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

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

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

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