Suomeksi In English

.: Singapore Blog :.

I did an exchange study program in National University of Singapore. I was there for around six months (from 5th Jan to 15th Jun). While studying I visited other countries as well: Japan, Malaysia and Thailand twice. If anybody's thinking about going for exchange, I recommend it very strongly! Even though I'm already back in Finland, I'll keep blogging for a while since I feel I still have some stories to share... If you can read Finnish, check out the "suomi"-side as well, there are more posts and pics available. Sorry for not writing that much in English. After all, my passport still says I'm from Finland and that won't likely change. Anyway, hope you enjoy.

26.7.2007 - こんにちわ! Greetings from Tokyo

Japan rocks! We went to take over Tokyo with our own Fantastic Four: Me-Nysse-Juha-Shalini (Shalini is an Indian girl who has lived her whole life in England, another exchange friend of ours). Well, perhaps we didn't quite take over but atleast had a great week there! Since we had a non-Finn with us, it was only English and Japanese. We turned the poor little girl into a Finn and I learned some british accent. Great. Now I try to speak "proper" English instead of American. Wait a minute, did she just turn me into an Englishman? Darn. Bollocks. This was a weird digression to start the blog with. What? Yeah, carrying on. Ok. The weather and landscapes were suprisingly similar to ones in Finland. Our little visit took place in the middle of May. So a bright mind could figure out I'm writing this two months late. I wanted to make a good one with lots of photos. So here we are. Don't worry, I most certainly did not forget the best parts, the 1768 pictures I have really took and keep taking care of that. So, +20 degrees and nicely dry - very comfortable after that 24/7 sauna we were having in Singapore. The number of people, though, was nothing like we're used to see in Finland. Before living in Singapore, I was used to cities with 5-6 figure numbers of people. Our population in total is 5,3 million (check out this and tons of other facts about Finland in Wikipedia God I love wikipedia). So here we were, in a nice small city of Tokyo with the modest population of 12,6 million and if you count in the suburbs too, 35 million people. Even if you consider we had been living in Singapore, (4,5 million people) the number of people we saw daily was overwhelming. But it was still great because nobody was damn irritating and trying to sell us all the crappy stuff, like in Thailand. Ever been to Thailand? People bother you every freaking second with the calssics; "buy buy / cheap cheap / many many / special price just for you / where you go / take taxi very cheap"? Exactly. Well Tokyo - a civilized place as it is - was none of that. And people didn't check us out at all - first time in Asia. It was really nice. Even though we were nothing short of the definition of "tourists", struggling with our pretty non-existent Japanese, (only metro stations' names are also available in English, everything else is written only in Japanese!) I still feel we managed to blend in a bit. We stayed at the nice, english-speaking and cozy Tokyo Hostel which was well worth the price. Considering quality and price, probably the best place to stay for a backpacker in Tokyo.

The general price level (food, clothes) was maybe a bit cheaper than in Finland. I think it has to do with Euro being so strong because I had heard that Japan would be more expensive. No complainments here. Okay, travelling was expensive, especially taxi prices were ridiculously high (over 100 EUR per pretty much any trip). Not once I recall eating anything that tasted bad. So, for me, food was good too. We found nice meals for around 5 EUR which is cheap. Of course they have a wide range there too. In rest of the Asia we could go to top places and find them very cheap but here...we decided not to test our wallets. What comes to clothes, Japan is the #1 place in Asia. This again is only my opinion (I'm not here to start a war with you, my Chinese friend. You have 7 million troops and a nuclear weapon. We have snow and reindeer.). Even thought I didn't see every city in Asia, I'm gonna say Tokyo is, without a question, the most fashionable city around there. There's something for everybody and even for men too. Usually (atleast in Finland) selections are way better for women. They had a broad range of fantasy costums, too. People actually wore them and it was perfectly normal. In Finland that would be considered very bizarre and disapprovable by the majority which I find sad. I mean, why do people care so much? Let the freaks be freaks. One day I was with friends in a ROCK bar in Finland. My hair was spiked up and some drunkard asked: "did you get an electric shock?". Finns. Some people are so ignorant they make me wanna wipe my ass with their toothbrushes. If I only could. Anyway, there was pretty much everything we could think of available. When we run into dog massage places, dogs with coats and hats(!) and a shop which had a Pierre Hermé cake in a glass showcase, (see the pics) we knew it was time go somewhere else.

