2009 October Gundam Expo

So one of the fanciest malls here in BKK is called Siam Paragon where they sell Gucci, Prada, and all the other expensive stuff (even Lambos and Porsches on the 3rd floor). Well they had an ad for the Gundam Expo and you know I love my robots. So the expo was actually quite small but it was free so I can't complain.

Bandai owns the Gundam franchise. Besides the TV shows and movies, they make a hundred+ of the most advanced plastic model kits in the world. They have the most advanced plastic molding machines in the world. Some of their plastic parts have multiple colors flowing into the same mold, that's uncommon but not that hard. What's crazy is how they can have a single molded piece of plastic become a multi-jointed moving arm or leg with just a few cuts. Anyway enough nerd talk.

The expo had the history of Gundam, their model kit history, and some models made by pros. So now I'm on a Gundam fix. I went and bought some smaller model kits and will get back into making models. I'll have to stream some episodes soon so I can know what all these robots do in their stories. My favorite model was this sky blue crab like robot below. It's so ridiculous looking I like it and now I'm going to have make one of them soon. Check all the pics on my Picasa page, there were some really cool models that took hundreds of hours to make.

http://picasaweb.google.com/ttakata73

Joined a gym-crazy price haggling

So I was screwing around before my Thai language class and saw this gym, California Wow, in a shopping mall. It is 4 stories and has pretty good equipment so I asked how much. The gay sales guy said the Diamond package which gets you into all 10 locations was 60,000 Baht, which is $1818USD a year!!!

I explained that in the US you can join a gym for less than a dollar a day. So I first talked him down to 4 days a week for only $163/year. How does a company get off asking $1818 when I could so talk him down to $163 in 15 minutes? He actually said some people pay the $1818! My friends said the Thai people are stupid and I'm starting to believe them.

In the end the guy upsold me to the Diamond package but for only 11,000 Baht/year and 100 Baht/year thereafeter. That's $333/the first year and then just $3 every year after and at all locations.

One thing for sure is you have to haggle here since this country is loaded with dipshits.

Supermarket checkouts

So the markets have some quirks here.

All produce must be weighed and labeled in the produce section, apparently the registers don't have weight scales. No big deal.

Checking out. Today I decided to buy some stuff to make tacos. Things were on sale so I bought multiples of everything. I had about 4 of each thing needed and the cashier scanned each object instead of just doing a single scan an punching in 4x. So although I had 5 different things, the idiot scanned 20 individual objects. This is why I am in a 2nd rate country.

Started my Thai language class

So I went to my Thai class for the first time on Saturday.

It's me, a guy from Singapore, 7 French guys, and a French girl.

7 of the 8 French smoke of course.

I wonder what the mortality rate is in France?

I guess I'll learn French too.

Turns out the building my class is in doesn't have the AC running on Saturdays so the class is freaking hot, sweating my ass off.

Otherwise it seems pretty good, the class is well laid out.

I'm looking forward to more next week.

Driver Licenses

Well after I got my visa, I went to get my drivers license.

I had to have the following:

Passport and 3 copies of the main page, visa page, and last entry stamp page.

US drivers license and 2 copies.

Letter of residency that took 2 hours and $30 to get from the US embassy.

International Drivers license (got mine from AAA for $15)

Letter of health from a clinic.

So I walked around for 2 hours going to clinics that didn't exist or the doctor wasn't in.

I finally went to a hospital and took some tests to get my health letter for $15.

Then I was off to the DMV, or Department of Land and Transport as its called here.

Fortunately foreigners have a dedicated line and don't have to wait.

So after filling out some paperwork I had to take tests for color recognition, stoplight reaction, depth perception, and peripheral vision.

Some young kid took the braking reaction test and failed miserably.

Then I saw an old guy repeatedly fail the peripheral vision test.

After the physical tests which any American would ace, I got a license to drive a car.

Then I wondered why I saw no motorcycle icon as I explained I wanted a car and bike license.

I had to take the exact same tests an fill out the same forms to get a secondary bike license.

So in this country I have 2 licenses based on what I intend to drive.

Double the paperwork and effort, masters of efficiency here.

I'm sure that old guy got his license too.