Mostly about me, too boring?

Hi all!

I'm back in Helsinki, Finland... :-O

I was looking at my pictures, and I realized that I shoot very rarely faces, but I also think that when I do so, I get great shots. The first is from San Miguel De Allende in Mexico, the second is from Krabi in Thailand.

Enjoy!

Last week it was Thai New Year.

It lasts from 13th to 15th of April. The party highlight (for "farang" - foreigners in Thai language) is a stroll in Khao Sarn Road in Bangkok where everyone is armed with a plastic water gun and powder to cream everyone's face.

I feel really lucky since I spent Songkran with Thai friends. On Thursday evening we went together to a big club called "Holliwood" where most of the people were Thai. The place is really different from any club I've ever been before. There is a huge catwalk in the middle on the floor and there is live music and a huge amount of girls singing and dancing on the catwalk. The one thing I was most impressed by is how all Thai people were paying respect to unwritten rules. Up till midnight, hardly nobody shot water with their gun and then, after midnight, the wild party started. While the people started shooting at each other, on the catwalk the girls were less and less dressed (please note: most of the audiance in the club were Thai girls). At the end a group of them had just a star on their nipples... I'm not sure about this last batch of girls, but all the other after the show on the catwalk were just joining the crowd and mingle with them.

Anyway, something I really liked was that nobody throw anything (other than water) and for the whole night (despite the heavy usage of alchool) the guns were always loaded just with plain clean water.

I feel great respect for a population that can enjoy a wild party without loosing respect for some basic rules. After unexpectedly shooting a complete stranger, the usual custom was to bow with join hands to salute and thank the shooter... :-)

The first pictures are from Flickr (just search for Songkran or Kao San). The following shows one of the many great performances in the Holliwood. :-)

Hi there!!!

I'm in Bangkok, Thailand!

This is my second week here and I can say I really really like it! There is so much more to see and to do here (I can already imagine the comments...). The touristy weekend was great. I saw the Grand Palace, China town, Wat Po, Wat Arun and I spent one day with two colleagues in the "Ancient City". But also during the week there are so many things to see and do! The night bazaar, Thai massage, Thai boxing...

I wanted to share with you this quite interesting thing I saw last Monday. Most of the people in the street (and also in the office) was wearing a yellow shirt. Thailand is yellow on every Monday to celebrate the king 80th birthday and the 60th anniversary of his access to the throne.

Coming from Europe (and from Italy) it's really striking to imagine that Thai people care so much about their king to dress in a specific way on their own will to celebrate him.

I also had a very interesting conversation at lunch about the traditional Thai culture. Quite interesting (at least from my point of view) to learn that even so far away from the reach of Catolic teaching, in the old Thai culture was very important to have sex only after marriage.

As you say in Italian: "tutto il mondo è paese", literally: "all the world is like a small town": the habits are very similar in every corner of the world! :)

Next week: holiday in south Thailand. I truly deserve them!

Ciao,

alfonso

Hi!

I know, I know, I've been really lazy lately, but these days I've been really busy...

So before I tell you something about my present location, please let me share these pictures with you about my hotel in Munich and tell you something about my week there.

As you can see, the room was on two floors!!! :) It was the first time I see something like this and I really like this kind of setup, so I just decided to show it to you! The hotel was really close to the city centre (Hauptbahnhof).

About Munich: the week there was really great! I met some new colleagues and I also met Riccardo, and old flatmate from my time in Milan as university student. Sooooooooo long ago!!!

7 years ago he moved to Munich and he has been living there since then. It was a real pleasure to see him and get to talk to him. He has a good suggestion for a nice club for every night, so I've been partying quite much there. On Saturday night we went to a small club called Cohiba (if I remember it right) and we met an Italian friend of Riccardo: Pietro. As soon as we started dancing we met two girls and start talking English with them. You guessed it: they were Italian... ;-)
So we started dancing and after the place closed we went on to an all-night-open diner. We said goodbye at 8am. A very funny evening indeed. :-)

Ciao,

alfonso