Pretty much everyone had their own style and something always stood out. A unique hat or scarf for instance. In Finland, people look so similar. This was so refreshing. I'm not saying I liked all of the experimental styles but it sure is better than to be a total copycat, like most of the guys in Finland. Thanks to you, Sweden and H&M. It's one of the very, very few brands that sell ok looking clothes with cheap prices. Once I read from news about a Swedish bitc...lady tick off the clothes Finns wear. Such an idiot. Should have done her homework better: it's a God damn Swedish brand every friggin' Finn's wearing! So, what we need is a facelift. I'm thinking custom clothes from new designers. No mass products. The era of people being so shy they don't dare to look too different must be soon over in Finland too. I'm saying there's a huge market, everybody hates that swedish brand and for guys that's pretty much the only option there is (well, for cheap clothes)! If you're a clothes designer or studying that (my little sister is, I'm trying to convince her to start a business!), be bold, put on a website to showcase your stuff. If you make cool clothes with a unique style out of good-quality material, I'm sure people will buy. At least I will. Mark my words. This is where things are going. (and you should NEVER question the word of a web developer on fashion matters).

I heard japs (we asked a Japanese if they'd find the word "jap" offending, he said it's ok) don't speak English. Well, it's true. Unfortunately. Almost none of them are able or willing to speak English. Even in the places you'd expect it. Waitresses, shop keepers, train ticket sellers. Nobody speaks English! As I mentioned before, the only thing that's written on english are the subway station names. That's it! The rest is all hiragana/katagana/kanji (Japanese). Consider this too if you're planning on a Japan trip. Atleast get yourself a pocket-size tourist dictionary, it will be worth the few Euros. Luckily, I had struggled through a basic Japanese course in the university of Oulu. That was definitely useful. I started speaking Japanese from day one. When you want to communicate, you'd better put aside thoughts like maybe you sound terrible in that language. The fact is, you do. But if you don't overcome that, well, sometimes you just want to eat when you go to a restaurant. "Me human. Me Hungry. Give me FOOOOOOD!" is not gonna do it. Japanese is pronounced pretty similarly to Finnish - and the grammar is really simple to start with. So these were fairly good bases for discussion. My very limited Japanese contains some means to order food and drinks, buying stuff, having a very simple little conversation and asking some very simple questions. But that's all you need to survive. And we had a little Japanese fingertips book to help with the vocabulary. It was pure joy to see these local people actually understood what I had just said.

Sometimes (I take this has to do with the phonetic similarities between Japanese and Finnish) I managed to sound pretty Japanese. I base that on the fact that many times when I asked something in Japanese, I got a crazy answer with "millions" of words flying at me in seconds. Good luck trying to get that. Most often I got nice smiles that were telling something like "oh he has learned a bit japanese, how wonderful". But some might also be thinking "oh damn again these wannabe-japanese tourists who can only say two words and both of them sound terrible. But we're nice people so I'll just smile politely.". There's also a good side to japs not speaking English: I'm sure I'd have spoken pretty much only English instead of trying to speak Japanese - which, by the way, was really fun. But the fact remains that everything is just easier if there's a common language. There's the thing with the French. The legend says (and I've also heard this from a French) they except people visiting France to be able to speak French. And they might act arrogantly if you just speak English to them. Quite an amusing thought. Since it's not that widespread a language, it's just ridiculous to expect everyone to know it. I'm not expecting tourists to even try to speak Finnish. If there's a way, a common language people can communicate with, I fail see the problem in using it. I don't have a problem with the French. It's just that their own former prime minister Jacques Chirac said some stupid things about Finland. An idiot and a total loser. Since politicians are not able to say what everybody thinks of mr. Chirac, I'll be glad to do it here. Freedom of speech, one might say. The fact that they let such an ignorant, corrupted criminal (he's facing charges for corruption and financial crimes) to run their country for so long tells something about France. That being said, I have to mention that I've met some French people and they were all very nice! So I'm not saying France or the French are any bad. Every country has their idiots. We just don't vote ours. But hey, not like French are alone voting for morons. Think of Americans... I'd like to visit France some time as a tourist or backpacker as I'd like to visit pretty much any country in the world.

