Back to Thailand

On April 28, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Singapore, Thailand, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Yesterday I left Singapore and flew to Bangkok and then to Chaing Mai.

The Singapore airport is amazing. There is art everywhere. There are at least 2 gardens in each terminal. It’s easy to get around. They have reclining chairs in case you want to relax. They have lounges, tv rooms, a pool, and a movie theater. . I heard they had free massage chairs, but I didn’t find them. One of the gardens was a butterfly garden. I went early just to see the butterfly garden.

Bangkok airport has no gardens.

The strange food story of the day…..Mochi. I like the gummy mochi candy you can get in the US at yogurt places. I love mochi balls (ice cream wrapped in mochi). I saw this mochi dessert on the airplane menu each time I flew. Then a video of it appeared on facebook on someone’s page as clear cake (it resembles cake in no way at all). So, it was time to try it. It is a clear tasteless jelly. Then you pour a brown uneventful syrup on it and top it with crushed nuts. It was good enough that I ate it all, but there is no reason you should ever pay money to eat this.

I got to my hotel in Chaing Mai, only it wasn’t a hotel, but an apartment complex. The guards had no idea what to do with me. I had no idea where to go. I called the number on my reservation, but it said “this number is not available right now”. I sat in the guard’s office for a while trying to figure out what to do when someone called me. He said his wife emailed me (I didn’t receive an email). The key was at the guard’s shack. So, it appears I rented a 2 bedroom apartment. I’d actually rather have a hotel, but it is a real nice apartment. There’s air conditioning which I won’t see for 5 months, a gym and a pool. The location seems good – near a mall, plenty of restaurants, and massage places. I ate at a restaurant that only serves made to order salads. That made me feel a little better. Then a massage. I was going to do a massage and a body scrub, but if I ordered two services, they would tack on another 50 baht in addition to the regular cost of the two services. This marketing approach is backwards and didn’t work. I gave up on the body scrub.

Today I signed up for private Thai language lessons for tomorrow and Saturday, 3 hours each. I’m not sure if my brain can handle 3 hours each day, but any new Thai I can learn will be helpful. All of the classes I looked up on the internet last night were longer – weeks or more so that is why I did the private lessons.

I went to the hospital. I had to do the health certificate again since the one I did in February is now outdated. This is for my work permit. The first hospital I went to was a mass of people and no English anywhere. I couldn’t tell if I was in the emergency room, the general hospital or what. There were many windows and steps to go through, but I couldn’t figure out where to start. I knew there was a more foreigner friendly hospital somewhere so I found it on google maps and went there instead. Within 30 seconds of being there, I was pointed in the right direction. Then began the game of move Rraine from seat to seat to room to seat to room. Overall, it didn’t take very long. They actually took blood which was more than the last place I had this done did.

I had to wait 2 hours for my tests to come back to get my certification. So I went and got lunch. There was a mall with a pizza hut and another pizza place. I opted for the other pizza place. My pizza looked and tasted suspiciously like pizza hut though. I was able to find the phone store and get my internet issues resolved (in theory – haven’t tried it out yet). I got my certification. I didn’t look at it because it was in a sealed envelope. I assume I’m healthy enough to work in Thailand. The blood test was for syphilis. I think you have to have sex to get that so I should be good to go.

While I was waiting for the certification, I got a message from the owner of the condo. He wanted to know if I could move to the room I actually rented today. Huh? With all that confusion yesterday, this isn’t even the right room. Ok, not a big deal I guess. I told him what time I’d be back and he said he’d have the maid change keys with me. This didn’t go so smoothly either. The new room hadn’t been cleaned. It was a mess and had no clean towels or sheets. I went to the pool hoping the problem would solve itself. A lot of messaging back and forth and now someone is cleaning my new room.

