It's morning and I'm updating you about the rest of the trip in Thailand. Photos will be soon uploaded, I promise. Some computer problems are occurred and I have to fix my computer first. I think is wireless problem as it shuts down my computer when I try to turn on wireless connection. I hope I will fix that soon so please be patient. Greetings from Sweden.
August 29 – Our first day in Sweden
We woke up around 8, eat breakfast and around 12 Ulrika and Florence came for us. Ulrika is alumni and she lives in apartment where we were situated during that night and Florence is our CRC which means that she is responsible for setting the city up.
We went with Florence to Stockholm Up with People office to meet Kay who is regional director and we talked about our job here in Sweden.
It’s freezing here in Sweden. We came from Thailand where it was 30 Celsius during the night and here was probably around 12-15 Celsius today. It’s freezing for me.
Around 18.00 we hit the road to Sodetalje to meet our first host family. Cast is coming to Sodertalje in 2 weeks and Faith’s and my job is to help Florence in setting the city up.
Our host family is great. They all speak English so it’s not going to be hard communicating with them.
August 28 – traveling day to Sweden
We woke up around 7.30 so that we can get ready until 9.30 and by that I mean packing and eating breakfast. At 8.30 we agreed to meet downstairs to eat breakfast and at the same time we arranged our morning meeting. It was so funny. So, I was the city runner which means that I was running the meeting. We went all through meeting from announcing sick calls, birthdays, guests all the way to all announcements from every each of us. Sophia was responsible also for taping our morning meeting so we have proof that we were actually running the meeting. Sooo funny…
At 9.30 we catch 2 taxies and we started our journey to Finland. We came on time to airport and by the time we reached check-in desk, there occurred some problems with seats in the plane. Lady said that our seats are occupied. It took her half an hour of time to find some seats and it was so close to the time when plane was leaving that we were running on the airport to catch our plane. We made it!!
Sophia and Danielle were my seat mates and Faith was sitting few rows in front of us. It was 10 hour long flight but I didn’t have that feeling at all. I was chatting with Sophia all the time and time just passed by.
When we reached Finland, it was our time to say goodbye to Sophia and Danielle. First we had to take our luggage and check in again and so we did it. At Finland airport we eat dinner and we watched very beautiful sunset at airport. Our plane to Sweden was arranged for 21:50 and so we took that plane. When we came to Stockholm airport, there was a taxi driver who was waiting for us to take us to our Stockholm one night stay over. Annika, who is an alumni waited for us and welcomed us to Stockholm. Thank you for that.
August 27 – traveling to Bangkok
Today was our traveling day to Bangkok. Our host family wakes us up at 6 so we will have enough time to get ready for traveling. We met in Satree School and our bus left Phuket at 8 o’clock.
We soon reached Phuket international airport and first we had to pass security check to enter check-in section. This was soo weird. After that we had to check-in our luggage, get passport check and get boarding passes. At that time we also find out that our flight is going to be delayed for 2 o’clock, not at 11:45 as it was planned so we got lunch vouchers for airport and we decided to go to Burger King as there was nothing else left on airport that we could use our vouchers for.
At 2 our plane finally left Phuket. I was soo excited but at the same time really sad about leaving our cast. I tried to sleep in plane. Flight was really short, maybe around 45 minutes.
When we reached Bangkok airport, I said goodbye to most of the people as we had to run to get a taxi and move to Bangkok hotel. At that point my, Faith’s, Sophie’s and Danielle’s little adventure started. When we reached our hotel, Silom Village Inn, Paul waited for us to check us in hotel and brief us about our traveling day to Finland.
After little break, we went to see a little bit what’s going on around our hotel and we found some cool places, but we also concluded that stuff are really expensive in hotel area. At 18.30 we met Paul again and also Luis from Brazil come (he was our Phuket CRC for us) and we had nice dinner with them just few meters away from hotel.
