bAngKok diary

Glorious foods!! -- 100B$ gets u meal, drink and desert.
Food court rocks man!! Love my pork knuckle & rice!
& BananNA choc Crepe!!

Comfortable aroma-massages ... if u get the right gal.

Anything that is sour or offends your highly sensitive tastebuds -- pleassssseeee DO NOT attempt to reason with the mind --- CHUCK IT OUT lest u end up nauseaous or having the shits!! And when they say it can last for 5 days -- they forget to include the fridge.

Century Park Hotel - excellet cheap comfy accomodation with good breky.

Taxis - can accomodate up to 6 passengers esp if the aim is not to lose each other at the destination point!! Chat-2-Chat market has more than one side to it -- frontside, backside, inside, outside -- pls meet at clock tower. Do not attempt to finish 3 scoops of coconut ice-cream by one Greedy-self and no toppings pls. The air-conditioned cafe is only useful if they can keep the electricity turned on ALL the time!!

OK - chai
Turn L - Liu Sai
Turn R - Liu Hua
GO straight - Dong Bai

The MRT has fast timed closing doors with no body sensors -- please do not get left behind.

Seafood restaurants DO NOT have sweet/sour pork -- do not believe them even if they nod their heads!!

FRIENDS - have many funny quirks only apparent on holiday-live-tog. Hotel room doors do not open despite swiping card many times... train door closes too fast for boarding... dunkin doughnuts are a nitely MUST... 3/4 pants maniacs... Hantu tehteh!!

Btw -- Dunkin Doughnuts ROCK!!! yum!!
Raspberry Jam is the BesT!!

Airasia - DO NOT fly this if on a tight schedule. Only compensates with BK hamburger. They dun even give you cheese!!! sigh...

BOOBS make a difference to the fitability of your Tees.

A spoonful of PePPEr

I'm so agreeable that a 0.5m by 1.8m long stretch is totally SUFFICIENT for unpacking and rearranging stuff while accomodating an intermittent flow of human traffic x7, with the frequent infringement of long strips of wooden panelling and the healthy sprinkling of drill dust... Not to mention the almost musical background lullaby of wood being chopped, hammered and drilled.
TOTALLY!! Only if we were 3 foot high 2 DIMENTIONAL MIDGETS with the strength of Hercules!! As if we dun have PL pp whining "so when are you gonna get them to clean up" constantly of the dust, dirt and grub/glass shards we leave in their narrow walk-ways!!

And if you have a 3m by 2m room, oredi filled with at least 2 proped up wooden doors, multiple skirting strips in various sizes and stages of completion, 2 human bodies involved in drilling and hammering activities, plus a couple of scattered boxes, unfinished piping and tool boxes strewn around juz 'cos they ARE being used... WHY NOT add to the cozyness by piling more boxes at the almost non-existent doorspace. It would sure help bring everyone closer!

Still, shouldn't the fact that your SO CAREFULLY and PAINSTAKINGLY sorted out cartons being moved AGAIN from their respective rooms RING THE BELL -- TO HELL WITH PACKING till things are actually FINISHED!!!
Of course if you enjoy spending mindless time and energy in useless endeavours -- by ALL MEANS... ENJOY it without wasting OUR TIME.

But i'm ONLY talking about the front 2 rooms. What about the consult area that is filled to the ceiling with MORE boxes, cupboards and cabinets. Or the cage room where there are only 2 pp cementing on the tiles? There's still a few cubic squares of air space left -- why waste it!!! I'm sure we can do some unpacking there too. Heaven forbid if we get in the way -- it's the contractors fault afterall. They should work around us 'cos we HAVE TO OPEN BY THURSDAY!! IT's TOTALLY LIFE AND DEATH. Our clinic will be annihilated if we dun open by June!!! Oh horrors!!

And we shouldn't be wasting money keeping the UNESSENTIALS at the warehouse!!! It's sucking us dry like a leech - breaking our financial backbone!! Instead, everything should be brough back so they can be a HUGE nuisance to the pp who're oredi trying their best to finish a rushed job just 'cos it wasn't started EARLIER!!!

REALLY... why should i even bother to say anymore? Or offer some constructive input -- it'd just be swept aside like an annoying fly as usual. Just say 'yes' to the ridiculous.
You can't ever stop a train running on a single track -- there's only tunnel vision.

