Still Stuck

I need new subject lines.

The police chief has been removed (demoted) due to his inability to resolve the situation.

They are flying a few people out of a field that was used as a military base during the Vietnam war. It seems like 1-2 flights are flying out of there per airline for a few airlines. They can only hold about 400 people there at a time, though, so it is a very very very bad option.

I have no idea when we're going to get out of here.

Pictures

Some pictures to show you all what being in Thailand is about.
(Besides the airport crisis...)

Waterfalls

The view from elephant back

The view from another elephant back - look who's on this one!

Elephant feeding time

Mmm, bananas

Elephants eat a lot

A puppy at the elephant village

Oh yeah, there are tigers here, too.

We got to pet them

Flowers in the park

At the rose garden

An orchid at an orchid farm

An elephant stepping over over two men

Snakes at the snake zoo

A crocodile at the snake zoo

A lizard in the park - he's huge, probably a monitor lizard

The bridge over the River Kwai. We walked along it, but this is a picture from afar.

Some statue in a park in Bangkok

A park in Bangkok

A street vendor selling goldfish and baby turtles

Traffic in Bangkok


There's a chain of stores here, restaurants and also a department store, named Zen. This was a giant sign in the mall

At Patapong Street where you can see just about anything - including Super Pussy!

Thank you for looking. :-)

Airport Info, Part 3

The guy at the front desk assigned to watching the local news and translating it for us non-Thai speakers had some strangely bleary news to share. He said that the army is going to go in within 24 hours - they've issued an ultimatum (though we've not heard this anywhere else). They will start removing people forcefully at that point. There is expected bloodshed, and the estimate is 1 week before the airport is open again, due to having to clean the *blood* that will be there.

It is my hope that there will be minimal bloodshed, but it doesn't sound likely from all we've been hearing. There are children and the elderly there, entire families.

I hope that nothing at the airport actually gets blown up. That would only make things worse. I also hope that they can find some other way to end this without anyone dying.

We spoke to a German tourist in the lobby today and she is leaving on a 30-hour bus ride to Kuala Lampur. She has a flight out of there after that. 30 hours is crazy, let's hope that the 1 week estimate is wrong. We are expecting to have to hang out in the airport for a solid day at some point. Ugh. Oh well. Let's hope we're wrong.

OK, so next post is going to be a bunch of random photos of why we actually came here.

Well, I am going to post a slew of pictures next to show why we actually came here.

Stuck in Thailand

The airport is still being held captive, which means we are still hostages of this [ed: goddamned mother-fucking stupid - Mathew] foreign country. The yellow-shirts took over the other airport, which was actually not in use but had been reopened to divert some planes there. The government (the Prime Minister) has declared a state of emergency around the two airports to allow the police and military to ignore standard civil liberties (like the right of people to gather, or to be in the airport at all). However, the protesters in the airport have said that they will not leave - they will fight til the death. This is not a promising statement. They want the Prime Minister to step down, he refuses. The army has not done anything one way or another, but they may stage a coup to take over the government if they do not decide to remove the protesters.

We attempted to look into taking a train home, which appears more complicated than you can believe. The only train that leaves the country does not pre-book. It would require that we purchased two tickets at the station as they came available. We would then need to take the train for 12 or so hours, then transfer to another train (that we would need to buy tickets for at THAT station) and then take a ferry 12 or so hours after that. Then we would take the ferry from Thailand to Malaysia, take another train from Malaysia to Singapore (once again, we would need another ticket...) The tickets are cheap, but who knows how long the wait would be to get them. As well, the total journey takes 2 days by train, ferry, and possibly bus. So we're going to wait until the airports open again. We have rebooked our hotel through the weekend.

I'm a little worried that violence may break out, as this appears to be a civil war waiting to happen. Some people support the PM and some don't. Who knows what's going to happen.

We should be safe. But it's a little scary.

Airports Shut Down

Well, this morning we found out that the airport has been shut down due to a takeover by a political dissident group. We were under the impression that it lasted for a few hours, and then it was over.

Apparently, we were wrong.

The airport has been shut down, indefinitely, until the government figures out what to do about the thousands of protesters who have taken over the airport. The protesters have food, bedding, and are prepared to stick it out for the long haul. They want the prime minister to step down as they think he is the puppet for a previously elected, newly-jailed-due-to-corruption individual.

The airport will not be flying anyone out. It is unclear when we will be able to leave, as even if they open the airport now (Wednesday evening), the people who have rescheduled flights will have to fly out, too. We are supposed to leave Friday afternoon.

