Ms Chocaholic with lots of opinions and an attitude

Saturday, December 22, 2007

Thailand's general elections...how much of a farce wll it be..?

our elections is tomorrow...but I have absolutely no faith in it being a fair one. its being controlled by the military! they appointed the guy who headed the coup (after his retirement) to head the committee that oversees elections. we already have an elections commission...no idea why the need to form this committee...if not so that the military can control and sabotage the result. they (coup makers) say that they had to overthrow the previous government cos that government abused power and was not democratic...or used its power to maneuveur things for their own interest. now we will have new elections, but these same people refuse to accept that the people may still want the same government that were overthrown. to make sure that doesnt happen, they disbanded that party.(TRT).a new one was formed (PPP)...and now they try to obstruct this new party from getting votes in the area where TRT has a stronghold. ...including declaring those areas under state of emergency..which means military personnel can be deployd in the area......
what kind of democracy are they propagating...if they wont even let people think for ourselves? in constituency with military bases, the soldiers are told by their supervisors who to vote for!

well thats the current situation in thai politics.....you can see Im not impressed. in fact it makes me mad! but thats another story...I could go on about this for pages...so better stop here :)
maybe more details later if I have time.... and well lets see what the results turn out to be tomorrow....
stay tuned...or check it out on bangkokpost or other such papers :p

Monday, December 17, 2007

no Friday the 13th...just my lucky day (NOT!!)

well what can I say.... there I was...frantically packing for the past 2 days...then comes Friday evening....just as I thought I will manage with my packing afterall....so I thought Ive earned a break. and if the break includes catching up with Maurice and my special date Jude, and Maurice's wife P Jiemjarn...why not!
after that I then went out to dinner with Mom and her friends....got dropped off at P Pim's place before heading out for a bit of clubbing. well.....wrong move obviously. I got my bag nicked at the club...we turned away for less than 2 minutes...taking photographs...totally happy and in full party mode.....turn back, and my bag is gone!!!
really just my luck! I never ever carry my passport with me even when travelling overseas...but today of all days I had both my passports in my bag!!! one current one, one old with my aussie visa in it! I also lost the unusually high amount of cash that I dont normally carry...all my credit cards, ID, ATM, housekeys, chocolates that I was taking to friends for gifts, and the magnet I bought Nora from Italy....AND also the new MP3 player I got given just a day earlier!!! sob sob not to mention my phone...both thai and malaysian SIM, and all the contacts of friends all over the world!! sighhhhh I suppose thats what you call starting over with a clean slate huh?
ofcourse what this means is my Aussie flight scheduled for the next day had to be postponed!!! how annoying! but well....cant blame anything else apart from my own carelessness.....sighhhhh

Sunday, December 09, 2007

News (from) of a 'friend'

I was in Kota BAhru, Malaysia with Mom today. drove down there for a short visit....Mom had some business meeting there. while in town I took the opportunity to catch up (phone) with a few friends in Malaysia.
I thought I was the one with big news....but as it turns out....someone is taking a much bigger step than me. A major, but certainly happy and wonderful step for my friend of course. In some way, the news made me understand his silence over the past year...yet..the fact that the news itself would not have been shared with me is ...... hmmm ok....maybe Im having 2 minds about this part......

anyhow..the bottom line is.......congrats!! obviously....I just wish my 'friends' would think about me at least every now and then and remember to share some news about themselves. even the news they think /assume I might not want to hear about :)

Chilling at home in Pattani

amidst all the partying, catching up with friends.....ofcourse I need to make my way home to see the most important people in my life. So here I am in Pattani since Thursday night.....hoping to spend as much time as I can with my Mom and brother. having said that....I do have to admit this is a total of only 4 days....not much at all really....my other annual visits home have been longer. but well these days..with the world becoming smaller...internet, phonecalls, cheap flights and such...hopefully I will be seeing them again fairly soon.
Mom will come up to Bangkok next week..so i get to see more of her ofcourse. Pa Pawan I get to see less of, but well.....we will still have 4 days of regular daily phonecalls to discuss football and thai politics over the next week.
by the way...Im so gonna miss catching all the live football games in Australia. even with cable tv, given the time difference with Europe..will be quite impossible to catch the games. as to thai politics......hmmmm....I dont want to get started on that just yet...although even as I picked up the thai papers on the flight back from Athens...I already saw the big chaos and the fiasco of the upcoming elections. yes I certainly dont have any faith in this election being a fair one.

Pirates of the caribbean.....whats that last one called...

anyway...watched it on DvD very very late night. given the circumstance...its kinda silly I continued to watch a movie that turned out to be not even that great. I like the other Pirates more.
to describe part of the circumstance....... i was offered a healthy drink of mixed vegetable and fruit juice. (ermm cannot comment about that drink...its well...beyond words...but ermm well healthy! hehe) then a small drop (read:drop of the bottle) of vodka was added to make it slightly more healthy (less sweet = less sugar= healthy). and ofcourse for a balanced diet...variety is needed....to serve this purpose I think aniseed was brought into the equation........its culturally diverse as well....the aniseed is parisian...Absynth

a series of farewells......

so back in Bangkok......Monday night...P Pim and I start our own mini farewell.....met Matthew the blue-eyed canadian...had quite a fun night...but P Pim decided to go home early..well by her standard...claiming something about having to work the next morning.
since I am almost unemployed....and having no work the next day apart from the farewell party by the boss and people at work.... well that certainly gave me more time to enjoy the evening....

so Tuesday arrived......saying goodbye to people at work....I think I was the only one that was sad....but maybe thats a good sign.....looking on the positive side...I can claim I always make people happy....even in leaving :) funny part was...in my usual routine..I bring back chocolates for people at work...as I do when I go on any trips but particularly so when I come back from Europe. Anyhow....ironic enough...the colleagues decided to give me a selection of chocolates as farewell gift. so there I am.....spreading out the variety of chocolates I brought back from different places....and end of the evening..Im carrying a different selection of chocolates back home!! hehee

end of evening...but start of the night...join P'Pim and Owen at a french dinner in Soi Convent....2 bottles of red...mostly by Owen I must add...and then we are off to Virtigo for drinks. Owen wanted to get a view of the fireworks for the King's birthday...I dont really care much about the firework...but the view from that helipad is something I cant say no to. been there lots of times...and the view still manage to take my breath away. ok...maybe a bit of an exaggeration.....Ill reserve that sentiment for if and ever I get a romantic 'date' there.

the night turned into morning at a couple of other clubs...running into a few other familiar faces.....

Im certainly not having my own farewell party...Id rather have parties and never have to say goodbye.........

Last days in Greece

to be honest.....the past week has been such a whirlwind of events..that Im forgetting some details...but one thing I can definitely say is.....I really like Greece...and if I get the chance would surely go back for another visit.
as to the sights...I continued to explore places like the Temple of the Olympian Zues, the Keramikos cemetary, checked out the Pereaus port....well for next time when I want to use it to get to the islands :)

I met more of Katerina's friends over a very delicious fusion Greek dinner.....Evi and Yani....high school friends who are now married..and their friend Betty. a funny lovely bunch. together with Argyrula (whose name I still struggle to pronounce..sorry darling!) whos been doctrined into the thai food appreciation gang...we will be having our thai food appreciation tour to both Thailand and Australia sometime over the next year (well keeping my fingers crossed!!).

I came back with one bottle of olive oil...(one less than I should have...no thanks to the silly airline liquid/gel regulation etc etc silliness)

the bright side.......Argyrula even came to see me off at the airport...I feel so truly loved!! on the one hand its sooooo good....but on the other....made it difficult to say goodbye...and having to live half way across the world from each other.