#Guide: How to be a complete NUISANCE and an ungracious guest

#1: Leave your manners at home and always assume

Yes, that's right, you're on a holiday, why bother with manners? Leave them at home with your troubles and worries. When in doubt? Just assume! No one ever gets hurts when you assume, right?

#2: Be culturally insensitive 

Gosh, who does your host think you are? Be culturally sensitive? Yeah right! You didn't go over to be considerate to others! Who cares if Asians don't wear shoes in their house? Who cares if Westerners think it's rude to talk with their mouths full? You do whatever you want, screw cultural insensitivity!

#3: Go ahead, trouble your host as and when you like

Pff, you made the effort to be their guest (and maybe even a stay over guest!!!), they should be glad to attend to your every request! Now bow to me, slaves.

#4: Waste as much resource as you want!

Conserve water and electricity? Why bother? Your host is paying for everything anyway, it's not your house, right? It's not like global warming is a real issue, anyway.

#5: Take anything and everything you want from your host's place without permission

Duh, this goes without saying. That packet of potato chips in the cabinet? Go ahead and have it, it's there anyway. You're getting fat for your host, they should pay you to do that!

#6: Enter the host's room as and when you fancy

Hello...., why shouldn't you? They said to make yourself at home. Of course you're allowed to enter their room and make a mess. They said to make yourself at home! What else are you supposed to do?! That's exactly what you do at home!

#7: Be calculative

Down to the last cent, why not? They didn't waste a single cent hosting you, if anything, you spent a fortune to visit them from aboard (probably), there is absolutely nothing wrong with splitting the bill down the middle for EVERY SINGLE THING, because you can.

(Random note: He's a Singaporean! So proud!! He acted in several movies, e.g. Captain America 2)

#8: Don't bother with gifts

As I've mentioned, you spent a fortune to visit! Gosh, they expected gifts? Fat hopes. They should prepare their house full of gifts for you instead!

#9: Treat the place like a hotel

Erm, you are on a holiday after all. If their place is not good enough to replace a hotel, why are you there to begin with? If it's good enough to be a hotel, then you OUGHT to treat it as a hotel. Makes perfect sense! You are the guest, you mess up. They are the host (read: MAID), they clean up.

#10: Why bother treating your host to a nice meal? I mean, they should be glad to have YOU over, yes?

This goes without saying. If anything, they should treat you to a nice meal every night because your mere presence. Isn't this common sense? Gosh! Can't believe some people are so dull.

If you've read the whole post and thought,"What a glad idea!" Please don't. I was being sarcastic and I've titled the post "How to be a complete NUISANCE", so no, it's not a good idea to follow what I've just wrote, unless you really want to be an asshole.

This post is inspired by behaviours of my own personal experiences and what I've gathered from friends/acquaintances. Thank you for all who have contributed, either to my (bad) experience, or to my writing material. This post is dedicated to you. :)

#Life in Bangkok: Saying Goodbyes

"With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose." -Wayne Dyer 

The hardest thing about making friends when you are living overseas is knowing that the friends you make may not be with you for a long period of time.

They may move on to another city, they may get bored and want to go back to their home country, but whatever the reason, people seem to move along faster than back home.

Back in early May, I had to say goodbye to a friend I've made back in November 2013. Elena went back to Russia to pursue her dreams and had to say goodbye to the city of Bangkok. It was a sad period for me because I was losing a friend in Bangkok! (Or gaining one in Russia, depending on how you look at it!) But as they say, all good things must come to an end, or as the Chinese would say,"天下无不散之筵席" (literally translated to mean that there is no never ending banquet under the sun).

Us at the only mall we're familiar with. :P

Not breaking traditions: Japanese Curry Rice for her farewell

This month, I say goodbye to another friend whose going back to Singapore for a really good job opportunity. If I'm still in this city in the next 2-3 years, we may live in the same city again. But in the meantime, he'll be back in Singapore enjoying all the yummy roti prata, nasi lemak, laksa, cai dao kuey that I miss so much. :'( (Damn you Singapore food, I'm feeling hungry just reminiscing about you!)

It's hard to say goodbye, but I'll always treasure these friendships because I've learnt so much more about another culture, another perspective, another country, and that is an experience I'm unlikely to have if I were still living in my own little bubble back in Singapore. So thank you, friends and people I've met (and will meet) in my time here. May our paths cross again in the (near) future. :) xoxo

#Life in Bangkok: Every 90 days

Today is the third time I've been to immigration office for visa matters and trust me, it gets worse each time. The first time I went there in January, I waited for 3 hours. The second time in February, 4 hours. Today, 5 hours.

