December 2004

December 31, 2004

I spent most of the daylight hours helping my dad with some of his outdoor projects. We hung new sliding doors on the tractor shed(there are no tractors there, we just call it that because it used to have tractors in it). The doors are very large and heavy and hanging them was not an easy task. We took a break for lunch and ate some soup and a tortilla sandwich.
I also finished cleaning my storage area in the barn, which I began doing yesterday. I used the 3 wheeler to haul some of the things to our garbage dump. For some reason, I had been saving several old television tubes and an out-of-date computer monitor. I hid them underneath some tin at the dump, because I would like to shoot them next time my friends with guns come over. If I did not hide them, then someone else might find them and get to shoot them. Shooting TV’s is fun because they explode sometimes. I also boxed the things I wanted to save from my barn storage area, and moved them to my main storage area.
After I was done with that, I borrowed my dad’s camera and rode the 3 wheeler around the property taking pictures to send Johanna. I climbed onto the barn roof to get some really good shots.
After dark, I took a shower and watched parts of the news. ABC showed video from Phi Phi Island in Thailand, which I visited earlier this month. The video showed that the Tsunami had wiped the island almost clean, and killed most of the people there. At the dock where my ferry had stopped, they had piles of bodies that were being loaded onto ships.
At 6:30, I gathered all my things together and put them into Clara’s car, then, my dad, Clara and I left together. We first stopped at Mike and Carolyn’s house to drop my things off into my new room there. We then went to my dad’s office in Marion so he could pick up some survey equipment that he needed. Afterwards, we ate at Tequila’s Mexican restaurant.
Next, we went back to Mike and Carolyn’s house and joined the New Year’s Eve party that they were having. There were about 15 people there when we arrived, and my dad and Clara stayed for about an hour. The party was a great time. We had a fire burning outside, and the temperature was about 50 degrees, which is a perfect combination. Most of the party took place outside around the fire. Some also played poker inside. Tavis came wearing a suit, so I put mine on also for about an hour, but I then took it off because it was dirty outside. The melting snow had made the ground muddy, and it got worse as people walked on it. I tried to get people to eat the food I had brought from China, which included smoked chicken feet, flavored squid, small flavored whole fish and pickled chicken claws. Buckley opened the smoked chicken feet and we both tried a little bite. They were not bad, but not good either. At about 2 o’clock, the last of the people at the party sat around the picnic table outside and played an electronic game that is kind of like Charades. Everyone sits in a circle and passes the game around. When it comes to you, a word will be shown on the screen, and you must then try and make your teammates guess what that word is. As time goes by, the machine ticks faster and faster, and it eventually makes a buzzing sound. The team that is not holding it then gets a point.
The party then ended at around 3. Sleep.

Thursday
11:54 pm
December 30, 2004

I got up this morning at about 10 and called Johanna on the Internet, but we could barely hear each other because the connection was terrible. It was the first time we had talked on the phone since we left the Hong Kong airport on Christmas evening. We could not continue the Internet conversation, so she called me back using a real phone a few minutes later, and we talked for about 30 minutes. I am going to get a calling card and call her tomorrow.
After the phone call, I found some meat, cheese and sandwich buns in the refrigerator and made my lunch. I then spent quite a bit of typing on the computer. My dad came home from work early at 3 o’clock. I then went out into the barn to help him move several large car parts to the upper levels of the building. I also began cleaning out an area that I stored things in about 10 years ago. When I was 15-17 years old, I had used that storage spot for electronics parts. At that time I had been interested in electronics, and had taken a class in school, but I havn’t pursued that hobby in years, so I thought it was time that I give that barn space back to my dad. He could definitely use it.
After leaving the barn, I went on a shoe search. Two days ago, I had given Janie two of my old shoes to play with, because I did not think I would ever use them again. But, I now realized that they would be in good enough shape to wear at Schnucks when I start again soon. I found the brown shoe I was looking for in front of the greenhouse, and it did not appear to be at all damaged by Janie. I had earlier found the other one, so I took the 2 shoes into the house. As I walked with them in my hand, Janie was going crazy. It is amazing how high that heavy little dog can jump when it wants something a person is holding.
After depositing the shoes in the house, I made Janie happy again by getting one of her other old shoes and throwing it for her. I had an especially fun time throwing it out onto the semi-frozen pond. I had at first thought she might fall through the ice and drown, but my dad reassured me that would not happen. Janie eventually quit bringing the shoe back to me, so I carried a dead raccoon into the woods. My dad had shot the raccoon several days ago because it was a nuisance, and it had fallen out of a tree and been covered with snow. Today, it was almost 60 degrees, which had melted all the snow and exposed the stinking raccoon
Next, I helped my dad wash a car in the driveway, then went inside, because it was getting too dark to see. Inside, I did some more writing on the computer and ate some apple slices dipped in caramel. At 7, I went with my dad and Clara to visit Ron Pulcher and his mother Ruth, who have been family friends for many years. I had not seen them for many years, and would not have recognized them.
We sat at Ruth’s house for three hours and had some very interesting conversation. Ron seems to know quite a bit about everything, and I enjoyed talking to his mother as well. I had been to this house when I was 9 years old for a pig roast to celebrate Ron going into the Peace Corps in Africa. As I sat in the house, I was able to start remembering a few things from that evening 17 years ago. I mostly remembered watching the whole pig cook in front of the garage, which is a very memorable thing for a kid to see for the first time. Before tonight, I had thought about that evening before, but I could not give the memory a time or place.
At 10:30, my dad, Clara and I drove back home. There, I used the camera my dad had brought home from work yesterday to record a VHS tape onto a digital tape, so I can make the Thailand video that I mentioned yesterday. While I waited for the tape to transfer, I spent more time using the computer, then went to sleep when the tape was done.
I sure do spend a lot of time with computers, but they don’t even seem to appreciate it, because they are always breaking down and giving me problems. Think about it.

Wednesday
December 29, 2004

I woke up this early this morning at Mike and Carolyn’s house. Mike was getting ready for work when I got up. I called Clara at that time and she told me that she would be at work at the Church in Murphysboro by the time that Mike got to work at the bank there, so I rode with him. On the way, we stopped at Burger King for breakfast. When we arrived in Murphysboro, Mike dropped me off at the church. I waited just a few minutes for Clara, then drove her car home and agreed to pick her up when she called me later.
Back at the house, I worked on catching up on the journal entries I missed while I was in Hong Kong, and I talked to Tera on the phone for a while. I also put my Macau student ID in an envelope and addressed it to the university. Since I did not have time to go through the checkout process there, Ming offered to do it for me if I sent my ID to her.
Later in the afternoon, Clara called and asked me to pick her up. We then went to the post office, where she mailed a car part and I mailed my student ID to Ming. Next we bought wine and beer at SI Liquor across the street. Last, we went to Wal-Mart so Clara could buy milk and reduced Christmas decorations.
Back at the house, I continued typing on the computer. My dad came home at 5 with his camcorder from work, which is a professional-grade 2 megapixel that cost about $5,000. I wanted to test it out, but could not because the batteries were not with the camera.
Later in the evening, I tried to hook my camera up to the TV in a way that I could record things from the TV to the camera, but I found that it was not possible. I wanted to do this so I could use footage from a Tsunami special on ABC in a video I am making about Pucket, Thailand. I plan on making a before and after video, using the footage that I took there in early December and the footage from the Tsunami last week.
I then realized that my dad’s work camera could record things from the TV, and my dad had told me he would bring the battery tomorrow. So, I went out to my storage area and got a blank VHS tape to record the show later. Then I went back in the house and watched an episode of “Lost” before the special started at 9. My dad and Clara left just before that to see the Murphysboro and Carbondale basketball teams compete, which are both undefeated.
I was able to successfully record the Tsunami special, and my dad and Clara came home soon afterwards. I then spent a little more time on the computer before going to bed at about 11.

Tuesday
December 28th, 2004

I got up at 12:30P.M. today thinking that is was probably around 9A.M.
Crossing 14 time zones and the International Date Line can really mess with a person. I found 2 frozen sausage biscuits in the freezer, and ate them along with an orange.
After the meal, I went out to my storage area and searched for all of my winter clothes. I had come home from tropical Macau with mostly only short sleeved shirts. I found 2 bags, 2 boxes and a clothes basket filled with pants, warmer shirts, pillows and sheets. I found some old shoes that I gave to Janie(dog), and she was very happy.
I put my clothes inside, then went back out to throw the shoes around for Janie and build a snowman in front of the greenhouse. Next, I went back inside and began to organize and wash all the clothes I had brought in. I gave some things to Clara to give away, and washed everything else, which took 4 large loads and quite a bit of time.
Clara was gone all day and she had put a sign on the computer that said “Leave Alone” because she had left in the process of recovering it from the problems it developed last night. The only things I really had to do were catch up on my journal entries and work on videos. Without a computer, I could not do these things, so I had to find other things to pass the time while I waited on each load of laundry to be done. I ended up doing the dishes for Clara, listening to music and sorting through my jumbled suitcases…..exciting.
My dad and Clara came home after 5, and my sister also came over again for dinner. Clara made a really great dinner, which consisted of catfish, dressing, sweet potatoes and greens. It is very nice to have these kinds of foods again, especially Clara’s.
After the meal, I checked email on the computer(Clara had fixed it), and talked to Amanda. She and Clara were making a dog blanket for her to give someone as a gift. At 10 she gave me a ride to Mike and Carolyn’s, because they were having a birthday party there for Matt.
There, I handed out the gifts I had prepared for everyone in the silk bags. Each bag contained Chinese money and some other object. Mike got a Rolex, Jared got a Mao Zedong Watch, Matt and Barb got a wrench shaped lighter, Tavis and Katie got a guitar shaped lighter, and Brandy got a pen lighter. I was hoping that the couples I gave the gifts to would share, but it didn’t look like that was going to happen. Tavis told Katie that he was keeping everything, and I don’t think Matt was giving anything up either, but maybe they did later.
At around 11, we all went to Gatsby’s. I rode with Mike and Carolyn, and while were there, everyone played pool and had drinks. Jared’s sister and his girlfriend also joined us. Just before 1, everyone left to go eat and move to another bar, but Mike and Carolyn were going home. I was staying with them for the night, so I rode home with them.

Monday
December 27, 2004

I woke up around 7 this morning and talked to Clara a few minutes, then realized that it was just 7 o’clock in the morning and went back to sleep till about 9:30. I had expected to sleep very late because I was so exhausted from traveling yesterday, but I couldn’t.
I first took a shower, then searched the kitchen for anything I knew how to eat. I think there is lots of food in the kitchen, but mostly things that I cannot identify. But when Clara puts these unidentifiable things together, they taste really great.
I was able to find some leftover Christmas ham in a bag, some wheat bread and jalapeno cheese. I put some butter and mayo on the bread, placed the meat and cheese in the middle, and baked it in the oven. The sandwiches turned out great.
I then took my camcorder around the inside and outside of the house to make a video for Johanna. It was below freezing outside, and there was still several inches of snow on the ground. I was wearing my dad’s overalls and gloves, but the only shoes I had were my old tennis-shoes, so the snow got it. After filming the video and playing with Janie(dog), I went to my storage area to look for a monitor to use with my computer that I brought back from Macau. I found one after some considerable trouble moving things around, then went back inside because I was cold.
Clara came home shortly afterwards, and I borrowed her car and went to Wal-Mart in search of power cables for my computer. The ones it came with will not fit into an American power outlet. The roads near my home were still almost completely covered in ice. At Wal-Mart, I was told that there were no power cables available, which surprised me considering that they had all kinds of other very random and rarely used hardware. Two lady employees in the electronics department told me I could go to B & J Computers across the street. I then left to go find that store, but did not see it, so I returned to Wal-Mart to ask again. The second time was a success, and I bought two power cables for about $6. As I was waiting for the cashier to get them, a white spotted cat came up to me and started rubbing my leg, and I heard a baby crying in the back of the store. It reminded me of shopping at businesses in China.
I came home and plugged my computer in with the new cables, but it would not work. I then noticed that a sticker on the back of it said 220 volts only, but inside the computer, it said I could use either 110V or 220V. Clara helped me investigate the problem, and we discovered that the sticker on the back of the computer was covering a hole where a voltage control switch should have been……watch what you buy in China.
I then went to my storage area and took out a old spare-parts computer that I had there. I had once found this computer in the garbage 2 years ago when Mike and I were driving through Carbondale. But when I took the old computer apart, I discovered that the power supply connections were not the same as they were on my computer. I now needed to buy a new one, so I called B&J Computers and was told by the cashier that they had used power supplies available for $15. I borrowed Clara’s car again to go look at them, but discovered that they were also different from mine. I went back home to call other computer stores, and found that Best Buy was my only option, but it was rather expensive. I then called my dad and asked him to stop at Best Buy and pick one up for me on my way home.
Around 4P.M., I fell asleep, and did not wake up until my dad and sister arrived at the house about 6:30. My sister had come over to have dinner and exchange gifts. After the dinner I gave everyone the gifts I had brought back with me. Clara got a silk robe and a DVD, my dad got 2 old Chinese advertising posters, a spark plug cigarette lighter and a pack of cigarettes, and my sister got a large wall hanging scroll and a Mao Zedong watch. My sister gave me a bottle of wine from the Pamona Winery, a fleece blanket and a vibrating razor. My dad and Clara gave me the computer power supply that my dad had brought home on his way from work.
After the gift giving, my dad and I watched the movie “Lilies of the Field”, and Amanda and Clara did other things in the house. After the movie, I installed my new power supply and tried using the computer. It seemed to be working fine, except for the monitor, which would come on for just about 5 seconds, then shut off. My dad told me that there was another one in the barn, so I took a flashlight outside to take a look. The huge dark barn can be really creepy at night, and I was unable to find the monitor. My dad then went out to look, and he soon came back with something large wrapped in a black garbage bag. It was the computer monitor I had been looking for, but when I hooked it up, the same thing happened that had happened when I hooked up the first one.
Amanda left at sometime around 10. At 11, my dad, Clara and I watched the news about Phuket, Thailand. Hundreds of tourists died there. It could have been me and Johanna just 3 weeks ago. They went to sleep after this, and I then hooked my computer up to Clara’s computer monitor. My computer was working fine, and I spent some time writing in MS Word. Later, I tried to turn on Clara’s computer to use the Internet, and a message came on the screen saying “You must reinstall Windows”. I left her a note saying “I didn’t do this”, and went to sleep.

