They call it riding the elephrain

So much was clear: we could not leave Thailand without having ridden on an elephant. Lucky for us there is an elephant village in Hua Hin where you can feed and ride elephants, so we did not hesitate to go there. The village is right behind a Buddhist temple, and on the edge of the jungle. I would love to tell the whole long story about how they gave us the little info presentation of what would be included (complementary fruit) and how we got on the elephant, and about our conductor and the floating elephant poop, and the giant elephant penis (see if you can spot it), but I have no time to blog at the moment and this whole Thailand thing is taking much too long.


So instead I'll tell you about the awesomeness that is the World Cup and Germany facing Argentina in the quarterfinals. It will be a tough one, but I think we can do it. Argentina wasn't all that convincing against Mexico and their "group of death" turned out to be more of a "group of fuzzy bunny wabbits". Or something.


The reason we got to see the one elephant's weewee is that he took a leak. Leak being synonymous with powerful, firehose-like stream of urine in this case. You have to see it to believe it. It was good we were sitting up so high. Oh, have you heard about the US president telling the press to stop reporting about how they spy on people? Politics is beyond funny. Like animal rights groups griping about a dead bear that would have otherwise been put in a zoo and had serious psychological issues. At least that's what my sister said.

Coincidentally, I also came across this link at factcheck.org, which I have found to be quite an interesting and objective site and which fits well with this picture of the jungle. I'm telling you people, if I wouldn't know better, I'd say this is a parody for sure. They call it lead poisoning, we call it heavy metal! As in rock 'n' roll.

They call it huge elephant turd balls in water, we call it delicious chunky adventure soup. Here's a challenge: Watch those CEI clips and come up with your own "They call it ..., we call it..." and post it here to win nothing.

And lastly, I got a postcard today. Christina sent it from Malta and it's awesome. It has a pickup truck on it, with a donkey standing on (or is it in?) the bed. That's already pretty neat, but the postcard has a stamp with Pelé on it, for the World Cup. I don't know what he has to do with Malta, but it's still fantamazing. Okay, Spain's playing France here in a minute. Gotta go. Notice where the elephant is wet. That's how deep the water was we went through.

MALTA

For those of you that I didn't inform, the company I work for decided to take all of their employees on an incentive trip to Malta. Of course all of us agreed that this was a great idea and almost all of us were able to come except one. Sorry Benjamin. :(

WEDNESDAY JUNE 14th:
18 lovely hard working employees packed their bags and headed for Malta. We had a pretty full schedule, but also had some time for ourselves as well.

We arrived on Wednesday at around 14:00. We then went to the hotel and checked in and got ready for the evening.

In the evening we went to Mdina, the old capital city and had a little walk around and then had dinner there. It was a relaxed and nice evening. After the dinner we went back to the hotel and watched Germany barely win against Poland (1-0) in the first round of the World Cup.

THURSDAY JUNE 15th:
We had a pretty busy day planned. We all met in the morning around 9:00 where we went by bus to Valetta, the capital city. We walked around for a while, took some pictures and then went to watch The Malta Experience. They make it out to be this really great and exciting movie about Malta, but to be honest it really bored my pants off. The seats were uncomfortable and there was absolutely no leg room and the people next to you were RIGHT next to you. Despite these conditions I still found myself dozing off. Oh well, at least it was a little cooler inside there and we got to sit down. Can't complain too much, I guess.

After Valetta we headed to a wine tasting. This was one of the best parts of the trip. Very tasty wine....so tasty, I had to buy a couple of bottles. :)

After the wine tasting we went for a boat trip. Oh my God. I thought The Malta Experience was boring. Don't get me wrong. It was nice in the beginning, but it just kept going and going and going. I think it lasted close to 2 hours and everything really started to look alike after a while. I might have dozed off here a little too...oops.

In the evening I went with a few of my colleagues to see Silent Hill. Do not see this movie. It was so bad.

