A Lovely November – Day 3 – Family Reunions

Dear Readers,

Ooooooooh shoot, I’m so behind on my blog entries that I am forgetting what to write on my logs!

Day 3…November 5th, it was a thursday…and I think Mom and I went shopping. Had a business meeting.

Oh, I do remember laughing so much when watching KBS – Korean TV, with ENGLISH SUBTITLES!!! I’m so jealous that we don’t get that in Thailand.

Family Reunion

So, at first Uncle James arrived with Aunt Kathleen, and then all the relatives started coming into our room! It is so nice to come from a big family! They came in twos (haha like noah’s ark.) – Uncle James and Aunt Kathleen, Claudia and Aunt Cissy, Aunt Laura and Uncle Ben!

So there we were all 9 of us, in the room, chatting and laughing, and then…time for photos. It really is a math probability question. nCr – combinations. 9 people, 4 cameras, how many permutations and combinations? I think it took us a complete 15 minutes to complete the whole round.

Imagine….

Photo 1: Aunt Laura’s camera, Aunt Laura took the group photo.
Photo 2: Aunt Laura’s camera, Uncle Ben took the group photo.
Photo 3: Claudia’s camera, Aunt Cissy took the group photo.
Photo 4: Claudia’s camera, Claudia took the group photo. 

etc etc.
Not to mention the different combinations of seating arrangements too!

From left to right – Claudia, Dad, Aunt Laura, Aunt Kathleen, Uncle Ben, Uncle James, Mom and Aunt Cissy! phew!

The last photos were using Uncle James cute camera, with a 15s self timer, so we are all sitting there like…ah….cheeese!! wow…this light is long!

haha

Dinner was great, lots of laughter, I think the cutest moment was when we asked Uncle Ben what he wanted to eat, and right away he said, “Goo Lo yuk! *sweet and sour pork!*” Wow I never remember him being so adorable and vocal! And I dont even know how old he is, but he is such an amazing tennis player, and he was talking about his rallying, how he beats his boys anytime, it was so sweet!

 

Dinner was alot of laughter and catch up? And I was sitting there thinking…wow, I really miss this. I would love to grow up and live in Vancouver with all of them, there is a strong sense of family. I also really missed Gucci.

 

 

 What lovely relatives and what a nice warm reunion, I hope it won’t be another 6 years til I see them again!
Stacy

Bangkok to Hong Kong

Dear Readers,

And with all my frustration, I left Bangkok and moved to HK….

I wish.

Whatever the case, I am here in Hong Kong, and had quite an interesting journey over here! The Bangkok Airport now has really crazy stringent regulations when it comes to security checks. We have to take out EVERYTHING, if you have a laptop in your computer case – take it out, if you have a make up kit – take it out,  I was asked to take off my coat, my watch, my scarf and my shoes too! I felt like I was giving a strip tease! Really ridiculous! And to make it worse, I just had SOOOO many bags, that it was very very overwhelming and I was rushing to the Emirates gate….

I simply love Emirates. Yes, Vick works there so I am biased. But I got to watch GREY’S ANATOMY on board. It must be 3-4 seasons ahead of the ones I’m watching in Bangkok! And there I was, snuggled in my window seat, tearing and dabbing my eyes like crazy for 2 hours! That stuff really gets to you!

And when I got out of the gates, I saw lots of Immigration Officers, and they were only stopping Africans and Middle Eastern people! It was quite embarassing and disgraceful to see such blatant racist discrimmination! I complained about it just now, and my Auntie told me it is because there are so many illegal workers in HK, but still I felt quite crappy about it.

Anyways, I’m glad that I am with my parents now,  and looking forward to an interesting week!
Goodnight!
Stacy

And yet another Bangkok lull.

Dear Readers,

Happy Halloween! I can’t believe it’s been 1 year since my amazing, ridiculous night in Shibuya. And I have to say that this night had some similarities to last year, but overall gave me a huge opportunity for reflection.

So, I didn’t expect to go out today, and was quite happy to just sit at home and watch whatever was on the TV line up, and do some tidy up work, and/or unpack a few things. But meeting Jeab yesterday for MJ’s concert, we were in the whole ‘yeah let’s go out’ mood.

In yesterday’s loud dinner environment, Jeab shouts, “Let’s go to a place called Red docks, its suppose to be nice and lots of expats + english speaking ppl there” Ooooh, sounds nice right?  I asked what type of music they played, “It’s an art gallery, no music”

WAaaaaaaaaah, aw shit. no offense, but I bloody hate those art gallery things. I went to No Space when the exhibition was about the condition of Bus roof tops in Bangkok, and he stood at a bridge and took photos of buses driving by. Granted, Bus roof tops here in Thailand are rusty, ghetto colours, mismatched paint jobs, so I guess it is interesting. But to pin it on a wall, sell it for 3,500 – 18,000 baht? Are you serious?

