I'm, I'm sky high

This week has been awesome! We both, and Jonni, got a food poisoning Saturday. We don't know exactly where we got it, but we're guessing the food we bought from Khao San Road. I was sick and today is the first day I feel even remotely alive. So nothing to report basically. We're going today to Jonni's place to do some standard Bangkok Friday stuff. Next week we have our midterm exams. 4 exams total. So after today I must start to study in order to pass the exams with good grades, yuck. All in all, since I have nothing to post, let's skip to the songs of today.

First I'd like to start with Guns N Roses, Nightrain played at 2008 Gibson's Summer Jam. Vocals are by McQueen and guitar is played, by who else than, Slash. Quality is shit, but I dare you, have you ever seen a better second solo in Nightrain? Since I haven't and Tommy can agree with me in this one.



Next song is by Passenger, a side project of the In Flames singer Anders Friden. The name of the song is In Reverse. Not the best song by Passenger, but only one there's a music video... And who cares, who could resist his voice?



If you're stuck for some reason. Can't get up? Then just lay down, play this song and close your eyes.



Last but not absolutely least I shall bring Oasis, All Around The World. This song needs no introduction.




Peace!

-Ilkka

Evening post

2nd post for today, I'm making history. We're leaving soonish, most likely heading to Jonni's place, but first to some shop where we buy 1L whiskey. Since Jonni is having hangover and not very enthusiastic to do anything, so we'll bring party to him. Poker's going good and strong still, upswing continues, ship it! It seems that in every single big pot my cards hold, and I only get outdrawed in smaller pots with short stackers.

But to the reason why I'm posting. First amazing acoustic Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze cover. Really, amazing !



Then almost even more impressive duo improvisation from the same guy.



Then I wanted to add something totally different also. So what could be more different than the best rap song in the world? Looptroop, Last Song! Enjoy!



-Ilkka

Sunny Saturday

Long time since last post. Mostly because we've been traveling and busy. We spent 6 days at Koh Samui. Most of the time there we spent riding our rented scooters around the place. It was really amazing. Song for driving.



We saw some wild elephants in the countryside and some amazing views at the high peaks of the island. Surprisingly we didn't drink there that much, because we found doing other stuff more fun. I really don't want to write too long story about this place, because I've done that already so many times. Be free to inquire pictures, should you want. I've resized some, so it's easy to send them.

This Monday we have Law&Society presentation, which went pretty well. I'm surprised if we don't get an A. Then Tuesday we went outside to drink with this Finnish guy, Jonni. He lives in Bangkok, so not an exchange student. Most likely we're doing the same today.

Friday we decided to buy scooters for Bangkok also. We are going to pick our scooters on Monday, so I guess that will be a good day to die. Yesterday I went to bed early and woke up fresh today. I took a long poker session at morning, then after Tommy woke up, we went to gym and ate some lunch. I'm having one of the most craziest upswing weeks in poker, good time, since I've been in an insane spending spree.

In the end I'll put some songs I've listened this morning while taking poker session. First will be GnR, Sweet Child O'Mine. A good song for the special one.



Second and third will be songs from Hellacopters, By The Grace Of God & Everything's On TV.





Last Rock song, I will put GnR Paradise City.



Finally I will put two songs from a band called Explosions In The Sky. Quite interesting instrumental easy going band.





Now I'm sitting in my room and planning to take a poker session before doing something else.

Take care!

-Ilkka

Purchasing Power

Yes it's true. No posts for a long time. Basically because we haven't done anything or been anywhere. Ilkka said it all. The last few days we have been planning to make a trip to Ko Samui, an island in southern Thailand. Next week the trip is going to happen.

The last few days I have been spending way too much money, actually something like 1100€. It is alot to spend in two days here in Thailand. What have I gotten with the money then? First of all, I have paid for the trip to Samui, and also paid for the Hotel reservation today. The trip is going to be just awesome I tell you!

All the time here in Thailand I have been waiting to play a guitar again, well, today I bought one actually. It was cheap, something like 50€. The guitar is a good sounding guitar for that price. Guitars almost the same cost like 150€ in Finland.

I just played something to warm up again, since it's been a month since I've played, and over a year since I played acoustic guitar. Here is a video of the guitar and some playing of mine, I came up with the solos when playing, so they are made up on the go and therefore called one take solos and so forth.



So it sounded good, it really did imho.

The biggest purchase of mine was a new electric guitar, surprise surprise. I can't actually enjoy it here in Thailand since it is going straight to Finland. I bought it through ebay deutschland. It was my first ebay purchase and it cost alot. 90% of the amount I've spent these two days. The guitar is amazing.

Here is 2 videos of the guitar in action:

First one is actually an introduction




Second one is the guitar in action




Today is Oillies' birhtday and a party apparently upstairs. Oillie is the daughter of the owner of our apartment building. We ( Me and Ilkka) might drop by at the party and make a big mess out of the place.

A small quote for the evening or the party:

Have you heard the news?
Bad things come in twos
Every single day
things get in my way
someone has to pay
Armageddon may
Arrive any day

Not dead, yet

So week has passed without any posts. Why? Nothing to post. We haven't done anything. Saturday we went out and had a blast, then hangover. Then week went with food poisoning and happy stuff like that. Because of that, I've played insane amounts of poker, more than 10.000 hands this week alone. Too bad the games haven't been going too well, but still winning luckily. I've had one of the most insane shitty runs of poker I've had so far this week, and that has caused me to play bad also. But luckily yesterday things started to change, and now it's going good again. I also managed to get my wallet stolen, luckily I only had something like 100€ there and no important cards, so no biggie.

Today we went to this big new mall. I heard that they fixed it with 500 million $ like 1 year ago. The mall was fucking insane, and I mean, Insane! There was 4 storey high waterfalls and big water fountains with live parrots. There was stores for every single need a human might ever imagine. But bare with me, the most amazing thing is yet to come. They had a water park, yes a water park, on the roof of the mall. It was like really huge, most likely bigger than any park in Finland. So I guess Stockmann could learn something from these guys.

Now I am sitting home and thinking should I do something today. Tommy bought a guitar from the mall. I think I will also refresh my ambition for playing guitar now. I started to practice Jimi Hendrix Purple Haze, for now I at least got the beginning somewhat handled! Swedish girls are having party upstairs tonight, so guess we might ruin their party by going there. At least we bought some beer, just in case...

Purple Haze





We're going to Koh Samui Tuesday. It's an island like 700km south of Bangkok. It's the kind of island everyone has seen photos of when they have googled "paradise" in google picture search. And no, I'm not exaggerating, try it yourself and see. We're leaving Sunday, so pretty short holiday. We rented a hotel next to the Chaweng beach. It's something like 7km long pure sand beach. At the moment we're planning to take a full day fishing trip and rent scooters to drive around the island, other plans are totally open. At least a lot of swimming, diving and doing absolutely nothing.