For more information, google "thailand airport crisis."

OMG Thailand!!

Welcome to OMG Thailand!! It's like OMG Singapore, but with 2x more Thailand!

We got up this morning, saw single digits on the clock, and promptly went back to sleep. Ah, vacation!

Finally, when we did decide to get up, we went and checked on our reservations for activities during the week. We had booked a trip to a safari where we would get to ride elephants and see nature and go on a boat. There was another thing we were waiting on confirmation for of a cooking class on Thai cooking. As it turned out, they canceled BOTH of our tours. Which sucked. But we decided to wander around and look for lunch and book something later through some other site.

We wandered a few blocks in the other direction of yesterday and some 60-something Thai man approached us and told us that the street ahead would have nothing for us to see. He told us he worked up that way in an office building and that we should go elsewhere for shopping and for food. He asked us if we were here for long, told us that the reason he spoke decent English (which he did) was because he worked with a GI during the Vietnam War. He said he liked speaking with Americans because he understood their accents, but couldn't figure out the English accents of people from Britian. Then he wrote down for us where we should go for shopping, food, and more shopping. He told us we should get a Tuk Tuk and that it would cost us 30 baht and would take us where we wanted to go. We said thank you, and I guess he thought that we meant, "Right now would be fine," because he signaled to a nearby Tuk Tuk driver (they are EVERYWHERE) that we wanted a ride. We quickly said, "no, no, we'll do it later," and he walked off towards his office.

Tuk Tuk - image courtesy of Wikipedia

On our way back towards restaurants we knew about (not some 10 minutes later), a business woman approached us and told us that the shops we were window shopping in were overpriced because of where in the city we were. She asked us where we were from, and how long we would be staying. She wanted to know if we had a tour booked and told us we should go see the floating shops on the river. We had wanted to, but the tour we had seen was not in English so we didn't book it. She wrote down where to go book a government-sanctioned tour, and also where to shop, and ALSO where to eat. Then the next thing we knew, she grabbed a Tuk Tuk driver and handed him the paper she had written it all down on. She asked us where we wanted first - food, or shopping - and we just decided this time to go with it. So we were taken to a restaurant. I guess native people here like to help out.

Our Tuk Tuk, which was green, brought us a few blocks away to a little Thai seafood place. There were live fish in tanks, which we selected along with a cooking method. They then seated us, and we watched as our fish were brought away to be killed and cooked. Can't get much fresher than that...

Fish tanks

We selected BBQ for our Grouper and Sweet & Sour for our bass. We also ordered fried rice and mixed vegetables. We ordered way too much food. WAY too much food.

Sweet & Sour fish

Other side of the sweet & sour fish

BBQ Grouper

BBQ in this sense means grilled. There wasn't much flavor to it. The fish was nice and meaty, though. The sweet and sour fish was unbelievably amazing. The skin was fried just a bit and the sauce was phenomenal. Ginger and fresh pineapple, green peppers - soooo good.

The fried rice, which looked really boring and plain, was expertly seasoned. We have no idea WHAT they seasoned it with, but it was amazing. It totally made up for the fried rice last night.

Throughout the entire meal, our Tuk Tuk driver waited. He was instructed by the woman before to take us to a specific set of places, and that was what he was going to do.

Our Tuk Tuk, waiting, driver napping inside.

We expected that we would wind up at a jewelry store and a tailor next (everyone here gets custom made suits and dresses - tailoring shops with bolts of cloth are everywhere). We didn't want to go to a tailor, but we thought the jewelry store might be cool. The guy instead stopped somewhere else, first - the tour booking place!

So we booked a new tour with elephant rides and a trip to the River Kwai, the WW2 museum, and the Tiger Temple! As well as a second trip to the Rose Garden and some more cultural things including the floating market. Tomorrow is the elephant trip and Thursday is the Rose garden/floating market trip. I guess that was simple - and also about half the price of the previously booked similar trips.

Our Tuk Tuk waited patiently outside, and took us to a tailoring shop. We told him to continue to the jeweler. We wound up at an enormous jewelry and gem shop. They cut their own stuff, make their own settings, and we saw many of them doing just that as we walked through the little "tour." Then on to the showroom. They had magnificent settings and creative pieces, as well as simple things. Most of it was reasonably priced. We wandered around until I found what I wanted, which was the pearl counter. They had unstrung (temporarily strung) pearls of all shapes and sizes. I found some GORGEOUS white round 7mm pearls and fell in love. We negotiated the price, and Mathew got them for me - they strung them up and put a clasp on them while we waited. They were between 1/2 and 1/3 of the price as the same thing in the states. And just stunning. I think they are a Chanukah/ Christmas present, but they are really stunning. Some of the nicest pearls I've ever seen.