Tokyo is one huge concrete jungle. There are some small parks but that's it. No other green places. Finland is full of forests and lakes...nature. So an all-concrete landscape feels somewhat depressing. The subways weren't quite as crazy as the rumor has it (check out this pic). Sometimes trains were almost empty, sometimes still packed enough. There's one funny thing we managed to do. We almost missed our flight, twice. Ever done that? How do you even do that? It was pretty ridiculous. Finns are usually very rational and organized people. We were nothing like that. After taking that über-laidback-backpack-group-photo, we started walking / running, trying to get to the Narita airport. The trip took us like 1½ hours (yes, it's a big city and we had to change trains. That also includes a granny buying us tickets from an all-japanese ticket machine!). When we finally got there, it took us quite a while to run through all the hallways and levels before we reached check-in for international flights. At this point we had less than ten minutes before gates would close. But then we learned the flight was one hour late. Well... we went eating and airport-shopping. And then. "we really have to go now". Again, we had less than ten minutes and the screens already said "gate closing". We realized our gate was (of course) the very furthest one. I think we ran around 1-2 km through the corridors, saying sumimasen (=excuse me) to people on our way. Finally reached, it was still a long line so we started joking, let's go back to shop some more, we have plenty of time. I've done a lot of flying this year but I have to admit I was never this close to missing a flight. And that was stupid and careless. Don't do that. Maybe we liked Tokyo so much we had to stay till the very last second.

Okay. That's for starters. Then let's take a look something Japan is really famous for:

Crazy Japanese Culture

I don't even know where to begin. For me, the goal was to see as much craziness as possible. Hey, a tourist has to maximize everything! And we saw quite a lot of things in only one week. I'll give brief descriptions of some of them. Let's start with everybody's favourite...


Fancy toilets.. Maybe not an international bestseller but pretty cool still. This superfunctional thingy we found from our hostel has lots of controls, for warmth of the toilet ring (yeah!) and adjustments for two showers. One shoots at your..."waste disposal centre" and the other one...well...it's ladies only. You get to adjust pretty much anything (yay!): temperature, direction and intensity. And there were different programs (of course, if you have an anal/vagina shower, you'd better have various programs for it). Like a massage chair. I'm not only providing you with a mental image but also with a real one! How do I know do the buttons do, it's all Japanese? Well, when it comes to love, war and blogging, somebody's gotta make a heroic effort and try it out. Guess who did.

Sumo wrestling is pretty funky. We happened to be around during a big tournament so we went to check out one day of it. We all were pretty tired because last night we were out in a Japanese night club and a karaoke place. Tokyo subway service is on from 5 AM to 12 PM. As I mentioned before, taxi rates are ridiculously high. So basically the only option, when coming back home, is to wait till the morning train. We went eating after the train and were finally back at the hostel at 8 AM. That's for the backgrounds. Back to sumo wrestling. We had bought tickets for it so we had no choice but to go. Our tickets were the cheapest ones (a bit less than 20 EUR) and also furthest away. I must admit, I never thought of paying to get to see 150 kg men (yes, that's the average weight which is quite an achievement considering how small they are!) slapping, pushing and hugging each other, wearing nothing but thongs. But that day came. And instead of calling it what I just did, we call that "culture". Those sumo dudes are highly respectable. And they get all the slimmest model girls. Think of that for a second. Think of a wedding night for a couple more seconds. Yeah, now you're thanking me again for the mental image. But wait, it gets better. The best tickets (the closest ones to the ring) are wildly priced. Like hundreds of thousands of yens. 100 000 yens is around 600 EUR or 830 USD. By the way, the most expensive hat I saw in Tokyo was priced 109 000 yen. The best tickets not only offer a great view but possibly some rather dangerous moments. We witnessed several times how the wrestlers flew out of the ring with a lot of speed, asses first, straight at the front seaters. I'm thinking this is the reason for the high price, which only adds up to the weirdness. We had hand radios with English commentary which was quite helpful. Even without the commentary I figured out how a typical sumo match is pulled off.

