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Ola Rio and accidentally, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Post Date : 2016-05-01
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Feb.24 - 29
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Feb 29 - Mar 1, 2016
Three years ago, I had the wish to visit Brazil but upon learning about their reciprocal visa program, sort of a political tit-for-tat, I had put it off until I finally had the reason to do so and it was to present my research paper titled "Golden Dragon Wok: A Visual Survey of the Evocative Essence of Chinese Restaurant Signage Designs in American Chinatowns" at the Tenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices from 25-27 February 2016 at the Pontifical Catholic University in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The visa application had been an arduous process, not to mention expensive due to the fact that there is no consulate general nearby and the only two options are to either drive to Chicago and wait in line for a 2-hour window of opportunity to submit or to submit online, I decided on the later which end up costing $463, inclusive of the $160 visa. Without the generous stipend that I was once entitled to while teaching in Singapore, I have expected to cough up some money of my own but luckily most of my research fund from the current university managed to cover for it but it took a lot of planning. I totally didn't expect a faux pas on my side. Traveling with United Airlines notoriously known for their delays and as expected, there was, I made the biggest mistake that most travelers shouldn't have: not going all the way to the gate. The air stewardess announced a time in Houston that was half an hour earlier and since I needed the Brazilian currency and some food, those two ended up costing me to miss my flight. It was the first time I had ever missed an international flight. It was my mistake for not getting to the gate to check. In order to kill time till tomorrow, I had to stay in the town of Humble, Texas overnight and to board on the following night. The extra time at the airport was used to work on my slides which needed many more hours of revisions.
Since I lost a day, some parts of the conference had to give. Originally, it was planned that I have an extra day before the start of the conference on the 25th but I decided that I had to visit Christ the Redeemer and for 4 hours, I joined a tour group which was more like a 2-hour trip because we spent a lot of time in the traffic and sometimes just driving through parts of town where we were being told to look to the left or right for interesting spots. When it was my turn to present, half the attendees had either left or were at the beach. It was a fluke that I picked the Mar Ipanema hotel close to the beach and the beach culture here was unparalleled to the rest I have seen so far and it didn't seem strange to have men and women walking down the street in their swimming gear. Not being able to converse in Portuguese was admittedly a problem but it wasn't impossible to make small attempts in my very limited Spanish as the two languages bear similar resemblance. With a visa that was expensive to obtain and luckily, with one that expires in 10 years, it is likely that I will be back.
Click here for images posted in Facebook.
Original post: Feb 29, 2016
Ola Rio and accidentally, Sao Paulo, Brazil (part 2)
Post Date : 2016-05-01
On the day of departure from Rio on Feb 29, I boarded a taxi after leaving my luggage at the hotel to head to the Pao de Acucar or the Sugarloaf Mountain, knownm for its resemblance to the traditional shape of concentrated refined loaf sugar. It was two rides on the cable car and I got to enjoy the panoramic views of the city. It started raining but at least on Feb. 29, which was a Monday, there wasn't much of a line. I totally didn't expect the rain to turn into a thunderstorm which caused my flight from Rio to Sao Paulo at the Santos Dumont International Airport at 5 PM to be cancelled. By the time the rain was light enough for trains to take off, it was almost 12 midnight when we were taken to a hotel, courtesy of the airline, Azul. There was a frantic need for me to notify my Monday classes that they had to be cancelled.
With some time to kill, Sao Paulo which originally was a transit city became an unexpected destination and the time was used to pay a visit to the Liberdade, the Japantown of Sao Paulo. I noticed a noticeable population of Chinese and Koreans who also live in that district. The entrance to the Liberdade is marked by an arch that reminds me of those are similarly found in other American and Western Chinatowns. It was an hour on the taxi from the hotel and I had allowed myself some 3 hours to kill. The streets were short and it seemed the best way for remembering Sao Paolo was to buy something so R$54 was charged to my MasterCard for a wooden dish and a "pakua." A pakua (or bagua) is a motif which incorporates the eight trigrams of the I Ching, arranged octagonally around the yin and yang symbol on a mirror. It was strange that both items were purchased from a store that also sells primarily the effigies of the Catholic faith. Nothing says diversity more than that! United Airlines touched down on March 2 at 11 AM. I was beyond fatigue as I usually couldn't get much of a shuteye when I travel. However, I was simply glad that after three years of wishing to visit Brazil, it finally happened and was over with.
