Party and Training

As we were driving to Tong Sala through the jungle at night, only a lonely hand could be seen in the darkness from the back of the pickup truck!

Holger was trying to hold on as we were driving at maximun 10 km/h through a trail that was going UP and DOWN.

Then we hit a flat bit and everyone cheered!!

We went to a really nice open place where everyone was relaxing, drinking beer, eating and listening and watching some Thai performers and musicians.

Here is the crowd.

This is Carmen from Germany. She was a bit tipsy.

Poo is on the left with the beer and Nang is on the right. Poo is a trainer and fighter, but Nang speaks better English.

This is Holger. He is from Germany. He is very courageous. When we were at the market, he kept buying weird things and eating them.

He found a green mango tree and picked off a mango. Then he took out a knife and proceeded to carve it up.

It looked really delicious and he seemed to enjoy it.

This is Gwill from England. Get got 2 black eyes in the first week so now he's trying to toughen up :).

This is Levi from Australia. He has a great smile and is very interesting.

This is one of the two dogs at the camp. She guards the camp and walks you to your bungalow at night when you are going to sleep. The rest of the time she just sleeps wherever it's cool.

These are some of the Thai staff playing poker in the afternoon.

This is the new watch Mao bought for me. That was really sweet of him :).

I finally got used to the Thai shower: a big bucket of cold water and a bowl to splash yourself with.
After getting over the initial shock of the cold water, I did a really good job at washing my hair. I felt so clean afterward. My feet were still dirty though.

This is a Thai Red Bull Energy Drink. I think it's going to become a daily ritual now. It helped me soooo much with the training in the afternoon.

So this is how training starts. First we do some rope skipping.

Then we have to stretch.

And stretch some more.

Then we get your gloves on and so now we are ready to kick some ass.

Mao and Me. I'm practicing kicking him.

This is me grabbing Maos head and trying to knee him in the face. It's really fun, especially when you got to do it 10 times really fast :) :) :).

This is how I was today after a really intense training session. And I still had to do 50 full sit-ups and stretch.

This is the gang:
From the top left: Carmen, Gwill, Holger, Levi, Simon
From the bottom left: Will, me, Pang, Kalle, Leon

2nd week

Saturday is the day off, when we don't train, when we recuperate from the Friday night parties that are everywhere. Saturday I was planing to walk to Haad Rin, which is the main pier to go to for shopping, boat taxis, cash points...

With the boat taxi it's 200Baht one way, so it adds up. Gabi and me decided to walk there, which would be a 2 hour walk on a path through the jungle.

Well, we managed to walk about 10 minutes, all was full of insane up-hill and down-hill sections. I stopped gasping for air and said: "I can't make it to Haad Rin if the road is like this. Let's turn around and take the boat." And that was that. I realized I am incredibly out of shape and am absolutely not ready for a trek like that.

I feel better though, I can see some weight loss, lots of muscle building, lots more flexibility and endurance. It's incredibly how weak and useless our bodies can get when we don't exercise or stretch or move or get our blood pumping enough. Terrible!!!

Now I stand up and sit down without making groaning and huffing and puffing sounds, I can walk up insane steps stopping only once and not drenched in sweat and hyperventilating. It's only been the first week and I can already see massive improvements.

I'm eating healthy food, I'm eating lots of fruits and veggies, I'm drinking protein shakes, I'm exercising every day for almost 4 hours, and drinking lots of water.

I hope after 4 weeks to see a BIG difference.

Here are the latest pictures.

I have realized that it's nearly impossible to have clean feet here. As soon as I was them and take a step, they are dirty already because of all the sand everywhere. So I just stopped washing my feet :) hahahaha.
Also, there's no hot water showers here, and as nice as a cold shower in this heat sounds like, it's not that nice. You can't wash your hair properly, you can really soak and scrub the dead skin off of you... you just have to get through quickly and hope you don't get a heart attack from the difference in temperature.

The owner of the boxing camp had a white girlfriend and had 3 kids with her. 2 boys and 1 girl. They are absolutely adorable. The other day, the little girl came in with a noisy and nippy parrot. She managed to keep the bird still for a second so I could snap a picture. Very very cute :).