I'm not exaggerating one bit. I shot a video that had a 4½ minutes of preparation and the wrestling itself took 4 seconds. The whole tournament lasted 15 days, in which each wrestler did five matches. This must be the sports of the most patient men; you hang around for 15 days and get to wrestle for about 30 seconds. It must take patience especially for those who lost all of their matches. One thing I don't get though. Obviously sumo wrestling is a very ritualistic, spiritual and cultural sports. Why the hell do they have a big coca-cola trophy around in their sumo museum? All the originality and then a silver coke bottle? Maybe this is not my kind of sports but I still found the whole thing an interesting experience. But I'm not in a rush to see any more fat men in thongs. There were PLENTY of "see-I-told-you-I-can-fit-the-speedos-I-bought-40-years-ago" tourists in Thailand. Well, at least there this pleasant sight was for free.

Japanese TV is the best kind. During days it was just normal programs but at night it was all about the weirdest playing/competing shows. I can tell pretty much all the sitcoms just do it wrong. It's not funny. These are funny:

Just search for more. There's lots of funny stuff on youtube. I also recommend 80's Bollywood clips. I'm saying this is funny. If I was in head of a media company, I'd buy rights to those old crappy movies immediately (I'm sure it's very cheap) and put them on DVDs or show them in TV. It's just incredibly funny. No sitcom ever makes me really laugh. The jokes are always too predictable. But this stuff is so funny I can hardly breathe. I'm serious. Somebody put this stuff out there. Or somebody give me a couple of millions and I'll do it.

Gaming halls were everywhere. I'm not calling them arcades, cause they weren't those. Arcade games were...nowhere. We managed to find one with help of a Japanese friend. But these local places were always like this: a huge room with tons of similar pink slot machines. People just play those. All kinds of people, from youngsters to business guys. The worst kind of addicts, this is what a jap told me, even come in early and queue so that they could get to their favourite machine. Then they change money to coins. An amount that would fill a bag. And these halls were really noisy! I couldn't even go in without earplugs. And being a drummer, I'm used to noise. And the games were so simple, like trying to get the same icon into all three slots. I couldn't figure out why these things are so popular.

Harajuku is a neighbourhood, where teens hang around in weekends. Well that's nothing new. The clue is that everybody's wearing a fancy costum. It's called cosplay (costumeplay) - you wear clothes and do makeup, and you do it right, not like just a punky t-shirt. That's not even trying. These people fill the role. We took a glance on Saturday. There were many foreign tv crews around too. Everybody knows karaoke but what we didn't know is that you can't go to a spa with a tattoo. Somehow they find it offending. If memory serves, at first tattoos were only taken by gang members. Again, this shows that Japanese are all about cultural heritage. And I must mention, in a HMV record shop, they had a Finnish album in the Russian music shelf. Quite disturbing!

I wanna say this trip was Awesome with a capital A. I love that place and I wanna go there again. If you're a Japanese person, I hope you didn't feel I mock your culture. I just wrote about it on a westerner's perspective. And I respect all that too even if I do find something bizarre. So don't get offended, that's not my intention. On the contrary, please let me know if there's something on your mind. This blog took some time to prepare. I hope it was worth it. Enough writing. Three more pics and it's all done. Sumimasen and sayonara.

7.6.2007 - Malaysia, the sea bed

Yay! I'm a certified diver! The trip to Malaysia was great! It was big group of exchange students and some singaporeans including Juha, Nysse and Jouko (like me, all from Oulu, Finland). Finland was strongly represented and guess what, not one single swede! Ha! Finland wins! After a short glance, Malaysia appears to be much like Thailand. I really can't tell because we spent the whole time on Pulay Dayang island. Food we got there was ...very interesting and really complicated to eat. Take a wild guess. Yes, seafood. Lots of different kinds of fish and crabs. And God knows, what else. I have no clue about the names of the things i ate during that weekend. But seems, I'm very much live an kicking so it's all good. Most of the views we got to see were underwater. And that was nothing short of awesome. Actually, I think I have to call it fantastic. Americans made the word awesome so lame using it in every sentence that it simply doesn't tell how great diving in there was.

This trip was done on March. Such a long delay. Well, the reason I waited so long to report this was that I've been waiting to receive some super cool underwater photos from the diving instructor. Oh yeah. I'm still waiting. Sent the dude so many mails. Too bad, I wish i get the pics some day. If I do, I'll put them here and post a notice that now the pics finally arrived. Don't hold your breath. The first time I tried out scuba diving was on Phi Phi island in Thailand. It felt so neat I had to do it again. And I wasn't the only one, Juha and Nysse also wanted to do it again so we went for open water sertificate. That required some reading and video watching, a pool session (training skills) and an exam. And finally, the trip to Pulay Dayang!

