Yet another week remarkable unworthy of mention, and another entry in my diary detailing the day to day goings on of our mini break in Bangkok. Because we didn't go on any day-trips I decided to photograph myself doing yoga, I also made a little video, which was so appalling that I deleted it (and resolved to film in B&W only in future – red cheeked and sweating profusely never looks good on camera).
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| From Ginger on the Mat |
Starting at the beginning... Ahhh Monday. Not really the beginning of our week any more, Djalma is about half way part of his working week, while still view it as the day to start doing good and useful things, like; walking, yoga, housework and calling my much loved Nan back in the UK. Actually I was calling to see how her weekend had gone, speaking to her before the weekend she had told me about her plans for Saturday which involved a trip to see one of her oldest friends, Big Edna, Mum took her in the car along with a picnic and they had a lovely afternoon, just what you need to perk you up – friends! Despite living in a huge cosmopolitan city like Bangkok, I occasionally feel like my Nan, at seventy nine years young, has a superior social life to mine (she frequently assures me on the phone that this is not the case – I think she is just being kind).
Tuesday rolled around and after a session following the tiny bottomed woman and sweating like pig in a bacon factory I showered and made use of the floor cleaner I bought weeks ago in Tesco. Using far too much of the bright blue cleaning fluid I decided to leave the balcony door open and leave the ridiculously foamy floor to dry and hopefully de-bubble. I came to the café I am sitting in now, Raku Raku on Rang Nam Road, got a café latte frappe and spent a few hours writing up the previous week, cooling down in the air-conditioning and using the free wifi to download films.
Our mid-week weekend was finally here, we slept in till late morning on Wednesday, I managed a little yoga but not much (actually my beginner yoga video is broken up into three sessions of twenty minutes each so if I'm not feeling particularly energetic I just do one video and if I am, two – I'll build up to the full three in good time). In fact we were so lazy in deliberating about what we wanted to we ended up doing bugger all, we made it out of the house in the evening, went to the street-side restaurant by a local petrol station and had an excellent dinner of salted, grilled River-fish, minced pork salad, mango salad and rice. It was light and tasted delicious, we walked down the road to Century shopping centre where they were charging the full ticket price to see Transformers 3 so after a spot of deliberation we got the BTS to Central World only to find that as it was opening a day early (films are usually released on a Thursday) and it was the première, they also were charging full ticket price. We faffed about decided on whether or not to see and not wanting to waste an evening (and really rather wanting to see another Transformers film) we decided to splash out and got our tickets, missing the little film about the King (mandatory before EVERY film) but getting there just in time for the other trailers. Excellent. It wasn't as funny as the first or the second but it had it's moments and the two and a half hours flew by – now you can't say that about LOTR can you?!
Woke up with a headache on Thursday so I elected not to do anything except stay in bed and feel sorry for my little self, I emailed people and called my Nan again. We were on the phone for a good three quarters of an hour as she described the jigsaw that she had finally received through the post. I say finally but from placing the order to her receiving it, it was only about a week, not bad for a personalised jigsaw puzzle! This is the collage I sent to the printers, I'm still waiting for an opinion on the quality from my little sister and my Mum, but for anyone who's interested in sorting out their own puzzle here is the link to the website I used
My headache continued throughout Friday but this time I decided to get out of bed and do some yoga in an effort to ignore it. I did a good forty minutes, the first and second video. These videos probably don't mean much to you, in summary the first is basically sun salutations and warrior poses and the second is about back bends and twists, the former is much more of a cardio effort so when I'm feeling lethargic I follow the back bends and twists and feel better for doing something. I also set aside some time to do a bit of thinking about what to do after we travelling is over. Recently Djalma has been pushing me to go to Wat Po, where they run a recognised course in Thai Massage, and I have been resisting. My original plan was to study massage when we got to NZ, but after the debacle that was the Ayurveda Massage School in Kerala, India I am very reluctant to study outside a western classroom. After a rather heavy discussion on Wednesday night and a lighter one on Thursday I decided that as a person who relishes anticipation and a bit of forethought, perhaps a couple of hours reflecting on things that I really want to do wouldn't go amiss. So after a fair amount of internet research I decided that, all things considered (housing, job opportunities and family support) it would actually be best to go to Brazil. I met Djalma after work for some big noodles with huge quantities of pork and sounded him out with my new idea. Well, if I had any doubts that he wasn't going to like the idea they certainly went out the window when I got his reaction! The idea of going back home to his much loved friends and family a lot sooner than we had previously planned to, put a whopping great big smile on his face. On the way back home we picked up some beers to drink while playing cards and then got caught in the driving rain a hundred metres from our apartment block, so we stood under a little alley and drank a beer and chatted about Brazil until the worst of the rain passed.
Nursing a baby hangover I urged Djalma out of bed and into the nearest KFC, I don't know about anyone else but when I feel like the business end of a dog I need fast food, fast. One Zinger burger later and I felt a whole lot better on the way back we stopped at the little café and spent a few hours reading and planning for his and my parents up-coming trips. Back at home with travel guide fatigue we watched Nicolas Cage in Bangkok Dangerous, a film about a hit man doing four jobs in Bangkok where he forms a mentor relationship with a young Thai man who runs errands for him, very similar to The Apprentice with the much hotter Jason Stratton but inferior in terms of hair colouring, his nasty lank black hair ruined the film for me (yep, that's about as cultured as my opinions on film gets).
Djalma was back at work for his six hour writing lesson on Sunday and left early in the morning. I managed to kill over two hours on the net before I got out of bed and went for my first jog/walk since the last Sunday, err my running program seems to have gone down the toilet. Finding it a little more difficult this time round I resolved to step up a gear and actually follow the program properly the following week. For anyone who is interested I started a new blog to track my progress or lack of it in yoga and running: www.gingeronthemat.blogspot.com
Other notable events for the day include an hour long conversation with my wonderful Mum which, just like my conversations with my Nan, put a big smile on my face. Djalma made it home just as the heavens were about to open and surprise, surprise we played a few games of cards.
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