11/25/2009

THAI ADVENTURES

THAILAND is a place that many of my friends have been to and rave about. Now that we are over on this side of the world, and Thailand is 2 hours away by plane, last week I was fortunate enough to head to over to go see what the fuss was all about. I left while Gio stayed home and worked. Feeling guilty? Well... maybe a little.... until I hit the beach and had a massage!! Guilt passed and the enjoyment began!!

I stayed the majority of my stay in a beach town called PATTAYA. Before heading out I researched the place just a little and while most of the guide books and websites said not to bother with this town as it was the "Vegas of Thailand" and not truly representative of this amazing country, I have a friend who lives there and the opportunity to enjoy the place like a local.

Granted Pattaya is a bit of a den of debauchery, from what I hear that exists all over Asia so I settled in to explore the crazy streets and nightlife. And crazy wild town it is!! I had a great time walking the streets in the early mornings, hanging on the beaches, enjoying the amazing Thai street soups, booting around on the back of the scooter, getting massages and drinking and dancing at all the little beer bars and nightclubs the town had to offer.

The bar scene is quite interesting. Basically the Beer Bars have ladies that work there who get a portion of each drink they sell and if you wish to hang out with them you can pay a bar fine and they will leave with you to hang out for the evening. If you are wanting more friendly interactions, that has to be negotiated with the lady herself. The Go Go bars are what you would expect, scantily to non-clad ladies dancing onstage or performing various tricks, these ladies could also be hired for the evening. These bars ranged from very low end to quite nice and elaborate, with the girls in amazing costumes and awesome shows, sometimes full on, large scale Drag Queen productions. Then of course there are the freelancers who do not work in the bars and are their own entrepreneurs! Almost everywhere were the infamous ladyboys decked out in the tiniest outfits I have ever seen and looking amazing! Once I got over the "scene" I am not sure which was more fun, watching the girls being wild and crazy or the men who thought they were "all that" enjoying the environment. We would often start our nights out at the beer bar nearest the apartment with our lovely bar lady friends who would come have drinks and chat about their adventures the night before. My friend said many times he had bar fined one of the girls he became friends with so that she could show him around town and get to go to things that usually local thai only go to. One of my favorite things was listening to the house bands doing cover tunes with the thai accents, sometimes it was so difficult to even identify which song they were singing you had to just go with the melody of the music and not the words.

Now, in my usual way of chatting with random strangers, on the plane over I was fortunate to met a guy who worked for a company that designs and constructs exhibits in zoos, and trains trainers, and completes animal transfers and designs the animal programs. He was a really nice guy and we hit it off right away. As it turned out he was working for a year at the open zoo just a half hour from Pattaya and invited me to come out and he would show me around. I was crazy with excitement. So saturday we rented a nice big motorcycle for the road trip and headed to the zoo. The Khao Kheow Open Zoo is in Chonburi and is internationally recognized for its animal management and operations. There are over 300 species at the zoo living in huge open air compounds appropriate to their species and living requirements. It is known as a wildlife bank as there are a number of endangered species there and the zoo is known for its success in breeding some of these animals. We watched the animal show which is basically an elaborate feeding session where the animals have been trained with whistle commands to enter the vegetated arena to collect food. Not terribly original however for this show there are no trainers onstage, there is no dialogue with the audience, and to collect their food the animals need to complete tasks that mimic their natural behaviors. Example: the lion enters stage left and sees his food stash he goes to get it but it is tied to side and mostly encased in a container(that resembles a carcass) so he needs to drag the "carcass"then work at getting it open, the tiger needs to climb up the "tree" and swim to catch the fish (fish pieces dropped into the shallow pool). One at a time the animals come in collect their food and cross the stage based on where the trainer whistles are coming from. Pretty cool. I also go to feed a baby elephant, a giraffe, a pigmy hippo, deer, and a camel, ride an adult elephant and snuggle with a young orangutan. At the end of the day I was filthy in dust and elephant slobber and could not stop grinning. If you have the opportunity do not hesitate and get yourself out to this zoo.

And the food!!! The food was amazing! Mostly we ate at the street side food stalls found everywhere that made the most amazing bowls of soup with chicken, spices, fresh thai basil and other greens. Man I wish I could find that in Singapore but alas, no. I have never had such good thai food in my life, which makes sense really.

So while Pattaya may not be in every travel book as the place to see it was alot of fun and I really enjoyed the sense of ease of the town and its convenient proximity to the beach. Besides by hanging with a local i think I was fortunate enough to have a glimpse into the heart of this town that I think the regular traveller does not get to see.

Monday we decided to go to BANGKOK for the night as I was leaving Tuesday from the Bangkok airport. Bangkok is a huge bustling city, awesome and BUSY! After the days on the beach this was a bit overwhelming. We got there early Monday and hit the streets directly after checking into our hotel. We took the skytrain to the docks and went for a long boat tour of the waterways where we bought overpriced beers and nick-nacks from the floating vendors. Afterward, while heading back to the train, we met a guy who worked for the train system who befriended us, took our map, circled a few places, found a tuk tuk driver and negotiated a 3 hour tour of the city including 2 stops at temples of note all for 50 dollars. The tuk tuk was really uncomfortable and we had to scruntch right down to even see anything outside of it but it was a great tour. Of course I have no photos as my camera battery died after my day at the zoo. Bangkok at night looks totally different than Bangkok by day. Daytime, it is business like with shops and stalls selling everything lining the streets, by night all the shops switch to sidewalk bars. We started the night of course checking the Red Light district but after Pattaya it was not as shocking as it could have been. Then off for dinner, and we found a great little tapas place in, what we realized after finishing dinner and enjoying the remaining sangria, was in the gay district. Awesome. then we went to find the bars and nightclubs. We hopped around a few of the little bars before finding a great hip hop bar for me to dance a while. Closed the places down and it was time for bed as we had an early check out and i had to catch a flight in a few hours. Before leaving though, on Tuesday morning I had to have one more Thai foot massage and a delicious bowl of street soup to make the trip complete.