And man it was truely fantastic. All the funkiest fish and other sea dudes that have the fanciest names...which I just can't remember. This one big fish was just chillin' in a small dark cave. I recall that it had the weirdest and biggest head. It was just one of those moments when you have no words. Not like you'd do anything with words 18 meters under surface anyways. We saw dolphins too. And something that is supposed to be very painful if you touch it. Not meaning sharks though. Well, now that I mentioned it, some dude from another diving group did see sharks and so we changed our diving spot. But it's usually that they swim away... Only some shark species are into eating people. Nobody told us which kind was it this time. After 7 dives, some few things I know about diving are that you should be all cool and relaxed underwater. Once you learn how to control your body with the gear, there's no need to use hands for moving, just legs. Bouyancy can be controlled by breathing, (which is lots of fun when you learn how to do it) and the best thing is just being totally away from everything else and enjoy every second of the wonderful underwater world.

It's amazing. Incredible views. Especially in this region since water is clear and the things living in seas there - it's all so rich and versatile. I really recommend this if you're gonna go to Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia or Mexico for instance. Got a lot of recommodations where to dive but can't remember everything now. Just learn the stuff back home, do the tests and everything. When it's time to go to the exotic holiday or whatever, just dive in and enjoy. Unforgettable.





13.5.2007 - Off To Tokyo

Yeah. I know. I haven't been blogging in English a long while. A ton of things have happened (like a diving trip to Malaysia, studies ended, having gigs and recordings...) and I'll get back to it soon. Well, at first I'll go to Tokyo for a week to check out what the crazy Japanese people are all about! I hope they speak English there. Everybody says they don't. Which is not good because my Japanese - or should I say, Nihongo (=Japanese in ...Japanese!) - is almost non-existent. I took a basic course in Japanese back in my university but forgot most of it already. Too bad. Anyway, it's gonna be very interesting. I'm travelling with three friends: Juha (FIN), Tuomas (FIN) and Shalini (EN). There's only one word left to say now. Sayanora.

9.3.2007 - Thailand part 3, Phuket

Phuket. If you really want to see tourists, (I don't see why anyone would, but anyway) Patong beach is the place to go. Unfortunately, the beach is particularly favored by old, not-so-fit-but-willing-to-think-so kind of tourists. Realistically put, there are two not so pleasant sights. Old, fat men in thight speedos and most horrifyingly: old, fat women topless with their things hanging at waist-level. I must warn you. If you're not a very, very sick person, this is definetly not something you want to see. I saw some and barely survived (still going to therapy sessions). Okay. Maybe not therapy sessions but still. Young people should consider Phi Phi or if you really want to come to Phuket, more peaceful beaches then. This pic is taken by Nysse (aka Tuomas) who appeared to accomplish very well in accidentally capturing hmm... "more mature" women in his camera. His taste of women seems to be very...different. Okay, joking aside. He also played pool against a thai girl and somehow managed to lose. Poor man. I'm not going to make fun of him anymore (but if you want to do so, please check his blog and comment).

We stayed at Phuket's Backpacker in Phuket town. In contrary to tourist-filled Patong, Phuket town is where locals live. Which also means the place smells like a poo pile of a thousend elephants. Our hostel was a good one but a bus/cab ride away from beaches. Since we travelled in a group of three guys, rooms were usually one or two beds with extra guest bed(s). This time was no exception. We played card and luckily I won the best bed (again). That wedding veil -looking thing is actually a mosquito net. Which according to guys' comments, was good to have. Oh, taxis. They're expensive here. In Bangkok we paid from 40 to 100 baht per ride and here it was around 400 even for a Tuk-Tuk from beach to back to the town.

