Thailand, part 3 - New Years Eve in Ao Nang

So, after very little sleep at the Muslim homestay, we were trucked back into town and left our things at the hotel where we would be staying. After a proper shower that felt like pure heaven, we got ready for a day of island hopping, beach-bumming, sightseeing and skin-diving aboard the hotel's private yacht. The picture you see is of the beaches at Ao Nang, and they were spectacular. The waters offshore are dotted with literally hundreds of small islands, and at the risk of sounding like a trave brochure, each is more beautiful than the last. Those are the longboats I keep mentioning, incidentally. We first went to the lagoon where they filmed "The Beach", then saw a pirates cove, and did some work on our tans. Then, they took us out into the middle of the ocean, and threw us off the boat. To go diving, ha.
Now, I should note here that while I am a capable swimmer, I am not a big fan of swimming in the ocean. Perhaps due to seeing Jaws or Open Water one too many times, I was immensely reluctant to join this activity, but after some prodding (and chicken noises) from my friends, I finally went in. I was actually paddling around and enjoying myself for all of three minutes when it happened. It seems that rather than worrying about sharks, I should have been worried about fat German tourists jumping on my head. A group of them had come on the boat with us, and after nearly being drowned by this ignorant piece of human flotsam, I was pretty much done with diving for the day.
After that, and slightly sunburned, we went back to dry land and began our New Years festivities. First came a banquet dinner, after which I hazily remember a great deal of bar-hopping. Everyone wanted to do something different, so in the end we tried to do everything; Irish bar, Sports bar (yuck), and finally the Luna Bar, a beach-front dance bar. This is where Lee, Vic, Mark, Angela and I ended up ringing in the New Year, and it turned out to be great - fireworks, a live DJ, fire dancers and people from every corner of the world, just wanting to have a good time. We stayed there for a while, but the night was still young, and the music we had heard coming from the jungle the night before was calling us back, infectious and irresistible.
So, all of us ended up piling into tuk-tuks (motorcycle taxis) and we just followed the music. The party turned out to be massive, a rave right smack in the heart of darkness to end all raves. Banners flew everywhere, lights lit up the night and throngs of us danced in the red Thai mud to a fantastic mix of house, jungle and techno. We stayed for hours, lost in the music, and made our way back just before dawn, completely exhausted. I went to sleep with a smile on my face, my only regret that I hadn't been able to share the experience with my friends from Ottawa and Kingston. That, and we somehow lost Victoria, but she found her way back...she's like a cat that way.
The next day was, thankfully, pretty low-key. From Ao Nang we packed ourselves into a longboat and made our way to an island resort in the Andaman Sea. This was all, incidentally, the same area that had been hit by the tsunami in 2005, but you could hardly tell. Thailand depends so much on its tourism industry that everything had been repaired in record time, and only a few bent trees told the tale. Our next resort was on a rubber plantation (lots of those around) which had great beaches, a fantastic outdoor restaurant, and little huts where they did Thai massage right beside the beach. I thought they did great work, award-worthy even, but Bob didn't agree. Remember Bob? Well, he thought his massage was below his exacting standards, so like the bitter old fart that he was, he yelled at the girl, and paid her half before storming away. See why we liked him so much?
Anyway, we basically just sat on the beach all of that day and recovered from the night before. At night, we sat on the beach some more, chatting with the Aussies in our group - Paul and Brie, Stu and Kim, Josh and Laura - while listening to the waves rolling gently onto the shore. Luckily for us there were no more tsunami - with the amount of time we spent on the beach during that week, we would have been screwed.
Next time - camping with giant lizards! Don't miss that one.

