Swing Sister's Birthday @ Man Mo

Last weekend a whole bunch of us had dinner at Man Mo to celebrate Swing Sister's birthday. Nestled amongst the busy strip of New Quay at Docklands, this Chinese (it's advertised as Malaysian/ Chinese, but I think it's more Chinese) restaurant is packed almost every night of the week. Thankfully I know the owners and the manager of the restaurant and managed to squeeze in a booking for 20 people. It doesnt help either that we are in the midst of the Christmas party period with most restaurants at the Docklands booked out for corporate functions.

The night was warm and balmy, perfect for us to be seated outside. Unfortunately, you still cant smoke at the Docklands even if you sit outside. The food was great. However, I must say that when I was there previously, the food was a lot better. Maybe it was just too busy or maybe they just dont pay attention when preparing mass meals. On my last visit, there were only 6 of us and the food was magnificent, although The Manager prepared us a special banquet for $62 per head. It wasnt bad at all for that price. We had oysters, scallops, lobster dumplings, patagonian tooth fish (a must try), truffle beef (to die for) and a huge dessert platter, which included my favourite creme brulee.

This time around, we ordered the $50 banquet and the food was not as impressive, but nevertheless still tasted great. The Manager had organised the old Sang Choy Bao for entree. What the?? Which Chinese person goes to a Chinese restaurant and orders Sang Choy Bao??? It did taste alright but never something I would order. It's such an Aussie dish! The drinks didnt stop coming for Swing Sister and she didnt stop drinking either, as you do on your birthday. It must be an international tradition for the birthday girl or boy to have atleast 1 Flaming Lamborghini on the night. Swing Sister did a great job too putting the whole thing away, not to mention the countless number of champers and vodka shots. Urrgh!

After dinner was done and dusted, me, Ball Breaker, BBs, VVB and November Cleo hung around with the owners and did what we do best; drink some more! It was awfully nice of them to have the drinks running on free flow all night. I think I drank the entire bottle of Grandfather Port myself! Thinking back now, I kinda feel bad that we made the owners and The Manager hang around with us till 2.30 in the morning and these people had to work the next day!

We tried to get into Allumbra after Man Mo, but no such luck as it was closing at 3am and Ball Breaker was pissed. So home it was and thank God we didnt drive. I dont think anyone was in any condition to operate a motor vehicle. I later found out that Ball Breaker had taken a taxi to her car in the city and drove home from there. Naughty, naughty girl!!!

Launch of Nuffnang Australia

Nuffnang, what an odd name. What is Nuffnang? The long and short of it is, Nuffnang is a wonderful platform where bloggers are chosen to place ads on their blogs and be paid for it. Simple. This ad network platform was the brainwave of 2 young fellas from Malaysia and Singapore. With its inception in 2006, Nuffnang now has over 80,000 bloggers signed up from all over the world including Malaysia, Singapore, Phillipines and Australia.

Nuffnang recently launched its Australian site where Aussie bloggers who sign up will run Aussie ads on their blogs. This in turn is a revenue generating stream for dedicated bloggers. Not bad for a bit of writing hey?

They have their own local team to ensure quality advertisers are placed into your blogs. The good thing about Nuffnang is it promotes itself quite heavily within its own Nuffnang blogger community by running numerous events for bloggers. This has been quite evident in Nuffnang Malaysia where charity and entertainment events are held throughout the year to give their bloggers the opportunity to network and meet other bloggers, not to mention those single people out there who blog, isnt this just another avenue to meet other singles??

Nuffnang Australia is looking for Aussie bloggers to sign up and help build this community. Imagine how many people you could meet just by signing up and placing ads on your blog. Just let your fingers do the walking and talking!

Some very interesting blogs I've come across (ofcourse they are Nuffnang members!) include:

*Snippets of Life by Karen Cheng

*Life Funtastique by Jase

*Autoshediastic Asseverations: Positively Non-sensical by Kelly

I'm sure there are many more out there, I just havent had the time to browse through them all.

