As it stands, I may be going to the following places in the near future:
April
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
May
Hanoi, Vietnam
June
Siem Reap, Cambodia
July
Siberia
Kidding on the last entry. Anyway, it looks as if I'm going on the great Indochina trip so soon after coming back from Thailand. A lot of it is still up in the air (so to speak). But it's fun to plan especially if a lot of people want to go (and seem intent to go, a big difference). Oh hell yeah, it costs a lot of money but I can't be doing this when I'm sixty and retired.
When I'm sixty and retired, you'd probably find me seeking enlightenment instead of material wealth. Probably somewhere in Tibet.
Before that, maybe stop by Bangkok, Laos and various other places. While we're young, while we're young...
Fresh off the Bintan trip, we thought of another opportunity for a holiday. And so it started as a question of where to go and what to do over the Easter weekend. Around here, Holy Week is not as observed as it is back home. It means that at most, we only get Good Friday off (in fact a radio DJ mentioned that it was Easter Friday). Now for the past twenty-six or so years, the Easter weekend to me means going to Bulacan and participating in the salubong on early Easter morn. Obviously, I wasn't planning to be anywhere near home for this year. Instead, a couple of people in the office and I decided to go Krabi, one of the many beach towns in Thailand. To short-circuit the [even more] boring story of correspondence with the travel agent, we ended up going to nearby Phuket and the much-hyped "most beautiful island in Thailand" Phi-Phi. Besides, there's a general consensus around here that you're never really on holiday unless you get out of the city-state. Away from the urban jungle and back to nature.
Fast-forward to the present.
It was a great holiday that left me rejuvenated and recharged. Once I get my flickr account sorted out, I'll post the two-something gigabyte collection of snaps I've taken during the trip, and put descriptions to boot. Tune in next time.
For this weekend in the beaches of Thailand, I imagined myself lounging under the sun, getting some rays, listening to music, and maybe having a drink.
One thing is missing in that pleasant scene, though: a good book.
In preparation for the trip, I set out to find a good book to read that's not too heavy, not too light, not too dark, not too serious and definitely one that I would enjoy reading. So no Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things, no Lonely Planet travel guides, no 1492: How China discovered the U.S., no The Little Book on Investing, and definitely no books on Agile Methodology.
After a bit of looking around in Borders out on Orchard road, I came upon the sports section. This was a good idea. I haven't read a good book on sports as far as I can remember, and there are a lot of good ones on the shelf.
I took some time browsing through wrestling titles. And by wrestling, I mean professional wrestling. By professional wrestling, I mean the WWE, which is professional, yes, but hardly competitive (oh, you didn't know? ;) ). Rowdy Roddy Piper's book, Hulk Hogan's book (incidentally, there's a reality show called Hogan Knows Best, shown here on cable), Terry Funk's book, Mick Foley's book, etc.
And then there are the books about basketball. Unauthorized biography of Bobby Knight, Coach K's book, Michael Jordan's (hardly-a-book-more-of-promo) book, Charles Barkley's book.
In the end, I picked the book which I thought was a bit dated even if it was very recent.
Yes, I finally picked up Phil Jackson's book on the season the Los Angeles Lakers had four future Hall of Famers and lost.
I read the first few chapters on the train ride home and I was hooked! I bought the perfect book for me.
In the immortal words of Samuel L. Jackson, "goooood motherfuckin' choice, motherfucker!"*
*actually it was Dave Chappelle as Samuel Jackson, but you get the point. Or maybe you need to see it yourself.
They pulled the plug on using webmail in the office. Along with it, Gmail chat. Sigh.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.
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Been glued to the TV watching the new Bobby Chinn show on Discovery Travel and Living: World Cafe Asia. It's generally about different kinds of food all over Asia. He's been to Vietnam eating Pho Bo and having a barbecue out on the rice paddies. He had a curious trip to Tokyo taking a slice of fresh tuna and a bowl of Chanku Nabe, the same thing sumo wrestlers eat. Today's episode was about delicious Hong Kong food, which I like myself. It's a bit short for half an hour. I guess it's less of a travel show than it is a food show; however, I prefer the former.
There's never a bad time for food tripping.
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This is what it looks like outside our balcony window.
Not bad, eh? I should make a blog design out of it. That blog redesign's about one year past due, anyway.
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Finally, finally got to watch High Fidelity on DVD. There was this lone copy for rent in Gramophone inside Centrepoint mall (not to be confused with SM Centerpoint). $3 was all it took. I'm supposed to return it tomorrow, and I will, since now I have a copy.
Honestly, while the music is good, and Jack Black's funny here, I need to watch it one more time. It's hard for me to keep from comparing it with the book (which was much, much better on first viewing).
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Have a good Holy Week everyone! I'll be back from Thailand on Monday B-)
