greetings from down under

Well, it's been quite awhile since i was on here so i guess i'll get straight to it.
The hostel we are staying at is called the asylum. Monday nights they host a hostel party called 'Mad Monday'. They give you an inmate shirt, and you play drinking games in the basement with 'Goon Bags'. Goon bags are the bags you find in wine boxes, so it's not the greatest stuff ever. After you slam a couple cups they pass around pens and everyone writes dirty things on other peoples shirts, and then we head to the bar next door.

When we arrived it was the finals for "Backpacker Idol". We had a few more drinks then i heard them say over the p.a that two of the competitors had not shown up. I rushed the stage and asked if I could fill one of the spots. After a few questions the MC said "Alright Steve, you're on fourth." I walked back to the group of other 'inmates', and immediatly started the fist pumps. I had little time to decide which song to showcase, as each person only gets one song. After looking at the crowd I figured 'otherside' by red hot chili peppers was the song to play.

"Next up, Steve from Vancouver Canada." I walked on stage and grabbed the guitar. Gave a quick shout out to the inmates and then it was on. I was in the zone, chief. I nailed it. I don't think i've ever played so good, maybe it was the fact i had a microphone and the guitar was mic'd. Either way i was very happy and the crowd erupted. I now had to wait and see what the judges thought. "9, 8.5, 9.5". I'm in first place. Now i had to wait so see if I had qualified for a prize.

After the rest of the competitors performed they called us all to the front of the stage for crowd voting. I was tied for second with the judges scores, now it was in the hands of the crowd. After they sat down the bottem half, it was down to four. I was just happy i got to play. The guy that i was tied for second with gets sat down. Down to me and two girls. One of the girls is sat down, its down to two. The girl next to me had got higher in judges voting and her cheers were quite louder than mine up to this point.

In the end i walked out with second place, a hat with a built in bottle opener and a 12 case of cider bottles the size of wine bottles. I'll be drinking for free for a couple of nights. Some people got some picutres that i'll have to get on here as soon as i get them. All in all it was an amazing experience. I got a lot of free drinks from people, and i got an open invite to play some more tunes there next monday which i'll probably have to do.
"What's propane doin?"

goodbye

Today we left a great waiter, and an even better friend.
Ang, and his wife Nam, were our main servers at our resort.
Ang took us to the car bar, he told us about Lotus, he brought us a lot of chang beers.
Last night when they got off work we treated them to a few hours of free drinks, free food, and free billiards. I'll genuinly miss them, and always remember their smiling faces as they say "three changs?" everytime we walked into the restraunt. Luckily they have an email address so I can email them in the future and see how they are doing.

We arrived in Koh Samui a few hours ago and are getting ready to hit the streets, tomorrow we fly back to Bangkok for two nights, where we will once again rock Khao San Road.



Junker tried to cheers the girl on the right with his whiskey bucket. The rest writes itself.

and hes's down

The muay thai boxing was awesome.

A few knockout's, some big combo's, very entertaining.

The highlight was a flurry of punches followed by a huge kick to the side of the head that dropped the opponent to the floor, where he lay not moving.

I think there were about eight matches in all.

It was definatly worth going to see,

and I can tick off the list that I've seen muy thai in Thailand.

i shower using chang beer

Yesterday we went and got Thai massages.
Costed about twelvle dollars Canadian.
They worked us for an hour.
I'd never got a massage before so this was a nice new experience.
When they were done I didn't want to move, i wanted to lay there for another hour and keep that relaxation going.

Last night we hit 'Lotus' again.
Got a few more whiskey buckets, same result.
We've been drinking a lot of chang beer here.
6.4% and costs about a buck fitty.
Although being higher in percentage, i'd compare it to molson on tap.

Tonight we're going to a muay thai boxing event.
Should be fun to see some people kick eachother in the face.

What's the weather like at home?

my new haircut

The barber went great.
Cleaned up the mess real good.
Last night we went to Sairee Beach,
which is the party district of Koh Tao.
Our waiter recomended to go to 'Lotus'.
It was about a twenty minute walk, Junker barely made it.
The place was full of travelers, didn't find any Canadians though,
but lots of really friendly europeons.
The bar was right on the beach, and outside,
so we were right on the beach.
The fire show here was amazing,
moved fast and made some big throws.
There was also a whiskey bucket booth. Oh no.
We split three, I woke up disoreanted.

When we were all loopy last night we decided we'd get some piercings today.
So after lunch we ventured back to Sairee beach and found a shop.
Junker left with pierced lobe, Dow a pierced eyebrow, and I got the top of my ear done.
Don't worry moms, they look good.


We're gonna take it easy tonight, and rest up for Sairee beach again tomorrow night.






roar.

car bar

Koh Tao has got to be one of the nicest places on earth.

The water is beautiful, weather is gorgeous, and its home to car bar.

What is the car bar?

Its an old VW van, turned into a bar.
A waiter and one of the waitress's from the restraunt here took us.

Four stools at the side, and two small tables that fit five each.

Cosmic lights, cheap drinks and reggae jammin all night.

Aside from the bartender putting on fire shows,

I was rockin the coconut drums they had set up.

Today we went snorkling.

Saw many brightly colored fish, coral and an old shipwreck.

We swam into a school of fish of about five thousand.

You couldnt see the coral at the bottem, just fish.

This wasn't even a guided snorkle trip, it was just in the water infront of our beach.