Still, a little faith and trust in your fellow workers REALLY won't hurt.
So much for putting yourself in other pp's shoes -- this ONLY applies to clients. PP who work with you really dun amount to much or matter.
Just 'cos you allow work to rule YOUR LIFE -- doesn't mean it's the same for the rest of us.

Vitra-design museum

Ok unfortunately dont trust guys to take pictures... On Sunday, we were at the vitra design museum, and I stupidly forgot to bring my camera... So I kinda relied on Julian to take the pics. THe only picutre that I can put online. Sigh

So it was really overcast (look at the sky!!).

So Vitra is a furniture/designer item factory, and the only reason why I know them, is because of the 100-chairs collection. This is a collection of 100 chairs over the years from 1898 till 1998, where it discontinued... A few really nice chairs included the ones from Frank Gehry, where the chairs were constructed from cardboard. Unfortunately the chairs were "out-of-bounds" so I couldnt test out the strength of the chair. I suppose spilling a drink on these chairs (or getting caught in the rain) is a no-no. Apparaently Gehry designed it as sort of a "cheap" chair, easily manufactured, can be sold cheaply. However, when it went into production, it was so hot that the prices just kept shooting up (Gehry could only protest and be obviously pissed)... obviously the manufacturer had interest to keep this a limited edition (since prices were so high!).


Oh I have to mention all these chairs qualify only if they can be industrially produced! (well well... after all, vitra factory has to be in production!). Another chair was the supermarket trolley chair, where one end was removed. Just as I thought, it is indeed by Duane Hansan, possibly famous for supermarket lady :) And this is (if there is only one copy?) in Aachen's Ludwig forum ! :) Hi hi ... So I couldnt resist,... here is a picture of it I downloaded from ludwig forum. (I know it is pretty obnoxious...)

Unfortunately, dear friend Julian was too busy taking pictures of random cute babes on the tour (seriously! come to think of it, he was probably bored...) ... he didnt have pics of the chairs.. and I forgot to buy a poster :'(...

Ok enough about the chairs. The other highlight of vitra musuem is the architecture. There was a factory fire, reason enough for the company to build new buildings over the 1990's. The topic was good architecture doesnt need to be more expensive than bad ones... This was sort of the minimalism concept. 3 Architects adorable : Tadao Ando (light and water), Frank Gehry (curly wurly), and Hadid (sorry, hv problems with her name) (lines)... The fire-station (now decommissioned, and used as a museum) was designed by Hadid, and it was sort of in the form of movement... In the building, lines converge, and the walls are at an angle, some may feel sea sick. It is almost in the form a ship. Noteworthy, stairs were anchored only on one end, providing suspension. the use of lines to "open" up spaces was exploited. Unfortunately, sigh sigh.. I dont have pics to show all these "gadgets"....

pampered life

Ahhh.. yesterday was the first day I went shopping in a long long while... and for a change, it was not a food hunt :). Since I m planning to go to st peterburg, a friend advised me to learn the russian language... Plus was thinking of going cycling today, which meant, i desperately wanted to be the proud owner of a cycling map... (which, ended up costing me 30 franks!!! )...

Finally stepped into a bookstore, so now my to read list is slightly longer. Ended buying more japanese textbooks, because ever since my naruto-craze, I have decided that i should actually pick up japanese again (besides the word Baka-- idiot), and itatakimasu (lets eat!)... Ok so actually I am excited because I actually understand more than that. The unfortunate thing is Tacci-san is not around and I dont have any japanese friends around here to practice on....
So the japanese text is called Japanisch in Sauseschritt... looks pretty cool, beacuse everyting is almost in japanese (i got the hiragana/katakana version, with minimal phonetic trans)... making life difficult for myself....

Also decided that I should be reading more german literature ... so lets... see.... (plus got a book on the history of swiss art collections since 1849...) (or the date somewhere aoround there.. 150 years of swiss art collecitons... pretty cool)...

btw, now it is mondya... was raining on sunday, so canceled the cycling trip, and decided to go to basel to the vitra-design museum.. have to blog on this because architecturally, this was great....

Give me strength

ARGH, it is piss-raining... and it will be raining for the entire weekend. Checked the entire map of Switzerland and surroundings... and there will be no solace :(

On the brighter side of life ... just walked down to the CHN building where Almut sits, and meet most beautiful Florence, with her very cheerful careful accent :)... she is so lovely. On the way back from the CHN building, they are selling beer at the cafeteria!!! BEER?!? Unfortunately it is raining, and I am feeling like the day really sucked, so no beer, besides, I dont think I can convince anyone to join me :)

On the brighter side of life, will be playing badminton with Raphael tonight :) Gossh havent meet him for ages... will be great to get kisses from him.