Our patient Tuk Tuk driver asked us if we would like to go anywhere else, and we did not, so he took us back to our hotel. The whole Tuk Tuk experience (around 2-3 hours) cost 200 baht (which was probably way overpriced and we could have negotiated, but...) which works out to $5 US. It seems like a strange way to travel, but it also seems to be very common for locals as well as tourists. It is not meant for long rides because it is not enclosed, but it's still really cool to get around.

There are a lot of cabs here, and a good number of them are pink.


Many are purple, but I haven't been able to get a photo of a purple one yet.

We are debating whether or not to partake in the more risque bits of nightlife - namely, the "tiger show" tonight. I think, although I may be appalled by it, I may have to see it to say that I have seen it. Any thoughts?

Night One in Bangkok

Just letting everyone know we arrived safe and sound in Bangkok, Thailand. We navigated the airport and got ourselves a cab to our hotel.

Inside the airport were some cool statues of gods, I think.

That one was kind of purple-y and cool. There were white ones, and pink ones, and blue ones, too. They were all slightly different, but they were all huge.

The hotel is nice, it has three restaurants inside it and it is nearby to a train station. The room has hardwood floors, which is kind of strange. And a refrigerator, and a TV, and wireless internet! Woo!

We converted about S$1000 ($625US) to Baht, which is the currency in Thailand. Apparently, that works out to 22,000 baht. Things are strangely priced here - you negotiate prices on cab rides, street items, jewelry - everything but restaurant food, and I'm sure there's some way you can likely bargain that, too.

22,000 baht, give or take a baht. Those bills on the right are 1000 baht bills.

Things are also ridiculously cheap here. We went to 7-11 to check out the local goods (7-11 is everywhere) and we bought a pack of gum for 10 baht and a small bottle of hair conditioner for 20 baht. In US dollars, that's $0.28 for the gum, and $0.56 for the conditioner. They also had Tiger beer by the bottle for 31 baht, or $0.88 a bottle. Coming from Singapore where a bottle of the same beer runs you S$10 ($6.50 US), it's pretty crazy to see. Also, $0.28 for Dentyne Ice gum is crazy. Gum at all seems a little crazy now, too, after being in a gum-free country for 2 months.

We went out for dinner, and had a giant fried fish in lemon and chili sauce. It was amazing.

The other things we ordered were Pineapple fried rice (a favorite of ours) and mixed stir fried vegetables. The vegetables were fantastic - baby corn, broccoli, tomato, carrots, asparagus, and peppers - all in a light sauce. They were cooked just enough to change their texture from raw to cooked, but not enough to make them soft or squishy. The rice was not terribly good - it was soft jasmine rice, but the flavor just wasn't there. The pineapples in it were amazing, but they had like hot dog pieces in it and some other stuff. We were eating at a random tourist kind of place, so it probably didn't speak to the rest of Thailand's fried rice.

Surrounding the eatery were lots of little shops - we're going to go back to them since it was late and many were closed. They also sold live seafood - of particular interest to Mathew and me were these crazy Tiger prawns and River prawns. They had arms. HUGE arms. Huge blue arms!

Tiger prawns

Crazy, huh? There was also a little temple thing at the end of the shopping center that was pretty cool.


After that, we went to the hotel bar and had a few drinks. There was a live band playing pretty standard jukebox fare and a few older Asian couples dancing. It was really strange, but it was nice to be able to have a few drinks somewhere for less than $50 (like it is in Singapore).

I wish this had sound, but you should get the idea. These was the band and a few of the dancing couples. I sort of feel like I'm at a Club Med or something.

Anyway, off to bed. Tomorrow we are going to wander around and shop.

Wrath in Singapore, Part II

Mathew waited on line for hours - about 7 - with 9,999 other Singaporeans to pick up his copy of Wrath. I went later, and took these photos about 20 minutes after they started letting people in.

One of the people working there said they were expecting 10,000 people.

20 minutes after the doors opened

Around the block - this line snakes through the back alley of the store, and about a two blocks from the other photo (5 minutes after the first photo)

This is three blocks from the other photo. This is NOT the end of the line. We do not know where the end was, because we left and went home to play. People at this point were likely to wait 4-6 hours or more in the midday sun and heat just to get their copies. (5 minutes after the second photo)

Entire guilds came and bought boxes of them

BTW: Blizzard posted my pictures on their photo gallery of Wrath Midnight Openings around the world. :-) Woo!

