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terrierontour-blog · 7 years ago

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Week 17/18/19 - 2/1/18

In the famous words of our Lord and Saviour, Britney Spears: It’s been a while…

Since my last post I’ve done a whole lot of nothing along with some stuff that was actually pretty cool. I had intended to save up the nothingness for a short 1.5 week post before I went on my latest adventure but if I’m being honest I totally forgot about it. I’d done that little anyway that you really haven’t missed out on anything fun.

The first week and a half of this blog (w/c 11th Dec) were incredibly uneventful. As per my last post, I spent most of my time inside hiding away from the terrible air quality which has no perks other than its effects on the sun. If you think you’ve ever seen a good sunset and haven’t seen one across a smoggy lake, then you’re wrong. So Maddy and I decided to give ourselves a revision break one day and headed off to watch the sunset. Following this we headed to 文星广场 (Wenxing plaza) for some super good noodles and had a great evening of doing nothing at all.

The two weeks before last (I’m sorry I couldn’t word this any less confusing) were my last two classes with my favourite little terrors until March and as nice as it is to have a break, I can’t wait to get back to teaching them again! Nothing particularly interesting actually happened in the classes but I just thought they deserved a mention as the kids are adorable and I really hope they’ll be back in my class come March!

Now for the exciting bit!

After taking my first ever all-by-myself international flight, I successfully arrived in Thailand which in itself is like a dream come true! I’ve been wanting to go travelling for sooooooo long and as much as this trip was really just a holiday, and I spent the vast majority of the week laid various beaches, I still had an amazing time!

I arrived on the 23rd and had a day to myself before meeting up with Beth and Symone. Day 1 was spent on a beach, ‘revising’ for my upcoming Chinese exam and sampling some Thai street food – Pad Thai gets a solid 8/10 from me. In the evening I managed to find myself a sports bar showing the Town match and spent some time talking football with some ex-pats (a Chelsea fan and a Palace fan), who told me they had a Town fan friend out there that would have been gutted he was back in the UK and missing out on a fellow Terrier in his local.

Christmas Eve, Beth and Symone arrived in Phuket and we headed down to Patong. We decided that, since it was Christmas, we’d treat ourselves to a fancy hotel for the night and it was totally worth it. In the evening there were free canapes on the terrace and we spent most of the night having a laugh in the rooftop infinity pool, which lead to us being given free drinks all night by the hotel manager – winner winner (I desperately want a) chicken dinner. After all the free cocktails we ended up on an impromptu night out. We’d planned to stay in and go out-out Christmas day instead, but we headed back to our room and found ourselves all getting ready to go out without even discussing it. Despite ending the night with a little (hour long) cry down the phone to Will about how much it sucked being away from home for so long, especially at Christmas, I had a really good night!

Christmas day in itself wasn’t too eventful, we spent literally the entire day lounging on the beach and had the most questionable of ‘Christmas dinners’, by which I mean Symone had a steak, Beth a lasagne and I had spag-bol… As good as the food was I’d like to put it out there right now that I would like to celebrate Christmas again in the summer when I come home, and the pigs in blankets are not to be left out.

On Boxing day I suffered a 2 hour boat ride to Koh Phi Phi and managed to make it the whole way there without even almost being sick (despite being so dizzy I’m shocked I didn’t fall overboard when I got up to pee). Before getting on the boat, Beth and I also managed to somehow get ourselves interviewed by some random fella that seemed a bit important. God knows what the point in it was but we were surrounded by paparazzi while the guy talked about preservation or fish or something along those lines… Weird.

The torturous boat (that I slept through most of…) was totally worth it for the incredible views of some of the most beautiful islands I have ever, and think I will ever, see! Our time on Phi Phi was kind of limited with only staying the one night, but I’d like to think we made the most of it. Upon arrival we immediately went for food (obviously) and I had the best Thai green curry of my entire life that I think I will now crave forever. We spent the rest of the day/evening on the beach (queue all the insta-worthy ‘candids’) before heading out to a beach party at night. I’d be lying if I said I was in the mood for it at first, but after getting over my little sulky mood I ended up actually having such a laugh. We spent the night playing with a giant UV skipping rope, limbo pole and dancing on tables.