To Friday songs. Crash Test Dummies - In The Days Of The Caveman. Funny song, lyrics doesn't make any sense.



Then something more slower when the evening gets darker, should the listener not be totally intoxicated. Manic Street Preachers - I Live To Fall Asleep. Nice piece.



Now I'll start drinking my beer and take a small poker session. Most of the time beer+poker doesn't end up that good. Can't drink too much, because Gym + Tennis tomorrow.

Someone could motivate me to write some funny facts and small pieces of information post.

Oh, what the hell. Let's put one more. In Flames - Metaphor. Maybe the most peaceful In Flames song, many people who normally don't dig In Flames have liked this.




Peace out!

-Ilkka

Chinese Democracy

Today is the first day I'm listening to the new Guns n Roses album. Gotta say that I really enjoy it. Tho I already had heard many of the songs before. Biggest question is; why the song called The Blues is now The Street Of Dreams? The Street Of Faggotry if you ask me, which you won't, obviously. The name was perfect previously :C

There has been some kind of a bombing at Bangkok few days ago. One died, several wounded. I heard that most likely there's gonna be more next week, fun. Of course we are going out tomorrow. Most likely with this another Finnish guy, who lives here in Bangkok permanently.

Nothing special has happened. Life has been good, Poker has been good, school has been good, everything has been good. I'm off to downstairs to buy few beers. Relaxing evening at home = win!

Take care!

-Ilkka

No topic

I'll just leave these here.





...And no, taste of music is not a topic of discussion. Mine is better than yours.

-Ilkka

Salad and Internet

Here I am, sitting in the Benja Restaurant having a small and healthy salad before school. Survived yesterday thankfully, but I tell you it was hell. I felt like crap all day and wanted to vomit out my intestines. I was also very hot all the time and even the airconditioning didn't save my ass. But lets not talk about yesterday anymore.

We're off to school in 5 minutes now. I had my salad and now I'm waiting for Ilkka to come down here so we can leave. Society & Law - course today again. I think the course is really interesting.

After school we are heading to MBK once again, we have to buy some white shirts for tomorrow. We have a course tomorrow where white shirt is a must. The teacher told us so last time.

Well gotta go now. Keeping the blog short this time.

-Tommy

FFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

Not every Tuktuk guy is full of shit. Last night we went to Khao San Road, what a surprise. After that we wanted to go to some after hours bar. So we had to face our eternal nemesis, the Tuktuk guy. So, bursting self confidence we approached him. We told him that we don't want to have anything to do with pingpong, gogo, hookers and such shit like that. Apparently he understood, but of course at first he tried to take us to a gogo bar. We went inside and quickly walked back, and refused to accept this place. Then he took us to this small place, which was really nice. For our surprise he joined us inside and started to drink with us from the Whiskey bottle we ordered, hmm, nice?! Well of course we all got very drunk and had a blast. At some point of the night I disappeared and Tommy tried to call me, I didn't answer. Then he called our Tuktuk guy, who answered. Apparently he and I were at bathroom, and he was helping me to puke. I have no recollection of such happenings, but I have a small glimpse of me vomiting all over the Tuktuk close to our place. Obviously the Tuktuk guy didn't approve, and suddenly we became the most hated guys in the world in his eyes, or at least I did.

I woke up something like 10:30AM really drunk. The whole morning was total insanity, I couldn't tell whether I was drunk or tired or something. Then we went downstairs and ordered Pizza from the lobby of our apartment. They have nice home-delivery system, where the food guy brings the food from the place we pick. Then it began, we ordered cleaning today. We had to evacuate our place, because of 3 Thai girls came to clean it. We went to pool, but I felt really bad and had to come back upstairs. Now I'm sitting at our living room writing this, whilst 3 Thai girls work their way through our apartment. I feel like puking, but most likely the girl in our bathroom wouldn't approve me doing so. No song, no nothing today. Don't have fun, I won't.

-Ilkka

Alcohol ban in Thailand

Surprisingly once again, it is actually saturday. In Thailand it has been The drinking day for us. We usually go out on saturday evenings, rather than friday, because in Thailand saturday is a work/school day for a big majority of people. It would actually be for us too, but we chose not to take any courses on saturday, for some obvious reasons of course.

There might not be so much people out partying on fridays than saturdays so we keep ourselves to saturday. Sometimes both days, but mainly not.

Today we woke up around nine or ten in the morning. Not too much after that we found ourselves on the tennis court. The sun was shining very hot, and 1 hour of tennis really got us wet. It was a manly event, I tell you. Finally I actually got some color on my skin, just 2 hours of sun in Bangkok for me so far, and already colored like a brownie. It really feels good.

Yesterday started the royal cremation of HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana here in Thailand. She was highly liked amongst the thai people, and most of the thais are paying their respect to the princess by dressing in black clothes during this period. The period lasts for 6 days according to the royal family. Today was the great ceremony in Bangkok, million people watched it live I've heard, and a lot more on the television. If you're interested, read more here : News of the event

Maybe the worst thing for us is really that alcohol is prohibited under this period. It is true. There is no selling of alcohol, officially, and bars should be closed, but not if they serve food. You know what, most bars serve food here. Atleast those we have been to. I believe that there is some bars in Bangkok that will serve beer for us today. We are going to find out this sometime now.

It is fricking saturday and most likely we have to be without our life elixir, yes, alcohol. I really need alcohol after such a rough week. And I can't get anything done without it. So, I got a song for you, explaining my relationship with alcohol.



This time the album version and not a live one. Just because I think the live videos on youtube weren't good, and Jagger didn't pull the song off very well either.


On the haunt for the missing beers.

-Tommy

I sold my soul for a T-shirt slogan.

It's been a week since I wrote last time. Well naturally I had a huge hangover Sunday, and couldn't do shit. Then school, gym & stuff on Monday. Then drunk again on Tuesday. Tuesday after normal bars closed, we went to these after hours bars, which are open until like 10AM. So naturally we were there until something like 8AM. One of the most sickest experiences of my life, was to walk outside from a bar, when the sun was shining already. Obviously the Whiskey bottle we ordered 4AM didn't help the situation at all. So basically at taxi I was sleeping and leaning on Tommy, I win. Wednesday is somewhat hazy and unpleasant... And so forth... Friday we took easy and went to school, gym and played tennis.

So then we come to Saturday. I woke up something like 10AM. We went to play tennis at 11AM. After tennis we took tuna salads from the restaurant downstairs. That's pretty much today. I've been playing a lot of poker today, as well as every day this week. It's going nice, and I'm getting my bankroll to acceptable levels slowly, but steady. But I cheated little on the bankroll management and moved to bigger levels, before I had planned. This was because, it was simply impossible for me to continue to play on the level I was playing, since I was making bad moves, only because the money didn't hurt me in anyway. At the moment, I'm drinking beer, chilling and taking some poker sessions. Tonight we're heading out, no idea where. They have the Queen's funeral now, so basically everything should be closed, and no alcohol is to be sold anywhere. Tho in Thailand, no one refuses when you offer them money, so they sell under the table. But let's Youtube little. First I'll put a song from Disco Ensemble, called Eyes Of A Ghost. I've seen this band several times live, guaranteed good gig!