Original post: Feb 29, 2016
Click here for images posted in Facebook.
Click here for the link to the conference.
Mom's 1st trip to the United States
Post Date : 2016-10-03
Mom paid me a visit to the USA for the first time and our trip was a pre-cursor to my eventual trip to Asia. At 83 years of age, taking a 30-hour flight is not to be taken lightly, considering that she had just suffered from a mild stroke a year before. It was a mental, health, and financial planning that took months and thousands of dollars to realize. Due to her mobility, brother had to accompany her and his friend Ah Chiang who has never stepped on the US soil with the exception of brother who had visited me in 1995 when he represented the family when I graduated with my Master's from San Francisco State University. Both Jin and Ah Chiang got their American visa from the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur while mom secured hers from the American embassy in Singapore last year before she parted for Malaysia and I headed to the States to start my new teaching position. The visit lasted for only 3 weeks, starting with their arrival on May 30, 2016. Mom would like to stay longer but I wouldn't be able to conduct my research in Asia and it would be unthinkable to leave her alone in the house.
On the day of their arrival on May 10, I waited impatiently at the Louisville airport in Kentucky and when I saw an airport personnel wheeled mom out with bro and Ah Chiang were by her sides, I got emotional. I was busily tracking their flight using flightaware.com. United Airline flight 3610 from Chicago was delayed for about 45 minutes due to thunderstorm and they arrived in Louisville at 9:20 PM. My brother, Jin, is truly a filial son. He had sold his Kawasaki to help fund for the trip and insisted on paying for mom but I couldn't let him do it as his business has been in the red. It was quite a challenge to stuff all their luggage and to pack 4 people into my tiny VW Beetle. It took some ingenuity in organizing and body contortion. It didn't help that it started raining the moment Jin tried to get their luggage in the car and it started to pour heavily but we got home. Everyone especially mom was delighted to see my home for the first time. I had gone through a long list of items to prepare the house. I even returned a cot but finally settled on two sets of air mattresses for them while mom would be sleeping on my bed with me. We removed the carpet when we noticed that mom could potentially trip on it.
It had been a long flight for them but m y neighbor was surprised that I had immediately put bro and Ah Chang to work. Ah Chiang had been forewarned and he didn't seem to mind being Mr. Handyman. I appreciated their help as I had been helpless in that department. I had been holding off purchasing a lawn mower and bro suggested that I should get an electric one since there is no pulling on the street to start a conventional gas mower. In addition to fiddling with the mechanism, putting up with the loud noise generated by the motor, the smelly petrol and other messy oils, electric mowers would be more befitting although the price would be significantly more. Going to places like Home Depot, Lowe's, and Menards were a big treat for them as they were amazed at the sheer number of selections as well as the size of these gigantic stores. In addition to the mower, I also bought a drill, hedge trimmer, shove, jigsaw blade, screws, nuts, bolts, and a host of other devices which they need to help with my home improvement. I could only imagine a 4-figure check to be written to pay off the debt on the credit cards I had been charging. However, the closet doors were no longer flighty, the main door no longer hit slam on the side of the wall, the shed got a face lift, the window sills got a fresh layer of white paint and those ugly old posts in the backyard were removed. They also trimmed neighbor's trees that crept into my backyard, installed new LED lights for the kitchen, laundry area and the area outside the toilet. Finally, the decrepit old wooden fence that separated the back of the house was removed and replaced with a new black metal gate from Lowe's.
On day 5, after mom recovers from jet lag, we drove to the Outlet Shoppes of the Bluegrass in Simpsonville, Kentucky. Using Skype on my Iphone, bro called sister-in-law and they video-conference to discuss which type of Coach bags to buy. Apparently, outlet stores offer huge savings when compared to stores in Malaysia, even when they were on mega sale. Bro and Chiang were merciless in shopping, much to my amazement as they piled on shopping bags after bags with T-shirts, sunglasses, and other knick-knacks. Mom's wheelchair handles became makeshift shopping bag holders. I got in the act too as I purchased a new Coach wallet. At Gap, mom bought two blouses for her two granddaughters.
