HA!

I just posted another blog ten seconds ago, though I wrote it a few days ealier.  Anyway, I'm here in Laos and it's just as blah as I remember.  I'm waiting to get my visa renewed, which due to the train being late I must now wait a whole day longer than the normal 2 days required.  But, I did get to go to this really great Indian restaurant here.  I've gone to this place every time I come here, and I think I'll go tomorrow too, despite the strange experience there today.  I was sitting waiting for my food to come and people started coming in carrying supplies and such.  Some bags of rice, and canned goods, vegetables.  So I went back to reading my book.  Then I heard a weird noise and looked over to see two of the guys dragging a goat through the restaurant by the horns.  It bleated(or whatever goats do) once or twice.  They took it in to the kitchen and I don't really care to guess what they were using it for.  They don't serve goat at the restaurant so God only knows.   And maybe he's not that interested.  As they were bringing it through I heard someone say, "At least it's fresh".  Just thought that I should record this little piece of cultural diversity before I forgot.  Peace,

-Devbat

            Disclaimer: This blog contains some sexual overtones. Well actually, a lot of sexual overtones.  I feel like I should let you know before hand.  I did my best not to write in crappy porno book style, but the subject matter doesn't lend itself well.  Anyway, at least I used the more politically correct terms where applicable.  The word "hooker" appears 6 times.  "Pussy" twice.  "Vagina" 4 times.  "Speedos" 7 times.  "Gay" 4 times.  Well, ok no more warnings.  If you've gotten this far you are just going to read the rest.  So go ahead.  See if I care.  Pervert.

            You know the old guy who you see at the mall sometimes.  He's kind of fat, but not too fat for someone that old, but he's always way too tan for an old guy.  He's always looking at girls way too young for him.  Sometimes boys too.  He's probably charming and nice when you meet him but harbors some strange things deep in his mind when you get to know him.  His smile on his tan face is like a crack spreading across a ripe pumpkin, slimy but you want to see where it's going.  He dresses nice but casual, and has an air about him as if he might have a lot of money.  But that air is probably just smoke being blown up your ass.  When this man dies, the heaven that he goes to is actually pretty close to here.  It's called Pattaya. 

            Take every tourist trap that you've ever seen or been to and put it on one street.  Then fill it with hookers.  Male hookers, female hookers, male hookers that used to be women, and women hookers that used to be men.  Fill in the gaps with bars, pubs and hotels to give the hookers a place to stay.  Then smack this street up against a tropical beach.  Ok, now fill the beach with garbage.  We're almost there.  Sprinkle the whole thing with street vendors, magicians, and beggars.  Now send an invitation to everyone in the world with enough money to get there.  Welcome to "Walking Street" in Pattaya. 

            The whole of the city is pretty much like walking street except not as tightly packed.  But pretty close. 

            Aey called me Friday night and asked if I wanted to go with her and a few friends.  She knew somebody with a few rooms that her family rents there and said we could stay for free.  Pattaya is only about 2 hours from Bangkok and Aey was just going to drive so the only transportation cost would be the five of us sharing the cost of gas.  So it sounded like a good deal.  We got there around 3, put our stuff in the rooms, and walked down to the beach.  The beach was unlike anything I've ever seen.  Take away everything but the sand and the water, and yeah it's your standard beach.  But it is almost impossible to see the sand and water from 20 yards for all the umbrellas in the way.  Big beach umbrellas are planted from the edge of the sand to the high tide line, there is no break in the canopy that they create.  Under these umbrellas are rows and rows of chairs and tables.  The chairs on our particular section of the beach were not incredibly crowded, but 70% of the occupants of these chairs were old men in speedos.  Old, tan, wrinkly, balding men in speedos.  Another 25% were younger than that, but still wearing speedos.  Every once and a while you would see a family, but not often.  Serving the speedo men were young shirtless Thai boys.  Sometimes they were in speedos too.  So if you haven't figured it out yet(you're retarded) it's a gay beach.  I like to think of myself as open-minded, accepting, and easy-going.  But being just about the only straight guy on a gay beach, a gross, dirty, umbrella infested, old gay beach was a bit much.  I can't say that I was entirely comfortable.  Especially with the wrestling and splash fighting and other stereotypical gay foreplay happening a few feet from me in the ocean. 

