My own torch relay...

No flashing camera’s, Chinese gestapo and Tibet protesters when I arrived at Schiphol Airport last Thursday evening to begin my own torch relay. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was not carrying a torch, but instead a backpack filled with stroopwafels, speculaas en hagelslag. Also important to protect! Anyway, the next two months I will take this backpack from Amsterdam to Bangkok, to Taipei, to Tokyo, to Beijing and finally back to Amsterdam the the 29th of July….hopefully with a lot less cookies inside.

Right now I am in Bangkok. Only two months ago I was here together with Tim, so arriving in Bangkok actually felt like coming home a bit. Especially when I got out of the taxi and was greeted by some ‘pingpongporno ladies’ with a symphony of tuktuk noice on the background, I thought….home sweet home :).

After ordering two custom-made suits I met up with Wenai, a good friend of mine from Thailand whom I met last year in Taiwan. She showed me all the hot spots in town, and actually made me realise again that in order to get to know the real ins and outs of a city, a local will have to show you. That goes especially for the food. I love Thai food….and now I love it even more; maybe also good that I will leave for Taiwan soon, because if I continue eating at this paste I will become a fat little piggy. Besides staying in Bangkok self, we also went to the Tigre temple. Last time I was in Bangkok I read the story of a monk who converted his temple into a tiger center where injured animals could be treated and released into the wild again (een soort stichting AAP). Once we got there we found out that some clever businessmen converted it into a kind of six flags for tigers, including a tigre-, elephant-, crocodile- and pig show (with pigs that could calculate….pfffuuuu). It was amusing to see all this…and that was probably the reason why about 500 Asians were clicking their cameras until their fingers were numb….but still it was sad to see how such a nice initiative was f*cked up by commerce.

Tonight I will leave for Taipei after three wonderful days in Bangkok (xiexie Wenai!), where I will pick up my study Chinese. About the 8th of July I will finally find out what my job will be at the Holland Heineken House in Beijing. I am going for chef bitterballen, but executive noodlefryer also sounds like an option. Or maybe personal palm leaf blower of HMH Maxima gnagna….we’ll see. The 25th I will leave for Tokyo to see some friends, and the 30th of July I will start working in Beijing for the Holland Heineken House.

I will try to write stories every now and then updating you about my life at the other side of the world, especially when I’m working for Heineken at the Olympics as a lot of people are particularly interested in that. Of course I am also curious about how all of you are doing…so
leave me a message!

Zaijian-aaa,

Mike