Namrin's 2nd farewell party at I - Karaoke

Finally we organised a dinner & karaoke farewell night with my ex-workmates from the previous company I worked for (Acer Computer and Servex)

It was a great to catch up and meet up old friends we haven't met for many months or some persons is years!!! You've got a baby for instance!! LOL

I've got a new Tee-shirt as a gift which I will bring it to Oz too. My friend who I love like my elder sister told me that since we have a political situation. It's hard to pick a colour for me because yellow and red tops are big no-no around now. LOL So she bought a lovely orange one for me and somehow got one for herself too in the same colour and same size! hehe

We have been through a lot of sad songs. Only 2-3 of them that I felt that my mates sang for my leaving. (How sweet!) The rest are those so-called classic, touching, heartbroken songs. They are nice but maybe too nice for me. I felt a little depressed and wanted to cry at some points. Together with drama music videos, I feel like the world isn't quite cheerful, is it? Oh...life! hahaha

Anyway, according to the age of people in this VIP room I should be able to understand something. I have another 2 farewell parties to go though ;-)

Thank you everyone. With love.

Namrin

The person who gave me an orange tee-shirt is in black top.

My first time in probably 4 years to meet this friend who brought her baby to Karaoke (the one in the middle). I thought it was a bit crazy idea. If you never meet her before, you may think she takes weed because she laughs every 3 minutes LOLOLOL. Actually she's a lovely and joyful woman. Another person in my link that wants to have only one child .... (Nam taking note)

Not the first boss in my life but the very first boss who I've been still in touch with. He bought me a Liverpool scarf. The authentic one from Liverpool :-) Did I tell you that? He was just back from England trip 2 days ago. I can't wait!! He forgot to bring it that night


Girl-Guy-Girl-Guy-Girl! Perfect but P' Frank betrayed us by not crossing his arms! He claimed there was not enough space. I doubt it LOL

Ampawa Floating Market

Ampawa Floating Market is a famous floating located in Samutsongkram province in Central Region, not so far away from Bangkok, about 1.5 hours drive. The highlight of Ampawa is the firefly watch at night. Ampawa is an evening market while the more famous floating market, Damnoen Saduak Floating market is a morning market. However, both places have their own charms. They share some similarities but they are pretty different in my opionion. You've been with me to Damnoen Saduak Floating market twice when Hiro's parents visited and Wakaho and her boyfriend travelled to Thailand.

With Wakaho and Masanobu in 2008
http://namrinbussayadilokskul.blogspot.com/2008/08/namrin-with-her-japanese-friends.html

With Hiroto's parents in 2006
(The story is too old. I haven't re-posted it)

My mum, Sin, my younger brother, Tip, Sin's girlfriend and I went to Ampawa market together. We finally snuck out of chaotic Bangkok during state of emergencey. We first stopped at Kunlin (meaning familiar taste in English) Seafood Restaurant for lunch. It was a cool restaurant. It's next to muddy area where it is worm shell farm. I closely inspected mud and found that there are millions of little crabs out there. I also found my lovely mudskipper! The real mudskipper! I'm so glad to see the live mudskipper with my naked eyes! I have been fond of it for a long time. So cute! :-)

Kunlin Restaurant
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=90542&id=592112018&l=ec7b31cb8f

In the late sunny afternoon, we reached Ampawa. We took a ferry to get into the market which were full of people but the officer said it's not as busy as New Year on 1st Jan. We stopped by Museum of Thai Desserts for the first stop as we expected that's going to be chilled in there (air con) but it's too crowded inside so the air con is not cool. However, I took quite many photos to present you how Thai desserts are like. We may not see everything they presented in the museum nowadays but most of them are available in Thai people's lives. I wish you could test it too!

Museum of Thai Desserts
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=90632&id=592112018&l=24d2dec9ab

Because it was extremely hot my brother and my mother didn't bother walking around. They wanted to find some shades and relax. So we split and we said that we would be back to a certain meeting point to catch a boat to see fireflies.

I walked around on my own and found a lot of nice things for you guys especially for whom are outside Thailand. There's a lot of things to window shop but because it was packed of people, my walking speed was slow. There are 2 sides of the river and I could finish only a side. This means one day I have to come back to this place to check out the other side of the river.

In the late evening, we were in the line waiting for a boat to see fireflies. It's 60 baht/person for 1 hour and 10 mins. It's great! We saw fireflies along the way. Not all the time though. The river is broad so you need to keep on your eyes open and spot on "Lampoo" trees or Sonneratia caseolaris plant (If anyone knows its common name, pls let me know). Fireflies sometimes get together at a few trees/plants and blink as if those plants are decorated with little stars. It was breathtaking how nature creates such a beauituful thing. Unfortunatley I can't take a photo because it's too dark. However, I shot some videos which I doubt whether they worked or not and after checking, 2-3 videos work! So I post it here at the bottom of this blog.

