Sorry, I Can't Speak Thai (Duh!)

I had my first outing in Thailand last week. Hua Hin was the place. Located about 200+km south of Bangkok, it was one of the earliest beach area in Thailand. Unlike Malaysia’s Port Dickson, I was very surprise that Hua Hin is very well maintained. Since it was a company outing, we were staying in a 5 star resort called the Dusit Resort. Since the resort was located near the main town, it acted more of a Hotel than a resort.

The first day was a working day since the management decided to come here a day earlier to have a so-called workshop amongst the team leaders. After a great lunch at the resort’s main restaurant, we started our meeting at 2.00pm and did not stop until about 8pm, when the hotel staff came to inform us our time is up.

We went out to another spa resort for dinner. Called the Veranda Spa & Resort. Not that huge a place but definitely zen-ish. The hotel itself is just about 4 storeys high, projecting a boutique spa-ish type of resort. And seems to be not cheap. It was very quite with not much lighting. The restaurant was located towards the back of the hotel, near the beach. Since it was a Thursday, the place was quite empty and filled with foreign tourist. A club-ish music was playing at a low volume, which kinda match the modern zenish deco of the open-air restaurant. Food was just an average affair, not value for money. We continue the meeting back at the hotel until 1.30am and finally get the chance to bath and sleep.


The second day (which was the first official day of the outing) was another sad affair (for me). Breakfast was okay. Chose the open-air seat, which was near the koi-fish pond. Surprisingly, there’s one bird that kept hopping between tables, hoping to get food from the patrons. Surprisingly, once you gave it a bit of food, it will became braver and hop much nearer to you. Anyway, we continue our meeting until 4pm. By 2ish, I’ve actually shut down my brain.

So…it was not much of an outing for me but was glad that my sub-ordinates were enjoying themselves. Hua Hin is definitely a great place to go for a few days break from the busy urban life. Not so much commercialise like Samui or Pattaya. Hmmm.. I do have plan of returning to this place in the future.
Oh…about the title. It was quite funny that during the dinner in the hotel, one of the waitress actually inform me that she can’t speak Thai. That was something I do not usually hear (except coming from my mouth). WTF is she doing there if she can’t speak Thai. Funny!

What's Spinning?

1. SEXYBACK. Definitely my Top 5 for the month of August. The much anticipated comeback single from JT. Not just the song sounds different from his previous songs, his vocal also sounded different. Strong and hard beat. Reminds me of Robin Thicke's Wanna Love You Girl.




2. GET TOGETHER (JLC Remix) Since the fourth single is only going to be available in September, Get Together will still be a spinning track for me. I'm still waiting for the Maxi Single to be available in Bangkok. Last check with WB Thai, it should be available but not sure why no record store is carrying it.




3. PROMISCOUS GIRL. I believed within Asia region, the first track from the Loose album that we get to hear is Maneater, instead of this track. Promiscous Girl is currently enjoying its fifth week on top of Billboard Hot 100. Not to be surprise since this track actually have similar concept as SEXYBACK (or is it the other way round). Definitely a much better track than ManEater.



4. BECAUSE OF YOU (Jason Nevis Remix) Not a new track but will continue to get its spinning in my mind, mostly because it is a track used in my combat class (the cooling down track) and also I'd recently obtained a bootleg remix version of this track plus the constant spinning of the Jason Nevins Mix from Launchcast have me continuously hooked to it.

I've Got No Story to Tell

That was what I got myself into by the time I finish putting in all the commentaries into my quarterly report. Being in the Market Research (MR) industry, I've been trained and nagged by my mentor and seniors that when presenting a MR findings, always tell a story. Most of the time, you may get a few short stories but having the challenge of linking them together (like linking Snow White with Harry Potter!). And the worst, especially for a tracking study, there are times when you would end up having no story to tell...

The presentation was less than 48 hours away and I'm desperately in need of a story to tell, since my 'recommendation' slide is totally blank. It was 1am, that I decided to give up, not that the music coming from pandora helps since it was breaking frequently. And the fact that I have another report to go through and create another story does not make it any easier.

Fortunately, it was the next morning that I somehow stumble upon a little storyline (or it was me who force it a storyline) which I quickly leverage to complete my report. At least I have a story.

True enough, my client did not buy the story, which almost end my career as a Storyteller. The top management has been telling us to provide more insightful analysis, more detailed and actionable ones. And when we decide to do it, we got f**ked left and right by the client simply it's not something that they want to hear. A good lesson learned...next quarter, I'll stick to a classic fairy tale storyline.

