Bangkok Bound

Going to Bangkok was very interesting. There were things I've never seen before, and it's probably safe to say, I'd rather not see again. Here are the highlights.

Friday Night

After settling into the hotel, we decided to go out and explore the area we were staying in. Bangkok is a very big city, with a feel on par of any of America's big cities. Big highways, train system, etc. Well, apparently we were staying near the business district. We quickly learned there was another business going on the streets near where we stayed. Let's just say there were plenty of women hanging around the corners, eager to meet the tourist.

Canal Tour

The hotel offered a free tour for staying in the hotel, so we picked a long tail boat tour. We had a really great guide who spoke excellent English. The boat takes you along the water, showing off many of the amazing buildings there. The temples are simply unbelievable.There are 400 of them in the city, and they are all so intricately done. They take you take an area of the water where you get to feed tons of catfish. Very cool to see all the fish. People can't fish in this one section as it's deemed a holy area.

The houses along the water were all very different. They ranged from some rundown buildings, to some beautiful two story houses. A lot of them had very cool Thai designs as well.

One thing that really stuck out at me was watching these kids play in the water. They couldn't have had a care in the world. They were just splish splashing and looked so happy.

Weekend Market

After our tour, we went to an awesome market. I've been to three or four markets now in SE Asia and this was different than all of them. It was massive. The coolest part was the little shops inside. It wasn't just a bunch of stands selling knockoff watches or bags. They were all like a bunch of cool vintage clothing shops, arts type stuff, food stalls and more. Lots of tourists there, but that's to be expected as it apparently is only open on weekends.

Long Table + Gulliver's Tavern

For dinner, we took a suggestion from a friend and went to the Long Table. It's a cool bar on the 25th floor of a hotel. The food was just okay. The setting was very nice though. After, we went to this cool Western bar we found called Gulliver's Tavern. We were watching all the English football matches, and I just loved being in a true sports bar atmosphere again. I'm going to have to find something similar in Singapore.

Sports thanks to twitter

Last weekend was a huge sports one for me. Unfortunately, my tv options were limited, but luckily I had Internet and was able to check twitter often for updates. Watching the updates unfold for the Texas playoff game was so nerve wrecking. Absolutely incredible seeing all the tweets at the end about A-Rod striking out looking to finish it.

On top of that, Mizzou was having a huge football weekend. Missouri was hosting number one Oklahoma, and ESPN sent it's Gameday crew to Columbia for the first time. Pretty much the whole week leading up to it, I'd been missing Mizzou a lot. It's mostly about missing my friends there. Especially because some of my best friendships at school developed from watching our Tigers together. All that being said, it was an amazing feeling to see the positive messages about the game. When it was over, I could tell I'd have a great day.


Grand Palace

After going for the requisite vacation massage (when they're 15 dollars, why the heck not), we visited the Grand Palace. It is massive. It's not a typical palace like I would normally expect. It's more a collection of temples and shrines. The mixture of architecture really struck me. There was colonial styled buildings and more tradition Thai ones as well. Some were a mix. The only downside, it was very, very, very, very hot.

Sirocco

So, this may be one of my favorite stories. We went to this restaurant thinking it would be a nice type of dinner,

but we never expected it to be like this. On the 63rd floor of this beautiful hotel sits a very nice restaurant. After a quick glance at the menu, it was very clear we were in way over our heads. Let's just say we decided to only have dessert there (and a $13 can of coke hahahaha-never expected to write that line). The view of the sunset from there was really incredible though. Unlike anything I've been able to experience before.

Funny Taxi

As we headed back to the airport, we ended up with a taxi driver that spoke almost no English (we are in Thailand, it's not to be unexpected). More importantly, we noticed he was driving with the gasoline tank on empty. We just had to hope and pray the car didn't stop in the middle of the freeway. Luckily, there was no issue.

A good weekend. There is a ton of culture there. As you may have noticed, I didn't talk about food as much this time. That's because everything was just okay. We ate Pad Thai three times, only once did I really think it was good. The best was a cashew nut chicken we had.

That's a bit about Bangkok.

Michael

Let's Go!

Quite a bit has happened since August here in good ole Singapura. So, let's go!

