#i didn't realize how common smoking was until i went out to site

[vicariousresearcher]

for work I get to do mask fits for respirators (think gas mask lookin things) for blue-collar guys and one of the tests I say "shake your head like a dog"

and the guy I'm testing does it but the test fails, okay whatever

tell me why a buddy of his swings by behind me and says " you gotta bark too. doesn't work if you don't"

and why does this fucking man looks me dead in the eye and goes "woof"

so yeah that's very Simon and Johnny

[hashtagsmitty]

Smitty's Thailand Adventure - Day 3

In this installment - American Ice cream, shitty VR games, a pretty decent burger, many long minutes of waiting, and the ultimate Asian BBQ.

I slept better last night. Still awake at 6am, still not sleeping very well. I got up, got breakfast from Asia's forefront of white hegemony (White Family Mart. That's what it's called in Google maps, anyway. The signage doesn't indicate it's preference for an ethnostate, but the place is much whiter than other Family Marts.), and then waited for Josh to get back to me about our plans for the day. I read some more of Growth Mindset - one chapter about whether you believe that your partner's traits are static or able to be changed, and how that could impact your relationship.

I got bored of sitting around. Josh said we were meeting at a train station at 12. I left at 11, intending to explore. I'm feeling pretty confident with Bangkok's train system - Google maps helps a lot. I got to the station at 11:20 and started walking around. I was immediately hit by the smell of the pollution coming off the street. Cars, garbage, smoke from street food, sewage - it affected me pretty hard today. I saw on Google maps that there was an open art place on the street next to the station, so I went to check it out. It was closed, and the rest of the street was pretty gross, so I went back to the station and waited.

The plan was for me to have lunch with Josh and his Girlfriend Espy. She's Thai/Chinese, from the fancy area. Josh calls her Gucci Gang because of all the branded shit she buys. I met her the night before, briefly, at the drinks thing in District W. I didn't really get to interact with her - too busy entertaining everyone else.

I got back to the station at 11:30 and started playing Pokemon on my phone. I got a text from Josh at 11:45 - change the meeting time to 12:10, she's running late. Okay, no problem. Another text at 12 - still running late, probably gonna be 12:20. Sure thing. Josh stopped waiting for her and got on a train. She sent him a picture of her walking into the train station. He sent her back one of walking into the train and said see you at the next station.

(where I spent an hour waiting)

She arrived at 12:30. She shook my hand and introduced herself again. She was wearing a black singlet and short denim shorts, and a Gucci belt with two Gs on it. She gave me a banana flavoured Kit Kat and then we were walking. She was very affectionate towards Josh. We got into a taxi to head towards our lunch restaurant. They sat in the back and whispered to each other in a mixture of Thai and English, and I sat in the front watching the taxi driver do his very best not to get us killed on the Thai roads. Josh had said it was a fancy area, so I had to dress nicely. Josh has also previously criticized someone else to me for wearing a similar outfit, but that's neither here nor there.

The restaurant was a burger place in a food court called The Commons - a shared space for artisinal foods. The burger was 260 baht - roughly $11. It was pretty good. I prefer Grill'd though. There was a tv behind in my line of sight playing weird clips from YouTube - the first was some Arabian princes doing a wheely in a 4 wheel drive in order to change two of the tires while it the car was moving. I chatted with Josh and Espy while we ate. They met on Tinder - Espy's full name is a Spanish word, and good old Columbia Joe made a pun in Spanish that went straight over Espy's head as his opening line. Must have worked though.

We took another taxi back to District W, where I had a haircut scheduled. We went to Starbucks, where Josh spent a while working on his business while we waited for my appointment. The Starbucks girls drew love hearts on his drink and Espy got mad. It was around here that I realized that I was participating in a date, from the outside. Time ticked on, I walked over to the barber.

I had to walk through the area we had dinner and drinks in the night before. It had been smokey and dirty and loud, but during the day it was peaceful. I found the barber. There was a guy getting a cut throat shave, and a bunch of people hanging out. A huge Asian dude was my barber. He touched up my fade and did a pretty good job - done in 20 minutes. It cost 500 baht - roughly $24. I think Josh said that 4000 baht - $200 - is the average monthly wage? Or weekly? Can't remember. Some stuff here is so cheap.

I went back to Starbucks feeling a million bucks after the haircut. Josh and Espy were playing PUBG Mobile, so I sat down and played some more Pokemon. They asked if I wanted a turn and I said I wouldn't be able to criticize my kids if I did. We sat at Starbucks for another hour while Josh waited for the last horse race to finish so he could push out his results for the day.

As we left, Espy needed the bathroom, and asked Josh to come with her. He later told me that she did this so he wouldn't be standing near the Starbucks girls who drew on his coffee.

A train ride to Siam, for their VR experience. It was pretty cool in there - a huge IMAX complex, with cinemas and shit. Think the one at Highpoint, but half as crowded and way more spread out. They had 8 small rooms for VR. Espy tried Beat Saber, and Josh and I did Arizona Sunshine - horde mode Zombies. In the VR, we were in a warehouse with zombies streaming in. We had to find a key to open a door. It took us a few waves to find the key. The animations were buggy - zombies jumping from one floor to the next without moving their limbs, janky flailing. The animations when they got shit were cool, but the guns were a little hard to control. The experience cost 150 baht ($6) each, but only because Espy had a half price coupon because of her phone company. It was only good once, and Josh didn't wanna pay $12 for 20 minutes, so we left to get ice cream.

Swensons is an American ice cream place. It's not as good as Pidapipo on Lygon street, but it was okay. While we were eating, Josh gave me a lesson on the Wai - the stereotypical Thai hand thing. He said you only do it to people above you in the social hierarchy. He also said that the social hierarchy goes Old People, Foreigners, then people above you like your boss or your parents. He insisted that I not Wai as a way of saying thank you, because people would be weirded out by it. I said that it'd be like if we had a social convention on who we were allowed to give a thumbs up to. He agreed that it was an inefficient social thing, but insisted anyway.

Another train. Siam, where Swensons and the VR was, is like the mini-Flinders street of the skytrain. We went back on our line to 3 stops past District W to On Nut. Musti, the Egyptian guy from last night, booked us a table at Best Beef. It, allegedly, is the best beef in Thailand. We walked along a dodgy sidewalk, past construction sites featuring a 10-ton crane sitting on scaffolding over a gigantic pit, until we got to this crazy warehouse packed with people.

There must have been 500 people crammed in there. It was BBQ, cooked on the table KBBQ style, but an all you can eat Buffet for 469 baht ($20). The line was long - when we got there, there were 60 groups of 1-4 people in line before us. Praise Allah for Musti, because he'd booked a table and we walked straight in and sat down.

We ordered almost everything on the menu. They didn't bring us everything we ordered, but what the brought out was enough. Towering stacks of plates of meat.

We must have had 5 or 6 stacks like this. It was smoky and loud, but we had a great time. We stayed for the full 2 hours we were allocated. I spent a long time talking Islam with Musti. I talked about teaching with Espy - she used to teach English to little kids. We cooked a lot of meat, with no regard to cross contamination or food safety.

We headed out around 9:30. Josh was taking Espy home, so I went back on the train alone. I wasn't worried or nervous - I'm finding the trains really useful and easy now. I walked home, past White Family Mart, past the massage girls who still haven't heckled me, and fell asleep almost as soon as I sat down in my room.