Back in Sweden

I've been back in Sweden for more than three weeks now and I had a lot of fun. Met many old friends and told them stories I brought back from Bangkok. They also told me what's new here but everything is pretty much the same. Not surprisedJ

Just want to finish off with some words about my trip to Thailand. I had a great time, met so many caring and lovely persons, did things I could never do in Sweden, got to know a fantastic culture and I am so happy that I went to study one semester there. I will for sure go back to friends and more adventureJ!!

Arrivederci

Pilip

Last Week in Bangkok

My last week in Bangkok and Thailand has come upon me. Im having mixed feelings about going home but it is time to go at least for this timeJ

This last week I have been working in the Marketing office, where I have seen how they work with things from pricing to different kinds of promotions. I have been helping with as much as I can but I mostly learnt a lot from watching the people working in the office.

On the schedule for the last couple of days is football, some dinners and finishing off with a farewell party night. Its going to be a lot of fun but I will for sure miss Thailand. This is the next last blog I will write, the last one will be when I landed safely in Sweden. Hope you had use of some of my tips in Bangkok and the beautiful country of Thailand. See you!

Pilip

Planning midsummer in Bangkok

In the Food and Beverage department I got the chance to plan the Swedish midsummer event taking place at our hotel. This was perfect for everyone since I know everything about midsummer and could help people get less work on their shoulders. Together with another Swedish associate we planned everything from scratch, from food to location and settings. We found herring, kaviar and snaps via a Scandinavian restaurant which were very helpful. I also got our engineering department to create a midsummer pole which was highly appreciated during the event. We had Swedish flags, yellow and blue balloons and an overall really nice environment.

In total we had 86 guests and so far all of them have been happy. They loved the food, the setting and the kids had fun dancing around the pole even though it was quite hot outside.

And for me this was a really good experience too. To be able to plan the entire event and see how everything works at the hotel and in Thailand. My time is running out in Thailand now, I have only 11 days left of this amazing experience. The last part of my job will be to help with breakfast in the morning taking care of guests and after that hopefully helping with internal training as much as I can. Will write about it soonJ

Pilip      

End of the season party and more experience from working

This weekend we had an end of the season party with the footballteam. We started off playing some bowling and I think I did my worst performance ever but it was still a lot of fun. After that we chilled out by the pool and enjoyed the sun for a while it was so nice. Continued the day by having a really good Swedish buffe with herring, salmon and knäckebröd. And then finishing off with getting our prize for ending in second place in the league. It was a good day with a lot of laughs.

Everything is good at work I am learning a lot of new stuff. After a couple of weeks in the front office I have been helping in the reservations office and the last week in the accounting department and more specific cost control. I am learning a lot and I really like the experience I get from working here in Thailand. The next week I am going to be in the Food and Beverage department and that will be completely new stuff for me so lets hope they are nice to me. I will tell you all about what I will do there soon.

Pilip  

Peasoup evening

Tonight I have done something I never thought I would do in Thailand. I went to a Swedish peasoup evening where we had a tryout tasting for Swedish peasoup and pancakes for upcoming bigger events for Swedes in Bangkok and Thailand. It was a really nice evening with around 20 Swedish guys eating, chatting and trying the homemade punsch together with the food. It was for me a real success, I loved the soup and everything else.

To finish of the evening we went to the rooftop bar Nest and listened to good live music and just relaxed with a beer. It was still an early night because I had to work the day after.

About the work, everything is going really well. I'm learning a lot about the hotel business and when I try to see things from the perspective of my studies I really feel like the education International Business Engineering is applicable in a lot of different departments and that feels really good.

Pilip

Internship in Bangkok

Last week I finished my studies in AIT university with the final exam in thai political economy which was a really hard exam. But I already got the results back and it turned out fine. I passed the course and it was pretty good grade also, so I am happyJ

Directly after school I decided that I want to have some working experience from Bangkok also so meanwhile Ive been studying I been looking for internships. I met a really good guy which was the manager of Rembrandt hotel in Bangkok. We managed to work a good thing out so that I can learn as much as I want in the hotel business and meanwhile they get some extra staff and also some new eyes watching their everyday work and who knows maybe I can provide some good ideas for changes in this business. I am going to do this for two months and then Im going back to Sweden for some summer partyingJ

My first week I have been standing in the reception, so that I learn about how hotel works with all booking systems, guest registrations and hospitality. So now I just started my second week in the reception and I really like it. Being able to help guests with different questions and meet a lot of different people. I will probably go to other departments next week but that will be decided later. I really fell that the Internationell Business Engineering program that I am in has contained some really good courses to go into business and find things to make more efficient.