            I think all of it would have been a lot easier if it wasn't for the age of most of the guys there and the sheer volume of speedos.  Seriously.  I don't think I've ever been in that close of proximity to so many speedos.  You could walk through a speedos factory outlet and not see so many.  So far I haven't had any nightmares, but I think it's only a matter of time.  Also, the umbrella thing is kind of cool because it does offer a great amount of shade, but the beaches here are so hot that the wind blowing off the sea is hot too.  So sitting under a forest of umbrellas surrounded by sleazy dudes smoking and drinking and eating thai food(most of which is incredibly aromatic), it's almost claustrophobic.  I had the sense of breathing everyone else's air.  

            We went to walking street in the evening to get dinner and do some drinking.  Young Thai girls in school uniforms or short skirts were positioned every 20 feet or so yelling at the crowd to come in.  Between them were restaurant hosts and hostesses yelling at the crowd to come in.  And between them were sleazy looking dudes with 5x5 cards who would walk up real close and ask you to come see a ping-pong show.  The card listed the various acts, "Pussy smoke cigarette, pussy ping-pong, etc...".  After dinner, Aey decided that she wanted to bring me to a ping-pong show.  Maybe it's like a right of passage for normal Thai young people or something and she wanted me to have the cultural experience.  So anyway we pick some random place and talk to the sleazeball out front.  He leads us to the establishment's staircase and we pay 400 baht and another guy takes us upstairs.

            The place is dark with too many black-lights.  They highlight the lint that is all over me.  There is a small bar area at the front by the door.  A few tables, chest high and small, line the wall near the bar.  Topless girls are sitting on stools around these tables waiting their turn to get on the stage and dance.  The dancing stage is small.  Four poles on a tile floor backed by floor to ceiling mirrors.  There was a girl on each pole, some dancing more enthusiastically than others.  The less enthusiastic ones doing little more than swaying side to side and looking around.  The hostess led us to a table.  Looking around at the clientele I was incredibly surprised to find that there were very few seedy looking loners.  In fact I didn't see any.  Mostly it was touristy looking couples or groups of Thai teenagers.  A real family place.  We were sitting for quite a while before the show started.  They flashed a bunch of lights and played some kind of corny fanfare like Star-Wars or something.  Then a girl came up from the back of the place wearing a white nighty.  She was holding some large white papers and some other stuff that I couldn't really make out.  She grandiosely showed the blank pages to everyone like a bad magician.  Then she set them on the ground and took a marker(the other thing she had been carrying) and wrapped it in some gauze.  Then(you know where this is going) uncapped it and put it in her vagina.  She squatted over the papers and started to make big exaggerated sweeping motions with her pelvis.  You couldn't see what she was writing while she was doing it.  But when she was finished she held it up for everyone, and in an amazingly legible handwriting(vaginawriting?) She had written, "Welcome to the (whatever the places name was)" with little hearts instead of o's.  She walked back to the rear of the place and did the exact same thing on the secondary stage.  The next girl to come out, also dressed in the little nighty had a few cigarettes in her hand and a lighter.  She got up on the stage and lay down on her back inserting the cigarettes in her vagina.  I think she put three in at once.  She lit them and then hoisted her legs up over her head resting her body weight on her shoulders with her feet against one of the poles and commenced to smoke the cigarettes through her vagina.

            I think that a detailed account of the rest of the show would be a little repititious (as was the show).  But the cumulative effect was more like a circus or a magician than a sex show.  They other feats were a girl who came up to the stage with nothing in her hands and commenced to pull out a sting with razor-blades tied to it.  Which when filly removed must have been 10 feet long with razors every 4 or 5 inches.  There was a girl who blew out the burning candles of a birthday cake, a girl who used a blow-gun to pop balloons and from a very impressive distance, a girl who pulled out a string of fake flowers, a girl who emptied a bottle of coke and then filled an empty bottle, and  girls who dropped ping-pong balls and then raw eggs into a cup.  The latter was the only thing the show had to do with ping-pong balls that I saw.  The lights came on and Aey and I decided that it would be more fun to go drink somewhere that the beers weren't 130 baht a piece.  She said that it must only have been half-time though since the standard fare of ping-pong shows hadn't been done yet.  She said that usually the latter half must be opening a glass bottle of coke, and the finale is almost always something with goldfish or hamsters or some other live animal.  I can't say that I'm sorry we missed it.