When everyone has fully recovered from jet lagging, we took a few road trips such as Chicago, as it one of the cities in North America for my Chinatown signage research on May 17-19 followed by Cincinnati on the 22nd. The latter wasn't in my list of cities for research but it was close enough for a day trip. It was unexpected to find the lady owner of a Chinese restaurant we visited would hail from Perak, Malaysia. We quickly reverted from Mandarin to Hokkien, the Chinese dialect spoken by most Northern Chinese Malaysians. Mary suggested the Cincinnati premium outlet in Monroe, Ohio. Ah Chang and Jin seemingly were more delighted compared to the signage museum that I had originally planned. We also had plans to visit Chattanooga to visit James and Sarah Magro, a buddy of mine and his mother but a new development with his maternal grandfather's health caused us to cancel the trip. Bro and Chiang left for NYC on May 25 - 28, leaving mom with me which. It was great as we could spend some time together. However, on May 27, she gave me the scare of my life when she fell in the living room when she got up to pick up a peanut from the floor. The three-legged coffee table provided no support despite other precautionary measures to prevent any mishap. I had moved the table away but when I noticed that she had to reach over, I moved the coffee table closer. I wasn't going to win in either situation. I was in the kitchen heating up some corn for us and I couldn't be gladder that she was fine. It was sad in reflecting that as one ages, simple tasks could pose risks. She kept arguing with me that she could stay much longer without any supervision and this little accident proved otherwise.
James was initially skeptical about mom taking such an arduous trip was impressed with her strength. All in all, they enjoyed the idyllic lifestyle and how much more affordable things such as cars and houses, in particular are in my neck of the wood. To facilitate our return trip, I decided to rent a car but the car rental office nearby was closed on a weekend which left me with no choice but to rent a bigger car from the Louisville airport on the 29th of May so that we could drive there the next day for a long journey home together. It turned out to be a great decision because everything and everyone, including the loot from shopping, fit snugly into the SUV.
Original post: Sep 18, 2016
Click here images from my travels.
The first leg of my research trip: Penang, Malaysia
Post Date : 2016-10-03
Penang, Malaysia
June 3 - 4, 2016
The trip back to Malaysia marked the first visit after I started my new teaching position in Indiana, USA in August of 2015. This memorable trip marked a momentous event where mom had flown all the way from Malaysia together with brother and his friend, Chiang to visit, although it was only for three weeks. Her desire to visit the son she misses was seemingly a driving factor but we found out that it was because she never really liked her caretaker we had hired. Penang, Malaysia, became the first leg of the stop for my summer research fellowship. The funding allowed me to cover the five Asian cities as the first leg of my research for restaurant signage in Chinatowns strewn in far flung places in Asia, North America and Europe. Penang has a sizeable ethnic Chinese population of 42% and it has the highest population density in Malaysia with 2,032 per square kilometer on the island as compared to only 866 on the mainland (according to Georgetown.my). As the 3rd largest economy in Malaysia, Penang also boasts a rich cultural heritage.
The family-oriented research trip wasn't such a great idea due to accommodations being made for my two nieces and their parents who came along. In addition, if I had more generous funding, I would have been able to spend more time on the island. Initially, we had no intention to stay overnight but the two kids made such a raucous that we decided to check out several hotels. Our first stop was at Container Hotel but we quickly realized that at an affordable RM49 (US12) per night rate, it would be better suited for me alone so we settled in a hotel called Sovereign. They dropped me off at Chulia Street for my photo documentation and I realized that without a real Chinatown, the only viable option was to focus on restaurants along that street. I stumbled upon the renowned Teochew cendol which had been operating since 1936 and although I was tempted to try the local delicacy, the long line became a deterrent.. When I joined bro and his family later in the afternoon, the famous street art on Armenian Street popularized by the Lithuanian-born artist who graduated with Honors from Middlesex University in London, Ernest Zacharevic became a spot to take pictures. The mural that put Penang on the map showcased a real bicycle with two painted kids on it and was commissioned in 2012 by the Penang Municipal Council to create a street art project in Georgetown called 'Mirrors George Town.'