The days went by quickly. A couple of days lying on the beach and one walking around the town. We went to see the second part of the movie about King Naresuan (watched the first part in Bangkok). Another happpyyyyyyy ads, another standing-paying-respect-to-the-king-session-for-five-minutes and another three hours of struggling over power. And yeah. And it didn't end! They're making a million sequels. Like Bold and Beautiful with some bowing and waring. Food. Of course, we had to try out many local delicates. Often meals were very small leaving us hungry. Sometimes the food just messed up everything in my stomach. Yeah, hygiene is for pussies anyway. One place that made my tummy go merry-go-round was a local barbeque (89 baht) where you could fri your own meat. Nice, except for the merry-go-round part. So, a bit surprisingly, we were quite happy every time we saw a McDonalds logo because that means we can have a decent-size meal and no merry-go-rounds. In Thailand, flies go to restaurants. They're sooooo civilized. Our little friend was happy when we gave it some coca-cola.

Allright. Now I've seen Thailand for a while. Nice country to go for a vacation but all the haggling, insufficient hygiene, scams and just general stupidity got on my nerve. Our next trip is Malesia. We're going diving there on the first weekend on April. Cool! Now getting ready to do some quizes that are required for open water sertificate. I'm very interested in seeing Japan too. And Hong Kong sounds nice too. So, hopefully more travelling.

4.3.2007 - Thailand part 2, Phi Phi

After our crazy taxi ride to Bangkok airport, we flew to Krabi, took a cab to Krabi town and from there a ferry to Phi Phi. Phi Phi is an awesome place. Sun shines, water temperature is +29 C all year. Very nice. Soon we realized that we had come to Sweden. Almost. I think majority of the people there were actually Swedish. There were Swedish restaurants, swedish flags on boats and you could hear Swedish everywhere. We went to do scuba diving and guess what. Our diving instrucktor...yeah. Martin from Sweden. Ok. He was nice. Actually everybody on Phi Phi were nice. It's just shocking to see so many swedes everywhere we go in Asia. Where are all the finns? Freezing in Finland of course. Actually we met many finns in other parts of Thailand.

Scuba diving. Oh yeah. It was really nice. Do it once and you're hooked. We're now thinking about a diving trip to Malaysia to get our open water sertificates. Unfortunately I don't have pics of the actual diving part. They sold a dvd that had a few seconds footage of us under water in a very shocking price so we decided to skip it. Anyway, I warmly recommend to try out scuba diving. We did a PADI discovery trip. Just do the theory wherever you live and then go to Malaysia or Phi Phi to dive. We saw a leopard shark from one meter away. Schools of different fish and so much more. It's just beautiful out there and because water is clear, you can actually see pretty cool things. And as I mentioned before, water temperature is +29 C so it's really enjoyable.

Okay. Summary. Phi Phi is a place for young people. Very laid back. Beach is nice and it's not as crowded as Phuket. Scuba diving is a must. Nightlife is there too. Feeling young and fresh and going for a beach vacation? Phi Phi is the place to go.

28.2.2007 - Thailand part 2, Bangkok

Four days in Bangkok and it was enough. We stayed at a hostel relatively close to the centre. The place was ok but the breakfast was a joke. What I can now remember is that everyone wants to rip you off, it's hot all the time and everywhere (outside) you go...it looks dirty and smells like shit. I'm not kidding. I can't understand how people live here. Nine million people and nobody cares a shit. Or maybe they just like the smell of it. If this is how people get in Asia if laws aren't efficient, I'm beginning to understand why Singapore prefers discipline although some laws and punishments in Singapore are nothing short of ridiculous. Still I have to say it was nice. We (travelling again with two Finnish friends who are also studying at NUS) got to see Buddha temples and huge shopping malls. Okay. At first I have to correct a common misbelief. Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows on buckets. Oh wait, I have to elaborate. Singaporean (!) money grows on buckets in Bangkok. You do the math. The pic is taken on Khaosan road.


We saw plenty of Buddha temples. In a nutshell, a Buddha temple is a building with some cool cones on the roof and inside is filled with sitting/standing/sleeping Buddha statues, wall graphics and lots of bling bling. Neat. For the first time. See one, seen all.

Cheap and bad quality clothes, anyone? Bingo. Bangkok is the place to go. We got crazy and went to the girl-like shopping zone. The pic shows what I got on the first day. Everything is from MBK, a huge shopping mall in Bangkok centre. On the second day we went to Weekend Market which is a huge marketplace with staggering 15 000 shops. You can find pretty much everything in there except gadgets. This is the place where locals go shopping. Cheap but you still need to haggle. As always in Thailand. We checked maybe some hundread shops and gave up. After some hours, bags were full and wallets empty. Game over.