            Contrary to popular belief these shows aren't really sexy.  It's actually pretty weird to see an incredibly attractive girl do kind of gross stuff on stage.  Like the cigarette thing.  That was pretty gross.  I couldn't help thinking about how weird it would be to get black lung in your uterus.  And the razor-blades, I mean it was really amazing that they can do all this stuff, but can you imagine the practicing before they knew how to do it?  Anyway, it's an experience that is so widely available in Thailand that I'm sure I would've gone at some point. 

            So that was my experience with Pattaya.  I can't say that I'm in a big hurry to go again.  But to remove the stigma of me being such a cynic I will say this:  Thailand is awesome, the beaches are beautiful, the people are great, and it has so much to offer to anyone for a fraction of the cost in a western country.  However, Pattaya is the armpit of this country.  Or possibly the crotch.  It can be fun like a crotch, but you have to share it with lots of other people.  Which is kind of weird. 

-Devblog

Hello friends,

Recently my Mom came over here to visit with Tom McGraw.  We had a great time.  Went down to the islands in the south for a few days.  Traveled to all the tourist hot-spots here in Bangkok.  And now I'm back to my boring life again.  I was starting to feel overwhelmed with all the responsibility of arranging touristy stuff and always having to use my limited Thai speaking abilities to get us where we were going and to get reasonable prices instead of tourist prices.  But now, sitting in the internet cafe across the street from my apartment, wondering how I'm going to kill all my time today with nothing really important to do, my life feels empty.  I had a family present again for only two weeks, and now they're gone.  I miss you guys already.

  I'm purposefully not going into a lot of detail about this now since my mom and Tom will likely be doing that for me, and also this place has a tiny inneffective air-conditioner.  Also, I have to go get some food and my laundry.  But I do need to touch on one thing.  To anyone who has though about visiting me; Thailand is a great place to visit.  You can spend a bunch of money on cheap silk and souvenirs and stuff, or just live cheaply on an island for a few weeks.  And you are gauranteed a friendly guide who can usualy speak enough Thai to get you where you need to go and get you edible food.  Usually.  Oh and I am sticking every card or letter I get on my wall.  So keep em coming.  I'm going to send out a round of postcards again soon I think so give me your address if you want one.  Or maybe just give me your address anyway.  You jerk.

-Devbag

So,

I am at work.  The students are gone and there is nothing to do.  We are suposedly here to finish up paperwork(of which there is none) and clean up the classrooms(which our co-teachers have already finished in one morning) and prepare lessons for the summer(which is usually done on the same day as they are taught).  The only thing I could really be doing is preparing materials and visual aids for the summer term.  However the supply room has notified us that it will take 7 days to receive any supplies and I'll be gone by Friday.  So, I have very little work to do, nothing to do it with and 4 days to do it.  However were one to bring this up with the management, one would be met with blank stares, unhelpful suggestions and mindless busywork.  So, therefore I am blogging aboutit on myspace.  Thank you myspace, my truest, dearest, and most reliable friend.

As an aside, I have shaved my head, chest, and back as of yesterday night.  It took a very long time.  And it feels strange.  Thank you that is all.  Until next time kids, eat your greens, greet your means and meet your jeans, if you know what I means.

-Devblog

    So I actually wrote the previous blog about a week and a half ago.  Since then I have found a sweet apartment that is pretty close to the school I'll be working at, and I had to because the teacher that I was supposed to be replacing next year got fired now.  Apparently they hated him enough to not let him wait another 3 weeks.  Yay for me.  But he was a shitty teacher so I have a lot of catch up work to do.  And I don't have any time to do it.  So I have to sign off on a shitty end of year presentation and shitty test results for the kids who aren't star students.  Sucks for the kids.  I really feel bad.  I am the third teacher they have had this year and I get the impression that the other two were not wonderful individuals.  So I will soon not be very poor and soon after that will be earning a competitive salary here in Thailand.  OH, and my apartment has A/C and a mini-fridge.  My standard of living has just gone up from 3rd world to uh, 2nd world? 
    OK, thanks for reading, Dev-skateers.  Until next time, keep your arms and legs and tongues inside the vehicle at all times.  And always wear your safety-belt.  You don't have a safety belt?  Well, then always tie your shoes to the door handle.
-Devbag