The Nuffnang Santa is kindly giving away a Dell Inspiron Mini 9 to a lucky blogger who writes about their network on their blogs. This is my attempt at giving Nuffnang Australia a bit of a plug. Do I need the Dell Inspiron Mini 9? Well, ofcourse I do! I need one just to blog, so I can stop doing it at work!! Bad, bad, bad!

Poker Face

This song so reminds me of Ball Breaker and her sexy moves at Man Mo the other night. It's such a catchy little number that makes me wanna dance whenever I hear it. Heard it on the radio on the way to work this morning and wanted to share it with y'all.

I Almost Became a Ping Pong Girl

Well, not me. Here, I am going to tell you the story of how Samantha Jones (SJ) almost became a Ping Pong girl in Thailand. Last month, SJ, SJS and NNQ embarked on an adventure to Thailand. After spending a week in Koh Samui, the 3 of them headed for seedy Bangkok. On their second night there, they decided to take a walk on the wild side and headed down to Patpong. Oh man, when SJ was telling me this story, I already knew there was going to be trouble for 3 foreign girls walking down Patpong alone. Anyway, as you do, most people only head to the colourful and seedy area of Patpong for one thing. Well, actually you can do some shopping there too, but really, Patpong is famous (or should I say infamous) for its enormous variety of strip bars. And when I say variety, I do mean variety. Not only are there straight strip bars for men, there are also strip bars for women, for straight men, for gay men and almost all these bars have live sex shows.

So, back to my story, the 3 ladies walked along the streets of Patpong with several men touting strip bars and yelling out "You want to see fucking show?". So these 3 freshies to Bangkok decided ofcourse they want to see a "fucking" show. After much negotiation with one lad, that they would pay $100 Baht per beer and the show would be free, they followed him blindly to where they would watch the "fucking" show. "Blindly" is an understatement, they were lead through small alleys and laneways and finally up 6 flights of stairs. At this point, they still didnt question the lad. I guess this was merely an adventure for them? And at this point I was almost screaming at SJ "Is this your first time to Bangkok????" and she sheepishly replied "Yes". Oh man, my heart was pumping and I was very excited to listen to what eventuated next. Deep down I knew nothing of harm had fallen upon SJ or else I wouldnt be sipping a Sauvignon Blanc with her at Cho Gao last night. But just the thought of being all alone in a strange country, following a strange man who claims he's taking you to see a "fucking" show is scary enough.

They get to the top of the stairs and behind the closed doors was a stage and a bar. Nothing unusual looking about the place plus there were a group of foreigners in there. As the group of foreigners were leaving, SJ overheard them arguing with the manager of the bar but I guess didnt really take much notice of it at the time cos they were too busy focusing on the Ping Pong girl and watching to see where she would aim her next ping pong ball. You really wouldnt want one of those ping pong balls to end up on your lap, let alone on your face. Anyway, when they decided to leave, they were presented with a bill for 3800 Baht; 300 Baht for the 3 beers and 3500 Baht for the show. Their eyes nearly popped out of their face. Then fear set in, they looked around and realised they were the only customers in this so called bar. 3 girls, all alone and nobody to protect them. NNQ called for the manager to ask him why they were charged for the show when the lad who had lead them there told them the show was for free. A huge argument broke out and SJ had a flashback of the group of foreigners who had left a while ago. The manager had the door blocked off and the 3 of them had no way of pushing past him to get out.

NNQ: We were told beers were 100 Baht and show is free!

Bar Manager: No, no, no. Beer 100 Baht, show 3500 Baht

NNQ: No. Beers 300 Baht and show is free!

Bar Manager: No! Show no flee. You slip for flee??!!

NNQ: No. We are not paying!

Bar Waitress to SJ: (eyeing SJ up and down) You slip for flee??!!

NNQ proceeded to get 300 Baht out of her wallet and threw it at the bar. She then forced her way pass the bar manager, out the door and down the 6 flights of stair. SJ and SJS were in shock and this whole time were lost for words. All SJ could think of was how they were going to make her a Ping Pong girl in this seedy and dodgy looking strip bar. But as soon as she realised NNQ had pushed her way past the bar manager, her heavy feet lifted and both her and SJS ran after NNQ flying down the stairs. As soon as they got out on the street, they ran for their lives.

