Because of rampant piracy, movies tend to come out a few days earlier in Asia. Which means I got to see Star Wars a bit before everyone else, and play my Star Wars hipster card. Please. I knew all about Finn and Rey before it was cool. Which overall, it was pretty good! I mean, it's not Episodes IV, V, and VI. But still, an enjoyable movie that I will probably go see again before it leaves theaters. Certainly not quite the disappointment Episode I was. Although honestly, they could make Hello Kitty Star Wars and I'd go to see that opening night.
So in keeping with the spirit of Star Wars, they opened the Star Wars Experience on Siam Square. Basically it's not much except a giant TIE Fighter, and a big promo for the movie. There's a few models and mock-ups, some merch, and excuses to show the trailer. And of course massively overpriced popcorn. But still, it was kind of nice to see a 1/1 scale Jabba the Hutt. As nice as that can be.
Baska waki too-len mai ley! Hoo hoo hoo hoo...
Okay adventure time! As always, not too much as of late. The standard going out on the weekend, getting a beer, that sort of thing. Lately there's been some karaoke, which is always fun. Especially at the Japanese district, who are just incredibly polite, stand-up people. I was thinking though, how similar Japanese and Taiwanese are. Which is great. But as I complained in Taiwan, they are incredibly nice, and kind, but it's really hard to make friends with them. Perhaps I'm being too judgmental. But you can have a great night with someone, and then they just sort of disappear without exchanging contact information. Like at karaoke, I sat next to this super cool guy. New to the city, very friendly. Then I turn around, just to have him wave goodbye while not breaking his stride to the door. Hmpf. Ah well then!
Someone from back in the US told me they have little perspective on how much things cost there. And it really depends on what you want. If you want western stuff, pretty much the same as in the US. But, keeping in mind the average salary is probably half or less than half of a US salary. At present, $1 is about 35 Thai Baht. So, here's some prices for stuff:
Bottle of Water - 7 B
Can of cola - 10 B
Bag of chips - 10 B
Bread (half loaf) - 15 B
Eggs (dozen) - 35 B
Milk (liter) - 40 B
Beer - 35 B
Beer (bar) - 60 B
Simple cocktail - 80 B
Subway Ride - 20-45 B
Cheap Meal - 30 B
Average Restaurant - 50 B
Fancy Meal - 100 B
Western Fast Food Meal - 120-170B
Average Western Meal - 250 B
Hostel - 150-200 B
Of course, the sky can be the limit. In general I spend about 2000-2500 B a week, which includes going out for 1 or 2 decent meals and drinks on Saturday. Rent is about 4500 B a month, not including utilities. Although I'm sure some people would think I live like a pauper (What?! There isn't a subway station outside your front door?! You don't have a maid?!), it's quite comfortable for me. The real advantage is being an AirAsia hub. You can get pretty much everywhere in SE Asia for 2000 B. Can't beat that.
Now, for adventures! We recently made the trek out to Samut Prakan. Samut Prakan is an area south of Bangkok, near the Gulf of Thailand. No beaches (that I know of), it's pretty much just a suburb, albeit one I have never been to. It has two things of note: one spot is the Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm. I have heard nothing but horror stories about this place. In Asia, animal rights are like "Animal huh?" So, lots of cramped dirty cages, and you can buy chickens to throw at the crocodiles. Part of me has some sick curiosity to go see it. Maybe one day I will take the moral hit and do it. But that was not our destination today. We went to see the Ancient City, which is an odd sort of place. Some, I would assume eccentric, Thai guy decided he wanted to build a scale model of Thailand. So he did. And then made tiny replicas of the famous landmarks around Thailand. So he did. And then wanted to charge foreigners extra. So he did.
Argh, dual pricing again. If anyone has an answer for that that doesn't boil down to "racism", I'd like to hear it. Anyway, I'm at least immune to that now that I have a work permit. At 300 B it's not exactly cheap, but sort of a once-in-a-lifetime sort of deal. It's a massive place, and we spent quite a few hours there with our friend, Niece. We rode bikes and took in the (tiny) sights. I especially liked the market with homemade Thai whiskey. At 50 B a bottle, it's a steal and made the day oh so enjoyable. Overall though, nice place. It definitely has a lot to see and do, although it is kind of far to get out to. There's not much on the internet about it, I suppose because it's a whole day affair. I think this could be a pretty major tourist attraction if it was closer to the city. It's remarkably well done overall, and lets you "experience" all the sights of Thailand from the comfort of a golf cart, if you so choose.
