ISpyShanghai

Whew, online again here on Koh Samui. This is what the well-dressed foreigner is wearing in Bangkok markets these days:

Denim waistcoat, denim pedal pushers, and a pair of indoor 5-a-side football shoes.

Swish.

I’m writing from the lounge of Bangkok Airways- “Asia’s boutique airline” (there are little bags of free popcorn here and everything). On a few minutes I’m taking the short hop from Bangkok to Koh Samui where I’ll be taking a well-earned break from saving the world.

Bangkok was bonkers: today I told a Tuk-tuk to f*k off, and we avoided a clever scam by some kind of royalist protestors who tried to prevent us from going to The Grand Palace (they told us it was closed for foreigners until 3pm- it wasn’t, fellow farang beware).

Emma bought some shoes, lots of the female shop assistants have suspiciously big hands, and photos are coming soon.

So tomorrow is the start of the whole Chinese New Year madness. One week of endless fireworks, dried meat and no taxis.

I’m getting out of Dodge for the duration, going to Thailand. When I told my taxi driver that this morning he said… something or other

<cue half-chinese conversation>

Me: Sorry , I don’t understand what that means

Him: It’s a thing where this bit [the top] is a woman, and this bit [the bottom] is a man

Me: Oh right. Yes, that Thailand!

Mind you, it’s no better back home- I texted a casual aquaintance of mine that I was going there and he comes back with

Boz: Blimey- enjoy your ping-pong games. Does Emma know you’re going?

For the record, me and Emma are going together.

A couple of new things here at ISpy geared towards newcomers.

First I’ve started using the whole tag system that the kids are into these days. The idea is that if you “tag” posts with words that show the content.
So if I was writing about my pets, I’d use the word t*rtles.

That way you get a “tag cloud” (do try to keep up) of topics and people don’t have to snuffle around looking for stuff they might like.

Like this:

Tag Cloud

Wilkommen! (what's with the rug burns?)

Secondly, at that the bottom of most posts there are now links to a couple of related posts.
So, for example, if you’ve just been watching a video I made, you might want to click for a related post and watch another one (although I admit, that is unlikely).

Any questions? There’s coffee and snacks in the back.

This was my housewarming gift from Dingle.

The packaging says you’re only allowed to leave it running for 1 hour, but it’s easy to lose track of time when you’re watching a dog hump your laptop. 

I’ve written to the manufacturers to suggest that a 60 minute timer is added to version 2.0.

(also on youtube)

Thanks to Colin who gave me these slippers as a housewarming gift (and my Mum for the cardigan whilst I’m at it). It’s what you’ll all be wearing next season.

On a related subject, can I also apologise to the terrified girl who stood behind me in the bakery last night. I bent down to pick up a loaf of bread and ripped the entire back seam of my (other) black trousers.

The tearing sound coming from my backside followed by a full view of underwear is probably being explained to a trained therapist as we speak.

Oh and I’ve added the answers to last week’s quiz. That is all.

I had a housewarming party on Saturday, and I decided that to be a good host I would provide free beer for the guests.

The aim for this, really, was that everyone would bring lots of top-grade liquor and not drink it- so I could fill up my awesome bar with the left overs. Didn’t happen, but it was a good plan.

My awesome bar

At this new place there is a small shop right on my street- when I’m sat on the sofa, the shop is actually closer than my bedroom.  This is convenient for me, but not so much for the guy who runs the place- he sleeps in the back and I keep waking him up and making him put his trousers back on, just to fetch me a couple of cold TsingTaos.

On cleaning up the vomit and blood the morning after the party, I realised that the bottle caps said either “Xie Xie” (thankyou) or something or other about 5 Mao, presumably the money you get back for the caps.

Beer caps, yesterday

I’m planning to go round and redeem all of my caps tonight- I imagine the shopkeeper will be delighted to have to put his trousers on and give me 20RMB.

Two crates of TsingTao- 112RMB (including 40RMB deposit for the crates)

Outside the Airport area's Post Office

This guy is one of the cowboy taxis (山寨出租车?) that ferry people around the airport area- they’re shady fellas these, would steal the moustache right off your face.