FRIDAY JUNE 16th:
We had the day off. Some people decided to do day trips to Gozo (another island that is part of Malta), some decided to go diving and some, like me, decided to just chill and enjoy the sun and pool and go for a wander downtown Bugibba. I swam in the pool in the morning, ate lunch with Noopur in the afternoon and then wandered around for the rest of the day. I got a cool Henna tattoo on my foot. It was a good day.

In the evening we had dinner and then went to watch The Omen. This was a pretty good movie. I really liked the way it was done and I think it was a pretty good modern remake, although I haven't seen the original in such a long time.

SATURDAY JUNE 17th
Sea-kayaking!!! Wow, pretty strenuous but really fun. The water in the Mediterranean Sea is so beautiful. It is like a green blue color. We did about a 1 1/2 hour trip. My arms were hurting that night, but it was worth it. After kayaking we got to chill on the beach. It was a nice day. In the evening we went for dinner at a pretty nice restaurant then went for a couple of drinks.

SUNDAY JUNE 18th
We ate breakfast and then headed back to Germany. Yippie! NOT! We got back to Bremen around 18:00. Just in time to watch more soccer!!! Ugh!

It was a really nice trip. The weather was nice, there wasn't too much work drama and everyone got along and didn't kill each other. Overall a really nice country, but I honestly would not like to live on Malta. There aren't too many plants and everything looks kinda old and dusty and run down. And it is kinda in the middle of nowhere and not very big. Oh well, no one said I have to love and want to live everywhere I visit, now did they. :)

Hua Hin.

The whole time that we were in Thailand I did not wear socks. Not a single time in two whole weeks. Pretty impressive, huh? Most of the time I wore flip-flops, but for the beach I especially bought some sandals, even though I hate sandals. But they are just more practical than flip-flops when walking in the sand and water.

Anyway, I have got to be the world's slowest blogger. I had the pictures ready for some time now, but never got around to writing a post. Now the World Cup has started (with a 4:2 victory for Germany) and I didn't even get a chance to write about that yet. Just know that 3 games a day are a great pleasure, and even if I'm not watching them all, it's good to know that they are going on.

Hua Hin is one of the oldest beach resorts in Thailand, and the king has his summer residence there. It might be his permanent residence, I'm not sure. A bunch of kings before him did as well, so today tourists can marvel at the old palace that he had built there. And when we went, we did so as well. The palace is made out of teak wood and some of its wings go all the way down to the beach, so the royal people could go swimming there. The picture here and the next one are taken from the outside, as taking pictures inside is punishable by law with up to 23 meals of nothing but banana juice and mussels, shells included. I wasn't going to risk it.

This picture was taken by Wattanikha, and it's much better than any of the shots we took of the palace. The one below is the best we could manage. I realize that it's taken me much too long to write all this, so I'm just going to let the pictures speak for themselves, and add a few comments here and there to go with them. I know I'm not gonna be successful, especially with my obsession to have the paragraphs harmonize with the pictures by filling up the spaces more or less neatly.


Because really, do you still wanna read about our trip to Thailand when we're already in New Zealand and while so many other exciting things are going on at the moment? Did I mention the World Championship of soccer yet? Cause Germany's hosting it this year and I try to watch as many games as possible. Today (Sunday, since by the time this actually gets posted I'm sure it's not anymore) I missed the Netherlands' match against Serbia and Montenegro, but was awarded with a slight sunburn. The weather has been awesome here the last few days but I'm afraid it's not going to last for as long as I wish. Can you believe I'm talking about the weather now? Man, I'm really outdoing myself this time. Let's check out some pictures from our hotel in Hua Hin.

Technically it was called a resort, and it consisted of a bunch of two-story buildings. There is a swimming pool surrounded by these buildings with lotsa purdy trees and plants all around it. We took a picture of it, but also swam in the pool. It was thrilling, as they were also raising baby sharks in there. But they feed them the leftovers from the breakfast buffet, so no nibbling occurred.

