It's been a very long time and It's pretty difficult to post from China, but hopefully this will keep you going until I get off my butt and organize my photos.



View from the hotel, it looks a lot like Dubai. There's construction everywhere, but at least there's no sand.


View from the back of the hotel. This whole area is going to be an underground shopping mall with a huge park on top. ETA, early 2010. It's going to be a great area.


The view from our bedroom, the Pearl River. Looks beautiful, but I wouldn't go swimming in it.


Views from Macau. Kind of like Vegas, but not really. It's pretty small and there's no strip, but there are strip clubs.


More Macau.


Mt best mate, Nathan, his wife Mardy and their baby Maddy. He was in Macau, but now he's in Singapore.




Food


Food


Playing with the camera.

Random stuff from Thailand

Well, we're running short of time. I've only got another 10 days before we make the move to China and I haven't had any time to update the blog. There's just so much stuff left to get done before we go. I still have to sell my truck, clean the apartment and we still have to get our visas finalized. Usually Lucy would kick my ass to get me going but she's in Kenya until Tuesday so I have to motivate myself. I'm packing the Xbox as soon as I get home tonight so I won't be distracted. And for some reason, spell check doesn't want to work today, but I'm not stressing the little things, yet.

This is just a post filled with random pictures from Thailand. I have one more post about Bangkok to finish this journey and then I'll send pictures from our new home. This time, all the pictures were taken by me, except for the pictures which include me. They were taken by random strangers.

This first photo is a picture of my last tattoo. It is an homage to Bryan Hitch, one of the greatest comic book artists to ever live, and I've always wanted a Thor tattoo. It's kind of a new school twist on an old school theme. The work was done at Thai Tattoo Studio in Pattaya and I would highly recommend the shop. It got a little infected so I lost some of the ink and will have to get it touched up, but that was my fault, not the tattoo artist or his shop. I've been in hospitals that weren't that clean.

This is the original peice that the tattoo was based on. It only took 10 1/2 hours to complete.

Assortment of Buddahs

Releasing song birds. It's supposed to help with your karma and we fugure I can use all the help I can get.

Prayer bells in Pattaya.

Carvings from the Sancuary of Truth.

Tigers from the Sriracha Tiger Zoo

Assorted Flora

Eastward Bound!!!

We'll, I've finally done it, I've handed in my resignation letter. We're finally leaving this place and heading somewhere green, and just in time. It reached 57 Celcius last summer and I don't want to go through that again. I've been offered, and accepted a postion at the Grand Hyatt Guangzhou to run thier "G" restarant and bar.

"G"

Let me show you what we're leaving. Once again, photos are not by me because I'm too lazy, but I'll start taking a couple before we leave.

Big city

Big city from further out covered by a haze of dust and pollution.

Big city from further out covered by a haze of dust and pollution surrounded by dry, dusty "mountains"

Big city from further out covered by a haze of dust and pollution surounded by dry, dusty "mountains" surrounded by dirt.


I know I sound a little jaded, but we've been here for over 8 years. It's just time for a change. But this is what we're going to,

"Guangzhou is part of the Pearl River Delta. It has a humid subtropical climate influenced by the Asian monsoon. Summers are wet with high temperatures and a high humidity index. Winters are mild, dry and sunny." and it's close to Hong Kong and Macau and a lot closer to Canada than I am now. I can now get a direct flight instead of having to stop-over in Europe. It's also close enough to Vietnam that we can drive, providing we get all the paper work completed. Anyway, I'll give you more information when I have time.

The real reason we went to Thailand...the tattoo post! Part 1

The biggest reason I wanted to go to Thailand was for the ink. I had been researching and e-mailing artists from all over South East Asia for the past year until I found the right one. We'll get back to him later because I couldn't wait for my appointment to come so I went to another shop, "Lek Tattoo".