After dinner Luis took us to market. We had to take tuk-tuk to travel to market place and it was just few blocks away. This was my 2nd tuk-tuk experience, but it was different from Phuket tuk-tuk as also Phuket tuk-tuk looked a little bit different. In Phuket tuk-tuk was 4-viels car and here in Bangkok is 3-viels car. It was night market place with all kind of bars all around us. There were bunch of people inviting you to come visit different kind of shows mostly ping-pong show. Well, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what is ping-pong show if we really didn’t decided to go to see that show and I can only say that there were woman included and ping-pong balls. Ask me privately what’s all about that show if you are more interested in it. We continue hanging around and we went to visit Go-go girls show also. This one was pretty boring as girls were slowely dancing and doing nothing else and they weren’t even as pretty as I expected them to be. I liked more lady boys from yesterday.
At the end we finished in normal bar where we had chance to dance. There was band playing and singing popular and rock songs and I loved it.
Night life in Bangkok rocks but I don’t think that I would survive in night life more than 2-3 nights as there are so many places you could visit that you just try to go all around to see all of them.
August 26 – My host family day
Today I woke up around 9 o’clock and when I come downstairs to take breakfast, my host family told me that we are going to beach and I understood that we are going to have breakfast there. Of course, I understood wrong and I didn’t have any breakfast at beach. I wasn’t so hungry as we had nice dinner day before.
We came to Patong beach just next to lifeguard. Flag at the beach was yellow which means that you can go swimming and that lifeguard will watch really closely to you. I knew from the start that my roommate is not going to swim as she didn’t have bikini, but at least I hoped that the rest of the family is going to swim and none of them did. They said to me: “Go! Go swimming and lifeguard is going to watch on you.” And so I did. I was the only one swimming at that part of the beach and it was incredible. Waves were still too big for me, but you could feel the real power of waves just closer to the shore. As I went swimming a little bit far from shore, I couldn’t really feel the power of waves and I could still stand there.
When I ended swimming our host-grandma had surprise to us. She paid usage of Jet Ski for Amy and me. So Amy and I and our driver went on Jet Ski drive. As the waves were a little bigger, we could feel the waves and there were times when we were flying. Wow, that was amazing. At first I was a little bit scared, but soon I started to have so much fun. He took us around Patong beach so we saw more little beaches around that looked amazing. I couldn’t believe that I was in Thailand in Phuket driving on Jet Ski in Patong beach. Wow, that was amazing experience.
After that we went swimming again and as Amy was all wet from Jet Ski, she continued swimming in her clothes as well as the rest of the family did. It was so much fun as we were all closer to the shore so we kind of were “fighting” the waves.
When we came home after swimming, lunch was ready so we ate lunch and started to prepare for island tour. My host-family took me to see the rest of the island and we saw some other amazing beaches on the island. At that point for the first time I noticed signs all over some beaches that this beach is Tsunami Hazardous Area and the signs always showed also which road to take to save yourself in case of tsunami.
After visiting some beaches they took us to see Promthep Cape what is headland stretching in the sea and forming the extreme south end of Phuket. There was also view point and we could see the entire area around. That was amazing. My host-mum and host sister Cookie and I went hiking down to Promthep Cape and only thing I can say that I felt great being there. I still cannot believe that I was standing there. “Prom” is Thai for the Hindu “Brahma” signiflying purity and “Thep” means “God”.
After seeing all that places, we went to fish market so buy some fishes for dinner. There were really different kind of fishes and crabs. After buying fishes we went to Chalong Temple. Chalong temple is Buddhist temple and it’s really beautiful. As we reached place, first we took coconut milk to refresh ourselves and than we went to visit temple. It was amazing. We were part of Buddhist ceremony which was lead by our host-family. First we lighted 2 candles before even stepping inside of the temple. Than we lighten the smelling sticks and we put them just at the entrance of the temple. Last part of ceremony was going inside of the temple. There were 3 different statue of Buddha and we had to put golden papers which we got on every single statue and at least my host-mum took part of golden paper which was already stick to statue and put it on my forehead. What was that all about? At that point of time I didn’t have a clue what was I doing but after that I asked and I received answer. Lighting candles means inviting the spirits to come. 3 statue of Buddha present 3 statues of life: birth, living and dying and putting the golden paper there means praying to every statues of life. Putting the golden paper on forehead means blessing and so I can say that I was blessed by my host mum.