High Holidays

Had my first set of high holidays here and they were very nice. The difference isn't as much being in Singapore, it's more about becoming an adult and deciding what the holidays mean to me. We had a lovely Rosh Hashanah. For first night, we went to a young adults dinner our friends organized. It was a great atmosphere with an excellent community feel. Second night, we went to the synagogue for dinner. Smaller group than I expected, but still okay. The highlight was that there was an Ashkenazi minyan for prayers, so I felt more at home. The next day, we went over to our friends Jonathan and Margaret's for lunch. They are so nice to let me come over for holiday meals - great friends.

Yom Kippur wasn't as smooth sailing. I took off on Saturday, but it was smack in the middle of my three day, three in the morning, work weekend. Add to it, I came down with a cold on Friday. So, I wasn't feeling real well coming into it. It put me in the position of having to decide if fasting really made sense. To be honest, I had never really understood the reasons for doing the fast. Well, on Friday night, I found out the reasons we fast, don't wear leather, stand a lot, etc. I decided to fast as long as I could, but if I really felt like having to eat, go for it. I was able to hold off, and we had a lovely breakfast at our friends Matt and Mel's (they just had a baby this week, a huge mazel tov to them!).

As far as the rest, we had one meal in the sukkah and were able to go for a little bit of Simchat Torah. I've been working the mornings this month, which means having to go home earlier to get some sleep.

Singapore Grand Prix & Sports Report

Formula 1 racing came to Singapore late in September. To me, this was really awesome. They create a street track downtown by the Marina for a night race. It's so impressive - it not like going out to the Texas Motor Speedway. Literally, it sits downtown.

On the Friday before the race, I got to go cover a press conference for Lotus Racing. Had a good time meeting their drivers. It's always fun to be out in the field a bit.

As far as other sports go, the baseball season is wrapping up. The Rangers are doing very well. Hopefully it stays that way! Some of my work friends seem to have really gotten into it this season which is great. I mean, when things like Roy Halladay throwing only the second ever postseason no-hitter, it's kind of hard not to like it!

We had a NFL workshop the other day. I was just trying to show everyone why it's the most popular sport in the states right now.

Basketball is on the brink of a new season. No one is talking about the Mavs, because let's face it, until they really do something, it's kind of the same 50 win, early playoff exit expectation for this season. I do think that underdog feeling could help. This season, I will say Miami Heat, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh seemingly a thousand times (may be a bit low with that prediction). Still, really excited to see it start up again.

Social Stylings

The coming and going of friends continues here. It's all to be expected though if you're mostly friends with the expat community. I mean, Amanda and I will leave at some point. It's just part of living here. However, that has all come with some fun events. We went to a Glee themed going away party, a burrito night, a great poolside welcome back barbeque and a housewarming party. As with everything in life, it's all fluid.

Travel Bug

One of my biggest reasons for moving here was the opportunity to travel the globe. Amanda and I took September off, but that made me really want to go somewhere. Luckily, things are falling into place. We're heading to Bangkok for a weekend at the end of the month. I expect it will be hugely different from our Krabi, Thailand experience. After that, some of our Mizzou friends studying in Australia are coming to visit.

Then, it's off to Dallas for Thanksgiving - really excited to see everyone! This will be Amanda's first trip back home, and I'm sure she'll love it.

As for 2011, I'm hoping to really explore. This week, my friend told me about a great fare from Singapore to New Zealand. So, after some website surfing, we booked a trip to Auckland in May! I'm super excited. We'll try to travel around a bit, but we only have 8 days, so we'll have to make 'em worth it. This doesn't mean I don't still want to go to Australia, we'll just have to go another time.

I really am trying to take advantage of living in this part of the world. Singapore is such a great springboard to travel to other places. Speaking of, still on my list of places to visit, Hong Kong, Bali, Australia and Seoul. South Korea is the main focus as I want to go while Jordan is still teaching there. Of course, all this is work days and budget permitting.

So, hard to believe it's already been ten months here in the little red dot! I still love being here, and it's great having Amanda with me.

Last note, we found a really delicious pizza place. It would totally pass my cousin Zack's test!

Toodles,
Michael