The music video is made by the guy who uploaded it. He used footage from the Disco Ensemble DVD. Second I'd like to put songs called Threat Letter Typewriter and This Is My Head Exploding from Disco Ensemble, now live versions.



Now let's head to more serious stuff. Tool - The Grudge. The coolest spot of the song is at 7:42, where Maynard shrieks for 20 seconds without any disturbance in the voice, wow. Wonder who can do the same.



Tool - The Pot.



Finally, but certainly not least, Tool - Vicarious.



This is the only non-live Tool song I put. The music video is guaranteed Tool quality. I've seen Tool live only once, but certainly will not remain the same. Tool is the greatest band in the world in my opinion. Enjoy !

Life's too short to be afraid. Take a pill to numb the pain.

-Ilkka

Tuesday's Gone

Tuesday everyone. Sorry I haven't written anything in a few days, but in my defence, I've been really busy with school, shopping and entertainment. Or maybe I've just been lazy. I guess you'll never know.

Yesterday we went to Pantip Plaza, basically a big shopping centre packed with IT stuff, mostly there were actually nothing more, well electronics okay. It was the place we were looking for, we have been in the search of a VGA-cable for 3 weeks now and nowhere had it been found yet. Pantip was a gold mine, instantly we found it and purchased of course.

After Pantip we went walking in the search for a place to eat. We found a local restaurant, not so crowded with westerners. I ordered some chicken with sweet & sour sauce. I have to tell you, it was the best sweet & sour chicken I've ever had, simply amazing. And the price was, well, cheap as usual. It was about 6 in the evening and it is the worst traffic on the streets, so there were no hope in getting a taxi to take us home. We had to go for a beer, what a tragedy.

We got on a tuk-tuk and told the chauffeur to take us to some bar, no Go-Go, no naked girls and so on. We drove for a while and he took us to a bar, well, it didn't open until 9, and the place looked quite fishy in my opinion. So what other place did we know, of course Patpong. This time we got to the real shopping street called Patpong, there were a lot of stuff for a low price, but we just wanted to drink a beer. So while walking down the road some thai people dragged us practically inside a bar. Yes, we got our beers, amazing.

The bar was KISS-bar in Patpong. Inside we noticed that there were alot of girls dancing in bikinis. Unfortunately, maybe, taking photos was not allowed so I can't show you pictures. The bar itself was quite nice, with good music, such as Welcome to the Jungle by Guns n' Roses. We actually didn't mind the girls too much, but we were given the option to buy the girls, to go dancing or whatever you do, it is up to the girl. No thanks for us. There were some local thai men also having a blast I can imagine.

Here is the best live version of Welcome to the Jungle, best GNR concert ever. '88 in Ritz.




Today was a good day at school, just like yesterday, nothing to complain really there. Today I got really dissapointed at the Benja Restaurant, which is the restaurant downstairs. Before school I ordered a Ham and Cheese sandwich as a breakfast. We were in a hurry, but still I had to wait 15 minutes, and then the guy comes and says theyre out of ham. WTF? Come on, why didn't he know it instantly. Well I behaved very correctly and just told him that we need to go to school so we can not wait anymore. I actually paid for the sandwich but didn't get the item. Soon we will be heading to the gym again, and after that I will go and find out the story of my sandwich.


Metallica - Tuesday's Gone, a good cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd original.



Today we are going to go to the Royal City Avenue, or RCA, to see some bars and whatever we find there of course. Maybe first we go out for a good ol' steak or whatever. Probably we will go to Jameson once again to see our friends play for a while. We just don't know yet.

All we know is that RCA watch out. The boys are back in town.

-Tommy

Domestic Saturday

Last night was the first night in Bangkok, that I actually slept the usual 8 hours and didn't even go to bed so late. I fell asleep at 2 o' clock. Great improvement from the normal 4-6 o' clock here in Thailand. So I woke up to this noise and I was like FUUUUUUUU. I went to the kitchen and I found Ilkka there, he had been cleaning the apartment like really early in the morning, I guess he was on drugs or something. That just isn't human behaviour I think. Well he left the dishes for me, which I finished later in the day like a good slave. Today we went to the gym and had an very intensive training, heavy weights and much sweat. I enjoyed it a lot, and I am sure Ilkka liked it as well. He has really improved in the gym stuff, gained some power and muscles.

After the gym I took a shower and noticed that I had only 1 clean set of clothes left, and I've already bought tons of clothes. So it was definitely time to do some laundry today. It is easy to do laundry, but the only shitty stuff here is that laundry costs money, well not much, but still 100 baht for laundry and drying per time is expensive in my opinion.

We put the clothes in the tumbledryer for like 40 minutes, and on the maximum power and heat which is more than enough back home in Finland. After 40 minutes we checked back, and the clothes were soaking wet. I was pissed and almost ended up at MBK again to buy some new clothes. In the end, we took our clothes to the apartment and dried them in the rooms with maximum aircondition. worked out fine.

It is saturday now as you know, just played some poker on titan again, I hadn't really played in months before Bangkok, but somehow Ilkka is a good motivator. I've been playing the lowest limits of HU texas hold 'em, and I'm still on the winning path. Soon I'll be a millionaire. I also took a beer, no, a chang beer, the best in Thailand. Strong and cheap, just the way we like our women too. Chang also messes with your head easily.

I got to get ready for tonight's adventures, we are going to some fancy restaurant first, then watch our friends play in the Jameson pub, maybe some jamming, have to see what happens. Most importantly we are going to go to some clubs today, I predict that it will be a blast once more here in Thailand, just like anything else.

Well, club night, and this blog is all about the true things so I have a theme song for tonight you know.



The song is from a great Swedish Heavyrock group called Mustasch. The song is called I hunt alone.

-Tommy

Pump it up!

We're heading out in like 30min. First we'll go to some restaurant to eat some dinner. After that we'll go to Jameson to check our friends play live. Then we'll head to some club. Hopefully everything goes well, which means, we won't order buckets of booze again. Poker's going really good. I had a really nice upswing day today, yay! Too bad I'm playing with a really tight bankroll management, so I'm playing quite small, compared to what I normally play. Luckily I need to win only 5 buy ins more to move up to next level. If nothing big happens, it should be within few days. First I'd like to put a really nice song from DJ Shadow, called Blood On The Motorway. One can really relax whilst listening to this.



Finally I'd like to put a really, really, legendary song from this Finnish rapper called Avain, nowadays he raps under name Asa. The song is called Yhdes Iltaan.