So this is the story of how SJ nearly became a Ping Pong girl in Bangkok. She can look back now and laugh about it. Thinking back, can you imagine if these Thais decided to gang rape them or bash them up or do whatever the unimaginable may be??

How dangerous and dodgy is Thailand? But I still love the country except I would never venture into Patpong on my own. My advice, when in Thailand, always call on BKK and let him take you around, atleast he's local and speaks the language, and he will never let you become a Ping Pong girl!

The Camberwell Market Experience

Here in Melbourne, we have this wonderful trash and treasure market in Camberwell where people can hire a stall and sell whatever they like. Sad thing is, Camberwell Market opens every Sunday at 6.30am and closes by 12.30pm. So, stall owners have to get there real early to set up and be out of there by 1pm.

Several months ago, Siew Yum, BBs and I decided this would be a great opportunity to ged rid of the stuff we dont want and make a little cash for it. We were so excited with the prospect of making some money, we couldnt wait to unload our pre-loved items in hope that our thrash would becomes someone else's treasure. On the morning we were to open our stall, BBs and I were too lazy to even get out of bed! We were so close to calling in sick. But, our dear friend Siew Yum was already enthusiastically setting up shop at 7am. So along we went, with our cars full of crap. When we got there, it turned out to be a cold yet sunny day. Earlier in the morning when I was in bed, I was so tempted to stay under the doona because of the pouring rain outside. But all was good, and we were there ready to earn some dinner money.

I carefully laid out all my precious clothes on the ground. We were so unorganised and as a result had to just throw our clothes into heaps on the floor. If we had've been bothered to be there by 6am, we could've gotten some nifty clothes hangers and stands. Anyway, the sight of our messy Forges looking store made many people turn to look, but not many actually stepped in to pick anything up for a real inspection.

BBs was the first to sell an item. She got rid of her wakeboard for a whopping $50, or was it $100. I cant remember exactly, but I do remember she made more than any of us in total! I managed to sell my old Play Station for $30 with atleast 50 games included. What a bargain.

Samantha Jones came to visit us and tried to help by getting customers in. She did a terrible job and ended up taking 2 dresses home instead!! But the day was great fun, although it was cold and business was quiet. I want to go again but this time, I'm going to be prepared and more organised. Now I just have to psych myself up for the 5am start on a Sunday.....

A Time To Give

Christmas is just around the corner and it's this time of the year when people find it in their hearts to give to the less fortunate. I was sent this link to help tranform the lives of homeless Australians. Unfortunately, with the economic situation we are facing today, many are facing homelessness this Christmas. All you have to do is click on this link:

Transform Homelessness

and create a butterfly in your area. For every butterfly created, you will help raise $1 for Mission Australia to transform the lives of the homeless in this country. If you havent made any donations this year, or you simply feel like helping but cant afford it financially, here's your chance to do something good this festive season. I've done my part and created my own purple butterfly wings. I named my butterfly Prosperity. Well, yeah, I couldnt think of a name at the time.....so mine symbolises my wish for Prosperity to touch all.

Ku De Ta

Clear blue skies, tropical warm weather, surrounded by the sun, sea and surf. What more could I ask for? There was no better place to be, over the Melbourne Cup Weekend but Bali. Mind you, at the time, Bali was on red alert travel warnings for Australian tourists. But then again, I'm not Australian.

This was my first ever trip to Bali and it was magnificent. The one place you must visit when in Bali is Ku De Ta. An upmarket restaurant/ bar which sits right on the beach in Seminyak. The atmosphere here is to die for. The hypnotic sounds of huge Bali waves almost sends you away to another time and place. At night, the bar has 2 huge spotlights shining out to sea, so guests can appreciate both sound and sight of the waves. It is a truly magical experience. When I was seated at one of their relaxing lounges by the beach, enjoying the waves, I just couldnt imagine a more beautiful place to relax. Very romantic indeed.

