123,579

Bangkok 100 Rockfest, day 2

of their ilk, i maybe would have preferred
Everclear. but it's ok, Placebo got me
dancing and arching my body back and
forward, banging to their music.
there's the kind of dancing where the
music just makes it seem
natural for your body to be moving.
then there's that kind of dancing, where
it's like your body's being exorcised
of angst. my neck aches now.

but prior to that, listening to snow patrol
under a clear sky of stars was excruciating.
but lovely.
it got OA at times, but really,
music made from aching for someone?
they should make it some sort of prescription drug.
a dose of it at the wrong time
can be lethal.

112,964

Bangkok Rockfest, Day 1

that pedometer read-out
includes steps and jumps
taken while dancing to "Take me Out",
"This Fire" and "Do you Wanna"
under the night sky
with Franz Ferdinand performing live :-)

also, i am now reserving
the words "astig" and "lupet"
only for rock stars who can still
be considered cool even if they're
slapping a tambourine.
the only rock star so far
who falls into this category
is liam gallagher.
wooohooo!

you can really tell when true
rock stars have taken the stage.
you feel the anticipation all around you.
there's so much energy just waiting to
burst. and suddenly, a figure walks on-stage
and the crowd climaxes with cheers
and adulation coming from every side of the venue.
behind you, in front of you, to the side.
you can't see it, but you hear and sense it.

and how many songs later,
tired and raw, still so many voices
shout back to the stage,
to the sky -
"...Need a little time to wake up, wake up
Need a little time to wake up
Need a little time to rest your mind.."

you wonder if this whole audience, if we all
sing this song so wholeheartedly
because we really have felt this way,
or because, those persons on-stage have the
power to lead us even to places other than
where we were all standing then.

95,452

are we even on the map?

CONVERSATION 1

RUSSIAN GIRL: You have those weird eyes, are you thai?
Where are you from?

ME: Oh, I'm from Manila.

RUSSIAN GIRL: Manila? I haven't heard of that place at all.

ME: The Philippines? You know, South East Asia?

RUSSIAN GIRL: No, haven't heard of it.


CONVERSATION 2

CALIFORNIA GIRL: So..you're from the Philippines right?

ME: Yup.

CALIFORNIA GIRL: So..do you have your own language there?

ME (in my head): Damn! Sa tingin mo ba ganun kame ka walang
kultura na even language - a cultural aspect so basic even the
smallest communities have their own - is absent from us? grabe, do you
really think so little of us or are you just sooo ignorant...(goes on to further
irate thoughts)

ME (out loud): Uh..yeah...

92,242

Ko Samet, Rayong province, Thailand


as with all firsts,
it had its doubtful moments, grumbly
bits and fleeting scares,
but in the end you realize,
even just for that bend in the road -
when you turn and suddenly there's the sea!
- even just for that first glimpse,
it is always worth it.

of course, i can't help but compare.
for me, Ko Samet ranks between galera and bora.
with a bus ride and a boat ride, it's as
easy and inexpensive to get to as galera.
but when you get there, the sand
is boracay white and powdery.
somehow the water doesn't sparkle though.

but the long and wide stretch of beach is
lined by clutches of fancy, lounge-on-the-sand
resto-bars and no-frills grilleries.
in one end, a bar put low tables and
soft lights amidst the flat rocks.
so you get your own cozy,
little niche between rock and sand.
so nice!

it's peak season, but there weren't that
many people. and there are pockets of beach
where you can separate yourself from the
mostly white tourists.
the cottage i ended up taking
stood against the hills, so close to
the water, with lounge chairs on the
balcony so you could just sit there
and look out for hours. sigh :-)

taking my first meal of the day
right on the beach,
the blue water stretching away,
the wind swinging the lamps in the trees,
the sand under my feet,
i couldn't help but smile to myself.
this is indeed a great escape.
my first in thailand :-)

i now know one thing about me
that doesn't change wherever i go -
quiet mornings on the beach make me happy :-)