Anyways back to my story, ugh…Art gallery…art exhibition again a place where I totally speak on different levels with the people there, I wasn’t looking forward to it, but thought, hey, Jeab really wants to go, okay let’s go. Party flyer said – HALLOWEEN! 7pm-12midnight, and listed all the bands that were playing la la la…

So in my true Halloween spirit, I threw on my Kimono , Jeab helped me with my makeup, and went as a Japanese kimono lady (You could say I was a geisha, but I’d prefer if you didn’t.) I even tied a pillow at my back. (Grego will give me the photos to upload later.) And it was nice to go as a Japanese person – in tribute to my fabulous Halloween of 2008!

Anyhoo, what is the whole point of dressing up in Bangkok. At 9:30-ish (it’s always good not go so so so early.) we managed to find Rain Dog – which is this house turned gallery turned live band place situated in this deep dark alleyway along side the highway. And as I am driving…approaching the Rain dog sign…we hear music…but we don’tsee anyone there.

Stacy: Jeab, look at the empty tables…there are EMPTY TABLES
Jeab: Let’s go inside anyways since it is nice to see the art gallery.

So I took off my kimono because i REFUSED To walk in an empty room looking like a fool.

Picture this setting:

 an open air rundown house…with funky furniture…good retro music playing…a ceiling fan swinging,….turn your eyes to the left to see  empty chairs and tables, turn right…again…empty chairs and tables…and look ahead beside the bar…a waiter, sleeping in 1 lounge chair with his mouth open.

FABULOUS. One look at that I just walked straight to my car.

I was still in a good mood, determined to have a good time, and then as events unfolded…it turned out, we had no clue where the Halloween parties were! And I looked to my left, and saw my one friend, and it really hit me like..Wow, look how my life has changed in the past 2 years. I’ve morphed from a social butterfly to a natural born loser?

No wait, I take that back, I know I’m not a loser, more like, I don’t even know where the HALLOWEEN Party is! Geez what is wrong with me! You know what I mean? It is so different. It’s not that clubbing is the best thing in the world, and I can tell you, I’m quite tired of it, but I guess there is a huge social aspect lacking.

Maybe it’s 3 am and I can’t articulate my feelings, but in short. It was damn damn depressing!

Jeab made it up to me by taking me to ZENSE which is such a beautiful lounge place at Central World Plaza. Would recommend it to anyone. But it wasn’t the same. And I’m the ONLY on in the whole lounge wearing a costume ( I basically had my sheer tank top underneath my kimono so I couldn’t take it off.) and I don’t mind sticking out like a sore thumb at all. But I guess, today was just one of those days that I could add to my “Days where Stacy feels she doesn’t belong list.”

And so I guess my conclusion to this Halloween is that, it left me feeling a bit down and about.

Hermitising yet again,
Stacy

 

On the topic of complimenting a lady..

Dear Readers,

So Mom and Dad left on Monday, of course I cried because it was so sad, won’t see them until December..(or so I thought, turns out I have to go to HK first week of Nov now! It’s a long story..)

Now, Greg and I are like the dynamic duo, and on Tuesday, I had so many errands planned, but our driver called in sick! So Greg was my (driver) assistant, and accompanied me to all my meetings.

I don’t know if I can say it enough, that I really really love my baby brother.

In the car, we are listening to his music, and there are two songs which are his current faves, “Sexy B*itch” and ” Baby by Me”

I just can’t help but laugh at the lyrics of “Sexy B*itch”

***

She’s nothing like a girl you’ve ever seen before.
Nothing you can compare to your neighbourhood hoe.
I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful.
The way that booty movin I can’t take no more.
Have to stop what i’m doin so I can pull up close.
I’m tryna find the words to describe this girl without being disrespectful.

Dam girl.
Dam you’se a sexy bitch.
A sexy bitch.
Dam you’se a sexy bitch.
Dam girl. “

***

Is this guy Akon for real?

Can I write an open letter to Akon?  That there are alot of words to describe a lady without being disrespectful?
Gosh, his lack of vocabulary is really frightening. Ahaha. And when Andrea and I were speaking about it over the phone,

Andrea says, “You know what I want to know, I want to know how he knows the neighbourhood hoe.”

haha! Hilarious. The standard of RnB hiphop lyrics these days. Then in the car Grego played another song, again by Akon, and the song went something like, shake your jiggle tiddies? I forget what exactly, but I remember rolling my eyes and just sighing.

