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About three and a half years ago, one night in Seville, when I spent the summer travelling with my number one Skila, Eva, around Spain, because of Eva's obsession with Salsa and any other form of dancing, we went to a Flemenco show. It was OK, but while there, we met 3 girls, a blonde called Nadia who was very friendly and had lived in Greece for a few months so spoke some Greek with Eva, Jenny and Stephanie. They were three Canadian girls from Montreal also travelling around Spain and Portugal, as Jenny and Steph are 2nd generation Portuguese, like Nelly Fortado ;-)

After the show, we went for some ice cream at a cafe with the girls (along with Alan, Kris and the American bitch we were also travelling with) and I got talking to Steph, as it turned out she was a major geek - an Electronic Engineer like me, but most disturbing, a girl who didn't look like a guy. So because we got on so well, myself and Alan went out for drinks with them after going home to get changed quickly. I spent the whole night talking to Nadia, but at the end I got everyones email addresses to stay in touch. There was talk about meeting up in Portugal, but we never did.

So when I got back to the UK I sent them all an email to say hi, and for the next year and a half stayed in contact with them until I went to Chicago for training with Accenture. In those days we had a budget of £650, and could book our flights how we wanted (they stopped that policy a couple of months later after having so many people abusing it like us ;-)) so we managed to book (I went with Mark, an Irish guy in my start group) London-Chicago-Boston-Montreal-London, to finally visit them. That summer I stayed with Nadia, and had a wicked time with her and her boyfriend Adam who looked after me and Mark so well! I saw Jenny for dinner but Steph was modelling in Asia that summer so I never saw her.

Baltimore is the hood....the second day I was here the client told me that if I was ever to work late and stay in the office I should call a number to get a security escort to walk me...2 BLOCKS...from the office to my hotel!!!

This is where I find myself until December 16th when I go back to the UK. Its not as bad as it sounds, after a few weeks here I've got to check out the nicer parts of Baltimore, the Inner Harbour which is nice and surrounded by nice restaurants and museums, and Fells Point, the bar area in Baltimore, which is pretty much the night life here. I got my hair cut on Saturday, I must have been the first white guy to walk into the place, I walked around the whole of Baltimore trying to find one Barber and the only ones I could find were in the hood just up the road, not the nicest area, but they didn't seem to care a "cracker" had just walked in, even though it was obvious not many did.

I'm now in Baltimore after my 2 week trip to Hong Kong. I love the far east, miss it already! As I mentioned last time, this was my second trip to Hong Kong, the first time was in 2001 with my Dad. Completely different trip this time as last time it was as a tourist, it was my first time in the far east and I didn't travel a lot back then. I actually realised , back in Kuala Lumpar when I went with overexcited Cat, that the more I travel, the less excited I get about new places and cities. Also last time I travelled to Hong Kong I remember reading all about it, planning all the things I would do there, and that was probably the last trip I did like that. Now when I go to a country, I either expect my friends there just to tell me what to do, or pick up a couple of leaflets in the airport when I arrive, no excitement, no planning...

So when I went to Hong Kong the first time in 2001, I loved it, I thought it was amazing, exciting, an energetic city. And this time, I still liked it a lot, I think its a definate improvement to Bangkok as its more developed and the public transport is excellent, but not as exciting. Its a pretty calm city actually. After 10/11pm most of the streets and shops are quiet/closed. Not like Bangkok which has traffic jams 24 hours a day and everything is open and lit up till very late! I guess I have a different perspective on the city now that I've been out in the far east so long. But its still a cool city and I have a great time there!

I was lucky that they flew me out just before a long weekend in Hong Kong, and my Greek buddy Dinos from the London office was already out there already for the first couple of days, as he had been working there 7 weeks already doing a lot of the groundwork before they sent the commando in ;-) So it was cool to catch up with him and the 2nd night I was there on Thursday before he flew home, and the beginning of a long weekend in Hong Kong, we all went out to celebrate in the Central area/Wan Chai where there's a lot of bars. We got the whole project team out including the senior manager on the project, Richard, also from the UK, the project manager Ian, from the UK originally also, and our local consultants who I was bought out to train, Ian and Wiley. Like all far eastern countries, they love to drink, so I ended up getting pretty wasted against my wishes, especially with the Vodka Jello "shots" Richard kept buying!

