[back from the land of the free]

My poster and closing dinner at the Government House

Reclining Buddha, Floating Market, Thai bamboo dance


Ayuthaya ruins, Flo and the chedi, our exploded luggage.

Yay, my Bangkok photos are finally ready! Took me almost a week to seive through them, then upload and caption them. Phew..a lot of work..and a lot of photos, for just a week there, and only 3 days of sightseeing. Well, can't expect no less from the photo princess and her sidekick who has a new cam. Haha.

This trip was much better than the last one (in 2005?) for several reasons:
1. I got to fly on SQ..god bless NUS lol.
2. The conference was actually good. Didn't doze off like I expected I would.
3. There was much less shopping, much more sightseeing, which is what I like on a trip.
4. Got to know my prof (and his wife) better...even went shopping with him, where he taught/motivated me how to bargain. I term it "life skills" haha.
5. Shopping was fun! Saw the shopping side of Flo like never before...till we had to buy 2 extra bags for out loot :P
6. I didn't get bronchitis at the end of the trip. Big relieve! Except for a lil tummy upset and chapped lips, I was fine..yay.

And some things I learnt from this trip:
1) Latest way of note taking is snapping photos of the powerpoint slides on the big screen...was getting annoyed with some ppl doing that (very distracting..duh)..then I realised my own prof does that. Gah.

2) The Thais bow a lot - it's not just a Jap thing. Ha. Everytime the Princess entered the room, everyone had to stand, and everytime someone wanted to leave (even if they were sitting behind the princess), they'd bow before making their way out.

3) Princesses can do what they want - she left before a speaker was finished, making everyone stand and disrupt the speaker in mid-sentence. I think he looked pissed..haha.

4) Many young Muslims (more visibly the hijab clad ladies) doing research - very refreshing compared to the news we always hear about how violent Southern Thai Muslims are. =)

5) The Thais have a lucky colour for everyday of the week! It first started of when we noticed a LOT of people wearing red on Sun at the airport, then yellow on Mon. We were trying to take note of all the days..but ended up not being able to follow through. So according to our tour guide, the scheme is:

• Monday - Yellow (also the King's colour since he was born on a Mon - you're more likely to see the yellow "uniform" more prominently than other colours)
• Tuesday - Pink
• Wednesday - Green
• Thursday - Orange
• Friday - Blue
• Saturday - Purple
• Sunday - Red

I want Saturday to be my day! Haha.