Lunar Maddness

i just got home from Koh Phangan, the full moon party, and one of the best trips of my life! i am getting used to bus toilets (and by used to, i mean i used it one time so far), backpacking, cold showers, guest houses, and being dirty ;) ;) actually, i was pretty clean this trip; i took on average more than one shower per day! and, they were freezing cold every time!!! pretty hardcore, i know.

last wednesday, charity, marney, natalia and i left bangkok at 630 pm and had a pretty uneventful bus ride (which is a great thing) down south. we got our good front seats, and half way through the trip two ladies got off, so it ended up that we all each had a whole row of seats, and charity slept in the front of the bus. once we got to the pier at surritani we met everyone else who had taken other buses and we all got on the ferry to koh phangan...there were about 12 of us at that point. three of our thai friends came with us on the trip and it was the best thing! they were able to get us cheap taxis and get us around the island effortlessly. we caught a cab to our guesthouse called "j.seaview bungalows". there were about 7 of our friends already there, and we were excited to meet them too...it feels like forever when we don't see each other for even one day since we are usually always together! there were about 10-15 bungalows hugging the side of a huge steep mountain. although it was literally a hike every time we needed to get something from our huts, it was so much fun! by the second day, my legs were killing me, and i seriously think it was from climbing the mountain so often! it was basically like living in jungle treehouses all weekend, and it was fabulous. we met "Toom", the owner of the guesthouse and she was the cutest lady. she and her family ran the whole place. we made friends with her son and they were so hospitable--always doing everything for us. at one point, bruno fell through one of his stairs and hurt his leg (minor hurt), and toom found out that two of our stairs had broken off and freaked out. she felt so bad, and she refused to let bruno pay for his stay because of it! she immediately moved us to new fresh clean huts even though we were leaving the next morning at 10.

living in tree houses is so peaceful it was nice to sleep in as late as we wanted to every single day, and then go to town, hang out on the beach, eat good food (amazing bread on that island!), come back, nap, get ready to go out, then party all night.......since we have SO much more responsibility here in bangkok ;)

after we got in on thursday we settled in and went to the beach. we ate lunch on the beach and then napped until 6 or 7. then, we went back to our huts and some of the other backpackers had cooked pasta for dinner. after everyone ate and napped we all got ready and went to Had Rin beach (the full moon party beach). that night was a good insight into what we were in for! even though it was not the actual full moon party there were thousands of people partying on the beach. i've decided that partying on the beach is super duper uuber fun, but that electronics and beach parties do not mix well. you think this would be obvious, but we ended up killing about 6 phones, an ipod, and also lost a ton of slippers. it was absolutely no guarantee that you would come home with two matching slippers, let alone slippers at all!


on friday, we woke up fairly early and went to another beach called bottle beach. this was on the very north side of the island, and pretty secluded. there were lots of topless european travelers, and us. again, like the day before, we relaxed, the boys played some volleyball, w fun.....back to good old punahou carnival days, extreme style! (see pictures of our masterpieces) the actual full moon was on friday night, but since i was an election night, they were not "allowed" to sell alcohol or have the full moon party. all of the 7-11's/convenience stores would e swam and ate. then, we headed back to our huts for round two. that night, we all painted ourselves with neon body paint! it wasnot sell alcohol but our friend dylan went to the beach earlier than us for the party and ensured us that there would be enough buckets to go around....again, the laws don't seem to hold entirely true here.....all the better for us! the buckets were pretty cool. they consisted of a flask of alcohol, two mixers, ice, and about 50 straws of all colors, shapes and sizes. also, on friday we found the infamous "mushroom bar".....literally a big bar at the end of the beach that sells mushroom shakes to anyone that wants them. we were all too afraid though because some of the backpackers we met had just gotten out of thai prison for doing shrooms and because the police on the island set up scams and go undercover to catch people for doing drugs......but we were determined at least to see if this place actually exists...and it does! people just sit there and stare at things. it was hilarious! and, again, like the previous night, friday was a blast....to say the least.

on saturday some of us went to a different beach, and brad, jon and i decided to try to do a "cultural event". we set out looking for a specific temple that was in a cave on the mountain. it was called wat something....i forget....i really should remember though because i heard brad ask people for it about 100 times that day. anyway, we walked to town to eat before embarking on our adventure, and on the way, we found some huge boulders and decided to climb them. it was pretty cool and we could see a good portion of the island from the highest ones, but the most entertaining part of it all was watching brad try to get from one rock to another to conquer his fear of heights (and by heights, i mean a 6 foot drop to the ground and a 3-4 foot gap between the rocks he was trying to jump....and don't forget, brad is about 6'5", with a huge wingspan, so this really shouldn't have been an issue!!! hahahah). after our rock climbing, we walked a long long long ways to a restaurant and ate an extremely satisfying meal. then, we took about 2 hours to find the temple that was only about 2 kilos away....go figure.....but, once we got there, it was pretty cool. we met a monk who wanted to teach us how to meditate and about buddhism so we had a crash course on meditation. he showed us how to do sitting, walking, and lying meditation, and he was an interesting character. he would talk very quietly, then all of a sudden be yelling about something! not like he was mad, but just because he was excited, or just didn't really understand the correct intonations of the english language...i don't know. but whatever it was, it was entertaining. brad LOVED it. i mean LOVED....jon and i were a little less in love with the monk, but still enjoyed our "cultural experience". after meditating, and hearing about how we "shouldn't be lazy or drink or smoke or do drugs", we were ready to go home and nap. and possibly party again ;) ;) horrible. i know. that night was a very lazy night for us though. we ended up hanging out in the main "treehouse/hut/office" and watching a movie. we slept early that night to prepare for the full moon party which was rescheduled for sunday.

