my bangkok diary: day 1

April 13, 2012 - 7AM - Lobby of Lub D Siam

Yesterday was my first day in Bangkok and I'm already in love with this city. Oh, by the way, Thailand is pronounced as Tai-land (silent "h") -- unless you wanna call it the land of thighs.

This is where we we are staying...

The Lub D Siam is a top-rated hostel that's also frequented by western tourists. It stands at the heart of Bangkok.

 It's the coolest place ever.

This is our chic dorm room.

The stairs.

View from the veranda: The National Stadium sky train station.

Thailand pretty much looks like the Philippines and Bangkok looks like Manila, except that Bangkok is much cleaner. Their vehicles here don't produce smoke, similar to the other places I've been to like North Carolina, Hong Kong, and Macau. I also noticed that there are Indian influences in Thailand's art and architecture. It's like Thailand has a combination of Chinese, Malay, and Indian culture.  

The Tuktuk.

I didn't know that the Siamese Cat... is actually Thai. Lol.

 As for the language, I have heard locals say "no English," which is so different from the PI, where almost everyone understands English, even the tinderas and the jeepney drivers. But so far, we haven't really had difficulty with regard to communicating with the locals. And by we, I mean Oli and Ai and me. Connet wasn't able to come, which is a bummer. But actually, I'm not so bummed because right now, in Bangkok, there are tons of sizzling locals and Caucasian tourists. Yum.

They look like this...

And this...

Have I told you that my favorite color is purple? =P

But we aren't really here for the boys. We're here to celebrate our ten years of friendship! Yup! It's been ten years since I've met my wonderful friends, when we started out as staff in our college newspaper, The UPLB Perspective. Now that we have money (well, kinda...), we decided to celebrate it outside Manila. =)

Oli and I came from Manila, while Ai came from SG. Ai waited for us in the BKK airport for 4 hours so that's why she was so elated when we finally arrived.

The reason we chose Bangkok as our destination is because we are a huge fan of the movie, The Love of Siam, and we are so infatuated with its lead actors (Pchy and Mario) that we decided to get a glimpse of them. Unfortunately, we are a day too late for the premier night of Pchy's latest movie, Home. The pemier night happened the night before we arrived in Thailand, and it was held at a mall near our hostel. We're like: whaaatttt???

But the good thing is, we were able to watch Home last night at Siam Paragon. And guess what, it has English subtitles! I almost clapped in the cinema because I prepared myself to watch it without the subtitles and only hoped to get the context clues of their actions. 

And you know what? The film was awesome. It was funny and romantic and full of heartaches. I wanted to cry like a baby after watching it. It helps that the cast is so gorgeous.

Ai wanted to have her picture taken with this life-size carton poster but she was shy.

Dinner before the movie.

Hmmm.... well... well... well...

Look what we found!

This is where Tong and Ying stood as they watched the August band perform for the Christmas concert. #TheLoveOfSiam

This is where the August band performed!!! *faints*

 Anyway.

I need to go to our room to prepare. Our driver will be coming in 20 minutes and I've got to pack my bag.

Oh wait... Ai and Oli just came down. I guess we're gonna have breakfast. Talk to you later!

here you come again

My first, uhmm, heartbreak (cough, cough) was in college, a few months before I graduated. It was with a friend who told me he was gay AND confused. I didn’t do anything about my feelings back then because I was afraid to ruin our blossoming friendship. Plus, he had, at that time, a boyfriend and a girlfriend. Summer came and I had nothing much to do but fix my broken heart and then break it again. A year later, I was able to tell him how I felt – and that was after we watched Brokeback Mountain (thank you, Jack, for giving me the courage). Unfortunately, my love life was aborted even before it started, like a TV show that never aired. He said he wanted friendship and not love. I can only laugh at it now but back then, I was so into "so sick of love songs, so tired of tears, so done with wishing, you were still here..." =D

Anyway, as I wait for my big break, the one that the Almighty is preparing for me, I try to warm the cold nights with gay love stories, where nobody has AIDS or dies in a tragic accident. Because I’m a believer of happy endings. Haha!