On the brighter side of life, guess who will be moving in the next building... Baby Andi!!!! :)

OH, And , now I realized the form of entertainment known as movie theaters... Was reading Le Monde, there was an article on Volver, a new film by Almodovar!! Apparently this will be made in the Chanson style :) with many women (sounds a little like the movie 8 Femme)... So am looking forward to it (dont know if it is out already in Switzerland, or even over??!?)... But check out the movie page... and YEEKS, there is X-men movie running currently (this is embarassing, and despite the fact that I thought I will secretly go watch it without anyone knowing about this crazy part of me... I think I have been like shouting it out... )....

Otherwise, there are some good movies coming out, I think one of them is called Water (some indian movie) and it is about the life of widows in India... Possibly a little bollywoodish dramatic, but why not?

Adventures in Bellinzona

This weekend, my great plan was to venture far out from zuerich. Managed to convince the monkey that he should hop onto the train and take it as far south of switzerland as the day pass would bring us... and bring us to the 24 degree celcius... (ok, we looked at the weather map, and chose the spot with the max predicted temperature).

Given Bellinzona is in tessin, and this is the italian speaking part of switzerland, we were determined to drown ourselves in ... GeLaTo!! We explored 7 gelato-shops, out of which, 4 of 7 had mango icecream. Our first try at the mango ice was a little disappointing compared to that of Rapperswil (note, this is the pizzaria at the lake of lucarno)... This was a cream gelato, so the mango flavour was a little masked by the taste of the diary... But when we ventured to the traffic junction, we saw this store that sold mango ice that tastes ... like thai mangoes... YUM (ok, we are serious mango ice-cream hunters...).

Now food aside, we were on the "visit all the castles" in Bellinzona. Unfortunately, we werent too great with our map work, and took a really long way to get to the highest of the three (it is not eveen that high, at 300 meters, this was actually chicken feet, but at 24 degrees and an empty stomach, this was challenging...). It was disappointing, because getting up there, it was really tiny, and was converted into a museum (civic)... and while my museums pass allowed me free entrance, we didnt go (somebody didnt have a museum pass...)

Oh, now i finally loaded up the pics.. Am so sad, there is a smear on my camera, so there is this blotch in the picture, but here it is anyways...

currency

book madness....
or addiction as some others would call it...

Recent additions to my oredi over brimming bookshelves/table/floor...

1) Sabriel -- Garth NIX
All resistance failed when the cheaper version of this book was found just next to the more expensive one... side by side!! I call it fate and hence book I and II are in my posession right now. After the 1st few chapters... a necromancer disappears and it's up to his daughter to enter the old world to find him.... yet to be re-picked up recently -- got distracted by Balefire (intro to come below)

2) Lirael -- Garth NIX
Book II out of the trilogy.

3) The History of Love -- Nicole Krauss
After our brief Twistii matchmakeing at Popular, and the reunion at Kino -- perhaps a date?
Yet to be fully explored. 1st few pages -- a somewhat Morris feel to it -- perhaps it's just the old men? Still to be rated.


The 4 below are the culprits to a Times membership! I swear they held me hostage.

4) Anasi Boys -- Neil Gaiman
A memory stirrer that yielded no clues. So, as always, go with the instincts and hopefully it'd be better than the Mirrormask produce tho Helena's drawings were RAD! Wld so love to be able to doodle like that. Cool black and whites.

5) the deforsting of charlotte small -- anabel giles
suits the current mood.... all self pity and road to recovery-ish...

6) A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian -- Marina Lewycka
Recc by Twistii's coz. Really nice old fashion cover. Bet this was the initial attraction for her as well. Good petting book.

7) Balefire : A chalice of wind -- Cate Tiernan
A need for something simple chanced upon this treasure in the children's section in the mini Times. And this has led to further uncontrollable acquisitions below...
A strangely Min reminder in the spoken words.