by the time the real full moon party came around, there were only six of us left: "the final 6", we like to call ourselves! it was andy, marney, jon, natalia, bruno, and me. on sunday we went to haad rin beach during the day time and ate at a restaurant with a menu bigger than all of our school notes from the semester combined. this thing was massive. you could basically get anything your heart desired. and this was quite problematic for bruno. he almost did not eat (even though we were STARVING) because he could not decided. but, eventually he picked the first thing on the menu: american breakfast. bad canadian bruno!!! then, we walked around the town and shopped a bit...built up an appetite, went to another restaurant that was playing some episodes of Friends, sat, watched a few and then went back home. it was raining a bit that day, but nothing compared to the torrential downpours that occurred two of the four mornings we were there. bruno did a rain dance in hopes for rain that night, and i prayed that it wouldn't rain. bruno's rain dance worked.....sad. but it only rained for a little while. when we got back to the huts, we slept a bit then got extremely painted and then the six of us packed our selves into a small tiny car and headed for the FULL MOON PARTY!!!!!! HORRAYYYYY!!!! it was everything it was cracked up to be and more!

finally, our time had come to say goodbye to koh phangan....it was a sad goodbye, but we know we will be back, so it wasn't too depressing ;) toom helped us to book our tickets back to bangkok and took us to the ferry stop herself. the ferry ride was loooong...and the bus ride was kind of bad, but that's ok. we had the best weekend/week in koh phangan and we all survived our first full moon party! we "did not add to the statistics" (34 people died at the last full moon party....) as andy kept reminding us not to do all weekend....and he also always pointed out the blood stain from a head accident on the "road of death" for us. besides the roads of death, and very very expensive taxi rides, there is nothing you could possible dislike about koh phangan.

now, we have to study for midterms...i have two: international business and information systems. fun fun fun. fun. then, march is going to be SWEET! my family comes to visit me at the end of march, and i think a bunch of us are having visitors for spring break, etc. the next vacation is scheduled for next weekend: the GIBBONS EXPERIENCE! soooo excited about it--thanks for planning andy!

SUPER cool Thailand fun fact of the week:
i saw a REAL firefly!!!!! it was soooo cool! and it had a green light.

xoxox, mer

Me & Nundies: Double Trouble 1/2 Way Around the World

This past week was a whirlwind of adventures! Fernando came to Bangkok from Hong Kong on Tuesday night. I met him on Kao San Road and luggage in hand, we proceeded to the "Gas Station" Bar. Even though it was midnight, he needed to bust out his sweat rag, which came in good use this past week! I'm very proud of nundies though because he didn't complain once about the heat! i guess it was a nice change from the cold weather in HK.

On wednesday, i went to school and fernando explored. he ventured ALL THE WAY across the street, bought a sim card and ate street food. pretty adverterous for a first-timer in bkk...it took me a week or two to eat off of the street carts. that night, in the spirit of wacky wednesday we took nundies to RCA Route 66. it was abby's first time there too, and it was also Matt's 21st birthday! he didn't get as wasted as jon did on his 21st, but i can bet that he had a good time! that night, we discovered the best bathrooms in the world. the girls bathroom had a band in it, fake dog statues, toilet paper, western flushing toilets, a lounge and even an "auntie" in the bathroom to help you out! and, it that sounds nice, the boys bathroom had people to massage you...andy LOVED it, but it scared nundies somewhat. he said he was mid-pee and "some dude came and started touching the back of his neck". we are all so glad and thankful that he didn't turn around and deck the guy for touching him while he was peeing. after he realized what was happening, he was stoked ;) i went home after RCA and a few of the others went to an after-hours club....i was still up when fernando came back and he started talking to me, and then suddenly, mid-sentence, he passed out. that was the end of that night. hahhahaha....good old nundies. the last words out of his mouth were, "i think i drank too much".

xin nian kuai le, or gong hee fat choi everyone a few days late!!! thursday (chinese new year) was so much fun. i will admit, i did miss my usual tea pouring, jai, candied fruit and li si that i do with my family at home, but this was pretty cool nonetheless. nundies, abby, charity, and i figured out how to say "china town" in thai (which, i already forgot how to say), and made it successfully there. the first stop was an ice cream sandwich cart so that nundies could try the famous ice cream sandwiches. then, we walked around a bit, and looked at all of the cool things they were selling--we saw lots of gold, jade, chestnuts, paper dragons, cotton candy, tons of oranges/tangerines, other fruit, candy, shark fins, and toys. i looked everywhere for candied fruit, but they only sold the dried melon and dried coconut here. it looked good because it was sold in a little pack with candied peanuts, chewy peanut candy and some cookie or something, but i didn't buy it because i was in the mood for dim sum. after walking around a few blocks, we found a dim sum restaurant and went in to eat lunch. it was filled with thai/chinese/local people, so we knew that was a good sign. we ordered a bunch of dim sum and i told everyone that we had to eat noodles for good luck and long life on chinese new year, so we ordered noodles too! we sat in the restaurant for almost three hours, just relaxing and digesting after our huge meal. when we walked out of the restaurant, the streets were flooded and it was pouring rain. i have NO idea how bangkok survives the monsoon season if the streets got that flooded that quickly. as we were exploring more, we started to see giant cockroaches come out from the gutters and crawl around the street. then just as i was about to buy a persimmon one crawled out from under it. and it was a HUGE roach. needless to say, i did not have a persimmon for dessert. THEN, to make matters worse, i looked down and saw a HUMONGOUS rat just chilling on the side of the sidewalk. it was DISGUSTING.....probably one of the grosser things i've seen in bangkok. i kept telling myself that it was good luck to see a rat since it is the year of the rat.....i'll just keep telling myself that....its like getting pooped on by a bird and convincing yourself that it is good luck because it is so gross.