This is the bathroom in our room. As you have probably guessed by now, you had to climb up that orange ladder to flush the toilet, which had a little reservoir there at the top (not pictured). To work it you had to climb up and unplug the drain, just like you would in a bathtub or sink. Then, when the water is gone, you close it back up and fill the tank back up by turning on a faucet that feeds the tank and shutting it off once it was full.

Isn't that a great story? I tell some variation of it every time we show the picture and it gets funnier every time. Trust me. Here's a story that really happened: On the second day, there was a dead bird on our balcony. So I went to the reception, to have them send someone to remove it. With like a dustpan or something. So I go to the reception desk and tell the guy "There is a dead bird on our balcony." He smiles at me but somehow I'm not convinced he understood me. I already spoke clearly and slowly, so I repeated in a different word order. And again. "On our balcony there is a bird, and it's dead." A sparkle in the guy's eyes: "Aaah, birthday." He started getting out a book to write something down. I knew then this was gonna be tough. I thought, well since 'dead' is an adjective, let's try the present tense of the related verb: "There is a bird and it died." which I elaborated by putting my head to the side and sticking my tongue out at the corner of my mouth, my best interpretation of death in birds yet. Another sparkle in his eyes: "Ahhh. Hair dye! In your room. When?" It was hopeless. Finally, they just sent a guy along, who, upon seeing the bird, exclaimed "Dead!" much to the surprise of Christina who had no idea of the troubles I went through and was just amused that he would point it out like that. So the dude just grabbed the bird with his bare hands. Well with two fingers by its tail. I would have liked to tell him that he could go and grab a dustpan, but I was afraid we would end up with 5-course meal sent to our room and a box of paper towels with blue flamingos printed on them. When I told the story to Wattanikha and Dimitar, Wattanikha told me that most Thai people have problems pronouncing the 'r' in English words. I had noticed this but observed the substitution with 'l'. Anyway, she said that when the receptionist said "dye" he really meant "dry". How's that for intercultural communication?


These next two pictures are of a little peninsula which had another golden and very tall Buddha statue on it. That alone was pretty cool, but the best part about it are the monkeys that live on that rock. They are technically wild, but through continued contact with tourists they are quite tame. After our jungle adventure with the elephants (more on that forthcoming) this was another amazing animal experience.

Some non-affiliated German tourists fed this guy a banana. I don't know why monkeys excite me so much, but I thought it was the coolest thing to be so close to a free-range evolutionary relative of mine.

On top of all these great adventures, Hua Hin gave us great food in restaurants right on the beach with views that just screamed "Relaxation!". Notice how that is totally mismatched. Cause if it actually screamed that, how could you relax? Get it? No, well, it's art you uncultured pig. Okay, sorry, no, I take it back. Got a little carried away there. You know I love you. Come, give me a hug and we'll be friends again, okay?

Oooooooooooh wie ist das schön....

Germany won!!! 1:0 against Poland! Oh, it was so exciting! It was 0:0 for thrilling 90 minutes and then we finally got the well-deserved goal. This means Germany has qualified for the 1/8-finals (Update: Okay, I guess technically it's possible that Costa Rica wins against Ecuador and Poland, and if Ecuador then wins against Germany, Germany would only advance if their goal balance is better than Ecuador's or Costa Rica's or both. We will know more at around 16:50 today). Awesome. I watched it in the nearby Café Wolf since I didn't wanna watch it alone and Christina went to Malta with her work which means every single person I know in Bremen is there as well. Anyway, the goal was scored by Oliver Neuville who is part Swiss or something, after a sweet pass from David Odonkor whose dad is from Ghana (and who, as I just learned by coincidence, is from Bünde, a town close to my hometown Löhne, much like Arne Friedrich who I mentioned some time ago) and who were both put in the game during the second half. I think we should dedicate this goal to the NPD, who would like to keep the German national team 'purely German' and thus oppose such players being included in the team. Assheads.

