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I had another chance to visit this beautiful country and to visit the guys in the office whom I communicate with by email every day. It was nice to take a holiday in what is still a very affordable country for travelling and to just relax in the beach resort and do nothing. No running around catching last trains or getting lost. Just taking it easy.  Here’s a selection of photos from my trip. See my Thailand collection on Flickr.

Oh (on the right) and Heart (4th from left) went out of their way to take care and welcome us to the country. My first weekend was at Amphawa floating market.

Here ‘s Oh’s introduction to Amphawa and Thailand:

Another weekend, Art took us to Korat. But we stopped by this temple (can’t remember the name, especially Thai names).

In Korat, we visited a zoo. It was a particularly sunny day, so it was quite hot, especially considering we were cycling around the zoo. We did later cool off in a shopping mall.

At night, we tried a local pub in Korat with Art’s friends.

On 2nd August 2009, I was also invited to attend and take part in Lek and Neung’s wedding in Muak Lek. It was a Thai wedding ceremony but in some ways similar to Chinese style, where the grooms family bring lots of gifts for the brides family.

After the wedding party was a bit of fun in Khao Yai and bowling.

I spent five nights at the AANA Resort and Spa on Koh Chang. We hired a car to get round the second biggest island in Thailand. Here, the kayaks sit in calm river at twilight. It’s a nice 5 minute kayak to the beach or you can go the other way and check the mangroves.

The hilltop bar and swimming pool.

One day, we drove to the other corner of the island to try the highly recommended Salak Pet seafood. The food was absolutely delicious and very fresh. After lunch, we even got a massage. I’d definitely recommend a visit if you are in Koh Chang but a little far out from the main parts of the island.

I had a second go using my Sony DSC-T90 underwater. I didn’t get any results when I used it in Japan but practice makes perfect and I get clear shots this time. There was plenty of sea life to be captured too.

Another nice place we stayed at was Lebua at State Tower in Bangkok. A 5 star luxury hotel. We had a superior suite with everything you would expect from a luxury hotel. The drinks at the famous Sky Bar (blue bit in the far side of this picture) start at about 500 Baht (£10) which is even expensive for me but it was definitely worth it for the view and atmosphere, though it was quite crowded at the time we went.

This was our view of Bangkok from our room. Simply amazing.

There were also many nights out which made my 5 week stay go pretty quickly. It was nice to meet everyone I met out there and thanks to everyone for being such great hosts!

I’m unable to blog or upload to flickr due to my slow internet connection but I have managed to upload a few pics to Facebook. So I’ll have to wait till I get back to post a summary of my trip. Been taken out almost every night by Thai friends and they’ve made my first two weeks go really fast. Still longing for a good lie in but I’ll get some rest soon. Congrats to P’Neung and P’Lek, who got married today. It was my pleasure to be able to attend their Thai wedding ceremony and party. Not sure when I’ll next blog, but I’m in the process of extending my stay in Thailand, so watch this space

My Polo GTi has been running superbly the last couple of weeks. Really pleased with that purchase and it’s very fun to drive. Now I can actually overtake other cars! The fuel economy is pretty good too. One tank of fuel has lasted me 2 weeks worth of commuting. That’s over 40 mpg when I wasn’t even saving fuel!

Tomorrow morning I’m flying off (again) to Thailand. I’ve just finished packing as you can see below. I’ve resourcefully used a bolt from my Volkswagen multi-CD changer, that I took out of the car, to fix my suitcase handle. The bit that held it in place before was a bit loose so I decided to make it a bit stronger. It’s the first time I’ve used my small-medium suitcase, proper – as in stuffing it with all my things (and other people’s things for that matter). I bought this in Taipei to carry my hiking jacket back to Tokyo but then I shipped it back from Japan, so never actually used it. I think I’m getting very good at travelling light these days. Hopefully, one day all I’ll need is my passport and a credit card.

So Thailand for a month. That’s as long as a Thai tourist visa allows (30 days) without having to do any of the complicated stuff. I’m planning on doing a bit of shopping to get some tailored suits and then spend about a week on the beach

This swine flu thing seems to be quite serious. I just got sent a huge document about infectious diseases contingency plan from my Japanese employer and 4 (albeit the same) emails from the British Embassy in Japan! Good to know there is a “plan”.

Time for a random summary of bits and bobs since my last post:

Been on a week long business trip in Amsterdam (again). Probably be back there nearer Christmas time to complete this final project.

Will probably be working in Tokyo from March 2008 to 2009. It’ll be a big change for me, but to be honest, haven’t really thought about it yet. Maybe it’ll hit me after I’ve landed in Japan!

Been taking weekly Japanese lessons to prepare for the above. It’s helped a bit, but I’m nowhere near good enough to survive comfortably on my own.

Wishing I lived in a nice and sunny climate. It’s too cold at the moment, might look into getting cavity wall insulation for my parents house – feels like a fridge at the moment.

Trying to save for a deposit for a house. Need a bit of independance from parents and want my own home.

Want the new Bluemotion Polo from VW because it does 75 mpg. Petrol is way too expensive now.

Katja and I have decided to spend some time apart. I guess it’s for the best so that we can both concentrate on our careers.

Think it’s time to give this website another fresh look…if I can be bothered.

So back from Amsterdam last week (finally!). It’s nice to travel on business, staying in hotels, working and dining with customers and the chance to explore a different city. But there’s nothing like sleeping in your own bed (even though I still sleep in a bunk bed), eating home cooked meals (mmmmm) and being able to check your emails when you want (read: internet addict).

That was indeed my fourth time in Amsterdam, but not the last. There is the prospect of spending my new year’s over there too. It’s a nice city with plenty of museums which I still haven’t had a chance to check out. It’s a nice place to walk around the rivers and canals and even the country side if you get a chance. It’s also unique in that almost everyone speaks English (well, unique for a non-english speaking country), bikes are everywhere, drug tolerance is incredibly high, and of course the “Window shopping” in the red light district; not that I was looking to purchase any of the latter two.

On a quick note, I’ve started some Japanese lessons with a tutor in Cambridge and I’m going to Thailand for 3 weeks in September. It’s the rainy season then but I hope it’ll be lots of fun!

Some photos from Amsterdam:

It seems the guys upstairs from my office have some sort of competition going on. Who can bring in the best most expensive beastiest of cars:

Seems like someone has a Porsche Carrera GT – priced at more than a quarter of a million pounds. And how good does it look? Here’s some other expensive cars in the parking lot (the red Ferrari belongs to the same GT owner btw):

There’s also usually two or three 911 Turbo’s, but they’re just average cars now.

Look out your window!! You might be able to see a faint redish moon (depending on when you read this post). Call me a nerd if you must, but hey, astromony’s one many areas of physics I like. I just wish I had some hardcore lenses and a decent dSLR. Here are my amateur snaps:

I’ve been working for about half a year now but I thought I’d remain a part-time student. That’s why I’ve enrolled on the Open University’s course Rundblick – beginners’ German. When I get home from work these days, I don’t really have much to do (except watch TV and surf the net) so learning a new language seems like a good way to use my spare time. Why German? Well, back in the days of secondary school, I actually had a couple of years of German lessons at the rate of a couple of hours a week. That only taught me the basics, but as time passed, I eventually forgot most of it. I also thought French would be more useful which is why I dropped German and did the French GCSE instead. However, over the last couple of years German has probably been the most common foreign language I have encountered in my everyday life, such as when I worked in Switzerland or when I was in Vienna.

I guess those who haven’t heard of the OU won’t know what it is. Those who have heard of it will probably just think of educational TV programs on the BBC and 80’s looking academics with beards. I guess that might still be true for some but I think it’s a good organisation for people who would like to get recognised qualifications via distant learning. It’s suitable for people like me who work full-time as well as those who work part-time and can study a bit more.

So yesterday, I had my first German tutorial. It was quite fun and there were only 5 students there ranging from 21 – 69 years of age; where I feature in the younger end of that scale… Seems like they are all up to quite a good standard so shows how much I still have to learn. The tutorials are only once a month, as most the learning is self-taught with books and CDs. It would be nice if there were more tutorials, but I guess once per month is good revision for what you have learnt and to practice speaking German to other students.