Thailand, part 2 - Tattoos, Elephants and Rainforest

Firstly, let me continue from where I left off by saying every meal aboard the rafthouses was an event. Thai food is so amazing, and authentic, home-cooked Thai food is even better. Spicy as hell though - never EVER ask for it as hot as they eat themselves, or you'll be the proud owner of a new ulcer. From coconut with green curry to fried rice with prawns, they fed us so much I'm amazed we could waddle back to our huts each night. To pass the days we alternated between swimming in or kayaking on the lake, to drowsing at the floating bar in a hammock, to playing cards or (strangely enough) Connect 4. I beat the pants off of our tour guide. At night there was drinking (oh, was there drinking), fireworks, music, dancing, a whiff or two of some special tobacco, and poi.
What are poi, you ask? Don't be impatient, I was just getting to that. Poi are basically a set of weights (like tennis balls) on chains, that loop around your fingers. These are twirled around yourself at high speed, and occasionally are set on fire to wow the gawking tourists. One of our hosts, Mr. Bao (the guy I whupped at Connect 4) was even nice enough to teach me how to use these, and Victoria helped teach as well, as she's a bit of a virtuoso with them herself. This has rapidly become one of my favourite useless skills, and the kids have a shit-fit when I bring them to school.
So anyway, we left our rafthouses after a few days of boat rides and jungle treks, saying goodbye to all our new friends, and we made our way back to a tourist town just outside of park headquarters. This was a cool spot too, with a Rastafarian bar, a fantastic restaurant and a great staff. From our base here, we went out to ride elephants through a local rubber tree plantation, which took us to a tropical waterfall, where we went swimming in the pool below. Later, we went tubing down another river, through some amazing rainforest, and spent that night drinking with the locals and some other tourists at the Rasta Bar.
The next day, Vicoria and I would return to the same place, owned by this really intense guy named Phillipe. His friend was a tattoo artist, and he proceeded to talk us into getting tattoos, but we really didn't need much convincing, as we both wanted Thailand to leave some mark on us. Now these were not just any tattoos either - they were traditional tattoos done with bamboo, the most excruciating thing I've ever exprienced aside from country music. His friend did great work though, and in the end we were all happy. In the picture you'll see me, getting my ink done on my ankle...what you don't see is me wincing and begging for him to be done.
I got a symbol that represents, in the Buddhist faith, connection to the universe. It is read as "ohm", and is what Buddhist monks tend to chant when they meditate. Victoria got this gigantic star design on her foot, and it still amazes me that she didn't pass out from the pain...I was three sheets to the wind and could barely stand it. But then I'm a huge pussy.
The next day, we gathered our belongings and once again stuffed ourselves into a van as we made our way to our next destination, Ao Nang. Our time at Ao Nang was to be split - the first night at a Muslim homestay on a rubber plantation, the second at a hotel near the beach.
After arriving in town, we were given some time to wander around and have lunch (a fantastic roadside Pad Thai, if you're curious). Then we were driven outside of town, into the jungle, and finally onto the plantation. There, we were introduced to our host, a very nice man with a wonderful family, and whose name was far too long for me to have any chance of remembering. Anyway, we got the tour, and watched as his wife and mother cooked us a fantastic meal (sans alcohol, due to the Muslim thing, much to our distress). After dinner we were offered a real treat - our host was going to a Muay Thai boxing match, and the second he asked us along, I was all over that like a fat kid on a Smartie.
The stadium was packed, the fighters were in great shape, and their technique was amazing. The fighters ranged in age from about 8 years old (child protection laws, what are they?!) to about 30. I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow, but as a martial artist I was impressed, and at least one guy had to be dragged from the ring. Unfortunate, but still kind of neat.
Then, it was back to sleep in our bungalow. Sleep however, was not in the cards, due to the rave going on in the jungle next door. The music was good enough, but after lying there all night, wide-eyed and listening to rats scurrying past my bed, I was in what you might call a "murdering mood". As we left our homestay behind I heard the music fade into the distance, but not for the last time...Victoria and I had learned that it as still going on the next night, which just happened to be New Year's Eve...
Stay tuned (again). This was almost three weeks folks, trying to compress it into easy-to-digest chapters takes a bit of time. And yes, the memories are a bit fuzzy. If beer was a dollar a glass, you'd drink too.

