Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Bangkok, Part 3

One of the big reasons I have no interest in visiting any Southeast Asian countries is the weather. The equatorial location means it’s going to be hot and humid no matter what time of the year you go. For a life-long San Franciscan such as myself, accustomed to our wonderful natural air-conditioning and constant high 50s (Fahrenheit), traveling to hot weather is tough. Cold, we can do. We are used to bundling up tightly for the majority of our nights, year round.

But, when your good friend is getting married in Bangkok, you must go. I was born in Guangzhou, so high temps and intense humidity is not foreign to my upbringing. Perhaps some of that latent acclimation from my early childhood years can come in handy. Also, I’ve done Japan in the summer as well, and it can get equally hot and sweaty there during the post-solstice months. What am I saying is, as much as I would rather not be in constant high 90s weather, I consider myself well trained for it.

Lucky for me, the humidity during my brief five day stay in Bangkok was not all that bad. I’ve been informed that it can and does get worst. There weren’t any rain, either, which is always a plus because in these parts of the world, when it rains, it really rains. You go from completely dry to needing a boat to get around in matter of minutes.

But, high 90s is still high 90s. There’s no escaping the fact that when you’re outside, you will be constantly sweating. I think that is the thing to get used to: perspiration. We really don’t sweat much here in San Francisco, so we think of it as yucky and dirty. Over in Thailand (and, you know, normal places where there’s an actual summer season), you start sweating the moment you leave the air-conditioned confines of the hotel, and don’t stop until you return.

The key to combating the weather is to stay hydrated. Whenever I was outside, a bottle of something was always in hand, sipping every so often. Bangkok - like most other major Asia metropolises - makes this easy: there’s 7-Eleven convenient stores everywhere. Unlike the 7-Eleven here in the States, the stuff inside is actually good, and there’s zero risk of getting shot or mugged. Convenient store culture in Asia is something I deeply miss when I come back to America.

Bangkok, part 2

If you think your late evening flight into Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) is going to be lonely experience, fret not. Apparently, plenty of flights get into Bangkok rather late. I thought my 11:35 PM arrival time would mean a very quiet immigration and baggage process, but no! Even past midnight, BKK was bustling with the sort of activity you see during midday at a domestic airport in the States. Our flight’s baggage carousel was right next to a flight from Hong Kong. Hello, my people!

Because BKK is still so busy into the morning hours, getting a taxi to your hotel in Bangkok is no trouble. The taxi queue outside of arrivals levels was healthy. Passengers punch in their information at the kiosk. It then spits out a ticket, with which you show to the next available taxi driver. I’ve read a lot of stories of taxi (and tuk-tuk) drivers ripping foreigners off in Thailand, but apparently the airport queue is highly regulated. Drivers are incentivized to treat airport customers fairly, lest they get banned from this lucrative route.

The government can’t risk harming the country’s reputation right off the jump!

I did not take a regular taxi to get to my hotel. Thanks to pre-supplied information, I downloaded the Grab app before leaving America. Grab is essentially the Uber of Thailand (and a few other Southeast Asian countries), and super convenient. It accepts foreign credit cards, so you wouldn’t even need to get cash right away at the airport. At BKK there’s a dedicated Grab pickup zone on the same level as the taxis. At 1:00 AM in the morning, it was lit (to borrow a parlance from the kids). It was so surprisingly busy that there was surge pricing, and my driver actually directed me to a different pickup point.

It ended up costing about 700 Baht to go from the airpot to the Phaya Thai district - where my hotel is. Had it been during “normal” hours, I would have taken the airport rail link. It would have cost only 45 Baht to get to the same Phaya Thai district.

Bangkok, part 1

Pro tip: if you’re flying to Thailand from the San Francisco Bay Area, try not to do it all at once. Because there are zero direct flights to Bangkok from SFO, so a layover is involved. No matter your chosen layover point - be it Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, or Hong Kong - you’re spending a cumulative 18 hours in the air before you touch the ground at Suvarnabhumi Airport. Arduous would be the apt word to describe that journey, especially if you’re a poor boy like me and can’t comfortably afford beyond an economy class ticket.

The smarter way to get to Thailand is stay at least a few days at the layover point. This avoids spending an entire day on the road and in the air. I should have traveled around Seoul - my layover en route to Thailand - for a week before then moving on to Bangkok. Given my propensity for the Korean language and affinity with Korean cuisine, it’s baffling as I type this that I didn’t spend any time at all in Korea. What a waste!

I think I was too focused on getting to Bangkok as quickly as possible. If not for my good friend getting married in Thailand, I had no plans to travel this summer (not in this economy). Honestly, I wouldn’t have otherwise visited Thailand at all. Southeast Asia - outside of Singapore - doesn’t hold any allure for me. Unlike some avid travelers, checking-off destinations for the sake of accumulation is not what I am about. I may never step foot on continental Europe, and that’s okay.

Therefore my thinking was to get in and out of Thailand as quickly and as cheaply as possible. I stayed five full days in Bangkok, just long enough to attend the marital festivities, and getting rested to endure yet another travel day back home.

Please don’t emulate me - enjoy Thailand fully! It takes at least that five days to acclimatize to the muggy hot weather. Be sure to take advantage of your layover destination and do some sightseeing there as well. 18 hours in the air in succession - plus all the waiting at the airports - will drain the life out of you.

O package, where art thou?

There is indeed a first time for everything.

Like most of you, I’ve been shopping with Amazon for the longest time. I’m old enough to remember when Amazon did not charge sales tax in California. Anyways, throughout this long relationship, the couriers contracted by Amazon have not once lost a package of mine. (Or stolen before I got to it, I guess.) Sadly, that streak ended this past Monday.