    I am currently in the process of changing schools.  The school I've been working with gave me the wrong information about getting my visa renewed, and so I am seeking new employment.  I have found an agency that places teachers with schools here, and they are placing me in Lad Prao Bilingual School.  For now I'm just substituting, but I will become permanent as of the end of March.  I had my first day of substituting today and it's a nice school and I'm excited to work there full time.  But for now, I have to deal with the lag between starting work and getting paid.  To make it worse, during this period I have to find and pay for an apartment closer to the school, as well as purchase new clothes.  And I am currently living in a cheap hotel near the school because I would otherwise have an expensive and lengthy commute each day.  I am paying 300 baht($8.50) per day for the hotel.  But you get what you pay for.  It only has a Thai style squat toilet.  There is no sink either.  But there's an air-conditioning unit in here and a TV.  Call me crazy, but I would much rather have basic amenities such as adequate plumbing before air-conditioning and a damn TV.  I made sure to check out the bathrooms in the school today, and have decided to wait and do my shitting there.  But if I need to wash my hands or brush my teeth I have to use the shower.  Weird.  
    I was worried that this new school was going to take away a lot of my free time, but in one day I am only really in class teaching for a total of 3 hours or so.  There is a teachers lounge with personal desks and some internet computers where the English teachers spend most of their day.  And for this I will be making about twice as much as I did at my previous school.  Each class has two Thai teachers to help, and the kids here know way more English than my previous students as well, which makes it a lot easier for me.  So once everything settles into a routine I think this will be a great job.
    I must here backtrack though to cover my recent Visa run.  Yesterday I used the services of a Visa run van to Cambodia.  The man who runs the service, and also drives the van, is a German guy who has been doing this for a long time.  He is far more knowledgeable about the Visa process than the "professionals" who had been assigned to help me at the other school.  He drives to Cambodia just about every day.  The trip takes about 4 hours or so one way plus a free lunch.  The van leaves at 8 am and comes back around 5 pm.  It's a pretty decent deal for everyone involved.  The visa stamp process at the border is incredibly simple.  You hand them your passport and some forms and go have lunch in a crappy little casino just over the border.  Then after lunch you come back to collect your passport and get a new stamp for Thailand valid for 30 days.  But the important part of the story is my brief impression of Cambodia.
    The border station is fairly crowded.  I believe that most of the people waiting there are migrant workers looking for farming or construction work.  The road from Thailand to Cambodia is a one-lane dirt road that passes over a small muddy creek.  There is a wooden walking bridge to the side that looks like it belongs in an Indiana Jones movie.  The bridge and the lot just across the bridge are both full of little dirt-smeared children begging for money.  They beg aggressively too.  But I saw that one of the children had highlights in his hair.  I think that many of them are not as poor as they seem, but rather put on their shittiest clothes and roll around in the dirt for a while if they are coming to beg.  On the two minute walk from the border to the casino, there are of course dozens of duty-free stores with booze, perfume, cigarettes and prescription medicine.  The casino itself had the atmosphere of a church bingo night.  There were slot machines, but the card tables were in a big warehouse type room and simple folding chairs filled with gambling Thais lined them all.  The buffet was better than I expected for such a place, but nothing to go on about.  I've heard that Cambodia has some interesting sights to see, but my first impression leads me to believe that the country can't have much that would make me want to spend a lot of time there.  
    Well, it's dinner time folks.  So until next time, remember, employees must wash hands.  And always remember to wipe properly.
-Devbos