Sunday - Coming Home
December 26th, 2004 (times two)

I woke up this morning at 5:30 at the airport when the large TV I was sleeping in front of was turned on. I went downstairs to the arrival hall to find another place to sleep, but I had a headache and could not relax. I then went back to the spot that I had slept and sat there watching CNN until I could check in for my flight at 8.
At that time, I waited in a line for just about 10 minutes to check in, and as soon as I had passed through security, I ate a whopper meal at the Burger King there. It was the first Whopper I had eaten in almost 5 months, which is a long time considering I usually eat them every week at home.
After the meal, I found free Internet access at a row of Imac computers that was set up near my gate. The computers were not in very good software shape, but at least they worked and were free. My plane was boarding as I arrived at the gate, and I had a seat in the middle row of the aircraft. I don’t really like the middle row because there is no window, but at least I had a lot of legroom, because it was the first row of economy class. I fell asleep as the plane was taxiing down the runway and woke up as it was accelerating for takeoff. At that moment, I was having a dream that I was driving a car through a tunnel, and the car accelerated as I awoke to the planes acceleration…….interesting how that works.
I fell back asleep after takeoff and woke back up when the meal was brought. The main dish was beef and rice, which was fine, but the noodles on the tray were cold, green and terrible. To make up for that, though, there was a delicious chocolate pastry that was filled with cream.
At about 3:30(4 hours later) my plane landed at the Tokyo airport. I then had to go through security again and get a boarding pass for the next flight. As I was walking to my gate, I passed a bookstore that had a rack of Time magazines with Bush’s picture on them displayed out front. Someone had stuck a piece of paper to one of the magazines that read “war criminal”.
My flight did not board until 4:45, so I spent some time reading a book Johanna gave me about Finland. On the plane, I had an isle seat in a side row next to a polite Japanese-American girl that looked just a little bit younger than me. I then noticed that one of the stewardesses looked like the same as one who had been on my flight to Tokyo in August. When we were served our pork and rice meal, I told her that I liked her Christmas apron with flashing red lights, but she did not appear to remember me. I later asked her if she had been on my August flight, but she said no.
After the meal, I watched the movies Collateral and a Japanese film about a teacher who taught his students about fireflies. Next I went to sleep for a while, and woke up just before the breakfast was being served.
The nighttime only lasted about 6 hours, and December 26th repeated itself because I crossed over the International Dateline. I lost an August 10th when I came to China, but I gained an extra December 26th when I returned. The 9 hour flight was uncomfortable for me because me stomach kept hurting and I could not sleep. But on the brighter side, the Japanese-American girl next to me only got up once during the whole flight.
My plane landed in Los Angeles at 10A.M. and I only had one hour to board my final flight to St. Louis. During that time I had to go through customs, collect my luggage and then take it through inspection. As were neared the first inspection point, a framed picture of Bush was hung from the ceiling, but noone had yet defaced this one.
Luckily the long lines in the first section of customs were moving fast, and I was able to have my passport stamped quickly and then proceed to the baggage carousel. As the passengers were collecting their bags, a customs woman walked around with a dog and let it sniff everyone and their belongings. The dog was a small wiener-type, which wore a sweater that said “Agricultural Protection Services”. When the dog came to me, I was told to put my backpack on the floor so the small creature could reach it.
As I was taking my bags though the last part of customs, the inspector noticed how heavy they were and suspiciously questioned me as to how long I had been gone. I told him that I had been an exchange student, and he then quickly let me pass. I then passed back through security and too my gate.
The flight boarded about 15 minutes late. Our lunches were in bags that were sitting on a cart on the ramp to plane. I was very hungry and at my whole lunch before the plane got of the ground. A young Indian-American woman sat next to me, and asked me to help her stow her bag before sitting down. As a gift, she gave me the brownie from her bag lunch. The only empty seat on the plane was between her and I.
The attendants on the flight were three old white haired women. They all acted a little bit sedated and seemed very eccentric. One of them bluntly stated “Where are you going” to a woman was trying to return to her seat from the bathroom. Another attendant had the gaudiest glasses I had ever seen, which had dozens of large fake diamonds in the frames.
The flight landed in St. Louis at about 5P.M., and I began looking for my dad as soon as I collected my bags. I could not find him anywhere and my bags were getting very heavy. Luggage carts cost $3 and I did not have any American money yet, but I eventually found an abandoned one. At one point, a guy in a car waved at me and stopped, and I thought it was my brother at first, but we soon realized that we both had the wrong person.
After 6, I went to an ATM machine, then bought a hot chocolate at Starbucks so I would have change to use the payphone. The cashier there was very friendly and asked a lot of questions. I then called my dad and he told me that he had not received my email about the arrival time. Next, I checked the bus schedule and called him back. The buses were not running to Carbondale any more for the day, so we decided that I would take the MetroLink to the last station and meet there.
A train was at the airport station platform when I arrived, and there were 27 stops until the last one. At one stop several young black guys got on the mostly empty train, and started yelling “cracker” at me from behind. When I arrived at my stop, I was worried because I only had a thin jacket and there were no indoor areas of the station. Luckily, my dad was pulling into the parking lot just as I was arriving.
After arriving back home, I drank some wine and my dad and I played a game with marbles, which I had never seen before. I tied him on the third round.

Christmas Day - Saturday
December 25, 2004

Johanna and I got up at about 10 this morning and started packing the things in our room. Then we met Kaisa, and the three of us brought all of our bags into the lobby, where the hotel staff had agreed to store them for the day. We were a little worried about leaving them there, but we were reassured that it was safe, and watched while they tied all the bags together and covered them with a blanket.
The three of us then walked to the bay, because I wanted to take some pictures, and I needed someone to hold the camera for me. There, Johanna recorded me sticking a Disgracefuls sticker on a post in front of the Hong Kong skyline, and she also took a picture of me holding a large ceramic thing that Rufus asked me to bring to Asia in August.
I then went to the Internet café that we had been to earlier in the week, while Johanna and Kaisa did some shopping. Afterwards, I met them at Mcdonalds, and we walked to the nearby park together. The park was an interesting experience today, because large groups of people were exchanging gifts and celebrating Christmas all over the place. Some groups were as large as 30, and were all dancing together as they listened to music. One group was playing their own instruments and singing.
We found a bench in the crowded park and sat while we watched people walk by. After a while, Kaisa left to go back to the hotel, and Johanna and I stayed and sat on the bench a while longer.
At 5, we walked back to the hotel to meet Kaisa and pick up our luggage. We then asked the lady that was working which bus stop to go to. We had earlier decided to take the bus that goes to the airport because the cab fare was very high.
Getting on the bus did not prove to be an easy task, because of the extreme weight of our luggage and the intensity of the crowds. We first walked a block in the wrong direction, then had to fight our way back to the correct bus stop. When we got there, there was a large crowd in front of the bus stop, and the bus left with Kaisa on it before Johanna and I could board. As the bus suddenly pulled away, I saw Kaisa fall over her bags and onto the floor.
Johanna and I then waited 15 minutes for the next bus. Then, things got a lot easier. The bus was almost empty, and we took seats in the front of the top level of the bus. These were great seats because the front of the bus is all glass, which provides a great view of the city. Our ride lasted an hour, and it was very relaxing.
Kaisa was in front of the airport waiting for us when we arrived. We all put our luggage onto carts there and entered the building, which was said to be the largest in Hong Kong, at 500,000 square meters. The first thing we did inside was look for a restaurant. The real restaurants were too expensive, so we settled on Popey’s chicken.
After the meal, we sat in an area with plush chairs until Johanna and Kaisa could check into thier flight at 8. These were the same chairs that I had slept in on the night of August 10th, when I first arrived in Hong Hong. I waited in the chairs while they checked in, then they returned to that spot. It was now the sad time to say goodbye, at least for several months. At 9, I walked with them to the departure gate, and watched as they walked away through security. The airport suddenly seemed a lot larger and emptier.
I then walked to a Watson’s store that was in the terminal and tried to buy a calling card, but my debit card was declined. I wanted to call my dad to tell him my travel plans, but I did not want to have to pay the international fees to use an ATM. I had already sent him an email to tell him what time I would be arriving, so I though that would be good enough. I did have enough cash to buy 2 bottles of water, so I bought that, then returned to the chairs that I had set in earlier. I slept there again for the evening.

Friday - Christmas Eve
December 24, 2004

The tiny room that Johanna and I were sharing was getting so messy by today that we picked it up so it would be descent when we exchanged gifts there with Kaisa later tonight. I then went to Mcdonalds with Kaisa while Johanna was getting ready. Johanna did not want to eat because she had already eaten the leftover Pizza Hut from our fridge.
When I arrived back at the hotel, Johanna told me that the manager of the hotel had been in our room when she came out of the bathroom. She said that he had a hand on my suitcase and looked like he was getting ready to pull in out of the door. I did not really have anything valuable in the room, but Johanna had her laptop computer, so I hid it inside the frame of the bed.
Johanna and Kaisa then left to go to an Internet café nearby, and I stayed in the room to use the bathroom. While I was in there, the manager came back into room and turned the door handle of the bathroom. I knocked on the door, and surprised him. He said something about having to do work on the bathroom, and that he would come back later. As I was leaving the room, I noticed that he had the door propped open with my suitcase…….so he probably had not been trying to steal it earlier, after all.
Next I walked to the Internet café were Johanna and Kaisa were suppost to be, but on the way there, I realized that I had forgotten my USB drive, so I walked back to the room to get it. There, I found Johanna and Kaisa, who told me that they had been unable to find the Internet café. So, we all walked there together and spent one hour on the computers, which was the minimum charge. The computers were a little bit older, but the atmosphere was nice. The area of the business that we sat in had computers in circular booths. Each booth had 3 computers, and it was very comfortable and private. The walls of the place were decorated with advertisements from computer games, and almost everyone there was playing games online. Young Asian guys play online computer games religiously.
After leaving the Internet café, we took the subway to Central Station, which is in the same downtown area we visited last night. We came there in search of the world’s longest covered elevator system, and we found it. The entire downtown area is built on the side of a mountain, and a series of elevated pedestrian walkways covers much of this large area. When going uphill on these walkways, there is no need to walk up any stairs. We rode a series of at least 20 escalators that lead several hundred meters.
We walked along the streets when we went back down the hill, and passed through a bumpy alley that had many shops on it. One of the shops was especially interesting, which had lots of very old looking merchandise. There, I bought some antique Chinese advertising posters for my dad. Johanna also bought a poster, and Kaisa bought a necklace, then we walked on. Back at the bottom of the hill, we found a French café and ate lunch there. The food there was quite good and very reasonable priced. After the meal, I learned how to say “onka suu siistu”, which means “is my mouth clean” in Finnish. Before leaving I asked where the bathroom was, and was given a key attached to a plastic block; like a cheap gas station bathroom key in the US.
Next, we took the subway to an area where we had read that a bird market existed. The market was a ten minute walk from the subway station, so we asked for directions as we went. On the way there, we passed through a plant market with spanned at least 3 blocks. There were many things here that I had never seen before, and everything was quite cheap. Very intricate banzai trees could be purchased for less than $5.
Just past the plant market was the bird market, which was completely shocking. There were nearly 100 vendors selling birds, and most of these vendors had hundreds of birds in tiny cages that were stacked together. They also had some regular size cages, which sometimes had up to 100 birds each. The large numbers of birds attracted hundreds of other local wild birds to hang out at the market. As we walked, flocks of these birds would fly through the air all around us. Sometimes, all the birds would become scared at the same time, which would result in temporary chaos. At these times, all the caged birds would flutter and scream, and all the free birds would take off in a stampede of anything in their way.
When we arrived at the last vendor in the end of the market, a woman that worked there brought two birds up to me and put them onto my finger. Johanna took a picture of this, and it is one of my favorites.
It was now getting dark, and we took the subway back to the area of our hotel. Before entering our building, I bought some silk at a tailor, because I wanted to give it to Carolyn for Christmas. We then stopped at a music store to buy a CD of Christmas music to listen to while we exchanged gifts. Next, we went to the small store in our hotel building and bought some drinks to take to the rooms.
As we came into the building, we noticed that the streets had been closed to traffic, and the people were walking in them. A while after getting back into the room, I started to hear loud crowd noised outside and went to the window to take a look. The streets were flooding with people walking in every direction. Over the next 2 hours, more and more people kept coming, and the crowd noise grew. At about 9, the people began screaming in waves. At first, you would hear everyone scream in the distance, then the screams would get nearer and nearer, and eventually pass on in the other direction. The first time we heard this, it was scary because we thought something bad was happening, but it was just for fun.
Later in the evening, Kaisa came to our room and the three of us exchanged gifts. Johanna gave me a book about Finland, and I gave her a kind of lotion that she liked and a teddy bear from Mcdonalds. Kaisa gave me a Spiderman beach ball and a letter that was very creative and funny. Johanna and I gave Kaisa the Hello Kitty bathroom set as a joint gift. Kaisa made a framed picture collage for Johanna. Johanna and I had not wrapped our gifts, but Kaisa had wrapped hers with aluminum foil.
After exchanging the gifts, we stayed in the room for a while longer while we talked and finished our drinks. By midnight, the crowds outside had grown into the hundreds of thousands, and at exactly 12A.M. every counted down together; just like New Years Eve. We joined them soon after that.
It did not feel like Christmas at all in the streets, but it did feel like Halloween or New Years. Many people were walking around in costume and hanging out with large groups of friends. Most of the people in the streets were between 20-30 years old. But, there was a major difference between this party and those of the US; nobody was drinking. People were just walking and talking.
Johanna, Kaisa and I decided to go to Mcdonalds for our holiday meal. After that, we walked to a nearby Irish bar, but it was closing, so we went to another one across the street. We sat there till around 2A.M, then walked back to our hotel. We were surprised that almost all the people had disappeared in the short period of time while we had been in the bar. The streets were now even back open to traffic. After leaving the bar, we returned to our rooms for the evening.

Thursday in Hong Kong
December 23, 2004

Kaisa went out early by herself this morning to do some shopping, and Johanna and I went back to the American Airlines office because I had found my tickets last night. There, I had to pay $1300HKD to change the tickets. I talked to the same man that I did yesterday, but he was friendlier today.
We then met Kaisa in front of our hotel building and walked to Mcdonalds for lunch. Johanna was beginning to get sicker and sicker of Mcdonalds with each visit, but Kaisa and I always wanted it, and we had to practice democracy since we are all 3 from democratic countries. After the meal, we went to the nearby subway station. From there, we took the train to a market so we could do some Christmas shopping. This market ran along a street for several blocks, and had hundreds of shops. There, Johanna and I bought a Hello Kitty bathroom set for Kaisa, and I bought my sister a large scroll painting, and 7 lighters built into odd shapes to give to my friends.
When we were done shopping, we took the subway back to our hotel and dropped off our merchandise. Next, we went to Kowloon Park, which was just a 5 minute walk from our hotel. I had a headache, so I decided to leave and go back to the hotel by myself. But, on the way there, I passed by a shoe store that had some shoes on display that actually would fit me. I went inside to look at the other shoes, and found a pair of New Balance I liked that was also in my size. It was $30, which is a lot more than I would have paid in China, but these shoes appeared to not be fakes, and were still a lot cheaper than I would have paid in the US. I tried to pay with my debit card, but it was declined, as it often has been since I have been out of the US. I paid with cash, then walked to an ATM machine to get more money. I was surprised when the machine ejected 3 advertisements along with my money.
As I was entering my hotel building, I stopped at a silk vendor’s booth that was in the tiny alleyway near the rear entrance. There, I bought a silk robe for Clara, and 10 little silk bags to put the things I had bought for my friends in. Back in my room, I packed the little silk bags with gifts. I put all the lighters I had earlier purchased into them, and a Rolex and Mao Zedong watch from China. I also put some Chinese currency into each bag.
When the girls got back to the hotel, we rested for a while, then walked to the waterfront by the museums so we could take ferry into downtown Hong Kong. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we walked to a viewing area so I could film the skyline. It was quite impressive, with many of its largest building decorated from top to bottom with animated Christmas display.
On the ferry, the water was choppy and the boat rocked quite violently as it was docked. We were then in search of a Pizza Hut, because Kaisa was very set on that idea. We walked all over the place looking for it, and asked people, but nobody could help us. During our search, we wandered into the main Christmas celebration area, which was in an open courtyard between all of the cities biggest buildings. There were thousands of people there, and holiday displays and activities everywhere. The people of Hong Kong love Christmas.
After considerable searching for Pizza Hut, Kaisa reluctantly agreed to eat at a Chinese restaraunt that we found, but when we went inside, they told us that they could not serve us because there was a private party going on.
I then went outside and said “Pizza Hut” to a cab driver. He was talking on his phone, and he handed me the earpiece and microphone to his headset and had me say the name to the person on the other end. I gave the phone back to him, and he told us to get in, but we soon realized that he had no clue were he was going. He kept driving and driving, sometimes going in circles, and the meter kept going up and up. When the meter hit 50 he pointed at it and said “no more”. He stopped at one point and the driver went inside of another pizza restaurant to ask for directions, but got no help. He was able to finally find the restaurant by calling someone else on the phone and asking for directions.
The Pizza Hut was take out and delivery only, and just had a tiny area to order at. While we waited for our food, I went across the street to 711 to look for pain killers, because I still had a headache. Inside, I could not find the medicine, so I went to the counter and said “medicine”, but I was directed to the magazines. I said the word again, and a customer was able to understand me. I then went back to Pizza Hut, and we took our two large pizzas and 3 Cokes on a walk down the street. We were either going to sit in a park or take our pizzas back home on the subway, depending on which we found first. We found neither, so I stopped and asked a van full of cops where the subway station was. They told me, “very far”, so Johanna, Kaisa and I just found a nice quiet staircase to sit and eat our pizzas at.
After the meal, we walked the rest of the way to the subway, then took the train back to the area of our hotel. The subway system here must be one of the best in the world. All of the stations are huge and clean, and organized in a way that moves large numbers of people very efficiently. They include the largest platforms and escalator systems I have ever seen.
Once we arrived back near our hotel, we stopped at a 711 to buy some water, then went back to our rooms for the evening.