Thoughts of the day though: This morning when everything went so smoothly with the language lessons, hospital and phone store (the three main things I needed to do today), I felt good and thought I might accomplish everything today . I wanted to finish blogs, do some engineering work and finish lesson plans too. Ha – too ambitious. Then the dirty room dashed all of that. Now I’m cranky and grumpy and have a bit of a poor me thing going on. Such a little thing. So, I know this is no big deal, but the old nervous system pattern is getting triggered that makes me feel bad when things are out of my control and not going the way I want. It’s not panic, but a dulled down version of panic. The new learning of the day is I’ve never been a person to panic. That’s rarely, if ever, a reaction I have. I realize that in the past I couldn’t actually panic because then there’d be no control over the situation I already have no control over. I can keep from panicking, but I can’t seem to let the dulled down reaction go either. Of course, the bigger issue is that I don’t actually have control over anything and I’m in the process of letting the ego’s control go and learning to go with the flow of life. Another tiny layer of the onion can now fall away as I see the dulled down panic as a control defense.

20160427_081209 — One of the airport gardens

20160427_111308 — Mochi Series – Picture 1 – packaged for airplane

20160427_111408 — Mochi Series – Picture 2 – Add the syrup

20160427_111522 — Mochi Series – Picture 3 – Add the nuts

20160427_111633 — Mochi Series – Picture 4 – Eat

20160428_110630 — I have no idea – just found it at a coffee shop

Last Day in Singapore :(

On April 26, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Singapore, Uncategorized2 Comments

My last day in Singapore. I didn’t get up early enough to go exploring before it got too hot. It was overcast so that helped. I went to the botanic gardens. So, if you don’t want to see way too many pictures of plants, then today’s blog is not for you. It was hot, but not unbearable until about 2:00pm. I only saw about half the gardens. There was so much more I wanted to see, but the heat chased me out. I loved the ginger garden. So many plants I didn’t realize were ginger or related to ginger. Banana trees are related to ginger. Who knew? I also loved the Evolution Garden. It started out as just rock and water like when the earth was born and transformed as you walked through it as the plants on Earth would have transformed. They even went to the detail to have dinosaur tracks on the path during that time period and animal tracks during a later period. I was quite impressed with the gardens.

I went a shopping center in the Orchard Road area. It was one that Pat recommended. It was where she found that perfume the cheapest. It had a very similar feel to a Thai mall. It was huge and I gave up on it pretty quickly.

Went out to dinner with Judy, Andy and Ivan.

Here are a bunch of plant photos. Go.

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20160426_125156 — This must be fabulous when the trees are blooming

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20160426_131052 — Iconic perfect lake complete with swan

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20160426_132716 — This came from the tree in the next photo

20160426_132940 — The flowers and nuts come from the bottom, not the top of the tree

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20160426_140121 — artist idea of the first trees on the planet

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20160426_190703 — You can eat a burger at FatBoys and then get the fat frozen off upstairs

Henderson Waves

On April 25, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Singapore, UncategorizedLeave a comment

First order of business of the day was to check out the East Shore Park. It looks like a long boardwalk along the beach. I got a cab down there and it let me off at one end where there were a bunch of restaurants and shops. It’s Monday so most of the shops and restaurants were closed. It looked like a ghost town. There were no cars in the parking lot. I did find a place to have breakfast. To my surprise, my french toast had peanut butter in it. Unnecessary.

I walked around the park for awhile. It doesn’t seem like a tranquil island beach when you look out to the water and see nothing but a solid mass of cargo ships. The park overdid itself like I imagine all the parks in Singapore do. It had benches, exercise equipment, bbq grills, separate walking and biking paths along with a lot of other amenities. It was spotless clean too. I did walk by an area of tents, boats and roll away garbage bins. Not sure what that was all about. I’d have thought it was homeless if it wasn’t for the fact that the garbage bins outnumbered the tents.

It was getting too hot for humans to survive outside. So, I decided to do the shopping I needed to get done. Oh, crap, how do I get anywhere? I’m at the ghost town beach and the only taxi is the one that let me off hours ago. I actually did see a few taxis, but they all went by me. I ended up going through a highway underpass to another part of town which was half a ghost town and getting a taxi there.