anyway, after that adventure, we went home, ate dinner and got ready to go out. that night we were all excited to go to a new bar called "glow" and went on quite a long adventure to find it, only to go inside and find that we were the ONLY ones in there. literally. so, we used the bathroom, abby and marney did body shots, and then we left. we ended up at Q-Bar, which was pretty cool, but too many old european tourists for my taste....especially when they ALL think i am thai....lol.

on friday, we were determined to do a cultural event ;), so we went to school, showed nundies our campus, and went to wat pho....or the temple of the reclining buddha. this was AWESOME. he is about 150 feet long, and made of gold. one of the most spectacular things i've seen thus far. and, we went around sunset, right before the wat closed, so it was not crowded, somewhat cool, and the lighting was perfect. although this is the biggest (and oldest) wat in bangkok, it didn't seem that big. the grand palace felt a lot bigger to me, so i want to go back and explore wa uniforms and were able to get in for free. thammasat rocks my world! lol. on friday night, we went to a cool dance performance at some park/fort along the river, right near the rama 8 bridge. it was a modern/interpretive dance show put on by some students at another university. it was called "untouchable" and it was about the cast system in india, and how cross-cast marriages are looked down upon. i don't think i wt pho more. it was pretty cool because we wore our thammasatould have gathered any of that by just watching the dance, but that was the description that they gave us before hand!!!

saturday, in the words of andy, was "the day of over-rated events"! we spend a good majority of the day in a hot van, but i thought it was a good experience. andy, marney, nundies and i booked a tour to go to the floating market, river kwai bridge, and tiger temple. he did NOT want to go back to the floating market after our first experience, but this time we didn't have any encounters with fish or komodo dragons, just mango and sticky rice and fried bananas. yummmmm....i still think it is a cool thing to see in bangkok though! after the floating market, we went to the river kwai bridge in kanchanaburi. there was a small museum, and a bridge. thats all. ;) according to marney, this was "unremarkable" and the only thing fernando and andy took pictures of were statues of men who had their male anatomy hanging out....hahaha....oh, my friends crack me up...LOL. anyhow, we spent about an hour there, and got back on the bus and went to tiger temple. this was by far the best part of the day. we got to pet unchained, very pictures with the tigers! it was hilarious.....she was SOOOOO stoked. we heart you marns...even if you are the crazy cat lady ;)!!!! the only bad part was that it was like 100 degrees and since i was wearing a tank top, i had to put on my black juicy velour jacket. i wanted to die, until i saw the tigers, and got distracted because i was so scared to be attacked by the FULL GROWN tigers that were just chilling...occasionally making swift movements with their gigantic paws, and peeing on people.....no problemo. luckily, as you can severy very large tigers, and play with tiger cubs. marney, aka "the crazy cat lady" had a sparkle in her eye that i've never seen before (in any person's eyes, in my whole life) after she got to take pictures with the tigers. she was STOKED, to say the least. luckily, and obviously, i came out alive, didn't even get peed on during the process, AND, got some pretty sweet pictures of me with the tigers!!!

on saturday night, we went to a club called "santika" which was really cool. there was a thai band first, then they played hip-hop later. one of my favorite clubs so far...nothing much notable from that night, but really fun! i want to go back. the club was themed like a church (look at the picture), but it was a club. it was neat.

sunday we sort of failed miserably. first of all, we were supposed to meet at 1, but i didn't get up until 1:20. then, we dressed up in our uniforms again to go to the grand palace to see the princess, but when we got there, they wouldn't let us in for free, and it was 250 baht so no one wanted to pay, and i've already been there, so we left to find chotechir. we walked for a long time, and finally found it, but it was closed. and i had my heart set on a banana flower salad. boo. we ate at a place on the street that was good, then wanted to go to wat arun (temple of the dawn). we told the taxi driver, but just as we were getting there, andy called (since he was in the first taxi) and told us that it was closed. AHH...we gave up trying to be cultural for the day and went home. later, we found out that andy and fernando were NOT at wat arun, but some other random temple...so wat arun was probably open. oh, AB...AB...silly silly boy.