I got the standard notification email saying the package was delivered. However, it was nowhere to be found - and I was out the front door almost immediately. I live in a nice neighborhood, so package thievery doesn’t really occur (knock on wood). Couriers typically take a picture to confirm the delivery, but for this instance there was no picture! The only explanation is… well, bottom line is the package is missing.

In such situations, Amazon asks customers to check with neighbors to see if the package got delivered to them by mistake. Hope you’re on friendly terms with your next doors! If that returns unfruitful, the customer is then to wait 48 hours. Because apparently. couriers sometimes will mark a package as delivered, but will actually make the delivery on a different day (USPS has knack for this, according to Reddit). Only after 48 hours should the customer contact Amazon support.

If the courier is third-party (UPS, Fed-ex, DHL, etc), customers can and should contact them about the missing package that was marked delivered. In my case, the courier was Amazon (affiliate, probably), so nothing to do but wait the two days.

To Amazon’s credit, I was able to get a refund after a quick word with support chat. I was surprised at how easy it was, given it was about $160 worth of stuff. The fact that I’ve not once before this contested a missing package probably helped to grease things. I’m obviously not trying to scam Amazon here.

No Porsche for broke boys

Porsche announced today mid-cycle updates to the 992-generation 911 (992.1). My first reaction was: Jesus Christ, a base poverty-spec Carerra starts at $120,000 now?! That is not a lot of car for a crap ton of money. And that price is before you check any of the hundred of boxes on the options list. You want your 992.2 911 in traditional Guards Red color? That’s will cost $1,800 extra, whereas it was an no cost option in the 992.1. Kind of blasphemous.

Porsche seems to be evolving into a Ferrari-like way of doing business: charging extravagantly for its cars - because it can. The demand for its sports cars remains insatiable, so why not raise pricing across its lineup? Heck, the special edition 911s - the ones enthusiasts ejaculate over - are all at Ferrari level pricing anyways, after the dealership tacks on $150,000 of additional markup.

Can’t hate the player, nor can I hate the game. Dealerships charge markups because someone out there is willing to pay. Us broke boys can’t be mad that we don’t got (or unwilling to spend) the money.

New Porsche sports cars are for the wealthy car enthusiasts now. No car guy making middle-class income should be throwing down $120,000 (at least) for a new 911 (or any six-figure car). That’s not a value judgement, it’s just math. I know auto financing can stretch into seven or eight years these days, but one look at an amortization table should scare anyone off. A $120,000 car, putting a 10% downpayment, for an 84 months loan at 5.99% will equate to over $27,000 of interest alone.

You can buy a brand-new Toyota Corolla with that money.

Shogun

My one goal for this three-day Memorial Day weekend is to binge watch the entire 10-episode run of Shogun (streaming on Disney Plus). Long ago have I read James Clavell’s acclaimed novel of the same name. It was therefore super exciting to see it visualized in a new medium.

Verdict: Shogun is magnificently done. The cinematography is amazing, and the acting is superb (Hiroyuki Sanada and Anna Sawai should win lots of awards for their performance. Moeka Hoshi is a bonafide scene-stealer). Fans of the book - I would include myself - can be wholly satisfied with the show-runners’ interpretation of the base material. It’s largely faithful to the book. The subtle changes made contribute to better storytelling for television.

The depiction of Lady Mariko leading Toranaga’s retinue out of Osaka Castle, Mariko fighting through the samurai blockade, is wonderfully breathtaking.

The feudal period of Japan is my absolute favorite historical period - of any country. Before I read Shogun the book, what got me into this slice of history is the book Taiko, by Eiji Yoshikawa. Taiko narrates the story of Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s rise from lowly peasant to the Taiko - ruler of Japan - during the Sengoku period. That book is where I first learned of these giants of Japanese history: Oda Nobunaga - the unifier of feudal Japan, and Tokugawa Ieyasu - founder of the great Tokugawa Shogunate.

Shogun is actually a fictionalized version of Tokugawa’s maneuvers to claim the supreme title, during the period after the Taiko’s death.

I immediately wanted to play Ghost of Tsushima again after finishing the show.

Compounding small gains

What they don’t tell you about keeping a consistent weight training schedule is that you never feel 100%. Most of the time, at least one body part is slightly sore. And just when that soreness subsidies, it’s time to train that body part again! The only time you feel completely fine is when the training pauses for things like vacation. But then you don’t mentally feel good about pausing, afraid those hard-earned gains will all melt away in a few days of inactivity.

That’s obviously not how it works, but I did say it was psychological.

The gains are indeed hard-earned because contrary to expectations, it takes a bloody long time to put on muscle mass cleanly. (One can always stuff themself with as much calories as possible, but then they’d be putting on fat as well as muscle.) Those dramatic one year transformations you see on social media? (Or Kumail Nanjiani.) It’s totally steroids. Adding 30 pounds of muscle in 12 months - whilst keeping body leanness - is impossible without artificial medical assistance.

I’ve been lifting weights consistently for about six months (progressive overloading, and eating a crap ton of protein along the way) and only now do I see some tiny hypertrophy of the muscles. I’d be happy if I gain three pounds of muscle total by the end of 2024.

Of course, the aesthetic improvements are mere positive side effects to the main goal of strength training: longevity. I want to be agile, limber, capable for as long as possible, right into the golden years. The aesthetics will fade sooner or later anyways. The strength and muscles cultivated now will (hopefully) prevent me from taking a fall at 70, breaking a hip, and dying shortly after. (The mortality rate on the elderly after taking a fall is enormous.)

There are no shortcuts (unless it’s Ozempic). Anything worth doing takes a long time.