The blog lives on

I have been on vacation for a few days now and have been forcing myself to do productive things while sitting in front of my computer, like putting pictures on Facebook and now updating my blog.

Obviously, a lot has happened since my last post about Japan. My school year is basically finished now. I am on break now and leave for Beijing Jan 1. In the next two months, I only have two weeks of school. I should be leaving Korea Feb 26 and arrive in MI the 26th.

This post will focus on my summer vaca trip to Thailand. Going to be a pretty long post. Sorry.

I went to Thailand for a week with a good friend I met here, Brett. Our trip took us to Bangkok, an island, Koh Phangan, and back to Bangkok.

We arrived in Bangkok around 2 AM and had a hostel reserved for the night. We caught a cab to the area where our hostel was located and then the adventure began. We weren't quite sure how to get to our hostel once we got out of the cab so we just started wandering with out vague directions. Luckily, we found it in less than 10 minutes. It was now close to 3 AM. I was content grabbing a beer at the hostel bar and then hitting the sack, but Brett insisted we go take a lap and see what Thailand had to offer. We got some directions from the hostel owner and went on our way. Within a few minutes we had our first encounter with ladyboys trying to proposition us. All of Thailand is a cash grab. You have to haggle for everything and are constantly being approached by people offering you a "great deal" "My friend, my friend..." After taking a lap we took a break at an ad hoc street bar (a few stools and a cooler of beer). We were quickly joined by a potential ladyboy (although, this person may have actually been a lady the ladyboys tend to keep up their appearance than this person). We talked to her for the duration of a few beers and then she tried to have a beer on our tab to which we promptly told her no. She wasn't happy so she left us. The people watching at our street bar was awesome. We definitely saw some prostitution transactions take place. We went back to the hostel, thinking we would get a few hours of sleep before taking on Bangkok. We arrived back at the hostel and there were about 10 people hanging out at the bar so we joined them. Minutes into our first beer back at the hostel a guest arrives with a hooker (the hostel has strict rules about not letting anyone except guests past the front desk) The hooker stood at the front desk as the hostel patron ran up to his room to grab more cash and then they left. We hung out with the other people for a bit and next thing we know it's 6:30 AM. I wanted to go to bed, but Brett was insistent we just head our for the day. I talked to the hostel owner and got the low down as what we should see/do while in Bangkok. He also told us about a Black Moon party that was on one of the islands that week. I had roughly sketched out our week before arriving in Thailand, but after talking to the owner we changed all our plans. After getting our itinerary for the day we hit the road and about 40 minutes later Brett started dragging ass.

We tried to book an over-night train to take us down to the islands, but they were all sold out. We settled for an overnight bus. We spent the day sight-seeing Bangkok. Lots of Buddhist shrines, including one where it is mandatory to wear pants (mind you it was 85+ degrees and humid). We took a private boat tour. The boat tour along with 8 year old children coming up and just grabbing at your shirt are a constant reminder that you are in a 3rd world country. It was my first time actually experiencing it and it's fairly disturbing to see in person. After our travel day + no sleep + sight-seeing all day we were exhausted. We were looking forward to the overnight bus and getting to our island. The bus + ferry were pretty painless, but didn't quite do it to rejuvenate us. After getting settled in our bungalow we headed back to town to explore a bit. Not a whole lot going on and we were pretty tired, so we bought some beer and a bit of food and just relaxed and got to bed early. We had some maps of the island, but didn't really have any plans except for the Black Moon party later in the week. Our answer to this was renting scooters (best decision we made all week). We started cruising on our scooters headed to a waterfall marked on our map. We ended up at a National Park, so we went hiking for a bit. It was beautiful, but the waterfall was pretty lame. We didn't have a place to stay that night, so that was our next mission. We continued to drive around for a bit and just pulled up to a few random bungalows to inquire about rooms. We ended up finding an awesome place on the West side of the island. It was super cheap, and we were right on the beach. This also served as our primary restaurant for the week, food was amazing! The next few days we would explore on our scooters by day, and then drink on the beach at night.

Then came the Black Moon party. Not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into we decided we should pregame for the party. We arrived at the party a bit early so there weren't many people, yet, but it was still pretty impressive. It's basically a huge circus tent set up on the beach. At each end of the tent they have tables set up the width of the beach for the bar. The main drink at the various Moon parties is a bucket. It's a bucket, like you would use to build sand castles, they dump a bunch of booze in it then some mixers. The party is basically a rave on the beach. Then throw in some fire jugglers/twirlers. Brett and I got separated many times throughout the night. It was late and I couldn't find Brett so I decided maybe he went back. I bartered with a motobike driver and off we went. I arrive home and no Brett, not a big deal, but he had the only key to our bungalow. I figured I had two options, sleep on the concrete porch or sleep in the grass so Brett would see me when he got home. I chose the grass. I fell asleep only to wake up surrounded by two rather large dogs. They lived at the bungalow, but it was frightening to wake up and have two huge dogs staring at you, one on each side of my face. I jumped up and started yelling at the dogs. They walked away, and then a motobike started pulling up the driveway. It was Brett. The next day was a travel day back to Bangkok, we were both hungover, but Brett was miserable all day, including puking on the ferry and bus. We had one more day in Bangkok. We tried to go see Muay Thai, but it was too expensive. Our next stop was Khoasan Road, a backpackers ghetto. Lots of shops, restaurants, hostels etc... We grabbed an early dinner before things really pick up in the area. As we were eating the heavens parted and it started to rain harder than I have ever seen. The road was flooded in less than 30 minutes. We tried to wait it out so we could experience Khoasan Road, but it wasn't easing up. Tired and feeling defeated by mother nature we decided to just catch a cab to the airport.

We arrived home safely, early Sunday morning. I had that day to recuperate and then my summer vaca was over. Second semester started...

Second semester is already over. I have been in Korea over 10 months. Time has truly flown by. I leave for China a day and change.

If you made it all the way through, congratulations! I know it was long, and I tried to keep it manageable, but I cut out a bunch as it is. I think I am going to give the blog a major facelift in the next few weeks. For now check Facebook for pics.