Hong Kong Holiday

Hey Folks, I'm writing from my Dad's house in Hong Kong this time. I'm here for a nice chill week of holiday thanks to Songkran, the Thai New Year.

Now let me tell you about Songkran - a wild 3 day party (April 13-15) where people take to the streets and have huge waterfights with you whether or not you want to get wet! I decided to get in on the best of the action at Khao San road, the infamous backpacker haven that is also home to the most packed chaotic waterfight in Thailand. The crowd was huge and it took 20 minutes just to finally walk our way to the entrance of the road (imagine the human traffic of a rock concert but slightly less crowded than cheek to cheek). One out of every 5 people had a watergun of some kind and many others had small buckets with white powder+water which they would use to wipe on your face with their hands (a perversion of a Thai tradition to sort of bless people on Songkran). Techno and hip hop music rang throughout the half mile long street as thousands slowly walked through or stopped on the sides to do some shooting. Anyway I was tired of getting soaked by so many people all around me while walking down the road so I got to the sidewalk, forked over 500 baht (about 14 USD) for the biggest bloody super soaker I could get, and it was ON. I let this bazooka fly and was blasting people in the face in no time. This was FUN, let me tell you. Someone would shoot me, I would wiggle my finger at them, then pull my monster weapon out and send them stumbling away. I felt like yelling 'THIS IS SPARTA!!!' I wasn't even drunk (and most people had SOMEthing to drink, despite it being 3 in the afternoon) but had so much fun just soaking people and getting soaked for 3 hours. You just pay 5 baht for a quick refill and it was definitely worth it. The farangs (foreigners) got targeted a lot, which was pretty damn funny. I hit this fat bearded dude in the face so many times and once a gang of us on the sidewalk pointed about 8 guns on him and I swear he almost fell over from the sheer force of this onslaught. At one point there were a bunch of ladyboys wearing white tanktops and no bras on their fake boobs running through the 'gauntlet' area where I was hanging out. They got hit so many times and frantically jumped up and down and screeched in the most flamboyant way possible. It was absolutely hilarious. Each of them even had a tiny 2 inch squirtgun which they helplessly tried to shoot blindly as their eyes were doused with constrant streams of water. All in good fun. I came back again two days later for a few more hours of mayhem. I feel bad for the folks that have to clean up though...there must have been an incredible mess...

Before that crazy few days last weekend I had made my second buisiness trip to Vietnam. I didn't go out much like normal because I caught a cold and didn't want to be knackered for Songkran. I got a lot done and my new projects there (having to do with the Promotional Girls and anti-counterfeit) are definitely interesting and challenging. On my flight back I saw my boss in the bus to the terminal once we arrived in Bangkok. I didn't even know he was in Vietnam or that he was on the same plane. That is just the nature of our business I guess. He kindly gave me a ride home in his mercedes.

And BEFORE THAT, I had gone to Phuket for 3 days on the weekend with some friends from Singapore. We stayed at a really nice boutique hotel in Patong Beach (a bit too touristy of a spot for me) and basically chilled out. I got to go sailing with Bernice on a gorgeous day with a 18 foot hobiecat, eat delicious food, and even tried my first proper foot massage. It felt so damn good I fell asleep in the middle for 15 minutes and woke up drooling. I had to go back again the next day! The Thais in Patong beach were quite aggressive salespeople due to all the tourists from Europe and America. I really didn't like their attitudes - a lot less friendly and genuine than Bangkokians. Then again I don't talk to a lot of Bangkokians that sell shit on the street. Oh well, they have to make money in the best way they know how. But sorry, I'm not paying 200 baht for a bloody 3 minute taxi ride or 600 baht for a red bull tanktop. By the way, Red Bull originated in Thailand. One of my friends told me it started in Hungary or something and I can now confirm they are full of crap.

I saw Borat finally. What a movie...I'm sure you know what I'm talking about if you've seen it. It was soo damn funny but I felt disturbed at times by what I was hearing from actual Americans and by what Sasha Cohen actually dared to do on camera.

Three days ago I had a dream about my friend Andrew whom I mentioned in my previous post. Him, a few other friends, and I went on some crazy adventure in a jungle somewhere (the details I can't remember now) and he was acting just as I had remembered him - spontaneous, silly, fun... anyway at the end of my dream I realized that Andrew was not suppossed to be around and I asked him 'Andrew...what are you doing here? Didn't you die?' He turned to me gravely all of a sudden and said something like 'Yeah...okay.' He then walked forward very quickly with his back toward me. I quickly caught up to him, tapped him on the shoulder and said 'hey wait!' When he turned around it wasn't Andrew, it was some guy with a different face and he didn't know why I had tapped him. I then woke up. Pretty crazy...I'm not really sure what to think of that dream. It did make me smile a bit in the end though.

Now that I'm in Hong Kong for 5 more days I plan to play with my little brothers a lot and just have some good conversations with my Dad. My little bro James (10 years old) had a birthday 2 weeks ago and I emailed him asked what he wanted from me. He responded with 'Whatever you want to get me is fine. I know it will be great because you are.' That email made my day! I bought him some cool stuff I know he would like and of course I had to buy some weapons and plastic crap for the little 5 year old Sam otherwise he would feel left out. Going to Toys R Us for the first time in 5 years was a trip...

I hope to go out a few times in downtown (Lan Kwai Fong and Wan Chai) with some old friends. Theres a short list of people that I need to get hammered with. Ahh good times. I'll talk about my coming adventures here in the next post, and I swear I'll put up some pictures to attach to this post soon. Check out my page on www.facebook.com too for a lot of photos.

Cya