    I don't know that I can reasonably speak eloquently of a shopping plaza, so I will relate to you in the parlance of our times (thanks Big L) the wonders and the glory that is the biggest damn shopping complex thingy that I have ever freaking seen.
    Siam Square is along Sukhumvit Road in Bangkok which is pretty much the most traffic ridden, bustling, wealthy, fancy street in Bangkok.  The soi's (tributary roads) along Sukhumvit, well some of them, even have their own names, such as; Thonglo (roughly translated means made of gold).  I'm not sure if it is possible to put some kind of biggest or best title on Siam Square, but it seems like it should be the biggest something of somewhere.  
    The square itself is a shopping plaza of many blocks.  Store fronts line each block and passages like air-conditioned mining tunnels snake through the buildings, the tunnels of course are also crammed with shops.  There are a few large open plazas, which are lined with shops, where one can take a break from the thousands of people meandering the stores, but at every turn you are accosted with neon signs and store-front advertising.  If you will remember, the Thais are very good at compacting themselves into small areas, and although Siam Square barely leaves you room to walk when it's crowded, there are of course cars and tuk-tuks and motorcycles to contend with.  Surrounded by cacophonous commerce complexes, the area is actually relatively free from street peddlers.  Don't get me wrong there are of course the stray food carts and blankets strewn with watches and knick-knacks, but considering the density of merchants that litter most high foot-traffic areas, it is almost non-existent here.
    Ok, you may want to sit down for this.  Oh, right.  Anyway, Siam Square is bounded by 4, count 'em, 4 malls.  And each one is huge.  Siam Discovery, Siam Center, Paragon, and MBK are each about 6 floors or so.  I have been to all three, but the only serious difference that I can point out is that Paragon is really expensive and has lots of designer stuff, MBK is the cheaper mall but has some more tourist oriented stuff, and Siam Discovery and Siam Center are kind of the middle ground.
    Last week Aey and I went to Siam to get her some new uniforms for school.  We were just walking around the different malls doing some shopping (I bought some sandals for 100 baht($2.50) which fell apart two days later).  I was getting a coffee at Starbucks (yeah they're everywhere here too) when Aey turns to me looking worried and says, "Where's my purse?"  I think I actually heard some ominous music in the background when she said it "Dun Dun DUUUUUUUUUH "  She used my phone to call her cell phone and luckily whoever had her purse picked it up and told her where to meet her to get it back.  Oh but it couldn't possibly be that simple.  By that time it was about 9:15 and the malls (all of them) were closing.  We still had to validate the parking at Paragon on the top floor at the cinema.  Aey said they always do it for free, so she said I should go do that while she went to get her purse.  Oh, but wait, the ticket is in her purse.  So both of us rush over to MBK where the merchant with her purse was meeting her.  This is of course the mall furthest away from our current location.  We get there and can't remember where the store is and for some reason Aey didn't think to ask the girl on the phone so she calls again with my phone and then kind of runs off in the direction of the store.  I followed behind hoping to find her without actually having to run, and I did.  We got the purse and headed back to Paragon to get the ticket stamped.  By the time we got back to Paragon it was probably 9:45 and they had already turned off the escalators.  Wonderful.  So we walked up to the top floor and got to the cinema and apparently there had been some kind of policy change and Aey had to buy something to get the stamp.  So she bought a bottle of water and got the stamp and then we had to go find her car which of course neither of us remembered very clearly where it was.  But eventually I got home and collapsed on my bed, safe from the advertising icons and pop-culture embracing Thai teenagers.  
    Well, until next time folks, never look a gift horse in the mouth if you get the milk for free.
-Devbos