now, the best part of the week: marney told us about a temple where you can get real traditional thai tattoos and be blessed for life by monks.....at first, we were not going to go, but last minute, we decided to stay up all night, and went to wat bang phra in the morning to get tattoos. the kind that are tapped into your back by monks. don't worry mom, i didn't get one. i heard your little voice in my head saying, "meris, think before you do things. and if you have to think twice, it is probably a bad idea." hehehe....plus, i didn't know what design i would get or anything...so you can breathe now. however, nundies' mom might not be breathing so easy....he got a 10-inch tiger tattoo on his back. it is probably the coolest thing ever, but he said it was soooooo painful. and i know that he has a super high pain tolerance. it took about 30 minutes, but it didn't bleed too much, and it looks pretty gangsta!!! lol. oh nundies.....gotta love you! unfortunately, we had a bad mean taxi driver who we paid to take us back to bangkok, then when we got home, he wanted 400 baht more...we refused to pay him so he called the police. i told fernando not to pay and i was grouchy, tired, hungry, had a tummy ache, and had to pee. nundies knew i had a bad combination of emotions, so he sent me upstairs and dealt with the taxi driver. hahaha....then, i laid down in bed and couldn't sleep because i drank coffee. i kept having bad thoughts that nundies might be going to thai prison since he didn't come back for 30 minutes, so i went back downstairs to investigate. finally, he bargained the taxi driver down to 200 baht and paid him and left. it was a fiasco. it was so weird...they were just standing around, no one was angry, smoking cigarettes, and wasting time. the taxi driver could have EASILY made those 200 baht by driving people, but instead he left his car running for the entire time and just stood there and kept telling us to wait. strange...frustrating, but a good story. i think it was the most angry i've been since arriving to thailand, but i'm over it now. and still love it here! lol. good times...good times...

to celebrate my official 1-month anniversary in bangkok i:
1. ate chicken in my soup last tuesday night
2. started brushing my teeth with tap water
3. took out the hair extensions
(Me eating chicken!!!)




that's the end of the story of my life for the past week. hope you enjoyed it! xoxooooo

Jimbo Meets an Evil Taxi Driver

as all my blogs go, you will understand the title if and only if you read till the very end :)

lets start from the beginning. on wednesday afternoon, we decided that we wanted to go to koh samui (an island in the south of thailand) for the weekend, so as soon as class finished, we booked it to kao san road and went to a few different "travel agencies" to see how much it was going to cost to get there. we ended up going back to the first place we went to and booked 8 tickets to koh samui for 450 baht each...about $14.00 per person, including a "VIP A/C bus, and ferry ticket" we were very pleased with ourselves and the cheap ticket, not knowing how bad a 12 hour bus ride really is...even if it is on a so called "VIP" bus.

Andy and I on the
"VIP" Bus...it's so funny how the call it "VIP"

the bus was scheduled to leave bangkok at 6:00 pm on thursday afternoon, so we packed our backpacks (and, my $6 Jack Wolfskin backpack survived its' first trip) and rushed to kao san road so that we wouldn't miss our bus. we picked up our fav pad thai on the way because we thought they might not feed us the entire time...we should have know better...there is ALWAYS food everywhere and anywhere in thailand! then, of course, another thing we should have know better was that even VIP buses leave on "thai time" so our bus didn't leave until 7:15. we took our sweet time boarding the bus (yet another lesson we learned the hard way), and abby thought she got SUPER good seats because it was right above the stairwell so no one was behind her, hence, she would be able to recline her seat as much as she wanted without disturbing other people. what she didn't know when getting those superb seats was that they were also right above the malfunctioning bathroom and right below the AC vent. needless to say, she did not sleep much on the overnight bus. it was freezing cold, the windows were all covered in condensation because it is so hot in thailand, even at night time, and lucky for me, i didn't smell the bathroom, but abby and david, and basically everyone else on the bus was borderline throwing up from the gross smell. also, the bus driver must have liked mark whalberg movies, because he played two of them right in a row, and REALLY loud. they must think that since us foreigners are so loud and obnoxious that we like to listen to movies extremely loudly too. oh well, i can't blame them.

at the first rest stop, we all got off the bus, ate at an overpriced tourist stop and deliriously climbed back onto the bus from hell. however, it wasn't so bad for the second half of the ride because abby got the bus driver to spray almost a whole bottle of lysol (or something of that nature) in the bathroom, on the stairs, on the walls surrounding the bathroom, then she proceeded to beg for the bus driver to let her hold the bottle for the rest of the trip. he wouldn't let her. abby was sad. :( lol.

at around 6am, we got dropped off at some random place in the middle of nowhere (we all came to the concensus that if a thai transportation person wanted to take us all somewhere and kidnap us, they could because we never know where we are going, just get onto a million different buses, vans, tuk tuks, etc, and miraculously end up where we are supposed to end up...again, VERY inefficient!), and then had to wait for another van to take us to the ferry dock. we were all grouchy faces and sat around waiting for our van to come, and when it finally did, we got herded like livestock into a tuk-tuk much to small for the number of people there were, and went to a ferry stop. it was here that Jimbo (james) began one of the worst trips of his life (well, at least i think it was probably one of the worst, and if it were me, i would probably be back in LA right now, hehehe...kidding). when he opened his bag to get money out to buy food, he realized that he had been robbed 10,000 baht by the first bus that was loooong gone. i told him i'd lend him money for the trip, and he got over his loss fairly quickly by telling himself that whoever stole his money kid's would get cancer. yes, that is exactly what he said. then, we had to get on another bus because the ferry dock we were at was under construction. so we boarded another bus, drove for over an hour to the next ferry dock and got onto a "fast" ferry to koh samui. we got to the island and it was gorgeous. we found the "chavin condotel" easily by telling the taxi driver that it was across the street from pizza hut, which seems to be a landmark on koh samui's chaweng beach. we checked in and were extremely happy to find that our rooms each had a bathroom with a flushing western toilet and hot water. what more could a girl ask for???? we spent the rest of the day at the beach, ate dinner on the beach, and then slept early because we wanted to explore a new side of the island the next day. plus, i was almost comatose from the dramamine i took to prevent sea sickness...so sleeping was on the top of my list of things to do that night.