Orchard Road is the big shopping area, but it’s very high end and probably very expensive. Judy had suggested that I got to Mustafa’s. It’s cheaper and it’s a madhouse that needs to be experienced. It is one store that is 5 or 6 levels tall and has almost everything ever made in it. The isles are too small for two people to be in them at once and there are already 4 people in every isle. There is a small order to things such as all the cosmetics are on one floor, but if you want perfume, it’s in 6 different places on that floor. I was looking for perfume that Pat wanted me to pick up. I also wanted to buy some cosmetics for myself. Everything in Thailand has whitening agents in it because they think light skin is pretty. I’m now darker than most Thais and am happy to pale naturally over time without whiteners. I also wanted to get a gift for Judy for letting me stay at her place. After wandering the first floor, I decided I was up for the challenge of the other 5 floors. It was like a maze – just when you thought you got to the end of the store, there was another room on that level. After 2 hours I gave up on tackling the whole store. It was not possible and people are so rude and pushy, I couldn’t take it anymore.

Last night when Judy asked what I was going to do today, I told her I wanted to see Henderson Waves. She hadn’t seen it, looked it up and wanted to go so we decided to do it after she got home from school. From what I had seen on line, it looked like an undulating bridge, but I couldn’t figure out how you would drive or walk on it. Andy decided to join us. It was a foot bridge between two really big parks. It is the highest bridge in Singapore. The wave part is off the side of the walking part. It is stunningly beautiful with great views off either side. It is a serious piece of art, in my opinion. Bravo. We stayed up there for quite awhile taking pictures.

After Henderson Waves, we took the train to Sentosa. Sentosa is a landfill island, meaning, the island was made from the extra dirt of other construction projects over the years. It has a huge park, Universal Studios, beaches and who knows what other wonderful things. It was almost dark when we got there. We went to the shore and I put some of Scott’s ashes in the water! So, now he’s in Singapore too.

Off to dinner and then Judy’s neighborhood bar. She introduced me to a guy named Ian who works with or runs or owns a company that teaches English for hospitality industry workers. She was hoping he might have some future work for me. He was with family that was visiting and was not the least bit interested in talking to me. Oh well, it was worth a try to make a new connection.

20160425_122003 — Facinating – poles for laundry built into building

20160425_082149 — View from the bedroom at Judy’s

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20160425_183444 — Showing me their wave impressions

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Gardens by the Bay

On April 24, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Singapore, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I spent most of the day near the Gardens by the Bay and the Marina Bay Sands. The Gardens by the Bay is a big garden area with big art and sprawling gardens. They have these huge metal and plant trees called the Super Trees. You can go up on a floating walkway up in the canopy of the trees. Near the Gardens by the Bay is the Marina Bay Sands which is a huge hotel, casino, and shopping mall. I met a few of the people over there to go to the Art Science Museum.

The Art Science Museum is an amazing concept. It’s dedicated to the mix of art and science. One of the exhibits they had was on gemstones. The other was an exhibit of interactive light art. The first exhibit was a room with a “painting” on the wall. It was flowers that grew, bloomed, and then the petals blew away. Butterflies also came out of the flowers. Then as the painting moved, the parts that moved off the painting became blurry and went up the walls, ceiling and floor consuming the entire room. There’s a short video of the “painting”. There were rooms where kids could draw things and what they drew then became part of a movie on the screen behind them. One was an ocean scene with fish swimming around. The fish were all the drawings kids had made. Another was a table and things were projected onto the table – gnomes, rain, flowers, butterflies, ladders, etc. If the gnomes were on the table and you put your hand down, they interacted with your hand by jumping over it, going around it or one time they set up a ladder and crawled up Amie’s arm. You could catch the rain in your hand and divert it somewhere else on the table. It seemed like there were an endless number of interactions. Sorry, no video of this one. There were some other exhibits, but the final one was a room you walked through with hundreds, maybe thousands of lights. They moved to the music, change colors, and moved through the room. It was supposed to mimic the way particles and light behave in space. I could have stayed in here for ever. I posted three way too short videos for this. It reminded me of the Cubitron at Burning Man a few years ago, but way better.