88,782

Rayong province, South Eastern Thailand

so the konductora for the sangthaew (thai version of a jeep)
called out for passengers.
we waited for a few minutes,
then she took out the placard over
the window, got in
and drove! :-) haha, nice.

anyway, again, i find myself thankful for
the kindness of strangers.
i think i survive only through this.

when i got off the bus from bangkok,
a tout approached me immediately
saying "holiday? ko samet?" repeatedly.
then he led me to his pick-up,
motioning for me to get in.
i'd already read that these private
transports to the pier cost so much
more than a sangthaew, so i said no
and walked away.
but he kept following me and (ugh, i hate
it when people do this) made me kalabit (sorry
for the taglish, i've thought long and hard
for an english equivalent pero parang wala).
motioning to his pick-up, he kept saying
"ko samet! you go ko samet!".

but i kept walking away, totally clueless as to
where the heck the sangthaews to the pier are.
all the signs were in thai.

finallly, one sangthaew with passengers
pulled up in front of me and the driver
asked me something in thai.
i assumed he was asking where i was going
so i just said - like an idiot - "Ban Phe, ban phe".

"Ban Phe?" then he points to the opposite
end of the terminal.
satisfied with this, i started heading in that direction.
but he even gets off his sangthaew,
shouts out to a conductor while pointing to me
"blablabla in thai..ban phe ban phe.."

So this other guy the driver shouted at
walks towards me, smiles, then walks me to
the right sangthaew. and only after making me
bilin to the conductor of this sangthaew,
and making sure i get on does he leave! :-)

thank you God for nice people.

i remember when Ana and i went to Baler.
after getting off the bus, we had to ask several indifferent
people where to get a ride to the town itself.
and also when we were looking for a beach in Batangas
and hit Matabungkay first,
the people who were being "kind" to us
were tricycle drivers or cottage owners
who kept pressing us to rent boats or
take a room in cottages that give them commissions.
tapos the tricycle driver stiffed us pa.
PLUS, they would make kalabit too.
grrrr!
really, people with ulterior motives are everywhere,
but thankfully, kind and simple people aren't rare here.

78115

BTS, Sala Daeng station

i am usually the late one, so i am hardly
ever the one who waits (at least, when
it comes to appointments, haha).

not being used to standing
outside the rush hour mob,
i see now how transits
are a frenzy of anonymous faces.
people flit in and out, dashing past you
before they even make an impression.
scanning from the periphery,
you wait for someone to surface
out of the crowd, out of your past,
to be relevant to you again in the present.

74,511

my first tuk-tuk ride! :-)

wala, para lang syang mas-streamlined na tricycle.

74,383

ProClimber Bangkok

running late for my first ever wall climbing lesson,
i hopped on a cab and said "Soi Chan" as clearly
as possible. syempre, di pa rin nya ako naiintindihan.
so i gave him the map, which he couldn't make sense of.
he had to park by the side of the road and trace
the map with his fingers, all the while with a confused
frown on his face. i figured he didn't understand
english characters.
he'd turn to me and ask some inscrutable question,
and i'd give him some retarded, monosyllabic answer.

so finally, he unfolds the piece of paper where the
map was printed, finds the number of the place
and calls them up on his own cellphone(!) to ask for directions.

aww, kindness! what a great boost to my faith in humanity.
shucks, thank god for smart and kind cab drivers.
not just the polite kind of kind, but the
go-out-of-their-way, find-a-solution kind.
if only there were more of that kind of
kind people in the world, it'd be a much better place.

73,044

brokeback dance interpretation


ok,
when Pulitzer prize winner Annie Proulx wrote the short story,
and when Academy Award nominee Ang Lee first picked up
Pulitzer Prize winner Larry McMurty's screenplay,
i don't think thai lady boys in cowboy costumes
dancing in the middle of the cinema lobby
was what they had in mind.

