random snippets
some performers on some random stage somewhere during festival weekend:
minivan equipped with crazy laser show on the inside… along with a kitchen – a lady in pink pigtails was selling food out the back:
WHENBESSATTACKSblog
a very thai halloween
so i wasn’t sure if they really celebrated halloween here or not, so i didn’t really give much thought to a costume until day of. shaun talked to our friend nathan and he said that they were all planning on dressing up. me and shaun went to the kad suan kaew mall to look for ideas… if nothing better came up i was just going to buy a sheet and cut some eyeholes in it. we went the the 1 baht store (not really accurately named – most everything is around 15 baht – but still super cheap) and i picked up some devil horns. i brought to thailand one of the dresses i made, a red one, so i figured red dress + devil horns = adequate halloween costume.
the place was pretty well packed out, there were a lot of people chilling in the street between all the bars. a little over half the people were dressed up, and refreshingly there weren’t a lot of ho bag costumes. i saw maybe two scantily clad ladies… and i didn’t see any store-bought looking costumes at all! it was awesome. there was an american indian, jesus, a couple of devils, pirates, nurses, skeletons, ninjas, and a bunch of other stuff. throughout the night people i didn’t know took pictures with me (i don’t really know why, i wasn’t really dressed up that great). there was a fantastic blues band playing for most of the night, and everyone was having fun. first halloween i’ve had in a long time where i didn’t see a single fight break out!
me drinking a cheap chang beer:
shaun (who didn’t dress up, so nathan slapped some makeup on him) and justin (another zoe dj):
nathan in his thai costume with some ninja chick:
the zoe band room:
i didn’t really take many pictures… i should have but i was too distracted i guess. i did take this little video at the beginning of the night (plus there’s a second or two clip at the end of me that shaun took when he thought he was taking my picture instead of video). it’s a little dark, unfortunately:
what i was doing until the sun came up
why dancing, of course!
last night shaun djed at zoe in yellow. once he was done with the set we hung around for a little while until nathan and them closed up the bar, then went to this crazy mega-dance-club place that had like 4 or 5 floors of different dance clubs. we went to the one that (i think) was at the top that was called “scratching” and it was packed out pretty well, but not annoyingly so. i danced the whole time without a break, but shaun went to the bathroom a couple of times. when he came back he said that when he went to pee, these people showed up and started cracking his neck and back for him for tips. i don’t know if that’s what they do in the ladies’ bathroom, since i didn’t go, but it sounds kind of cool and like it would be a little distracting. there were two djs, and they were both good. people here don’t really dance the same way as they do in america, it’s a lot more respectful and a lot less booty-poppin. i didn’t get any strange creepy dudes grinding up on me all night long!
here’s the complex that the club was in (it’s called mandelay something):
we left around (i think) 6am, and the place was still as packed out as it was before. and on a tuesday night! from what i understand it’s just like that in thailand. it’s fun for me every once in awhile, but i don’t think i could dance ’til the breaka breaka every night.
here’s some farang dude with our friend nathan and me:
here’s this guy who works at zoe in yellow, can’t remember his name. he’s the only person who works there who doesn’t know much english:
me and shaun:
aaaaand here’s some random nonsense:
and here’s the sun starting to come up on our way home:
cat fang diamond
i’ve been catching this soap opera/sitcom/teen drama on channel 7 and i’ve finally figured out what it’s called. the thai name is น้องเหมียวเขี้ยวเพชร, which i think loosely translates to “cat fang diamond”. i can’t understand what anybody’s saying, but i can kind of follow along with what’s happening. it centers around this high school (i think) girl who keeps getting kidnapped/almost kidnapped by some thai thugs who wear all black and like to shoot people. a lot of it seems to be filmed in a mall. this leading lady is pretty good with kung fu and isn’t afraid to kick some ass if she has to. there’s a boy too who might be into her, or into this other girl, i can’t really tell. he’s pretty useless in a fight. there’s an underlying message promoting buddhism… in one episode, the main boy gave the main girl a buddhist talisman and when she got shot later on it saved her life. then she went to a temple and talked to a monk about something or another. i think not really knowing what’s going on makes it more interesting.
nerd, cheeze
so i’ve been looking around for some sort of thai-based fashion magazine, which is kind of hard since i don’t really know any other language than english (and maybe 3 sentences in french… “bonjour, je suis americanne. je parle un PEUX de francais… est ce que je peux tailler mon crayon?” …which aren’t helpful at all here) so often times i don’t know if a magazine is thai-based or just a thai version of another magazine. i think i found a couple of good ones that are actually based out of thailand (thanks to google translate and magazinedee.com):
the first on i found is called “nerd”, which is geared more towards teenagers. there’s definitely a nerd theme running through it, a good handful of the pictures feature models wearing stereotypical nerd glasses – the ones with round, thick, black frames. kind of cute actually! it’s also one of those 2-in-1 magazines… where both covers act as front covers. flip it over and voila – a whole nother (screw you, grammar police) magazine!
nerd magazine, front:
nerd magazine, other front (back):
cheeze magazine i think i like a little better. it’s specifically thai street style, which is really cool… unfortunately it’s only a quarterly magazine i think. they just celebrated their 5th anniversary, and the party was sponsored by mtv (which is better outside the u.s…. we get mtv china and they actually play a lot of music videos) and lomography.com among others. so i’m guessing it’s a pretty big magazine, and a decent gauge of thai trends as far as fashion goes. there’s a TON of pictures, which is great because i can’t read the language. there’s some d.i.y. sections that seem pretty easy to follow without being able to read the instructions, and some sections on specific trends, like fixed-gear bicycles, backpacks, etc. unlike nerd magazine, they have a pretty strong web presence, with a website and facebook page as well as an
online store where you can buy stuff or check out featured boutiques.
this month/quarter’s theme is military style… not my absolute favorite, but there’s some pretty cool things inside:
