p a s s i o n + r e a s o n

Happy New Year... well, Happy Chinese New Year of the Pig?

I've been very much absent from any writing and blogging as of late, so here are my so-called good excuses: I've gotten married, work is more-or-less consuming, my hobbies (photography) are starting to ramp up, and oh... I just got married.

I can't believe it's been over 3 months since our wedding, and time has really seemed to have flown by. During this time, I felt that my blogging and photo posts were on hold until I could finally get myself a round tuit. So, here's a post to get the new year rolling.

Posted by at 11:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This past month has been full of friends leaving Bangkok. Although life as an expat is full of these inevitable movements of friends, it is not really easy to see friends go.

Helen, a colleague and friend has left to join her fiancé in London before they get married at the end of the year. Jeb has left for NYC. Mark - who has hosted the guy's group - will be leaving with his kids for a new job in Massachussets; his wife Mari will be following shortly. And tonight's farewell get-together was a send-off for Margaret who is heading to NYC for a post at DPKO. I think that certainly life doesn't really run at New York hyperspeed, but sometimes I wonder. Bangkok has a touch of a bright-light, big-city feel, although its Thai culture (charm to some, curse to others) tempers it down.

Anyhow, this weekend, we will be having some pre-wedding photos done. Thanks to the generosity of John Cordova co-founder of Cha Spa, our photos done on location there will be free of cost. Cha Spa is a beautiful Chinese heritage spa located on Thong Lo Soi 25, specializing in Chinese medicine and Tui Na, a form of Chinese manipulative therapy (i.e. massage) using accupressure techniques. We haven't yet tried out any of the treatments, but with such reasonable prices, we'll try it out soon. I marvelled more on the fact that I live in a small world when I found out that John is a good friend of a friend of mine, Catrin, in London - they are both employed by the same global law firm. She was gracious to let me crash at her place almost two years ago, when I went through London to visit Toronto.

Also, out of gratitude, I'm passing on their flyer for their promo with hu'u.

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Technorati Tags: Cha+Spa, Tui+Na, massage, Bangkok, expat, hu'u

Posted by at 12:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A new pair of Timberland TravelGear shoes I recently purchased have given me horrendously painful blisters, almost rendering me unable to walk. These shoes are a replacement for a pair of slip-on GEOX work shoes that have stretched too much (perhaps from unsuccessfully navigating flooded Bangkok streets). Those shoes replaced another pair of shoes lost to the gods of Bangkok klongs (canals) as detailed previously. Although the convenience of slip-on shoes are obvious, the changing weather (combinations of sometimes wet, usually humid, and almost always hot) slip-ons get significantly stretched.

So I know shoes need to be broken into, but this was by far one of my more painful experiences. I also realize that the TravelGear line of shoes are nowhere to be found on Timberland's website, or in North American stores, apparently. Even though it won raves, design awards and good reviews from an acquaintance of mine, I really wonder not only why it was taken off their website, but I can barely find any more information about the line. They're still being sold in South-east Asia, however.

So tomorrow, we're heading up to Pai and Chiang Mai for an extra long weekend (Monday is a public holiday) for a much-needed R&R break from (killah!) work. And we'll be doing photography, hopefully some good stuff for our wedding website. My blisters gotten better (after spending much of last night doing heel triage) and I hope they'll be gone by the end of the weekend.

Technorati Tags: timberland, travelgear, blisters, Pai, Chiang+Mai

Posted by at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wedding preparations have been going on for quite a while. We've taken care of the big things (venue, date, cards, etc.), but the devil is in the details - which are slowly being taken care of. Our wedding website is being worked on, but before releasing it to the world, I need to learn the ropes of the content management system (Joomla).

However, our TravelWiki is up, so please feel free contribute to it.

Posted by at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)