The United Red Carpet Club at Narita is great!

The link above is a great write up on their facilities. Upgrading to business class for 10,000 FF miles will give you access to the club if you're not one of their premier customers. It's absolutely worth it! If you don't want to use your miles, you might be able to find a pass on Ebay.

The Western Club - Chiang Mai Airport Plaza Mall

Went for drinks and dinner to the Western Club. Took a tuk-tuk (motorized 3 wheeler) from the hotel. Kinda like riding in the back of a motorcycle. Around $2 to go probably a mile or so. The bar/restaurant in located in the mall which you hardly see here in Thailand. Most of the waitresses here go to school at Chiang Mai University and work here part-time. The girl in the red (Tuk-tu, yes they have strange sounding names from what we're used to) is a physics major. Brains and beauty! I know, she looks 15!

Banana Tree Restaurant - Chiang Mai, Thailand

Had dinner at the Banana Tree restaurant:

This is like a omelet with greens cut up and put into a soup. Tastes really good as a side dish.










Steamed mussels. I think this was $3 or $4!









Grilled steak. Delicious!












Shrimp cocktail. Had to try it for $2. Wasn't that great with the thousand island dressing drowning it.









Some coworkers...










I think the total bill was like $30 for three people eating and drinking as much as we could handle!

Young Honolulu entrepreneurs run $2.2 million business

Story from the Advertiser today. I love stories like this where people are able to start something from nothing. Awesome.

The women of Thailand are beautiful!

but at the same time, so are some of the guys. This is a lady boy otherwise known a katoi in Thai. Pretty scary! Cmon, don't tell me you didn't think she was a he before you read about it!

Honolulu Advertiser mobile site

Just noticed this on their website. Dunno how long it's been available.

Here's where you can access it:

m. honoluluadvertiser.com

or:

" Text HAWAII to 59523 and we will send the link to your phone via text message. "

The importance of Surge Protection

Saw this in today's Advertiser. Being in a foreign country and seeing how unstable their power is, you have to have a surge protector or your equipment will get fried.

Here are the main points:

A voltage surge lasts 3 or more nanoseconds. A spike lasts up to 2 nanoseconds. Get a surge protector with a lightning-quick response — look for one with a response time under 1 nanosecond. That will minimize equipment damage.

Check the energy absorption abilities of the surge protector, measured in joules. Look for at least 750 joules, preferably more than 1,000.

High voltages also enter the house through cable and phone lines. Is your HDTV connected to a cable box? The cable box, and the incoming cable line, must be protected. That goes for a phone line, too, if you use one for TiVo or your network computer. Get a surge protector with cable and phone inputs-outputs.

All you rich bloggers(that would be Myong's Madness, Pulpconnection, and Tabasco Man) with the HDTVs and Macs should make sure you have one of these protecting your equipment.

They love live music in Thailand!

Most of the popular bars here have live bands and they're pretty good! This bar had a country music band first and a classic rock band after.

Here's the banjo playing country band:

Here's the classic rock band:












Pics for DaBoyz....










Also, did you know that Red Bull comes from Thailand?! I didn't. Here's another energy drink from Thailand that looks like Red Bull:

People just care about food and women from Thailand!

The only things people who read my blog care about are women and food! So here are some pics for them. I can't go around taking pics of random women without getting slapped or arrested so most of the pics are of the waitresses that were nice enough to take a picture.





Had some authentic German food for the first time ever. The soup here was soo good!

Starbucks in Thailand

The coffee here is just like Starbucks back home and it's the same price so that's way too expensive. I can get good Thai coffee for around a $1 - $1.50 at local coffee shops and it's just as good if not better. The only thing I don't like about Thai coffee is they like it pretty sweet. Almost everything here is sweetened. The iced tea is really sweet and alot of the times they add milk to it as well. Yech! I've been taking pics of alot of different food that I've been eating and I'll post those later. Chiang Mai is such an international city with many different restaurants to choose from.

Beer!

Got this site from a friend...

Alcohol content of beers in Hawaii:

Bud Light - 4.2%

Budweiser - 5.0%

Heineken Light is 3.5 %

Coors Light - 4.2%

I would guess that this would be the ranking of how popular they are. Maybe swap Heineken Light for Budweiser. I know Heineken Light has been getting more and more popular now days.

Blogging from Don Meung Airport in Thailand

I was able to get 30 minutes of free wireless Internet because my Thai cell phone provider runs the hotspot here. You just text a code to them and they send you a username and password. Pretty cool. There area lot of different people here. It's kind of strange seeing muslim women completely covered. Here's a pic of me and some of the people I've been working with for the past couple of weeks. The girl in the white/green is a PR girl for a beer company and they have these girls at most restaurants. All they do is pour beer! Well, gotta catch my flight....