Kino trip last nite yielded...
8) Balefire : A circle of ashes -- Cate Tiernan
Current love. sigh....
Am feeling more grounded. Been neglecting the 'Bonne magic' for too long now.
Btw -- "Hex" w just started on cable seems a pretty interesting series to invest in.
I just love anything connected to Wicca but amazingly none of my frens are even remotely interested. Is it so difficult to find pp of the same interests? I'm sure I'm as sane as everyone else -- almost -- so why aren't any of my frens interested in dance, rock climbing or pagany stuff!! A coven to study in would be so enriching.... sigh. Pp with best frens who share the same interests -- count yourselves LSOAB.
Hmm.. just realised same author to Wicca-Sweep. Must go re-explore that one but remembered that it didn't quite take. The best so far's still Isobel Bird's Circle of Three series and Susan Copper's The Dark is Rising series.

9) Balefire : A feather of stone -- Cate Tiernan
In anticipation!!! :)

10) Smoke and Mirrors -- Neil Gaiman
Short stories. Good ones with slightly disconcerting endings. The cover of this book and the other 3 under the same publishing are just gorgeous. I would buy them for just the covers if i haven't oredi felt a little OD-ed!!

Oh wait.. there's one more. A gift on a drunken sauvignon blanc.
11) The Deeper Wound -- Deepak Chopra
Usu i'd stay away from self helps but this had its destiny with me. Given by a great fren who also fed me cheese, wine and pizza... i have finished all the reading bits.
Strangely tho, it's not the book that enlightens but those few words of wisdom imparted that very night. "have faith" -- so simple, it's forgotten almost immediately.
I won't forget again.

Current companion...
12) Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell -- Susanna Clarke
Thick thick book. Small minute letterings. Just enuff intrigue to keep the reader at plough.

Many others in cryostasis... wat can i say -- my interest wanders, flickers and change. It's all for the moment, intuition... and now faith. U do know it. Deep down. It's no good denying it or fighting against it. The truth has been there from the start and it will reveal itself.

Current known wish list...
* Neil Gaiman : Neverwhere, Stardust, American Gods
* Cate Tiernan : Balefire - A necklace of water
* Tamora Pierce : The Will of the Empress
* René Goscinny, Jean-Jacques Sempé : Nicholas, Nicholas again -- awaiting the paperbacks


And so the story goes...
Neverending.
Till next time.

Introdans: Comedy

Yesterday was @ the Maag Musik Halle to watch a modern dance performance by Introdans
(check out Introdans @ google)...

So they are about 10-12 dancers, and there were about 5 or 6 items on the program.. But 3 of them definitely stood out :
• Frou Frou Ball-o-nière, Helma Melis - worldpremière
• Wrapped, Inbal Pinto - Introdanspremière
• Susto, Paul Lightfoot en Sol León - Introdanspremière
• Pas de danse, Mats Ek - Introdanspremière
• The Envelope, David Parsons

THe ultimate best was Susto : there were 4 dancers (2m, 2f) around a funnel in the ceiling out of which sand was spilling out in a constant flow. Almost always one dancer was dancing under the sand, sending out sprays of sand with his/her movement, creating an "aurora" around the dancer. For instance, sweeping in certain directions and so forth.

The Envelope was also really outstanding.. I suppose this is the "comedy" inspiration.. dancers pass an envelope around... They are all dressed in black, and are asyncronically moving around...

A tongueclick -- dance on the bench was done as a duet... sort of like a indian ritual (seated, hand and body slapping...). While most of it was rhythmic, some parts did take up a medodious flow.. definitely interesting..

Naruto-fan-club

Argggg so guess what I spent the past 2 weekends doing??? I have so sucessfully watched all episodes of Naruto till episode 97! Guess how many hours of tv time that is?? 25min * 97 = 40 hours 20 minutes !!! ARGH!!
(and not only this,, I spent so much time downloading all the stuff, plus I paid 5 dollars for premium membership)....

And now, I think I am going to discover all the funny animes... SO how productive is this??? And it is almost summer, I should be out hiking/cycling!!!

(sigh...)

But the actions and facial expressions are so cool!!! Although, naruto is super STUPID>... :) So I gave some "SERIOUS" thoughts about all the characters.... I think I like Gai-sensei best, most of the main characters are way to predictable... So Gai-sensei, is really the joker... being overly optimistic, but in a way sort of a loser, yet, incredibly overly dramatic.... He is always doing stupid things... :) but I really like the thumb and the "ching" teeth ... plus the funnny wink, I should really do a screen shot of Gai-sensei...

Anyway, I am going to dump Naruto (ok, now I am at episode 164, this is no challenge)...
real soon....