day two: we woke up at 830, ate breakfast at kao san bakery, struggled to get taxis to take us to the north side of the island, then spent the whole day (until mid-afternoon) at the beach. they had jet skis, kayaks, massages, waxing, hair braiding, everything you could imagine, on one beach. it was pretty funny. jimbo bought so much crap from vendors on the beach, including a sheet set and a tiger's tooth. at around 15:00 (hehe, i like military time now), it started to pour so we quickly packed up and went back to chaweng to shower and eat. we were sooo starving by the time we all got ready to go eat that we ended up a pizza hut, and i think it might have been the most satisfying meal so far (not the best, but the most satisfying). then marney and i walked around, some people took naps, jimbo and david got drunk, and we all rendezvoused around 8:00 to go out. that night, we went to a lady-boy show and it was fabulous. they lip-sang to a bunch of show tunes, and there were some really pretty ones and then there was one super fat ugly one that was probably 10% lady, 10% unknown, and 80% boy. she was our favorite though. then we went to a famous bar called green mango and danced our little booties off. finally, we checked out at 2ish and all passed out.

<-- The SUPER fat lady-boy...in case you couldn't tell.

now the story gets really good........at about 3:30, we get a call from jimbo "help help! i need help" and of course, we are all passed out and didn't take him seriously because we thought he was just drunk and being dramatic. so we went back to sleep. then, he comes banging on our door and tells us that he got beat up by a taxi driver. apparently, the taxi was coming at him so he jumped on the hood of the car, then the taxi driver got out, punched him in the face, kneed him in the ribs and stomach, and then took all of the money out of his wallet. again, when he told us this, we thought he was kidding. he told us that he was going to check himself into the hospital, and that he had internal bleeding. marney told him to sit down, so he did, then the next thing i know, i woke up to a text message saying that he was in the hospital. it was 9:00 am. i sat up in bed, realized what i just read, and got charity, found a map, found the hospital he was in, and since it was only 1km away, we walked to get him. the nurses said that he wasn't allowed to leave until they checked his blood at noon, but our bus was scheduled to leave at noon, so i went on "mission: break jimbo out of thai hospital". we got to the hospital, found jimbo in room 105, and he was in the bathroom when we got there. when he came out, he was in an over-sized hospital gown, no shoes, crooked glasses, holding himself up with an IV stand. me and charity broke out into laughter. it was not funny, but at the same time, it was hilarious. you had to see him. also, the hospitals are REALLY nice, they have pools and each room has a nice patio overlooking the pool/garden area. we decided that next time we are going to feign an illness and all just crash in a hospital room. so, we were successful in getting the nurses to let jimbo go early, but as soon as he stood up to get ready, he started to throw up. i hid under the pillows. then, i decided it might not be a good idea for him to embark on an 18 hour journey back to bangkok. luckily, there are a million travel agencies, practically as many as there are 7-11's so i was able to get him a plane ticket back to bangkok for later that night. we said our goodbyes and then i left him with his plane ticket, barf bag, backpack, david (another guy that came with us...the only one with a passport who could fly back with him) and in the care of the wonderful thai nurses!

the trip home was better than the one there because we learned all of our lessons the first time. this time, we rode on a huge ferry that the bus and some cars drove onto as well. it was not too bad, and i only got sea sick a itsy bitsy bit. then, when we landed, we got back on the bus, stopped at another random place for a few hours, got on a tuk-tuk, stopped at another place for about 20-30 minutes, then finally we saw our big "VIP bus" pull up to the stop. we all jumped up so that we could get good seats, and the lady at the bus stop kept yelling "NO NO, NOT YET, NOT YET!" but, we knew it was our bus so we sat on the sidewalk and waited for the go-ahead! finally, someone said "ok, you go" and abby ran, or, rather, sprinted to the bus, got us front row seats far away from the bathroom and snagged enough blankets for us all. marney took a picture of the license plate (in case we got robbed again), andy put the bags below, and charity, natalia and i followed abby. it was fabulous. we had a game plan this time, and it worked. the rest of the bus ride was uneventful. thank goodness.

we arrived back in bangkok, all in one piece, alive & well, but sleepy, at 5am. got home, showered, ate and then we all hung out, drank instant coffee and waited painfully to go to class at 9 am. i even studied for a little bit for my quiz!!! we figured it was better to stay awake because if we went to sleep we would probably miss class that we worked so hard to get back in time for. now, time to do laundry, nap, gym, do accounting homework. poop. but fernando comes tomorrow, can't wait!!!!