Oh well. Let's put one more because my Winamp shuffle decided to pick a really nice song. The song is from Velvet Revolver, called Fall To Pieces. I've seen the band quite few times. A really good live band, although I've always hoped that they would have had the voice of the singer louder, when playing live. I'm also very excited to know about their next singer, most likely won't be as good as Scott, but who knows.




-Ilkka

"Vaik on tuhansii kilometrei nyt meidän välillä. Aurinko piirtää tähdillä nimes kuun ympärillä."

Forty-six and two ahead of me.

Today I woke up at 8:30AM. At 9AM I went to the pool for a morning swim, it was really refreshing! Only right way to wake up. After that, I took a tuna salad from our restaurant downstairs. Then I cleaned my room little and took a morning session on poker. I quit playing heads up and went back to shorthanded 4 table multitable. 4 tables are quite boring to play, since I normally play 6-12 tables, but maybe I will replace the amount with quality. Poker's going really well. 1 losing day here, and I played pretty much correctly, but had some bad luck. So no biggie.

We came back from a gym about 1 hour ago. We did a really tough work-out. Now I'm waiting for my clothes to be washed, so I can put some fresh ones. Maybe I will take an another poker session, but most likely I will just rest a little and be prepared for possibly evening. We have planned a little to go to some fancy restaurant & club today, well, who knows. Today's song needs no introduction, Enjoy!



Peace.

-Ilkka

Friday, but no Friday bottle

It's Friday, hopefully everyone's having a blast. I have a flu, so don't feel like going out. Even though we kinda promised to meet the band guys, but blargh. Wednesday we went to see the band again, after this gig, we both actually played some. Tommy played guitar and I played drums. I haven't played in like several years. Tho Considering I was drunk, no practice and people watching me, I think I pulled it out quite good.

Yesterday we had a course called Cross Cultural Management at school. We went there, so there was this 75-years young American male teacher. The first glimpse I got to him, I was pretty sure that his elevator doesn't go to the highest floor anymore. Basically for the first 15 minutes he was lecturing about wrong topic. Then someone noticed, we noticed earlier, but didn't wanna say anything, that it's the wrong course. The teacher argued little, and noticed that he is lecturing about course that he has Friday, well done, Sir. He was more interested of lecturing about his personal opinions about Debit systems etc, than what we should learn. Then, 10minutes before the break, this guy wanted to go to bathroom. I know, it's retarded, we're in university, seriously. Well then he went and teacher asked about his 'kidney problems' in front of the whole class, WTF?! Then came the break, teacher told us that we continue 'half past', in our world it is xx:30, right? Not in his, apparently.

We came back from the break at xx:28, according to our 3 clocks, 2 cell phones and 1 wrist watch. We walked to full room, and the teacher started almost yelling at us. 'We have been waiting 5 minutes for you, this will not be tolerated.' After I had recovered from this, I inquired that it's only 28 past, and class starts 30 past. Then he went totally psycho, started to walk towards me yelling, 'You will not argue with me in this class, I will throw you out, don't you understand English' etc. I replied to this 'Apparently not' and just watched him in the eyes, till he decided to go back. WTF ?!?!??!?! Well played Americans, one point again to you. First time in my whole life, when I've shut my mouth when someone makes so retarded argument at me. But this time, I decided it to be best. We will not go to that class again. Sad, because the topic was really interesting.

Yesterday after school we went to this mall, and bought a lot of stuff again, including tennis rackets. Maybe we'll go play tomorrow, should I feel better. After that we made food first time at home. Home made Spaghetti Bolognese + Prison Break & Dexter = Win!

Today we had Accounting II and Business Law, nice and easy going courses. Love 'Em. We also ate at our school cafeteria for the first time. I took some kind of breakfast with eggs, salad, bread etc for under 1€. Nice.

Now I'm just chilling at home. I will probably order some spicy tuna salad from room service, or something like that. Then I will start this new book I got, play Poker or watch movie/serie. Anyway, kind of boring evening coming, maybe I will take a taxi and go for an adventure. A song in the end.



-Ilkka

Congratulations, Obama!

So here it is, finally Democratic party won the elections again. Congratulations to Obama for being the first black President in the history of USA, and hopefully congratulations to America for getting the president they hope they are getting.

Last night we decided to go to Jameson again. Live gig was awesome, and after the gig Tommy jammed with the guitar. The band invited us to join them to Hua Hin for few days at 14th. Pretty nice looking place. I heard stuff about bonfires and acoustic guitars at the beach, so I was sold already. Wonder how's the weather at Oulu on 14th - 16th? The rain season here has stopped, and the weather is peachy.

I just quit my morning poker session. Ended up booking a positive income again, so it's going nice. For the song of today I picked a song from Foo Fighters called New Way Home.



Now I will head to gym, and after that I've no idea. Maybe poker, but most likely off to town. Finally I'd like to put a pic I found from Hua Hin.



-Ilkka

Four more years !

It's the election day in US motherfucking A. I'm wondering what to do. Due to yesterday's accident, I have a hangover. But I will go to details little later about my hangover. I really, really, hope for Obama to win these elections. I think we've seen enough of Republican bullshit over the years. Yes, I think it's trendy, and almost retarded, to hate Bush and Republic party nowadays.

Sorry for lack of posts for few days. We were drinking Friday, more than enough I'd say, and I received one of my legendary two day hangovers. So basically I managed to accomplish something on Monday. Monday we had our first school day, topic was Law & Society. Nice American teacher with a lot to say, I really enjoyed it.

Then after school we went to this shopping mall called MBK. I bought few shirts and boxers, again with nice prices. Then we went to eat to this really great Japanese restaurant. I ate chili chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables. Rrrreally great!

After MBK we took the Skytrain near this big bridge next to river. Because every taxi driver refused to drive us there, since there was some horrific traffic jam. Skytrain was shit expensive compared to everything, but really nice experience. Then we found ourselves close to The Dome Tower. It's this really cool tall building, where in the roof is a bar called Sirocco. Needless to say the view was INSANE! We drank few long island ice teas, then moved to other side of the tower where we drank beers and Mojitos. I've read that you can find the best Mojitos in Asia at this place. Don't know about that, but it was easily the best Mojito, maybe the best drink, I have ever drank. Next time we're gonna dine at that place also, too bad we weren't hungry. Though eating there is pretty expensive, a full meal with drinks will be easily more than 100€. But who cares, it's an experience of life time. When we were preparing to leave, they brought a Jazz band to play at the rooftop, crazy.

After this we decided to go somewhere for a drink. We took a Tuktuk and asked the driver to take us to some bar. Surprisingly once again, they tried to fuck us up, and take us to a Go Go bar. Go Go bars are basically over expensive bars where you go sit, and the owner puts all the girls in line before you, and you pick the girl you want. Then you're almost forced to buy something for the girl also. After a while, the owner comes and asks if you'd like to take the girl outside, to disco, home or anything. Then you're asked to pay a fee, if you agree, you can take the girl out. Believe it or not, I find this pretty disgusting and have very little to nothing interest to be a part of something like that. So we skipped these bars and found some English style pub.