We walked to McAllister Street which was near the hotel and I treated everyone durians for RM90 (US$22) before returning to the hotel at 1030 PM. On the next day, June 4, we went souvenir shopping for some red wooden Chinese clogs and we rented a multiple rider bicycle and pedaled around near the jetty area before driving to the Upside Down Museum. They had planned the place well and managed to squeeze many upside down scenes into the two story building and they also had staffs who take pictures while groups of people lined up patiently for their turn. When I saw the coin souvenir machine between the 1st and 2nd floors on the stairs, I paid a hefty RM5 (US$1.25) for it as it has become customary for me to collect them. Machines like these in the States are dime and dozen and would typically only cost only 51 cents in which the penny was needed making the souvenir. We left the main island and drove to Butterworth which is under the governance of Penang but is attached to the peninsula to meet up with Ah Chiang. He had left some of his items with us as we distributed our belongings to avoid overweight luggage on our way back. His appreciation cost him RM140 (US$35) for our dinner. The conversion was misleading as it would have cost about the same in US Dollars, if not more, if we were having seafood in a Chinese restaurant. It was great to see mom who had been anxiously waiting for us to come home. The trip was a lot of fun and more importantly it was an opportunity to rekindle my relationship with my two nieces.
Original post: Sep 18, 2016
Click here images from my travels.
2nd leg of research trip: Manila, Philippines
Post Date : 2016-10-03
Manila, Philippines
June 17 - 20, 2016
Nicknamed as one of the Asia's worst airport from 2011-2013, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport seemed to have still remained in a time warp because of its antiquated looks. Accordingly, the airport is still being complained for "poor customer service, long queues, sub-par food selection, the lack of rest rooms, and the crowded seating areas" (http://cnnphilippines.com/lifestyle/2015/10/20/NAIA-Manila-no-longer-2015-worst-airport-travel.html). At least my flight wasn't delayed but it seemed like everyone at the airport was out to make some quick bucks. I managed to save some time without any checked baggage but the time was wasted in trying to locate a reliable transportation company as they all seemed shady to me. I was not pleased when I walked up to a counter for prepaid and immediately was quoted 870 Philippine pesos (US$18) for the ride. When I found another, I was quoted for an estimated 550 Pesos (US$11.50). Such an experience reminded me of haggling with a cab driver in Kuala Lumpur. The traffic was legendary with winding road with jam-packed city blocks. To a tourist like me, the Manila Chinatown is a common reference to an area where there are lots of Chinese or Chinese businesses but to the locals, Binondo has remained the authentic Chinese enclave of Manila with OngPin Street running centrally through it. Supposedly one of the oldest Chinatowns in the world, Chinese immigrants have settled here before the Spaniards came in 1521.
When I got to the neighborhood with some recognizable landmarks such as the Chinese Goodwill Arch, thanks to images I researched online, I asked to get off at was pointless to wait in the taxi due to a congested traffic flow. The ride cost almost 400 Pesos (US$8.40) for the ride. I found 801 Ongpin Street where hotel Lai Lai Chinatown is located. I found out there are often bilingual and sometimes trilingual street signs with Filipino, English and Traditional Chinese script and sometimes with dragons adorning the signs. The restaurants in Binondo cater to the dietary, cultural and religious needs of the local populace but for my research, I decided to focus on restaurants along Ongpin Street only. A prominent feature is the fire engines from the Chinese volunteer organizations. A short ride away, the 168 and 999 malls are where one can find wholesale items. Six circular sfruit-themed cushions for my home in the States for 780 Pesos was hardly a wholesale amount but breaking down the price of each cushion, it was only US2.80$ per cushion.
