*bump*

And she arrived in Bangkok, city of smells, buses, underground trains, overground trains, motorbike taxis, and glorious heat. This is gonna be long - brace yerself. Mere hours before I left Chiang Rai, I'm told that the room I was supposed to stay in was given to someone else, reason being they thought I was coming the week before and when I didn't, they figured I wasn't coming at all. So they offer me another room, but it's on the third floor a.k.a. rooftop. The rooms are glass-doored, glass-windowed, and almost 40degrees celsius midday. No air-condition. It's so not funny. But I've survived today, the first official day alone in Bangkok. My room's a good size, if anything. And I spent the entire day in this room [and watched the thermometer go up,too] cleaning up, and taking out my stuff and rearranging the cupboards and shelves and keyboard ,etc. It was fun, though, despite the heat. I try to forget the fact that the bathroom is on the first floor. And everytime I forget something on the way up, I have to go down and up AGAIN. At least there's a kitchen with all the things you need, like a fridge and toaster. hehe. [for the blur, I didn't have a fridge or anything in USJ] ANYWAY, overall, the change is bearable. I do see some privileges of living in this big building. The people who live here are nice to me, very friendly, very family. I have yet to meet the Sunday service congregation and the band that plays. I got a glimpse of the drummer,though- he had Guy Sebastian hair..haha. It's gonna an interesting Sunday, I predict. I'm excited about college. I have absolutely no clue what to expect but nevertheless, I'll take the ride, thank you. Oh, there's a chance that I may have a room available to me which is 15mins walking distance from college! Minor issue : red light district. But nothing's confirmed, it's just talk right now. We'll see. But think now, wouldn't it be DARN interesting if I were to move there. *chuckle*
DO write when you can. Here's to life in Bangkok. *clink*

Hot Rock,Cheek-to-Cheek,and Dusty.

Hot Rock Cafe. Warm ambience, excellent lighting,stage set up and ready,sound system tiptop. Darren, my brother, has played as a band at this cafe once with a couple of friends and he said it was a nice place. Hence the visit. First mistake: left my keyboard in the car. Second mistake : brought mom. Coz' my family knows the people who run the cafe, who are [by the way] Philipino graduates who've come to start a ministry with uni students. Which also means they're young and excited people. Bringing mom meant that she'd catch up with them after introducing me and then later tell them to get me to sing onstage. And "get me" they did. The keyboard was carried out, set up and MIKED up too before I had even agreed to sing!Next thing I knew, I was being introduced onstage to the lil bunch of Thais and mat sallehs who were cafe-ing there. I sang a OneTreeHill song first, then one of my own songs "Touched". They wanted me to go on but I just "couldn't think what to sing" [heehee], so one of the girls took out a songbook they have and together [I felt better with the company] we sang a few more songs like Emotion, Someday We'll Know, Kiss Me, and so forth. It was fun,really. We intro-ed ourselves as TheBandWhoHasJustMetAndWe'llSeeWhatHappens. And the audience was enjoying themselves too, it seemed. Anyway, we ended our roll, were applauded, and sat back to chat a while more. Mom gets up to pay the bill, and discovers that one of the white guys who was watching us sing and had left after we got offstage, had paid our bill!! *stunned* See, THIS is what I call a proper and easy-to-accept Thank You. *chuckle* But seriously, call me ja-kun but I thought it was quite interesting, lor. Oops,proper English, Joni, proper English. Lol. So anyway, before the trip to Hot Rock, we'd been invited by another cafe-owning friend to lunch. And we usually sing a little at his cafe coz he likes jazzy stuff and all. His cafe is named appropriately Cheek-to-Cheek.It really is cozy inside,and he's a pro-photographer so there're loads of pictures mounted all around [found my face stuck up there too from the last visit I paid!]. It's also a nice homey place. And before that, [going backwards through the day for some reason], we'd gone to this American couple's house. Warren is a professional ventriloquist. I mean, he's SERIOUSLY GOOD. And his puppet,Dusty, is like, one of the best in the production line/world. He was telling us some stories of shows he's done and I'm just sitting there enthralled by Dusty coz the whole time he's telling us stories, Dusty's just sitting on his lap quietly blinking and looking around and he looks so darn real. Warren rocks. Too bad the weather here made Dusty's wooden mouth part swell and so he couldn't talk today. But even with him just sitting and looking around and answering yes/no questions, it was absolutely amazing. I stand in awe. *stands*. All this,however, brings me back to the miserable fact that I don't have a digital camera yet. I SOOoo want you all to see these things/places/food/people/creaturefeatures I'm seeing too! I'm a-gonna save up for a digital cam, I am I am I am. *determination*

Of new licences and thirteen males.

*a little dance* I am proud to say I got my motorbike licence today. wait. licenSe/licenCe? geez, my English and spelling is/are deteriorating by the day! Anyway, I did the test in the rain, which is why my nose leaks now. But alls well when Joni can legally wheel around. *think* Don't beg to differ.Please? hehe.
This pic brings smiles. Pringles,melting cups, and *ahem* the occasional "other" stuff. I need a CBK shot.
Ah yes. Did I mention that in my class of fourteen, I shall be the only female?