I will soon get back with more details in what I will do for the next couple of weeksJ

Pilip

Easter and Viking Cup

Easter has come upon us and it is time for me to participate in my first Viking Cup in football. The tournament started off with a big buffé dinner at a five star hotel in Bangkok. Almost 300 players from different cities in Asia had come to join this Cup. Most of them Danish as all Viking teams initially has been Danish. The teams in the tournament were, Jakarta, Singapore, Hongkong 1&2, Bangkok 1&2, Shanghai, Beijing, Shingjing and Kuala Lumpur. After this first night of getting to know each other it was time for the first day of playing.

I was playing for Bangkok 1 and in our group we had last year champions Kuala Lumpur, Hongkong 1, Jakarta and Shanghai. After four really tough games we ended up with three wins and one draw against KL. But we were ready for the semifinal the next day versus Singapore from the other group.

After a bad effort by myself the semifinal ended up in a penalty shootout, where we missed three and they were more focused and scored three. We were outL

The tournament ended sadly in a crazy rain on Saturday. The final between Bangkok 2 and Singapore could not be played because of too much water on the field and they decided to have two winners. A decision I will never understand but that’s how it is. We finished the tournament together all 300 in a really crazy partyJ Danish know how to drink that’s for sure!

Now we have the last week in school with a lot of studies and ending with my birthday so I will tell you about this week as soon as I can!

Pilip   

Chiang Mai

After a few hours in a night bus up to Chiang Mai we finally arrived. 0600 was the time and the hotel couldn’t check us in at that time. We decided to go for a walk in the city and found a really nice café where we could sit down and relax. The city was not big at all, you could actually walk to all places around even though we usually took a tuk-tuk because it was warmJ we went to Chiang Mai for one thing, to celebrate Songkran (Thai new year). We heard a lot about it that you are supposed to throw water at each other for good luck. So after we checked in at the hotel me and Daniel went down to the centre and checked this out.

It was crazyJ!! Everyone threw water at each other and never been in a water fight like that. Incredible… We were fighting for a couple of hours and everyone loved itJ First night finished off with dinner together with some friends at an amazing Italian restaurant. It was so good!

We did a lot of activities up there also. Shooting guns, watched a snake show, visited a Thai silk factory and fight of the gibbon. The last event is something that you all need to try if you go to Chiang Mai, it was awesome! You go high up into the mountains in the forest and jump out hanging in a cable that takes you between different platforms. So much fun and the adrenaline it up in the skyJ The longest was 800 meters and I was going really fast!! I definitely recommend all of you to visit Chiang Mai.

Pilip

Transportation systems

When you been here in Bangkok for a while you learn in which way and with what you should travel at different times of the day. Take today for example, I and Daniel were going to Future Park, a major shopping centre, to look for some clothes. We left AIT at 10.30 and we knew at that time traffic would not be that bad and decided to try the bus-system. It was very convenient and no troubles at all. A 30 minute ride cost 14 baht, which is 3-4 Swedish kronor. Beat that VästtrafikJ 14 baht is the expensive bus as well because it has air-condition. The regular one costs 9 baht!

Also when thinking about transportation in Bangkok, it is almost never good to take a taxi between 9-11 and 15-17. In this case you should just go to the closest sky-train station and use that. Sometimes the sky-train is also super busy, like when we were going home from the city to campus last Thursday. Check the picture! That must have been a crazy dayJ

You may wonder what is happening in the future. We have two exams left in this semester and they will be the last week of April. Before that it will be a lot of studying, travelling to Chiang Mai (north) and also a football tournament coming up with the Scandinavian Vikings. That’s the quick plan right now, but I will be back and tell you more about itJ

Pilip

AIT Campus

While I’m waiting for the next funny thing to happen here I thought I write some things about our lovely campus here at AIT.  As I already mentioned we have a lot of possibilities to do sports. Two bigger shops were you can buy fresh fruit, snacks and other useful stuff for your dorm. I usually buy breakfast, like eggs and choco pops thereJ

There are also many different kinds of restaurants. Indian, Vietnamese, Thai and then we have the SU café which provides all sorts of different meals. There are also three or four different cafes where you can have what we in Sweden call “fika”. The best of them is Hon Krum but it is fair enough a bit more expensive than the other ones.