Apart from its beautiful setting and chic decor, Ku De Ta also has delicious cocktails and tapas. Unfortunately, when I was there, Bali was facing a nation wide shortage of alcohol! And I'm not kidding!

This place is highly recommended for the atmosphere, the food and the cocktails. Hell! Even their little boutique retail store has beautiful things! Make sure you dress well and be prepared for a wonderful experience.

Long Time No Write

To all my loyal blog stalkers,

I know I've been stuck on the Curse of the Prawn for like forever and havent given you guys any entertainment whatsoever for the last 5 months. I have so much to write, so much to tell, but no time to share my thoughts with you. Yeah, it's just pure laziness.

Not so long ago, I met this guy, let's call him Grandpa. Grandpa is a 45 year old man, married with 2 kids, a son and a daughter in their late teens. Apart from this seemingly normal family, Grandpa has a girlfriend (mistress, concubine, kept woman, whatever you want to call it) on the side. We shall call her Miss Pure & Innocent (aka Miss PI). She is 25 years old. Some will say the age gap is disgusting, let alone their intimate arrangement. But age should not be a barrier. Yeah, when two parties are single and available that is. This is how his story goes, he's 45 years old, has a happy family (so he thinks), he loves his wife and kids, but Miss PI is able to provide him sexual satisfaction. It all kinda makes sense doesnt it? Self satisfaction with a price. Nothing ever comes cheap these days. Grandpa has been with Miss PI for 9 months. He has warned Miss PI not to ever be caught cheating on him or else, not only will she suffer, the other man will have to pay too. Now, that's a bit harsh. The poor man may not even know Miss PI is with Grandpa. Well, that's just too bad. Grandpa would even go as far as to hire a private investigator to follow Miss PI if he were ever the least bit suspicious. That's nice. Atleast we know Grandpa has money to burn.

In the 9 months they have been together, Grandpa has provided Miss PI with a $300,000 house in her name. He's even thinking of buying her a new BMW cos she only drives a Toyota Corolla. His girlfriend cant be seen driving a Toyota, that would just ruined his reputation as a "boyfriend". Dont worry about his reputation as a cheater, liar or adulterer. Those labels are insignificant.

He told me when he and Miss PI started "fornicating" (those were his words, not mine), she only used to shop at MNG and Zara. Mind you, he said it with disgust. Hang on a sec, I shop at MNG and Zara!!! Miss PI only carried Guess handbags and wore a Guess watch. Grandpa then started buying Miss PI high end branded clothes, LV handbags and a Rolex. Once again, his girlfriend cant possibly be seen wearing Zara or wearing a Guess watch. That is just unheard of. I was told these are the rules of the game. Miss PI knows it and Grandpa knows it. From what I know about Miss PI, she's an innocent 25 year old, still studying, works part time as a model and comes from a middle class family. So what has Grandpa done by stealing her innocence and turning her into a materialistic mistress with a lavish lifestyle? Many women, especially Asian women, believe this is the norm. If they have a pretty face and a tight figure, they can go a long way with dirty old men. Men like Grandpa believe women are put on this planet to serve one purpose, that is to satisfy a man's hunger for pleasure. He is also a believer that money will make the world go round. Therefore, all women should be rewarded with it if they just know how to use their charm to satisfy men.

During our conversation, Grandpa even showed me photos of Miss PI on his mobile. Let me tell you, they weren't innocent photos. I kept asking myself, what would Miss PI think if she knew Grandpa was showing a total stranger semi naked photos of her???

To defend woman kind, I did ask Grandpa, what would he do if his daughter grows up to be in Miss PI's position one day. He had the best reply if I've ever heard one. He says he's been grooming and preparing his little princess for this. She drives a luxury car, he buys her LV handbags and wears Rolex watches. This he told me, prepares her for the hungry wolves in this world. When she is ready to meet men, she will only look for true love, because her daddy has already provided her with all money can buy. Therefore, she wont need to be with a married man for his money. What a well thought out plan. Good luck to him and his little princess.