Wednesday in Hong Kong
December 22, 2004

We all slept in later today, then went to a restaurant just down the street, called The Spaghetti House. Our food was good, but we immediately noticed the difference in price compared to restaurants in Macau. After the meal, we filled out the comment card on our table, then went out in search of the American Airlines office. I was told to go there when I changed my tickets on the phone last month.
The city of Hong Kong is huge. It is very densely populated place which covers an enormous area, but we amazingly found the American Airlines office just one block from our hotel. We went to the street that it was on and looked for its building number, but the numbers were arranged in some unknown way. An older couple walking on the street noticed we were looking for something and stopped for help. I had a phone number for the office, so the woman was going to call using her mobile phone, but she told me I was missing a digit. Hong Kong numbers have 8 digits and the one I had written down had 7. So, she called directory assistance and got the number for me, then called the office and got directions. These people were really nice.
Things were not so pleasant in the office. A man there told me that he needed my original tickets before he could replace them, but the woman I spoke to on the phone 2 weeks ago told me to destroy my original tickets because I would be issued new ones at this office. I told the man this and he seemed very impatient. He told me he needed the old tickets and would charge and extra $100 if I had lost them. At that time I could not remember exactly what I had done with the tickets, so we left the building and I decided to look for them later.
Next, we went to the post office so Johanna could send of some Christmas cards, then we walked across the street to the art museum. Each exhibit in the art museum had a notebook where comments could be written, and we took this opportunity to write interesting things in every one of them……things like “This piece has moved me in incredible ways. I will never be the same”.
We also found a table that had been set up for people to make snowflakes. Johanna, Kaisa and I all tried to make one, but with little luck. I could not understand the folding directions, and Johanna made an ugly square one, which she gave to me. I don’t remember what Kaisa made, but I guess it wasn’t that special if I can’t remember. After looking at most of the museum exhibits, we looked through the gift shop, but everything was too expensive to buy.
The Art Museum is located next to the bay that overlooks the Hong Kong city skyline, and we sat outside there after we left the museum. As we sat, some local students came up to us and asked if we were tourists. We told them yes and they asked to take our picture, then walked away. We had expected a survey or something, but they just left.
After taking our break, we walked to a nearby Mcdonalds. I ate a full meal, Johanna had a tuna sandwich from a McCafe restaraunt next to Mcdonalds, and Kaisa had ice cream. After leaving Mcdonalds, we went to the Space Musuem, which was located next to the Art Musuem. There, we walked through a replica of the space shuttle and looked at multiple other exhibits, some of which included information on the new Chinese space program.
Next, we walked back to our hotel and took a break for an hour, then walked to a shopping mall that Kaisa wanted to look for Christmas gifts at. The mall was closing when we arrived, so we soon left and walked back towards the hotel. On the way there we stopped in 2 candy stores, then ate at a Chinese restaurant. Once we were back at our hotel building, we bought a bottle of Bacardi and some Coke at a store on the first floor, then returned to our rooms. Kaisa again came to the room that Johanna and I had, and the three of us talked and listened to music as we had our drinks.
Around midnight, I put on the suit I had purchased in Thailand, and we walked to a hotel down the street called The Peninsula, which is suppost to be one of the nicest in Hong Kong. We came there in search of a luxury bar on the top floor, which my Consumer Marketing teacher had recommended to me a few weeks ago. The staff directed us to an elevator which had carved wooden walls and lights that dimmed when the doors closed. One of the buttons on the elevator was labeled “Felix”, so we pressed it.
The entire top floor was reserved for the bar, and all of the walls were glass from floor to ceiling, which provided a perfect view of the entire Hong Kong skyline. We sat at a table and each ordered one drink. Johanna and I both had a $7 beer, and Kaisa had a vodka and tonic which cost over $10. There were only a few other people in the bar. After our drinks, we decided to leave and find a cheaper place to go.
But before we left, we had to check out the famous bathrooms we had heard about. We could not find them at first because they had glass doors that were hidden on a glass wall. Each door had the image of a man or woman projected onto the front of it. The mens restaurant had urinals in front of a glass wall that overlooked the city, so it felt like you were taking a leak all over Hong Kong. The sink was a large marble square that sat in the middle of the room. It had odd-shaped copper pipes sticking out of the top of it which sprayed out water and soap. The doors to the toilets were all hidden in the same way that the entrance doors were. In each stall, there were lights inside of the glass walls. There were not any people using the bathrooms, so Johanna and Kaisa looked at the mens, and I looked at the women’s.
After we left Felix, we went out in search of a nearby club that we had read about, but could not find it. We went inside the nearby Hyatt hotel to ask about entertainment in the area, and they directed us to an Irish pub across the street. When we arrived, the owner was standing outside locking up the doors. We asked him where else we could go, and he told us about another place nearby. He was also walking in that direction, so he told us we could follow him. The walk was about 10 minutes, and when we arrived we were very disappointed. The music was loud and bad, and the place was empty. We decided to go back to the hotel for the evening.

Going to Hong Kong
December 21, 2004

I met Dash at 8:15 this morning for breakfast at Mcdonalds. He had planned on meeting me at the ferry terminal to say goodbye, but something had come up, so he had called last night and asked me to meet him at Mcdonalds this morning.
After eating and saying goodbye to Dash, I walked to the university because I wanted to check out. Everyone who leaves the university is required to check out, which involves deactivating your student ID, punching a hole in it, and refunding any printing quotas that you still have. But, the university offices were closed again today because of the holiday yesterday. They sure do take Handover Day seriously around here.
After I discovered I could not check out, I went to the computer lab for a while, then walked back home. There, I finished packing and talked to Johanna. She left soon after I arrived, and I later saw David in the hallway coming from Lisbeth’s apartment. I talked to him for about 15 minutes and said goodbye.
As soon as David left, Yolanda came by to look at the apartment and give my deposit back to me. I got a lot more than I had expected because I had forgotten that I prepaid the last months’ rent when I signed the lease. With my deposit and the last months rent combined, I received 2600 Hong Kong Dollars.
After Yolanda left, Eric called and asked me to meet him and his cousin at Top Taipei restaurant down the street. He had previously agreed to take the things I could not take home with me, and give me a ride to the ferry terminal. After the meal we walked back to my apartment to pick up my phone, then took it to the CTM phone office nearby so I could cancel my service and get my deposit back. I am glad Erick was with me or I would not have been able to get the deposit back, because CTM would not sent it to a foreign country. Eric had them deposit the money into his account and he paid me the 500 Pataca.
We then went back to the apartment and carried all my things out onto the street. Eric and his cousin both had thier cars parked on the sidewalk so everything could be easily loaded. I then road with Eric to the ferry terminal and his cousin followed. While we were passing over the bridge, it started raining for the first time in 3 months(Kaisa later said that Macau was crying because we were leaving).
At the ferry terminal, I said goodbye to Eric and met Johanna and Kaisa, who were already there waiting for me. Eric had told me that one of the ferries was going to the area of Hong Kong where our hotel was located, called Kowloon. We checked the schedule of that ferry, and it was leaving shortly, so we purchased tickets and boarded. The trip lasted about an hour. The girls slept about half the time, but I couldn’t, even though I felt really tired. I was reading the emergency evacuation procedures of the ship, and was surprised to see, “If the captain gives the command ,ABANDON SHIP, please calmly return to your seat and take off your shoes…….”
I guess you were suppost to take off your shoes because it would be easier to swim, but even the guy sitting next to me laughed when I read it out loud to Johanna and Kaisa.
When we arrived in Hong Kong, we passed through customs with no problem, and then carried our heavy bags down 3 floors to get a taxi. There was a line there of at least 15 people in front of us who were also waiting for the same thing that we were. When we got our turn, our bags would barely fit inside the vehicle, and the driver had to strap the trunk down because it would not shut. I was worried that our bags could fall out. The driver did not know where our hotel was, so he had me say the name into the intercom several times. Eventually, someone on the other end understood me and translated the destination to the driver. The ride was only a few minutes long.
The building our hotel is in is called the ChungKing Mansion, and it holds several dozen youth hostels on its 15+ floors. We had made phone reservations at one of these hostels, but when we entered the building, a man tricked us into staying at a different one. He told us that he was an employee of the hostel we were staying at, so we followed him to the elevator, which was very slow and had a cue of at least a dozen people. After waiting for about 10 minutes, we boarded the elevator, then had to carry our bags down one floor because the elevator did not stop there. This is when we realized that man we were following had fooled us. The name of the hostel he brought us too was called The Tai Wan Hotel, which was not the name of the one we had made reservations with.
Since we had not paid any money to make the other reservations, we still looked at his rooms, but he wanted $100HKD more than what our reservations were for. We were getting ready to leave when he lowered the price to almost the same that we were planning to pay at the other hostel. As we were trying to decide what to do, this man kept talking and talking about how great the tiny room was. He kept saying “Bathroom Huge, Bathroom Huge, look, look……..”. I finally went to look at the bathroom, and it was not even big enough to sit on the toilet. We were tired of carrying our heavy bags around, though, and the room was very clean, so we agreed to take it. Kaisa took a room by herself in another area of the hotel.
After checking into our rooms and resting for a while, we walked to Mcdonalds for dinner, then browsed some of the shops in the area. The intensity of the crowds was very surprising considering it was mid-week. There must have been 10,000 pedestrians per block. The sidewalks were wide, but it was very difficult to make our way through.
As we walked, green lasers flashed and shot accross the sky in different patterns and directions. They had been attached to all of the tallest buildings in the area. The last place we visited on this walk was 711, and there we bought some drinks to have later in our rooms.
We then returned to our hotel and were bombarded by a dozen Indian food salemen as we tried to enter the building. I have never seen such high energy salemen before. There are many Indian restaraunts located inside of the building our hotel is in, and each of them has its own salesmen waiting for potential customers to enter. They surrounded us on every side and screamed thier deals at us as they pushed brochures into our hands. It was completely chaotic and they all followed us as we tried to find the stairway that led to our floor. The kept this intensity up for a couple minutes, and finally I just stopped and started laughing histerically. Kaisa and Johanna laughed just as hard. It was truly one of the funniest moments I have ever had.
When we got back to our floor, Kaisa came to the room that Johanna and I were staying in. I hooked up the large computer speakers I had in my suitcase to Johanna’s laptop, which provided a good-sounding source of music for us. The three of us then sat there for 2 hours and talked while we had our drinks and listened to the music.
Then, we left our room to look for a bar or nightclub to go to. We walked around the area, but could find nothing, so we returned to our rooms.

12/20/2004
Monday

I slept in late today, then went with Johanna to meet Kaisa and Tuomas at 2. We all walked to the E.S. Kimo café on campus. After eating lunch there, I went to the computer lab by myself for about an hour an a half. On CNN’s web page, I saw an article about Macau that said the Chinese President was in town for today’s holiday, which is The National Handover day. On this day 5 years ago, Portugal handed over ownership of the island to China. The president was also here to dedicate a new 2 level bridge that was just completed, which connects the island I live on to Macau.
After reading this article, I wanted to try and see the president, but I could not find any information about his schedule online, so I called Dash. Dash asked a friend of his, then called me back to say that the president would be at the Macau tower at 6, so that is where I went. There, I asked a girl at the information desk where I could see the president at. She had perfect English and a British accent, and she told me that she was not sure what direction the president would come in from, but I had the best chances if I would go to the 4th floor.
I went to this floor and found that a ceremony was getting ready to begin at 6. Hundreds of well dressed people were arriving and going into a banquet hall, but it was invitation only, so I just waited outside the doors and watched. Some of the people coming in had private security, and many secret-service-looking type people were standing all around with earpieces on.
Johanna and Kaisa met me there at 6 and we sat at a table in a nearby café area and had a drink while we waited to see if the president would possibly pass by. He did not. At 7:15 we watched “Ocean’s 12” at the theatre in the building. After the movie we took a bus to the Lisboa casino and went inside because I had some change that I wanted to get rid of. Johanna and Kaisa decided not to stay, but I did. I had my change converted to $2 Hong Kong dollar coins, and I took these coins to a slot machine.
During one round I won back everything I had put into the machine, and I put all the winnings back into the machine. My last coin won me some more money. After I was all out of coins, I took a bus back to Taipa. As I was getting off the bus, a fireworks display started to celebrate the holiday. I watched the display and was very impressed by it. During a 15 minute period, at least 10,000 fireworks must have been set off. Some of them were large enough to shake the ground.
After the display, I went to the supermarket and bought 2 beer and a water, then returned to the apartment. Johanna was there when I arrived, and we ate some noodles and drank a beer. Mary and Chloe came by for a few minutes, and I showed Mary how to do some things in Adobe Premier, which I had previously copied for her. After they left, Johanna and I went up to the roof for a few minutes, then returned to the apartment and went to sleep.

12/19/2004
Sunday

I went to Johanna’s apartment this morning to help her move out. Both her roommates had already moved out. Johanna #2 left mid-week, and Riitta had just left earlier in the morning. Yolanda(landlord), Kaisa, a man and a kid were also in the apartment when I arrived. Yolanda was there to get the keys, and the man and kid were there to look at the apartment. The kid was especially loud and kept getting into everything.
Everyone except Johanna and I left after about 10 minutes, and we then spent a few minutes watching David Letterman before leaving the apartment for the last time. We then carried all of Johanna’s bags back to my apartment, where she will be staying until we leave for Hong Kong on Tuesday.
Later in the afternoon, we met Kaisa at Mcdonalds and had dinner there, then the three of us walked to the computer lab. Johanna and I left the computer lab about an hour later, and stopped at the supermarket on the way home to buy some food, Red Bull and vodka. We then went back to my apartment, where we listened to Johanna’s music collection and had our drinks. At 10 we put on the suits we bought in Bangkok and went to the New Century Casino across the street. We stopped by Kaisa’s apartment on the way there, but she did not want to come with us. At the casino I tried to use the change I had previously collected from my room in the slot machines, but I had Patacas and the machines only took Hong Kong Dollars. I tried to get the money changed over, but they refused, so we left the casino and went home. We then had one more drink before going to sleep.

Saturday
December 18, 2004

I spent most of the late morning and afternoon creating a video of my trip to Thailand last week, which I should have on the Internet tomorrow. I took a few breaks to talk to Milan and Raj, and also to get some food from McDonalds. Raj was suppost to be leaving today, but he had not booked his flights in time. Today he bought tickets at the airport for tomorrow, but it cost him twice as much as buying them in advance would have. Milan left town at about 4, and she will be going on a 6 week, 4 country backpacking trip around southern Asia. She asked me to take a picture of her as she left her apartment carrying all her bags.
Dash came by at 5 to give me a going-away gift, which was 3 ceramic old men that bring good luck. Each one of the figures is suppost to bring luck in a certain area of your life. He told me that if they get broken it means that you will have very bad luck. Maybe I should not have accepted them, because things were already going OK for me, and now my life could potentially be ruined if all 3 men were to be broken.
At 6 I went into Macau to meet Eric(Macau Chinese guy who I met my first week here). I met him and 2 of his friends from Mainland China across the street from KFC. His friends both spoke Mandarin, and he speaks Cantonese, so they conveniently must use English to communicate. We first went to the apartment were we were planning to have a “hot pot” dinner, which is where his friend Pheobe lives, whom I also met during my first week in Macau. After sitting there for a few minutes, I went with Eric and his two friends to buy food and drinks. We went to 2 stores and walked through Senado Square, then returned to the apartment.
Several more people then arrived, some of whom I had also met with Eric during my first week in town. Then, the “hot pot” dinner started. All the food was placed on one table, and all the people sat at another. A small burner was placed in the middle of the table we sat at, and a pot of water was boiled there. The pot was then filled with food and covered. The food consisted of mushrooms, potatoes, tomatoes, greens, cabbage, different kinds of unknown round objects and big live shrimp. There was a bowl of these live shrimp squirming on the food table behind us, and several of them were placed in the pot each time it was refilled.
Each time the contents of the pot were fully cooked, each person would reach in with their chopsticks and pull out what they wanted. When the pot was empty, it would be refilled, and we refilled the pot about 20 times. Sometimes more live shrimp would be thrown into the pot before everyone was done pulling out what they wanted, and it felt strange to attempt to pull things out of the pot as a shrimp would try and cling to my chopsticks before it died.
At 11:30 everyone helped clean up the mess, then Eric gave his two other friends and I a ride back to Taipa. Back at my apartment, I watched the movie “Reqium to A Dream” with Raj, then went to sleep.