This trip was also a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with an old friend. An ex-colleague from Nanyang Technological University, Dr Fernando Paragas has since moved back to the Philippines to head the communications department at University of the Philippines Diliman. That opportunity presented itself on Father's Day (June 19). After picking me up at the hotel his new white Ford SUV, we drove through Makati to get to the Ayala Mall for lunch with Fernando's parents, sister, her husband and their two children at the Frey J. restaurant and then Via mare for dessert at 110 pm. We both laughed in realizing that if we had continued our jobs in Singapore, it would be impossible to own a vehicle there. Our first stop was at the Intramuros where we witnessed a lavish wedding of a Chinese couple with a parked Rolls Royce in front of San Augustin's church. Fernando had mentioned that the Chinese community are clan-like and through Kuan-si (connection), are able to hold on to their riches. Out next stop was the Fort Santiago where we traced the route that led to his execution by the Spanish. A national hero, Jose Rival, was of Chinese origin. At 5:00 PM, we were at Rizal Park as we made our way back from Quezon City into Manila. There was a Chinese garden with the statue of Confucius and I was tempted to bow to it but I didn't do it because there were too many locals there dancing, frolicking and relaxing the afternoon away. From there, we arrived at the Mall of Asia where the plan was to get a souvenir and to have dinner. We succeeded with the first mission for a miniaturized Jeepney toy at a store called Kultura for P350 (US$7.30) at 7:00 PM but we couldn't find a decent dining place because it was Father's Day and every restaurant was packed with people.
I didn't have a chance to ride the Jeepney, a public transportation known for their crowded seating and kitsch decorations. However I was being commended for my bravery to take the local subway. We drove in the direction close to my hotel and stopped at Mr. Peter Lee's Hong Kong Tea House restaurant for a late dinner after 8 PM. We shared many things that I usually never talked about as colleagues in Singapore. He had no plans to have any romantic relationship and was content with hanging out with his family. A lucky man indeed as I am 9337 miles away from mine. I appreciated that Fernando took an important day out to spend time with me and when he pulled up near the hotel, he asked if I had had a great time and it was a resounding Yes. It was a pity that Sean, another good friend of ours from Thailand couldn't join us for the trip as he is now teaching at the University of Westminster's Business School in London. Singapore has connected and dispersed us all over the globe...
Original post: Sep 18, 2016
Click here images from my travels.
3rd leg of my research trip: Singapore
Post Date : 2016-10-03
Singapore
Jun 29 - Jul 3, 2016
Mom was sobbing because she thought that I would be leaving for the States but I reassured that it was just a 4-day trip to Singapore for two purposes: to conduct my research of Chinatown restaurant signage and to check on the state of my rented property. Although mom came with me to the airport in Penang, she couldn't join as I had to rush to get to the counter. We ran out of time due to a dim sum brunch with Ah Chiang. After that, he showed us a store selling used goods from Japan in Butterworth. There were many things that I'd love to bring back with me to the States but it was hard to focus as my brain kept reminding my body to hurry along to avoid missing my flight. My brother couldn't send me off as it would take too long for mom to get off the van due to the immobility. I bowed to her and rushed off to check in at the counter and it was harder to see the picture of mom weeping, thanks to bro who sent a picture to my IPhone. I saw on the TV that the corrupt Malaysian PM Najib, through his corrupt Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission had issued a warrant for the arrest of Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and later had him arrested. I couldn't only think of my colleagues who are probably plotting against me. This is my 2nd year and the first year had gone with many flare-ups and it was always triggered by something I did which led me to believe that someone was against me in the department.
That was the least of my worry because as it turned out, my condo that had rented out to a Chinese citizen before leaving for the States was like a pigsty. Not only was she given a 3-week notice, she knew that I'd be arriving and never bothered to clean up the place. All the stories I heard about renters from China was true, at least in my case. What was worse was that she made some unapproved alterations to the kitchen and had partitioned my living room into smaller rooms. The email from the management office back in December 2015 was true. The rooms had since been demolished. In going through my mail, I noticed a letter from SCDF (Singapore civil defense force), they stated that there was a fire safety violation of "change the use of residential to dormitory which would cause the existing fire safety measures to become inadequate" and "commence/carry out fire safety works without approval of plans" for the partition. The first offense cost S$100 (US$73) and the other one was S$300 (US$219). My renter had turned my living room into a dorm. My realtor drove me to the SCDF office to resolve the issue and we managed to transfer the fine to the renter. However, I had been blacklisted. I wanted them out so they were served with a verbal note from my realtor that they would have to vacate by the end of the month.