There are also laundry service, dry cleaning, travel agency, hair salon and a massage place on campus so you can easily get stuff fixed here. The facilities when it comes to classrooms and such are in good quality. Equipment that works and a lot of friendly staff helping us with different kind of problems.

Right now I am studying for our midterm exam in Business Economics tomorrow. I hope it will be fine, and afterwards I´m going to Bangkok for an event that will be a lot of fun.

You can see some pictures of campus on http://www.campusbangkok.se/ - there is a link here.  

Pilip   

Tug of War Miniolympic Champions

After a postponed Final on Monday due to some weak Portuguese arms it was finally time. The big Final in Tug of War in AITs miniolympic tournament was coming up. Our opponents were again Portugal, last years undefeated champions.

We knew that we had beaten them before, but from watching their semi-final where they looked really strong some of us had respect for them.  You can really see in our eyes how focused we were to win this game. We wanted honor and pride to the Swedish people on campusJ

Before the game there was a mental game going onJ our opponents wanted to distract us and make us lose focus on what we were aiming for. This did not work. First round started and we had to really fight for a few seconds, but as soon as the Vikings machinery started we had no problem fishing Portugal in. Second round was even easier and we felt how Portugal did not even try to make an effort. An incredible game by the Vikings and I am so proud of us.

Go Vikings, Go Sweden!!!   

Pilip

Results from exams and final coming up in Tug of war

Got my results back from our two first courses this week, it was in Logistics and Design of experiments. I passed both of them and even managed to get good gradesJ I am proud of myself right now haha!

So after another Bangkok weekend I'm back at AIT. Everything is as usual except for the heat. It is extremely hot here today. Morning class in business economics and then went home to use that knowledge to buy stocks for my future fortune haha after sitting a couple of hours I really feel like going for a run and get rid of some energy.

We played football yesterday also, an easy 4-0 victory against some young British guys. After the game I went to see Chelsea-Manchester city and it was a wonderful performance by the bluesJ

Tomorrow is the Tug of war final and I just saw that we are going to meet Portugal again! They had a little bit of a struggle against Pakistan in the semi final but they still won 2-0. So we really have to be ready for a tough fight tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it. Hope all spectators will cheer for the Vikings and push us even moreJ Tell you the result as soon as I can!

Pilip

Crushing last years champions in Tug of war

Today was the day when AIT miniolympics started. It is an annual tournament in all sorts of different sports like football, volleyball, basketball and tug of war. You compete against other nations like Thailand, Nepal, Portugal and so on. From the Swedish side we have teams in the tug of war competition and the basketball. Three of us also helped the Nepalese team in football because they were too few players.

Starting up the miniolympics was the really important tug of war game between last year’s champions Portugal and the big Vikings from Sweden. After the weigh in we took our positions for the big round. We in the Swedish team had a lot of respect for our opponents and you could almost hear the nervous heartbeats. The game was best of three and we were getting ready with David the crazy leader getting us psyched. Till Valhall, AO!! First game started and we had an awesome start just ripping the Portuguese line and an easy victory. For the second game we switched sides and that didn’t help Portugal. After a couple of seconds the Swedish Vikings crushed them and the win was definite. A good effort from the Portuguese team didn’t help this day because we were to strongJ

On Thursday its time to play our first game in basketball and we will do everything we can to have another win. Then we will continue our journey in the tug of war with a lot of confidence and we are for sure going for the win. I just saw one team that can be difficult to beat and that is the Pakistanis. Lets hope we have good rung when we meet themJ Go Sweden!!

Pilip       

First loss and a nice night out

The midterm in Thai economy felt ok but I don’t really know if I had my focus on the right things. Anyway it felt like I understood the questions and could answer them quite fine. After the exam I just sat quiet with my computer the whole evening, I was so tired.