Youtube blocked from Thailand

I got my first experience of censorship in Thailand when I tried to watch a youtube video from a blog. Denied! Looks like someone disrespected the King of Thailand on youtube and the country blocked the site. They are pretty serious about the King here. Everyone wears yellow in honor of the King and there are pictures and shrines of him and his family everywhere.

Yummy things to eat in Thailand

Scorpions! Tried one but not these huge ones!








Ate a grasshopper...










Didn't eat this:












Yech!










30 cents for two!:










90 cents:










90 cents:

Cost of living in Thailand

This kind of gives you an idea of how much things cost compared to the U.S. The baht rate is around 33baht to a $1 so prices have gone up some.

Accommodation	1 USD = 41 baht
The average cost of a 3 bedroom house in the city	$ 38,891
The average cost of a 3 bedroom house on the city outskirts	$ 31,593
The average rent of a 3 bedroom house in the city (un-furnished) Per month	$ 109
City appartment rental (per month)	$ 85.26
Average Hotel Room (Per day, 2 people)	$ 17
Average electricity per month (No air-con)	$ 9.70 - $ 14.63
Average electricity per month (with air-con)	$ 36.58 - $ 48.78
Average water cost per month (Small house)	$ 4.80 - $ 9.75
Average water cost per month (Large House)	$ 14.63 - $ 19.51
Cable TV (Home cable) or UTV (per month)	$ 7.30
UBC Satellite TV (per month)	$ 22.50
Average shopping bill per week (Single Western person)	$ 29.00
Average shopping bill per week (Large Western family)	$ 73.17 - $ 97.56
Monthly washing and ironing service	$ 9.75 - $ 12.19
Monthly house maid service	$ 48.70 - $ 73.17
Getting Around
Second hand 2-3 year old Toyota Solona car	$ 8,536
New Toyota Solona car (Standard Model)	$ 14,146
New Honda 100cc motorbike	$ 418.64
Secondhand Honda 100cc motorbike	$ 209.32 - $ 279.09
Car rental (per day)	$ 29.26
Car rental (per month)	$ 658.53

Thailand's version of Yahoo.com

Sanook means "Have Fun" in Thai. People ask me what the women here look like so....

This link gives you an idea on what some of the women here look like:

http://star.sanook.com/gallery/gallery_13018.php

Of course that's on the high end of the spectrum.

I must admit I didn't know what to expect since we don't have too many Thai people in Hawaii but when I got here...wow. They have a hapa look kinda like Vietnamese women.

They have slurpees in Thailand!

Hmm maybe I can live here after all. They have alot of 7-11s over here. Not all had slurpees though. For a 22oz slurpee, it was 20baht which is around 70 cents. Same slurpee in the U.S. is around $1.20.

Last night, I went to the night market which is kind like a swap meet at night. Here's what I had for dinner:

- 2 corn on the cobs - 40¢
- Fried chicken(thigh/drumstick) with sticky rice - 90¢
- Pad Thai - 90¢
- Big bottle beer - $1.20
And I couldn't finish all of it. Might have been the fried grasshopper and scorpion I had before. That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but I didn't eat the huge grasshoppers or scorpions.




They were also selling golden retrievers for $90. They were so cute! I hope they go to good homes.

Sawadee Kop from Thailand!

Talk about culture shock! It's been really interesting here to say the least! It's been kind of a pain to blog because Google thinks I'm a Thai person since I'm coming from a Thai location so it redirects me to a Thai Google site and changes the language which of course I can't read.

Well, the food here has been so cheap and good! I can eat a decent dinner or lunch for $1. I can get a really good meal for $3. Today I had shiitake soup, spaghetti with a little steak on the side for $6! There are all you can eat buffets for $2!

Movies are cheap here as well. $3 for tickets. I saw Fantastic Four and Die Hard 4 so far. FF4 I really liked. Way better than Spiderman 3. DH4 was a bit out of hand but still it was good action. I wanted to see Transformers but they only have it in Thai so far.

I was able to drive to the border of Laos and Thailand yesterday. Ate really good Vietnamese food along the Mekong river among shops that sell all kinds of stuff for super cheap. Mostly stuff I don't really want or need but still cheap. Things like toys, medicine, woodworks, knives, calculators, chips, candy, clothes, cell phones.

Today I actually drove here and after a couple of windshield wiper/blinker issues I was fine. For those who have driven on the left side of the road, you know what I'm talking about. I drove stick shift when I was in Japan so it wasn't much of a change. I didn't know they drove on the left till I got here. Rules of the road aren't as crazy as Korea but they pass alot here because there are alot of slow cars, mopeds, and motorcycles here. I've seen up to four people on a motorcycle. Road safety isn't practiced in this country. haha

Internet access here is cheap like in Korea. It can get as cheap as 45 cents an hour. I'm in a cafe that charges 60 cents an hour. Speed is pretty good. Computers are good as well.

There are so many things there that are different from anything I've seen and going out every day is like information overload. Just going for a run outside is weird. I don't have any pics right now since I'm at an Internet cafe but I'll try and post it later....