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August 09, 2004
Housewarming party weekend
6th – Friday – had lunch with Lydia – thought I was going to look at fixing her bike, but she didn’t call before lunch, so I didn’t have time to look at it.
The fact that I now don’t have a 7-8:30 class means that I am able to go see the 7:30 shadow puppetry show with Lydia and Charlotte, and at lunch we planned to do so. However, she pulled out at the last minute, instead wanting to have a girly talk with Charlotte. This was in fact a blessing in disguise, as I had a great night out with the boys (most of the Regent boys plus some) – first of all going to Big Fish (a Khmer restaurant off 63rd) for many cheap jugs of beer and some cheap food. We then went riverside, to the King’s Court Restaurant, where we (Vinh, Kit, Neil and myself) continued to drink and talk, before heading home.
7th – Saturday – recovery from last night. I had quite a lot to drink, now that I feel the after-effects. Not a bad effort. After cashing my first pay cheque (yay!), I had breakfast with Lydia, in return for helping her with her moto.
On a side note – I saw some amazing going’s-on at the bank… Many, many dollars being handed over, including what I saw to be a cheque made out to ‘CASH’ for a princely sum of $199,275 !!! (Two hundred US grand, made out to CASH!!!! WTF!!)
I helped Lydia get some petrol and oil for her moto, but the damned thing still didn’t start. I don’t know why. She may have to take it back to the previous owner. Didn’t do much else today. Chatted with Kirrilee, who gave me a potential contract-work contact. Sorted out some Hosta stuff online. There was supposedly a Villa party somewhere, but Brandon’s phone wasn’t working, so he didn’t get my messages – so I didn’t end up going. No biggie – I appreciated the rest.
8th – Sunday – today was preparation day for my housewarming. I sms’d all those I know in Phnom Penh (as well as some in Oz/UK… hehehe), then went shopping. I don’t have a loud speaker on my laptop, so I went looking for speakers. It’s such a pain! I can buy cheap-ass speakers that you’d typically plug into a walkman/discman for up to $22, but I know what they’re really worth, and the quality you get from them. I did see some seemingly very good quality speakers at an AV store, with decent satellites and a subwoofer, ranging from $50 (2 sats, sub, PC-style input) to $85 (5 sats, big sub, AV-style input). Yet again I come to my various dilemmas…. One – Anything worth buying/keeping I can’t really travel with, its too big/heavy – but I don’t want to buy small/crap! Two – I don’t have enough money to buy these things, and I don’t really want/need to be ‘buying’ stuff anyway. Oh well, I ended up not buying anything, instead I borrowed Hanne’s speakers (that arrived well into the party, just because that’s when the delivery girl arrived ;) ).
I went to Pencils and Big A supermarkets, as well as my local Psar, to buy drinks, chips and more homewares. I wasn’t able to find any kind of dip/salsa anywhere, WTF!!
Anyway, people started arriving just before 8pm, and as expected, there were problems with finding the place. First of all, house numbers aren’t necessarily sequential, so that doesn’t help finding things here. Secondly, access to this place is via a side alley off the main street, so it’s not easy to point out. I made some small signs with directions, but people had to find the alley entrance and the sign in order for that to even help! For most of the groups of people arriving I had to direct them in, sometimes even going out to the street to get them! Even Kit, who found me the place, couldn’t find it again!
The party was cool, it was pretty chilled… drinking beer, watching TV (Southpark, Daily Show, etc), chatting and mingling. We mostly stayed in the front room, although at times there weren’t enough chairs. It was a pretty low key party, mostly due to space and timing I think. Everybody left by 11pm – it WAS a Sunday night after all – I probably shouldn’t have expected any more than that.
Anything missing from this picture?
Oh yeah, I don’t have a bathroom basin anymore. Did I forget to mention that?
A certain someone, we don’t need to embarrass him any more than has already been done, did a pirouette (or something) in the bathroom and managed to knock it off it’s supports, breaking it and spraying water everywhere! We couldn’t find the tap to turn off the water, so he stuck his finger in the hole while I went to get the landlord downstairs. Within minutes, it was cleaned up, taken away, the tap re-connected and water turned back on.
