The Hawk has Landed

Just to let my faithful readers know that I have arrived in Chiang Mai. It's been a busy few days job searching, apartment hunting, and even browsing motorbikes! Hope all is well with everyone. Even those in the booming metropolis of Wilmington!

Holler at you place to be somebody!

Stars & Stripes

Tomorrow, I trade in this:

for this!

Remember in old school NHL for Genesis how they used to give the "3 STARS" of the game? EA SPORTS - "it's in the game!"

For the last couple weeks I have to give my 3 stars to the following performers:

Aunt Gail - representing the University of Delaware Blue Hens. She booked a flight to Thailand in a matter of moments after I told her I was moving there, renewed her passport, and will also be joining us on a trip to Angkor Wat/Cambodia! I am very excited.

Nargiz Mashuri - representing Arizona State Sun Devils. This Russian-speaking saviour helped me to ship all my winter stuff home to the U.S. I spent a lot of time (4 hours) and money to get it done, and Nargiz went through it all with me! Kaz postal service is a nightmare. They go through everything, itemize everything, weigh everything. They had to hand-sew (with a needle!) a cloth covering for my box. A lesson in inefficiency...

NEPA - captain Mark Sindaco - representing Penn State University. Mark, Melissa, Nick, Mimi, and lil Nicky have all been wonderful during my time here, keeping me updated, and sharing a little NorthEasternPA warmth. Speaking of post offices, these guys sent me a package well over a month ago and it still hasn't arrived. Well, maybe it has and some random Kazakhs are enjoying Season One of the The Office. I have a one hour window today and I'm going down to the post office to check. One last time!

[UPDATE: So in between exchanging Tenge to Dollars, lunch dates, and cramming my wardrobe into a suitcase, I went to Kaz Post to look for my package. With "The Hawk Will Never Die" attitude I tried every angle. After dropping clue words, they finally responded to the name "Joseph" & lo and behold there was my package. I had a very Shawshank moment! Mad props to Mountaintop and all the good Coal Crackers of the world. It must be cold there (but not as frigid as it's been here!) & their DVDs, CDs, and other fun stuff warmed me up. I tried to convince Amanda to cancel our dinner plans for a National Lampoon's Vacation marathon!]

Twenty four hours from now I will be on a flight bouncin' to Bangkok. I love & miss everyone. The journey continues...

Get Swole!

To prevent atrophy from setting in over the past few months, we have improvised our own weight-training regimen (with homemade weights of course!) Anything is game, from Pringle Cans filled with sand to bottles of vino!

(Amanda working the bench and Fanta bottles!)

(Joey knockin out the skull-crushers!)

Workout of the Week - "Tremendous Triceps" -This tricep excercise has three parts (convenient, huh?)
Motion A - Grip is parallel to body, thumb down

1)starting position 1

2)middle position 1

3)finishing position (same as starting position 1)

Motion B - Switch grips (palm and knuckles facing you)

1)starting position 2

2)middle position 2

3)finishing position (same as starting position 2)

Motion C - Switch grips & make a motion like you are heiling a former German dictator (rhymes with "Schmitler")

1)starting position 3

2)middle position 3

3)finishing position 3
In total, do three sets of 10 for A,B, & C. Switch arms. Use lighter weight since this totals 90 reps (more tone rather than mass) per arm.


A couple weekends ago, we had Italiano Night at Casa Di G. (thanks to the Gerace family gnocchi package!)



No, it wasn't Ash Wednesday in Kazakhstan. We concluded the evening with a rowdy game of P.I.G.

The first person with "P.I.G." scrawled across her forehead was Amanda, so she had to do there dare. Click the youtube video below to watch:

Into the Sunset...

[This is the last of the Thailand posts. Please scroll down to read prior posts. But we are not done with Thailand... yet. One week from today, I move from Almaty, Kazakhstan to Chiang Mai, Thailand. I will finish out my time in a warmer and well worth it location (literally and figuratively). Details to come. For those who wouldn't visit me in KZ (I don't blame ya), all I can say is Thailand may be more appealing... PEACE]

The first day of 2008 involved a ferry back to the mainland, a taxi to the airport, and our final domestic flight back to Bangkok. There was an afternoon of pirating some last minute booty and souvenirs. Speaking of “booty”, we hit Patpong, yet another red-light district, but with (yet another!) Night Market. This area was Lady Boy Central. As Tone Loc said, “Sheila was a man!” I felt bad for all the duped dudes hanging all over the girls or guys or whatever! But it was fun to take in the sights on our last night in Bangkok.

