I’m in Tokyo for my birthday, and the girls at my favorite cake shop remembered me though it’s been over a year. They slipped an extra piece of cake into my take-out box like they used to do, perfect for a birthday party.
I was right! Rebecca sent me a link to an article about the increase of C-sections in China on August 8, 2008, supporting my prediction. Too bad there’s not a futures market in C-sections.
And 100 days of freedom.
A Google search for “Shanghai Bob” now brings this blog up on the first page of results (previously it was down on the third page). Admittedly, this probably wasn’t too hard to achieve given that Shanghai+Bob is an unusual combination (which is partly why I chose it).
Making it into the top ten for “Shanghai” or “Chinese” will probably be difficult, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find a niche to exploit once I am settled in Shanghai.
I’m winding down the adventure part of my trip now. I’ll be in Tokyo next week, in San Francisco for my birthday, then I’ll head home for the holidays: Thanksgiving in Montana and Christmas in Boston.
Thai people’s sense of “fun” extends to pretending to shake up your can of soda (and accidentally doing so while miming it) and also to carefully judging your spice tolerance and then throwing in an extra handful of chillies, as the person who prepared my noodles today did when she thought I wasn’t paying attention. Next time someone asks, “Spicy OK?”, I’ll be a little less confident when saying Yes.
On a related note, I meant to record that China’s love of spice apparently extends to ice cream. While were were waiting at the Hope Star Cafe for Joel to arrive, we saw “Vanilla ice cream with spicy sauce” on offer. Reading the Japanese description gave us a clearer picture: “Vanilla ice cream in Tabasco sauce.”
I got the news about our new President-Elect first thing this morning.
I’m staying on Patong Beach, which is lively, but also fairly seedy, full of touts who seem to have learned English from New Yorkers: “Hey, brotha! Where you from, my man? You need a suit? I hook you up, good price!” They all want to shake hands so they can physically hold you in place during their patter but I’m wise to that trick. Some guessed I was German, so I also got the following: “Wie geht’s? You Berlin? Alles gute!” There are no zonkeys, though.
The Ronald McDonald statue in front of McD’s on Bangla Road has his palms pressed together in a wai, the Thai name for the gesture of welcome and thanks that looks like prayer.
Dairy Queen is just as prevalent here as in Shanghai, but the Shanghai cup that is called a “medium” there is a large here, which suggests that China will plump out on foreign fast food sooner than Thailand will.
I ate on the beach, though, red snapper and shrimp while listening (trying not to listen) to a two-piece combo murder one Abba song after another (the male keyboardist singing falsetto) at the request of four little blonde Swedish girls who were flitting around the stage.
I took my seat (we were herded in with no seat assignments on AirAsia), memorized one lesson from my Chinese textbook, took a nap (critical to allow the new vocabulary to sink in), and touched down in Phuket before I knew it.
The taxi into town cost 300 baht, with an additional 100 for the driver, who has registered his car with Phuket airport. This was still 150 baht cheaper than the “official” cars for hire (by suckers) inside the airport, but 280 baht more expensive than riding in the back of a pickup truck.
For the extra three bucks for a registered car you get a postcard to mail in to the airport taxi association with a handy checklist for the ways you have been ripped off:
I thought the “s” after “Other” was less limiting than our convention of leaving it singular.
I booked an overpriced (1700 baht) hotel from Bangkok, but only stayed one night. I found a guesthouse directly across the street for 800 baht, or about $25. My food costs are running about $10/day, which means I can stay here basically forever.
The guesthouse is clean and quiet, but the staff are loopy. When guests check in, the manager gives them a fruit, but it’s an unripe, bitter, nasty-tasting fruit (How do I know, you ask) that looks like a kumquat. I saw several guests eat them and disguise their reaction to be polite, but she liked the ones who made a face; she laughed and shrieked, “I joke you!”
I got email from Andy S. today asking, How’s life in the slow lane? (motto: Nothing. Ever.) and catching me up on work happenings. Apparently the Christmas Party (as it’s called in London) has been canceled, which a cynical eye might see as a harbinger of layoffs.
As for life in the slow lane, it goes at a good clip in Bangkok, so I’ve booked a flight for Phuket for a week on the beach starting tomorrow.
[I've added the "prophesies" tag to this post. The prophesy is that there will be layoffs. An easy one, I know.]
I extended my stay in Bangkok because Andrew came out for the weekend, but had to find a new place because the one I was in was booked solid for November. I got a room in the hotel three doors down called Top Inn. The reason it was available is because it’s literally on top of Nana Entertainment Center. This is the view from my window:
Even seven stories up you can hear (and feel) the bass from the clubs. They shut down at 2:00a, though, so you can get some sleep, and the hotel offers “old skool” services like laundering your safari suit (or just the jacket).
Andrew and I went to Somboon Seafood for dinner and had prawns almost as big as your hand:
We went to Patpong afterward. Beer is cheaper than at Nana, and it’s pretty tame compared to its reputation, but we didn’t see any of the “shows” on offer, so I can’t say for sure it doesn’t get worse. We walked down the nearby street that caters to Japanese tourists, and I marveled anew at the inflated prices Japanese people are willing to pay abroad to establishments that adapt to their culture. Everyone avoided us until we spoke Japanese, but we found that there is an hourly charge of 600 baht, plus 100 baht per beer, plus 200 for a “lady drink.” That’s 900 baht for an hour compared to 240 baht for the same thing (minus karaoke machine, but with no hourly charge) literally two streets down.
We ended up in the quieter side street sharpening up our pool game. There we saw the small but wide female bartender roust out a drunken German using a truncheon. Apparently he comes there regularly and she throws him out regularly, and sometimes beats him up too. It wasn’t entertaining — he may have been obnoxious, but I don’t think he should be beaten with a club. (Though maybe he keeps coming back because that’s what he’s looking for.) She smacked him twice and I had just decided to say something when he retreated.