Oh wait i just asked greg, it’s a song called Hynotised and the lyrics are “Booty keeps bumpin’, titties just bouncin’ up and down..” *thumbs up*

Oh and the cutest episode was 50 cent’s newest song Baby by Me,

Me: Aren’t these lyrics really ghetto, like have my baby and be a millionaire?
Greg: No Stace, it’s a sweet song, it’s like…have a baby..girlfriend by my side, and feel like a millionaire…
Me: Really? why does he use the word baby, not shawty (sp?) or not babe?

Okay basically Greg was really patient like, no Stace, it’s a sweet romantic song, then okay made me feel a BIT better because I gotta admit, the song sounds good (argh!!!). Then when we got home, we called Doug (our hiphop expert) and Doug said, “No it means, have my baby and be a millionaire”.

Hahaha, Greg is so sweet! To think it means girl by my side. Wah, I know he isn’t so innocent, so that interpretation was so off in terms of his standards.

This is all alot of laughs and chuckles for me, but when I come to think about it, I have to say … (let me see if I get this right..) “Damyumn! That’s Ghetto son!”

I mean, seriously, every body is liking this Sexy Bitch song, I can’t imagine going to the clubs and dancing to it, like people pointing and singing “You’se a sexy bitch!”

If someone ever did that to me, I would say, Thanks, So I’ve heard…and I’m hotter than your neighbood hooker apparently!

It is really scary if this the linguistic trend. Whatever happened to, “I think you are lovely.”, or ” You have a great smile” ….. maybe I have to just keep my radio tuned to my golden oldies, retro, and soft music I suppose!

Right now, ” I love you for sentimental reasons” – Nat  King Cole, such a nice gentle song!
Alright, I’m off to fix dinner, thanks for stopping by!
Stacy

A trip to the cinema

Dearest  Readers,

So I am not a fan of the cinema. I love movies, but  I prefer watching them in the comfort of my own home. (Because I laugh outloud, and I gasp, and scream and make several exclamations during most movies)

 So, maybe I watch less than 5 movies each year in the theatre, all the rest is via my cable subscription and through DVDs. 

Today, I went to Empourium to watch THE UGLY TRUTH, with Jeab. And I have to say, it was firstly, quite a disappointing movie, but secondly, it was a huge eye opener for me. Eye-opener in the sense where, I am sitting in a room filled with people, and when I exclaim, or laugh, it’s all silent, but when the whole crowd laughs I’m like *smile* or “….???”

It is so odd that the laughter is mismatched or delayed. And I remember talking to Marcus about this once, is it because of the subtitles maybe? Or they don’t get the American-cultural references?

Today I found the whole crowd laughing at Katherine Heigl’s expressions – a true sign of a good actress, that she doesn’t need words to express emotion. (I really like her, watched her since ROSWELL!!!)  Or they would laugh at overtly obvious XXX jokes (not my type of humour)

At any rate, now, whenever I go to see a movie in Thailand, I really feel like, “wow…I don’t belong here.” and I wonder, so if I was back in Canada, would I be laughing with the group, or … also be out of sync?

When you go to see a movie, do you laugh at all the appropriate cues?

After the movie, we went to have dinner at this small Kebab place opposite Capitol Club, it was nice and homey, and the restaurant owner (Iranian) was so welcoming, and shared Persian Tea, Shishia (sp?) and homemade cookies with us after dinner! very friendly, and the food was authentic too.

At Jeab’s place, we watched this movie called Feast of Love (with Greg Kinnear…i LOVE HIM.) and instead of Thai subtitles, we selected Chinese subtitles.  And I gotta say, man oh man, are the chinese subtitles super off or what. There was this part of the movies, where the couple just finished s*x and

the lady asked: “So where is the ladies room” (as in where is the bathroom)  Chinese subtitles wrote “`你的女朋友在不在’（is your girlfriend here?)

Wah…

Really lost in translation. Frankly, I’m super impressed with my chinese subtitle reading ability (60%) but it is really funny how it is so off! So maybe the thai subtitles are bonkers.

You know, Michael Jackson’s THIS IS IT concert is coming up, the tickets aren’t expensive, just 160baht. But I’m thinking…is it worth going to see? Because what if the whole cinema is just really quiet and deadbeat. I’m really not looking forward to that. I rather wait for the DVD to come out, and have a dance party at my house, sing-a-long, you know the whole works.

Wow it’d be so nice to dance and sing along in the cinema though. I wonder if I’d be thrown out….
Stacy

On the topic of old shoes…

Dear Readers,

I’m in the middle of packing up my room. That’s right, we are moving. And goodness, you just don’t know how much accumulated junk you have until you go through what you have. Hmm, there must be a better way to rewrite that sentence…

But anyways, what I’m getting at, is that I managed to put maybe…2% of all my clothes in the Charity bag, and now am going through another trunk – full of shoes and school articles.