Some say what goes around will come around. Is this really true? Think about the number of men out there that do this. How many of them have had karma bite them on the ass? In this day and age, it is sad to say men like this still exist in huge numbers all over the world. Even sadder is the fact that women who succumb to this also exist in large numbers if not more. I believe it's more common in rich Chinese men. I could be wrong. So are these men to blame for giving women a bad name or are women who behave this way to blame for creating men like this? You tell me.

Passion Pop @ Victoria Gardens

It was so nice to have BKK back in Melbourne. After only seeing him back in March, Ball Breaker and I actually missed his little "fuck shit" stories. We had planned to take him out to dinner on several occasions, but BKK is such a Mr Popular and never seemed to have time for us. This is what happens when you have too many friends! We finally agreed to go out to dinner on his last night in town. BKK borrowed his friend's car and came to meet Ball Breaker and myself for a coffee at Victoria Gardens. After 20 minutes, we decided to leave to go get dinner. When we got to the car, the driver side window was smashed! Can you believe that? And the car was parked right at the entrance to Victoria Gardens. After looking around, we realised that BKK left his GPS on the dock making it visible to the whole world. Idiot!

We hung around for like 3 hours waiting for Windscreen O'Brien to show up. Ball Breaker and I stood around with BKK just waiting for what seemed like forever, when we had a light bulb moment. Earlier on, we had gone into Safeway and bought 2 bottles of Passion Pop, so we decided we would crack it open right there in the car park while waiting for the window man to show up (For those of you who dont know what Passion Pop is, it is the yummiest and cheapest pasion fruit flavoured bubbly in the bottle shop). Ball Breaker even walked across the road back home to get a deck of cards. So we were playing cards and getting smashed in the car park.

These things only happen to BKK. His poor friend who owned the car, came by in a cab to look at the damage. $500 later we were all on the way to drop BKK off to the airport, no dinner and very tipsy.

Curse Of The Prawn

Last night like any other ordinary night, a bunch of good friends planned a night out in Chinatown for dinner. Although there was some debate where we would go for dinner, in the end we decided to go to Ling Nam because The Nurse wanted to go there. The initial plan was to go to Dainty's for chilli chicken and chilli prawns, but someone came up with the brilliant idea of combining the two by getting take away from Dainty's and bringing it to Ling Nam. It does help if you know the owner.

As Siew Yum and I were returning to the restaurant after a smoke, we had to walk past the fish tanks and we were admiring the many live prawns daintily swimming not knowing their life would come to an end, probably that night. All of a sudden one prawn decides to end its life prematurely by jumping out of the tank! How funny that was, so much so that Siew Yum and I decide we would play a joke on Ball Breaker by placing it in her hand. The joke back fired cos being the Ball Breaker, a mere prawn didnt scare her one bit. Instead it started a whole revolution on cruelty to animals. Swing Sister and Princess Model were very concerned over the prawn's well being. They didnt appreciate how we were playing with a live animal and torturing it to death. Firstly, these animals were bred to be eaten, okay admittedly not bred to be played with. At the end of the day, or end of last night rather, the prawn would die a painful death in someone's hotpot anyway. Ball Breaker and Swing Sister had a very heated discussion over this and Princess Model was almost in tears. I was almost in tears too, from laughter. The whole scene was hilarious. Unfortunately Princess Model didnt fnd this amusing at all. Ball Breaker and her were screaming at each other over the pitiful prawn, who was by now catching its last breaths before retiring to prawn heaven. Poor Ah Sook had to witness our crazy performance, which nobody in this world would possibly understand. The funny thing was Siew Yum couldnt believe the fiasco she created and yet ended quite abruptly with Ball Breaker and Princess Model behaving like it never happened at all. That's the beauty of true friends. We should all be able to argue, fight and love each other all at the same time.

Discovered this morning that both Siew Yum and Ball Breaker felt sick last night with uncontrollable trips to the toilets. And so the curse of the prawn will live with us for many weeks to come. Maybe next time Siew Yum and I should have dinner ourselves! Less drama.