64,639

Hua Lamphong train station

a terminal, for me, is a destination in itself.
I am at home in them -
airports, bus centers, ports.
Where noone is truly at home themselves,
and everyone is just waiting for their way from or to.

so on a quick trip for schedules,
not being on my way anywhere else,
i found myself staying to watch the people who were.

the odd buddhist monk wrapped in dirty orange robes;
big, white people clustered around their big, bulky luggage;
lone backpackers propping themselves up against the walls;
and the throng of thai people - anxiously in line,
bored in their seats, clutching their packages,
watching the departure/arrival board,
standing around trying to figure out all the chaos.

outside, the steets were wet with rain. there was
a gray cast to everything. and once in a while,
we could hear one train, two, trudging off
to somewhere far away.

64,399

on the Bangkok MRT


"You have reached the end of the line."


Oh no.

62,911

walking home down sukhumvit
from the underground train terminal,
i passed nine beggars, four 7/11s,
one foot fortune teller.

it makes sense when you think about it -
where's your life going?
ask your foot!

i was sorely tempted.

61,274

leaving Suan Lum Night Bazaar

after swooning over both
contemporary and traditional thai
house stuff,
being amused by Luis Vuitton tsinelas
and cutesy knick-knacks,
and admiring young designers' avant-garde
fashion, i leave with a bag of...
pirated music CDs.
classic.

i will support any pirate who deigns
the likes of Belle&Sebastian, Saint Etienne,
the Sleepy Jackson, Cat Power,
even Putumayo and Verve compilations
worthy of being ripped off.
unfortunately for me, there were a lot of
such pirates in Suan Lum.

i hate being poor.

59,061

getting pissed off generates so much energy, it's unbelievable.
maybe i should get hugely pissed off everyday, so that
i (actually) go to the gym everyday and lose some (actual) weight.

anyway, i was so..hmm, annoyed is too mild a term,
ok, extreemely annoyed, at having to cancel
my long weekend plans because of a meeting
that ended up cancelled too.
grrrr!
i considered jumping up and down on the bed to
let out the pent-up frustration, but as i am trying to be
a (actual) mature, sane, human being, i jumped into gym clothes instead.
(Hmm, possible psych study? Is there a correlation between
regular gym-goer housewives AND desperate housewives?)

So i got on this machine that you stride on. It's
supposed to simulate walking/running/jogging, but your ankles
and knees don't get damaged.
and since your arms are swinging with the handles,
you get an arm and torso work-out too.

There i was, hammering like i could get all the way
to Kanchanaburi on the thing.
Then to give me a false sense of accomplishment at the end of the session,
the monitor read out that i ran 4 kilometers.

really?
but i'm right where i began.

suddenly, it felt like i was in one of those nightmares.
you know, where you're running away from something.
but no matter how hard you try, there's just this strange weight
that keeps you from going any faster,
or even (actually) going anywhere.

57,044

cinema 5, seat k10

from my bed to a seat in the "state-of-the-art", posh cinema,
it's 2-5 minutes depending on the elevators.
no need to walk out to the streets even,
thanks to secret hallways and VingCard doors (no doubt
for prissy expats who prefer pristine airconditioning).

so thursday night, i accomplished one of my objectives here,
and the one thing i thought i could never do alone -
watch a movie.

Memoirs of a Geisha, like the book, was tepid,
but the whole experience -
quietly reclining into a bucket seat that somehow
manages to adjust in just the right way;
having a whole cinema to yourself, as if it were
your own private screening;
walking through a few doors to get home, like you
were just heading back from the living room -
all that was not bad at all.


XX. INT. apartment. NIGHT

KALADKARIN opens the door to her apartment and slips in.
There's a satisfied look on her face, as if she were
saying to herself: "Well, that was nice. i could do that again."

53,233

Siam Square

Yesterday, I was a transplanted typical-Luneta-photographer,
holding on to the camera hung from his neck, walking about while looking around.

Today, I was jologz-in-the-mall-who-sits-by-the-fountain.
Well, it was a very nice fountain anyway.