Posted by Dan at 05:01 AM | Comments (2)
Regent – Classes and Money
My Accounting English classes have been moved from 5:30-7:00 to 7:00-8:30 so as to allow me to take over Shaun’s PET English classes. This means that my normal guys have only a 7pm English class on Friday, which is unsatisfactory. So in light of this, they just cancelled/postponed the Friday classes while there is a conflict. Also, on that note, my business subject textbook still hasn’t arrived. We’ve now postponed those classes (meaning double accounting for the students, temporarily) until it arrives.
I got my first paycheque, which was about 3/4 of what I was expecting! It seems that my English for Accounting subject is supposed to be $12 per hour. I signed a contract for $15, but they somehow decided to pay me $10/hr! Aiyah!! Anyway, I wrote a memo to get it sorted out – I DO have a signed contract for $15/hr. On top of that, we’re getting taxed! (This is one of the VERY few schools that actually pays tax.) Fortunately the first $80 is tax free, so I didn’t get taxed much, but it all adds up.
It’s going to be a very poor month… methinks the visa is going to get ANOTHER hit – GRRRR! When am I going to be able to make enough to support myself, let alone save???
Posted by Dan at 04:58 AM | Comments (2)
August 05, 2004
Setting up my apartment
2nd – This morning I moved into my apartment – very exciting! It took a couple of trips on the moto to get my gear there – even then there were a couple of things still at Monica’s. I didn’t realise how many ‘things’ are needed for an apartment to set up. I’ve moved into an apartment before, but it seemed different this time, possibly because I did this all by myself, and finding shops to buy things I need is more difficult here. You can’t just go to a supermarket and buy all the household items you need. I went to buy some stuff, including some 2 minute noodles…. But realised I don’t have any way to boil water here yet! After moving I treated myself to morning tea at Trung Nguyen, a Vietnamese coffee shop chain, apparently trying to do the Starbucks thing. It reminded me more of a food hall than a Starbucks, but at least it was clean. They had 8 different types of coffee available, some for iced coffee, some only for hot coffee. I ordered some food, but it took three goes to get something they actually had (how can a shop in Cambodia NOT have ANY noodles??) I also expected to get espresso at such a magnanimous establishment, but no. Ok, so maybe I should have expected them to serve it Viet-style… it is a Viet chain after all… But they still gave condensed milk instead of fresh milk! Anyway, I wasn’t very impressed with the coffee, the food or the service. I won’t be rushing back there. I had lunch with Lydia at Le Rit’s, which was pretty expensive, but good quality. I met my new cleaner Srey Puv with Dara (Kit’s Khmer teacher) this afternoon, and organised for her to clean twice a week (including laundry) for $25 per month. After class, I went back to Monica’s place to get the rest of my things. I stayed and chatted with Monica and Hane, who were also very generous and gave me a few kitchen things to set my place up. I ended up staying there that night also.
3rd – I had organised for my cleaner Srey Puv to meet me at 8am (with Dara’s wife) in order to go shopping for cleaning things, so I had to get up early to get back to my place before then. I got there before 8am, but the girls were already there! Apart from mop/etc I asked them to buy my some kitchen things (so that I get them at Khmer, not barang prices) as well as to get a set of keys cut. I was going to go shopping with Monica in the morning, but the girls didn’t get back with my keys (and purchases) until almost 12! I didn’t expect them to take 3 hours shopping, but this is Cambodia, and they did buy a heap of things (see the list below). Again, I had lunch with Lydia (at Baan Thai - $1 lunch specials), and spent the afternoon trying to help her get her moto fixed (we couldn’t find the right mechanic, with various language and instructional difficulties), followed by excellent espresso at ‘The Shop’ on Street 240. Monica helped me get some sheets, cushions and towels from the Russian market (thanks Mon!), then I got some more gear from a supermarket. By the time I’d finished all this, I had only a few minutes to shower and get to class. Unfortunately I had the business subject today, which meant still no textbook, and no time to prepare! I think the students mostly enjoyed 90 minutes of hangman, even though it wasn’t terribly productive…
4th – Had lunch with Vinh and Neil at the Khmer Restaurant today, the Luk Lak (pieces of beef in gravy with fries and a little salad) was pretty good. I found out about Pencil’s today. I can’t believe nobody told me about it earlier! It’s a huge supermarket on the ground floor with a couple of other floors above it with various other departments. It’s the only place I’ve found that sells Beer Lao apart from Pubs & Restaurants, so I bought a slab :) . Started a new class today – Intermediate English, using the Cutting Edge series books, as part of the PET program (I don’t know what that stands for). I’m taking over this class for Sean, who is away. Because its on at 5:30, my 5:30 classes have had to switch with the 7pm ones. So now I’m teaching MWF 5:30-8:30, and still at 5:30-7:00 on T & T.
