Hello and happy mother’s day to all reading this post! After April’s travel marathon I am spending the month of May in Singapore. I wont travel again until I go to Seoul, South Korea on June 1st. In order to bridge the gap between now and then I am sharing posts from some old trips and working on some new content. Let’s get to today’s post.
Work
This week I got a taste of what I imagine it’s like to work in investment banking but with what I assume is a lot less drugs. I have been supporting the Asia Pacific Director of Marketing with a presentation he is giving to the CEO. The presentation was due this Friday night at 10pm which meant I was “on-call'“ all week. I can’t go into too many details about what I worked on but I think it’s okay to disclose that I spent roughly 40-hours in Microsoft PowerPoint alone. The good news is that I am now really good at making PowerPoint slides. My engineering professors would be proud. On a more serious note, this was an awesome opportunity to learn about the overall business in Asia and make some great connections.
Outside of this I still had to keep up with my day to day project and I have some more exiting updates coming in the next few weeks. I would like to thank the free coffee at work and my boss Sven for helping me through this stressful week. Safe to say I earned some much needed pool time this weekend.
Life
The little free-time I had this week was mostly spent reading, doing PT, and playing the new Star Wars video game - Jedi Survivor. I recently started Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind by Yuval Noah Harari and The City we Became by N.K. Jemisin. The first 20% of sapiens is pretty tough but after you make it to chapter 6 it starts to pick up and offer some interesting opinions about the course of human social evolution. The City we Became is a much more interesting story and for all the New Yorkers reading this I think it is a book you would enjoy - or hate entirely. It’s hard to tell with you all sometimes.
This week I’m giving a double dose of personal shout outs because Tuesday was my Dad’s birthday and today is Mother’s Day. Special shout out at the end of this post for the two people who continually put up with my shit raised me and love me unconditionally.
Next week marks the 6-month anniversary of my knee surgery. This means that my drill sergeant physical therapist is progressing me to one leg exercises. I was really excited about this until I realized that 2-legged jump squats would now become 1-legged jump squats… The cool part of this is that I can tell the progress is paying off in terms of my PT. This weekend I got back to a 10-minute mile and my coworkers have finally stopped telling me that I walk funny.
In honor of this milestone, I am working on a 6-month reflection of the ups and downs of my recovery. This will be a bit of a departure from my jet-setting and sight-seeing but I hope that it will provide some context on a part of my life that typically doesn’t get shown in this newsletter. Though the pictures wont include exotic sights the overall post will still be jam-packed with jokes and other fun stories because that’s just how I roll (also because of the wheel chair photos - stay tuned).
Travel
Now for the fun stuff.
Phuket was a special trip for me because it was my last hoorah before knee surgery. The trip took place from November 17th- 20th and on November 22nd I checked in for surgery. Phuket was also fun because I learned that in the Thai language the “h” is silent. This is why Thai is pronounced “Tie” and Phuket is pronounced “Poo-Ket” (hehe). Let’s get into it!
Phuket is known for beautiful beaches, vibrant night life, outdoor excursions and… Russains??? No, I’m not-talking about busy people. I am talking about full blown vodka drinking eastern Europeans. We stayed in Patong beach which I guess is where everyone went to dodge the draft.
Our first day (Friday) in Phuket involved an all day excursion to a Buddha shrine inside a cave, a muslim fishing village, and the island from the 1974 James Bond film: The Man with the Golden Gun. The tour also featured picturesque views of islands similar to those seen in Ha Long Bay, caves, mangrove trees, and monkeys.
The fishing village was especially interesting because it mostly seemed like a giant tourist trap designed to sell little knick knacks where I got suckered into buying some cool trinkets. That said, the mosque pictured above was very ornate. Thailand is a mostly Buddhist country so it was pretty interesting to see a beautiful Mosque out in a floating village. In addition to the fishing village and James Bond Island we also go a neat little canoe ride where I made a new friend.
After our day out on the water we decided that we needed some inside time so we naturally went to a Thai Boxing Match. At first things seemed a little sketchy because the first fight was 2, 15 year olds… thankfully the next fights were all adults. Unfortunately, there was not a sportsbook inside the venue however there was a $2 beer special where I learned that Chang beer pairs nicely with violence.
Saturday, we once again set out on a day of outdoor adventures. This time it was ATV driving, whitewater rafting, and zip-lining…. all the things my Dr. recommended that I do in order to prep for knee surgery. The days excursion also featured a stop off in a nearby national park with a short hike to a small “Waterfall”. The Watersmall is not pictured because it was disappointing and because whatever I ate for lunch didn’t agree with me so I didn’t stay for photos.
After our second day of outdoor excursions we went to the beach to catch a really pretty sunset and then hit Bangla Road to experience the famous Phuket nightlife. Phuket nightlight is like being in Vegas but everything is way sketchier. People are walking around trying to sell you weed, bullets for the gun ranges, and tickets to “Ping-Pong” shows (which I think are just live sex shows). I guess that’s why it’s called Bangla road. Safe to say that I avoided many of these activities because the best answer to “hey do you want to shoot a gun” is almost always “ sorry I really want to go get pizza instead”.
On our last day in Phuket we rented mopeds and drove around the island finally making our way to the famous Big Buddha. The Buddha is indeed a very big boy and made entirely out of marble which seems like it must have been very difficult to assemble at the top of a cliff. Thankfully people did that a long time ago so I got to take this fun picture.
All in all Phuket is a pretty neat place with great beaches and natures. It’s a great trip to get out of Singapore and only a short 2-hour flight away. I am considering going back to Krabi (close to Phuket) and visiting the Phi-Phi Islands (read Pee-Pee Islands) but I’m not sure if I have maturity or enough PTO to visit. Thanks for reading everyone :)
Happy birthday to the man, the myth, the legend, P.J. Dobbins -aka Dad! Because I love you I wont tell everyone reading this how old you are <3.
Happy mothers day to breakfast club legend and outstanding Mom - Phyllis Dobbins! Thank you for all the awesome things that you have done and continue to do for me <3.
I love you both very much and sorry again that I moved halfway around the World.
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I am most disappointed that you did not share a picture of the waterfall!!! Also, no food pictures?!? All of the adventures look like fun though, very jealous!!!
laughed really hard at the ping-pong Bangla comment!