Someone praised movie theatres in Bangkok so we had to try one out. That was the roof level in MBK. I have to admit that it was pretty nice, a huge screen and very comfortable sofa-like seats with adjustable back rests. At first they showed pretty many commercials that all ended in a high, ridiculous voice shouting "happppyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy". And then before the movie started suddenly everyone stood up and a five-minute video clip of the King of Thailand started. It was just pics of the king in different places. Feeling pretty confused, we stood up too not to offend anyone. In any western country nobody would do such thing. Well your country, your ways.

Yes, the movie. It was a historical movie about King Naresuan, a Thai leader very long ago. The movie was decent quality - looked like a hollywood thing just done in Thai. Fortunately we had English subtitles. It was three long hours of struggling for the power. It was ok and cost only about 3 EUR.

I have to tell you about the taxi culture. There are two kinds: scammers and scammers. Okay. Tuk-tuk vehicles and meter taxis. A tuk-tuk is a very unsafe three-wheel car which feels like falling in every turn. Taxis are normal cars except the lack of safety belts on backseat. The difference between taxis and tuk-tuks is that a cab might drive you to the right place. Tuk-tuks say ok and drive to jewerlies and silk shops where they get coupongs for gas. So if you want to go to the right place, take a normal cab. You can bargain the price beforehand or tell the driver to use the meter. For tourists it is definetly better to insist the driver to use the meter. We read many scam stories before going to Bangkok and the general advice was to use meter for more reliable ride. A normal ride costs something between 40 and 100 bath. The drivers try to charge you for 200 and so on. This is when you force the driver to use the meter or if he refuses, get out of the car. This happened to us once. Some drivers are pretty crazy. One time we had to witness the meter showing 140 km/h on 80 km/h speed limit.

If you're going to Bangkok for the first time, the common piece of advice would be to be careful. You'll get scammed in everything you buy, it's just matter of how much. We were lucky not to be robbed but since we were three young guys, maybe we weren't an optimal target. Ladies shouldn't move around alone. There are prostitutes everywhere. A friend of mine was offered sex for money in the airport! If that is not what you're looking for, be sceptical when offered all kinds of massages with the catch frase "hello, handsome". A tourist guide book I read suggested to use two condoms. I got to see too many thai-style couples: an old fat man with a young thai girl. Bangkok is a dirty place in every meaning of the word.

5th Feb 2007 - Thailand, Railay Beach & Trio burned Finnish meat

Oh man. Thailand is very cool. There were three of us (two other Finns). We took the cheap flights (1 SGD + taxes!) from Tiger Airways and headed to Krabi, Thailand. Thai people are very nice. Especially if you show them some bills. Everybody keeps telling me Thailand is so cheap. It's not. In many ways, Singapore is as cheap. Well, if you go where the locals live it's a different story but in the other hand, the service is not the same either. If you go to Thailand as a tourist and stay at tourist places -- they know their business. Of course everything is relatively cheap if you come from Europe or North America. Still, you get better quality clothes for about the same price in H&M. It goes like this: Prices are not shown. You ask for a price and then the seller takes a calculator and types in a number. This is a high price that you should not offer to pay. You should haggle. Prices are usually from 25% to 50% cheaper after haggling. Someone said the prices are 2½ times bigger than the costs. The clue is not to look like you desperately need to have the thing you're buying. Just look like you don't care that much and make a pretty low offer. Then work your way a bit up and that's it. I bought a "Calvin Klein" shirt by telling straight that I'll pay the half price but no more. He just said "okay". It was a good shirt. Until I did the laundry. Now it's probably good for my little sisters.

Thailand.com is recommending not to give tips because it's not the Asian way. If you don't haggle and give big tips, you're just making the people rich and lifting up the overall prices. Tourists are messing up with the system. Giving tips in restaurants only leads to smaller salaries for the locals since the management level thinks "they're getting so much tip so we don't have to pay that much". Well, this is what I heard from a local guy. Oh, I still have to mention the fake stuff. Basically any brand is cheap. Be it Ray Ban, Chanel, Armani or whatever. And the stuff is of course bad quality, the clothes are going to shrink alot when you wash them and for the sunglasses...just buy many because they will likely be broken soon. If you're in Singapore, just go to Little India. It's the same show. Cheap, bad quality clothes.