Oryty, so lemme tell you about three of the movies that I like. First would be the last one that I watched: Big Eden. It was about Henry, who came back from New York to his hometown to take care of his granddad. It was the same time that his hunky “straight” former best friend slash almost boyfriend also came back to town (Dean). On the background was Pike, a quiet guy who tried to show his love to Henry by cooking mouth-watering food. Pike was always being struck with grief as he witnesses Henry and Dean manage (for lack of better word) their complicated relationship. Dean is straight but he loves Henry. (Huh?) But in the end, Pike got the guy. This is actually how I imagine a great love story would be… but myged! Dean is so hot! I’m happy for Henry for he finally got the love he deserves but… oh, nevermind. I was so frustrated, I didn’t finish the last 10 minutes of the movie. At dahil jan, I’m giving 3 out of 5 hearts. (May rating talaga? Lol)

Second on the list is Beautiful Thing. This one is simple – high school kids, falling in love, blah blah blah. Jamie was in love with the super hot Ste. Ste was kinda straight at first but as he falls in love with Jamie, he becomes gayer, I think. They make love and they dance to the songs of The Mammas and the Pappas, which was really cool. Jamie’s mom was also supportive, which was awesome, but we didn’t know what happened when Ste’s dad and brother discovered their relationship, because, well, it wasn’t shown. That’s my problem with it – Ste's dad and the brother were jerks so I’m sure it’s gonna be bad for Ste. (sigh…) And my big question is... what happens next? Ano?! Ano na namang kalbaryo ang haharapin nila sa buhay?! Anyways, 4 hearts for this movie. =)

Lastly, we have Patrik, Age 1.5. This one, I super love. Sven and Goran are a gay couple who lives in a beautiful suburban neighborhood. They adopted a kid, who turned out to be a 15-year old homophobic boy (Patrik), and not a cutesy 1.5-year old chubbychums that they expected. Goran is okay with the idea but Sven hates Patrik so Sven left Goran, since Goran didn’t want to kick the boy out. When Goran thought that Sven wanted to come back to him, Sven told him he wanted the separation to be permanent (ouch!). Our dear Goran was heartbroken because he really missed his husband. But that’s okay, because he now has his son to live for. Unfortunately, lightning struck when Goran could not adopt Patrik because he was already single. He had no choice but to let another family adopt Patrik. Ang masakit pa nito, when Goran tried to win Sven again, he saw that Sven was already with a hot younger guy. Oh, the heartbreak! But they ended up together, with teary-eyed kisses, which made me squirm on my seat (I hated the idea because Sven wasn’t loyal to Goran). I suggest you watch the movie so you’d witness all the heart-squeezing scenes yourself. And so I’m giving this movie 5 hearts. At dahil jan, matutulog na ako. Sweet dreams!

stuffing myself with horror movies: in anticipation of what's to come in our banahaw trip this weekend

but of course, i'm excited. our team has been planning this for several weeks now and finally, we only have a few days left before i offer them to the spirits of the mountain we have our first vacation of the year. it makes me happy that we're going to a mountain and not to a beach. it's just appropriate, i mean, it's almost holy week and that's what people do: go to mountains. and don't ask me why.

heniways, i heard that the activities of spirits and elementals are strong in those areas where we're going. and of course, i'm excited. i heard some people there talk about spirits like they're your everyday chismosa (gossipy) -- they huddle to where the excitement is (my teammate jb told us). the spirits and i may get along well but i prefer not to, because they may want me to stay there forever and i prefer to live in the city.

so.

to prepare for what may happen in case they would like to abduct me (or my teammates, who, i assume, wouldn't like that at all), i have watched several ghost/paranormal movies. so far, these are what i've learned:

1. don't video tape. they like attention so they'd probably make a bigger scene like throwing objects and such (see paranormal activity 1 and 2).

2. when shampooing, ensure that what you're putting in your head is really shampoo and not sticky blood full on maggots (see kuntilanak kamar mayat).

3. bring heavy weapons like guns or axe. just in case there's a zombie attack (uhm, resident evil?).

4. if you hear a noise like the "blag blag blag" sound, run. that's probably how it's gonna sound when the spirits assault you later (see the grudge).

5. and when you come face to face with your doppelganger, ignore it. unless you want to chat.

well, if you seek advise on what to do in case you foresee interaction with the supernatural kind, just leave you questions in the comment section. i'm sure i've watched some horror movie before and can share with you what those who didn't die in the movie did. otherwise, i'll have to consult my 7 year old nephew, bill. he is a big fan of horror movies too.