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