Other chores include settling any outstanding fees as well as cancelling my credit cards and other excessive bank account but I had decided to keep the CPF (retirement) account in Singapore although the permanent residency had lapsed. The best part of the trip was to have a reunion with my ex-students from the Art, Design and Media at Nanyang Technological University. Upon hearing that I would be visiting Laos, Joseph, one of my ex-students, offered to put his contact, Vongsouk to be in touch with me so as to be my tour guide. I also met up with an ex-colleague from my short stint at LaSalle College in Singapore. Henry is now a lecturer in Dubai and had recently returned to Singapore for a vacation and it was a great timing that I happened to be around. I managed to shoot the most pictures of Chinese restaurant signage for my project mainly because the city is truly reachable by walking with a well-networked public transportation mode.
Click here images from my travels.
Original post: Sep 18, 2016
4th leg of my research trip: Vientiane, Laos
Post Date : 2016-10-03
Vientiane, Laos
Jul 12 - 14, 2016
For the trip to Laos, the travel agent had suggested that I flew into Bangkok since the last trip would be in Bangkok to save an extra trip and it was an excellent idea. It was a short 3-day 2-night stay so I need to maximize my stay. Thai airways flight TG426 arrived in Bangkok at 9:30 AM and after clearing immigration it was a long walk to gate E2A for my connecting flight to Vientiane. The 1120 AM fight afforded me a lot of time to kill and it made no sense to make us get all the way to the far flung gate only to bus us to the other entry point far away. By the time the fight took off it was half an hour delayed to 1150 and we arrived at 1240 PM. Before departing, I got into conversations with ex-students, Hong Yang and Joseph via text messaging to thank them for their contact. I was hoping that Vongsouk would honor his words and show up to pick me at the airport. Luckily, the line for visa on arrival was not as long but I wish it could have been expedited via other ways such as at the embassy or travel agency. I waited in line for 20 minutes to pay for the visitor visa which cost US$35. After I hurried through immigration to pick up my luggage, Vongsouk was there and the wife come along too. He didn't carry a sign that spelled my name but I could tell from his body language. The wife was directed by her husband to carry my bag but I wouldn't let her. When we get to the hotel at 1:30 PM and after I got my hotel room key, we arranged to have dinner tonight.
As a guest, I was quite surprised that they would let me treat them, considering that the meal was quite pricey by Laotian standard. At Veena Cafe on Sisaket 124 Phai Nam Road, I paid 140000 LAK for our dinner which was equivalent to US$17.30. He offered to drive me around at night for me to photograph some Chinese restaurants. It was a bad idea as all my shots of restaurant signage were shot in the broad daylight but I obliged as he drove me to the Sanjiang market. Like me, he was amazed that there are so many Chinese restaurants as well as many other stores. Without hearing from him the next day, I rented a bicycle for 40000 LAK (US$5) after stopping at the Lan Xang market and the Patuxay or the Victory Gate of Vientianne which resembled the Arc de Triomphe of Paris. I wasn't comfortable leaving my passport at the rental shop but I had no choice but I was sure that I wasn't the only tourist there and they just needed to be sure that I'd return their old bicycle. It was a long ride and the afternoon sun baked my skin. Without any sun screen, I was soaking wet with sweat and had visibly put on some shades.
Although the intention of my last night in Vientiane was to visit the night market, the plan was altered when I got a text message from Vongsouk inviting me to have dinner with him. I was getting worried about having to fork out money so I asked him to take us somewhere where credit cards would be accepted. While in the car, the wife must have called someone to find out although when asked, I had mentioned that I wanted to have local foods. Yakiniku doesn't seem local to me and it was a Japanese buffet which cost me an exorbitant 357000 (US$45). The truth came out, their daughter didn't get any ice-cream yesterday and the wife enjoyed seafood--at my expense. Together with yesterday's meal, I had forked out $60 for them. I was short for cash and these experiences were avoidable if I had just said no in the first place. When the wife handed me the card there was an additional 3% charge on top of it which was an additional 10710 LAK (US$1.30). The wife got to eat her favorite: seafood and their kid as much ice cream as she wanted. I couldn't help but keep thinking ain't I the guest here? As an employee at the American embassy in Vientiane, I would think he is a middle class and it was clear that they were treating me like a 'cash cow.' The next day, it was nice of the wife to hand me a gift containing a T-shirt in a nice paper bag. I wasn't sure if it was her insufficient English or some miscommunication that the husband who was supposed to meet me at the airport but never did. At this point, it didn't matter much because I have had enough of the place and them.
