Back in town

Just got back from Pai yesterday evening. Was playing with photoshop yesterday night and modified some of the photos we took during the trip:






The rest to be uploaded soon. Will blog about my trip later too, feeling kinda lazy right now. *Yawn*. Ok, Mdm is going back to work. Oh ya... I will be going back to Singapore in less than a month!! Yuppie!! =))

Pai Pai!

Mdm's first road trip in Thailand! Me is going to Pai tomorrow morning!!!

Was surfing for info about Pai. Check this out:

The winter season is brought by the northeast monsoon, beginning in November and ending in the middle of February. It becomes cold and dry everywhere, with heavy mists. January is the coldest month, with ground temperatures averaging 2 degrees Celsius.

Woohoo!! =))

Second day of 888

Just to reinforce how fast time had zoomed past, P and I were officially married for a full 5 month yesterday. And now... we are into our 6th! Gosh. By next month, shan would be married for a year and BB fox would be 6 months old? O..O.

Was having a chat with my cousin over MSN yesterday night. It's his first day at school today. It suddenly dawned on me that it was exactly 10 years ago that I was going through what he was preparing himself for. I couldnt really remember my first day in NJ, but vaguely recall that I had met shan and travelled with her to school then met up with the rest of the girls at the bus-stop outside NJ. Hell, and all this was 10 years ago. Of course, unlike Yang, I wasnt looking forward to meeting girls for the first time in school and trashing my pair of Catholic shorts. He must be looking forward to JC life and the long pants. My two youngest cousins are now in JC. How amazing.

One of our new year resolutions is to get out of bed at 7.30. When I first arrived, I was getting up at 8 and then 9 and then sometimes 10, 11!! As for P, he has attained another level that we shall not mention about. We come to realise that this anomaly presented us with issues cos it's hard for him to get things done when our time zone differ from the rest. In the last week of 2007, we made promises about getting up and getting out of bed early. Yesterday, we tried sleeping before midnight, skipping our usual movie session. We ended up tossing and turning, chatting, gossiping, laughing, singing... and we slept at 3!!! No prize for guessing, we didnt manage to get up at 7.30. ROOOOARRRR.

Happy 2008 from us!

3..2..1.. 8888!!!

Happy 2008 ^-^

No countdown or any partying today. Just went for our regular dinner then came home and released the 3 remaining lanterns from last year. Caught a very nice orchestra of fireworks though. Just like last year, we went to the back of the house and stood on the balcony to watch the fireworks. It was quite spectacular. I mean... it wasnt like what you get in Sg where millions were spent. Nonetheless this was kind of an unexpected version where most of the fireworks were done not using the taxpayers' money. Minutes before 12, the sky was filled with lanterns and fireworks. Frankly, I like this version better than the Sg one. It seems more close to heart and "local" if you get what I mean. The fireworks was very close to us and it was literally shaking the house. This is definitely better than Loy Krathrong too. The fireworks had stopped half past 12 and people were not too crazy about it.

Went to the Sunday walking street the day before. It was super packed!!! Walked for 3plus hours, bought nothing but had enjoyed myself alot. Guess whoever's making a trip to Chiangmai should never miss the Sunday walking street. It's less commercialized and stuff sold are more interesting than the regular bazzaar. People-watching was very interesting too. LOL~ Saw many many weird buskers, doing incredibly ridiculous stuff. There was this girl dancing forward and backward in an absurd manner and this very out of the place japanese performer with his guitar, crooning amidst the crowd. Those flip flops down there are very nice. The photos cant really show much but the designs are all hand-crafted onto the rubber. The stall owners take in custom designs too. Guess this would be a very interesting gift since you can design the patterns to be crafted. No program for the rest of today. Probably would be heading to the hypermarket to grab some food cos out of the sudden I'm craving for sukiyaki. I'm still feeling very lazy on the first day of a new year. Our trip to Pai is scheduled for this weekend =). His friends are suggesting 2 nights, one day out camping and another in this resort made from mud/clay/whatever (cannot really remember). Yea~. I'm very excited about this trip! Hope I wont freeze to death up north. The weather's kinda getting freaky these days and it gets colder on some days than others.

Meerrryy meerry Xmas!

Merry Xmas to all!

Tadahhh.