This kid shared the floor with us on our ferry back to the mainland

Good snaps behind every corner

And I thought the McRib sandwich was only native to the Salesianum cafeteria...
Spent the last morning exploring one of our favorite Bangkok areas – the Khao San Road. This area caters to young travelers and has the funkiest goods - everything from travel packages to Laos, hip-hop gear, to beautiful, yet affordable, prints and paintings. It was also here 2 weeks ago that we picked up some used books and vowed to come back. All kinds of cozy brick streets are in this area with cheap eats and souvenir stalls. Eventually made it back to home base and crammed everything into our bags. Melancholy ride to the airport, got to the gate, and flew back to reality (ie 90 degrees at the Thai beaches / 9 degrees at the Kazkh airport!)

If you’ve made it this far (phew), seriously THANK YOU for reading the recap. I decided to end it with the following pictures of the last shimmering sunset of 2007 from the boat trip. As they say in Thai, “Ma goong rai jed teksee. Hong suam yu tee nai!!!” (translation: My shrimp costs fourteen taxis. Thank you for the green toilet!)

Ringing in the New Year

Amanda was feeling better by 12/31/07 so we booked an afternoon boat trip on New Year’s Eve. The beaches were not as cheap as the rest of T-Land, but for about 14USD this trip included a sunset boat trip, snorkeling, hiking, kayaking, swimming, fruit, & food. All of this was around and on a smaller, nearby island, Phi Phi Ley. This island is home to lots of neat things. It has the “beach” and Maya Bay where the Leonardo Dicaprio movie (what a cowinky-dink name) The Beach was shot. There were lagoons, reefs, monkeys, and caves (where the locals climb poles to get the famous swallow nests that fetch over $1,000 USD; they are coveted in Chinese soups). Here come the pics!

Like lookin' in a mirror

Karst cliffs

In and around Phi Phi Ley

A cave where they climb up to find swallow nests

Finding Nemo

Fishes

Motoring around Phi Phi Ley (it's a protected park)

Island (not) in the sun

Where's Leonardo?

After the boat trip, it was a power shower and off for a late dinner. We then migrated to some beach bars and intermixed with the locals and tourists, all of which were in a very festive mood. We watched a smattering of fireworks (which look cool against the big rugged cliffs) and saw many people lighting these neat lanterns with fire and sending them off to the stars. Awesome sight once 3 or 4 dozen of them were floating upward into the night. The drink of Phi Phi is The Bucket. Every storefront sells them & the beach bars seem to exclusively sell them. They involve a plastic toy bucket (all sizes – some up to 5 gallons). Then there are a slew of bottles in the bucket. They provide the ice, open all the bottles, and let them gurgle empty into your bucket. Throw in a few straws and that’s your devilish drink. Everyone was getting crunk on them. The one I got had a bottle of Red Bull (once again – Thailand is home to Red Bull and construction workers apparently pound them more than the bar/club-goers), a bottle of Thai whiskey, a bottle of Vodka (I think), a can of Coke and a can of Sprite. I’ve handled the Hand Grenade on Bourbon Street and cruised through a few Orange Crushes in Dewey, but the Bucket is for the brave only. I finished about ¼ of it. Looking around, I didn’t feel too embarrassed because not many other people seemed to get past the ¼ mark either. Walked Amanda and her stomachache home and I people-watched around the main hubs before calling it a night (and a year!)

Not exactly Times Square (Thank God!)

Lighting a lantern

Sending it up

After a few dozen are sent up they look like UFOs

You Down wit' O Phi Phi?!? Yeah, You Know Me!

After being swarmed with guesthouse come-ons, we threw our stuff into a suitable room for Phi Phi (pronounced ‘pee’ ‘pee’) and went and explored the island. The island had a little of everything (beautiful beaches, bars, kayaking, snorkeling, diving, hiking, restaurants, shopping) to offer for everyone (families, backpackers, honeymooners, soccer hooligans, rich Euros). We fit in nicely and were happy with our choice of Phi Phi over bigger resort areas like Phuket and Koh Samui or other trendier areas like Koh Lanta or Koh Pha Ngan. Phi Phi Don (the biggest island and the one everyone eats/sleeps on) had no drivable roads and construction was ongoing. I assume it has been since the December 26, 2004 Tsunami. So it was an appropriate mix of paradise & reality.

Up the tsunami escape route to a viewpoint of the barbell shaped Phi Phi Don

The left side of the bay; Phi Phi Ley is the island in the background

Sihlouette of Phi Phi Amanda

Sihlouette of Phi Phi Ley

On day two of Phi Phi, I felt back to normal and Amanda & I went to a nice, quieter beach. She gulped down some curry on the way there and that was the beginning of the tsunami in her stomach. It put her down for the count for a couple days. So I made a few Gatorade runs and saw some sights while she rested her rumbles. Phi Phi was full of interesting characters and fun things to explore and it was a good place to spend the end of 2007…

Even secluded Phi Phi was tagged up with lyrics from the old school joint "Just a Friend." Nobody beats the Biz!