Original post: Sep 18, 2016
Click here images from my travels.
5th leg of my research trip: Bangkok, Thailand
Post Date : 2016-10-13
Bangkok, Thailand
Jul 14 - 19
From Vientiane, I boarded a flight to head to Bangkok and there were reasons why I was more willing to spend 5 days in Thailand. The obvious one was to shoot images of Chinatown restaurant signage and the other was because my buddy, Tony Wong and his boyfriend Scott Higginson were waiting for me to paint Bangkok red. When the former learned that I would be in Asia, he purposefully planned the trip as it would be the first time for Scott to travel afar. It was wonderfully nice of Tony to let me share the room with them which could help to reduce my expenses as both my ticket and mom's had cut deeply into my bank account. I took the train from the Suvarnabhumi airport and the idea was to get off at Phaya Thai station to hop into a taxi from there to be dropped off at the Red Planet hotel but the traffic was legendary.
Poor Tony had been waiting for an hour for me outside the hotel entrance. Our first stop was at Silom area where the hotel was located for dinner and much deserved massage. However, I decided to walk around to check out the night stalls instead. The next day, we stopped at the Royal Palace and the heat was really unbearable. It was fun to travel on a boat from the pier which took us places including Chinatown which was on the way. The experience was really different compared to the rest of the Chinatowns. Bangkok's Chinatown is unique as only a few older residents speak the southern Chinese dialect of Teochew which I could understand. Moreover, but the way the food was prepared and packaged was nothing like what I had witnessed. In fact, it was the only Chinatown from the survey that had loads of authentic preserved cabbage, salted eggs, fish and other forms of Chinese herbal medicines. Scott who hailed from the San Francisco Bay Area felt that it was truly a unique place. Back to the Silom area, as durian lovers, Tony and I finally got to sink our teeth in one big durian where we bargained to have one opened before us and we just sat on the roadside to enjoy the king of Asian fruits. The Jajutak weekend market were also fun where I bought a miniaturized food stall to replace the one which I purchased when I flew mom to Bangkok to celebrate her birthday in June of 2006. The souvenir was a way to memorialize the original one sold after I decided to leave them at my brother's frame shop as an item to be sold. Tony had arranged for car to drive us to the Damnorn Saduak floating market. The tree of us were on an hour's trip on a motorized speed boat followed by a ride on an elephant. It was my first ride on the elephant and it was quite fun which made me wonder how it would be like when the magnificent creature was used in the Siam army. The elephant caretaker opened a silver box containing some local crafts and he asked me to buy something from him but I handed him a 100 Baht instead for tips.
Henry happened to be in Bangkok had also visited Vientiane on a separate trip and Bangkok just became our meeting point again. At Asiatique, I found a perfect souvenir for the new dean whom I needed to be on my side after two semesters of being bullied by my work colleagues. Tony and Scott left for Phuket on the 19th and before flying back to Malaysia, I was ab le to spend some time alone shopping for souvenirs. At Central, a departmental store on Silom, I bought hand-crafted alphabets that spelled out 'TWO ZERO ONE' for my home address in the States. I had no idea how to get those on the wall but the fun part would be figuring out how to do it with bro's help. He picked me up at the airport in Penang. It was 1230 midnight when I got home. It was the last leg of my data collection race and the biggest hurdle was to head back to the States on a much dreaded long flight on July 30th. That was an epic journey which became a 50-hour of travel, transit, delays and thanks to United Airlines, I spent a night in Tokyo on the airport floor! Even after the plane touched down on July 31, there were four more delayed flights flying in from Washington D.C. to Louisville, KY from 5:10 PM to 5:50 PM to 6:00 PM to 6:15 PM. There were no words to describe how tired and frustrated I was and the pressing needs to share my experience on Facebook and Instagram, which I did!
Original post: Sep 18, 2016
Click here images from my travels.
Other travels in 2016
Post Date : 2016-10-13
Columbus, Ohio
Oct. 7- 9 to celebrate my birthday.
Fairfiled, Ohio
Sep. 4. Exactly a year ago, it was my first visit to Cincinnati but this time it was to Fairfield to visit an international market called Jungle Jim as well my first visit to Ikea.
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YEOH'S JOURNAL
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