Saturday was as said match day, me and Daniel woke up and went to have breakfast on campus. The regular place I usually go to was closed so I just found a disgusting sandwich and bad coffee. This day didn’t start in the way I wanted. I had the same feeling after the game this time. After a loss 4-3 and the referee taking away two goals from us by calling bad offsides. To get myself to think about other things I had a couple of beers afterwards and it was quick to forget.

Then a long night out startedJ First went for pub food at Londoners pub and couple of pints. Then for my first time in Bangkok we visited the party street RCA, a really cool place. Many nice nightclubs and a lot of new people to meet. After drinking some whisky-soda we finished off in the nightclub Narz with some dancing. Overall a really good night but now its time for me to cut down on my alcohol consumption, it has been too much these last couple of weeksJ

The Thai sentence of the day is Chan cha pai and means I am going to… Good things to use in the taxis which you use frequently here.

My schedule this week is only three classes and one presentation to take care of in Thai economy. I think it will be a good week.

Pilip   

Visa extension

Today we got to see Thailand for another perspective. We got our first visa in December when we first came here for some vacation. That student visa was valid for three months and now when it was one week until it would expire we went on a little trip with AIT visa department to extend it.

First stop was in Ayutthaya in the middle of nowhere. We sat outside in the extreme heat for 2 hours having no clue of what was going on. Luckily a drink motorcycle came by the office so we could buy a pepsi. The pepsi was not served in a glass or the bottle; no we got it in plastic bag haha lots of ice and a straw. We were so exhausted and some people (David) even fell asleep outside the office.

After this visit we thought we were going back to the school but we went to another place in Bangkok which seemed to be the headquarters of these matters. We just circled around the building in our minivan maybe 3 times and then the guy fixing everything came back and we were doneJ we all asked ourselves why we needed to be there haha

Some more calculation in Thai:

6 - hok
7 - set
8 - bpeet
9 - gao
10 - sip

I would say since I learned to count it helped me a lot in all sorts of situations.

Tomorrow we have the midterm exam in Thai political economy and I hope I am ready for it. After that I going to have easy evening and try to rest as much as I canJ Saturday is matchday and party in the night, looking forward to it!

Pilip

Logistics exam and Bangkok

This week has been kind of hectic. On Thursday we had the logistics exam which I hope was alright! After that we went to Huntsman pub for the third networking meeting with the Scandinavian society here in Bangkok. It was a lot of people and so much fun speaking and sharing stories with them. Friday was only afternoon class in political thai economy and then just relaxing in our houseJ really needed that.

Saturday was matchday with football and this time we managed to play a good game. Final score 5-0 win!! The weather is crazy right now. Its so hot you don’t even want to be outside and this is just the beginning, all Thai people I meet only says “ yeah, wait until April” haha. After the game me and Daniel went to a pub, watched some football and had a pint.

If we go back to the Thai lesson I guess I should continue teaching to count to ten. 2 - song
3 - sam
4 - si
5 - ha

Also I should tell you about a cultural crash I just came to understandJ In Sweden its very common to hug friends doesn’t matter which gender. But here if you meet a girl and just hang out you cannot hug her good bye, hugging and kissing is when you have a relationship here. Good to know when you come hereJ

This week I´m preparing for midterm in Thai economy and I will try to focus on things I forgot to do this last couple of weeks. Just got a picture on my mail, do you think this is true? J

See you

Pilip

Weekend in Pattaya

As the football team had an away game in Pattaya this week I went on a trip from Bangkok. This time three of my fellow student, Daniel, David and Emil reinforced the team. The journey started at skytrain station On nut where we rented a mini-van and were on our way! The trip takes about 1 hour and 40 minutes so there were a lot of funny stories on the wayJ

The game was horrible but we managed to win it anyhow. 3-1 was the final score and we could be happy about three points and a workout at least. After this we stayed for an evening of celebration! It was a really good town for partying and it was not at all as crazy as I heard before I went there. Liked it a lot.

This week is as said before the week for logistics exam and just because of that nothing else is planned but to study as hard as I canJ but I know that it will work for maximum one day!

 Next thing to learn in Thai is how much is this? Nee ra ka tow rai? And the number 1, which is nung. If you learn the numbers 1-10 it will help you very much.