Shoya has Karaoke?

Ok, sad but true, I'm blogging at 3am in the morning. I dont have the luxury of doing this in the office anymore. Work just isnt a bed of roses like it used to be and I miss writing about a day in everybody else's life!

My good friend Big Boy is in town back from New York for Big T's wedding and I thought I'd catch up with him tonight. I didnt expect him to be at Big T's hen's night but he was. Well, there's history there I guess. Big Boy and Big T used to be a couple. This is going back many, many years ago. Big Boy has since moved to New York, gotten himself married and along the way still kept in touch with Big T. Now it's her turn to tie the knot. So, I guess Big Boy had to be part of the bridal party. He does look like a chook in some abnormal sort of way.

The hen's night was at karaoke in Shoya. Did anyone even know there was a karaoke section to this exclusive restaurant?? I certainly didnt. Ok, so the website actually says there's a karaoke bar upstairs. It's on the top floor of the restaurant and from downstairs, you would never guess it was up there. This place is pretty cool. Much the same as any karaoke bar with private rooms. You get to select the songs you want, when you want, via your own remote control. This place is definitely comparable to Chi Lounge in terms of cleanliness and how modern the room set up is. At Shoya karaoke, it's typical Japanese. You have to remove your shoes before going in to the private rooms. The place has a secret entrance (well it's no secret really - the door is next door to Shoya), but there is no signage anywhere to indicate that this place even exists. Maybe it's just me, perhaps everyone knows about it but me!

Well, I enjoyed myself and the selection of songs were not too bad either. Definitely a place to go again. After Shoya, I headed down to CK bar (it's actually called Shanghai 1930, but for some reason we still call it CK bar) with Louey and The Plumber. It was very packed and I only lasted in there for about 20 minutes, enough just to down 1 chivas/ green tea. Saturday nights are not a good night to go there. Too packed, too smoky and full of old men! The only other women there were the ones who work the tables and a table full of TB lesbians! I think I'll stick to drinking there during the week.

I hope to meet up with Big Boy again tomorrow to catch up on all the latest goss in New York and err.....it's definitely time to go to bed for me. Good night :)

Barcelona Architecture

Yeah, I went to Spain like 7 months ago but just never got around to writing about all of it. So far I've only covered Seville. Give me some time, I'm sure I'll get to all of it eventually.

Barcelona is the home to many Gaudi creations. His buildings are magnificent and unique in design. They are so unique that you wouldnt need a tourist map to be able to distinguished a Gaudi building from any other on the street. His gothic and individualistic architectural style is almost surreal in design. Looking at his buidings in print is nothing compared to actually being there in person.

His most famous building is the La Sagrada Familia which is still under construction after like 60 years! The icons, carvings and statues are simply created to perfection. A must see in Barcelona.

Another one of my favourites is Casa Mila. The rooftop terrace was like a playground from another planet. So unique and individual in style and design.

The Casa Batllo was one building we walked past and ony got to see from the outside. It was an interesting looking building. The little windows/ balconies were so unique and toy like.

We tried to visit all of Gaudi's creations, but unfortunately didnt have enough time in between all the shopping, eating and partying. Spain is definitely one of my favourite places to visit.

Christmas at The Full Moon Party

The Full Moon Party on Koh Pangan should be on your list of things to do before you turn 35! I spent a full week in Thailand with my lovable lesbian-ites and what a blast it was. Oh, and it hasnt bent me in any way which is rather disappointing! Hah! Our journey started from KL to Koh Samui. BBs was supposed to be on our flight out from KL but the silly girl had complications with her passport and had to fly out from Singapore. Babes, next time check your passport expiry date before booking your trip overseas. We did all our reservations via the Internet. Air tickets were done through Berjaya Air and accomodation was done through sawadee.com. We stayed at a budget luxury boutique hotel called First Residence. It was situated at the North of Chaweng Beach, away from the noisy night life in the central part of Chaweng, which was a relief. The hotel was brand new and I highly recommend it to those on a budget. It was clean, modern and has a pool. Only thing is it was a 5 minute walk to the beach. I've always been used to staying on Chaweng beach itself where the beach is outside my room. But this hotel was good value for money and I didnt mind the little bit of walking I had to do.