This afternoon it was haircut time. I cut Dow's and Junker's. Then while Dow was cutting mine, the hairclippers ran out of power, and the charger doesnt work. Now i have a wicked patch missing.

Tomorrow morning i've got a date with the barber.

the pearson boys guitars

This past christmas, my parents took me and my bro to mexico.
Upon arrival, Colin's guitar never came down the conveyer belt. I'm not sure if he has got it back yet to this day. The reason i bring that up, when we arrived in Koh Samui yesterday, we grabbed our stuff, caught the shuttle to our place, and checked into our room. When i put my guitar down on the bed, i heard a noise as if something was loose. I opened the case. What I discovered was not a happy site. My guitar was snapped at the end of the neck. After a few choice words, I went to the desk and got them to call the airport. They told me to bring the guitar to the baggage desk and they would assess the damage.To make a long story short, they were very understanding, and are going to replace my guitar when i return from Koh Tao. To make things a little better, one of the guys at the desk lent me a travel guitar to take with me untill i return to get the new one. I'm not sure if it was actually his or it had just been in the lost and found for a long time, nonetheless, it was a nice gesture.

We're getting on a boat in an hour to go to Koh Tao for a little more than a week.
I've heard there isnt internet over there, but i'll try to find some.
If i can't blog from over there, good morning, good evenening, and goodnight.

three whiskey buckets please

Well, we've left Hong Kong, and are in the Thailand airport.

We got here yesterday, and spent the night down on khao san road.

What an amazing place. Its just one street, but very fun.

The best part..... the whiskey buckets.

A beach bucket filled with red bull, coke, and whiskey.

After we ordered them, we took a look around and noticed, that all the other whiskey buckets we saw, had four or five straws coming out of them. Everyone else was sharing them, and here we are with a bucket each on the way. One straw. I was a little worrysome and first not really knowing what to expect from this most likely high class thai whiskey.

But upon taking my first sip, i realized it was actually a pretty good 'little' drink.

There were two guys sitting at the fisher price table next to us, and upon starting some small talk, found out that they were from Toronto. I vented out a little Canucks pride, which they didn't even try to compete with, knowing that their Maple Leafs are sub-par at best.

Ali and John, had just spent four months in Australia, so we got them to right down 'heaps' of information in our book. Places to go, places to see, and some do's and don'ts.

After Dow and I shared another whiskey bucket, we hit the road for some late night eats, then ventured into our rooms, and layed down in our beds, which was equal to sleeping on a linoleum floor with a few sheets of cardboard layed down on it.

So that bring us up to speed.

We're waiting for our flight to Koh Samui.

I'll send pics and stories if i can find some internet over there.

I wonder what Lewis is up to?

192 steps

Me and Dow have stopped using the elevator from our room to the ground floor.
Twelve floors up, sixteen stairs per floor.
Today we've went up and down the stairs about 6 times each, and the night is not over.
I think Junker walked up the stairs with us once, he didn't have a good time.
We've been drinking 7-11 beer in our room to save money, and since it's warm, we only buy one beer at a time, so we're gonna be getting a lot of exersize tonight going on beer runs.

Last night we met a guy from Amsterdam named Lewis. He's 34 and on his last "hurrah" before his child is born a few months from now. We drank tallboys on the street with him for quite awhile before we had to hit the hay. This morning we met up with him at 7-11 to hang out, we ripped it at the arcade, then hit mcdonalds for lunch. Mcdees, is cheap here, and you can get cups of corn with your meal. I didn't see anyone eating corn.

Lewis is flying to Bali tomorrow to meet up with another one of his buddies.
After we parted ways, we went to the Hong Kong space museum.
Now we can say we went to a museum.
There's not all that much to report on about the museum,
it had some stuff in it. Stuff that you'd see at a space museum.

Tomorrow we fly to Thailand, so that will be another adventure on its own.
I'll find some internet there and report back.
As for now, I've got a game of Big Two to win. Adios.

Live from Hong Kong

Well, we've been here for 2 days so far, but it hasnt really kicked in that we're gone yet.
The flight was thirteen HOURS, but we all managed to get some sleep so it made it alright.
Junker left a massive drool stain on the pillow which the airline supplied him.
We had little TV's on the seats in front of us which we could control.
I watched Superbad 3 times on the seat that was reclined to the max by the person in front of me, making the flight that much more uncomfortable.
But Superbad on repeat, come on, hard to complain.

We're staying in the "Cosmic House", and theres nothing "cosmic" about it.
Imagine three dudes sleeping in a small washroom.
I tried to upload some pictures but this computer won't let me.

We've been to the arcade twice which was pretty fun. I think im about 10-0 in the basketball free throw game, they can't contain me. We've done quite a lot of walking in the last few days,
wandering around trying to find an open area to throw the football, which we did find but were told to stop by secuirity. Our place is very close to the water, so we can look across to the main island and see all the building infront of the mountains. Some of the architecture here is unreal, but who wants to read about archetecture? Sorry Dad.

Last night we had dinner at Fat Angelo's. Today we've eatin every meal out of 7-11.
You could live out of that place.
Very cheap food, entertainment, and very cheap beer.
Dow's been hittin the 70 cent pabst blue ribbon,
where as i splerged for the 1.70 asahi tallboys. (prices in canadian)

Not too sure what's in store for tonight. Going to eat some dinner then i think we might take it easy and drink in the room, play some cards, then wander around in the streets after a good buzz.

Catch ya later.