I usually approach malls with disdain, but when you're walking through
lit marble halls, glass and cascading water, crystal chandeliers that make tinkly sounds
and lots of pretty, pretty things (lovely dresses, funky houseware, cute knick-knacks,
well-crafted notebooks, kick-ass sound systems, unbelievable jewelry)
you kind of forget that you're in a mall.

And do excuse me for getting impressed by japanese-design lagoons
with actual fish in them (what for, you wonder),
aquariums in the middle of food halls,
huge TV walls and impressive product displays,
and yes, fantasy indoor fountains (mirrors and water and jungle)
that emerge out of nowhere.

i must say, our malls have been very much outdone.
i sat there for quite a while, disbelieving my own wonder.
but alas, a jologz-by-the-fountain, even if
it IS a very nice fountain in a very nice mall, is still a jologz.
and so, i eventually had to get out of there.

52,676

resistant to it as i am, growing up, i realize, entails making choices and letting go of others.
especially when you have limited resources, like, say, money. time. energy.
you can't do everything after all.
For example, I found myself right outside Siam Ocean World - the biggest fish tank in southeast asia.
Only to turn back because I wasn’t willing to spend for the entrance fee, and let go of a long weekend in the country for an hour in there.

However, I remember the Underwater World in Singapore as the highlight of that whoooole month-long trip (which doesn’t speak well either of that trip or of Singapore). But then, even if you can't do everything, you can save them for later.
So i’ll see you soon for sure, fishies.

So I got to thinking about me – fish out of water? bird spreading its wings?
How, when you're unwilling to make a choice, you end up neither here nor there, not anywhere really.
I'm not being fair to the company when I'm in the office but just corresponding with people back home most of the time.
And it isn’t fair to me either, to be wandering these streets wishing I were somewhere else.

Life being a limited resource after all, I chose to spend some of it here. Now i have to let go.

42,280

Lumphini park.

yes, a day after your boss tells you that you were brought in
specifically to get cracking and win awards,
the best thing to do is leave for an early lunch, hop on the sky train
and head to - not the nearby park, no -
the far-away one,
and follow a strange bird like a fool, trying to get a picture of it.

i have a feeling i'm the wrong person for this job.

had a nice lunchtime walk though.
wish i could have lingered.

36,511

you know a country's a global economic influence
when it's found its way into the international breakfast buffet.
representing america - bacon, ham and eggs.
japan - sashimi; steamed rice; breaded fried pork or chicken.
europe (yes, they're taken as a whole) - a slew of breads, fruits and cheese.

and so, the lone Filipino in the whole buffet area has to
make do. i wonder when tapsilog, cornedbeefsilog and daingsilog will
show up on the breakfast buffet table?
sigh.

so anyway, i remembered, as of last night, i've been in bangkok a week.

this morning, someone asked, "are you enjoying it here?
do you like it? personally, i find it isn't a hard place to like.
it's a great place to live."

well, that's true, bangkok aims to be endearing.
ironic for a country that resisted the foreign influence for so long.
am i enjoying it? for the most part, yes.
do i like it? yes.
would i live here? i don't know yet.

i'm rather fond of tapsilog.

31,807

Old japanese man wearing white shirt saying -

MAKE MIRACLE,
MAKE MERRY MUSIC.

I think i kiiind of get it..but don't.
A few golf claps for his use of alliteration though.

And since we're already on the topic of confounding uses of the English language,
"Lucent" would make a nice name.

24, 312

my first river taxi ride! and i made a mistake, haha.

oo nga naman, when the boat is marked with inscrutable squiggles
and in parentheses CROSS RIVER, e di that means it's just going to
cross the river. as in go to the opposite bank, haha.

So my first river taxi ride took me to the other side of Mae Nam Chao Phraya - Bkk yai.
As soon as i kinda walked past the pier, i walked back in to get back to the other side.