To visit Ampawa, if you have time, you can stay over night a home stay too. The market finishes at about 9PM so you can enjoy your whole afternoon eating, shopping, spotting on exotic stuff until late night. However, we planned for a day trip so we went home after firefly trip.

It was a good hot day with a few complaints from my brother and my mother that they didn't want to travel during Songkran again LOL. I didn't want to but my time is running out so I want to see more of my own country.

Sixteen more nights to sleep in Thailand in 2009


Ampawa Floating Market
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=90635&id=592112018&l=2e9a866cea

Firefly Video

Happy Thai New Year!

Today is Songkran. We started a day with State of Emergencey!!!

Can I skip this topic?

For this occasion, I also set my own New Year's resolution but within 24 hours, I broke my self-promise! He's back! Gosh! I can't help myself to say hi quietly. Is he meant to be my New Year's gift or what?

Let's overlook that topic

I am planning about the accommodation and activites with Josephine who will travel with me from Sydney to Brisbane. I realise things aren't cheap in Australia and now the exchange rate of Australian dollar is getting stronger against Thai baht. Must be because of the first topic above LOL! Why now ?!?! Damn it!

Surin Islands trip

About 6 O' Clock in the morning, my friend called me, "I and my brother and sister couldn't join Surin Islands trip, do you still want to go?
I gasped and asked "Oww. Why?"
"My brother is just passed away", my friend replied.
That's the 2nd shock. "How would that happen? He's ill?" I asked.
"No, accident. Well, but Moo is going so you two can go to this trip", my friend gave me a clearer idea.
"Oh, if she's going, I'll go then. I'm sorry about your loss" I told her
"Thank you, Nam. I gotta go. My phone is running out of battery."
"I'll talk to you more later then. Take care." I finished the conversation

During the day time, our friend, P' Moo called me she decided to not travel because of a few reasons she gave me. I understand and think I still want to make it but on one hand, I'm little scared of doing any activity related to water alone. I have bad history about it and it is also in my death prediction.

I got a chance to speak about this to a friend and instead of being encouraged to go, it was the opposite way. I thought hard for about a few hours at work. And think, maybe it is not reasonable to say but this could be a sign. I even tossed a coin!! I shouldn't go. If I go and something wrong happened to me, I wouldn't trade it with my great trip to Australia. Later in the same day, I went to a funeral of my friend's brother.

I have to say this is hard because I didn't expect this trip would be called off. I'm afraid it will be postponed to the time I leave Thailand so I miss it now meaning that I miss it for at least 1 year. On the bright side, I save some money from not joining this trip :-) I hope someday I will come back and go to Surin Islands with someone as a minimum requirement haha

I bought air tickets

Finally, the time has come and I managed to buy the 1-year valid air tickets to Sydney, Australia. I'll travel on 1st May and might be back on 30th April. Hopefully I'll fly back home to get more clothes & stuff or have a short break there LOL

I don't really know and my expectation has changed a bit from time to time.

I have got 2 babies

Hello! This must be good news! I have 2 babies delivered. One is a boy and one is a girl. The boy was born yesterday at 171 cms and 80 kgs. The girl is born today at 165 cms and 48 kgs. How skinny is that?? Now please do not tell me that I'm skinny because I'm not! And my baby girl is obviously skinnier! LOL

I will feed my babies by myself for 6 days and then I'll have to leave them in Bangkok because I'm going to Australia. I may never see them again but they should be fine. L'Oreal will take care of them.

And now when I leave, they've got 2 new comers! Hmm!!

Happy Birthday Pansin!

Today is my younger brother's birthday! Happy Birthday Sin! I know you love the wallet :-)

Your lovely sister

We had a great dinner last night at Baan Naam Kieng Din













Actually I'm the one who breaks the wing (right wing). Then, my mother wonders how can they crave the whole swan. So Sin found out that the wing is inserted into the body of the swan. Very nice dish decoration that we destroy LOL! (So the restaurant can't reuse, hehe)

Eventhough it's just a game, it is not a game!

It's another game I missed but Liverpool made me proud as they have reached the top of Premier League table! I'm so glad for their performance. It's just 0-1 from away game against Fulham at Craven Cottage but it means sth when it leads us to be No.1! Maybe this will be only a night before Man Utd takes No.1 position back but I would like to spend at least 24 hours to celebrate this moment!