At midnight my fake 21st started with a group of French guys we’d made friends with launching me into the sky in celebration. On the morning of my fake 21st we walked the wrong way up to the Phi Phi viewpoint, so what should have been a 10-minute gentle stroll became an actual jungle trek to the top. However, the trek was totally worth it! The views over the island were incredible and have made for yet more great pictures for my Instagram (because that’s all travelling is really about isn’t it???). While at the viewpoint we stumbled across the naughtiest little monkey that, despite his cuteness, looked like he was actually ready to kill a guy whose Ray-Bans he had stolen. We spent a little time admiring said evil monkey before he started actually going for people and we decided that we’d risked our lives enough for one day.

Following our trek and monkey visit, we boarded the boat back to Phuket so that we would have time to do something fun for my fake birthday evening. We ended up at the ‘Simon Cabaret’ show which was just an hour and a half of drag queens and lady boys that had some hilarious moments and some just generally questionable ones… We had a laugh trying to determined which (if any) of the girls were actually female or not though…

After the Cabaret we went on the hunt for seafood because I really fancied some for my birthday tea and I ended up having the fanciest tea of my life. To start with I had a prawn cocktail (okay, not too fancy) and decided to be brave and try some oysters. Absolute incredible decision, 10/10 would eat again for every meal for the rest of my life – Symone however did not enjoy them so much… For my main course I thought I’d carry on the fancy feels and had lobster thermidor and it was sooooo good. Maybe not worth the huge price tag that lobster usually comes with in the UK, but definitely good enough to splash out on every now and then for a fancy occasion.

For my actual birthday we really didn’t do too much of any note, but I had a fab day nonetheless! We brunched on the best western food I’ve had since I left the UK (eggs benedict I love you) and then spent the rest of the day on the beach. There are certainly worse places to turn 21. The day of my birthday was actually crazy hot however, and I couldn’t last more than ten minutes sitting out before having to get in the sea to cool off.

We (and by ‘we’ I mean Symone) made some friends on the beach and they decided in the afternoon that they wanted to go on some jet skis, so Beth and I decided to join them and managed to get two jet skis between the four of us for the price they usually charge for just one person – bargain! Despite my crippling fear of the sea and all the monsters in there that might leap out and touch me at any given moment I love jet skis – even if I do spend more than half my time on them screaming out of fear for my life. At least this time Beth didn’t throw me off the back of it in the middle of open water, unlike Thomas did that time in Fuerteventura (prick).

I got a flight back to Shanghai from Phuket at 4am (regrets) and after a billion hours of waiting around, flying, subways and trains I finally got back to my flat and have done almost nothing but sleep and revise since, excluding New Year’s Eve, where I headed out for Thai food (because a week of it is clearly not enough) and some drinkypoo’s with Maddy, Manon and Karlijn. We had intended to meet up with everyone else that was out celebrating, but our signal was really bad so we ended up just spending the whole night in one bar, playing a Chinese dice game that I would love to explain to you but genuinely have no idea what the rules even actually are.

Highlight of the night? The venue started the countdown early. Like not even a few seconds early, the clock basically turned to 23:59 and they immediately started the 10-second countdown. I get that the New Year is exciting, and people often get a bit carried away, but come on guys, it’s not exciting when you’re almost an entire minute early! In protest, the four of us refused to join in the countdown or wish anyone a happy new year until the real time, where we all ‘jumped into the new year’ as Manon and her family do every year. New tradition? I think so…

I’m not even sorry for this being a long one again, it’s been a while and I’ve actually done things worth hearing about for the first time in a while so why not give you every single detail. Plus, I’m writing this blog for myself to look back on and remember all the tiny details as much as I’m writing it to keep you all up to date with my adventures. I won’t be up to anything fun for the next two weeks now with having my exams, but I might still post just in case anything fun happens. There’ll definitely be one before the 15th when I go adventuring off to Korea, Japan and Taiwan – no idea if I’ll actually have anything to say or not but I’m not sure how often I’ll be able to post while I’m travelling so will update before I leave.

心想事成

Bry x

•Strange Experience Tallies

•Live Animals Awaiting Death in a Restaurant: 200 (this is past even being countable at this point)

•Squat Toilets Experienced: 250

•Bad Squat Toilet Experiences: 5

•Photos Taken by Random Locals: 430

•Full Body Metal Scanners: 75