But my next two boat rides more than made up for my first mistake.
The wind in my face and hair again,
reaching Assumption church in time for Thai mass (mistake #2),
the Temple of the Dawn by sunset,
and a stroll through so-alive Banglumphoo,
tell me that this, my first weekend in Bangkok, is just a quick peek into
everything that is to come.

i can't wait : )

20,685

Siam in Trade and War - Old Maps of the Nineteenth Century Exhibit

Ooh, there's the Philippines!
In an 1828 map of the East India Isles.
We're all pretty much there. There's Batanes. There's Taytay.
There's the Sooloo Sea.
And an island named St. John's, lying East of Mindanao interestingly marked as "Doubtful".
(Hmm. As in Doubtful it exists? or The people there are Doubtful by nature?)

19, 121

Jim Thompson House
(at the very end of Soi Kasemsan 2, or just follow til you find where all the white people are coming from)

So this is how white well-off lived in old Bangkok.
A house, actually, six attached ancient teak buildings, right by the river;
two ponds; a manta ray; an art collection and a silk empire.
Then the man goes and disappears in the Malaysian Highlands.
No gratitude i tell you.

What the guides are eager to point out is how J. Thompson bent Thai architecture into forms that pleased his Western tastes.
Like how he brought the carvings on window sill bottoms into the house;
or turned Thai drums upside down and made them lamps.

Actually, even if the guide hadn't said he was American, i would have figured that anyway.
In the dining room, there were deer heads hanging on one wall. Except they were ceramic, haha.
Now that's what i call adapting.


DID YOU KNOW?
- Thais believe that evil can only travel in a straight line, so their doors are elevated, so evil can't "step through"

- For Buddhists, long ears mean long life. That's why a lot Buddha images have long ears. (Probably also why Thais
have a lot of those chunky, heavy, dangling earrings.)

- In maps of old Siam, distances are measured in "days it takes to cross" rather than a set metric system.
The maps were for military purposes after all.

15, 511

Benchasiri Park

The problem with me is, i keep going to things with low expectations,
then i end up getting amazed by little things. (Wat Arun really doesn't seem
all that it's hyped up to be though.)

Like this jog.
From outside the park gates, Benchasiri seems like nothing but a quiet cluster of trees.
The highlight of the park being the fountain that runs along its front.
Benches line it and people come to watch when the fountain comes alive (ie. starts spurting)
for one hour in the morning and one hour in the evening.
Sitting there IS quite pleasant. Gray doves alight by park meanderers' feet and feed off tourists' bread crumbs.

So going through the gates, making a few rounds, i was surprised to find clusters of activity around the park.
And a huge lagoon in the center! if i cared to, i could have imagined i was in UP.
Except i think, rather than smooching dormers,
i actually preferred the four old Chinese women gliding their swords into wushu motions,
the first live game of sepak takraw i ever saw (ang galeng! their kicks require tight turns in air EVERY time),
and the thai skater boys practicing on their sad half of a half-pipe.

on the last bit of my first round the park, a little girl twirled about with her sparklers.
and on my very last round, she and two of her friends lit sparklers again and danced around in a circle.
i headed home smiling.

10, 974

Thailand Creative and Design Center exhibit - DNA of Japanese Design
(preceded by a lecture by the Japanese dude who invented the 1st cellular phone and the 1st fax machine and also, the Japanese dude who had illuminating, but way too many, slides)

again from TCDC, my nth "wow" of Saturday.
i'd almost missed the exhibit because the entrance was tucked away by the side.
(i was wearing glasses so no peripheral vision.)
and as soon as i'd walked in - wow.
again, it just must be that i'm easily impressed. it was after all, just a predominantly dark hall
with glass panels hung low and various desgners' profiles projected on to them.
higher up, long columns of micro-net screens with images of Japan projected on to them.
and all around, objects of Japanese designs on pedestals lit from below. (kaya din natin yan! i suppose : S)

the core of the exhibit though, was the so-called DNA of Japanese design.
the driving principles behind Jap design were extracted, and in the exhibit, given examples of.
like, take the Japanese compulsion to make objects accessible to as many people as possible.
Exemplified by making the 8mm film camera, and later, the handycam (also an example of the
Jap compulsion to make things as compact as possible), which allowed even non-film professionals
to dabble in film-making.