Tried jogging twice since it's arrival. It was good sweating out and all but the whole jogging thing is still a torture to me. Have to push myself real hard... and to date, I've not been able to reach my target distance yet. Sad or wat. Cut my hair on Sunday. Finally I've decided to leave my hair in the hands of the Thais!!! And surprisingly, I like my new hair! Wakhahaha. No post-rebonding flat hair and after 2 days of washing, it remains as before. =) Given this very satisfying result, I wonder if I'll be going back to Jeremy again.

Xmas here is as good as dead. We didnt do anything on Xmas but went out for dinner and drinks with P and his friends on Xmas eve. It wasnt really a party or anything. The regular Xmas songs were off and as usual, Thai pop songs ruled. We had a very very full dinner followed by a very very full supper. I was so super full that I puked when I got home. Have a plan to travel up north with his friends next month for a short trip. That aside, I'm looking forward to CNY. Going home is so wonderful but the thought of spending lotsa money for this trip sends shiver down my back. Airtix is expensive cos it's festive season and... angpao!!! ROOOOAAARR. I wonder if I'll be getting angpao from all the seniors

Some pics taken at the farm when we were there yesterday to fetch my MIL

Panorama

Run... RUN!

P and I had tried heading to the stadium cos I had wanted to continue my regimen as before. Since I'll be home in another 1.5 months time, I certainly do not want my aunts to comment on me regaining weight. Anywayz, I almost died after my first run. I could barely complete my first 2.4km, to think that I was doing 3.5km at least thrice a week before moving here. Guess fitting in the gown was certainly a huge motivation then. I think I had ballooned quite a bit since, no joke!!!

SIL is into exercising as well. Quite remarkable for her age and the volume of work she has (plus looking after the kids). Anyways, just 2 days ago she bought a treadmill!!! Cool or what man. The machine is arriving today! Wakhahaha. I'm so looking forward to it. I can get up, jog, shower, jog, eat, jog. Jog jog jog jog jog!!! Woohoo~ Will even dream of jogging today. Hopefully she will try out the machine TODAY so that I can use it after her. Midnight jogging... how does it sound? ^-^

My curls are straightening and I am contemplating if
1. I should opt for a hair cut here,
2. Wait till I get home and go to Jeremy.

Argghhh. Kinda getting tired of my long frizzy mane. I am thinking of reverting to rebonded hair and feel like doing it ASAP. Or a chic haircut. But what if the stupid hairdresser here gives a job that leave me with super straight and flat rebonded head? Or... damage my hair further by using pirated hair products?

Classmates

I've never been on time for class since we started Thai 3. I'm kindda getting lazy and driving out of the house is a big hassle. And ever since P's lao kok kok car broke down, it needs 3 minutes of warming up before we can drive it out without it failing us. So ever since day one, I've seated myself next the rear door in class so that I do not sashay into class and disrupt everyone while arriving 15 minutes late. And for Thai 3, I have planted myself next to Tachibana, this very Jap looking Jap man in his mid-60s.

More than half of the class is filled with Koreans, with the rest being 3 Japanese, this guy from Luxembourg and then there's me. The Koreans can hardly speak English and there's really no easy way to communicate with them. The class is conducted in Eng-Th and most of them seem to have difficulty understanding both languages. And most of them are housewives here accompanying their kids to study in the international school cos apparently, the teachers are native English speakers and they want their kids to immerse in an English speaking environment. Almost half the school is filled with Koreans. Ironic or wat.

Tachibana is a quiet Jap man and every time he opens his mouth to speak, Thai comes out. He never converse in Eng, only mumbles in Jap when he tries to get his thoughts straightened out. Just yesterday, he was telling me that he would be going to miss class for 2 weeks cos he's going on a fishing trip with his friends in Vietnam. The whole converstion was conducted in Thai. T_T. I almost wanted to laugh cos we looked funny. Every time he tried to put something across, I would verify it by repeating in Eng hoping that I'd not misunderstood him. Nonetheless, it's quite impressive. I wonder if my dad will have the will power to do that when he's at Tachibana's age. Not sure if this is like a spirit typical in Japanese or wat, it's rather awesome.

I'm (still) quite impatient in the learning of Thai and really want to be able to converse properly in it!! =.=''. It's getting me crazy cos of the tonations. I have been taught that there're 4 tones in Chinese and now there are 5 tones in Thai. It gets so confusing some times. Just the other day, I was talking to nanny about seeing a rat in the toilet.

"Horng naam mee nguu"

She was like super stunned and asked how long was that. I went... "Oh, about the size of a kitten". She looked at me, super confused. Anywayz, she heard snake (nguu). Not rat (nuu). I want to cry.