I cooked my first ‘real’ meal tonight… I cooked spaghetti with a Thai-style pasta sauce (and a couple of Beer Laos). At home I’ve been eating 2 minute noodles, which are pretty good, but not really the most nutritious and varied meals available. It was very satisfying to have a home-cooked meal in my own apartment, chilling in front of the TV with a beer. Mmmm.
5th – It was pretty warm last night, and I woke up at about 2am, so I turned on the AC to see how well it works. I eventually turned it off a few hours later. Unfortunately I didn’t realise where the water drain for the AC is -> They have it pointed at the kitchen floor right under the sink, my guess is that they wanted it to flow into the drain. This would be fine if there was a drain under the sink, or somewhere in the kitchen! I did my best with the mop to clean it up – good thing the cleaner comes tomorrow morning!
Anyway, I’ve been filling out the last few day’s logs this morning, and its now just gone midday, so I’d better go and prepare for class tonight, as I don’t think it would do ANYONE any good to have another class playing hangman.
Posted by Dan at 06:48 AM | Comments (1)
My Apartment
It’s got 1 moderately sized bedroom with some inbuilt wardrobe space, coming with both a bed (, mattress and pillow) and some clothes racks. The kitchen/eating area is spacious enough, containing a fridge, double gas burner, a table and chairs. There is cupboard space that’s almost out of reach above the sink. The bathroom is very small, it’s a squeeze to shut the door whilst in there. It has a cold water shower hose, a western toilet, the customary bum-washer, a small basin and a mirror.
The front room has a few pieces of cane furniture with a coffee table, all facing the front door and the little TV which picks up some of the channels that come with the free cable TV I get. Unfortunately the TV can’t plug into a DVD player, so for now I’ll have to stick to my laptop for them. There IS a balcony out the front, but it pretty much overlooks only other balconies in the alleyway. I also have access to the roof, which looks like it has only a metre of landing space. All of this for just $100 per month! I pay a flat rate of $5 per month for water, and 700riel (17.5 US cents) per kilowatt of power. Oh yeah, the unit has a few fans, and even an Air-con unit (although it draws electricity like nobody’s business!)
To get into the apartment, you have to drive off Street 294 (close to corner with Sothareos) into the alley, unlock the pantry-looking door, climb a flight of stairs, unlock the temperamental padlock on the security grille, THEN climb up a spiral staircase to get to my front door. What a trek!
I was thinking about moving in during the evening, but I didn’t have any of the ‘things’ needed to be settled. Plus it was raining.
And for a guided tour….. click here to download videoclip
Posted by Dan at 06:34 AM | Comments (0)
Settling into Phnom Penh – I got an apartment!
30th – Friday night. After class I had dinner with Lydia at the Rising Sun (English Pub). Charlotte, a recent Phnom Penh arrival from Germany joined us for drinks afterwards. She seems like a pretty cool, down to earth chick. (There are apparently quite a number of Career/Networking-focussed individuals in Phnom Penh.) We then went to the Ginger Monkey for a few more – where we also saw Vinh. Spent a couple of hours there before I took the girls to their respective homes.
