Capetonian in the Land of Smiles: September 2011

Thursday 29 September 2011

No Horny Ghosts?

A sticker on the window of a taxi. I'm a bit confused as to what the one on the far left means...
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Apartment Decor Addition #3

Took forever, but I'm quite happy with the results...
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Apartment Decor Addition #2

Some wall stickers added more art to my walls.
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Wednesday 28 September 2011

Apartment Decor Addition #1

I was sick and tired of the bare walls in my apartment and the lack of hooks on the walls for hanging things so I used prestik to stick this poster to the wall.
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Tuesday 27 September 2011

Bowling Buddies

Nickie, Sam and Sherif chilling on the couches before the game.
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Blu-O Major Bowl

The bowling alley we went to on Saturday. You can bowl, play pool or do some karaoke, if you want, and they have a full food and drink menu if you're feeling peckish.
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Getting wet and wild...

Me and my plastic raincoat in the crowd at the LP concert.
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The band was great, but from an organizing point of view the concert was an absolute disaster...

The seated seat I spent 2000baht on turned out to be standing so most of the time I couldn't see much. The concert was outside in the pouring rain so I spent most of my time sweating in a plastic raincoat.

LP was about 3hours late and only started at about 10pm (after we'd been there since 6,the show had started at 7 and we had had to suffer through 2 local bands and about 1.5 cumulative hours of just standing around waiting). So by the time they played I really just wasn't feeling it anymore...
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Monday 26 September 2011

Ready, steady, EAT!

One of the activities was a kind of eating competition slash race. The race had 4 legs: First the students had to eat a banana as fast as they could, next appeared to be a big slice of mango (the Thais like their mangoes green and crunchy), followed by downing a 500ml bottle of water and then finally blowing up a balloon til it bursts.
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Teacher Sports Activity

Two teachers from each team had to take part. A balloon was tied to each of their ankles and they had to try and burst each other's balloons with their feet. Hilarious to watch...
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Sunday 25 September 2011

The Green Team

They seemed to have some sort of traditional theme.
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The Yellow Team

I have no idea what their theme was supposed to be, but with the yellow and black they kinda reminded me of bees...
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The Blue Team

Their cheering squad had an Avatar theme.

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The Pink Team

My team and also the winning team for cheers. The cheerleaders' costumes had a very burlesque look going.
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The Orange Team

The cheerleaders for the orange team gave a beautiful performance. The costumes were gorgeous and they kinda reminded me of a ballet company... All grace and poise.
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Who let the dogs out?!

A pack of street dogs came out to watch the parade.
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The Pink Parade

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Welcome to the Circus

Parading through the streets for sports day.
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Thursday 22 September 2011

But mom...

I don't wanna get up...
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Wednesday 21 September 2011

Smells Like Teen Spirit

An interesting take on air fresheners... One for 39baht, 3 for 100. I obviously got three.
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Forest Ghost

For love and luck. Made in China. These little keyrings were one one the prizes for the students for English Camp, which was today. Each of the teachers got one too.

Each of us had an activity station to man. Mine was Arts and Crafts, where I had the students draw a word out of a bag and then paint a picture of the item on their slip of paper.
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Tuesday 20 September 2011

My Preciousssssss

Can't WAIT for Friday!!!
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Some Loot

I only brought one handbag with me and every one who knows me, knows that I am addicted to handbag shopping. So I just added these two to my new collection...
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The VIP Treatment

Nickie and I went to the cinema last night and I had the chance to enjoy Johnny English Reborn in one of these plush reclining chairs with a pillow behind my neck and a blanket to relax under. Heaven...
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Thai Tots

Incredibly cute...
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World's Largest Wake Pool

The park apparently has the world's largest artificial wake pool. I didn't go in, but was decidedly unimpressed.
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The Water Park

The pool area was quite nice. They had these huge waterslides (where I managed to take the skin off my lower back and almost drowned) as well as a huge supertube which was loads of fun. Sam, Katie and I stood in the pool and chucked a ball around with a couple of Thai guys who afterwards insisted on bringing us shots of beer.
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The Mega Dance

Or I think that's what the ride was called... We wanted to go on it, but had to pay extra so decided we'll get a daypass next time and hit all the rides.
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Monday 19 September 2011

Fountastic

One of the many fountains throughout the park.
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Double-Decker Merry-Go-Round

I didn't try it though...
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So Many Motorcycles...

An entire parkinglot FULL of motorcycles outside the park. Apparently about 60% of the registered vehicles in Thailand are motorcycles.
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Siam City Park

Kind of has a Disneylandish look to it from the outside
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Get the Party Started!

Just an idea of the volume of Shock 39. Entrance was 300bht (ouch), but the party was off the hook! They played a lot of commercial stuff and even Gasolina made the rounds...
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Shock 39

A huge club that was packed and pumping.
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Snorpedo!

Wouter insisted that all he wanted was a big mustache... So I gave him what he asked for...
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The Bold and the Beautiful

Sam from New Zealand, Avtar from India and Sherif who is Thai-Egyptian.
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The Lovely Luis

He avoided the face painting at first, but we were very persistent...
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The Hooker Clown

The birthday boy's Dutch girl friends (in the background) joined us at Glow and decided that he needed this sexy little number to complete his look.
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The Art of Transformation

How to turn a German into a Frenchman 101.
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Revenge has long teeth...

The birthday boy got revenge on me for the clown makeup by turning me into a bunny for the night...
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Inside Bubble Bar

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Bubble Bar

Cute new bar in RCA with a lovely nautical theme.
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Marking with Style

My red Miffy pen at least puts a smile on my face when I'm doing my marking.
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Tuesday 13 September 2011

My Kingdom for a Tan!

Now being a typical Capetonian girl (my goth friends will want to stone me for this) I like getting a nice tan when I can. Funnily enough, despite the extreme climate in Thailand, this has proven to be somewhat of a challenge here... The Thai women are extremely skin-conscious and subscribe to the notion that the whiter your skin is, the more attractive you are. This leads to the (in my case) extremely inconvenient state of affairs that all female beauty products in Thailand contain whitening agents designed to lighten your skin. From the body lotions to the deodorants, they all proudly sport the words "UV Whitening" or "Ultra Skin Lightening System" and the like.

Now being a person who believes in good personal hygiene I obviously need to use these products, making it nigh impossible for me to get a tan, with the result that my naturally olive skin is left looking decidedly pasty...

Chasing Cars

I had an interesting experience the other night when Nickie and I left LED. When we got to her car, which she had parked in a parking garage, we were parked in. I then sat astonished and watched as she started pushing cars out of the way so she could get her car out. We had about 3 cars we had to push out of the way before there was enough space for us to get out!

Thailand has no traffic department to regulate traffic violations so this duty falls to the police. They have a department of Transportation where you go to get your license and such, but the actual policing of traffic violations is done by the police force. Which, of course, means that it's practically non-existent.

So there we were, after a night of partying, pushing cars around like a real-life game of Tetris. Which in turn had me wondering if anyone in Thailand actually puts their handbrake up...?