Friday
December 17, 2004

I walked to an ATM this morning because I needed just a few more Patacas to last me until I leave town next Tuesday. All the ATM machines here offer both Patacas and Hong Kong dollars, because both currencies can be used in Macau, but it is very hard to find an ATM that is not out of Patacas. Some people say that this is done on purpose because the Pataca is worth slightly less than the Hong Kong dollar, and the businesses in the city will benefit by receiving Hong Kong dollars. This morning was no different, and I could not find any ATM that had Patacas, so I just took 1000 Hong Kong dollars. The machine gave me two 500 Pataca bills, which would be hard for most businesses to break, so I went to McDonalds and ordered a double-cheeseburger and a Coke, and they even gave me my change in Hong Kong dollars.
I then went to the same barber shop that I had been to the last time I got my hair cut, and the same man cut it this time. I waited just a few minutes for him to finish another customer. After the haircut, I went to Park-N-Shop to buy some Christmas gifts for Dash, whom I was suppost to meet tonight for dinner. I wanted to buy him some American food in boxes, and Park-N-Shop is the only place that sells many of these products. I purchased a box of Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and a box of Cheesy Broccoli Tuna Helper. I was glad to notice that the prices were half of what they used to be, because they were previously rather expensive. I also bought Dash a Maxim Magazine, so he could see what a lot of American guys are reading. I hope he will be shocked and entertained; not offended.
Next I walked back to my apartment to drop off the gifts, then I went upstairs to Yolanda’s apartment to pay the rent. She was not home, so I then headed to the computer lab, and on the way there I saw her on the street. It is strange that I run into Yolanda on the street every time I need to talk to her, but not at any other times. I mentioned this to her and she said that the same thing has happened to her twice when she was looking for me. I followed her to her apartment and paid 727 of my Hong Kong dollars for 2 months of electricity and water. Raj will pay half of that back to me.
I picked up some things from my apartment after leaving Yolanda’s and saw Milan taking out her trash. I told her that I was heading to the computer lab, and she said was going there also, so we walked together. We once again had a very difficult time finding available computers on campus, and when we did, we were kicked out of the room 30 minutes later because a class was starting there. The teacher did not speak much English, and he just said “Please Leave”.
We then moved to a computer room next door and I spent some time trying to book a hotel for Johanna, Kaisa and I next week in Hong Kong. Kaisa wanted to stay at a specific place, but I could not find it on the Internet, so I sent a message to Johanna asking her to get more info from Kaisa. She responded shortly, and with the new information she gave me, I then at least was able to find a description of the building that the hotel was in. It was said to be a large building that houses many youth hostels, and was described as scary and infamous. The specific hostel that I was looking for appeared to have no website so I called Johanna and asked her to book it by phone. I then printed out a Christmas card to give to Dash with the presents I got for him.
Next, I went home and fell asleep for about 30 minutes, but then Raj got up not knowing I was home, and he started playing music really loudly. I got up and talked to him for a while, then he left and I took down my decorations in the living room and packed them into my little red suitcase. I also spent some time writing on my computer.
At 5:15 I took a bus to Taipa and met Dash and his friend Kidd for dinner. We went to a restaurant next to the Lisboa Casino that has a really good beef and noodle dish that Dash had been telling me about all semester. We also ordered a bean drink to go with our food. It had the look and texture of milk and tasted really good except for a slight bean aftertaste. Dash and Kidd told me that Chinese people often drink it for breakfast, and that it can be ordered hot or cold. We had ours served cold. After the dinner I got Dash’s gifts and card out of my backpack and gave them to him. We then sat at the restaurant and talked for about 30 more minutes before leaving.
Next I took bus 11 back to Taipa. I always forget that bus 11 does not take me all the way back to the apartments, so I had to walk about 10 minutes to get home. There, I did some more writing on my computer and worked on getting my Thailand pictures ready for the Internet.
At 8 I went to meet all the other exchange students. Almost everyone is leaving town tomorrow, so tonight was planned for everyone to say goodbye. There were about 25 of us who met in front of one of the apartment buildings across the street, and we all took a bus to an Italian restaurant that is on the beach in Coloane. As we were boarding the bus, a fireworks display was beginning in Macau. They had attached fireworks to the Macau Tower, and it looked impressive. Nobody was sure what was being celebrated.
The beach we went to in Coloane is the smaller of the two beaches there, and I had only been to this area one other time. The bus stop is at the top of the hill above the beach, and to get there you have to go down about 200 stairs. Around the restaurant are dozens of kittens and several dogs because the employees throw the leftover food out behind the restaurant..
We were the only customers in the restaurant, and we decided to sit in the outdoor dining area. We pushed about 8 tables together into a row and sat there for almost 2 hours. The evening was cool, but there was no wind, so it was very comfortable with just a sweatshirt or a light jacket. I ordered 2 beers and a 24 centimeter pizza. The pizza was really good, but I had just eaten with Eric and Kidd a couple hours ago, so I could not finish the last slice. We all left the restaurant around 11:30 and took a bus back to Taipa. I forgot my last slice of pizza at the restaurant.
I then returned to my apartment, and Johanna came over about 30 minutes later. We watched more of the movie “Face Off”, which we had started watching 2 nights ago.

Thursday
December 16, 2004

I went to Panda for lunch today with Johanna, and the tiny building was packed with about 50 schoolkids wearing uniforms. The kids came just after we sat down, and almost everyone in the restaurant had to share their tables with them, but nobody came to sit with us.
After the meal I walked to the campus and sat in a computer lab until my statistics class started at 2. We were given a review for the final exam during class. The rest of the class will be taking their exam on January 3rd, but the teacher previously agreed to let me take mine tonight at 6:30 since I am leaving the country next week. During today’s review, I realized that I had no chance at passing the exam, even if I studied for the next 3 hours before the test. I also knew that I would need to get at least a B on the exam to pass the class, and that was impossible. So, after class, I told the teacher, “Thanks, but I am not going to take the exam tonight because it would just be a waste of your time and mine”. She asked me why, so I then explained that I had found it hard to take the class seriously because it was not going to transfer to my university. I told her that I still wanted to pass it in the beginning, but it has since gotten way ahead of me. I explained this to her because she had always been very nice, and I was glad that she seemed to understand and was not at all offended.
SCHOOL IS DONE.
After class, I went to the computer lab with Dash, but we could not find any computers available in any of the rooms, so I walked home. There, I decided to start packing, because Tuesday is my last day in Macau since I am staying in Hong Kong until my flight leaves on the 26th. I spent about an hour sorting through papers and other things in my room, and packed the small red suitcase that I had brought to Macau with me in the beginning. This suitcase is now completely full, but I have fit all my loose and miscelaneous items in it. Now, my new large suitcase can be used to pack only my clothes and computer.
I also decided what things I do not have room for, and made a display of these things on the table in the living room. They include my fan, computer monitor, textbooks, umbrella, 2 sets of speakers, beach pad, small plasitic box, envelopes, post cards, hammer, 2 C batteries, headphones, hand lotion, face paint, bottle opener, pens and markers. I am now going to first invite my Chinese friend Eric to come and look at the display so he can pick out what he wants. I want to give him first choice because he helped me out a lot when I first got to Macau. I will then offer the rest to Dash and the exchange students that are going to be here next semester.
Just before dark, I walked with Raj to Mcdonalds and to get our hair cut. He had his dyed blue 2 months ago, and it has since turned an aweful yellow, so he wanted to get rid of that color. The place I got mine cut last time was closed, so we went to another place that Raj knew of. The price there was twice as much, and they gave a shampoo scalp massage before the cutting. There was only 1 of 5 barbers available when we got there, and Raj got his cut first because he had to be somewhere at 6. While I was waiting, I decided to just leave and then go to the cheaper barbershop tommorrow.
I then walked home and continued my packing. An hour later, Raj came home with a Chinese girl that he is friends with, and they watched Johny Brocko. After I was done packing for the evening, I used my computer for a while, then took a bag of change I had earlier collected from my room when I was packing, and headed to the Lisboa Casino in Macau.
I first walked around Senado Square looking for gifts to give to Dash and Johanna, whom have both told me they have something for me. I found something for Johanna, but decided to buy something for Dash tomorrow. I then walked to the Lisboa Casino with my bag of change, but they asked me for my passport to get in, which I did not have.
I then returned to my apartment and sent a message to Milan, asking if she would like to have a drink. She called back and told me a party had just been organized at Uli’s apartment across the street. We then walked to the party together and I stayed there for about 3 hours. Someone had made Sangria with white wine, and that is what most people were drinking. I found several rotten oranges and kiwi fruits in the kitchen, and I asked Uli if I could have them. He said yes, and I then took them to the balcony, and everyone there had a great time throwing them down 18 stories. There were few people or cars on the streets We found that the oranges always explode in the same way, sending sections of their peels in 4 opposite directions. By midnight, almost all the exchange students were there, and the police came shortly afterwards.
I then walked back to my apartment building with Robert and Milan, and most of the others decided to go out to nightclubs in Macau. Milan was coming into her apartment shortly after I arrived, and I went to talk to her for a few minutes. I then went home and fell asleep with my shoes on.

Wednesday
December 15, 2004

I ate this morning at the canteen on campus, then began studying for my 3 P.M. Mardarin test. I first sat in the courtyard, but could not study well there, so I found an empty classroom. I sat there until 2:30, and then met Johanna at the top of the hill and walked to library, which is where the test was being held. As we were walking, we passed a large group of Chinese students who were walking all around the campus singing Christmas carols. One student had a guitar to accompany the rest of them, and all of them were wearing red stocking caps.
I think I did very well on the test. I know I missed a few points in the section where I had to write Chinese characters, but I did really well on the rest of it. After the test, I went to the library computer lab, and Johanna met me there after she finished the test. The computers were not working well there, so I moved to a computer lab at the school.
I walked home around 5, and Johanna met me there for dinner. She brought some take-home food from a restaurant for herself, and some instant noodles from the supermarket for me. She left around 6 because she wanted to say goodbye to Johanna(her roomate), who was leaving the country to return to Finland this evening.
I then spent some time writing on my computer until 8:30, and I then went to the computer lab with Johanna for an hour. Afterwards, we sat on a roof on campus for a while, then came back to my apartment and watched the movie “Face Off”.

Tuesday
December 14, 2004

Johanna called me at 10:30 and asked me to go to lunch with her. I met her outside after 11 and we walked to the restaurant near Mcdonalds called Top Taipei. The service is always terrible there, but the food and drinks are great. The drinks are especially unique, and there are dozens of different flavors and kinds of tea and fruit drinks to choose from. Today, things were no different, and after waiting at our table for about 15 minutes, we finally found an employee to wait on us. We were the only people in the restaurant, and there were several employees, but they were so busy building a gingerbread mansion in the corner that they did not even seem to notice that we sat down. A girl in the front had at least given us a bad look when we came in the door though.
I ordered Portuguese rice with rose tea, and the tea actually comes with a real rose flower floating in it. It kind of tastes like medicine, but I like taking it. After the meal we took a closer look at the ginger bread mansion and were very surprised to notice that it was real. From a distance, we had thought that it was made of plastic, but no, it was actually a 3 foot tall, well detailed gingerbread mansion. I want to make one next year, and then let birds eat it after the holidays. I did that by accident with a cracker city that I made for an African American Art class a year and a half ago.
After leaving the restaurant, I walked to the university and went to Business Communication class. Today we had to hand in an assignment and write a letter to a made-up customer saying we could not refund money for damaged merchandise because the customers careless cousin was responsible for the damage.
After class, I spent 30 minutes in the computer lab. Once again, almost every computer in every room was full, but I did find that the one single Macintosh in the school was not being used. I think that the Chinese are scared of it because it is never ever used. It just sits in a corner gathering dust. At 2:30 I walked to Mings office because I had heard that she was looking for me yesterday. There, she asked me if I had paid Grace for the orientation week in August, but I payed in September. I then asked her and her boss if they had talked to my Business communication teacher about letting me take my exam early, but they hadn’t been able to get ahold of her yet.
Next, I went back to the computer lab, where I spent 30 more minutes. Johanna found me there at 3:30 and we walked to the supermarket. There, I bought some more strange dried animal products to bring home, and Johanna bought some noodle, then went back to my place. She cooked and ate her noodles and I had some of a chocolate cake product that I had also bought at the supermarket.
After Johanna left, I picked up the apartment, copied my Adobe Premier installation disk for Maria and did some writing. She came over at 8:30 to meet Raj because they were going out to dinner, and I then gave her the CD. I got ready to go to a party at 10, and then walked there with Milan. We stopped at the supermarket to buy some drinks on the way there. I stayed at the party for about an hour and a half, and there were about 15-20 people there. It was at Maria’s apartment, and she was trying to install the program that I had earlier given her onto her laptop. She was having problems, so I spent about 30 minutes helping her and watching videos she had made of trips she has taken in southern Asia during the past few months.
Johanna came to the party at about 11:30, and we both left at about midnight because we had a Mandarin test to study for tomorrow.