And I have shoes from Grade 8 in this trunk. It is so ridiculous, and I’m staring at them, knowing that I should give them away, but at the same time I’m making excuses to keep them! Parting brings such sorrow…

And about my school articles, I am a major nerd, I went through all my course material to save the articles I liked the best (business articles, re: economics, technological change, human resource manipulation, developing economies..) and know I think i have to screen them even further. I have one huge MBS binder, which I’ll use as a gauge to how many files I can keep.

Speaking of which, I best be going to complete my task of the day (packing my room.)

I got my retro list playing, and the most repeated song today is Hungry Eyes from Dirty Dancing!! Rest in Peace Patrick Swayze!!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lvcqt_4NOds (movie clip)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oKUTOLSeMM (full song)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRyO2UuSUT0 (Mulder and Scully love montage, hahaha)

(i tried to youtube embed it, didnt work)

I remember just loving Dirty Dancing! It’s been years since I’ve seen it, but I remember being crazy about it. Isn’t it everyone’s fantasy to take dancing lessons from a hot dance instructor and fall head over heels?

Alright, no hot dance instructor nearby, so I’ll just revert back to my normal in-room dancing,
back to work!
Stacy

Spinning Classes are Killer!

Dear Readers,

If you can survive a 1 hour cycling/spinning class at your local gym. I say, KUDOS TO YOU!!!!

Today after Body Jam class, I decided to NOT go to Body Combat (because I think I’ve become a lazy bum, and won’t be able to survive.) So I found myself walking around the weight equipment section. My attention was grabbed by really catchy music and some man instructor screaming GO GO Go! I looked towards my left and saw the cosmo spinning room, and said to myself, hey why not let me give it a try.

First off, I walked in the class around 10 mins late, so I did not know how to set up the equipment, which would seem fairly easy. But as I looked around to other participants, everyone had this professional-cycling stance about them, whereas I looked sloppy, I don’t know whether my seat was too high, or too low, or the  handles were too close or too far.

The instructor was AMAZING and motivational too, he would tell us to slow down, and then he would say “UP GEAR!!!!” and we would have to turn this knob and the resistance would get higher. Up Gear ! Up Gear! Up Gear!! Stand Up!!! (First time in my life I cycled while standing up, hey it counts even if it was stationary.)

And instead of upping my gear, I sneakingly lowered it. I guess it’s quite noticeable, everyone next to me is paddling(is that the term?) slowly and sweating it out, and I’m also sweating it out, but with more ease. And so the instructor makes eyecontact with me and says, “UP GEAR!!”

Me: okokok!!! Up gear!!! *changes gears and prepares to faint.*

I just love that class! But I just have to ask, how do men join spinning classes, doesn’t it …um…hurt??

My legs are hurting now!!
Stacy

And

Happy 09/09/09

Dear Readers,

So yay for us to be able to live through a time where we can experience 09/09/09!

I made my wish at 9:09pm today, didn’t make my wish in the morning, because I was so drowsy it didn’t hit me the whole 999 thing! I was brushing my teeth at 9:09am still in a dream daze!

Anyhoo, first thing I wake up, my dad knocks on my door telling me to advance our driver money, great, such great luck on 999! losing 5,000 baht! grr. But okay had to be positive throughout the whole day.

How did your 09/09/09 go?

Stacy

Task accomplished!

Dear Readers,

Today I successfully renewed my Mom’s work permit and Visa!! woohoo! 

All of August, I was thrown obstacles left, right and centre. And today, all tasks have been cleared. I mean, sure I stilings to do, but major government obstacled? All completed!! Yay!!!!

No offence, but dealing with the government here is a total headache! Like I mentioned before, I had to run all across down from Ministry to Ministry, because it all isn’t centralised here! but wait! The government has foresight, and is currently completing its mega government hub. I went for a preview (had to submit documents there 3 months ago) and it is this monstrous building, that makes you feel as if you are in George Orwell’s 1984. Very sterile, ominous, and people walking around like drones. I can’t wait for that government hub to be in full operation!

So I found out that the Immigration Office starts at 8:30 am, but opens at 8:00am! Meaning that they give out queue numbers starting 8am. So Mom and I were diligently there at 7:45am, horrified to see 20 people standing ahead of us! But regardless, we were the 5th business work-permit renewal applicants there, so we didn’t need to wait for long.  I just had the Immigration Office because it is a breeding place for germs. It is so germy there, extremely bad ventilation and stuffy. UGhh just thinking about it makes me want to gag! but -  I have to admit, going to the Immigration Office early in the morning, is SO MUCH better, and it is possibly a not-so-bad experience.

And after living in Thailand for so long, I feel my patience has really really grown. That’s all I can say about my government experience for fear of being  deported silences me.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders!!! Now I can study my GMAT, now I can blog more often, and just be a happier free-er person in general!

Thanks for stopping by,
Stacy

….

Dear Readers,

Sorry for disappearing.

…

Stacy