Savadikap..... (part 1)

Freaking facebook is pissing me off ... can't even upload pictures after trying zillion of times. Anyway people , after a couple of days absent ... let's start with ...

"SAVADIKAP!!!!!"

Yes, that was a greeting i learnt from Bangkok Thailand .... hahaha i was away for the Thailand Jazz Conference 2009 in Mahidol University , a little north of Bangkok .. pretty far away from the city. And i tell you , it was AN AWESOME trip! My one and only holidays i was looking forward to since November and i am soooooo blessed and glad i took A LOT OF courage to want to go. The year 2009 opened with such an adventurous yet fun trip , how can i say it's going to be a bad year ahead? God is good and HE is forever GOOD ! So anyway ..back to bangkok..

Thurs morning around 8 30am , poh yee fetched me to KL Central and i took the ERL train to KLIA .. thank goodness i managed to get cheap airfare for MAS airlines and this time for a first timer i'm glad i didnt have to get stuck and stranded in LCCT ... so i spent pretty few hours practically doing nothing but hanging out in KLIA by myself for like 2 hours .. because my flight was delayed an hour (EIISHHHH MAS ALSO DELAYED!) , so i boarded the plane around 1 15pm... and we took off around 1 32pm ... Ate burger king before that , and so i only ate a very late lunch just before reaching Thai aiport ...

By the time i reached the Suvarnabhumi airport in Bangkok it was almost 3pm Thailand time... i touched down and went through the customs and immigration , to my surprise ... Bangkok's international airport was MUCH MUCH MUCH more nicer than stupid Jakarta's international airport ... and in fact after reaching the airport i felt a little sense of peace .. thinking ,

"Hey it's not such a bad place like they reported on tv!"

After collecting my baggage i saw the AIRPORT TAXI sign and asked the counter how much does it cost to go to Mahidol Uni, they said 1500 baht. Doesn't sound right .. so walked out of the airport and just right at the entrance there was a public taxi stand .. and so people were cue-ing up for taxi and so i did the same , the systems there are organized.. so withouht waiting i got myself a cab and the driver actually spoke to me in Thai .. and so i had to speak in English and he realized i wasn't local. Got onto the cab, the uncle was very nice and cheerful... throughout the whole freaking FAR FAR AWAY journey all we did were exchange some words and giggling and smiling until i reach Mahidol Uni. Our famous words were ,

"Very far .. very far! Salaya is very far!!"

Hahhahah .. i cheated him saying i was the university student so to make sure i arrive at the place safely. This time i had so much faith that i didn't even write down the university address but i sort of remember the place's name... anyway almost an hour later i reached the university entrance and i told him to drive ahead in .... then i spotted this signboard not far from the guard house ... it says ,

"ASEAN HOUSE"

I quickly screamed 'STOP here!' and found my dorm .... Got down from the cab, paid him 600 baht... as how much cher told me .. so i reached , and found NO ONE around ... made some phone calls to cher and his friend who lectures in the university and helped us book our rooms. Suddenly this lady walked out and saw me asking me to follow her saying she was waiting for our arrival. So i checked the name list and saw everyone's familiar names except mine! Made some more calls , waited a little longer ... cher's friend chee meng came by and finally confirmed the room was mine.

There, my first friend i made ... cher's 1st heng dai. Hahahah.... then shortly after i checked into my room and just before i close my room door i saw the arrival of 2 more familiar faces .... and there were eddie and martin from a taxi. Apparently they just arrive too... gee what coincidence. Then I locked myself in the room and changed and wanted to take a nap .. but after a few minutes chee meng knocked my room door and asked if i wanted to follow them out to town and look for Cher later in the night. I thought for a second and agreed. ALTHOUGH I NEVER KNOW THEM!

After changing back to my jeans , i came out and we waited a little while then the other 2 guys came out from upstairs .. and we intro each other .. then ridiculously martin couldn't remember me at all ... so eddie had to tell me how horrible his friend was for not remembering me since we jammed together before in cher's house. DARN HIM. Anyway after a short walk around the uni and us being in awe of the beauty of mahidol , took some pictures then left the uni for some food. After eating , we took a cab to town centre and went back to chee meng's house. After a short pit stop , we took the monorail around few stations and stopped in a street where there was a night market we could shop for stuffs.

That shoppnig trip was random ... suddenly i went from not knowing these guys to following them around to eating with them to chatting with them to shopping with them and worse of all choosing things for their wives! What the..... they trusted my taste anyway and bought what i chose. HAhahahah ... After the shopping trip , we passed by some massage shops and the guys wanted a massage since we had nothing to do while waiting for cher to come meet us... so chee meng and i did foot massage while the other 2 did oil massage upstairs. After the massage we met another japanese lady (eddie's friend who stays in Thailand) and we went for another round of food because i complained of being hungry.

We ate a lot for supper .. and i noticed the food in thailand ... it's really delicious , but the setback is EVERYTHING TENDS TO BE SWEET ! extremely sweet! From their drinks to some dishes.. are really sweet... and we wonder why their people are not fat and they don't get diabetes. Anyway during our supper , mr Koh saxman who was hanging out with cher the whole day dropped cher to meet up with us and we left to go back to the uni in a taxi around midnight. I was already very very exhausted by then .... and needed a shower desperately... so went back to my room and had a nice shower and slept!

Day 2 ... woke up , showered. Cher came to knock on my door and we all went out for breakfast in the university cafeteria in the College of Music area.... the whole place is so freaking nice!!!! In conclusion , it's like klpac but much much bigger and much much nicer interior design. With more natural environment ... look at the pics later you'll understand. So after breakfast we headed into the auditorium for our first workshop. Tiger Okoshi's "Importance of Subdivision" workshop. It was really a good one. Just after it started grace arrived and i went to pick her up from the dorm and brought her into the auditorium and that was when all of us were learning how to beatbox and really do some boxing according to the rhythms he drew for us. Imagine... how cool is that. Then i also realized that whatever he taught us was just a confirmation of what cher explained to me before in class. EXACTLY what he meant , and he was glad it just confirms what he taught me.

After Tiger's workshop we headed out to the side stage which is an open air area in the middle of the campus with a slightly high platform ... the band that performed was OMAH , a local band comprising of really great great musicians ... their jazz ... is so modern , yet it's so high standard. The drummer was drumming like those american jazz drummers in those olden days. And hte pianist' impro lines .... were really really well thought and good that even cher started getting goosebumps thinking of him. The double bassist ... crazy... played so effortlessly. After that band the next one was boring and we went off instead...

After lunch , we came back to the auditorium to watch the Jazz piano competition for the junior category .. and after the 4th participant grace and i couldn't bear it anymore .. left and went back to the room and rest. After that we came out for dinner , by then we split up with the guys and we came back to the main stage ... missing the first performance by the university big band orchestra and it was pretty regretful that we missed it ... coz the guys said they were awesome and cher even mentioned they were already up to the USA state colleges and university standards! (Excluding Berklee)

After a whole night of performances ... grace and i left to go back to our room and sleep. That was day 1. Nothing much , a little boring though .. and i was starting to hope it's going to have to get better for the next few days otherwise i'm going to start anticipating to go home. Thankfully it only got better . HEhehehe ...