Monday
December 13, 2004

I walked to campus early this morning so I could print out the rest of my consumer marketing group project which was due today. I went to one of the smaller computer labs, and two of my group members, Summer and Martin, just happened to be there, and had been about to call me. I printed out the rest of the paper and showed it to them, and Martin thought I had printed the tables and graphs too small, so he copied them all again. In class, I handed in a consumer research survey the teacher was doing and an evaluation of each of each of my group members that had been due last week when I was in Thailand. Summer and Martin turned in the project for us. This was the last day of class, and every one clapped at the end of class. I don’t think that it was to celebrate the end of class, but to show respect for the teacher. I have never seen any class do that in the US. Francis Piron was a good teacher, though.
The class ended early, and after that I went to the courtyard store and bought a sandwich, chips and drink. I then sat on the decorative staircase in the middle of the courtyard and ate. This multi-colored staircase leads to nowhere, and is about 50 feet long. It is about 10 feet high and has stairs on either side of the entire length of it. But all the multi-colored tiles are falling off of it and turning it into more of an eyesore than artwork, which is not good considering it is at the central point of the campus. But, it was a perfect day to sit there, because it was about 75 degrees and perfectly sunny, with very little wind. Every day has been sunny and warm lately, but sometimes there is more wind. It has not rained in 3 months, and there have only been 3 or 4 cloudy days.
After I finished eating, I remained in my spot and prepared a presentation I had to give at 12:30 in my International Business class. It was part of a group project, and my group was the second of 2 to present today. The first presentation took over 30 minutes and was very painful to watch, but it appeared even more painful for the Chinese who were speaking. They usually are very uncomfortable speaking English to strangers, and especially a whole room full of them.
I was the first and the last person to speak in my group, of which only 5 members were present, and we ended just as the class was over. Next, I went to Statistics class, and the teacher told us that the final would be harder than the midterm(which I got a 47% on), and this time there would be no review questions given. I don’t even want to take the final now, but I will since she has prepared it early for me since I am leaving the country.
After class, Dash took his motorbike to Mcdonalds and bought lunch for us, then brought it back and met me at the library. We ate in a study room there, and afterwards he helped me with a Mandarin presentation I had to give at 5. He is a Cantonese speaker from Macau, but he has taken Mandarin classes and can speak it perfectly. For the presentation, I had to talk about myself in 10-20 sentences, so I had previously printed 14 sentences out on a piece of paper. Dash helped me go through each of these sentences and get the pronunciation right. Johanna met us at 4:30 and Dash also helped her out with her presentation, which was nice of him considering I had never even asked him to help me in the first place.
Johanna and I walked up the hill from the library to campus to get to Mandarin class at 5. The pack of wild dogs that lives on the hill was out sunning itself in the road again today. The dogs ignore the people, and most people ignore the dogs, but I have noticed that some of the girls go way out of their way to avoid getting anywhere near them.
Most of the other student’s Mandarin presentationss were better than mine, and Florian had even prepared a slide show on his laptop to go with his speech. Each student was allowed to leave after they finished, and Johanna and I waited until we were almost the last in the room before we spoke. She had the shortest presentation of the entire class.
After class, we went to the computer lab and looked up “nose warming” on the Internet because she is always complaining that her nose is cold. One website said that you could pull your bottom lip up over your nose, and another was selling something called an “exhalation nose warmer”, which looks like a small party hat that fits over your nose and is held on by a rubber band that goes around the head.
After leaving the computer lab, we walked down the hill together, then I went back to my apartment to get ready to go to dinner with a group of students in Coloane. We met at 7 at the bus stop, but had a hard time considering most of the busses were already full and there were about 30 of us going to dinner. I packed on to a standing-room-only bus, which eventually cleared out as we neared Coloane. The restaurant was next to Hac Sa beach, and the group I was with decided to wait by the ocean until all the others arrived, so I bought a Carlsberg bottle from a small store and drank it there with them. The wind was very stiff there and the waves were larger than I have ever seen them there. The tide was so high that most of the beach had been taken over by the ocean. The air was about 60 degrees, but the wind made it feel chilly.
We ate at about 8, and the restaurant had about 10 tables all pushed together for us when we got there, because Santaigo had called several days ago to make reservations. The restaurant was Portugese and the menu was in that language only, but luckily I was sitting next to Sergio, who was the only Portugese person in our group. We ordered a salad and a pitcher of Sangria before the meal, and large hard rolls were also offered. The food I ordered was a seasoned steak that was served with French fries.
After the meal we all took the buses back to Taipa and I then went to my apartment. Mary called shortly after I arrived and asked if she could come over and borrow a CD from me. Before she arrived, I realized that someone else had already borrowed the CD. She was getting ready to leave when I told her this, but we got into a conversation and she stayed for a while. She told me that was born and raised in France, but her family is from India. She said that they told her that she would be disowned if she did not break up with her current boyfriend. Then after she broke up with him, a marriage would be arranged for her if she did not find a suitable husband soon. !!!!!! I am glad I am not a girl born in India. That must be very bad for her, especially considering that she has grown up in a western society.
Raj came home sometime around 10:30, and the three of us talked about other things for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, I was tired, so I went to sleep early.

Sunday
December 12, 2004

I went to Macau at 11:30 today because I had to meet my International Business group at KFC at 12. During the bus ride there, I noticed that the highway along the Macau shoreline was packed with tens of thousands of schoolchildren wearing their school uniforms and carrying banners as they walked towards the Macau Tower. I have no idea what they were doing, but there sure were a lot of them.
None of my group members were at KFC when I arrived, so I ordered a chicken sandwich meal and ate while I waited. They were still not there after I had finished, so I ordered another drink and waited longer. At 12:30 I left the restaurant and went back to Taipa. I saw Sergio when I was getting off the bus, and he had glitter on his face and looked like he had just awaken with a bad hangover. He told me that he had thought the meeting was at 1. He had his laptop with him, so we sat in front of the brothel for a few minutes as I copied some files from him.
I then went home and tried to call my Consumer Marketing group members because our project is due on Monday. I was not able to get ahold of any of them, so I fell asleep for an hour. I called again when I woke up and was able to contact Summer.
Around 4:30, I met Johanna in front of her building and we walked to the computer lab together. Almost every computer in every lab was full because next week is that last week of classes. We checked 4 rooms before we were able to find 2 empty computers. Sometime after dark we had dinner at the full service area of the canteen, and I ordered rice noodles and beef with an iced tea.
After dinner, I returned to the computer lab, where I stayed until almost midnight. It took me so long because I had to check the English in my Consumer Marketing group members sections of our paper. Martin’s and Summer’s parts were understandable, and Martin’s was definitely the best, but the third guy, Eric, had some serious problems. I couldn’t believe what he sent me.
After I left the lab I returned to my apartment and talked to Raj for a while. He left after 1 to go to the computer lab, and I worked on my own computer doing homework and other things.

Saturday
December 11, 2004

Johanna called me at 10 this morning, and I then took a shower and went to the computer lab to meet her. We spent about 30 minutes there, then went to the bus stop at the top in front of the university because we wanted to go into Macau to buy large suitcases that would fit all the things we have accumulated since coming to Macau. As we were waiting for the bus, Johan walked by and told us that there was a Sampsonite outlet store at Senado Square, so that’s were we went.
When we got off the bus, I was surprised by the amount of Christmas decorations up at the Square. The streets were also just decorated in Taipa, but not to the extreme that Senado Square is. A 40 foot tall tree was place over the fountain, and many other decorations were almost just as big, One of the displays showed a reindeer in a sled being pulled by 4 Santas. I don’t know if that is a mistake or it is meant to have some kind of meaning. As we searched for suitcase stores, we walked all the way to the cathedral ruins, and there was another interesting Christmas display there. It was a police jeep decorated with tensil that had a very angry looking Santa sitting on top of it. A child Santa was sitting in the drivers seat and he looked just as unhappy. The reason for their unhappiness was probably the loud and obnoxious music that was being played from the cheap loudspeaker mounted inside the jeep.
We eventually found a small store that sold only bags and suitcases, and I saw a huge one there that cost 239 Pataca, but I did not yet buy it. We found the Samsonite store just next door and found that their suitcases were 5 times the price of the ones we had just seen, so we returned to the first store. The lady on duty there spoke no English whatsoever. I bought the large suitcase from her, and Johanna then decided that she would like one as well. We tried to communicate this to the saleswoman, but she did not understand. She first started to take the suitcase I had bought to the back for some reason, and I stopped her and tried to explain again. After a few more failed attempts, she seemed to understand and she called someone to ask. We waited a few more minutes for this person to return her phone call, but they only called to say that there were no more available. My suitcase was the only one of it’s kind in the store, and the only other similar one cost twice the price, so we left.
As we passed a shoe store, I thought I would try one final time to find a pair of shoes in my size. I have been in at least 30 shoe stores in 3 Asian countries and was not able to find anything, until today. This store had a very friendly family running it, and my size of shoe, which is a 47 here. The ones they had in my size were black dress shoes, which I needed to go with the suit I bought in Thailand last week. The first pair they gave me did not have laces, so asked for the laced kind, and they surprisingly had that too. The laced shoes appeared to be Italian made leather of good quality, so I paid 280 Patacca for them. There is a chance that they could be fake, but this city tries hard to keep fake things out, so they are probably real.
After leaving the shoe store, we had lunch at a restaurant on the square. A copy of E.S. Kimo’s menu was posted at the front of the restaurant, but it was not an E.S. Kimo restaurant. (E.S. Kimo is a local restaurant chain). Inside, they were also using E.S. Kimo napkins and silverware. We decided to eat upstairs and I could barely fit my huge suitcase up the extremely narrow stairway. The food we ordered tasted just the same as any real E.S. Kimo, though. I had a beef and noodle dish, a beef and cheese sandwich and iced tea. Johanna had a beef and chicken dish and some kind of hotdog in a huge bun that was filled with tomatoes, cucumbers and other things.
After the meal I bought a pair of black sock to go with my suit from a street vendor, then began looking for a black shirt to wear with it. After unsuccessfully looking in 3 stores I finally found a nice one in a store that sold suits. I then decided that I had spent enough money for the day, and we headed back to the bus stop. The first bus was too full to get my huge suitcase onto, but the next one had just enough room. As we were walking back to the apartments in Taipa, we talked to Riitta and Kaisa on the street for minute, then I left and carried my new goods home.
Raj was arriving home with his Mcdonalds lunch at the same time I was entering the building and I showed him the things I had purchased when we got into the apartment. After that, I typed on my computer, he played video games and we both listened to music. At 5 I went to the computer lab, where I talked to Karim for the first time in quite awhile. I stayed there for over 5 hours because I had a lot of work to do to prepare for the last week of school.
I went home after leaving the computer lab and got ready to go to a party at a student apartment where some of the Spanish guys live. I called Johanna at 10:30, and she said that the party had not started yet, but I saw Milan in the hallway a little later and she told me that the party had just started, so I walked with her. We stopped at the supermarket to buy some drinks, where we ran into Johan, and the three of us then walked together.
At first, there were only about 10 people there, but the numbers quickly grew, until there were at least 30. It was so noisy by midnight that we decided we should take the party into Macau so the police did not come. Everyone went outside and packed into taxis, and we all met again at the Mandarin Hotel. There was a band of six American rappers performing on stage there. There was a bass player, guitarist, keyboardist, drummer, and two guys that just sang and played shakable instruments. All 30 of the exchange students packed onto the dance floor, which is not considerably large.
I remained at the hotel till about 3:30, and then I got a cab with Johanna and Johan. Back in Taipa, I walked with Johanna to her apartment and then went home and talked to her on the phone a few minutes before going to sleep.

Friday
December 10, 2004

I thought I was going to be sick today because I was freezing all night long even though it was not really cold in my room, but I slept late and then I felt OK. On my walk to school I saw Caroline and Maya, who asked me all about my vacation. At 12:30 I went to Business Communication class, where we received an assignment and then talked about basic sentence structures for almost an hour.
I went to the canteen after class and bought the rice and beef dish that I often do. Johanna called me as I was ordering, and then came to the canteen to meet me for a few minutes. After leaving the canteen, I went to the computer lab to print out emails that a teacher had sent me to deny my request to take a final exam early. I then took these emails to Ming in the Humanities Department office. The director of the department was also there, and they both looked at my emails together, then told me that they thought they could fix the problem for me.
I then went back to the computer lab for a few minutes before meeting Johanna by the bus stop at the top of the hill. We had planned on going to Macau together, but just decided to go back to my apartment and relax because we were both tired. There, we copied some of the pictures from our trip onto my computer, and she took more pictures of me. She has taken about a hundred pictures of just me lately, but I like the attention.
After Johanna left my apartment, I spent some time typing on my computer, and Raj came home at 5:30 and I talked to him for a while. He then played video games while I continued my work on the computer. I left the apartment to go to the computer lab at about 7:30, and there I sent emails and worked on my 2 group projects. I left the lab a little after 10, and stopped at the supermarket to buy a couple drinks on the way home. Milan came over at 10:30 and we spent an hour talking and drinking the 2 beers that I had brought from the supermarket. A few minutes after she left, Thibeau and Pedro came over looking for Raj, who had left to eat as I was entering the apartment building. They had brought 4 beers with them, and they asked me if I would like to have one with them, and I accepted. I was planning on going to sleep, but I knew that I would probably never see them again after next week.
At 2 we decided to check out the newly remodled brothel across the street, because we have all been curious about it since coming to Macau, and none of the exchange students had ever been inside of it, or at least they have never admitted to it. We didn’t plan on buying anything, but we just wanted to know how things work there and how much it costs. The girl at the counter did not speak English, so she radioed someone and then took us to the top of a staircase. There, an older Chinese businessman met us and told us it cost 600 Patacca each for a room, and we then asked him to show us one. He led us through the brothel, down a hallway, and into one of the rooms. The building was very nicely decorated and dimly lighted with thousands of tiny lights on the walls. The room had mirrored walls and and a padded semi-circular bench around one side of it. A glass oval shaped table sat in the middle, and a TV sat across from the bench.
The man who had brought us into the room then left and closed the door behind him. A minute later, another old businessman with better English came in. He asked us if he could offer us anything, and we asked him exactly what we would get for 600 Pattaca. He said that price just covered the room rental fees and the escort service fee. After renting the room we would be allowed to look at all the girls that were available for the night, talk to them and pick the ones we wanted for 1000 each. We then thanked him for his help and told him we were just checking prices, and he then showed us back to the front door and politely said goodbye to us.
I then went home and to bed. I had a dream during the night that I was put into a prison in Singapore. I don’t remember what my crime was, but I do remember that I faced 5 to 20 years, and the judge had given me 20. I was put into a room-like cell with a black man from California who always wore a blue basketball jersey. The prison seemed to be more like a house party because people were always coming in and drinking, and I always had my arm around an asain girl. For some unknown reason, my cellmate and I decided to break out, and we hid under benches in a park across the street. There was a huge search for us, and some kids found us, but they just winked at us and did not say anything. I then put on a zebra costume and escaped through fields of brown grass.

Thursday
December 9, 2004

I woke up at 7 this morning and decided to go to the lobby of the hotel so I could use the Internet terminal there. Yesterday, the hotel had arranged a shuttle van to take us to the airport at 10:30, but I could not remember the exact flight time, so I wanted to use the Internet to check it. I was glad I did, because I had thought it left at 1:30, but it actually left at 2:50. I told a receptionist at the front desk to change the time of the shuttle van pickup to 12:30. I had to pay 100 Baht for the 15 minutes of Internet time I used, which is several times what the usual rate is in this country, but 100 Baht is still only $2.50, so not too big of a deal.
After leaving the lobby, I went back to my room and slept until 9. At that time, I called the business that had made our suits, because they were not delivered last night as planned. They told me that they had left the suits with the front desk at 9 pm last night. I had called the front desk at 10 last night to see if we had missed any messages, but they said we had none. So, I called the front desk back, and sure enough, the suits were there. It appears that a suit does not qualify as a message. Johanna went downstairs to pick them up, and then we tried them on…perfect fits.
Next I ordered room service breakfast for us and took a shower. The food came as I was getting out of the shower. I had the same thing I had ordered last night, which was a dish of noodles with ham and alfredo sauce, but it was not as good as the first time. After the meal, we packed up our things, and then left checked out and left our bags with the front desk. We then spent 30 minutes walking around the huge electronics mall, but did not buy anything. I was surprised to see that many of the shoppers were getting around the mall by riding the small fold-up aluminum scooters that kids use in the United States.
At 12:30 we went back to the hotel, where we picked up our bags and met the shuttle van. The airport was only 3 kilometers away, and traffic was not too heavy. We stopped twice to drop passengers off at other places, and then arrived at the airport after about 20 minutes. After checking in, we were dissapointed to find that each of us had to pay a 500 Baht government tax before proceeding through security. I did not have any Baht left, so I had to go to an ATM machine first. Once we found our gate, we still had an hour to wait before the plane boarded. Johanna and I had planned on using the last of her Baht to buy some food and magazines, but the tax took everything we both had. We did find enough change between the two of us to buy one small bottle of water.
We were hoping to be one of the first to board the plane, because the seating on Air Asia is always open, but the other passengers moved quicker than us, and a long line formed before we could get in it, so we just decided to sit and be the last to board. When the line was almost gone, we got in it, and then many more passengers arrived and stood behind us. There were busses on the other side of the gate, which were taking the passengers to the plane out on the tarmac. The first bus left as we would have been the next to get on it, and then we were the first ones on the second bus. We sat by the door, hoping to be the first ones out of the bus and on the plane, but when it stopped, all the passengers were let out through another door, so we were almost the very last to get on the plane. Luckily, the very back row of seats had two available that were side by side. The man in the third seat of that row moved when we sat down, so we had the whole row to ourselves.
Both of us slept during much of the 3-hour ride back to Macau. The plane landed just before dark, which was around 6 oclock. It took us 15 minutes to pass through both the passport and medical check sections of customs. As we were waiting in line, the theme to the movie Titanic was playing, and Johanna said that it was a subconcious effort to try and get people to travel by plane instead of ship.
Once we were out of the airport, we took a cab back to our apartments. The driver seemed angry at us when we told him our destination, and then he drove erratically. He dropped us off in front of the New Century casino, and then asked up for 5 Patacca more than what the meter said. I think he was ripping us off, but we didn’t understand what he was saying and 5 Patacca is only about 75 cents, so Johanna just gave him a 5 Pattaca coin that she had in her pocket.
Back at my apartment, Raj was in the kitchen doing dishes. I did not expect to see him again before I left Macau, but he told me that he had to postpone his planned 3 week southern Asain vacation by a week so he could finish his schoolwork. Lisbeth then came over for a moment to invite us to a party at her place and borrow chairs. After telling Raj about my trip, I unpacked my things, then we both left the apartment together. I walked to Mcdonalds, and Raj went off to some other unknown location. I took a Big Mac meal to go and ate it back at my apartment. After that, I spent some time writing on my computer, and Lisbeth and Milan came over to borrow more chairs. I went with them back to their apartment, and tried the Blue Wine that they had made for the party. It was the first time I had ever had this, but they said that it is a Christmas tradition in Europe. They had purchased an entire case of wine and mixed it with fruits and spices, then warmed it on the stove in a big pot. It was really good and I had two glasses. In the apartment, was Kent, his Japanese roomate, the roomates girlfriend, Hana, Robert, Toumas, and Johan. They had put Christmas decorations up, and some of them even had Santa hats on. They were preparing to play Christmas music too. I spent 20 minutes at the party and drank 2 glasses of wine, which I donated 20 Pataca for.
I spent just a few minutes at my apartment, and then went to the computer lab to meet Johanna. I spent an hour there answering emails before we walked back to the apartments. Raj arrived home shortly after I did, and Saul soon followed him. They played video games while I used my computer.