Amie and I hung out the rest of the afternoon. We walked around the gardens as it was getting dark. I found the floating baby statue. It’s called Planet. Not sure why. It was too dark to get a good photo or I’m just bad at night photos. Then we went up to the Marina Bay Sands at night. You can pay to go to the observation deck or you can go to the lounge and have a drink (with the price of drinks here, it’s about the same). The Marina Bay Sands has the largest infinity pool in the world (or the longest or the highest or something like that). I got a really bad photo of it, but you get the idea. Of course, people not staying in the hotel can’t get very near the pool. You can only marvel at it from afar. The rooms run about $600 a night and up. The view of the city is amazing from the top (56 floors?).

Out in front of the mall that is attached to the hotel they do a water and light show every night. After drinks we went down to watch it. They spray a thin wall of water and then project a video and lasers on to it. It’s all set to music too. In general, I didn’t find the show to be too exciting, but the concept of projecting video onto water was brilliant. I added a short video of that too.

I think I’m in love with Singapore.

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20160424_202451 — Largest Infinity Pool in the World

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20160424_204754 — Marina Bay Sands Lobby

I am too old for hostels

On April 24, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

It’s official, I am too old for staying in hostels. The top bunk was too much. I didn’t hurt myself, but it made me quite grumpy. Then I have to go upstairs to go to the bathroom. My suitcase is in a locker so I have to figure out what I need and throw it up to the top bunk and if I forget something go through the whole locker process again. I know first world problems. Still, I got in around 3:00 and it was a room full of snoring men. I put my ear plugs in, but it wasn’t enough. The sound resistant walls were useless. They were air condition resistant walls though. So, even though the air conditioning was on, it didn’t reach me. Someone packed up all their stuff and left at 4:00am. This involved a ridiculous amount of in and outs and my bed is right next to the door. Then other people got up at 6:00am and more at 8:00am. So, I barely slept. Last night, one of my new friends offered that I could stay with her in the future. I emailed her. The future starts tonight. I went looking for the breakfast that comes with my room and didn’t find that so I promptly checked out and caught a cab to Judy’s. Now I have a queen sized bed and bathroom to myself with air condition that works.

New Friends

On April 23, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Singapore, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Another travel day. I left Bali way too early. I told my hotel when my flight was and they called a taxi for me. I basically went an hour too early. Oh well, time enough to get some food.

When I decided to go to Singapore, it was just me. Two of my friends told me they knew someone there and put me in touch with these people. They both gave me pointers on what part of town to stay in and said they’d love to hang out in the evenings. Yay! New Friends!

Singapore is so expensive. I couldn’t find a hotel under $100 a night. Hostels ran $28+ per night. I found a hostel that said they had sound resistant walls and looked all futuristic and high tech so I decided to book there. I arrived and the place was so hot. The place has air conditioning, but none of it was on. By the time I had settled in and changed clothes, I was sweating so bad that outside seemed like a cooler option. The beds don’t look all futuristic, but they still look pretty cool. Unfortunately, I got a top bunk. Hope I don’t kill myself in the middle of the night.

So far, I like Singapore. It is a very clean and safe city. There are trees and gardens everywhere. The streets aren’t crazy like all the other places I’ve been lately. They drive like civilized people and stay within their own lane and follow basic traffic rules. Most large cities I’ve been in have an aggressive feeling to them and I figured it was just the hustle and bustle of a big city. Singapore has hustle and bustle, but without the aggressive feeling. Also, all the buildings are unique and have quite a bit of an artistic quality to them.

I headed out to find my way to dinner. One of my new friends set up a dinner with me, his boyfriend, a woman he works with and two other people that were visiting Singapore. We started off with dinner at an Indian restaurant and then went and checked out some of the Singapore night life. Everyone was wonderful and so funny. I had a great night. I’m so glad I decided to come here. Thanks Erin for introducing me to my new friend!

13006745_10156778366130176_1446709735768028611_n — New fun friends

Didn’t Miss Much

On April 22, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Nothing too exciting happened yesterday. We went to a very expensive restaurant for dinner. Just riding around, I think I enjoy the feel of Seminyak better than Ubud. Not sure what it is, but an energetic feel. Or maybe less concentration of people. Still a lot of tourists either way. Maybe it’s just the beaches.