Why Everyone Needs to go to Thailand

OK, so I gave you a teaser about this last time, and I figured I should just go ahead and give you the definitive, complete and unabridged version. (Alright, so it's slightly abridged because my kids could read this).
The trip took place over Christmas holidays, and luckily too. I had been told that spending your holidays in Japan as a foreigner is about as depressing as it gets, and I didn't want to stick around to test the theory. On the Thursday school let out, Victoria, Mark, LeeSean and I gathered at Lee's place in Nakatsu, and slept fitfully through a snowstorm as we dreamt of tropical beaches. The next morning (if you could call it that - the sun wasn't up yet) we trudged through snowbanks to the train station, where we got on a train bound for Fukuoka, largest city in Kyushu, and our departure point for flying to Thailand.
A few hours later, after a short flight punctuated by a brief stopover in Taipei, we touched down in Bangkok. We had booked a hostel, the Asha Guest House, and made our way there from the airport. Bangkok, at first glance, was big, bustling, hazy, humid, a blend of tropical green and colorful buildings. I loved it immediately. The Asha was quaint, with a pool, on the upside, and communal bathrooms, on the downside, along with a swarm of cute little geckoes everywhere, leaving cute little gecko turds in their wake.
From there, we got Thai massages, and went drinking, shopping and exploring for 2 days until our tour began. Then we moved shop to the Vieng Thai, a fantastic hotel right near Khao Sun Road, Bangkok's famous entertainment and nightlife hotspot, where Leonardo DiCaprio drinks snake blood in "The Beach". There we met our tour leader Noot, along with the other members of our group. Among them were three fun Australian couples, a lovely British lady named Angela, and Bob, an older man, also British, but who would prove to be a pain in our collective asses the whole trip with his incessant bitching.
That day, our adgenda included a trip by longboat down the river on which Bangkok is built, a trip to the Royal Palace, home of Thailand's king, and the adjoining Grand Palace, the biggest and most famous Buddhist temple in all of Thailand. The picture is of The Grand Palace, with the same view you would see on Thai coins. It's even niftier inside. After that, it was dinner and drinks on Khao Sun Road to celebrate Christmas, since it happened to be the 25th.
The next day we had free, and so we proceeded to shop some more, taking in the neverending circus of Khao Sun, as well as other parts of downtown Bangkok, including the biggest bazaar I have ever seen in my life - literally hundreds upon hundreds of stalls. We capped the evening off with a sumptuous 4-course meal atop one of Bangkok's highest buildings. Then, along with the group we boarded a sleeper train to our next destination, Khao Sok National Park. The next morning we left the train, climbed into a van, and drove to Khao Sok, a lush tropical junglescape blanketing ancient mountains, surrounding a set of pristine lakes. From the park's headquarters we were ferried by longboat across one of these lakes, Chaiw Lan, to a set of floating raft-houses, which was to be our home for the next 3 days.
Stay tuned for next time, there's a lot more to tell, but alas, my fingers are tired.

My Friends

When I first got into Oita, there were welcoming parties, everyone got introduced (read: drunk together) and numbers were exchanged. Nonetheless, once I got settled in, I found myself a bit bored, and while I had many acquaintances, I had very few friends. Cue the tiny violin.
Well after about a week or two of this, I got a phonecall from an existing ALT, LeeSean Huang, the fabulous gentlemen in the photo. He was trying to be friendly, and asked if I wanted some company for another welcoming party taking place the next weekend. Thankful someone would remember my name, let alone call, I of course said yes, and we became immediate friends.
Through Lee, I was able to meet two other wonderful people - Victoria Ryder, the dazzling beauty in the picture, and Mark Mathiessen, who I'll have to show you a picture of later. Both were teachers with a company called Geos, both lived in Oita city, and both would later end up accompanying me to Thailand. More on that story later. Firstly, I should mention that Lee hails from Arizona, Victoria comes from the UK, and Mark is from Canada, like myself, but further west (Calgary). Sadly, both Vic and Mark have since left here to pursue other things, but while they were here I was happy to know them and we had SHIT-loads of fun. I will say one thing for Geos folk - you may be overworked and underpaid, but you know how to party!
So in regards to Thailand, this was a thing that Lee, Vic and Mark had been planning for a while. They had been hanging out for ages, and I kind of crashed the party, but when LeeSean asked me to come along and escape winter in Japan for a few weeks, who was I to say no? Gift horse, mouth. 'Nuff said. So we made our preparations, got to know each other better (read: more drinking), and when it finally came down to it, I wouldn't have had my dream-vacation-of-a-lifetime any other way. Except, of course, for LeeSean's snoring...it really sounds like the boy swallowed a chainsaw.
LeeSean leaves to go back to the U.S. this week, marking the last of my 3 "Thailand buddies" to flee the country. He is a great cook, insanely funny and has accompanied me on many other adventures throughout Japan. He will certainly be missed, despite the fact that his wardrobe contains hazardous levels of pink.
Victoria, a fellow writer, a lusty drunk, a firecracker and heartbreaker, I hope to see in Amsterdam next year. Mark, always cheerful (bordering on perky), great with kids, and as idealistic as myself, is now living in Montreal, and when I move home I definitely hope to see more of him. I am never good with goodbyes, so I'll just say that every time I "kompai" now, part of it will go out to you guys. If only we had had more time. Cue cheesy music, fade to black.