I'm a bit of a Sci-Fi geek and I thought it was time to show it. I'd found a pretty cool graffiti style Storm Trooper on-line and I knew just how to personalize it, Lucy's name in her native tongue is Njeri. I showed Lek the photo, explained what I want and he went to work with pad and paper. He finished the drawing and, after my approval, created a transfer. This is the transfer on my calf. "Why the calf?" you may ask. Because that's where it belongs.

The story begins...

He disinfects everything, sets up his inks and readies his needles. In a few short moments I hear that familiar buzz. Like locusts in a late summer swarm "chk-chk-chk-chk...".
Needles pierces the skin and the pain fills me. It only takes a moment for the endorphins to rush through my body and I start to giggle from the pleasure. It takes about an hour, oh sweet agony, for Lek to finish the outline.

We take a bit of a break, I quit smoking some time ago but Lucy can see my pain and says she doesn't mind if I have a couple today. I puff away as Lek changes his needles. The outline is done with a single needle to give a clean, crisp line. Filling-in is done with a "brush" of 7 needles. A couple more puffs and he's ready to go. I lie back in the chair and brace for the pain. Once again, it fades quickly. I become numb to the pain and I actually find myself nodding off.

I awake with a start! It feels as though someone is trying to burn through my leg with a blowtorch but I can't smell any smoke. I takes me a minute to get my bearings. And then I remember, the endorphin rush only lasts for an hour or so and then it's all reality. I grit my teeth to stop myself from squirming. I'm flexing every muscle, muscles I didn't even know I had, to try and escape this agony. It doesn't work. I'm trying to fill my head with nonsense to stop the shrieking inside my skull. "Let see, machine is set at 94 Hertz, that's 94 times a second that my skin is being pierced. He's been at this for and hour.", it takes me few moments to sort through the numbers, "With a seven needle brush that's... 2,368,800 times... and we're not even halfway through!". We take a couple of breaks over the next four hours as I cling to the remnants of my sanity.

Finally, the needle stops and I start to get up..."It's not yet finished.", says Lek. The silence is deafening. "How much longer?" I ask feebly through trembling lips. "Five Minutes...", he just has to change his needle again because I wanted a splash of colour. A splash of colour? I sit there debating whether or not I need colour. "It's only five minutes." I tell myself. "I'll kill you!" I tell myself. Once again, my old friend nicotine comes to the rescue and the pain starts to subside. He's ready. I crawl back on to the bench, dreading what's about to happen, questioning every part of my soul. "What led me down this path? Why do I feel the need to do this to myself?" My questions are interrupted again by the blowtorch...and then it's done.


We stagger home, Lucy trying to prop me up as the exhaustion washes over me. I'm shaking. I struggle to get some nourishment in to me before I collapse. At this point I want amputation, and the worse is yet to come. I won't be able to walk properly for three or four days. I collapse on the bed, I can't even undress myself. My sleep is restless, constant shuddering and cold chills sweep across my entire being. I just want to die.


I can't wait to get another one.

Good boys go to heaven... bad boys go to Pattaya

I was pretty excited about going to Pattaya. I had been in contact with a local tattoo artist about getting some work done and Lucy was looking forward to hanging out on the beach. But we were warned by everyone we knew that this was not the place for couples. They couldn't have been more wrong. We had the time of our life! Some of the pictures were not taken by me because I hate carrying around a camera, especially if I'm going to be drinking.

We managed to get a cheep flight from Khon Kean to Bangkok and took a taxi from the airport to Pattaya. This is the average taxi in Thailand. I have no idea how they see out the windows with all the clutter. I guess the Buddha protects them.

I took just over an hour to arrive and we were greeted by this banner. I didn't take any photos of the music festival because they were all Thai bands that I didn't know and I assumed that none of you would know them either.

Closer inspection of the banner revealed that Pattaya is the " Relax to the Extreme" city. A very fitting slogan.

The beaches were beautiful and full of people. The weather was perfect, it was just warm enough and the smell of rain hung in the air.