Update:
Maybe I should elaborate on why I deemed it necessary to use the word "assheads" up there, because I don't usually cuss on here, mostly because Christina requested it but also because I need to sensitize myself to English cuss words more and use them only in appropriate settings. This is not easy when speaking a foreign language.

Anyway, one of the worst things, if not the worst thing, about present-day Germany are the Neo-Nazis. And of course they try to use the World Cup to further their agenda. By cheering for Iran because its president calls the Holocaust a made-up story for example. But also by questioning the 'Germanness' of certain players. Well, only of players that don't look German to them. Like Patrick Owomoyela who was born and raised in Germany and whose father is Nigerian. And David Odonkor. And of course Gerald Asamoah who came to Germany from Ghana at the age of 12 and has since become a German citizen. They don't really complain about guys like Neuville, Miroslav Klose or Lukas Podolski too much, even though they make them a little uncomfortable as well.

It's not hard to expose the racism underlying their sentiments and their utter incompetence at dealing with reality, so I won't bother with it now, but there are just a few other things I need to get off my chest. I was talking to a Chinese friend of mine who's living in Trier on MSN the other day and asked him if he would go and watch any public screenings of matches. He said No, because he's afraid something might happen to him. Apparently someone thought he was Korean at the last World Cup and made a handsign or something. Nothing big, but still stupid and together with the warnings given out to foreigners for the World Cup enough to make him wanna watch at home with friends. That kind of stuff ticks me off, when a foreigner is afraid to go wherever he dang well pleases, just because some ignoramuses/ignorami can't handle the fact that there are other countries in the world with people living in them and that these people go to different countries. A very popular slogan against racism and discrimination of foreigners in Germany is "Everyone's a foreigner, almost everywhere", which the NPD changed to "Everyone's a foreigner, except for where they belong" (both are my translations). After some recent frustrations with the German immigration laws, causing us to leave for New Zealand two weeks earlier than planned, this kind of thinking strikes me as the least thought out I have ever heard. Where they belong? Who are they to tell anyone where they can and cannot go and be happy? They are advocating a considerable limitation of personal freedom.

And even though it makes me sound like an old hippie, I'm with John Lennon when he asks us to "imagine there's no countries", because countries are just arbitrary lines on a piece of paper. Nothing more. The whole concept of having countries is entirely wrong. Yes, you heard me right. Countries are prisons. It is only because of special laws that I can go to different countries at all, or that people from different countries can come to Germany. Foreigners are considered as something that needs to be regulated by law. Every single one of them. Because really, you are not supposed to be outside of those lines you were born in at all. And you better have a good reason to be outside of them or else it's time to say goodbye. I find it mind-boggling to think about the implications of nationality and immigration and foreigner laws and how it all came about. Where's the freedom in that? I think that countries and nationalities are some of the biggest constraints on personal freedom in our world.

If I were a better writer, I would be able to smoothly come back to the Neo-Nazis, but instead this awkward sentence will have to do. Considering the arbitrariness of nationality, the NPD's stance on players in the national team becomes even more ludicrous. Do they mean to say that any child born to parents with different passports, and even if the parents grew up only 10km apart, as people close to the French-German or Spanish-Portuguese or any other dang border in the world do, is not allowed to ever play in any national team at all? What about my former roommate whose parents came to Germany via China and Vietnam, and who was born and raised here? Would he be allowed to play? What about his kids? What about adopted kids? Are they trying to tell me who I can and cannot fall in love with? Are they saying that marriages between people from different countries should be made illegal? Could it be that the only reason the Nazis are against these supposed foreign players is that in their little world all foreigners are lazy leeches that feed of the hard work of proper Germans, and that these successful 'foreigners' totally prove them wrong?

Discuss.

Look out Aotearoa, here we come!