We sat at the patio of the pub and took few beers. Then this guy came to sell us some sticks, which looked like food. We declined, but after 10 seconds an elephant walked on the street. Those snacks were meant for us to feed the elephant, Bad beat! Would have been fun to do that, even though I really don't like the fact that they keep an elephant on the streets of Bangkok.

After this we went to this Irish pub called Jameson. There we again took some beers, and what do you know, a live band starts to play. The band was simply awesome. They had a really good guitarist, piano player, drummer and two female singers. Every member of the band sang some songs, which was cool. They played songs from Bob Marley to Robbie Williams. Here's a really nice cover of Knocking On Heaven's Door.



After the gig, the band came to talk with us. Mostly because we were the only ones sitting in the front row and clapping after every song. We ended up talking and drinking with them a lot. They invited us to Pattaya with them to drink at 14-16th, or something like that. Because Queen had died and no school, work etc then. They are playing at the same pub almost every evening until the end of this year, so guess we'll go check them out pretty soonish. We are actually thinking of going today, since no school tomorrow. They also promised to play Sweet Child of Mine today from Guns N Roses, because Tommy asked for that.

On more lighter note, no losing days in Poker at Thailand. Heater goes on!

Today's song will be a song from Aerosmith called Sunshine. It's because it has been raining whole day today, and I'd like to have some sunshine. Tho this song really has nothing to do with the actual sunshine, but anyway, enjoy!



PS. Sorry for the shitty writing again. I'm in a hurry to write this, if we're heading to Jameson today. Maybe I will double check this later, most likely not.

Have fun !

-Ilkka

Saturday

Hangover. That's it.


-Tommy

Spooky

It's Halloween time you all. Very spooky I think. Thankfully we are not in the United States of America, because there we would probably have to put on costumes and act really crazy. Okay, I am not saying we don't act crazy, but at least we're not wearing any costumes.

Earlier we went out to shop some groceries, we found this hypermarket 2km from us. It is really big and there is alot of stuff, from food to Television sets, Clothes to Sporting Equipment. Basically we just bought what we always do, alcohol. I spent like 10€ on socks, alcohol and some other beverages. It is 500 baht. It felt really expensive, but the truth is that the same amount of things I bought, would easily cost 3 to 5 times more in Finland for sure.

At the moment we are listening to some great pure rock music. The band, well Guns n' Roses of course. We also listened to some other things off the youtube and I finally got out of the closet. I have been lying all the time to be this great guitarist. The truth might be somewhat different:



I don't know. Everyone can judge for themselves. Ilkka seemed to be pumped up and happy about it. Unfortunately he don't like the song Paranoid from Black Sabbath. Can't blame him though.

I guess this evening is going to be great. The town should be packed with parties and people. We hope to meet some new friends today again. We really like networking around here.

She loved him yesterday
He fucked her sister
She said O.K.
And that's all right

- Tommy

Weekend !

So today I again woke up something like 11 AM. Mostly because HBO Asia showed this shitty movie, that ended something like 2 AM, and of course we needed to finish it. When I woke up, I took a poker session. It was frustrating because I was all the time hanging around break even, but luckily in the end, I managed to push it up a bit. Then while browsing some poker forums I bumped to this.



I'm not sure whether this was super cool or super lame. I'll let my therapist decide it. After poker, we went to the gym. Now my muscles are sore, because I really pushed my limits there. After gym I ate a big salad as lunch, nam! Then little relaxing around and again new poker session. It was pretty same as in the morning, but in the end I rushed up pretty good. So poker's going good. So far. Too bad I had to take a big slice of my bankroll to pay this trip, so I need to play a little lower limits, than I normally would. But if the upswing continues, I'll be back to the higher limits in no time. While playing poker my playlist shuffled a song from The Kooks, called Ooh La. Really good and chill song, especially for Friday, when life's good. Enjoy !




Now we just arrived from our local market. We bought food, beer, wine etc. While writing this, I opened my Friday bottle. I'm drinking my new favorite beer, local beer called Chang Beer.

Guess we'll hit some Halloween party today, or something. World is our limit!

Finally I'd like to add this song from Tulenkantajat, called Viikonlopun Huumaa. Every person who understands Finnish, will understand exactly why I put this today.




I'm on the nightrain
Bottoms up

-Ilkka

Friday

Pad Thai. What in the world is that? I'll tell you, it is the best thai food I've tasted so far. Of course it is also the most recognizable food here amongst the tourists and western people. So Pad Thai is a dish od stir-fried rice noodles with eggs, some spices including chili, and then bean sprouts plus some meat like chicken, shrimp or tofu (not really meat), then the dish is garnished with peanuts and coriander, occasionally also piece of lime. Very good and recommendable to everyone really.

While I was eating I was listening to some Alice Cooper, not really my favorite but his new album dropped earlier this year, so I wanted to get to know it. I found a music video from this album, which contains three songs:

The video is not so good imho, but the guitar play I like. Who else than SLASH, of course, is on the video playing. He is using his new 2008 Gibson Les Paul Signature Gold Top guitar. The guitar is actually amazing, I had the opportunity to test it out in Finland and compared to other Gibson Les Pauls, it just outruled them.

Well today is Friday. It means that we well hit the gym in a bit, then get ready for some weekend activities, maybe halloween-party, maybe alcohol, maybe out on the town, maybe not. Everything is open for us so we have to check back tomorrow and see what happened today.

คำกล่าวอำลา

-Tommy

Taking it easy

So today I woke up something like 11 AM. After few minutes of walking around our crib, we decided to go to gym. The gym was awesome, a lot better than our previous one. I can really see myself working out there every day!

After the gym, we went to our downstairs restaurant and ordered some take-away food. I ordered a hamburger with chicken salad, and again, ended up paying something like under 2€ for it. I know, eating things like that in Thailand is retarded, but I was really hungry, and was drooling after some old school hamburger. The hamburger was super standard, but the chicken salad was insane. The food was delivered to our door with no extra charge, nice. While eating I watched this show called Family Guy. A cartoon show, with very little smart going on. Now and then they like to take stand on real stuff. Here's a clip from the episode I watched. Enjoy !



After food we showered and went to mall to buy a lot of stuff for our new apartment. From frying pans to chili sauce. From kitchen paper to extension cord. So basically everything. Again we burned kinda nice amount of money, but that's life. There was this salad bar in the store, where you could buy tons of different vegetables, fruits, salad dressings etc for something like 30c/100g! I bought pretty big salad, which looked really delicious. The big stores are filled with stuff like this, you could never see in Finland. This really is the country of good food.