About the trip, we only went to Krabi. It's a really nice and quiet place. We are at Railay Beach, Princess Resort and spa. Unfortunately, didn't find any princesses. We did find the beach and got so fried. hahah. Of course, how else. We used sunscreen but apparently not enough. Krabi is a great place if you're into climbing or chilling on the beach. We also tried elephant trekking which was fun. The last day was walking around Krabi town. As expected, everything was cheaper than in tourist places. Got somewhat a meal for about 1 or 2 EUR. Could buy a scooter for 100 EUR. Electronics... don't bother. It's a tourist place. Not a gadget heaven.

Summa summarum:

+ service (in tourist places this was really good. Don't get that in Finland.)
+ coffee (Tasted pretty European except the milk. Way better than in Singapore. Hotel owners have done their homework)
+ weather (about +30, sun is shining and it's not too humid)
+ food
+ didn't get scammed. I guess that happens more in Bangkok
+ views

- too peaceful and quiet for three young guys...
- No WLANs, Internet cafe's may have keyloggers
- stores don't have air conditioning. It's freaking hot!
- No places for have fun at night. Everything is closed and we didn't meet that many young people.

Still, it was a great trip! Already booked another one (mid Feb). This time it's gonna be 11 days of fun: Bangkok - Phi Phi - Phuket. We'll see how it goes.

15th Jan 2007 - I'm in Singapore!

Actually, I came here on 5th so been here for ten days now. I'm sorry I haven't been blogging before (done it in Finnish a couple of times though) but I have been very busy and didn't have Internet access in the early days.

Singapore is a great place. Always hot (yeah!) and humid, especially because of the raining season, which will still last for a month or so. Now it's a bit less than +30 C but cloudy so we can survive. Air conditioning is everywhere...except in my room that has only a roof fan. Basically, I just come here to sleep. National University of Singapore is a cool place with a big campus. We're going everywhere with shuttle busses but there's still plenty of walking. Food is good and very spicy. I can have a good, warm meal with a price of 1 or 2 EUR. It's so cheap that everybody eats out, I don't think that even locals are cooking.

Public transportation is very effective and cheap too. When I say cheap, I mean almost free. For instance, busses and metros are like 0,5 EUR and taxis approximatly from 2 to 5 EUR! So we're using cabs every day! Using cabs come with one but. Some drivers can't speak or understand English that well. Those guys speak "Singlish". Which for me seems to be like a mixture Of Chinese and English. It sounds like a Chinaman and an Indian was put together to speak English. It's a hard accent. Many times their pronounciation is too much even for the English and Canadian exchange students. So far we've gotten to the right destinations with cabs but I think we have been lucky! Some drivers do speak English and especially younger people are very understandable.

People here are very friendly and helpful. The government has some control over things such as radio channels. The rules and laws are very strict, even for a relatively small crime you'd get many years in prison. I just read an article about a man who stole some women's msn addresses, photoshopped some photos of them to look like porn and threatened the girls to release the photos if they didn't help him to masturbate. Yeah, a strange kind of hero. Well one of the girls called the police and they got the 24-year-old pervert. Still no that much harm done in my opinion, no rapes or anything physical. A terrible thing to do, of course. Guess what he got? 44 years of prison and 150 000 SGD fines (~75 000 EUR)! That's true! I took a picture of the article. Another case: a 17-year-old guy got 3 years and 5000 SGD fine for using someone else's WLAN without permission. Read it here (sorry about the clipping, didn't notice until back in my room). C'mon! Crazy.

Anyway, this is still a great place - if you don't break any rules or laws. I suggest not to.

2nd Aug 2006 - "We hope you enjoy your stay in Singapore"

I got the official letter of approval on 28/7/2006. Yeah! I've been waiting for this for a long time. Now it's time to renew my passport and book the flights. Gotta do it quickly before the prices go up. Now prices settle in between 1100 EUR and 3000 EUR. That's crazy how the prices can vary so much between different airlines. Best to choose wisely the flight day and the airline. Doing the research early enough will certainly be worth a month's salary.

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