31st – I went with Lydia to pick up her new moto, as she’s not a confident rider. It’s a little 2 stroke 50cc Honda Scooter. We had lunch at a Boat Noodle Restaurant (they’re so great…. Boat noodle/tom yum or chinese noodles for 2500 riel each!) before Lydia took her first real ‘trip’ to her Stats workshop. It rained most of the afternoon and evening, most of which I spent on the net and chilling at Monica’s. I bought a brand new Helmet today, bright red with a mirror visor – a very funk helmet (a whole US$23!) to match Monica’s moto that I’m going to buy (for US$300).
Carly, an Aussie friend of Monica is leaving shortly, so a farewell party was entertained at Monica’s. Most of the people there were church people, so it was fairly tame, half the party leaving before 9. I joined the exodus and went to see a DVD with Lydia and Charlotte, bearing beer. After the movie I continued my new habit by giving Lydia a lift home.
1st – Kit took me apartment shopping today. The first one was not bad, $120 per month, free cable, etc. The second was having a little renovation done, but was a very spacious 2br unit with large kitchen/eating area and balcony ($200/mo). I was considering calling Ryan to see if he wanted to share it, but he was out of mobile reception, so I couldn’t call him. The third one was behind the first two, and it seemed to be such good value that I signed the contract within the hour.
Posted by Dan at 06:31 AM | Comments (2)
A NOTE TO ALL THOSE WHO READ ABOUT THEMSELVES HERE!!!
Interesting note about writing about current events/people ->
I had a thought – I have to be quite careful about what I write now… It’s not party mode, and it’s not ‘temporary’ mode anymore… The people I’m spending time with and interacting with, if they read this, can quite possibly get an insight to what I’m thinking. This is not a problem in itself, but this is of course a filtered version of reality. Not EVERY person gets a mention, and not every piece of prose here mimics what’s going on inside me.
So, perhaps a little note to anyone reading about themselves (or perhaps feeling left out of this) – not everything I feel/think let alone write, gets published. Don’t assume anything based on what’s contained (or lacking) in this text!
Posted by Dan at 06:29 AM | Comments (0)
23-25 July - Another big weekend in Phnom Penh
23rd – Friday night. Had a couple of beers with the other teachers from the keg at school (!) . After showering and getting into clean clothes, I met the guys at Ginger Monkey for drinks. Lydia was having drinks with workmates, then joined us at the Monkey (with some big German dude). After a few hours at the monkey, Lydia went home and some of us went to The Heart. I spent the rest of the night with Brendan and Sally? Dancing and drinking at The Heart, then chatting lakeside at Sally?’s guesthouse. Got home (gates were already re-opened) at 7am.
24th – Saturday – slept most of the day – or tried to at least – the construction workers had already started by the time I got home! I woke up at about 3pm feeling pretty seedy, hung out at home the rest of the afternoon, then got invited to a party at Picasso. Went to Picasso at about 11:30, and it was going OFF! I’ve never seen so many barangs in Cambodia in one place! They played house music and dark drum n bass downstairs. Stayed there until upstairs closed at 3am, again off to The Heart. Spent only a couple of hours there as I wasn’t really in the mood – I was pretty tired. I got home at 5am and had to get Monica to open up for me. (Thanks Monica!)
25th – Again, waking up late after a big night, I did manage to get some work done (net café, catching up on emails, etc). I did fairly well financially over the weekend…. Spending less than $20 over two big nights! Ok, so I probably won’t be able to live until payday on what I have left (less than $20), but it was a good effort to come away from the weekend with money…
26th – Monday - I woke up feeling fine, but every hour got worse…. Initially it was just a lack of energy, but it then turned into a headache with cold/flue like symptoms (sensitive skin, etc). I taught class, albeit somewhat unexcitedly. Got home after class, took some aspirin, a mersyndol and crashed.
27th – I woke up feeling a little better…. I was restless during the night, but the rest has helped. I’m still feeling a little off, but not too bad at all. It was probably just a lack of sleep during the weekend.
For anyone interested in my business – Hostaccino – I made the decision to purchase a new server over the weekend – this time a Windows-based server (which means a broader product offering). Next is to set it up, test it’s capabilities and then get some people on it!
Posted by Dan at 06:25 AM | Comments (0)