Tokyo, Orientation, and being Lost in Translation

This goes out to all the new folks who will be flying into Japan next month. First, rewind a year or so to August 15 of 2005, and you would find me just touching down in Tokyo after a gruelling 14-hour flight from Ottawa via Detroit. Jet-lagged and culture-shocked, lugging 2 overstuffed suitcases carrying all my worldly possessions, I am herded from the airport along with several other busloads of ALTs into Shinjuku, the heart of Tokyo. Since the biggest city I'd been in before was Toronto (sadly), it's a lot to take in.
We're all put up in the Keio Plaza Hotel, very posh, and I'm pretty impressed, even if they don't have the free bar and in-room masseuse that I was hoping for. We each get a roomate, either to help us bond with our fellow ALTs, make us feel more at home, or save a few bucks. I'm thinking option C. Mine is a very nice Australian named Todd Grant or Grant Todd, I'm never quite sure which.
The next day we have to endure some orientation and training type stuff, some is which is useful; the rest is relatively self-evident and lulls me into a blissful slumber. We are, however, made to feel like honoured guests, and I get the feeling I'll be digging this whole Japan thing, especially when they bring on the free drinks.
Later that evening we're cut loose, and proceed to roam in packs through one of the busiest, brightest, loudest, occasionally smelliest, and most interesting places in all of Japan. The photo above is of Shinjuku at night that second day, and it only gives a modest hint of the craziness...the blurriness is to simulate the pitcher of beer I drank in karaoke just previously. I should also add that said karaoke spot was the same one Bill Murray visited in "Lost in Translation". It was neat - they offered "nomihodai", which roughly translates into "drink until you think you're Elvis", and some Japanese guys crashed our party to deliver their rendition of "Take Me Out" by Franz Ferdinand. Later still, (and despite my slurred protests) we grabbed some McDonald's, and yes, it is pretty much the same here, except it's pronounced "Makudonarudo".
This was followed by a few precious hours of sleep, before I was crammed into a plane yet again, which took me here, to Oita. This was followed by more ceremonies, speeches, bowing, slideshows, dancing, drinking and even a little swordplay, not necessarily in that order. But that's another story.