I really love Thailand because they pack your groceries at the counter for you. After cashier a nice fellow in white suit decided to take some of our bags and lead us to the closest taxi. I didn't know whether I should or shouldn't tip him, so I decided to tip. After that we took taxi back to our place started unpacking our stuff.

I ate some shrimp noodles for dinner from a real noodle cup, really good and spicy. After that, I took a little nap and then we went to downstairs to hang around little. I bought this watermelon smoothie, which is healthy, for something like 60c from the store downstairs. It is my new favorite drink! Now I think I'll take a glass of Thai whiskey and start to grind some poker, since my motivation is really high. I also had to move extra 500€ from my poker account, since I have really spent a lot more than I expected. But luckily I was prepared for that.

But now I'm off to new adventures. Finally I'd like to put a song from The Rolling Stones called Gimme Shelter. I think it might be the best song from them.



Take care !

-Ilkka

Rainy days

Hey, just writing a short thing here. Just got back from the gym, the equipment is quite new and fresh, so now it is possible to hit the gym everyday. I really like it much.

After the gym we ordered take away food from the restaurant downstairs. The good thing was, that the restaurant brought the food to our door, after they were done, so we didn't have to wait at the restarurant really. I had some chicken steak with salad, amazingly good again, have to say.

Now we are writing a shopping list on the back of a flyer. The flyer is about a bar where you can buy really cheap alcohol, in the format of buckets. We have actually been to the bar I think, since atleast we have had buckets for 3 euros, which is the price on the flyer too.
So basically a bucket is filled with alcohol and then also some red bull or whatever. But there is also beer buckets for the same price and also it's really the same size. In the picture we have a samsong bucket, it is whisky and redbull, and also some ice. I like the drink, basically because it is so cheap and it really gets you drunk quickly.

I have a great song for this bucket thing:


Check it out. It's Metallica - Whisky in the jar. Live version from 2006. Good feeling.

See ya.

-Tommy

1 AM and everything's fine

Okay, so now I got hooked to blogging of how everything is great. Not really, I just remembered that I was going to add songs from Youtube. Night went super nice. Had a nice upswing session in poker, which was more than welcome.

I was listening a band called Porcupine Tree while playing heads up hold em. I decided to stick to heads up until I get some big flat screen for my laptop. Since if I play less than 6 tables at once, I get really bored and start playing bad. But in heads up, I can play only 1 table efficiently, since the game is so intense and you really need to know how the other guy has played each and every hand. But too much poker, too little music.



The other song is also from the same band. This is one of my favorites from them.



After poker we went to downstairs for smoke and bumped to the owner's daughter. She works here and is really nice person. We ended up discussing about cultures, Bangkok, music, food etc. for a while.

Now I'm still chilling at my computer, listening music and drinking good Thai whiskey.

-Ilkka

Fresh Start

Just dropped by to tell a few things about the life in Bangkok. Life has been good, so far, all in all. We have done tons of things, which I am not going to write about now. We have been trying to get hold a of Internet-connection to our apartment, quite some time now, but we've been unsuccessful. Today we went to the school and asked about it again, this time we were going to get it, but the guy handling these things, was having lunch. So we went to the closest Internet Café once again, this time we browsed the net and found a really good apartment, not so far from the school either, and got interested straight away.

We took a taxi to the place, and we were greeted with such warm feeling, that everything felt really good. The young woman who introduced the premises to us, was talking the best english of all the Thai people here so far. Okay, she had studied something in San Fransisco USA, so that explains the good language skills. The apartments was amazing, it was just like coming to heaven after our, maybe horrendous, first apartment in Bangkok. Immediately when I saw the apartments, I felt like the place is our home, I just couldn't go back to our old place anymore.

We started negotiating about renting an apartment at this place. We wanted to move in straight away, which took the employees, a bit, by surprise. Well we got the apartment we wanted and basically went to the old place and told them to piss of, we move to a luxury resort, at least that is what this feels like, compared to the old place of course.

The new place is called Sivalai Place, I don't want to try and market the place in anyway, but for what it's worth, this is the best option for the money, especially because it is newly renowated and stuff. Just amazing. Ilkka posted some nice pictures of our apartment, but check this link out, amazing pictures from the resident:
Sivalai Place

Right at the moment I'm just taking it easy and relaxing, having some thai whisky which I bought for about 5€, and also just browsing the net.

I'm off.

-Tommy

Chilling

We just went to eat at the restaurant downstairs. I ordered black-pepper beef with french fries and huge salad, for drink I took Coca-Cola. I paid little less than 2 euros for this, and the food was awesome!! From restaurant opened a view to the tennis courts. Unlucky for us, everyone seemed to be a tennis pro. It seems, that our tennis courts come with a free ball boy, nice. It also seems that we can call to our restaurant and they deliver the foods to our door. So what can be better than 1 euro for a big ham bread + cold beer in hangover delivered to your door?

I just played my first session of poker in Thailand. Session was decent with positive income, made few mistakes that I'm not proud of, but hey, everyone gets little rusty after a small break.

Now I'm just chilling at our living room sofa, watching tv and browsing internet with my laptop. Soon we will head to our new gym to test the machines. We have hit the gym almost every day here, so finally I'm getting my beach look back.

PS. I decided to add the web page of our place, if someone wants to take a closer look. Sivalai Place.

Life's good.

-Ilkka

At home

Here I am, sitting at home. Why not home before, since I've been here for a week now ? Our previous place was pure shit compared to this new place! At the downstairs we have billiard and soccer table game room with tv. Then there is also a huge swimming pool and 3 tennis courts. On second floor there is a really big air conditioned gym with a nice view to the yard. There is also shower and SAUNA at the gym! Next to the gym is a karaoke room, lol. A nice room with dim lightning, sofa, palm trees and big LCD tv for karaoke needs. There is also a fridge for your drinks, or also you can order from room service, should you need some. The people here are super, I mean super nice, and everyone wants to welcome us. The owners husband even took us with his brand new Mazda 6 model to our school.

To our room. We have insanely nice looking room with everything one could need. I especially like the room service where you can order beer cans for 50 cents with no charge for the delivery! Has drinking ever been easier?

This is our room when you enter:

This is our living room when watching from my door. Notice the cool tv with cable channels:

This is our kitchen corner:

This is our bathroom. The instant I walked to check this place, I fell love for it:

This is our shower. Really clean and massage functions. Can't wait to try:

This is my bedroom. I feel like, I'm writing a Cribs episode:

This is view to the door of my room:

From our balcony. That's our pool by the way:

With little bigger view:

Taken with my mobile phone, so bear with me. Also I didn't check the quality, so if some of them is totally shitty, tough luck.

I decided that I'm not going to talk about what I've done here now. Since too much has happened to write to a blog. Even now I feel exhausted, because don't know where to start. So let's imagine that previous week never happened and this is the start.