Another Japanese design principle, making objects accessible even to groups not previously diposed to it.
like baby slings and baby hampers were previously seen as too feminine. by inventing that baby carrier
that you can sling on to your shoulders like a backpack, suddenly, (supposedly), it was ok for men to carry a baby around.
there are about 9 principles. i'll go get the exhibit notes if any of you still want more.

anyway, listening to the lecture and going around the exhibit, i realize, i'm loving being a student again.
this whole first weekend in bkk has been about learning it, and so many other things besides.
waking up this morning and seeing all my notes scattered across my study,
a familiar gladness came over me. i'm learning so many things!
i am such a nerd.
(i still don't get aibo though.)

10,005

The Thailand Creative and Design Center

shares prime real estate right up there with cinemas and dollar-earning boutiques.
it isn't just some token nod to "oh yeah, we need a learning space for design, because you know,
it's important nowadays", but a major investment in challenging Thai designers' and entrepreneurs' boundaries.
It has the biggest Design library in Asia, Material Connexions - an interactive (as in touch&feel, not point&click)
resource for product developement materials and just an amazing, welcoming, encouraging space
for creatives to hang around and expand their minds.
But ok, i should stop gushing. take a look at it yourself - www.tcdc.or.th
(Doofus, i think you'll like it here.)

I'm thinking i'm probably just very impressed because i come from a 3rd world country.
But i guess, the lack of resources like this is precisely what makes where i come from so.
A guest speaker on Japanese design mentioned the concept of "information as environment".
And with TCDC i see how, by putting so much information within reach, they're one step closer
to expanding Thailand's place in the world.

12390

Sky Train.

"Please offer this seat to monks."

(Will i get a blessing?)

12351

Little Lebanon.

- decide to have a walk for lunch. head for cheap shawarma. (as opposed to yesterdays which was ingenius - a bit of curry in the tahini sauce, yum! & stuffed in a fat pita rather than rolled in a thin one - and excellent - chunks rather than slivers of tasty beef - but expensive)

- walk 32 blocks to find a tucked-away little area down Sukhumvit

- see rows of silvery steel shishas shining in the sun

- pass a black and white egyptian restaurant

- see Muslim men knelt down in prayer, their heads close to the ground

- see rows of colored glass shishas sitting in the shade

- suddenly worry if it's some sort of taboo for a single woman to be walking around in a muslim area

- look around, am only single woman walking around alone

- head for open shawarma stand, previously empty, now swarming with big, burly men

- decide not hungry

- take BTS back to comfort zone

- comfort myself for being a coward by having ice cream

This morning, i decided to do a video work-out rather than go jogging in the park (Emporium's right beside Benchasiri. huge, fountains and such, doves you can feed. very pleasant).
and last night, rather than going to a Mexican filmfest as i had planned, i watched American Idol (i missed Lost).
i'm afraid i might simply live out the three months just staying in my apartment watching cable every night!
(Bons, tuwing kelan nga ba ang House?)

eep, sana 'wag. good luck na lang sakin over the weekend.

5872

first lunch alone.

i stumbled into a place i'd already seen. i just love its name - Pita Pan - because the J.M. Barrie classic is my all-time favorite.
of course, don't think the allusion was intentional. they serve Mediterrean food after all.
(hmm, what WOULD a Peter-Pan themed restaurant serve? Capt. Hook's chicken fingers?)

it seems i'm living in the right area to be exploring cuisines.
just walking from the office, i caught sight of so many interesting places -
japanese holes-in-the-wall; thai fusion; of course, street food.
right in our building there's an english pub, and a few meters away, a german one.
there's even good old Subway if i want to be boring.

then walking back, there was a man with long white hair, a long white beard and long white robes sitting on the pavement sculpting squirrels and dragons from hemp rope.
a cart full of bouquets of strawberries lay in the sun. 50Baht for a small, shiny heap.
past them, a couple was putting together a fruit basket in front of a block of fruit vendors.

on the way, i grabbed a cup of Grand'italia ice cream : ) and entered the office with it.
the british copywriter gave me a weird look. i suspect he suspects i'm retarded.
but i don't care, i'm happy.