Saturday night, the boxing group and Gabi from the next resort went out on an insane drive through the jungle to a town 45 minutes away for a BBQ. Originally we were promised Karaoke but the Thai leader of our little excursion was too drunk after the BBQ to go anywhere. We went to a Thai BBQ Buffet. It was really interesting and very tasty, as you can tell from the picture.

So what this was... A bowl with coal underneath and you could roast the meat in the middle and on the sides you'd put water so you can boil the noodles, veggies and prepared fish things. Reminded me a bit of Korean food, but this was much better :).

As you can see, I was quite happy. I got some dog biscuits from a local shop and by the end of the night had 4 dogs swarming around waiting for treats.

By the time we got back to Horizon, the boys who didn't make it back up to their bungalows just crashed out in the main area and passed out. I stayed up with Levi (he's from Australia) and watched Blood Diamond and talked about crazy things.

The next day, we were all tired and hung over, just chilling out and waiting for the electricity to come back on. To the left on the rocks, we saw some movement and realized it was this huge lizard walking slowly like a baby Komodo Dragon. Amazing looking thing.

Beach time

So, yesterday I didn't do any training. I was soooooooo exhausted.

I didn't realise how intense the training was. First day was ok, 2nd day was ok but my muscles hurt, then Wednesday I had trouble walking so I got a massage to fix me up, but oh wow, Thursday I was just useless. I could not even get up out of bed. So I just slept and laid about all day recuperating. My stomach muscles hurt the most at this point, and I could not walk, sit up, turn, eat... I just felt sick and weak. I just slept.

This morning I felt great though. My stomach muscles still hurt a bit, but not as much, and all the other muscles finally got used to the movements and the force and now they are ok too.

I'm really happy with my progress :).

Here are the latest picture.

This is the main beach where people congregate in the area.

Yup, I'm ready to go sun tanning.

I needed some meat, so I went to the other side of the hill to a restaurant that served meat. I had this dish. It was french fries, salad and schnitzel covered in a creamy mushroom sauce. I also had a water melon juice. Amazing.

After walking back, I stepped wrong on some rocks and twisted my ankle. Luckily it wasn't too bad but I still decided to skip the afternoon training session and keep my foot up.

Found a little secluded beach with a reaaaaaly nice restaurant. Had a nice nap and got tanned. I haven't burned yet. I've been really careful and putting on lots of sunblock.

This was the BEST Phad Thai EVER. It's noodles with chicken and bean sprouts and a creamy sauce. Sooooo good. I'm actually going there again for lunch today.

This is my new friend Gaby. She's totally awesome. She's from England and worked at BBC making documentaries and such. Really amazing lady. On top of that, she used to work with the sister of Robert Patterson. You know, the Twilight vampire cute guy. And she met him too. Awesome!! :)

As I was walking down from my camp, I looked right and saw a little lizard hanging out on this bush. It was super pretty so I just had to take a picture.

Also in my camp there is this banana tree. Amazing to see them grow and not just buy them from the supermarket. I'm going to pick one later and let it go yellow and then try it out. I'm curious if it'll be any different than the ones you get in the store.

And this is the little sign for my Thai boxing camp. They are in the process of making it bigger and nicer. They are building some more bungalows and also adding a lot of plants and beautiful flowers, and hopefully today they'll get a few computers and the internet so I don't have to go too far to check my email.
We'll see :)

This morning

I got my friend Gwill, who's living in the bungalow just next to mine, to wake me up in the morning at 7:30 so I can go brush my teeth and wake up a bit before training.

Well, he came and knocked on my door, and wow... I had such a hard time getting out of bed. Not just because I was tired, but because every muscle in my body hurt.

I went down to training, and I just could not move very well. My shoulders were stiff, my whole back was cramped...

It took a bit of stretching and air punching to get myself going again, but I tell you... WHOA!!

I was able to do 10 push-ups and 50 sit-ups today. WOW!!!

I've been a vegetable for the last few month, and it felt absolutely amazing to do something so exciting and energizing.

I love this.

I had to buy boxing shorts yesterday. I look cool :).