Although something I'd like to mention. Our school starts on Monday and we took 6 different business classes. Only Wednesday is free, so 4 day school week. But we will get a lot of credits from them and for some reason, I'm really anxious to go back to school.

Now we're heading out to eat. Busy day, so haven't had time to do that. Maybe the cool looking thai-chinese restaurant downstairs, who knows. We'll see.

Sorry for the shitty blogging again, now that I finally have internet, I can put shorter and smarter posts in future.

PS. I feel really motivated to grind some poker again, I guess this night I will take the first session at Thailand. Hopefully it goes well, since I've spent way over my budget now. Due to moving to this new place and few unneeded drinking nights.

Take care and peace out !

-Ilkka

City of Bangkok

Finally found some Internet in Bangkok. Okay, we don't have Internet yet at our apartment so I'm sitting in a cafe writing this with an very odd keyboard. The weather here is +32 °C at the moment. Really warm and takes some time to get used to it but everything so far has been amazing here. Especially I love the taxi's, where ever you are, it's really just to wave your hand and a taxi is there for you. And the price then, amazingly cheap, only about 50-100baht wherever we have gone so far. only 1-2euros, really likable. Well this is everything I'm gonna write until the next time.

Enjoy! I know I will.

- Tommy

At Bangkok

So here it is. My first post from the land of smiles. We don't have internet at our place, so I feel rather stupid to post from an internet cafe. I would really like to post some insanely crazy pictures, but I guess it'll have to wait. This internet cafe is full of insane Thai people playing first person shooter games etc. Pretty stereotypic, especially the guy sitting next to me, playing some dance game. But to what has happened.

The plane ride from Oulu to Helsinki was pretty normal, like always. Then the almost 10h flight from Helsinki to Bangkok was awful, and my hangover didn't help it at all. When we finally arrived to Bangkok at 10am, I was so excited that the plane flight didn't matter at all. The second I stepped out from the airport, it hit me. Hard. +30-35 moist weather is pretty big change for a Finnish guy. Even though I've been in several hot European countries, this was something I have never been against before. But few days of this weather has helped us to adapt to it really nicely.

After the airport we took taxi to our apartment. It's really a shame, that I can't upload the pictures, but bare with me, I will do so next week. From our other balcony we have a view to our school and really nice bangkok style small river with palm trees around. We even saw some monkey in one of the trees the first day! From our other balcony we have a more suburban view, but a lot of nature there also.

After checking out apartment and leaving our bags there, we went to eat with the 2 Finnish exchange girls to some mall near us. Again we took taxi and went to some really cool thai style restaurant. I ate rice with grilled shrimp and vegetables + chili soup and big coke. I ended up paying something like 1 euro for the food, yes, in restaurant. The food tasted really good and was put out very nicely. You see only something like that in Finland, when you go to some high class Asian style restaurant and end up paying a lot more. Too bad that I wanted to test how spicy the food actually is in Thailand. This ended up to be a mistake and I was almost, literally dying. After that we browsed some stores, and then took taxi back to our apartment. After that we did what we do best, got drunk. At big markets they start selling booze only at 5pm, which was a shock to us. We waited for clock to be like 4:30pm, went for a walk around and to shop to buy beer like 5:10pm. So Finnish.

At something like 10:30pm we took a taxi to this Khao San Road, which is supposed to be one of the biggest party streets in Bangkok with people all around the world. This proved to be totally correct. This is like the place for sin. You can get basically anything here from shemales to cocaine. First we went to some smaller place for a beer. There was some live band playing, which played pretty good Rock N Roll. Then we went to this rock bar, where there was a live band also playing. Here we met our new friend from England. A black guy called M-J, who lives here. After a while we took a taxi with him to his place. Everything was really cool, and after that we took taxi back to our apartment.

Next day we woked up and went to eat in some more 'safer' place. We took taxi and went to the same mall we were at first day to a restaurant and ordered stakes. I ate pork, medium grilled, with salad and garlic bread. For drink I took a coke. I ended up paying something like 2 euros and something, for this really good food. After that we took almost 3 hour walk around old Bangkok. Nothing crucial happened, just really cool views and glimps of the real Thai culture, not the tourist bullshit you get. In the end we didn't have the slightest clue where we was, so again, we took a taxi to home. Getting taxi is like the best thing in whole world here. We have never walked over 1 minute next to a bigger road, without someone pulling over offering a ride. Riding them is practically free. For a long 15min trip from our place to this mall, called MBK, costs something like 2 euros. At home we showered and went there.

The mall was insane. I bought DC, EA and element t-shirts for like 10 euros. The material is really good, equal to finnish t-shirts from which, I pay 30-40 euros for piece. Then I bought some boxers for about equal price. Too bad the mall was starting to close, so we missed a lot of shops. But hey, time is all we have. After small shopping we want to this thai fast food place, called Santa's. I ate spaghetti with pork with large coke, and paid less than 1 euro for that. After the mall closed, we went for a walk ourside. We saw some heavy metal band playing outside with a lot of people watching it. After browsing around, we went to Starbucks for drink. I took some iced fruit drink, which was a really good purchase. We sat outside and watched the endless flow of people and cars. After that we found Hard Rock Cafe accidently. We went inside for a beer. The second we sat to our table some Thai girl came to me and asked me to buy her a drink. I guess she was one of the Bar Girls of Thailand everyone mentions. Politely I declined and she got pissed, stood around for a while and walked away pissed. We drank a beer and watched some really cool Thai band playing covers of RHCP, No Doubt etc. Definately place to visit again. After that we still took a small walk and then taxi to home.

At home we weren't tired, so we took a walk again, around our part of the town. Then we watched some movie and went to bed.

This morning we woked up and visited our school. Apparently the guy is in vacation until Monday, so nothing happens before that. Now we come to current time. We are sitting here in an internet shop. Now it's time for us to leave and head to some restaurant for food. Most likely to this really cool looking stake house, impossible to say. At evening we are going out, but don't know yet where. Tomorrow M-J invited us to come see his Reggae gig to some really cool place. Definately something we will do. So now we're off to eat and swim / take sun to pool.

In my next blog I will focus more on how things work here and so forth. Finally I'd like to apogolise for the bad English I used here. Since I don't have time to double check my writings and I have written straight from my mind, without thinking does it actually even sound correct.

Take care and have fun !

-Ilkka

Take off

I woke up this morning, nervous as hell, sometime before nine. As I was wiping the sleep from my eyes, it really hit me hard, shit, today is going to be the day we'll leave everything behind, and start our journey. I remembered that I had to wake Ilkka up at ten, since yesterday he was doing the thing he loves the most, drinking alcohol excessively. I knew that without me he was never getting out of bed, so, as a friend, I felt obliged to help him out yet again.