Wednesday
December 8, 2004

Johanna and I got up at 9 this morning and I went down to the restaurant to order breakfast to be brought to our room. As we waited for the food, we packed up all of the things in our room. When the food arrived, Johanna found that her hard-boiled eggs had runny centers, so I traded her my scrambled eggs for the not-so-hard-boiled ones. After the meal, we took all of our things downstairs and checked out. Our bill came to less than $75, which is not bad at all for 2 people staying 5 days. While we waited for the taxi we had reserved last night to arrive, we used the free Internet service and tried to take a picture with the Danish owner. He was not too cooperative about having his picture taken, but he did offer to take a picture of Johanna and I with the waitresses.
The hotel’s taxi and driver showed up right on time, and we then spent about an hour getting to the airport. During the ride, Johanna kept mentioning how sick she had just began to feel, and blamed in on the scrambled eggs. Once we were at the airport, we checked in to our flight, then read magazines by our gate as we waited. Just before our plane boarded, they changed the number of our gate, which resulted in us being the last on the plane, but we still got good seats because the flight was not full.
The plane landed an hour and a half later in Bangkok. An employee from the hotel we had booked was suppost to be waiting for us when our plane landed, but we saw no one, so we had them paged at the information desk. About 5 minutes later, a good-looking girl in her 20’s came to us with a hotel clipboard in her hands. She found our names on the list, then asked us to wait in some chairs with other hotel guests. As we were waiting I noticed that one of the airports scrolling information displays said that violations of certain airport policies would result in the death penalty.
A van from the Asia Airport Hotel arrived in front of the airport after we had been waiting in the chairs for about 10 minutes. We then got inside with some other passengers and were taken on a 20 minute trip to the hotel, which was only 3 kilometers away. The 30 story hotel was built on top of a large, multi-level electronics mall. The lobby was in the center of the mall. During the check in process, we were given a price that was several dollars more than had been given to us on the Internet. I showed this other price information to the clerks, and they asked us to wait in the lobby. After 10 minutes, they told us that the website we purchased our tickets from had quoted the wrong price, and that we would have to pay more. I thought that we should have paid the price that was printed on our reservation, but it was only a few dollars difference and the clerks did not understand much English, so I just paid the new price. They then gave me a key attached to a copper bar that weighed several pounds. The key could have easily been used as a weapon, so they should not overcharge too many more customers.
Our room was on the 16th floor, and was very nice. It had a large bathroom and a small balcony that overlooked a pool in the hotel’s courtyard. We sat our bags in the room and then went out to find food. There did not appear to be many food options in the mall, but we did find a KFC. After the meal, we crossed the street and went to another shopping area, which sold clothes. We wanted to find shirts and shoes to go with our suits, so we could wear them out later, but finding the shoes seemed impossible for me, as usual.
We walked back up to the hotel just before dark because we had forgotten to call the business that made our suits. When we had bought them, they had told us that they would deliver them to our hotel when we returned from Phucket. So, I called the business and was able to get ahold of Sam, who is the man that sold the suits to us. Next, we went back to the shopping area to continue looking for the clothes we needed. I went to 5 shoe stores, but none had any that would fit me, so I gave up. After browsing the shopping center for a while longer, we walked to a large outdoor food market next door. There were hundreds of vendors there who were selling all kinds of interesting and disturbing things. After leaving the food market, we stopped at a Shingha Beer stage that had been set up in front of the electronics mall. There we sat at a table and ordered 2 beers, but a pitcher of beer was brought to us, which had ice in it. As we were drinking, I noticed that the people at the other tables had all ordered some kind of huge beer dispensing device. This device was brought to the table on a cart, and consisted of a 3 foot high pitcher with a valve on the bottom that dispensed the beer.
The band started playing a few minutes after we arrived, and the band members decided to joke around with the only foreigners in the audience…..Johanna and I. They first asked us where we were and what song we would like to hear. A waitress brought me a pen and paper and I wrote “The theme to the movie The Lion King”. She then took it to the band, and the lead singer said that it was too high pitched for the other singer, but offered to sing us another song, which was by Bon Jovi. This was the worst rendition of Bon Jovi that I have ever heard, accept for Karaoke. The singer’s voice got tired by the end of the song and he could not hit any of the notes, but I don’t think that the band was trying to be serious because they had an over-relaxed stage attitude. After the song, the lead singer brought the microphone to our table and asked what our names were. She made me say mine several times, then she started to over-emphasize the “th” sound, which is very hard for Asians. When she went back to the stage, she started talking in Thai and all the people in the audience looked at us and laughed.
After drinking our pitcher of beer, we went back to the hotel because the people from the suit company were suppost to bring our suits at 9. On the way there, we stopped at a store in the electronics mall to buy some drinks. When the suit people did not show up by 10, I called the front desk to see if we had any messages, but we didn’t. I then tried to call several different numbers I had for the suit company, but nobody answered. At that time, we decided to not leave the hotel again, but to just enjoy the drinks we had bought and watch TV.

Tuesday
December 7, 2004

Johanna and I got up a little later today, and had breakfast/lunch in our room. I then took Johanna’s camera memory card and went in search of a place that would copy the pictures onto CD for us because the memory card was full and we wanted to take more pictures. On the way out of the hotel, I saw the Danish owner, who told me that he did not think that there were any places that would copy the pictures for me, but he did tell me about one place I could check. I then walked to this business and was told that the service was offered, and that I could come back at 1:30 to pick up my CD. On the walk back I asked about the prices of some large suitcases at a store, and was able to bargain my way down to 750 Baht, but decided not to buy at that time.
We were planning on going to the beach when I got back to the hotel, but realized realized that we would have only 30 minutes there because it takes quite a while to walk there and back, and we had to be back at the hotel by 1:50 to be ready for an elephant ride company to pick us up at that time. So, we just spent some in the hotel restaurant using the free Internet service, and eating lunch. I ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and received the best one of my life, which was cooked on big buns and had lots of ham.
The elephant ride company picked us up at 2 in a small pickup truck with benches in the back. The ride was uncomfortable, but it only lasted a little while. We picked up one other couple at another hotel, and were at our destination within 20 minutes. We were brought to a place that had 4 chained up elephants standing in a tall building that had an open front. There was also one baby elephant nearby. A man in a dirty blue uniform unchained one of the elephants and then told it a command that made it kneel down and put its chin on the ground. He then climbed onto its head and sat there as it stood back up. He gave it more commands and it walked up to a platform at the side of the building. Johanna and I then got onto the platform and climbed onto a bench that was attached to the top of the elephant. The animal then crossed the road as the man sat on its head giving commands. We came to a trail that led up the side of a mountain and proceeded along it for about 30 minutes. The couple that had been in the truck with us was right behind us on another elephant. Our elephant stopped a couple times to try and eat plants, and the man on its head hit it with a metal tipped tool that he held in his hand.
Before we began to descend the mountain, we went down another very narrow trail that took us into the jungle. At that point, we stopped and the man got of the elephants head, and offered to take pictures for us. The man controlling the elephant behind us dropped that couples camera on the ground. After the pictures were taken, our guide asked Johanna if she would like to ride on the neck, and she declined, so I did it. I stayed there during the rest of the ride, and the man just walked beside the elephant and gave it commands. At times it was hard to stay on the neck, but it was fun. I tried to give the elephant a neck and ear massage, but I don’t think it even noticed through its thick skin.
Back at the starting point, we climbed back off the animal by use of the platform. There was a small container attached to the sadle for tips and I put about 50 cents in there. A kid then showed up that we had seen on the trail taking pictures, and he displayed one of us in a simple frame. It had a 150 Baht price on it and I offered him 100, which he reluctantly accepted. We then got back into the truck with the other couple and were taken back to our hotel.
There, we fell asleep for a few minutes, then walked to the beach. We wanted to order fruit shakes again from the vendors there, but they all told us they were closing. We continued asking every beach vendor until we got to the very last one, which had some that were even better than last time. After drinking our fruit shakes, we then swam in the water until the sun went down. A private beach party was just getting started as we got out of the water. An area of the beach was fenced off, and a stage and tents were set up inside. Behind this area was a luxury hotel, and dozens of people were going from the hotel to the party entrance gate, which had guards with metel detectors that were frisking people. Johanna and I hung out on the beach watching the people for a while then decided to walk back to the hotel.
As we were leaving the beach, we saw a small shelled crab running in the sand, and I picked it up. It was only thumb-sized, but could pinch really hard when it wanted to. We played with the crab for a few minutes and took some pictures before walking back. At the hotel, we both took showers, then went out in search of a restaurant. We found a nice one near where we had earlier gotten our photos developed, but a pitiful band was performing inside. A Thai man was singing and playing the keyboards, and a woman was also singing. Some songs sounded at least like descent Karaoke, and others were just painful. The only tables available were luckily outside. We ordered a small pitcher of wine to go with our meal. The food was a lot better than the band, and one of the dishes was served inside a large coconut.
On the way back to the hotel, I stopped at the same suitcase store that I had been to earlier because there was a different person working and I wanted to see what the price of the suitcase I had asked about earlier would now be……and instead of 750 Baht, it was now 1350 Baht. We next stopped at the drink vendor near our hotel before returning to our room. Before going to sleep, I went downstairs to ask the Danish owner what the best way to get to the airport was, and he told me that the only reliable service is a taxi when you have a schedule to keep. The hotel offers a discount taxi service, so I reserved that for the morning.

Monday
December 6, 2004

Johanna told me this morning that it was Finland’s Independence Day. For breakfast we sat in the restaurant and ordered the all-you-can-eat special of the day, which was mashed potatoes and beef with vegetables. As we were waiting on the food, I noticed that all the motorbikes were on the opposite side of the street that I had last parked ours, so I went to check on it. I was very dissapointed to find a locked chain around the back tire, and a ticket underneath the chain. I took the ticket back to the restaruant and ate the food that had arrived while I was gone. As I was eating, another hotel guest returned to find that a chain and ticket was also on his motorbike.
After Johanna and I finished our first plate of food we ordered another one. As we waited for it to arrive, I asked the waitresses what to do about the ticket, but they did not offer much information, so I walked down to the place I rented it. One of the women there told me it would cost 300 Baht and offered to take me to the police station on her motorbike. I got on the back of it, and as we passed by the restaurant, I yelled for Johanna to take my plate of food up to the room.
It only took a couple minutes to get to the police station, which was very simple and tiny. The only cop there was sitting on a motorcycle outside, and a dirty man was lying face down in the parking lot with his pants down. The man appeared to be extremely drunk, and he moved a little as we passed him. The cop then picked a towel up off the ground and threw it on the man to cover him up. Inside of the police station, the woman translated for the cop and I. When I took all the money out of my pocket to count out the amount to pay the ticket with, the woman looked alarmed and motioned for me to put the rest back in my pocket. The cop then looked up and saw the wad of money in my hand and asked for 500 Baht, which was 200 more than the cost of the ticket. I looked at the lady and she motioned for me to pay, so I did. She then took me back to where my chained motorbike was parked, and two police on motorcycles arrived shortly. Immediately after they unchained the bike, they noticed that another tourist had temporarily parked a rented car on the wrong side of the road while he waited for someone else. They raced over to this man and both started writing him tickets. The situation with the police here was starting to look very bad, and it would only get worse.
After I moved my scooter to the correct parking spot, I went back to our hotel room and ate the plate of food that Johanna had taken back there for me. Afterwards, we got on our scooter and decided to go to Patong beach, which is suppost to be the largest one. About 10 minutes into our trip, the police had set of a roadblock at an intersection and were pulling over every tourist that passed. The cop who had motioned us to pull over walked up to our bike after we stopped and asked to see my driver’s liscense. When I told him that I didn’t have it, he wrote a ticket and told me to follow all the other tourists that were walking with tickets to the police station. At the police station, we were directed to a room that was full of tourists and cops collecting money. A cop took my ticket and asked us to wait. While we were waiting, we decided that this was a ridiculous situation, so we decided to quietly slip out of the building.
We then crossed the road to avoid the cops that had pulled us over, and walked back towards the area of the city where our hotel was, which was quite a distance away. After walking for just a few minutes, a pickup truck taxi pulled up next to us, and the driver asked us where we were going. After I told him “Kata Beach”, he told me “200”, and I said “100”. He started to argue with me that my destination was too far away to walk, so I should just pay the 200. I told him that the cops already ripped us off and then kept walking. He then told us to get in, which meant that he accepted my price.
After he dropped us off at the beach, we first went into the water for a while. Next, we bought some ice cream and watermelon shakes from the vendors, and then had massages at a tent. Inside the tent, were about 10 women who were trying to convince everyone that passed to get a massage. The massage menu at the front of the tent listed several massage options, one of them being “remove foot skin”. Johanna and I both had the oil massage, and I learned to never get another one when I have sand on me. At times it felt like sandpaper as the sand was ground into my skin, but it wasn’t bad enough for me to ask her to stop.
We next went back to the hotel and took showers before going out to look for a restaurant. We choose to eat at an outdoor place that was just a few minutes walk from the hotel. The restaurant looked nice from the street, but began to look unnatractive soon after we ordered. First of all, there were almost no other customers in the restaurant. There was also almost no light in the eating areas. I ordered a beer before the meal, which was brought to me in a dirty and smelly coozy. There were animals in cages at the back of the property. There was a buffet set up next to our table, and we watched a cat walk into the restaurant and climb onto it. This cat ate out of one of the buffet dishes and nobody seemed to notice, not even the one table of people that were eating the buffet. The cat left after a while and came back a few minutes later. An employee then saw it and was able to grab it from behind. He then took it to the back of the restaurant and threw it on the ground as another employee tried to wack it with a broom handle. I think they missed.
After the meal, we went to the travel agency across from our hotel and booked an elephant ride for tommorrow. After that, we ate some more food at the hotel restaurant, because what we had just had at the other restaraunt had not been enough. Next, we walked to a supermarket nearby and bought some drinks, which we drank while sitting next to the sidewalk. After finishing the drinks, we bought more from the vendor near the hotel, then went back to our room to drink them. There, we watched MTV, and I was surprised to see an interview with Hanson. It appears that they are very popular in some parts of Asia now…….I am always amazed at what these people will listen too.