I might get some gloves too if they are not too expensive.

I don't want someone elses stinky gloves.

This is the inside of my bungalow :). It's tiny, but it's got a fan and a huge bed. It's perfect :).

1st day

Here is the start of the road through the jungle to the place where I'm staying.

The sea was too rough so we couldn't take a water taxi so I had to get a truck to go through the jungle.

It was an insane road. Huge gashes throughout the journey, probably because of the rainfall.

And there were incredibly steep hills. I don't know how that car managed to get through.

Well, so I got there, incredibly exhausted after the whole trip.

This is my hut. It's tiny but nice. It has a huge bed and a fan. What else do you need :).

This is the view from the top of the hill where my hut is. Absolutely incredible. I love all the palm trees.

I met a few cool people here. Carmen from Germany, Gabi from south London, and Gwill from England somewhere close to Wales.

Gabi didn't reserve a room so the only available room was 2000Baht. My hut was only 250Baht so you can see the difference. Well, we got some beer and went up to her hut. WOW!!!!!!!!!!

Amazing view, amazing terrace, amazing bathroom with a hot shower, it had a hammock there which I immediately claimed. Very very very nice room.


After the first morning of training, I had to go to the main bay and get some proper shorts because the ones I had were too long and I couldn't exercise properly.

The boat ride to there was very nice because the water was pretty calm.

Coming back... that was another story. BIG waves, and we all got soaked. That's me all soaked :)

More to come :).

I"M HERE :)

No pictures yet, because I didn't bring my adapter with me.

I finally arrived at the right beach, I finally got my little bungalow and met some cool people already.

Had some nice food and fruit smoothies and now am venturing out and about to get some beer and see the sights.

It's beautiful and warm, with a light breeze, just enough to keep the mosquitoes away.

I can't believe I'll be in paradise for a whole month, and I didn't even have to die to get here :).

Pictures will come soon.

YAAAAAAAAAAAY!!

Ok, so I'm off.

Am now in Sokcho waiting for 7:10pm when my bus leaves to go to Seoul. I've decided to take the subway to the airport. It'll take about 2 hours and about 3 transfers, but the buses to the airport just suck!

I bought some wine, a Snickers and am ready to start my trip right.

Am meeting up with 2 friends who are flying out same day as me just earlier, and we're gonna camp out at the airport overnight and enjoy some wine and stay warm.

I hope they don't kick us out :).

I'm so excited.

This is the first time I'm actually really excited before going on a trip.

This will be such a different experience. I'm going for 1 month and am staying in the same place the whole time. Also, I'll have something to do, a schedule, a work-out schedule, so I'm super excited about getting back in shape and enjoying the beautiful surroundings!!!

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!

The last stretch

Today is the last day of my first camp, and then I've got 4 more days of another English camp at another school. And as soon as I'm done on Friday, I'm going to take the bus and go to Seoul to the airport. I'm going to sleep in the airport overnight and get the 11:30am flight on Saturday to Thailand.

I'm so excited.

I don't even care about these camps anymore.

My mind is already on a sunny and warm white sand beach under a palm tree with someone massaging my feet in Thailand.

How can anyone concentrate on teaching 10 bratty teenagers who don't care about English and would rather be at home or at the PC room playing World of Warcraft for days on end.

Today is arts and crafts day, they are finishing off their pinata which means I can just sit back, relax, and let them all just paint away, obviously speaking in Korean, but I don't care. I've told them again and again to speak in English, but none of them care enough to actually try to say ANYTHING in English.

It's ridiculous, a waste of time really. But that's the system, as long as it looks nice on the outside, who cares if it actually works or not.

Maybe I should take a nap...

Is anyone gonna notice?

Will anyone care if they do notice?

zzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ

Perfume

My sister got the Coco Chanel Mademoiselle perfume!!!

WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!

This is my favorite perfume of all times.

I want it.

I will have it.

It smells like beauty, elegance, sophistication, class... add a smile and a great personality and that combination is irresistible :).

Love it!!

Time

I've got 1 more week until Thailand.

Oh, I need this vacation to come soon.

1 more week and then 1 whole month of beach time, warmth, good food...

Yay :)