I also had to run some errands today, It wasn't so nice and I became all sentimental, but it was expected. I just had to watch some series also again, this time it was Californication, starring David Duchovny as Hank Moody, a novelist with a lot of issues with his personal life. I like the series, though, the second season hasn't been as good nor funny as the first season. Todays song is from episode four of the second season. The song is Free Bird from Lynyrd Skynyrd.



This song, to me, is a perfect farewell song, and also explains my feelings at the moment quite accurately. I chose a live version, because it just is so much better than the album version, especially the solo.

Today was also the day of packing. I have a medium-sized suitcase, and the weight of it packed, is about 15kg. It was really surprising, since I didn't even pack so much stuff. The weight limit for Finnair is 23kg with our kind of ticket. Can't wait for the return trip, to see how much excessive weight I have then. I'm not too worried though, I'll just pay for the fee and not cry about it.

I would love to tell you more about the day but, time is short and I'm running late soon for the plane, that would be a bummer. Next post will be from Thailand then.



Enjoy this last peace of art. Half the world away - by Oasis. Just because we will be on the other side of the world tomorrow.

- Tommy

Last full day in Oulu

Today morning it hit me. I was driving at motorway to home. Normally at morning rush before the Oulu river bridge, the traffic on the rightmost lane slows from 80 / 100km/h to 60km/h, since one of the most crowded slip road connects to the motorway there. Normally I change to the fast lane, and quietly curse in my mind FFFFFUUUUUUUUU-! But today morning was different, Radio Rock was playing a song from The Verve(check the video below) called Bittersweet Symphony.




A calm feeling fulfilled me, and I didn't even feel the need to rush anywhere. At that point I finally fully realized, that fuck, I'm leaving tomorrow. Fucking awesome! That song is truly a great piece of art in my opinion, even though I really haven't listened a lot of Verve. Again I decided to pick a live, since I found a really good quality one. I don't think that anyone would disagree with me, that a really good live version of a song beats a studio one 100-0.

On another note. Am I the only one who thinks that the singer of The Verve reminds disturbingly much of John Holmes without mustache?

Yesterday we went to this pub called Gloria. I was invited by a friend to see a band from Oulu called Downstone. It was an invitation only gig, so the atmosphere was pretty nice. The fact that they had free food, wine, cider etc, surely helped it. The most funny fact was that they also served free cigarettes?! They were served on the tables in glasses. What the fuck? Before the gig I quickly listened few songs from them (check link), and I have to say, I was really impressed. I recorded a short video with my cellphone. The quality is obviously pretty bad, but it's definitely at least watchable.




Now I'm finishing this entry at coffee place called Coffee House at downtown with my laptop. Now I guess I'll have to start moving to take care of some business. Later I'm gonna go eat with my parents, and after that possibly to Hevimesta for 1€ beers. The plane leaves tomorrow 5pm to Helsinki, and I haven't even started to pack. Although it really doesn't matter, since I'm not going to take anything with me, except the absolutely necessary things and one set of clean clothes.

Take care !

-Ilkka

Farewell Party

As mentioned before, I couldn't make my first posting here yesterday, because I was, apparently, doing what I do best, getting drunk.

I haven't had any interest lately in exploring the party scene of Oulu since Bangkok has been on my mind. Yesterday was an exception since it was kind of my farewell party which I celebrated with guys from work. First destination in the city centre of Oulu was a bar called Karaoke, I don't recall being there before, but I remember that years ago a friend of mine was thrown out of there for starting some kind of a hassle with a 200kg giant. I had some (many) drinks there and played Black Jack for an hour or so. Didn't win and didn't lose so it was very pleasant because usually I only lose at the game.

Second destination was the bar called Kantis, it's really not one of my favorites but hey, there really ain't such good bars in Oulu. Luckily, we are on our way to Bangkok and we'll see what happens there. At Kantis, I started to be so drunk, that my memory was playing tricks with me, I can't quite remember what happened there or after. So, all in all, the partying at the bars was very successful but I'm happy I don't have to do it in Oulu in the near future again.

The night ended actually this morning about 9 o´clock, when I woke up from my friends apartment and sneaked out to go home. Reminds me a bit of one night stand adventures experienced at younger age.

Today I experienced, yet again, one of the worst hangovers ever. I intended to write a post to the blog already in the morning but I just couldn't get out of bed. I tried several times, but I found it totally impossible. Finally at 4pm I got out of bed and went for a pizza. It was actually the last pizza before Thailand, but it was mighty good and really saved the rest of the day.

I will keep the tradition alive and add a youtube video of a song, that somehow fits the current post.



Why this particular song then? Well, I really have had a Dog Day Afternoon. This song is from a Swedish rap-artist called Promoe. Listen to the lyrics carefully and you'll all understand.

Peace.

-Tommy

Preparations

So, here it is. We leave next Tuesday. We fly Oulu-Helsinki and then Helsinki-Bangkok, straight flight+Finnair will make things a lot easier.

Right now I'm sitting at work, getting insanely bored and excited of our trip to come. Weekend work sucks, especially when your shift is from 6pm-6am. Normally I don't do this work, but since they asked me to fill in for the normal guy, I decided to go for it. It's hard to say no, since I practically don't have to do anything here, except watch tv/surf internet/drink coffee etc. Since for some reason I'm too bored to grind NLHE heads up(multitable short handed sucks without poker tracker), I decided to make the first post here. Tommy is doing what he does best, getting drunk.

So what do you need before you leave? Vaccines should be definately checked. Hepatitis A+B are vital. Japanese Encephalitis is incredibly unlikely to get, but since the symptoms are very fatal and possibly gives you a life time brain damage, we decided to play it safe and take it also. Malaria is taken in pills before and during, you are in some area that it resides. We are going to buy those pills in Thailand, should we need them. We decided to change some money before we're entering the country, to make things easier there. We checked which place would give the best exchange rate, and decided to take our business to Forex, instead of some bank. Getting visa to Thailand was pretty easy. It was handled by the Thai embassy located in Helsinki by mail.

I decided, that I try to add some songs/videos/links/pictures from Youtube and other sites, which are somehow related to the current post. Most likely the links will be totally irrelevant, but life's hard.

First link is a song called The Quiet Place by In Flames, a Swedish band that plays melodic death metal. The song is from album Soundtrack To Your Escape, which also has my favorite song from In flames, My Sweet Shadow. I saw them this summer at Rockperry festival at Vaasa. An insane gig. They're also playing in Helsinki in near future, but sadly I'm going to be quite too far to go to see the gig. So why this song? It was the last song I listened from my MP4 player before I arrived to work today. Yes, I couldn't come up with anything better.

Enjoy !




When I reviewed my text, I decided to add an another song also. Since I mentioned my favorite song from In Flames, it would be stupid not to put it also, wouldn't it? I decided to put a live version from Rock Am Ring 2006, since the ending is insane. They ended the Rockperry gig also with the same song.




-Ilkka