As to be expected, Christmas is not a thing here, outside of a cash grab from expats. It always seems to surprise people when I say I don't get time off for it. I mean, in the US do you get time off for Songkran? Chinese New Year? When 99.9% of the people are Buddhist, it doesn't really have the appeal. That being said, I am a total liar and this year, I do have time off. As are the perks (perhaps the only perk) of working at a Catholic school, we get a little over a week off. Which means, I'm off to sunny, beautiful, China!
Maybe you've seen the recent news reports of Beijing being covered in smog, but I'm not going anywhere near there. In fact, the place I'm going is much closer to Thailand than it is Beijing. I'm visiting Yunan Province, not far from the border of Laos / Myanmar. Definitely off the tourist path, normally I don't think it would be somewhere people would go unless they're in the area. I'm going because that's where Ella is from, so I get a chance to see her hometown. A "small city", Qujing has roughly 2 million people. If you put that in the US, it would be the 5th largest city after Houston. In China, it's medium sized. When I lived in Hangzhou, just the district I was in was 1.1 million. The district I could bike across. So, I'm interested in how Qujing "feels", because it's so far away from Hangzhou (2000 km) and Beijing (2500 km) it may as well be another country. It will also really be a test of my Chinese ability, as her family speaks no English and I'm not expecting anyone in the city to. But on the plus side, I get to eat all the boazi I want.
Delicious, delicious boazi.
October 16, 2015
Singapore! The city-state so nice I visited it twice.
There was actually a reason for this trip though, and it was visa related. Somewhere along the chain of command my job was really dragging their feet in regards to my employment permit, and with my current visa expiring, I had to get out of the country. Due to the cheap flight in the aforementioned blog, Singapore was pretty much the best deal around. And with work chipping in (most) of the bill, how could I say no?
I could if I had known this guy on the flight had SUPER stinky feet. C'mon man. I know you could have been travelling a long time, but we live in a society here. It's only a 2 hour flight. He got in on our selfie, so if you're out there (French?) stinky feet guy, I'm sure you're alright. But like... keep your shoes on.
So Ella and I were off to Singapore for 5 days. I think we hit every place I went previously (that entry is here), plus a few more. When I was booking out hostel, I found one on sale in Little India. Turns out that was a great decision. We were in the heart of it, surrounded by amazing food for only about 30% more than a meal in Thailand. God, it just made me want to move to India. All delicious, amazing stuff. The thosai I was especially fond of, with it's sesame curry... stuff. Honestly I don't know what 80% of the stuff we ate was, except that it was a food journey my mouth is nostalgic for.
But we had business to attend to, so it was off to the Thai embassy to get a visa. However, the lady told me that they would not give me a VISA, as I have been in Thailand as a tourist waaaay too long. Truth, but usually they forget that sort of thing when money appears. She didn't budge, and would only grant me a short, transit-visa if I gave her proof of an outward ticket. So... darn? I had no choice to come back on a landing visa, and the agents at the airport did not care at all. I employed the time-honored foreigner tradition of answering "I don't know" or "I don't understand" to every question they asked. "You're too much trouble, have a visa, bada-bing bada-boom."
With Singapore being an expensive city, Ella and I planned to see it on a budget. And I'm proud to say we did not spend 1 cent on attractions except for $4 to see a museum. Which, Ella got in for $2 since she's a student. So rather than revisit the places we saw last time (and again, that expertly crafted entry is here), let's talk about the new places.
Ella has an interest in Arab culture and religious buildings, so we actually spent a lot of time hitting up churches and mosques. They ran the gambit, but the tiny little Masjid Abdul Gafoor, right around the corner from our hostel was my favorite. Very friendly, pretty place. The least favorite was the main, big mosque, the Sultan Mosque. We arrived late one night, and the man said sorry, they're doing prayers right now. But we can come back tomorrow morning to see it. So back tomorrow morning we went, and went in to look around. Then this rude fellow came out and told us the mosque was closed. The people sitting around inside suggested otherwise. I apologized and said the man last night said we could visit in the morning. He responded "He is not in charge here, I am in charge here, you must leave." Well. Okay then. Jerk. Your mosque isn't as pretty as the other one anyway.