Black and White Party

Last Wednesday the BBA students (senior class) organized a "Black and White" party at a night club called Jet. we all had so much fun partying with the Thai students. it was the first time that we hung out with so many of them all at once. also, our friend Noon came over to our apartment before the party and got ready with us. to pre-game, we rocked out to a spice girls "wannabe" cassette tape that came with our apartment...it was soooo much fun! Noon was so shocked and said we have "such a different lifestyle" than she does ;)....she probably thinks we are insane. haha.... but, she is the cutest thing ever...so so tiny, and she has naturally super curly hair, so i straightened it for the party that night and she could barely look at herself in the mirror without giggling because it was the first time in her life that she has had straight hair. if i could describe the party in three words, they would be: 1) FUN 2) sweaty 3) smoky...thats the only thing that grosses me out here...we always come home smelling like ash trays because EVERYONE smokes, and they do it indoors. just a random funny sidenote, the tickets to get into the party were 10 time nicer than our school IDs, and our school IDs get us into clubs here....go figure.

Me, Char, Abby, Marney, Natalia, Noon before the party








The Thai student band that played at the club

I think i may have just eaten the best meal of my life!

we just came home from dinner, and i am finding it necessary to blog for the second time in two days because the meal i just had was TOO amazing. we went to a restaurant called Chotechitr, and it has been written up in many bangkok and travel magazines...and, since it is a whole in the wall, it's guaranteed to be delicious! it was honestly by far the best meal i've had here.

here's what we ate:
crispy fried rice noodles (3 plates)
whole white fish with green mango salad on top
yellow prawn curry
red duck curry
banana flower salad with shrimp (my favorite)
eggplant salad
cashew chicken (andy's choice ;) )
veggie dish of some sort
rice

and....for dessert, we walked out onto the street and saw people toasting thick slices of bread covered in bananas and loads of chocolate....we almost didn't get any of it, but we decided to try it, and it was probably the best decision of the night ;) at first we started off with one order...i ate one bite, turned around and it was gone. so we ordered another....and another....and another...and finally, one last one that we tried with coconut custard (that is green in color; we can't figure out why all of the coconut flavored things are green here) and it was even better than the ones with just chocolate and banana...of course...the more sugar the better! (don't worry, there were 7 of us total, so we didn't eat THAT much..........oh, and it cost about $45 for all of that food....i know, i'm obsessed with reporting prices, but it still amazes me to this day; i wonder if i'll ever get over how cheap things are here?)

i remembered my fun fact of the day from yesterday:
-i accidentally ate chips that were made of "lean pork - 86%", so i am officially not a pescatarian anymore.....gross....what a way to get off the "lifestyle" of being a pescatarian ;) lol


going to watch a movie and digest now. xoxo

We went to the snake farm three times...and never touched a snake

so, i guess the snake farm isn't going to happen. we have tried to go every day this weekend, and the first time we were 2 minutes too late, the second time we only had half an hour to see the snakes (i gave up after the second time) and the third time (andy and marney went to conquer their fear of snakes) they were not "milking" the snake venom....we give up!!! (SNAKE AT THE SNAKE FARM)

other than this small mishap, i had a fabulous weekend in bangkok! on thursday, i was only out of bed for 8 hours, so i vowed to make the best out of the rest of my weekend, and i definitely did on friday AND saturday! :)

on friday, marney and i woke up early (9:30) and wanted to be adventurous, so we found the word for "sky train" in our lonely planet phrase book (which is the funniest phrase book ever!) and told the taxi driver to take us to the sky train. 80 baht and 35 minutes later, we arrived at the sky train, only to find out that our stop for Jim Thompson's house was only 2 away....and it probably would have been faster and cheaper just to catch the taxi all the way.....it was going to be a weekend full of "cultural events" for us! the sky train reminded me so much of san francisco bart. i loved it! and it is so nice to be in air conditioner....we stay in whatever AC we can find for however long we can....sometimes we even go into stores just for the AC! i don't know what we are going to do when winter ends....anyway, we got on the sky train, had a nice view of some part of bangkok for 5 minutes, then got off at the National Stadium stop to see Jim Thompson's house. it was so beautiful there. the house was built in a traditional thai-style with six different houses on stilts connected together. however, even though the house was built in a traditional thai style, it was decorated with the most wonderful furniture, buddah sculptures, silk paintings, porcelain, and plants from all over south east asia--china, india, malaysia, indonesia....you name the country, and there was something in that house from there! but, even though he collected his art from so many different places, it all strangely matched, and fit together very nicely. the living room reminded me of my living room at home because there was an opium bed in the middle of it that looks just like ours! and my mom would have loved the dining room because the table was made of two mah-jong tables pushed together and the chairs were beautiful teak wood with cushions hand painted to look like blue and white chinese porcelain. mom--you need to see this place if you come to thailand...i thought of you the whole time! (ORCHIDS...FOR MOM; JIM THOMPSON'S HOUSE IN BACKGROUND)