After a brief stopover in the UK to sort out some personal things and see my family (I'm sorry if I didn't see you while I was there, I had a lot of things to do so I didn't tell a lot of people I was back, I barely saw anyone this time) first it was on, then it was off (because of confusion with my available dates) and now its on again!

I had got my next project in Baltimore to push the whole project back 2 weeks for this project in Hong Kong (which they did because they specifically wanted me to lead it as I'd already worked with the client through NetHope) and so when I found out they didn't want to bring me over anymore to Hong Kong, I was pissed at having nothing to do for 2 weeks, and so was my boss. It turned out there was confusion on the dates, somehow they thought I was only avaialble till the 20th, not the 26th as I had said, but as soon as it was resolved, I got my flight booked and now I'm going to Hong Kong on Tuesday! Can't wait, miss the far east already after 2 weeks away, and haven't been to Hong Kong since 2001. Plus, apparently its a long weekend while I'm there, so 3 days to sight see, all paid for by work of course ;-)

When I found out I'd missed my flight to Zurick with George and Konstantinos I WAS PISSED! Basically, the day after I got back from Dubai, I went all the way to Luton airport to meet George and Konstantinos with plenty of time before the flight to sit and have a coffee and some food before they arrived. Before I left George sent me some text about online checkin, I looked at it briefly, obviously not long enough to see the end saying HE HADN'T checked me in online with them, but I thought when I got to the airport I'd check again with George, so I phoned his phone to call, as he was driving Konstantinos picked up, I asked if he had checked me in online, he thought George had, so he said yes, I said I'd wait for them to arrive so we went through security together. 15 minutes after check in closed, they still hadn't arrived, 30 minutes before the flight. I phoned to see where they were, this time I spoke to George, where I found out, I hadn't infact been checked in online. So I run to the checkin desk, 15 minutes after it closed (and I'd been sitting near for over one hour having a relaxing coffee) and would they let me on the flight...would they shit...so I missed my flight to Zurick due to a miscommunication between myself, Konstantinos and George. F-ing Fantastic.

I was straight online in Luton airport after voicing my annoyance at being told I was checked in by Konstantinos over the phone to George who was waiting in the queue to board the plane after running straight through security to make it on the plane, and booked ANOTHER flight to Munich first thing the next morning.

Just a tip I learnt, EasyJet allows flights to be overbooked online, so even though all the flights were fully booked on the system, the checkin girl told me to try online anyway because of this, and it worked! Pisses me off they wouldn't let me on the flight as it was still grounded for another 30 minutes, and although it worked out in my favour this time, I would be pissed off to find out the flight I booked was overbooked on purpose and I couldn't get on it if arrived last to checkin. Malakas.

When I booked my stopover 3 or 4 weeks ago, I completely forgot about the Muslim relgious period of Ramadan. So instead of arriving in the same party place I came to in May, I arrived to a place where almost everything was closed down, restaurants during the day, some of the clubs I went to last time like Zinc during the night...so I basically spent 4 days doing not a lot and going out to a couple of half empty clubs. Pretty crap.

My first time in a Muslim country during Ramadan, it sucks. No photos this time as the seven photos I did take were just of buildings. Next time, I won't foget to check the dates before stopping in the middle east again!

For my company, I was invited to do a presentation about the work I've been doing for ADP and life out in Bangkok for my group back in the UK. I made a wicked presentation all about it, and as an extra made this video to show at the end. Unfortunately they ran out of time to show the video, although the presentation went excellent, but I've uploaded it to YouTube so you guys can enjoy it too!

Its a few clips I made my last week in Bangkok of life around the office and other holiday videos I collected out there, and Oun, one of my developers, doing some convincing "acting" about what a bad manager I am in Thai! Check it out below:

Ah..my last 2 weeks in Thailand, busy wrapping up all the work I've been doing (and failing!) and saying goodbye to everyone before I return in November (which is the plan for the moment at least!).

My brother left 2 weeks ago, and for his last weekend, on the Friday when we returned in the afternoon from Vietnam, we met up with Pinny and my team for Chinese and then went to Dream to Salsa! Well, only me and Pinny Salsa'd, so it was really just for drinks at the bar! For my brother's final night on Saturday, we took my brother for Kareoke at Urban Bar, and that night was the first night Sri arrived, so we got to also introduce our new ADP'er from the Seattle office to everyone that night. Then finally on Sunday I took my brother to Chatuchak weekend market to buy some final souveneirs before he left on Sunday night.