Sunday
December 5, 2004

We got up at 6 this morning because we would be picked up at 7:15 to go on the trip to Phi Phi Island. I went to down to the restaurant and ordered breakfast to be brought to our room. After eating, we went to the restaurant and waited to be picked up by the travel agency. Their van pulled up right on time and it already had several other passengers in it. Johanna managed to squeeze in the back, and I sat in front of her. We picked up a couple more passengers on the way, and did not arrive at the pier until after 8 o’clock.
We were lucky to get on the boat a little bit early, because it soon became packed after we found our seats. This boat held about 300 people and was not in very good condition. The slow ride to Phi Phi Island took almost an hour and a half, but Johanna and I were just enjoying the ocean. There were many islands along the way that appeared to be the steep tops of underwater mountains. I would love to go diving there. Our boat dropped off some of the passengers who had paid more than us at one of these islands to do snorkeling, then the rest of us continued to Phi Phi Island.
This island is where the movie, The Beach, was filmed, so most people know what it looks like. As we approached the pier, the boat was surrounded by thousands of colorful tropical fish, who appeared to be feeding from the sides of the hull. Our boat dropped us off at the opposite side of where the movie was filmed, and we then walked to the other side. The middle of the island is a bustling small town of a couple hundred small shops and one or two larger hotels. When we arrived at the other side of the island, we sat at a restaurant on the beach and had lunch. I had a burger and fries and Johanna had pasta. After the meal I asked where the bathroom was, and I was given a slip of paper and told to take it to a bathroom attendant. I found the bathrooms down the “street” (there are no cars on Phi Phi Island), and I noticed that without the slip, each bathroom visit costs 20 Baht.
When I returned to the restaurant, I ordered Johanna and myself two long island teas as I waited for her to use the bathroom. Before we left the restaurant, we were amazed to see Guida and Sergio(Macau exchange students) walk by. That is the farthest I have ever been away from home and randomly seen someone I know. I wanted to secretly take pictures of them, and then put the pictures in their mailboxes, but I could not find them again.
We noticed that there were very few people further around the semi-circle shaped beach, so we walked in that direction. The further away we got, the more the beach conditions deteriorated, and it eventually just became big stones instead of the soft white sand we had been in. I thought that I had earlier seen a sandy area ahead, though, so we continued. We were shocked when we came upon a family of 3 small monkeys sitting on the rocks in front of us. One of them was smaller than the other two, so it may have been a mother, father and baby, but I really don’t know much about monkeys. The large ones were only about 1 and a half feet tall, and the smaller one was just about a foot, and they all had short light brown hair. When I saw them, I sat my things down and got my camera out of the bag. As soon as I stopped, one of the larger monkeys began to approach me. As I turned my camera on, it picked up the drink I had sat down and smashed it on the rocks in front of me. I said yelled something like “What do you think you’re doing, monkey”, and it responded by lunging at me, hissing and showing it’s teeth, which were fangs. It stopped within a foot of me, and then backed off.
We then left the monkeys alone and continued down the shoreline. The sandy area that I thought I had seen did not seem to exist, so we just decided to sit our things down in the rocky area and go out into the water, which was bright blue and warm to the touch. After we waded out about 20 feet, I noticed that we were surrounded by strange looking plants that were growing on the bottom. These plants had an odd appearance from the surface and I was worried that they could hurt us if we stepped on them. I went back to the shore to get my goggles and snorkel out of my bag so I could take a closer look at them. I found that they were actually just hard pieces of coral that were growing on top of rocks. When I touched one of them, it left a slippery residue on my hand, just like when you touch a live fish.
We got out of the water at 2:30 and headed back to the boat, because it was suppost to leave at 3. We stopped at the bathrooms on the way back, and I had to pay the 20 Baht to use them this time. We were on the boat before most of the other passengers, so we were able to obtain possession of 2 of the few plastic chairs which were on deck. While everyone was boarding, we were amused by watching the sex tourists who were with our group. The sex tourists are the old men who come to Thailand to meet young local girls, whom they have arranged to accompany them while they are on their vacation here. We have been amused by observing these couples since we arrived in Phucket. There must be thousands of them in town, because they are everywhere you look. They are very obvious to spot because of their extreme difference in age and skin color. Some of them look happy together, while others look very uncomfortable, especially the girls. The couple in front of us on the boat was the unhappy type. The girl was just staring off into the ocean as the man attempted to have a conversation with her. He started to massage her back and she looked like she was going to explode. He eventually went to sit in a chair and left her alone. The couple behind us had been happy and chatty with each other all day.
We went to sleep as soon as the boat left the island, and slept until just before it got back to Phucket, which was amazing considering how shaky and uncomfortable the boat and our chairs were. At the pier, there were a couple dozen vans waiting to take all the passengers back to our hotel, and the process to find the correct van was chaotic. There were two travel agency employees with clipboards, trying to place a couple hundred passengers into the correct vans. We sat in the backseat of one of the vans and the ride back to the hotel took about an hour. Along the way, I was surprised to see how poor some parts of the city were. A large area consisted of shacks built alongside drainage ditches. The water and roads there were filled with trash, and many of the street signs were even smashed and broken.
Back at the hotel, we took showers, then went out to eat. We decided on an interesting restaurant that sits on the top of a hill next to our hotel. This hillside is covered in thick, well-groomed gardens, and a stairway leads through these gardens and up to the restaurant. There are at least 100 stairs to climb, and the pathway is decorated by Buddha statues and burning incense the entire way. The inside of the restaurant is even more luxurious. The sides of the building are open to the air, and the interior is full of fresh yellow flowers and many more intricately designed statues. The staff is very polite, and bow every time they come to the table, and the food is just as good. We shared 3 dishes, which were rice with chicken, noodles with chicken, and beef with some kind of green vegetable. After the meal, we picked up some drinks from the small store by the hotel, then went back to our room.

Saturday
December 4, 2004

Johanna and I got up at 9 this morning and looked at the restaurant menu in our room. We both decided on the $2.50 breakfast special, which included 3 eggs, sausage, ham or bacon, fried potatoes, 1 roll and tea or coffee. The phone was missing from our room, so I went down to the restaurant and ordered in-person. The food was brought to our room about 20 minutes later, and everything was great.
As we were leaving the hotel, we asked the owner which beaches were less crowded, and he told us that we had come to the wrong place. He did say that one beach, called Niumar, was the closest thing to what we wanted. So we got on our motorbike and went out in search of that beach, not knowing exactly where we were going. Luckily, we found signs along the way that pointed us in the right direction, and we came to the beach after about 25 minutes on the motorbike.
The beach looked much like the one we had been to yesterday, but was quite a bit smaller and surrounded by a rural area. There were a few salespeople and shops there, but it was nothing like Kata Beach. We first bought a water from one of the vendors, then rented two chairs under an umbrella. The sun was pounding and the temperature was nearly 90 degrees, so we quickly ran across the hot sand and into the water, which was just as perfect as it was yesterday. After 30 minutes playing in the waves, we got out because I wanted to rent a body-board and see if I was any good at it. As we were walking back to our chairs, our great day was turned a little sour. I then realized that I had forgotten to take the motorbike key out of my pocket before getting into the water, and it was gone.
I decided to take a taxi back to the place I rented the bike by myself, and let Johanna enjoy the beach. At the road by the beach, there was a small taxi service located inside of a small shack, and several other pickup trucks with benches in the back of them. The men who owned the pickup trucks were sleeping in the back of them, and I asked one of them, “How much to Kata Center Inn”, and he replied “400”, which seemed like a lot more than I should pay considering I rented the motorbike for 4 days with that amount. As I was walking away from him, he said “300”, but I continued to the taxi shack. There, they also told me 300, so I walked away and thought about other things to do.
I decided that the water was so clear I might be able to see the black key on the black string floating on the bottom of the ocean. So, I went to the vendors on the beach and looked for goggles. I found some at the same place where we bought the water, but the man wanted 300 for them. That is not really much money, but I did not like being ripped off, so I went back to the chairs to talk to Johanna. I then decided to offer the man 150 for the goggles and take a look for the key. The man accepted the offer, but I only had 140 and a 1000 bill on me, so I gave him the 140 and then asked Johanna to take him 10 more. I went into the water and was disappointed. For some reason, the water was not crystal clear like it had been just 30 minutes ago, but was now full of floating sand particles. I quickly gave up my search, and Johanna and I then decided to leave together.
We walked back up to the taxi shack and I offered a man working underneath a taxi there 100 to take us to the Kata Center Inn…he just laughed. We then went to the sleeping pickup truck drivers and made them the same offer. They said “Kata far away, 300”. As I was walking away, one of them said “200”, and I accepted the offer.
There were benches on either side of the pickup truck’s bed, and the top of it was covered. Our driver stopped once on the top of a mountain viewpoint and made a picture taking motion with his hands, but we declined. Once back at our hotel, we walked to the place where I had rented the bike. I explained to the ladies working that I had lost my key in the ocean and they asked me where the bike was. I told them the name of the beach, but they did not understand it, so we looked at a map, but the beach did not appear to be listed on the map. I agreed help find the bike by riding on the back of a motorbike driven by the same woman who had given Johanna her massage yesterday. I gave Johanna my backpack, and she went back to the hotel to wait for me.
The first beach that the lady took me to was the wrong one, so we drove into the mountains searching for the right one. She was going a different way than Johanna and I had taken to get to the beach, but it was the same way the taxi had taken us from the beach, so I at least knew we were going in the right direction. At one point the woman started to turn off the main road onto a steep eroded dirt road. I told her that was the wrong direction, and she looked very relieved. We continued through the mountains and the bike could barely get up some of the hills. During an especially steep one, she turned around and said “How many Kilos?”. I finally recognized where we were and was able to start directing her in the right ways.
As we were approaching the beach, we pulled up alongside a man who was traveling down the road on another motorbike. The man and woman had a conversation as we were traveling along, and the man followed us to the beach. He then got tools out from underneath his seat and began taking the steering column of the bike apart. After 15 minutes of work he was able to start the bike. The woman then asked me if I had 100 Baht, but I told her Johanna had the money in the backpack and I would pay her later. She gave the man 100 Baht from her bag, and then I followed her on her scooter as she drove mine. She stopped a few minutes after leaving to tell me to put the kickstand up. Then we stopped again at a business that made keys. Nobody seemed to be working at that business, so we went down the road to another one. Here, they told us to leave the bike. The woman then drove her bike again, and I rode on the back of it back to her families business.
I then went back to the hotel and found Johanna having a drink at a table in the restaurant. We went to our room and got ready to go to Kata beach. On the way there, we stopped by the motorbike rental place and paid for both the 4 day rental fee and the lost key, which cost 200 Baht extra. We stayed at the beach till dusk, then went back to the room to take a shower. After that we decided to try and find the 100 Baht buffet that we were unable to find last night. We asked for directions again from the hotel waitresses, then went out on the bike in search of it. At first we could not find it, but as we were coming back towards the hotel, I spotted a new road that I had not seen before, and the Copenhagen Grill was there.
We were sat at a table with a red cloth and a gas burner in the middle of it. A waitress brought out a cast iron pot of cooking oil and placed it on the burner. We were then brought about two dozen tiny trays of different raw meats and vegetables, and 4 skewers. We were at first very confused, but decided that we should put the items on the skewers and cook them in the oil. We waited for a few minutes for our oil to get hot, then tried cooking, but the oil was not hot enough. One of the waitresses saw this and came to turn up the gas. She turned it up so high that flames were whipping above the top of the pot, and I thought that the table cloth was going to burn at any moment. The oil was soon hot enough and I asked them to turn down the fire. We then began cooking. As we emptied each of our tiny trays, the waitresses would come and ask if we wanted more. We found that the oily food was very filling, and only had them refill most of our trays one time.
It was lightly raining when we left the restaurant, and the bike ride was a little uncomfortable. We parked the bike at the hotel, then went to the travel agencies on the street to check prices on a day trip to Phi Phi Island, which we had heard was very nice from other exchange students in Macau. There were many different options to travel there, ranging in price from 500 to 1500 Baht. We went back to the hotel to see if Johanna’s Thailand book had any information on getting to Phi Phi Island, but it was not very useful. We decided to go and book the 500 Baht trip, which just included a ferry ride to and from the island. As we were leaving we talked to the owner about our options, and he reaffirmed our choice. We then went to find the man who had quoted us the 500 Baht price, and he had us sit and fill out the paper work for a few minutes. When we were leaving the agency, Johanna and I fell over top each other, which made the other 3 people there laugh histerically.
We then went to the hotel restaurant and had one drink each before going to sleep.

Friday
December 3, 2004

Johanna and I woke up early this morning, at 8, because we had to be at the airport by 10. After packing everything in our room, we checked out, then had our free breakfast at the hotel restaurant. We both ate the rice and chicken dish that I also ordered for us yesterday. While we were waiting for our food, a woman from Myanmar at the table next to us started a conversation. She spoke good English and told us that she and her husband were painters and sculpters. She tried to get us to buy something, but we declined.
After breakfast, we took a cab to the airport, which took about 30 minutes. Our driver dropped us off at the international terminal, and we had to walk through an elevated tunnel for 800 meters to get to the domestic terminal. Our flight left on time and we landed in Phuket, Thailand about an hour later. The end of the runway was on a beach, so the plane flew directly above the ocean before it landed. Johanna and I saw the bright bluish-green ocean and white sand, and we could not wait to get to the beach.
I had our hotel’s directions printed from the Internet. They stated that we could take a “mini-bus” to the area where the hotel was, which was 1 hour away. The mini-bus ticket office was by the main entrance to the airport, and we bought two tickets to Kata Beach for 180 Baht each. About 30 minutes into the trip, we stopped at a travel agency to drop off passengers. Inside the agency, employees asked the remaining passengers where their hotels were located, and then translated this information to the driver.
The rest of the minibus ride took us through jungle-covered mountains, and yellow and orange flowers were growing all around the sides of the roads. We still could not wait to get to the beach. We were the last passengers to get of the minibus, and it took us right to the door of our hotel, The Kata Center Inn, which is owned by a Danish man. He was at the reception desk when we got there, and the check in process was amazingly simple. I told him my name and he handed me a key to room 207, I asked him if that was all, and he said “Just pay when you leave”.
We walked up the stairs to our room and were very happy when we saw it. It was clean and decorated with hard wood furniture. Out our window was a view of the side of one of the many jungle-covered mountains in the area. After dropping our bags off in the room, we went to the hotel’s restaurant, where I ordered the first real hamburger I have had since August. The restaurant seemed to be very nice and unique, and all the waitresses had uniforms that matched the fabric on the bedspreads in the rooms.
After the meal, we browsed some of the dozens of small shops that are on the hotel’s street. The salepeople are very high-pressure here, just like mainland China. I asked a tailor how much the suits were here, just because I was curious, and I was dissapointed that I did, because it took me 5 minutes just to get a price out of him, but it turns out that my price in Bangkok was good. After that I enquired about the price of large suitcases in another store, and they told me 2000 Baht, which is several times what they should cost here. Johanna bought a bathing suit at one of the stores, and then we went back to the hotel to get ready for the beach.
We walked to Kata Beach took about 15 minutes and we were pleased when we arrived. This beach is a semi-circle shape that stretches between two mountains, and it is nearly a mile long. The sand is soft and white, the water is bright blue, and the waves are big enough that many people were surfing. Johanna and I threw our things on the beach and immediately went to the water. The water at first seemed a little chilly, but it soon seemed perfect because of the exteme heat on the beach. The waves were great fun. This is the first time I had been swimming with big waves, and each one is a thrill. Some of them were crashing almost 10 feet above our heads, and the biggest ones seemed to come in distictly timed patterns every few minutes.
We stayed in the water for about an hour, and then sat on the beach for a while. I buried all but her head in the sand, and then she wanted me to chase her on the beach. She ended up falling flat on her face, but just got up and laughed even though it must have hurt some.
After leaving the beach, we went back to our hotel and took showers, then went to a small massage parlor down the street. We both had a one-hour Thai oil massage. My massuese was a larger Thai woman, and she did a great job. The Thai oil massage is different than the kind we were used to getting in China, because it is slower and they massage almost everything you have (but, it’s not at all sexual). As we were leaving, I saw an advertisement in the massage parlor that said “Motobike for rent”. I asked them about it and they said 100 Baht per day, which is about $2.50, so I kept that thought in mind.
After the massage, we went to an Internet café across the street and spent about 15 minutes checking our email. The place looked really nice, but my computer crashed twice. Next, we went to the hotel and asked about an all you can eat buffet that we had earlier seen advertised there for 100 Baht. We had received an advertisement for this buffet with our lunch bill, and it appears to be owned by the Danish man who owns the Kata Center Inn, because it is called the Copenhagen Grill.
After getting directions from the waitresses, I told Johanna to wait for me while I went back to the massage parlor and rented a motorbike for the next 4 days of our vacation. I couldn’t pass up the cheap offer. I was surprised that I did not have to pay any deposit or show a credit card to rent the bike, and they didn’t even ask to look at my passport. While I was waiting for them to bring me the bike, the family that owned the business offered me shots of some kind of local whiskey they were drinking at a table in front of the business. I at first smiled and pushed the shot away, but the old mother of the family pushed it back to me, so I tried it. She tried to give me more, but I had to decline because I thought I would gag, plus I was getting ready to ride a motorcycle for one of the first times in my life.
When they brought the motorbike to me they told me to always wear my helmet, but they didn’t mention anything about drinking and driving. I went to the hotel to pick up Johanna, and then we went back to the place where I rented it so we could get another helmet for Johanna. We then tried to find the Copenhagen grill, which had the 100 Baht buffet, but we could not find it, so we settled on an outdoor pizza place that is near the beach. As we were waiting on our food, local people kept coming up to us and trying to sell things like glow sticks and stuffed animals that made squeking noises.
After dinner, we rode the motorbike to the beach so we could take a walk there. It was completely deserted, and we were very surprised when we almost stepped on a pack of sleeping wild dogs, but the dogs barely lifted their heads. After the walk, we tried to sit, but the mosquitos were too bad, so we went back towards the hotel. Before going back to our room, we walked to a small shop and bought a couple drinks. As we were buying them, a fight started across the street between a shop employee and another man. This man jump kicked the shop employee in the chest, and then the jump-kickers friends held him back. After the fight, we took the drinks to our room and finished them. Johanna’s beveridge almost instantly turned her mouth bright blue.