Hello Friends and Family,
     It has been far too long since I have posted anything here so I'm making up for it by posting way too much.  Recent developments include but are not limited to: Visas, Statues, Frustration, Christmas, New Years, Pictures, and Bombs.
     I'll cover these items in reverse order.  First of all, for those of you who may not know, New Years eve was host to 7 or 8 bombs in Bangkok, and one the day after in Chiang Mai.  I haven't heard much in the way of news about it, but none of them were big enough to level buildings or anything, but I know that a bunch of people were injured, but I'm not sure if anyone died.    
    I can lump Christmas, New Years, and Pictures all in one.  Suffice to say that I took a lot of pictures over christmas and new years and that I had a good time.  I had to work on Christmas but I got to call home and talk to some people and thanks everyone who sent something in the package from home.  I really appreciate everything.  And Aey even bought a little fake tree so I had a place for the little ornaments.  I spent New Years eve with Aey and some of her friends in a small club on Thonglor Road in Bangkok.  It was pretty fun, even though I couldn't really talk to a lot of her friends, not that you can really do a lot of talking in a night club. 
    I will skip ahead to Visas and Statues.  I made another Visa run up to Laos recently.  I asked my friend Bik, who is now living in Nong Khai(the town across the border from Lao), if he knew of a National Park nearby that we could do some hiking or something.  He took us instead to a National Park that was a statue garden.  At first I thought that it was some ancient place, but it turns out that the statues are fairly modern, but still really cool and huge.  The Thai have this way of mixing ominous detail and frightening images with a smiling Buddha face.  It's kind of creepy actually, but also really cool.  We then made the trip into Lao to get a renewal on my Visa.  This is where the frustration comes into play.
      The process for getting your visais ridiculously complicated and needlessly so.  You cannot get a Thai visa in Thailand.  You must go into a neighboring country to get it.  And in case you haven't heard, most of the countries surrounding Thailand are developing nations, (aka shit-holes).  Once in Nong Khai, the process is as follows: get a Tuk-tuk to the bridge, sign departure papers and go through immigration, get a bus across the bridge, apply for Lao visa, sign entry papers and go through immigration, get a taxi to Thai embassy, pay and submit paperwork for visa, stay overnight in a hotel, come back the following day to get visa, and do the entire process in reverse to get back into Thailand.  To make matters worse, the Thai embassy does not accept applications for Visas past noon.  So we got a late start in the first place, and then when we get across the border there is a ridiculous line at the Lao Visa booth.  There appears to be a total of 2 or 3 people doing this job that when the place is empty still takes at least half an hour.  So this time it took more than an hour, and by then the embassy was closed.  So we had to spend the night and come back to apply the next day extending our stay in Lao, or so we thought.
     The next day the Thai embassy official kindly informed me that there was no way that I could get a new non-immigrant visa.  I would have to just go back across the bridge and get a tourist visa.  The reason for this is due to the fact that the people assisting me with acwuiring my visa not only seem to not know what they're doing, but also don't really care to do it properly or to be helpful.  So now I am illegally working on a tourist visa, which I will have to renew by leaving the country again in a month, and I'm extremely frustrated at my host institution.  Furthermore, I was informed that it is unlikely that I would be approved for another non-immigrant visa with this present institution.  So, I'm in a bit of a limbo here.  The positive thing is that perhaps this mishap will enable me to move in with a new institution soon and earn more.  With a few phone calls it is possible that I could get a job making twice as much as I do now, and I would get a nicer apartment inside the city instead of my non-air conditioned crappy one out here in the suburbs. 
    A side note about the Thai bureaucracy.  The rules concerning foreign visas were recently changed(recently being October 1, 2006).  The end result is that every time I ask someone about the rules I get a contradictory answer.  Some of this is miscommunication, some of it is lack of communication and some of it is that nobody knows.  One lady working for the school thought that someone else was going to help me, so she just didn't bother telling me any of the details.  When she found out that the person she was counting on gave me false information, she was surprised but then explained it to me fully.  So if she knew already, why didn't she just tell me the last time?!?!?  Even so, by that time it was too late to submit the proper documents and in response to my questions she told me that when she asked the officials at the Thai embassy itself, even they don't know all the answers.  Aside from that there are so many ways to get things done illegally that people who think they have experience doing it really only know the way to do it illegally.  So in short, nobody knows, there's almost no way to find out, and you just have to try and do it any way you can.  That's the way things go here.  Sometimes it's like the Thai just kind of blindly follow stupid rules and nobody complains or tries to fix it.  I think that instead of "If it's not broken don't fix it"  they say "If it works in the least bit, don't try anything new".   Oh well, when in rome....
     Until next time, check out the pics I put up,
     Love you all, Miss you.
-Devbos