Okey that was a little bit about this weekend, I get back to you when the next funny thing has happened!

Pilip  

Vacation and First Exam

Now when my parents arrived they wanted some vacation with sunbathing and swimming in the ocean. So I arranged a trip to Krabi and a little place called Ao Nang. It was very peaceful and a good place for relaxing and studying for our first exam in Thailand in the course Design of Experiments.

Ao Nang has a lot of Swedish tourists which actually was a little bit annoying when you been here for a long time. Im trying to speak thai and only here Swedish. Why not have a brief lesson now. Sawadee Kup(for men)/Ka(for women) means Hello and Sabai dee mai? Means how are you. I will try and add a few words every day I write. Back to Ao Nang we went out on a daytrip with a longtail boat visiting three different islands, Tup, Poda and Chicken. You can see some pictures of it hereJ it was much fun and a real paradise.

When I got back to Bangkok it was time to prepare for the exam. I studied as much as I could, but I got distracted by all these things that Bangkok has to offer! You cannot imagine how it is here. Not a single day passes without a new experienceJ

We had the exam today and it was alright, but I have no idea how I did haha hope it went ok! Afterwards I watched a movie and had a whisky, went running for 45 minutes and went shopping with my homies Daniel and David. There is one week until the next exam in Logistics which going to be interesting, tomorrow the studying starts again;)

Pilip  

Ayutthaya daytrip

This week mom and dad came to Thailand. It was really nice to see them again, and they brought some Swedish candy for me which was so good! They stayed in Bangkok for a couple of days so they could join us for a daytrip to the old capital here called Ayutthaya.

This was a day with a lot of new stuff happening. We saw temples and ruins which were really cool and at one place there was a Buddha growing in a tree, someone said it was the biggest of its kind in Thailand. After this me and mum rode an elephant, it was the first time for me and I liked itJ

We had lunch in floating market, it was a buffé with a performance going on in the water next to us. Mostly they spoke Thai so it was hard to follow what was going on, but it was something about an alligator trying to get a girl or eat a girl! I don’t really know haha.

Last stop was another floating market, this one was much bigger and they had a lot of stuff and restaurants. Me and David bought one t-shirt each, with cool design and it was a one of a kind store. Really liked that placeJ

Im going to Krabi with mum and dad for a couple of days, when I get back I will tell you all about it. Also exams are coming up so I have to start studying nowL

Until next time

Pilip

Chatuchak – Weekend market

After a week of studies and more studies it was very nice that the weekend came! Friday was very slow and I just attended class and saw a film that me and Daniel bought at MBK, the big shopping mall, two weeks ago.

Then Saturday came and I had planned with an Austrian friend named Chris that we were going to check the “famous” weekend market out. We went there with the Thammasat minivans again and had a really nice day! There were so many shops and stuff to check though so I am so exhausted now. I promise you, that market had everything you will ever need. From earrings to lampsJ  there was a lot of nice clothing shops as well but to bad for me nothing fit me today haha I am too big for this country. I guess I have to go to a tailor and fix all my clothes when I need something. We had some really good dinner at the market and when night came we realized that it would be a nice place to have a pre-party at. Tomorrow Chris is going back to Austria for some work so we said we´re going to do it when he gets backJ. When you come to Thailand you have to go to this market, it is something you won’t forget.

I´m playing football with the Vikings tomorrow again so I need to rest now! Ciao

Pilip     

Chinese New Year!

I found a new morning habit this week. I forgot to buy breakfast for the week this Sunday because I was playing golf and it means that I have to buy every day instead. But this was really a good thing for me because I discovered the campus breakfast this way. It means I get up as usual but I dress immediately and go to the 108 (like 7/11) on campus, get some yoghurt or other stuff and find somewhere outside to sit and enjoy it. I will introduce it to my roommates Daniel and David tomorrow because I think they will love it.

Today I also booked tickets to Krabi. Mami and Dadi are coming to Bangkok in one week and I have to fix everything because I know where and how to fix it. I had to struggle with the resort but I think I found a good place in the end.