Koh Samui was nothing but a whole week of eating, drinking, getting massages, sun baking and partying. One of the best times I've had on holidays. November Cleo truly lived up to her reputation of being a party animal. She wanted to party every night till 6am in the morning! But I'm happy she made us do it, cos we'll probably regret it now. Despite the late nights (or should I say early mornings), we still managed to get our asses out of bed relatively early and made sure we didnt waste the sun filled days. Most days were spent on the beach at Samui. We did do a diving/ snorkeling trip to Koh Tao and Koh Nangyuan, which were both magnificent. Clear waters, bright sunshine and more importantly a bar on the beach. We were so silly, we took photos imitating Singha beer commercials. November Cleo gets the Oscar performance for her photo! Siew Yum did her thing in Koh Tao and Koh Nangyuan. She went diving out in the open waters. She didnt think it was that great though.

Our all time favourite hangout in Samui was none other than the Green Mango and its surrounding bars. We were at Green Mango every freakin' night! Siew Yum's highlight at Green Mango was the traumatic experience she had to endure in the ladies toilets. There was one night we were at the club and she needed to use the toilet. Nothing unusual there until some Thai hooker decided to join her in the same cubicle, then proceeded to do her business on the floor! Yes, the floor of the cubicle. I guess Siew Yum shouldnt really be too affected by the sight of another woman's genitals right??

Our nightly ritual after Green Mango was always followed with a bowl of noodles outside the club. This stall served by far the best tasting pork noodles on the island. We just couldnt get enough of it. I feel like a bowl now :-P

We got to meet a whole lot of fellow tourists, some of which were from Melbourne. What a small world. Met a group of guys from KL, one of which is a star in a local reality tv show called Cornetto Love Perhaps?. How interesting. We also met a group of Muay Thai fighters & trainers from the reality tv show Contender Asia - Muay Thai. That was our 2 second brush with fame.

Koh Pangan was definitely the highlight of the trip. It was funny when we got on the boat to Pangan. Can you believe the boat doesnt dock at the pier? And the pier was right next to the boat! Instead we had to walk out to the boat in the water! That was rather interesting. The full moon party was awesome. It was a coincidence that the full moon party in December fell on Christmas Eve. So we had a blast of a time celebrating Christmas at a full blown rave party on the beach. It is impossible to describe the party in words. The whole stretch of the beach was filled with different clubs and bars, all pumping out different genres of music. The beach was also packed with ravers from all over the world. Bars were serving drinks by the bucket. I kid you not, drinks were served by the bucket. We met up with a friend of mine from KL at Pangan and had a great time partying with him. It was a shame we didnt stay on the island over night and had to take a speedboat back to Samui cos we were all quite reserved with our drinking incase we got sick on the boat. I've been to Samui half a dozen times and this full moon party was a first for me and man was it good fun!

Back on Samui, we spent a day on a elephant trekking tour, watching a monkey show and riding ATVs (I sucked at it big time). We also went to a live Muay Thai show at the local Muay Thai stadium. It was amazing how the stadium was decked out with a bar that served food and alcohol. Can you believe we could also smoke in there while the kick boxers were fighting in the ring? Only in Thailand. There was one night we went to a night market and found a stall selling deep fried grass hoppers and other weird grubs. We bought a serve of each and took it back to our hotel for a tasting session, washed down with beer ofcourse. It was an experience alright. Cant say I would go all out for a dish of grubs anytime soon, but what surprised me was there wasnt much taste to any of it. They all tasted the same, like deep fried chips. But the thought of it is enough to make me go quesy all over.

To end our amazing trip, BBs and I took the plunge and went to get a tattoo together. It was honestly a lot less painful than I expected. Cant wait to get another one!