After visiting temple we went home to rest for a while before having dinner. Our host-family prepared us nice sea food barbeque in front of the house and it was so cool. We ate at the front porch sitting on the carpet. They prepared 7 different kind of sea food so I had a chance to try crabs, squish, and 2 different kinds of fishes and scrimps. That was amazing barbeque.
After dinner, host families good friend took Amy and me to the last visit of Patong beach night life. We took tuk-tuk to come to center of shopping and night life in Patong. It was fun. We went shopping for my carry-on suitcase and we ended up at lady boy show. Lady boys are boys who like to dress as the girls and some of them are really beautiful one and if you do not pay much attention on the moves and gestures you could never see that is man behind all that make up and dress. So, as we entered to lady boy bar to see lady boy show, first thing I noticed that we were the only guys inside of the bar. Show was fun. Lady boys were mainly singing with playback but dances were fun. We stayed for few songs as we had to hurry to buy suitcase and start packing ourselves. It was fun experience to visit lady boy show as everyone told me that this is the show you really must see when you are in Thailand as such things you are not able to see anywhere else.
August 25 – 2 shows in one day
Today we had 2 shows in Phuket. First thing in the morning, after the morning meeting we had educational workshop about stereotypes and how people see them. They also made workshop for getting to know each other better as the conversation about grouping people the other day make a big impression to a lot of people. So, we had to write one word which would describe us as we think other people see us and than we went around room talking with people we usually do not talk to and discuss about that word. Another assignment was to write word which would describe how we want to bee seen and again we went discussing with other people. It was really useful workshop as finally we had a chance to talk to some other people than we usually do not talk to. The problem is that we work all day and in the evening we go directly to our host families so there is so little time to get to know every person better in so little time.
After that workshop we practiced a little bit and at lunch I and Faith had meeting with Wouter to discuss about logistics in advanced work. After that we had to get ready and prepared for the show as the show was just to begin.
Show was amazing again. It was our first show today. It was at 2 o’clock. We had one more show at the evening at 7 o’clock and at both shows we had full auditorium. Today we also had Thailand Minister of education visiting our show. Before 2nd show we found out how much money did we raise for the Satree Phuket school. Are you ready?? We raised 10 million Baths which is around 300 000 American dollars. Wow!!! All that money goes to Satree school to build one more building as that school has around 3000 girls and 300 boys attending the school.
August 24 – first show in Thailand
We had our first show in Thailand today and I can only say that was really crazy show.
When I woke up I had little headache and I didn’t felt like performing at all but it become better after taking headache pill.
During the day we mostly practiced and we practiced new Thai songs. At 5 we had our dinner and at 6 we had green room. Green room was full of emotions. Tech team was responsible for running the green room and it was super crazy. Faith also wrote the poem for the green room so we heard her poem which brought a lot of tears. It was really emotional and she talked about our Thai experience here in Thailand. I could say that everyone found themselves in that poem.
So, the show started really quickly after the green roam and wow… we had really amazing show. Girls went crazy about all our guys especially about Brodie. They were screaming when he was singing. It was sooo funny but also so nice to hear that they love our show and they love Brodie.
After the show we got some snacks to eat and Amy and I soon went home to sleep and to prepare for next day when we will perform 2 shows. I was sooo tired from all day that I just fall asleep so quickly.
August 23
Wow… I can only say that for today.
So, it was our last community impact day and I was luckily in Sunshine Village. First they said that we will be in Habitat which also wouldn't be bad, but it would consider more labor work and not playing with the kids. In Sunshine Village we played with the kids, at least Nanako and I did and in the afternoon we painted the flowers.
In the evening when we were finished with all our activities, our host family took me and Amy to Thai massage. Wow, that was amazing. They took us to some friend of theirs all the way to Karun beach and we really enjoyed Thai massage. I didn’t have idea how Thai massage looks like. Lady who massages uses her whole body to massage so it’s quite different than other types of massages. It was amazing. After Thai massage we got one foot massage and that was also amazing. I loved it.
Really nice day with kids and nice relaxing finishing of the day with Thai massage.
Post je objavljen 30.08.2007. u 07:07 sati.