after the jim thompson house, marney and i met andy at siam square for lunch...we figured we could reward ourselves with a little shopping after our cultural experience (we are trying to stay away from the shopping and do more bangkok-ish things....whatever that means!!! so, we ate at a japanese restaurant and then shopped for about an hour or so, then caught a taxi back home....the taxi ride took so long though because of bangkok traffic that we ended up getting to kaosan road, getting street pad thai and then turning around and going back to where we started to meet billy and his friend justin. billy was supposed to come in around 2, but with a combination between "thai-time" and bangkok traffic, he did not get to the hostel until around 630. it was alright though, because the hostel he stayed at was about 1km away from the boxing stadium where they have muay thai fights on friday nights!!! once they settled in, we walked to the stadium and watched the muay thai fights. i think that this was the first thing in bangkok that is exactly how i imagined it would be. the stadium was really old and it was made of wood boards, so every time you step, you are afraid your foot is going to go right through and you are going to fall through the floor! also, there were mostly men at the fight, the only women that were there were the girlfriends, but mostly men go there to bet and drink. it is a mess inside, but it was very cool! in total, there are 8 fights for the night, and the main fight is the 5th fight. it was a good night to go because the underdog won the main fight, so everyone in his corner was ecstatic! then, after that fight, there was a fight between a K1 champion (whatever that menas) from korea (who marney fell in love with!) and some other guy from thailand i think. the last fight was between some boys who were SO little...they were only 14 years old!!! after the fight ended, we got food at the night bazaar and went home to get a good nights rest for the floating market on saturday morning! (MUAY THAI FIGHT--MAIN EVENT)

went to bed at 130 on friday night, and on saturday when my alarm went off at 445 i second-guessed my plan to go to the floating market at 5am. but, since i organized it, i dragged my butt out of bed, brushed my teeth, found the biggest sunglasses i own, and went to meet everyone else in the lobby. marney and andy were already waiting...and of course, charity was the last one down ;) ;) hahahaha...she is on hawaii time PLUS thai time so we always make fun of her for being late!!! our friend JJ helped to hire a taxi driver to take us around all day for 800 baht, so the driver came at 5 am to pick us up, then drove us 2 hours to the floating market. it was quite the experience. we got there, and it has become a tourist trap, so we had to pay 400 baht to get on a boat that would take us through the market. even though it was very touristy, i loved it, and it is definitely something everyone needs to do when they come here. at first, there was a food canal where we got mango and sticky rice (off of a boat, of course) and some coconut pancakes that were both "simply delicioso"!!! here, they also sold every kind of fruit, thai dishes, pancakes of every sort, fresh veggies and tons of coconuts. there are also vendors along the side of the canals, but we made a deal as soon as we stepped foot into the boat that we were only going to buy things if they were floating...like us. after the food canal we went to some other canals that sold a bunch of crap that you see all over thailand. its really funny though because all of the ladies selling the stuff have these sticks with hooks on the end, so they reach out with their stick and hook your boat and drag your boat to their side of the canal...we kepteven when we go home to go to bed early, we somehow don't end up sleeping early. i think i saying NO NO NO, MAI CHAI (it means no) MAI CHAI! we were pretty obnoxious (mostly andy, as usual) by the end, but they don't listen. none of us bought any durable goods...only food...and we thought there would be food during the whole tour, but it's only at the beginning so we were sad :( then, we stopped at a tourist shop in some other canal, were forced to get out of the boat, looked around for 4 minutes and then got back into our boat to go on the rest of the tour. we were probably the worst tourists they have ever seen...thats because we are NOT tourists!!!!! yayyyyy! we are locals...thammasat students! hahahahha....i keep going between feeling like a tourist because i want to do everything in the 5 months that i am here, and feeling like a "local" because we are indeed living here....it will probably be this way the whole time! lol. finally, when we were on our way back to the pier we stopped at some place where they tried to make us buy fish food to feed the fish but I HATED IT. the fish were SO gross and they spray dirty dirty water all over you. and we were all screaming and saying GO but the boat driver and the other men who were selling the food thought it was hilarious so they poured two whole bags into the river and we got so much water all over us. i even got some in my mouth because i was screaming while the fish were flapping. it was disgusting. i purelled myself afterwards to protect against pregnancy, rabies, hepatitis, etc. you would too if you saw the water!!! hahahaha...not even being dramatic ;) then, something else even more scary happened! we saw komodo dragons in the water!!!! well, one komodo dragon swimming, and one dead one floating upside down in the river. andy saw it and i have never heard someone scream so badly, or look like he was going to die as much as he did. i think he was literally shaking, and holding his knees to his chest and, yeah, dying. and the boat driver thought this was funny too so he slowed down....just what we wanted to do. finally, we got back to the pier, and even though this story makes it sound like i didn't like it, i really really did! my favorite part was the food part, of course. and i would recommend this to anyone visiting bangkok too! just be sure to tell them you don't want to feed the fish or slow the boat down in open water ever. thats all :) (PICTURE OF THE FLOATING MARKET)

after the floating market, we wanted to ride elephants so we went to an elephant riding place that was sort of near by, and got out and realized it was another tourist trap for 600 baht for 30 minutes only, so we just took pictures of the elephants and left...we are so cheap......its bad. so we got back into our car and went to King Rama 2's palace (we don't know if it was his summer palace or his regular palace), but it was stunning. the buildings were all painted red and the landscaping looked just like kaneohe...everything was lush and green and the grass was perfect, rolling hills, palm trees, flowers, plumeria trees, the whole shabang. i took lots of pictures, so they will be on facebook soon! our last stop of the day was the snake farm, which leads to the beginning of this blog. (KING RAMA II PALACE)