Hopefully we will make it this season. It's hard but we are nearly getting there! Come on, Liverpool!! Com' on lads!

Zouk

Zouk is a Brazilian dance. It's not the first time I've heard of it. This guy, Trevor, introduced it into my brainwave. However, I can't dance Zouk but just caught a bit of how it is different from Salsa, Bachata and Merenge LOL

There are 3 performances
I'll show you only the first 2 then because I think the 3rd performance is similar to the first one.




The 2nd performance is not Zouk. It is called Axe' pronounced as ax-say or ax-chay. (Very new to me so I'm not sure LOL)

Here is the link. I hope it works. If not, pls kindly let me know.


And now, it's go refresh my Salsa skill after 2 months!

Koh Chang with my brothers and Tip

I finally arranged a weekend trip to hang out with my 2 younger brothers. I personally think we should do this before we're too grown up and too busy to travel together. And in a month, I'm going to Australia for at least 1 year so this is the offer they can't refuse (hahaha!) Note: we also have an invited guest who is my first brother's girlfriend, Tip.

We drove to Trad, the very eastern province of Thailand to take a ferry to Koh Chang (Elephant Islands). This is the first time we get there by ourselves so we a bit struggle. However, Tip has a few friends who've been here often so we check the road by a map and by phone! LOL

At first we arrived at the wrong pier (Oops!!) so I took a few photos as a good memory hehe (first 3 pics). At the wrong pier, my youngest brother, Mai, thought that it would be cool to take a photo with the Eastern Apex sign so he suddenly got off the car. My first brother, Sin, saw that so he drove to park the car besides a giant coach. We assumed that when Mai turned around, he would find that we left him behind, LOL! Damn it! Mai could guess the prank so you could see him making a victory pose while I hid to take him a panic-faced photo!! :-D I'm a great sister you see!

OK, even though we lost, we caught the ferry in time and arrived at Salakphet Seafood and Resort 45 mins earlier than the half-day snorkelling trip. So we had to rush to have lunch and checked in. I also didn't miss the chance to introduce you our accommodation (by photo). This is a 4-bedroom which cost 2500 baht per night (about AUD 100/night). Our accommodation is in Fisherman area so you can see that this place also have natural pools for fishes and crabs. Cool!

Our first day of snorkelling at Koh Wai was OK! Koh Wai is a small island near Koh Chang. It's about 45 mins by boat. The snorkelling spot isn't as colourful as Koh Tao to be honest but only 6 hours away from BKK (including ferry) I think this is the best you can ask for. After that, we had snacks on the boat and headed to Koh Laoya which is famous for swimming, sunbathing and beaching. I had a nightmare here about 10 years ago. I fell off the wood bridge at Koh Laoya!! I (again) and Tip went to the bridge and we both were safe this time :-D Phew...

After got back from a half day trip, we just realised nobody brought playing cards and then they started blaming me! That's what wonderful brothers do, right? LOL Anyway, Mai prepared a game which I don't know how to call...sth like tower I guess so we played that for a few rounds until we starved enough. We had dinner at our place because it's not only a resort but also famous as a seafood restaurant :-)

On the 2nd day, we had a full day trip (9AM-5PM) to Koh Rang. We visited the islands around Koh Rang which are Koh ThongLang, Koh Yak Yai, and Koh Yak Lek. Then, we stopped by Koh Wai again for an afternoon break. Today's snorkelling was quite awesome. It's more colourful and had a lot more to see than Koh Wai. Unfortunately I didn't bring my silly underwater camera with me. That was quite a big mistake :-S

There was a bit of rain at Koh Thong Lang (1st dive of today) but you know I always bring my own sunshine so after half an hour or so, it's gone. And the rest of the day was bright enough to give me a bit of suntan :-D

Sin realised we almost ran out of petrol so he had to fill up the tank a bit and we found that the petrol price on the islands is about 10 baht more expensive than the mainland. (25->35 baht/litre) And I took a bit of gas station photo just for my own memory!

We left Koh Chang in the morning because Sin had a meeting with his classmates and his lecturer in Monday evening. Our trip was safe but we got 2 tickets from the police -_-" ....and I'm writing this for our own records! hehe

Next trip is during 10th-15th April to Surin Maritime National Park, the best snorkelling site in Thailand....oh I can't wait :-) I wish I could take you with me

Namrin

Photos (more photos than Facebook): http://s222.photobucket.com/albums/dd191/namrinb/Photo%202009/Koh%20Change%20with%20bros%20and%20Tip%2021-23%20Mar/