It's those little things in life that really makes you appreciate what you had. I don't recall every spending more than 20 minutes at ICA (Immigration and Checkpoints Authority) for my passport matters, and boy, I thought that was a long wait! I was in for a rude shock when I had to wait for hours to settle a visa matter in Thailand! Never take efficiency for granted...

A quick google search will show you the amount of unhappiness surrounding visa matters. Be it visa extension, re-entry permits or even a simple 90-days reporting can leave you frustrated at the immigration office. Unfortunately all foreigners living in Thailand or staying for a prolonged period of time are required to do the 90-days reporting. Can you imagine the sheer amount of people queuing up at the immigration office to do that?

Each time I'm there waiting, I wonder to myself, what exactly is the draw of this place that makes people so willing to go through this every few months?

With all that said and done, I'm glad I won't be spending a whole afternoon there until 90 days later!

In other news, I've finally seen the army that the news is talking about!

One of the interesting things about moving to Bangkok would be watching Channel News Asia (Singapore's News Channel) report about the protest situation in Bangkok. It's really not as bad as they've portrayed it to be, and if not for my friends and the news, I'm unaware of an ongoing protest most of the time!

To my friends contemplating about a trip to Bangkok, the situation is not as bad as the news would like you to think, but of course, please exercise caution and stay away from the protest sites. Other than that, Bangkok is still an amazing holiday destination and the current exchange rate is definitely in Singapore Dollar's favour! Shop shop shop away! (I found like I'm from Tourism Thailand now...)

#Life in Bangkok: An Introduction

For those of you who somehow stumbled upon this blog and don't know who I am, I've titled this post [#Life in Bangkok] because I am not originally from Thailand. I'm from a tiny island called Singapore, and no that's not a city in China, Malaysia or Europe. Singapore is a beautiful city-state located in South East Asia. I've moved to Bangkok in late November 2013 and am pretty much alone quite a bit because my boyfriend travels a lot for work. Thankfully I've now got a gorgeous Maltese puppy named Bella to keep me accompany.

What an angel when she sleeps

How can you resist a face like this?

Awwww....

I've decided to start a blog (again) because I've quite a lot of spare time on my hands when I'm alone at home. Truth be told, I am alone quite a lot too because I haven't got friends and family in this country. In fact, I haven't got much friends to hang out with in Bangkok because it's quite difficult to make friends here. I don't speak Thai fluently so I find it hard to make friends with Thai people, and to the Westerners here, I look Thai/Japanese/Korean, so they probably get the impression that I don't speak English. When I walk around the city alone, I do hear the occasional lah, lor, leh from Singaporean tourists because a lot of Singaporeans love Bangkok! Singapore is only about 2.5 hours away from Bangkok, so it's one of Singaporean's favourite weekend holiday destination.

However, I've only met one Singaporean so far in my time here who is actually living in this city like me. While the Japanese and Korean community is huge in Bangkok and it's easy for them to stay within their own groups, I'm finding it quite hard to integrate myself into their group when we don't speak a (fluent) common language. So far, I've been told by my Chinese (from China) friends that I speak Mandarin Chinese with a heavy accent. Sigh. I think I'll stick to speaking English then.

I'm thankful for the opportunity to be living in a different country at my age and exploring a new culture and language, but I felt really homesick more than a couple of times in my first few months here. In fact, I still do at times. I miss my family, my friends, the food in Singapore and even the weather! Gosh! You have no idea how much you will miss about your home country until you leave it. Just being able to speak Singlish (an interesting language made up of English, Chinese and Malay language spoken by Singaporeans and frown upon by the Singaporean government) and be understood is a joy I no longer get to enjoy. Even the lack of rain makes me homesick! I've seen a proper thunderstorm only a handful of times since my move and I miss it like crazy. Since Singapore is situated in the tropics, we enjoy a lovely rain shower every other day most months of the year. Sometimes I let it get to me when I see friends posting on Facebook "It's raining in Singapore" and all I see when I look out the window is the scorching Sun. I've been told that the rainy seasons are here and I'll be seeing more rain soon so I'm hopeful!

Despite all the homesickness I've felt, I am trying to make the best of my situation and enjoy Thailand and its glorious cheap and good street food. Om nom nom!

May this new city bring me lots of adventures, happiness and memories.

xoxo