And I Begin to Wonder Pt. 2: Invasion of the MEs

While Israel and Hezbollah continue to throw bomb at each other, creating a whole chunck of mess and producing additional heat to speed up the iceberg melting process and possibly enlarging the hole in the ozone layer, the MEs have arrived in Bangkok.

On any normal Sunday and Thursday, I would be greeted by either Caucasians or Thais in the lift at the Landmark Hotel. But not last Sunday. As the door to the lift open, a couple with a baby in the stroller was inside. But since the lift is going down, I decide to wait. As the door opened again, I saw the same couple inside (and i begin to wonder...). So I move in while the wife was mumbling some ME language (basically they were lost!) and decide to press Basement (the lift was going up now) and husband mumbling something and she quickly pressed Lobby. When the lift reached Lobby, they began to wonder where the hell are they but decide to get out. FYI, the lift only access to the following floors: 4th, 3rd, Lobby, Ground and Basement. And yet these invaders got lost.

After completing my combat class, with my hamstring giving me all those warnings, 4 young MEs walked into the studio. The two females were well wrapped up (not in sports attire!) and look zombified. the trainer and the last few combat participants also began to wonder...(WTF are they doing here since the combat was the last class of the day). These MEs started to move closer to the trainer as I left the exercise studio. Within seconds, i noted these zombified MEs walked out while mumbling some zombie language.

I only realise the invasion when I stopped by the 24 hours supermarket nearby. And there they are, a whole bunch of MEs, some with their noisy brats. And I begin to wonder whether I have walked into the twilight zone. The most shocking thing was the salesgirl in the Papa Roti shop. I couldn't recall seeing any Muslim in the shop previously and now there was one. Was she purposely recruited to sell these stupid Roti Boy lookalikes to these MEs or was she purposely "dressed up" for that? And I begin to wonder.......

It's All Coming Back To Me Now

I already knew something was not that right about me as I landed myself back in Bangkok after a short trip back home. My throat started to give me those funny feelings and my gum is not being kind to me as well. A few days later, I started to cough and this morning as I woke up, half of my nose is blocked. The bacterias are back, barely a month of getting rid of these nasty nano-soldiers. Now where did I store those amoxillin?

There are so many things I would like to do today and with time and energy being the barrier, I've decided to just visit Chatuchak market. As usual it's hot and crowded but being a 'smart' shopper, I managed to claw myself into the crowd and did my shopping and lunch within 2 hours. Quite satisfied with my achievement as I finally got the vases for my home. Here are the pictures of the vases and flowers.

It would have been much beautiful if the shop willing to give me discount. These wild flowers are damn expensive compared to roses. Cost me 200 baht for these where I could simply get two big bunches of roses.

Enough about me...let's have a quick nag about current events. When did the Israel-Hezbollah war started? ANd it's over two soldiers or that was just a lame reason. And this happen even before Bush decide to s**t on Iran and also North Korea. I'm sure Bush are very eager to use this war to start its invasion into Iran. The crude oil price just hit another peak...why can't this be the same for my company's revenue?

Now where is that vapor rub?

Have You Seen Harry Lately?

As there were not much new interesting novels around, i decided to give JK Rowling a try. I always had the perception that the Harry Potter books will be similar to those fantasy books (eg. those Forgoten Realms series), but i was quite wrong as i begin reading the first page of Harry Potter & the Half Blood Prince. I got hooked.

Unlike my normal reviews which is full of spoilers :p, I'm not going to put any for this one. My only advice for those who have yet to read the book and plan to, is to be WELL PREPARED. Well, everything seems fine until Chapter 27 that is; just wish I stopped at Chapter 26.

In Stephen King's the Dark Tower series, Steve had well prepared its readers right at the beginning of the series on killing all its supporting characters (or was that just me!) in the final book (the 7th book). So I kind of accept the fate of those characters which I have grown to love as they died one by one. JKR just did the opposite. From killing off a not so key character in Order of The Phoniex to the horror outcome in Chapter 27 is really unforgivable. I did expect such will be the ending in the final book but never in the 6th book, which now leave the 7th book with so much uncertainties.

But then again, this will provide JKR the flexibility & freedom in introducing new items into Harry's World, but will it be a bit late? Just wonder how many pages will the final book be. And parents would have a lot to explain to their children about the ending (since you-know-who did triump here).

Can't wait for the 7th book to find where Harry will be...