This post is really for myself, really, commemorating the 6 incredible days that we had in Chiangmai, Thailand. Day 5 has been added. Already have 4551 words already.

Day 1:

We left for Changi Airport at a cruel hour in the morning, at 4 am since the flight was at 8, and we had to assemble at 5.30 am. So with much reluctance, I dragged myself out and quickly changed to leave for the airport in class tee and jeans. On the way I called Fabriz to tell Mr Chiam that I would be late and would not make it by 5.30 am. Turns out that he was on the expressway, the AYE, and arrived later than me in fact. So once I reached, I found out that most of the class was already there and there were a few people that had not reached. Fellowship a while before we left for the departure lounge. Tour agent a bit late, irritated me a bit, and she finally came, so we checked in. In true style, the Singapore departure lounge was really nice. Free internet access, Sakae Sushi, Starbucks, juice, hotdogs, and nice TV entertainment. Then on to the plane. Very long to check in, flight so-so, but that's not quite the important part. So transit to Bangkok, uneventful, but realised that Dr Kiran was not on the plane. Fell asleep on the flight, awoken only when we hit the ground with a bump, so... tired. We later realised that she had been deported back to Singapore. Sad. Arrived to a nice welcome in the airport with flower necklaces, and of course, the other group going to another town left without any nice welcome, just straight for the bus and nothing else. Well I was surprised by the warm welcome and looked forward to the next few days. Upon arrival, we found that the hostel was not a hostel, but if you remove the "s", it becomes hotel, which was really what it was, about 2-2.5 star hotel, with a mama-shop, coffee cafe, and laundry service. The room had a mini-bar, working toilets, and nice beds. The restaurant, served rather decent food like tempura vegetables, fried tang hoon and the like. Quite surprising indeed. We ate first then checked in, followed by a briefing about the days to follow. Rotary club bags were given to us, water-proof and washable. We met Mr Tham Chen Fye (HAPPY JIA??!), someone I thought initially looked rather Thai, but after the next few days, through his glasses, it was quite obvious that he was Singaporean rather than Thai, so there was the shocker. Morgan, was on hand to welcome us too, and later we went for a traditional Thai performance, one that was rather nice, but not before taking a walk through the streets, going back to the hostel and driving through the night bazaar that we would go to on Saturday. This diversion caused us a 1 hour journey. There were Chinese instruments like the Yangqin and the Guzheng. The food was rather nice, small little dishes with fried banana fritters and a lot of nice traditional food like pork, chicken, eggplant and so on. Fab was a little ill afterward and we were looking for plastic bags just in case he threw up, by his request. The space outside our hostel rooms was later put to good use for practising our mass dance and singing in the days to follow. So that was the first day. At night, our toilet broke down and it could not be flushed. Had to crap. I had no choice. So we tried to flush it with water but it did not work. No graphic descriptions required. Zhang had problems breathing, so a little noisy and I found it hard to sleep.

Day 2:

American Breakfast in the morning according to the forms that we had filled up. Looked rather unsubstantial and not filling at all. Looking at the chicken fried rice that others had ordered, I decided to order chicken fried rice the next day. Breakfast was at about 7.30 am, and we played cards for a while after breakfast before leaving for the Prostheses foundation slightly further away. There was a photo-taking session outside the foundation before we left for an introduction inside the foundation. We were introduced to the foundation, their aims and the prothetic legs that they made. Derek gave a good impromtu speech and gave the amount raised to the director. We then proceeded to do our community service inside the foundation that looked pretty much like a factory rather than a foundation. The process of fitting a prosthetic leg was shown live and we were amazed. All of us were split up into about 3 groups, I was assigned to wash the plaster of paris of the equipment that they had brought to various locations in Thailand and Malaysia. It later turned to scraping rust of bigger knives after lunch and it was very frustrating when we could not wash the rust of the knives. We sang while we were doing work, a morale booster that everyone enjoyed. We then breaked of for lunch with chicken drumsticks, nice sauce. We played bridge during the one hour break that did not include lunch and a half-hearted attempt to play murderer, which was not fun at all. Too slow. We never played murderer again. During the break, Fraser and Paul were playing with the wheelchairs, and it looked rather cool. Back to work. I got frustrated by the job about 15 minutes in and decided to help Chaya cut plastic bottles instead. Later, I went to help another group unscrew screws from some equipment and it was finished very quickly indeed. Mr Tham managed to obtain some isotonic drinks for us that tasted rather revolting, since I was used to the taste of Singapore's 100 plus and H-Two-o. All work finished. Our replacement teacher, Mr Liang, was here, and of course, I was happy that it was someone I knew. This was followed by a briefing by the rotary club for the next day's building of the check dams. My vision of the check dams was there, and I prepared myself for the hard work the next day. We later went to the Le Refuge home for girls, the ride was bumpy but I still fell asleep and when we arrived, I was reluctant to disembark. There was a funny smell and I wondered what it was. A long introduction to the home by the Father, and then some games like pass the hoola hoop and guess the leader. I was sabo-ed during the first game, as predicted, and did some funny forfeit like trying to do hoola-hooping. I was able to do it last time but rather hopeless this time round as I failed terribly in trying to get it to spin. The girls (and 2 boys) showed us their house and their rooms, and the fantastic view of the mountain from the computer room balcony. They were very excited when it came to showing the place around them. A sale of their items went on, with each group given 2000 baht to buy their products, since they did not want outright donations. I bought some table mats which I thought were rather nice, but not quite appreciated by my mom later. Following this was dinner, after the sales had been concluded. There were 3 girls on our bus and one of them was called Suk. Describing her would be hard, since she was a playful, lively character. Now we assume that all orphans would be sad and motionally disturbed, but not these girls. They are very happy people and they are really at home when we play with them and talk to them. They opened up rather quickly and we had a really really good time with them especially over dinner and during the lighting of traditional Thai lanterns. In our van, we sang with them, our Christian songs which we harmonised very nicely and we had never performed so well before, and they sang their version of Seek Ye First (in Thai), a song that I had wanted to sing when they were singing other songs. Divine appointment? Our treat for dinner, shrimp and other stuff, common palate. Kebabs were rather hot, what looked like peppers was really in fact, a super hot version of their green chilli and I had to drink a lot of water to flush away the heat of those chillis. Later we went to the open space near the restaurant to light the lanterns, where we played with the orphans in the mean time. Lalang was a common thing, and they used those rough ends to bully us, but in the end, we really had an enjoyable time. An eye-opener to Thai culture with the traditional lanterns which worked on the basis of hot air rises. We were asked, of course, the basis, and we played along to come up with some really dumb answers like "air is dense" and all those rubbish. When it came our time to leave, there was of course, sad farewells and even though we had known them for less than a day, Mr Chiam commented that we acted as if we knew them for years! He even had to block us from going to near their open air van to prevent any delays in the schedule. Our first practise took place in the "void deck" area, very effective for mass dance practises and singing practises. When I went back to my room, I watched discovery channel, but really, it was a repeat of the programme we saw in the morning and we were rather unappreciative of it. Crap. Watched ESPN and saw more repeats. Wondered what they did in Thailand when it came to satellite programmes. The toilet which was faulty was finally repaired. Slept like a log since Zhang did not snore and I used the softer spare pillow instead of the rock hard pillow on the first night.

Trying to teach girls to play murderer is a joke. Really.

So on to Day 3:

Day 3 was check dams day. Yes I can still remember what I wore, and it was a green shirt with black pants. We loaded up onto the bus (not the van) with our driver wearing a military style uniform with the ranking system very much like that of a pilot. Chiangmai transport company, the exact name. We loaded up and travelled into a mountainous area. Before we reached in, the exterior looked like a theme park with military style security and fences all over. Rather puzzling. But when we entered into the real thing, it was really like "in your face" sort of thing. What I expected was really what it was. So then we disembarked, waited for the guests to arrive. We played Pepsi Cola in the mean time, something that I had not played for years and of course, not expected many to remember how it was played. And yes, I was bad at the game. When the guests finally arrived, a long description of the project was described to us by the Thai Rotary Club there, in sub-standard English, and we were given souveniors to commemorate this day. A notebook and an elephant souvenir. As I was the I/C for the day's activities, I gave a speech about the importance of water, something that we in Singapore never realise. How fortunate that we are to have clean drinking water and do not need to dig for water. Yeah and people start nodding on the Thai side. Done a good job I think. Better than self destructing for IOP since it was a serious situation and I don't think I would have wanted the class to laugh on my joke "I'll make it brief". Famous last words. So then we start on the duties, with the flower necklace they gave us. Dump bags on the floor, take shovels and start removing all the rocks which may hinder the water from passing through. Then of course we run through the problems of having to remove fantastically big rocks. Han An starts digging and finds no way out to remove the damm rock. So we both do it and the rock which was damm big comes out. Like Wow. Tea break. Nice pastries and orange juice did it for me. Some say the apple juice tasted like medicine, so I was glad that I took the orange juice instead. Bus driver comes up to me and describes his daughter that is in Singapore in some exchange programme. A nice guy, really, and he gives me his contact card, saying the next time we come to Thailand, (you fill this in yourself). Back to work. Kerriann trips and falls, Benk insults her calling her rocket. The next moment he steps on a rusty nail and he is like "ouch!" It went right through his footwear and he lands up in hospital. Hehe... Revenge? This one is for real. We build check dams from scratch and it really was not easy. Cement and we have to hammer in the bamboo logs, put in the bamboo husks to use as a frame for the cement. To fill up the holes, I poured some concrete powder over the holes and added water. Much easier than trying to use other methods. I try to sit on 4 stacked bags of concrete and Mr Liang advices me not to, because cement is acidic... Later we have lunch at the site itself. It was chicken fried rice, something that I was quite familiar to by now, and in the mean time, interacted with Morgan to find out his background. Water in packet form runs out and I take the last of the orange jelly that was in there. A helpful lady pours some water into a flask with water and it becomes chilled and nice. Free flow of water. Continue service session and we finish building our dam by 2.45 pm. We then proceed to see how the "ideal" dam looks like and we were pleased to note that ours held water, just like the "ideal" one. Mr Chiam comments that he thinks ours is also ideal and of course, that made us happy. The villager also shows us what the villagers do with the dams, like making a small fish pond, and we can see the reservour of water around us. I cant see the fish pond, and Jaimie loudly comments, make way for me. Embarrassed and slightly irritated by this random behaviour. We walk through a short cut and we see how the village houses look like. A far cry from our ho(s)tel. Mr Chiam then says "Take the bannol" to have a phototaking session and all of us burst out laughing, since we know that Mr Chiam has a funny speech problem like "Frasole" and "Whispol", pronounced "Fraser" and "Whisper". I have my own rock that I unearth from the ground and it comes to good use, solving my backache just by lying on it. I return to the hostel deciding to buy iced boom chocolate from Wavee Coffee and it was really nice to have. Zhang washes the clothes in the toilet basin, mine and his and it was quite fun. But this held up the bathing schedule and when everyone had bathed, the 2 of us had not yet. Played bridge while waiting. Then we bathe and have another 2 hours before dinner. Dinner was at a nice buffet again at one of the restaurants with all sorts of food from roast beef to sushi to ice cream and the like. Try to get a sprite glass bottle but cannot get one. Slightly irritated. We then go to the night bazaar in the pickup and in the mean time, we do cheeky things like sending flying kisses to the ladies on the motorcycle. They start laughing. When we arrive, we are ready for the kill and start hunting around for stuff. My first purchase was the salt and pepper shaker, very nice and cute, and then we proceed to buy other stuff, from clothes to lanterns. We tried bargaining with the store owner for cheaper, but she gets pretty mad and we get pretty mad too. We say goodbye to her and she says goodbye in return. Han An wants to buy a stupid lighter and I tell him not to buy. He walks away and the woman starts chasing him. My considerable distaste for him shows up later, when he gangs up with Reks and Andrew claiming that the 100 Baht necklace was not a good buy. Anyways, Zhang managed to get a better price of 80 baht for 7 lanterns and we go home happy, but not before they film "The Biggest Loser" which I was pretty mad about.

Congrats to Chelsea,

but frankly (frank.(l)ampard+(y)), I was not surprised by the result.
Chelsea was much hungrier and outplayed us for long moments, so i really was not surprised since i predicted against Man Utd and bet Chelsea to win at 2-0. So there. Not really surprised.

So far my accurate predictions was the Newcastle Chelsea match, Man Utd Chelsea match, and Wigan Sheffield United match, where i correctly predicted Wigan to stay up. got many more but forgot already.

congrats again. really not bitter about the result, but i think it was cruel since Man Utd did play well.

good birthday today.
mother's day and my birthday concurrently

lunch at inter-continental, lobsters, scallops, prawns, clams, oysters and the like
add in oxtail, potato, spaghetti, and rich food.

how am i supposed to get used to schoolfood again?

Poem: Food.

cheap panna cotta, which in inter-continental it was super rich,
good fish
good food
good dessert

omg.

chocolates that look like oranges, really.
mango pudding wow.

omg.

fresh oyster
shelled scallops. beautiful
tender lobster. red hot sexy.
prawns. same

omg.

mom
dad
pastor
me.


fantaaastic.
omg.

happy birthday to me!!!

happy birthday to me!!!

Yes! We are the Champions of England!!!

Man Utd title celebrations. The best birthday gift in soccer terms.
yay.
pay.
gay.
tay.
hay.
ray.
day.
say.
way.

yay.

i think i did a great job for S.L.A.M
Man Utd did great...

i am happy.
1 week to my birthday. hehe:)

weehee!!!