing the popular local game of takraw- it's basically volleyball played with a rattan ball using only one's feet. goes without saying that one has to be very much in shape and flexible to play this game... i won't even attempt it!

my apartment

as i'll most likely be moving (moving- yuck!) before too long, i thought i'd post some photos of my apartment as it is now before everything gets packed away.

one of the things i like about my building is that the living areas are large and the layout is quite open, unlike a lot of the other newer buildings i've seen. this was important in my apartment choosing process as i wanted to be able to fit in a larger tv with a dolby 5.1 system.

here's a view facing the other way, showing the kitchenette and entrance to the bedrooms. it's difficult to take indoor photos as even zoomed all the way back rooms look small.

in thailand some theaters give out small magnet movie ads every time you see a movie. as you can see from my fridge over the past few years i've seen a lot!

office move

this past week was hectic at work as on top of all the daily issues it was budget revision time and i was attempting to move our office out of it's temporary location into it's brand new digs. moving any time, whether it's to a new apartment, office, or wherever is a complete pain in the ass for all involved. the good news is that our new office looks amazing and has all the space we need, so it'll be worth all the effort once everything is finished.

we had a surprisingly large mountain of boxes of move- even my small amount of stuff took up three cartons.

my humble 'temporary' office. doesn't look like much but it was functional.

eye-teeth-tattoo parlor

a small shop recently opened up on my soi (street) - its eclectic range of services include jeab's tattoo, 'teeth r us' dental clinic, and the international eye care center. i also noticed that it sells harley davidson shirts and memorabilia. possibly the only place in the world where you can get your cavities filled, new glasses made, and a tattoo done all in one stop!