we got there 2 minutes too late, but it was ok. marney and andy had enough scaring for the day anyway. but, since the snake farm was near jim thompson's house, charity and andy went there to see it, and marney and i took the skytrain (for more than 2 stops this time) to the JJ weekend market. the size of the market and array of things to buy still shocked me the second time, and this time we found the animals! they were selling baby hoku's for only 4000 baht, which is $120 US...they were the cutest things ever...we stood there and thought of ways we could hide them in our apartments, but decided against it. they also had golden retriever puppies and husky puppies (i felt so sorry for the dogs...they looked so so so hot...esp the siberian husky ). i also bought a BIG hiking/weekend backpack for $6!!! it is nice, except it says "jack wolfskin" on it and i don't know what that means. i was very pleased when i got home and all of the zippers worked. we'll see the true test during our next trip this weekend to koh samui. (i just planned it...we are leaving on thursday on a bus and staying until sunday in beach bungalows). (PICTURES OF THE PUPPIES AT THE JJ WEEKEND MARKET)

after the weekend market, we went home in NO TRAFFIC :) and then ate dinner at the green restaurant and got ready to go to RCA. this was the first time i went out since wednesday, and i didn't even drink! i needed to detox my body, and i did a good job of it this weekend....i was wondering how long i could go without my body hating me! for the record, i lasted 2.5-3 weeks...pretty good! but this past week has been pretty chill, and i plan on the next few weeks to be too...horray! i think i have a permanent stomach weirdness...its not upset, not sore most of the time, but sometimes has weird cramps or other issues. probably just getting used to everything :) not bad. (MARNEY, ANDY, AND ME AT RCA ROUTE 66)

Best things to bring to Thailand/things i'm thankful i brought (in lieu of my "Thailand Fun Facts"):
-z bars
-bug spray
-gold bond
-sun screen
-napkins
-shorts
Things I should have brought:
-going out tops
-more comfy shoes
-strapless bra....i forgot it....sad
Things i shouldn't have brought:
-six pairs of jeans. yes mom, you were right....it was the dumbest six things i could have packed ;)
-towel/sheets.....don't ask.....

i also had a good observation that i wanted to write about, but it is escaping me at the moment...i'll probably blog about it when i remember! i still love it here....still so super duper happy! fernando is coming on feb 6-12 and I CANT WAIT!!!! sweet deal.

hugs and love from bangkok. -mer

finally...

after much anxious waiting and delicious street food, i finally got my first bout of laduzi...or food poisoning... it wasn't bad at all, knock on wood. and i am perfectly fine after just one day of a little un-comfort...i even went to school :) hahahhaa...i'm a good student. whatever i ate was definitely worth it. lol.

on sunday, i had my first thai massage experience. we walked down the street to health land (a famous massage place) and got one hour foot massages. it was the best thing in the world, but i felt bad for the massage therapists because my feet are perpetually dirty from walking around in the bangkok filth...oh well....i just kept telling myself that they have probably seen worse. gross, i know. (ABBY AND MARNEY GETTING READY FOR FOOT MASSAGES)

after the massages, abby and i ate at a cute restaurant (the green restaurant) very close to our house...we scarfed our food down not only because we were starving, but because we were excited to go home and get ready to go out for jon's birthday..... (PICTURES AT THE GREEN RESTAURANT, AKA, MOMO'S)

which leads me to the final part of my blog....jon's 21st birthday...needless to say, jon had an amazing time, and we know it was amazing because the tuk-tuk driver had to help jon get into and out of the tuk-tuk at the end of the night. we did not really have any plans besides to get jon wasted (and we think he came very close to 21 shots), so we ended up just going to kao san road, which turned out to be sooooo much fun! we went to 2 clubs (lava and gazebo) had 2 rounds of pad-thai. simply delicious! then, i thought that i lost my camera and my phone, but it turned out that the security guard found my camera, and when i went to school this morning my phone was in my school bag...i guess i didn't bring it out with me in the first place. thank goodness. (BRIAN BOUGHT JON A CRICKET FOR HIS BIRTHDAY)

luckily brad and brian were good sports and carried jon INTO the club (yes, they still let inebriated people into clubs here, gotta get that 250 baht!!!)...OUT OF the club (20 minutes later), INTO the tuk-tuk, DOWN kaosan road, INTO the elevator, and INTO bed....that is a lot of carrying. it was their workout for the week! hehe... this morning there was everything you could find in an apartment on jon's bed and all over his floor (including "top soil" from the planters) and the sharpie that was all over his body managed to tattoo their leather couch........so if anyone has any tips for removing sharpie from leather, please let us know! (OUR BIRTHDAY GIFT TO JON...TAKE TIME TO READ WHAT THE SHIRT SAYS!)

my (very brief) thailand observations:
-the dogs are CRAZY here...they are barking so loudly right now, i hope they are not having dog fights down stairs or anything
-suzy reminded me of this one: all of the taxis are NEON!!! the hot pink are my favorite
-we've decided that lines on the road are just recommendations/guidelines, not anything to be followed to seriously, 90% of the time, the taxi's are not in lanes
-we don't have enough weekends to do everything that we want to do here :( but i think our next big trip will be either to chang-mai/laos, or to india!!!! how stoked are we???!!!??!

6 hours of class tomorrow....wish me luck. sweet dreams to all of you here, and good morning to everyone else! love you