5138

rm 4180, Emporium Suites

i'm mababaw and so, don't want much in life.
like, i've just always wanted a balcony with a view, a home entertainment system,
breakfast cooked for me everyday.

thing is, i've hardly ever gotten what i really wanted.
so when i do, i'm suddenly nervous.
has there been a mistake? is this a cruel joke where it's going to be taken away from me?

but well, i'm getting used to it now. my bags are unpacked. my books and CDs are on the shelf.
the pillows are huge, and i so love settling into them, settling into all this.

so tomorrow, before breakfast, i'm finally going to put the Sea Monkeys in their tank.
they'll hatch in their tiny little eggs. grow with me.
and everytime i look up and see my view,
i'm just going to say thank you God, thank you God. no more doubts.

4826

my new office. 21st floor, UBC II bldg.

people seem nice. such a mixed bag of different nationalities.
like the team i'm currently working with is a british guy who has a thai wife.
been in bkk for 10 years and 3 in hongkong before that.

then the art director whom i thought was thai, turns out to be malaysian.
he just picked up the language (galeng!) because he's been here 5 years.
and prior to this he was studying in hawaii (huh? didn't know they had universities there. doesn't everyone just hula?)

i sit beside a european freelance planner (haven't asked from what country yet).
and already, i'm counting more british dudes than i've ever been around.
i heard a bit of Pinoy a while ago. So that means there's at least two more Filipinos here.

it's very strange really. and i feel very wide-eyed and clumsy.
there, that's it. the past days (it's just been 2 anyway) i've been feeling ungainly and clumsy.
from that first night of arrival, pushing my huge luggage out the bus and lugging it around.
or even little things like dropping my mints or spilling the chili.
in my apartment, it almost feels like i'm a stranger inhabiting someone else's life.
the bath robe is too big. the bed. the window.
i feel like an elephant. lumbering. too slow.
except, unlike elephants, i'm not in my own country.
(and well, unfortunately, i don't bellow.)

3682

jasmine city, rm 1790. home for the night.

walking home, it starts to sink in.
i am somewhere else.

shreds of a sharper, unknown language snatch at my ear.
an unfamiliar spice grazes my nose, goes straight for the gut.
strange squiggles dance across posters.
and heck, cars are coming from the wrong side of the road!

but it's there now, the sense that i'm about to have an adventure.
right in front of my building, a neon sign in acid green - SIAMESE TWINS (what DOES that mean?);
two Pakistani sitting in front of Aswad's Fish and Chips.
HOW dooo things get thrown together here?
can't wait to figure it out : )

1579

my journey begins with arriving, and so, there are already many stories to tell.
thank goodness this trek into the unfamiliar allowed me a familiar welcome.

my 1,579th footfall took me to rm2606 in Emporium Suites - supposedly "the ultimate serviced apartment" in Bkk.
Elly opened the door for me and, like a concerned pet owner, let me in and fed me for the night.
i tell her my of painful arrival -
+ the airport bus not stopping at my stop, and so having to lug 40 kilos of luggage several crowded blocks

+ hailing a cab in the middle of the street and struggling to push my bag into the back (thank you strange, kind man who
helped me. that marks the first time i did the "way". and i realize, it IS a gesture that worthily articulates sincere gratitude)

+ arriving at my serviced apartment building craving for a rest, only to be told i wasn't booked a room :-(

+ getting a room only through a guest relations officer's kindness

sigh.
but after a while, recounting all the recent inconveniences fall aside to talking about familiar things.
my despedida, the people we know, our continuing struggles, manila.
i remember what this is all about. and i'm reminded that, after all this, there is always something/someplace/someone to go back to. suddenly, i wasn't in a strange land, but with a friend.
i had arrived.

1

I chose this.
I have to make this work.