     I'm quite sure that few of you will have any sympathy about this but it was cold when I woke up this morning.  It has been unseasonably hot this winter( so I'm told) and I have been praying for cooler weather.  This morning and actually yesterday too, when I woke up I had to turn off the fan because I was cold.  I don't know exactly what the temperature was but it felt like about mid 60's this morning.  It is very relieving in many ways, such as: my wrists don't get sweaty just typing on my computer, I don't absolutely have to have a fan blowing on me to feel comfortable, and I don't need to drink as much water to stay hydrated.  However there are contingencies to colder weather in a place where it is uncommon that I had not thought of.          First of all:  I have no blanket nor sheet nor anything to cover with at night.  It was never necessary or practical before as I was usually so hot that I needed the fan on high and pointed right at me to sleep. 
    Second: The shower(which in my apartment does not come equipped with a heating element like some nicer places) is extremely cold.  It's usually chilly in the mornings anyway but I can bear it because I wake up to a moderately hot and stuffy room.  However when you wake up already cold a cold shower is not really that appealing. 
    Funny how I didn't really think about that when it was so stiflingly hot all the time.  Well on the positive side I could get a toblerone from the 7-11 and not have to lick it off of the paper.  I bought a Kit-Kat one day and the package actually says:"Best enjoyed in an air-conditioned room" .  
    Another interesting side note, when the weather is cool like this, places like the mall and the subway and taxis and the like all still have the A/C cranked.  Yesterday I went to the train station with Aey.  We took the subway there(so cold) hung out in the station for a while before she left(oh my God so cold) then I took the subway to the end of the line(I can't feel my toes) and then got a taxi the rest of the way home(my feet broke when I got out).  But none of you care I'm sure because it's snowing there or at least way colder than it is here.  Oh and I promise to have some interesting posts after the new year as I will be travelling to Ayutthaya to see the 500 year old capital and some ancient ruins and then I have to return to Laos to renew my Visa.  Until then, have a Christ-tacular Holiday!
-Devbos

Yellow polo shirts are uncannily common here.  Especially on Mondays.  Apparently, this is because the color designated for Monday is yellow, which happens to be the day that the king was born on.

People stare at me much more when I'm out with my girlfriend.  But, sometimes they stare at her more than me.  I know that I personally assume that any "farang" with a Thai girlfriend is some kind of sicko with serious ulterior motives, and that she is some kind of slut.  I guess we all are guilty of stereotyping.

The political situation here is supposedly becoming more unstable.  People are very aware that their freedom has been subverted, and democracy here is a matter of serious national pride.  Hopefully the new administration will tactfully address the problem.  I have my doubts.  Although recently the ban on public political meetings of more than 5 people was lifted.
    
Thailand is riddled with KFC, Burger King, McDonald's, Pizza Hut, Auntie Anne's, and Sizzler.  So far, the only one that I've tried was Pizza Hut.  It's about the same as in America, except smaller.  Oh, and you can get "Cheezy Sausage Crust" Which is stuffed crust but with a tube of hot dog that the cheese is stuffed in.

My rule of thumb for deciding whether a price is good or not is that things should be about ½ to 1/3 as expensive as they are at home.  More than that is too expensive.  This ratio holds for anything that isn't imported, up to and including expensive electronics, cars and even houses.  Recently, I went to a supermarket that deals almost exclusively in imported brand name groceries called "Villa Market". I spent $17.50 US and got a small jar of JIF extra crunchy, a box of RITZ, a few Baby-bell bite-sized cheeses, 3 bars of Irish spring, a box of granola bars, and a can of Guiness.  Considering I usually pay about 75 cents for my lunch, which is ample, this is prohibitively expensive. 

I have mentioned many times that driving and traffic here are crazy.  People drive on the left here instead of the right, and when they need to turn into the far lane of traffic(right turn) the conventional way is to nose out in front of someone in the oncoming lane.  Then they stop and you block traffic for as long as it takes for you to be able to nose in to the right lane.  This convention holds true even for busy 4 lane roads like the one that connects to my house.  Every time I see this I still am struck by how ridiculous it is.  However I think part of the reason for this is the serious lack of traffic lights even on main thoroughfares.

I watched an employee of 7-11 mop the floor with a mop and a windex bottle.

Most places except for chain restaurants and fancy places don't always have change.  If you need change from them they are upset, even if they happen to have enough.  But this creates a kind of paradox.  Nobody wants to give you change, but you are expected to have it.  My solution to this so far is to go to 7-11 and buy something small with a 100 baht note.
 
I had some more of these in mind, but I don't remember them right now.  And I've been saving this blog up for about a week now, so I figured I should just post it.  I'm going to have to do some serious thinking about the next blog because now I have a more rigid work schedule and consequently less free time to go do fun stuff.  But rest assured I'm always looking for the next experience to write about.  So stay tuned.  Choke dii (Good luck!)
-Devon