It was an emotional goodbye, I realised how much money I'd wasted on my brothers trip that night, and it almost brought me to tears.....(kidding)! Actually, the 3 weeks actually made us much closer as brothers as we'd never actually spent that much time together since my brother grew up from the annoying little kid he used to be, and we realised we had a lot in common (mainly girls, but not the type of girls so it was perfect!)

The week after he left was just work and saying final goodbyes as well to Kevin, who was going back to Belgium after 6 months on ADP, and Dan who was going to follow his fiance Bryn to London to continue working on the ADP core team from there. We went for a final dinner with the whole team during the week on Thursday and then sat in the rain outside Bed & Supper club because they wanted 1000 baht just to get in that night (I think there was a special event that night) drinking beers at a small stall outside.

A few months ago, I was on Hi-5 (crap social network) and I noticed my French friend Saskia had put Hanoi as her current location on her profile. I sent her a message to ask where she was, and it turned out that she’d been living there for about 8 months with her boyfriend Danny (apparently we knew each other by face from Surrey uni) teaching English out there! So we stayed in touch, and a few weeks later we narrowly missed each other when they came for a holiday in Thailand, but arrived in Bangkok the same time I was leaving for Seattle. After that I made I agreed I had to come to Vietnam to visit her and finally meet up after 2-3 years!

So when my brother said he was coming to Thailand, I told him to book it the beginning of September so we could also go to Vietnam for the week together! We flew out on Air Asia from Bangkok on Friday night, and arrived in Hanoi airport around 10pm, taking a taxi to Saskia’s very nice house on a small lake in Hanoi. As soon as we arrived, it was a different place completely to Thailand, not overrun by tourists and a nice European feel to the place with French style buildings everywhere. Also there are no skyscrapers in Hanoi, its pretty flat! When we arrived, Danny had just got back from a motorcycle trip in Sa Pa with a friend from Barcelona also visiting, Ferran. He was also visiting for the week, so we took the third bedroom in their very nice house and shared a double bed again for another few nights! Saskia and Danny, being the great hosts they are, provided Indian take out to welcome us!

Last week my brother Edward arrived from the UK to visit me for three weeks. So I’ve given up half my bed in my apartment for him to come and check out Bangkok! Already arranged a busy itinerary of things for him to do, mainly revolving around going out and partying! So Edward arrived on Tuesday evening, I went to the airport straight from work to pick him up and straight after when we got back to the apartment, took him to a place I hadn’t visited since I first arrived in Thailand…Pat Pong.

To be honest, it made me realise how much my opinion of Thailand has changed. Before I came the first time I had the same impression as my brother, a place full of go-go girls, working girls and ladyboys, and I guess all the tourists that hang around Pat Pong and the other seedy areas around Bangkok could be forgiven for coming back and telling everyone just about those, as its so in your face in those areas! But I actually felt bad taking my bro there for the first thing in Thailand, as I’ve realised Pat Pong isn’t Thailand, it’s a tiny part of Thailand, and most of the people and places I hang out with have nothing to do with this, which I think is normal in Bangkok, not unusual. Thing is, everyone expects to see this when they come, especially the guys, so I took my bro and saw my first ever Ping Pong show in Pussy Galore…and it was disgusting! Some girl firing a Ping Pong from her pussy, another picking up items with hers, and another old woman drawing a picture of us with a pen inserted in her pussy of me and my brother (it was pretty good actually!). Anyway, after that experience I felt bad showing my bro that as the first thing in Thailand, so anyone planning to visit me again in Thailand can forget about me taking them there again, its shit and disgusting, and I was surrounded by western tourists, men and woman, including a honeymoon couple from England, who all “had” to come and see this side of Thailand…such as shame, they come and go back telling everyone about this and its not even Thailand! I still remember explaining to Pinny what a go-go bar really was, and she’s a normal Thai girl, who’s travelled around the world and lived in Bangkok all her life! Just goes to show normal Thai’s just don’t have anything to do with this side of the country!