Also the Chinese new year was today. So my Chinese friends Chi and Kun invited me to celebrate with them. Me, Dan, Dave, Chi and Kun went to this amazing barbeque place. It is located like 20 minutes by car from AIT and it was so nice. We had one boiling/frying pan and one barbeque and we took a lot of raw food that we cooked ourselves so we will probably get very sick tomorrow haha, it was so good though. After this we got back to campus where there was a party to celebrate the new year. They had fireworks in the trees and a nice buffet, which was a struggle for us because we ate so much on the bbq placeJ.

Happy New Year to you all!!!

I´ll be back.

Pilip        

Another of the most amazing weekends ever!

The weekend started after my political Thai economy class which is my elective course here at AIT. I went home and quickly changed because I was going in to Bangkok for a dinner. I took the Thamasat van in to Mo Chit which is the closest sky-train stop. It costs 30 baht which is around 6 Swedish kronor  and actually really comfortable! The dinner was the best I had in Thailand so far, we were sitting in a garden by a really trendy house and they served like international Thai-food. I had something called Shanghai noodles and it was great. I think it will be to hard to explain where the restaurant is located but it was close to Sukhumvit road which off course is very large;)

Saturday and Sunday was all about the football and golf tournament. First time I met the guys playing in Scandinavian Vikings and they were really cool guys. Of course we won the game by 5-0 and one of the guys scored two amazing goals, one directly on a corner kick. The golf was also a Scandinavian tournament with people from Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Thailand and I think someone from Island but I’m not sure. I played with three Danish guys and one Thai girl and it was so much fun, even though I played like crap! The end of Sunday night was drinking whisky/soda to celebrate a good dayJ.

Monday came and we were back to school, this time with a new professor. Jonas Stray is his name and so far he has shown us some really good teaching skills by the blackboard. Also a very nice guy having a conversation with.

The Team

After class a few of us had signed up to play football for the president team in some sort of AIT sports event. Said - the president of AIT - had managed to recruit some real talent and we were ready for a tough game against the student team. It ended 2-2 but we won on a penalty shootout which by the way consisted of nine penalties and only three of them went in J haha.

This week two things that I know will happen is the Chinese new year and the second time of Swedish networking in Bangkok!

I´ll be back.

Pilip

So far - an awesome experience

This is me

Okey, so my name is Filip and I'm studying at the University of Borås but present our class, IBE 2, has the oppurtunity to study for one semester in Bangkok, Thailand. So far it has been an awesome experience and I'm in love with this country.

I thought I start with a quick recap of whats been going on the last week since we were at the wakeboard park. Monday to Friday we have classes so we usually don’t leave campus for more than a nice dinner or some shopping.

A typical day at campus is to wake up and eat breakfast. After that you pack your bag and head over to the pool area for some tanning or exercise. After that we eat lunch and attend class for a couple of hours, often we are pretty tired during class because there so much to do here. Campus is really awesome, it has a football field which I love, gym, tennis courts, basketball, volleyball and a nice 9-hole golf course. That’s it for now about that because I want to write about more fun stuff like when we go to Bangkok.



Great view from Sky Lounge!

From previous you can see that we were on a Swedish networking and this happened again. This time it was a Nordic Young Professional night with a superb tapas buffé and a lot of good drinksJ. I would specially recommend red bull/vodka haha. After this gathering ten people from our class went to the most crazy nightclub I have ever seen. There were balloons falling from the ceiling and they had 5 different dance-floors, it was intense and we had such a good time there. Back to campus at 0600 AM! Crazy night J

 This weekend I'm going to play a football match and a golf tournament, probably some partying as well even though I shouldn’t!

That’s it for this time, I just wanted to get started! Enjoy and I´ll be back;)

Pilip   

At Thai Wake Park

We went to Thai Wake Park and challenged each other at wake boarding. 

It was awsome. But difficult...

Networking in BKK

Today we got a chance to do some networking with the members of the Swedish Chamber of Commerce in Bangkok. We met around 60 persons at the well-known Landmark Hotel. There were global companies like SAAB and SAS, but also companies with their origin in Borås, like Eton. The president of AIT, Said Irandoust, was also present together with his staff.

 

I started off the meeting byt introducing the University of Borås and the 18 students who are present in Bangkok together with Daniel. We hope that this networking will enable trainee jobs in Bangkok during the summer.