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