The Verdict.

Ok fine, so the place wasn't that bad. In fact, it was pretty interesting. And huge. And clean. And safe. And...arghhh. It had TWO pianos. I wish I hadn't wished to find a fault in it because we did. Remember the 40mins travelling info? As I predicted, wrong. Mom and I first walked out a 'lil to the main road, took a bus to the underground train [MRT, I think it's called], took the MRT to the station where it connects to the BTS [their version of LRT], then took the BTS to the nearest station to college. And no, it doesn't stop there. We still had to walk quite a bit before we actually got to school. All in all? An hour. This is apparently the fastest route. Or any other route would take just as long, except maybe if I drove myself/was driven to school OR rode the motorbike. Ah yes. Anyone heard of public motorbikes? Well, Bangkok is sufficient in this mode of transport which as I have seen, could very well be the fastest way to get around especially during rush hour. The prim and proper would never consider it, I suppose. But I'm not prim nor proper [akhekhekaheke *snort*] , and when we found ourselves in MoChit 1 instead of MoChit 2, and the jam could no way be described as even trudging, we took a motorbike. Both of us on one. The guy claimed it was okay. So there we were clinging on for dear life as he swerved through the cars and OH YEAH, rain, and puddles and muddles. An experience.
So bottom line is that I will probably stay at the church. The room I'll get is a nice size.I have a choice of air-conditioned or non. I will have a full kitchen to utilize. I will have a washing machine [praise be] . I will assume I will have the pianos to play at will :P The only fault, really, is the travelling to school everyday. I'll psycho myself into thinking it's a small matter. Life can't possibly be ALL fine and dandy now,can it?hehe..
I got me a denim skirt. FINALLY. It's almost perfect. I'm happy.*yawn* I need some rest now. *wave*

*crossed fingers*

"We'll just see the place first,okay?" said I earlier today. It was after lunch and my parents and I were talking with Ps.Suphot about my accomodation in Bangkok. There's a Korean pastor there who is willing to let me stay at his church.For free. The catch? I play keyboards/piano for his church service on Sundays. Do they have different teams that take turns to play?No. Which means, I'd play every week. Frankly, considering past experiences, I'm not too keen about this idea. Apparently, if I take a public bus [ugh,not again!] it would take about 40 mins to get to college. But that's coming from someone who doesn't take the bus and I shall assume the info slightly faulty. As in, exchange the 40mins to, say, an hour or so. Audio engineering has an unpredictable schedule. So I need to be ready in case I find myself in an unpredicted situation. I was full of what-ifs 'cause all this while I'd been hoping for a room where I don't need to be obligated to entertain whoever else is there. But staying for free at a church and being expected to play every Sunday sounds like just the beginning of a looong string of other obligations-to-come. sigh. And that's when the discussion became a 'lil heated. Which was when I ended up saying we'd just see the place first and try out the routes to get to college and THEN decide. And that's why tomorrow, I leave for Bangkok to go see this place. The evil, inconvenient, princess side of me is hoping to goodness that we'll find some sort of fault in the place. *guilt* *pushes guilt away* We'll see.
Oh, I'm supposed to be taking my motorbike license sometime soon. Hope it works out. *grin*

That's it??

Ok.I've just about done/seen/gone to/eaten everything you could possibly do/see/go to/eat in this town. And I've gotten bored. And it's gonna get to a dangerous level if I don't fix it soon. See, boredom leads to reminiscing, which means I'll start to get nostalgic, and ...yeah,you know. I like this pic for some reason. Ronnie rocks. I have no idea what we were doing, but it's a happyhappy random pic,eh? And it has essential memoric [??] details like the Starlight Cinema waterbottle. And the Hershey's choc sauce!!(it's there,look closely) lol... I do appreciate crazy fun friends like the ComeBackKings..cheh,promo for free,weii.. Oh ya, another thing about the pic. I miss my hair that way. I dyed it but as usual tak jadi. And the new cut is like Simba-meets-hair iron.Which is not good, in case you were wondering. But I'll be innovative 'til it grows out. I was dared to shave bald by two people. Was really considering it too, but then I thought of the trouble of growing it back again after I was through. That part isn't too appealing, so...sorry Jer&Rish..guess I won't do it after all...Oh no. I'm supposed to speak distinguished English in here, I forgot. Yeah, I'd planned to spell well, and type in good English in my blog, just for the fun of it. Besides, I figured I'd not done any of my required essays when I was homeschooling, so I probably suck at writing and this would be......good..training ground?*sheepish look* Anyway, I'll try to be proper-er. *blink* If that's possible. And hey, no one's yet told me if I can put a different section for other topics, and I'm really too illiterate to figure it out myself, so pleease help. *big eyed blink* [to those it will work on] and *genuine begging look* [ for those on whom the puppydog technique wouldn't work].