Today we went to see Tanah Lot which is an island temple. It was beautiful, but you can’t go across to the temple. But with the waves crashing on the rocks, it makes for some wonderful pictures. After that we spent some time on the beach and fun beach bar after. It reminded me a lot of beach bars in Florida. Overall, the day was nice, but I am very ready to move on to Singapore tomorrow.

20160421_175317 — Outside wall of restaurant made of old shutters

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More Beach

On April 20, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Bali, UncategorizedLeave a comment

After breakfast and some pool time, my friend arrived at the hotel. We changed rooms in the hotel. We went to Seminyak beach which is a busier beach than the one the hotel is near. It still wasn’t the crowded mess I had heard of. The streets in Seminyak were crowded with traffic and lined with stores, but it had a nice feel to it, I thought. We went in search of a place that would do henna tattoos, but failed on that hunt. Better hunting tomorrow. They do the bean bag beach bars here too, but there’s a lot more of them. I got some pictures of them after they had set up for the sunset crowd. I didn’t get any pictures of them at sunset, but it was nice to just sit in bean bags and watch the waves come in. We also bought a couple of movies to take back to the hotel. I was surprised that Allegiant was already out. But when we went to buy it, they said it might not be good quality. Aha, it’s an illegal copy. We got it anyway. It was ok quality.

I’m feeling a combination of opposites. I’m tired of people. I’m tired of being alone. I don’t want to go back to work, but I’m missing the lack of routine. I’m tired of doing. I’m tired of sitting still. I feel out of place. I don’t like heat. I don’t like heat – oh wait, no opposite there. I feel like I should decide what I’m going to do with my life after teaching. But why do I have to decide that now? How is making a decision now living in the flow of life? I’m trying to live now and the future keeps hopping into my thoughts. When it does, it brings anxiety and “should” and exhaustion. Overall, I spend an enormous amount more of my time living now, but the future still has a bit of a hold on me. And, now that I am so much more aware, I can feel what living for the future does to a body so much stronger. So, I just watch it when it happens and note how it makes me feel and question who is watching. I think this is all part of a bigger shift trying to happen.

I found it easier when I was watching the sunset yesterday to just melt into oneness and now than I did tonight. I think it’s harder for me when I’m with other people. I still have thoughts that tell me I have to be a certain way, have conversations, do things, be witty, be nice, behave like all the other people, etc.

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Beach

On April 19, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Awakening, Bali, UncategorizedLeave a comment

We got up this morning and found a place for breakfast. It wasn’t very good. Then we hung out at the Best Western pool until it was time to take Carly to the airport. They had a really nice pool.

I drove the POS for the last time and was so excited to drop it off. That might have been the highlight of the day. I said goodbye to Carly and got a taxi to my new hotel near the beach. I’ve heard that Kuta and Seminyak are both dirty and over touristy and that I wouldn’t enjoy them. From my one night in Kuta, I didn’t find it to be that bad, but I didn’t find it worth going back to either. My hotel in Seminyak is great.

It was a 13 minute walk to the beach. The beach wasn’t crowded at all. I got there in time for sunset. There was a beach bar that I hung out at for dinner and sunset. I was hoping to meet some people and have a nice conversation, but that didn’t happen. But as I sat there, I just felt how alone I was and then for a while, I didn’t even exist. I could have stayed like that all night, but I had to go to the bathroom and that kinda broke the not existing experience. Now, note, I said “alone”. Did you read “lonely”? Did you put a negative story on the word “alone”? Did you assume that if I had met people and had a nice conversation that that would have been the “better” outcome? “Alone” is not the same as “lonely”, not even close. Now read it again without judgement, good or bad, or should be. Do you get a different picture?

So, this is the right way to do a beach bar. Put on some music, have a bunch of bean bags to sit on, put out some pretty lights, serve drinks and food. This is as simple, brilliant and perfect as it gets. Naysayers 0, Seminyak 1.

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Waterfall Video

On April 19, 2016July 26, 2016 By rrainefioreIn Bali, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Here’s a waterfall video from earlier in the trip that didn’t appear to ever get uploaded……

	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Going Home
	delicately4f6d967f14 on Icebergs
	delicately4f6d967f14 on ATV Tour
	eaglegenuinec87d1476… on Kluane

Rraine Drops

Month: April 2016