Wrath in Singapore

I don't know if I mentioned it, but there is an expansion to World of Warcraft called "Wrath of the Lich King." This expansion came out nearly 12 hours ago in the US. However, Asiasoft, the distributor of Warcraft here in Singapore, is not releasing it at the same time. We are getting it 13 hours from now, a full 24 hours after the release in the US. The pre-order system here in Singapore is entirely different from that of the system in the US. What you do here is pre-order the game at your favorite venue - we went to Challenger, an electronics store across the street in the mall. You pay in full for the game and fill out a sheet with your name and phone number on it. Then, they give you a little card.

Then you take the card to the launch event. That's right, I said "the" launch event. There is only one place to pick it up. You can pick it up any time between noon and 6pm when the event ends. The problem with this is that there are 4 million people who live in Singapore. If only, say, 2000 people want to pick it up at launch time, you will wind up with sheer chaos. Which is what happened last time, when the Burning Crusade came out. See:

People INside...

People OUTside

We went tonight to see where the launch was taking place. We got there at 9:30pm and 7 people were already online. (All horde, for what it's worth...) They will be staying there for 15 hours. Outside. The pictures above are when they held it in a mall. They're not holding it at a mall this time. Instead, it is at a gaming center - 5 floors of games. I don't think they're letting people inside, though. We saw that they have cases of water (we estimated over 3000 bottles of water) because, well, leaving 2000 people outside in the noonday sun in Singapore when the weather is supposed to be 82F and muggy (oh, and rainy) is probably a recipe for dehydration.

Anyway, Mathew is going to take the first train there. Which is 5:28am. I won't. I'll go around 9 or 10am, hopefully I can find him. If he's inside, then I won't be able to sit with him and I'll probably just go home and wait for him to come back.

Wish us luck. :-)

Goldfish Show

Yet another event in the East Point Mall - this one was a month ago, but I just got around to splicing the video together into something cohesive. This was a competition, for many categories of goldfish. Since you know how I feel about these swimming critters, you can imagine how excited I was. I went and saw them three times - it was here all weekend. Enjoy!

Come take a ride with me

One of the most common things here is the MRT - the rail system. It is not underground all of the time, sometimes it is above ground. You get to see a pretty good view from the train of buildings and stuff, so I took a video of an entire ride from one stop to another. Enjoy. I left the original sound in, so you can hear the voice that tells you where you're going. They use the word "alight" to describe de-training, and an interchange is where two train lines cross. There are 5 lines here - distinguished by name and color. This is on the East-West Line, or the "green" line. Simei is stop EW3, and Tanah Merah is EW4. For more info on the East-West MRT, see: Wikipedia.

Art in Singapore

A few weekends ago, Mathew and I decided to wander around an area of the city we hadn't really explored before. This was prompted by my discovery of an art exhibit that sounded pretty cool and our desire to eat Thai food.

The art exhibit was "non-traditional" in that it was not painting, sculpture, or photography, but instead, video. A lot of people here live in apartment complexes that are identical and facing each other. The artist apparently wanted to introduce opposing side neighbors and have them watch each other. She set up a video camera in each of 14 or so pairs of neighbors windows. She instructed that they must stand in the window for the first 10 minutes of the timed 30 minute recording. They all switched on the cameras at the same time, and that was that. The artist synchronized the films and put them on TVs that were next to each other, some askew, some higher than others, but always in pairs so you got the impression that you were watching a window of an apartment. It was really strange to see the reactions of the people on the left screen to what the people on the right were doing. Some people stayed in their windows for longer than the ten minutes, others left as soon as they could. Some people tried to entertain each other, others just stared. When the whole thing was done, she had a little lunch party with all of the participants. She had 8 sets of people in this exhibit, for a total of 16 monitors. It was a very cool exhibit and I liked the non-standard art feel of it. The piece was entitled "Jurong West Street 81" and was by Shannon Castleman.

In addition, we found some art in the basement of the esplanade. I thought this was kinda neat. It was a garden scene. I think they were all made of fabric and foam and other things like that. Anyway, they were pretty cool. I really liked the spider. (You should click the images to make them larger - some of these things deserve closer attention.)

It was all in a big glass display case.

A spider!

Not really sure what the lip things are. Snails? Worms?


Grass


A bug of some sort


A caterpillar on the wall