But, I must definitely mention Haw Par Villa. This is the weirdest godamn place I may have ever been in my life. Although, Happyland in Myanmar comes close. Apparently Myanmar folks have a penchant for the weird, because this place was also a statue park set up by some Myanmar fellow. It had a bunch of bizarre stuff, like his car with a tigers head on the front. But the main star was his exhibition on the 10 layers of Chinese hell. Complete with Team-America like statues suffering all sorts of horrible fates, like their hearts being torn out, or crushed by giant stones. It was super morbid, so here's some photos.
The Art Museum has free admission on Friday, so that was also on the list. Normally not my thing, but free is my thing. The Singapore Art Museum was actually a lot better than most. The exhibitions were interesting, and not just weird for the sake of being weird. I also liked that they really showcased a lot of art from their schools there. Aside from proving that a 6 year old can draw better than I can, I really enjoyed what they came up with, and thought it was a lot more cool than like a Van Gogh or something. Did Van Gogh draw dinosaurs? Not to my knowledge. Maybe if he did he would be a lot cooler. Continuing the museum circuit, we hit up the very, very newly opened (just 2 months ago) Indian Heritage Museum. As it was so new, I never saw it on any guide but I imagine it will be soon. This was where we paid a total of $6 to get in, but it was really nice. It was full of interactive terminals, and it didn't take me long to notice that each terminal had a "kid mode" button on the bottom. Instead of reading about some Indian ship that took people to Singapore, you got to play a mini game where you had to load cargo and people. You can bet that was a lot more interesting! Well done, Singapore.
We (I) also made a point to hike Mt. Faber, the highest natural point in Singapore. It's actually not much of a hike, you can do it in about 30 minutes. I think it nearly killed Ella, though. After we went to Sentosa to swim on the beach. I think Thailand has really spoiled us. I never thought Thai beaches to be amazing, but geez they're a heck of a lot better than Sentosa. You'd think, as probably the most expensive real estate in the world, they could afford some nicer beaches. Something weird I did notice is that the water is very salty, much saltier than normal. I found it very easy to float there, so I guess it has that going for it.
Ella's student Noom suggested we rent a bike and go up East Coast park, so we did that the last day before heading to the airport. We got a bicycle built for two, and took it along Singapore's super cool Park Connectors. Basically Singapore is embarking on this project to link every green space on their island with special pedestrian/bicycle only paths. They're about half done, and it's really convenient. There's not many road crossings, and you get to see some back alleys of the Singapore outskirts. At a coffee shop we stopped at for lunch, they had "Pattaya" on the menu. Pattaya is a red-light city in Thailand near Bangkok, so I decided to try it out. It was chicken fried rice, wrapped in an omelette with sweet and sour sauce. I mean, it was good, but I have no idea why it was called Pattaya. I've never had that in Pattaya, nor ever seen that dish in Thailand. Still, right on.
And so ended the 2nd Singapore journey. I think most of the trip was spent eating to be honest. Ella and I both love Indian food, so getting our hotel there was a good decision. If you ever visit, I recommend it as well. The people are great, the food is better, and Singapore is still a wonderful city I always enjoy visiting. Speaking of food, here's a Chinese lady making some peanut cake! Which, Ella says is called "Doo doo cake". Some sense of humor, those Chinese.
(spoiler free)
So in keeping with the spirit of Star Wars, they opened the Star Wars Experience on Siam Square. Basically it's not much except a giant TIE Fighter, and a big promo for the movie. There's a few models and mock-ups, some merch, and excuses to show the trailer. And of course massively overpriced popcorn. But still, it was kind of nice to see a 1/1 scale Jabba the Hutt. As nice as that can be.
Argh, dual pricing again. If anyone has an answer for that that doesn't boil down to "racism", I'd like to hear it. Anyway, I'm at least immune to that now that I have a work permit. At 300 B it's not exactly cheap, but sort of a once-in-a-lifetime sort of deal. It's a massive place, and we spent quite a few hours there with our friend, Niece. We rode bikes and took in the (tiny) sights. I especially liked the market with homemade Thai whiskey. At 50 B a bottle, it's a steal and made the day oh so enjoyable. Overall though, nice place. It definitely has a lot to see and do, although it is kind of far to get out to. There's not much on the internet about it, I suppose because it's a whole day affair. I think this could be a pretty major tourist attraction if it was closer to the city. It's remarkably well done overall, and lets you "experience" all the sights of Thailand from the comfort of a golf cart, if you so choose.