Thursday
12-2-04

Johanna and I got up at 7 today, but we thought it was 8 because we had forgotten to adjust our clocks to the new time. I took the free breakfast tickets we had recieved resterday down to the small restaraunt in the lobby. Our options were rice with chicken or just toast, so I ordered two of the rice dishes. As I was waiting for the food I read parts of a copy of the English version of the Bangkok newspaper that I found. I read an artile that stated that the engine had exploded and fallen off of a jet as it left the airport in the morning yesterday. Big parts of the engine had landed on cars which were traveling down the highway. The plane was able to make a safe emergency langing and the people in the cars were not seriously injured. As our plane left Macau yesterday we had joked around that the engines might fall off, because we had heard that Chinese airlines have a history of accidents.
When the food was ready, the restaraunt cashier only brought one meal, so I
took it back to the room and shared it with Johanna. After that we took showers, then left the room by 10.Johanna brought book with her from home about tourist attractions in Thailand. The book said that the city has no centralized downtown area, but a place called Siam Square was considered the downtown. We took a cab there and began exploring the area.
We first stopped at a drugstore to buy some sunscreen and other things, then were stopped by an overhelpful man on the sidewalk. He just kept talking and talking about the city, but all of the information he gave us was about shopping, which did not really interest us at the time. He recommended a good Thai restaurant across the street and the food there was not good. We ordered two noodle dishes that had no flavor, and a beef dish that was way too spicy for us. I ate it, but I thought I was going to spontaneously combust at any moment.
The city of Bankok has an elevated “Skytrain” instead of a subway system, and after dinner, we boarded it at a station by Siam Square. We wanted to go to a museum listed in Johanna’s Thailand book that had bodies on display of executed serial killers in formalehyde. We asked a clerk at the ticket booth which train to take there, and then the ride lasted less than 20 minutes. The quiet, smooth riding train was in very nice condition, and claimed to have the “most effective” air conditioning in Thailand. The train did not cross the river, and at that point we were suppost to take a ferry across. There were many small passenger ferries there and we had a little trouble finding out which one to get on. We finally determined that the one that only crossed the river was probably the one with the least thrills, so we got on the ugliest one. We chose wisely, and after crossing we were asked to pay 2 Baht each, which is about 5 cents.
After getting off the ferry, we saw nothing around us that seemed to correspond to the directions in Johanna’s book. We walked for a bit, then asked a Thai businessman about it. He hailed a cab for us and told the driver where to take us. The driver took us back across the river and to the wrong place. When we got out of the cab, we asked the next educated looking person that happened to walk by. This man was as helpful as the first helper we had met as Siam Square, but this one was giving us useful information. He told us and wrote in Thai, 4 things that he thought we should see, then stopped a Tuk Tuk for us.
A Tuk Tuk is a 3 wheeled taxi mounted on the frame of a motorbike. It looks kind of like a Rick Shaw that has covered top. I hear that it is one thing that the city is well known for. Our helper showed the list of places we should see to the Tuk Tuk driver and asked for a price. The driver said 70 and the helper told him 30, and the driver accepted the offer, which is about 75 cents. Our first stop was the Black Buddha, which was on the grounds of a temple. Our driver told us to take as long as we wanted and he would wait on us. The Black Buddha was sitting near the temple and it was not black at all. A man standing by it told us it’s story. It supposedly used to be located in a northern city, which was invaded by a foreign country. Custom in that situation was to cut off the head and melt the gold body down before the invaders could get to it. But, when this body was thrown into a fire, it just turned black and would not melt. This scared the people so they decided to throw it into the river. Several months later, they found the heavy gold statue floating in the river downstream in Bangkok. The people saw this as a sign from god, so they reattached the head and painted the black body gold.
After looking at the Black Buddha, we walked around the temple grounds. Dozens of dogs, cats, chickens and orange-robed monks were everywhere. As we were taking pictures, our driver came looking for us, then we got back on the Tuk Tuk and he took us to our next destination, which was a tailor. I did not understand at first why we had been taken to a tailor, but I figured it out when the receptionist inside gave us a slip of paper to give to our driver, which was good for one free liter of gasoline. I asked about the price of suits and it was almost 200 dollars.
Our driver then asked us if he could take us to one more tailor so he could get more gas, and we agreed because he was driving us around for 75 cents. The second tailor was located on the third floor of a three-story building. As we were walking through the second floor jewelry area, a lady started getting out rings and setting them on the counter in front of us. We said we were only looking and she impatiently said, “This stuff for buying, not looking”. We then walked up to the third floor and we both ended up buying suits for $100 each. I had heard about cheap suit making in Thailand and had been thinking about getting one. The price seemed to be consistent with what other exchange students had payed in Thailand, and the business looked very respectable. I ordered a black cashmere suit and Johanna ordered a wool suit. It took the employees a while to measure us, and then we went back outside to get back on the Tuk Tuk. Our driver was missing at first, but we soon found him.
We told him that we wanted to eat, and he was happy to suggest a nice seafood restaurant, where it appeared that he got more free gas. I was not hungry at the time, so Johanna ate while I drank a Coke(they are all served in glass bottles here). After the meal, we wanted him to take us to the museum with the bodies in it, but we then checked our book and realized that it already closed at 3. We then asked the driver to take us to another place on our list, called Gold Mountain.
When we stopped, we told the driver that this would be our last destination, and he then asked for his 30 Baht, but we decided to give him 100. He spoke a little English, and we had been asking him about himself during the day. He told us that he works for 60 days at a time, then spends 5 days with his family in the north. He said he had been doing this for years and we felt sorry for him. I have never seen anyone happier to get a $2 tip, and he even bowed to us. Maybe his family actually lives in Bangkok, but I think he was telling the truth.
The golden mountain we very interesting. It was a odd shaped temple that had been built on a hill a few hundred years ago. A staircase would around the side of it and there were bells along the staircase that people were allowed to ring. At the top of the staircase was the main room of the temple, and a guard there asked Johanna and I to take off our shoes before entering. The middle of the room contained another circular shaped room that had a big gold Buddha statue behind glass in the middle of it. Around the outside of that central room were dozens of other smaller Buddha statues and an area with candles and incence burning, where people were worshipping.
Another staircase led to the roof of the temple, where a large pointed gold spire stood about 30 feet into the air, and had a base of about 15 feet. The view from this area was great, and the size of the city was evident from there. The book was right about there being no centralized downtown, but large office towers stood as far as you could see in every direction. After looking at the view for a few minutes, we asked a group of 3 monks if I could take their picture with Johanna. They said “Yes, but no touch”, and they stood far away from her as the picture was taken. I then had Johanna take my picture with them and they stood a lot closer. I felt bad because they looked annoyed that we were asking them for pictures, but I guess it is always hard to tell what a monk is thinking because their expression never changes.
After leaving Gold Mountain, we spent a few minutes sitting on a bench in the park grounds, then decided to take a walk and look for some snacks. We found a 711 nearby, and then looked for another park to sit and eat the things we had bought. We did not find one, but we eventually found a nice reflecting pool by an office tower to sit at. After sitting there for a bit, we then walked on. We stopped at a handmade belt store and bought 2 belts to go with the suits we had purchased earlier. Just past the belt store, we saw the funniest looking dog that I have ever seen. It was small poodle that was sitting in a chair of a hair salon. Its fur had been died several shades of orange. We tried to take pictures of it through the window, but it got up and started barking at us. The hair salon owner had no customers, and he was just sitting in another chair and reading. He saw us trying to take pictures and he got up and opened the door to let the dog out for us. The dog was no longer barking, but was now licking my face as I tried to get in a picture with it.
As the sun was going down, we walked through a large, crowded alley food market. There were lots of disturbing foods there, but the most shocking thing was the whole smoked pig faces. After walking through the market, we bought some whiskey and coke from a 711, then tried to find a cab that could take us back to the Lumphey tower area. All the cabs had their meters turned off, and they wanted 4 times the normal rate, so we decided to take the Skytrain back to the tower. We asked a ticket booth clerk were to get off and then followed her directions and went to a stop called Lumphey Station, but the tower appeared to be nowhere near. We asked 2 cab drivers for a price to take us there, and they still refused to turn on their meters. It appears that they do not use their meters early in the evenings. A Tuk Tuk driver agreed to take us all the way to our hotel for 70 Baht, and it took us about 20 minutes to get there.
Back in the room, we had some ice brought to us so we could make the drinks that we had bought earlier. And, as earlier arranged, two men came to our room from the suit store at 9 oclock. They brought our partially made suits with them so we could try them on and they could make small adjustments. The process took about 20 minutes, then they left and we drank half of our bottle of whiskey.

Wednesday-Leaving for Thailand
12-1-04

Johanna called at 9:30 this morning and we discussed the plans for todays journey to Bangkok, Thialand. Raj came home from his trip to Yangshou, China, while I was getting ready to leave. I had thought that I would not see him again before both of us left Macau for the semester, but he had arrived in town early after haven taken an overnight 12 hour bus ride. We talked for a few minutes about his trip, then I got on a bus and went into Macau so I could pick up my student visa from the immigration office.
I then came back to Taipa by bus and picked up a paper I needed to hand in at the university. This paper was going to be due on the 9th, and I knew I would be out of town, so I needed to give it to the teachers assistant before leaving. I first stopped at the school bookstore and bought a clear cover for 15 page paper, then found the assistants office in the dorm building that I used to live in. After that I spent 30 minutes using the Internet, then called Johanna to tell her that I would be running 30 minutes late. She had been very eager to leave and sounded a bit dissapointed.
At 12:15 we met at the bus stop and took a taxi to the airport, then I ate at a restaurant there and we both drank a beer. Our plane had been scheduled to leave in the morning, but I received a message on my phone yesterday from the airline that said the flight time was changed to 1:30. We checked in at a little before 1, and our flight then left on time. It took about 3 hours to get to Bangkok and the 737 we were riding on was only a little more than half full. When they brought the refreshments by, we were surprised to learn that we had to pay for anything we wanted. Not even any free pretzels with Air Asia, but it is incredibly cheap, so I can’t complain. I tried to buy a drink, but they would not accept my Macau Pataccas, so I got nothing.
Our plane landed at the massive Bangkok International Airport at about 3:30(they were 1 hour behind Macau time). We exited the plane on the tarmac, then a bus took us to the terminal building. At customs, we were happy to find that the visa to enter the country did not cost anything for American and Finnish citizens.
We first decided to find our hotel and get checked in. I had found directions from the airport to the hotel on the Internet, and this information stated that we needed to take airport bus A4 to a building called Lumphrey Tower. We found the airport busses in front of the terminal, and a nice english speaking Thai girl at a bus ticket office there told us that bus A1 would take us to Lumphrey tower. She said that the driver would announce the stops.
Traffic was terrible in the city, and the driver did not announce his stops. We spent over an hour on the bumpy bus, and sometimes did not move for almost 10 minutes at a time. We finally decided to just get off the bus at an area by a food market and take a taxi to Lumphrey Tower. All of the taxis seemed to be full at that time, so after spending a few minutes trying to catch one, we decided to find somewhere to eat. Just around the corner from the market, we found a small western-looking restaurant. I did not yet have any of the Thai currency, so Johanna paid for the meal. The currency is called the Baht, and there are 38 Baht in each the US dollar,
After the meal, we easily found a cab, and he understood the words Lumphey Tower. When we arrived at the tower, we realized that the remainder of the directions to the hotel were very unclear. They stated that we should turn at a 711store, but there were 3 of them within one block of Lumphey Tower. We asked a youngThai couple that was sitting on the stairs of the building, and the girl was very helpful. She tried to hail a cab for us, but was unsuccessful, so she asked us if going by motorcycle would be OK. We agreed, then followed her around to the side of the building, where a line of about 20 motorcycle taxis were lined up. Johanna and I each got on the back of one of them, and they took us on a wild 10 minute ride to our hotel, which cost us about 35 cents each.
Our hotel was called The Blooms Residence, and it was located in a residentail area that was connected by a series of small alleys. I had booked the hotel on the Internet last week, so the check-in process was simple. We were immediately surprised by the good condition of the lobby, considering the rooms cost less than $10 per night, and were even more surprised when we were given tickets for a free hot breakfast. Our room was the greatest part, as it was newly remodled, decently furnished, and perfectly clean..
After taking showers, we set out in search of a place to eat and have some drinks. The area of the hotel initially seemed absent of anything but private homes. The series of narrow alleys were surround by high walls, and the homes behind them appeared to be quite nice. After a few minutes of aimless walking, we came to a busier street, and there we found a very nice place to eat and drink. We sat in a garden area outside and ordered food and Long Island Teas. After finishing these things, we went inside,where a band was setting up. The inside of the bar was very nice. It had two levels of seating, and the front wall of the building was glass, which gave a view of the gardens outside. We had another drink inside, then decided to see if we could find a place to buy some drinks to take back to our hotel.
We found no such place, and the area seemed a little creepy, so we sat down at a bar which was just next to the one we had been at. This one had an even better and larger garden area, and also a pond with several dozen giant goldfish in it. We sat by the water, and the goldfish all watched us the entire time we were there. The bar was closing, so we left after having 2 drinks. We had only ordered one, but they misunderstood our order and brought two. After we left this bar, we went back to the hotel.