Ok, so I am going to finally make it official. Christoph and I will be heading for New Zealand on September 3, 2006. We both have our Visa and we will confirm and book our flights by tomorrow. We are both getting really excited. However, we have so much to do before we can leave. Get rid of all our stuff, get rid of our apartment, cancel all kinds of things, quit my job (the easiest thing to do by the way), pack and store our remaining things, plan stuff for when we arrive in New Zealand, buy the remaining stuff we need and a few other things that I am sure I am forgetting. Oh well, we have time, right? At least that is what we keep telling ourselves, but I am sure these next few months will fly by.

Next Wednesday I am heading to Malta for 5 days with all my colleagues on a company incentive trip. I can't wait to be in the sun and have a few days off. I'll try to keep you posted about how it went. This will be the first time that all of us are going on a trip together. Should be very interesting. :)

Tomorrow is the opening game of the World Cup. Germany vs. Costa Rica. We are having a little get together with the hip people I work with to grill out and watch the game. Go GERMANY go!

Temply Temperton.

Please, put your dang pants back on! What the heck? This is NOT that kind of blog. Show some restraint for crying out loud. God, I'd be so embarrassed right now if I were you. Anyway, we went to Bangkok and saw Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Pho and Wat Traimit (and Wat Arun but we'll come to that later) and I thought it wouldn't hurt to let you, esteemed audience, know what it was like. 'Wat' means 'temple'.

To start off, here is a world premiere: A picture of Christina and me plus Wattanikha and Dimitar as an added bonus. I actually never posted a picture of us on here before, so be careful.

From left to right, that's some woman with a jeans jacket, a little girl in pink with a bike, Dimitar, Christoph, Wattanikha, and Christina. Since I don't have a lot of time right now, but don't want to keep you waiting until I finally put out another stupid array of words to go in between pictures, I'm making this quick and painless. These are some of the pictures we took at Wat Phra Kaew:

As you can see, gold is fairly popular and thanks to the sun shining mercilessly everything was sparkling. I especially liked those dudes carrying that one golden thing. It has a name, but I don't know it. Look it up on Wikipedia if you're so dang interested in it. We were unable to see the famous Emerald Buddha from a close distance because there was something special going on and a whole bunch of monks were sitting everywhwere.

Next stop: Wat Pho, home of the world's largest reclining Buddha. There is a Buddha for every day of the week, each in a different position. The reclining Buddha is for Tuesday. Everybody has a Buddha according to the day of the week they were born on. I was born on a Wednesday, and Wednesday has one for the morning, and one for the night. I was born in the afternoon, but pick the one where Buddha goes to the jungle to consult wih the elephants and monkeys over the one where Buddha asks for alms. Here is the huge reclining Buddha for all you Tuesday kids:

Okay, no words necessary. As I understand, the house was built around the Buddha. Also, we had to take our shoes off to go in. I have one more picture of a Buddha. This is the famous gold (not golden!) Buddha in Wat Traimit. That temple is in Chinatown and there was an unbelievable downpouring of rain (what else, frog feet?) while we were walking there. Luckily we found shelter close by. But that rain and the thunder were incredibly heavy and loud. It was awesome. The Buddha weighs like 5 tons and is completely made out of gold. You can't help but look good right next to it.

From left to right that's me, Dimitar and the gold Buddha. Just in case you were wondering. Sorry it's a little blurry. It's art, plus we got caught in some disruption in the universe's blurriness factor gravitation force factor, caused by that frightening thunder. If you are a Buddhist, it is good luck to attach little leaf gold pieces to Buddha statues. Not these main ones of course, but another one sitting to the side or somewhere else in the temple. In general, a lot of things are good luck in Thailand and they also have little shrines in front of houses to pay tribute to the spirits that guard the house. One shrine can work for a group of buildings too. Same with big trees. They put big ribbons around them for the spirits inhabiting them. German spirits are out of luck, cause I had never seen or heard of that before in my home country.