Our hotel was the P72 Bar and Restaurant on walking street. Walking street, so named because there are no cars allowed after 7:00 PM, is crammed with hotels, stores, chemists...you name it. Every square inch is being used for something and every shop has a neon sign above it, making navigation pretty difficult.


It wasn't the greatest hotel, the rooms were pretty clean except for a couple of long hairs in the bed and a pretty filthy bedspread (we had a good idea were the stains came from). Good thing we had purchased a new one while we were in Khon Kean. We thought we would have a bit of a nap and a quick shower before going out to explore. Night and day is an understatement for what we saw. I guess the sign across from our hotel saying "Lucifer" should have tipped us off.

If you look at the signs, most of them are GoGo Bars. It took a couple of days for Lucy to work up the courage to enter and she was pretty shocked by what she saw. On the stage in the middle of the bar are about 30 naked girls, each of them has a small number taped to their side. The customer comes in, picks out whatever girl he wants, negotiates a price, pays the "Bar Fine" and takes the girl home. Just like buying groceries, nowadays you have to par extra for the bags.

We stayed for a drink and then continued our exploration. This place is called Gulliver's Walking Street , and it's packed every night. We stopped in for a couple of minutes and then I started to get a bit agro due to the lack of space and lack of service.

Molly Malone's Irish Pub became our home away from home. It was stumbling distance to our hotel, the drinks were reasonable, the food was great, no "Bar Girls" and very couple friendly, and they even played every match during the 6 nations. Lucy went there by herself while I was getting tattooed and she wasn't hassled. The manager, Ewin, took really good care of us. It was really loud the night we arrived. We stopped in because I was jonesing for a pint of Guinness and discovered that it was St. Patrick's day and Guinness was 2 for 1! Sometimes I have all the luck.

The next few are just some of the sights we observed. Most of the clubs had girls dancing in front.





This is one of the Thai Lady boys. The rule of thumb in Thailand, if you see a group of women, the most beautiful one is usually not a women.


This is a Baht Bus. You pay a few cents and hop on. They travel all the way around Pattaya so it doesn't really matter which one you catch, you'll always end up close to home eventually. As we were riding one of these, one of the Lady boys decided to show Lucy her equipment.

We stumbled in to this area while we were looking for food. I think it's called Soi Pattayaland, but everyone just refers to it as Soi Boyz Town. This is like walking street except that the girls on stage in the GoGos are replaced by young boys. We went in a small GoGo for a drink but Lucy gets a bit shy. It was reminiscent of a night out with Joseph.

This is another pretty common sight. "Short Time" rooms rented by the hour.


Our best discovery was the shisha. It's a flavoured tobacco smoked through a water pipe and one of our favourite pastimes in Dubai. We were very surprised and happy to find it here. The staff were amazing. The owner was from Pakistan, the head waiter was from India, the shisha guy was from Burma and there were a couple of Thai waitresses. Every single one of them spoke Thai, Hindi, Russian, German, Japanese and English and the owner spoke Italian as well. We were very impressed. We started off almost every night here.

Followed by live music at the Hot Tuna. The bands weren't that good but it was nice just to hear a little distorted guitar. We don't get the chance to see live music in Dubai very often. Although I saw Iron Maiden recently and Motorhead was just in town.

After the music, we'd head to this night club called Club Insomnia for dancing. The DJ used to work for Lucy in Dubai and he was pretty good, if you like that kind of thing. The best part was the bar downstairs. It was open until 8:00AM every day. I would highly recommend it to all. We got a membership card for 100 Baht and it gave us 20% of in both bars. It paid for itself the first night.

Another one of our favourites from home. Shawarma! The clubs start closing at around 3:00AM and the food carts start coming out. We had some really good pork sate, really bad pizza and some really really good phad thai.

We arrived at the beginning of the rainy season and there was a deluge almost every afternoon, but no amount of water can wash away the filth that is the "Relax to the Extreme" city. I can't wait to get back.