Well one week and loads of adventures and awesome food I think I get it. I am hooked and I can't wait to take G there now that I have done a little recon. If you want to see some pics from the trip before the camera died check them out HERE!!!

11/20/2009

ON MY MARK, UNLEASH HELL

I have indulged in true spiciness my friends, seriously, I saw, I tasted, I experienced hell.

Some backstory first. Here in Singapore, the home of the hottest CHICKEN WINGS are at a little ramshackle hut called the SINGAPORE FLYING CLUB located in the middle of nowhere next to the Military Airport. Legend dictates that they have the hottest hot wings around and people at work are always trying to outdo each other with spicier & spicier Hot Wings... boys will be boys I guess. Anyway, about two months ago, four Brits went to the SFC and got themselves on "the board" (the location for people who have entered the spice zone by eating between level 20-35 Wings) by eating some LEVEL 23 WINGS. The came to work in severe pain but boasting and proud, they were definitely the champs at our office.

Now, me being a spice lover, a proud Canadian and a trashtalker, I was not about to be undone, so I vowed to get a Canadian Team together and beat the Brits by taking on some Level 24 Wings. A Canadian co-worker Kent is also one of the most competitive people around so he was definitely onboard, we vowed to try and beat the Brits. So finally tonight, a group of us went to the SFC to get our "Wing On".

The thing about the SFC, is that before you take on the High Levels, you have to prove your worth by taking on some LEVEL 10 WINGS! "No problem" I thought, Level 10 will be a breeze, I'm a Corsi, a proud Canadian fueled by Italian Blood. Boy was I wrong.

Level 10 was a nightmare. The smell alone got my eyes watering. I took a bite and at first I thought "easy like Sunday morning" then a few seconds later, the burn started, a few seconds after that, my mouth caught fire and I entered Hades. I have never, ever tasted anything spicier in all my years and this was only a bloody level 10 Hot Wing. I started sweating from my cheeks, MY CHEEKS, my eyes were wet, my lips were glowing, I was physically shaking they were so bloody spicy. How Wayne, James, Nigel and Lee managed to eat LEVEL 23 I will never know as Level 10 almost knocked me out.

Kent & I (the Canadian Recon Team) managed to get two LEVEL 10 wings down each which is the required amount to take on a higher spice, but honestly I don't know if I can go higher. We both felt the pain and It's going to take a hell of a lot to get us to the next level.

Kudos to the Brits for tackling Level 23 and living to tell the tale.

Trust me friends, if any of you come out here and want to take the challenge, I will gladly bring you to the Singapore Flying Club and watch you burn to death as I enjoy my Level 3 Hot Wings. See pics from the night of fire HERE!!!

11/15/2009

JURONG BIRD PARK

In 1971, at a cost of $3.5M, Singapore opened the JURONG BIRD PARK to the masses! The Jurong Bird Park is now a world-famous bird zoo wherein there are specimens of magnificent bird life from around the world, including a flock of one thousand and one flamingos. It is currently the world's largest bird park in terms of number of birds and second largest in terms of land area after Germany's Vogelpark Walsrode. There are over 8,000 birds of 600 species in the Jurong Bird Park. Of those, 29 are of endangered species. In 2006, the Jurong Bird Park completed its S$10-million makeover. With the upgrading, the park now boasts a new entrance plaza, an African wetlands exhibit, a park-owned and managed Bongo Burgers restaurant, a Ben & Jerry's ice cream parlour, a gift shop and a bird hospital.

This place is amazing, we walked around for hours with cameras at the ready just to soak in all the cool birds that are there. Like the Singapore Zoo, the Bird Park has an open and lush layout, many of the birds are free to fly while others are in large enclosures. It will definitely be on our "one to revisit" list but you can see all our snaps from the day HERE!!!

11/11/2009

SAN FRAN + VAN CITY

So for the last 10 days, I've spent a whirlwind of time in both SAN FRANCISCO and VANCOUVER. In San Fran it was all work, visiting the mothership, working on budgets and meeting with tons of people. In Vancouver it was all family, friends and time with my two favorite beasts, LAVERNE & CARMINE! Despite the long travel, the short timeframe and the immense jetlag, the work portion went well and the personal long weekend was great. I wish I could have spent more time with everyone and seen the peeps I didn't have the chance to see but it will have to wait until next time. Pics from the trip can be seen HERE!!!

11/03/2009

TOTALLY RANDOM

Here's a Painting of Christopher Walken building Optimus Prime by Brandon Bird... and who says there is nothing good on the Internet!!!


11/02/2009

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Well, it was our first HALLOWEEN in Singapore and I gotta say, it was pretty cool. It's amazing how many people actually got into it and dressed up in costume, not only at the staff party but in the city in general. The work party was at a club called Arena and it was pretty fun, virtually everyone was dressed up, there was a costume contest (we got an honorable mention for our team costume of OKTOBERFEST) where the winner was a TAXI TRANSFORMER, second place went to MAD HATTER and third to SCARECROW. All in all, a great time and we took some pics which you can view HERE!