Miyazaki: Surfer's Paradise

So last night I just got back from my trip to Miyazaki with my friend LeeSean, and it was incredible. Miyazaki, for those of you who don't live here or just suck at geography, is the prefecture in Japan located just south of mine in Kyushu, famous for good beaches and laid back people. Definitely true on both counts! Lee and I had been planning this trip for months, because he's leaving Japan this month and we needed a last big hurrah. The weather was not playing along, however, until the holiday weekend that just passed here, and MAN, did it ever play along then! We left on Friday night, just to get a head start, and I drove most of the way out of Oita and into Miyazaki. It was a long drive through the moutntains, but beaufitul in the extreme. Up in the mountains nothing is overdeveloped and spoiled like in many other places here, and you can drive for hours with just the sub-tropical jungle to keep you company, whizzing by on either side. It's lush, thick, coated in mist as the sun sets, and like reminded me a bit of Thailand. We managed to get into Miyazaki city just after 10, and found a cheap hotel to crash in for the night.
The next morning we awoke to a dazzling sun and a cloudless sky, and after all the rain we've been getting here this month, I was doing a little dance of joy. We pushed on to try and hit a beach, and ended up in Aoshima, a place with a long dark sand beach, lined by plam trees, and an island surrounded by the unique rock formations you see in the picture here. They look like waves of stone rising up from the ocean, and I've never seen anything like them before. Called "The Devil's Washboard" by locals, I assume they're a product of some volcanic activity or another, since Japan is positively infested with volcanoes. Anyway, after that we drove around for a bit, took in the countryside, and made our way to our crash-pad for the night. We stayed with another ALT, one who lives deep in the mountains of Miyazaki, and enjoyed a nice Italian dinner with him that night before polishing off a bottle of champagne and drifting off.
The next day (Sunday) it was off to rendezvous with our friend Sophie in Huga, near Miyazaki City again. Sophie was singing at a music festival that day, so we tried to catch her performance, but unfortunately missed it, as it was just too bloody early. So, as she slept, recovering from a bender the night before, we checked out the festival (mostly hip-hop, meh), had lunch, and decided to hit another local beach. This beach, Okuragohama (sp?) had some MASSIVE waves, which we splashed around in for a while, until we got bored and decided to wake Sophie up. Sophie, good sport that she is, took us back to hang out at her place for a bit, where we met Kat, another ALT. Later, the four of us plus two other ALTS down for the weekend went out to a really fantastic little restaurant by the ocean, just outside of Huga. It had a Hawaiian theme, and the sunset from its patio was spectacular, giving us a view of the mountains on either side as they plunged into the ocean. Afterwards, stuffed and satisfied, we dropped off to sleep at Sophie's for a good 12 hours.
The next day was our last day, and seeing as it was another spectacular day weather-wise, we wanted to surf. Sophie is a pro surfer, and had some extra boards for us, so we went back to down to Okuragohama and decided to give it a try. Mind you, I had never done this before, so I decided to stick with body-boarding as a first step toward full-out surfing, and it came to me pretty easily. I had fully expected to make an ass of myself, but it was fun, and since the waves were pretty big I caught a few and really enjoyed myself, without getting too much seawater launched up my nose. I also managed to get a pretty fantastic sunburn, so that now my ass is more tender than Kobe beef. At least I'll get a good base for the summer though.
All in all, it was an amazing weekend, and I definitely have the surfing bug now. I'm thinking of going back down sometime later in the summer, because Miyazaki is the best place in Japan for it, and the people are so much more chilled out than in other places here...it's kind of like the California of Japan. Oita, being the Idaho of Japan, seems a little less exciting by comparison now...

So this is what I do

Well I thought to kick things off for my second entry, those of you back in Canada might be interested in seeing yours truly in action. While some of you previously knew me as a Startek phone jockey, activating cellphones for T-Mobile 8 hours a day, I want to show you how VASTLY my career prospects have improved. This is me teaching at my junior high school from last semester, Hamawaki. I'm doing an introductory lesson, and let me tell you folks, they're riveted to their seats. I love the fact that I have a captive audience, but I do try and make it interesting for them at any rate. How it works is that I have a base school, a senior high, namely Aoyama or "Blue Moutain" SH. I have been at this school since day 1, and will be there until I leave, as they're my main employer. However, once a week (Tuesdays, if you really care) they ship me off to a junior high, where it is my job to dance around and try to get the kids (who have like, next to NO English ability) to try and give the English language a chance. I've been lucky so far in that MOST of my Japanese colleagues have had pretty good attitudes and good English ability, but this is by no means always the case. I've heard of some ALTs (Assistant Language Teachers) who get stuck in a classroom with unruly kids, a teacher that can't help them out at all, and as they walk in the door are told "OK, they're all yours" in somewhat broken English.
So far, it's been quite the opposite for me, which I completely attribute to my charm and good looks. Usually the kids at my schools squeal in delight as I pull up on my bike or moped (they REALLY get a kick out of the moped), and the celebrity status...well let's say it's better than a kick in the pants. I think the reason they like me is largely due to the fact that I like playing games as much as they do, to be honest. Trying to get through a "serious lesson" is bloody murder, frankly, and I gave up on it after maybe 2 attempts. I realize now that teaching is more about imparting interest in the subject matter than it is about conveying information, and maybe, just maybe, if I trick them into paying attention long enough, they might just learn something anyway.

First post on the new Blog!

Well, here I am trying a blog for the second time since coming to Japan about a year ago. I hope this effort turns out better than the first...after setting up the first as a "Myspace" on MSN, the regional settings changed the whole bloody thing to Japanese, so I couldn't even add to it or figure out how to change it back. I'm not bitter though, I only spent about 4 HOURS setting that one up.
THIS, on the other hand, promises to be easier, better, and more fun, so here goes nothing. I plan to add, slowly but surely, an complete photo-journal and written account of the past 12 months here for all my friends and family, as well as the details of my trip to Thailand over Christmas. I have a lot of photos too...like 1000 or so! I'm a camera nut. For now, however, things are just coming together, so keep checking in and hopefully there should be something new every week. Thanks for taking an interest!