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Timberwolf

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Blog Entries posted by Timberwolf

  1. Timberwolf
    Last week I posted about some issues that I have been having while here in Chiang Mai, that started when I was leaving the company NES. And I've noticed something really great since I've written.


    When I'm driving, I no longer get angry or bitter. I mean, some of the things they do, still make me a bit upset, but the good thing is, when that happens, I usually either laugh about it or I just growl and let it go. Where as before, I would get angry, hold on to it, and then somebody would do something and I would get more angry, and then it would happen again and I would get more angry and it would just build and build until I was just seething and ready to explode. So this is a very good thing!


    Another thing, is all my life, I've been a bit of a hoarder of books. I've always found it very hard to let a book go, either giving it away or selling it. Once I have read it, or got it for myself, I tend to keep it close. Now, I can easily buy a book for a friend. I have not had any problems at all with that. I've bought many books over the years for friends and family, and I really enjoy that.


    Now as I think I mentioned in my last post here, we have been having some great breakfasts with somebody who has started to become a really good friend. We've been talking about a lot of things. One thing she told me to think about is imagine all the love I've put into that book from reading it, and passing it on to somebody that I think would enjoy it as much as I did.


    And it really just kind of slapped me in the face. So I'm going to try it. We have a book that both @hirondelle and I just love, well, I think I'm going to try sending it to my dad. The book is called Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It's an incredible book. Now if any of you decide to read this incredible book, note that it is a little bit about Zen, a little bit about motorcycle maintenance and a lot about one mans journey though some hard things in his life, and seeing the US with his son on a motorcycle. I recommend that everybody read it with an open mind.


    Well, that's all for now. Thank you following my journey.
  2. Timberwolf
    Hey all. I know I've kind of missed a little on keeping up with my writing, but I have been a bit distracted.


    One of the small distractions has been my own Visa for Thailand. It's become a bit of a rig-a-maroll. Before, all I needed was a letter from the British Consulate, but things have recently changed. As I am an American working for the British Council, I now need to go to the American Consulate and get a letter from them stating that I am working for the British Council. Now the American Consulate understandably doesn't want anything to do with this, and thinks that they should be removed from the circle, but the Thai Immigration doesn't agree. So the first letter I got, my boss's, boss's boss (John) who is friends with the American Consulate General, got the letter for me. But John isn't there any more. He has been transferred as his 4 years in a position are up, and he needed to move to another country. For my second letter, I needed to go to the American Consulate and get the letter myself. The American Consulate General was on vacation and didn't inform anybody about this letter I was supposed to be getting, so I didn't get the letter the first time I went, that's when the American Consulate informed me that they didn't know what the letter was about, and didn't want to do the letter. Now @hirondelle contacted John, and the American Consulate to let them all know what was going on. The American Consulate informed me that they wanted me to come back in to get a notarized affidavit instead of the letter. This affidavit, I would have to fill out myself, and swear that it was all true and correct, which is no big deal. But I didn't know I was supposed to put on the affidavit a request to extend my Visa. Nobody told me this and Thai Immigration decided that my letter wouldn't do. So I had to do another Visa trip to Malaysia, with out @hirondelle again.


    The second distraction has been that I got a new xbox and have been playing a lot of Smackdown vs. Raw, lol. I've created a wrestler called Mr. Destroyer that has his own entrance music (Destroyer by Twisted Sister) and I have won the U.S. Title, the Intercontinental Title, the ECW title, The World Tag Team Titles, the WWE Heavy Weight Title, and the WWE World Title (my favorite as Ric Flair held it for such a long time!).


    I will try to get back to writing here again.


    Talk to you soon.
  3. Timberwolf
    Well, as I had said in my last blog post, things are starting to move forward. I found a lot of the images for one of the skins we used to have at the old New The Northlands, so now, because of that, I'm almost finished with another skin. We have an appointment with an immigration lawyer for the 20th of July, and we received an email from the U.S. immigration offices saying that I really shouldn't leave until after Tracy ( @hirondelle)has her visa. It will make it easier for the interviews and such.


    Also, one of the things we will need right away when we get there is a vehicle of some sort. And Avia and Paladin have really been helping us out a lot with that, and have found us some really nice cars in the price range we have been looking for. They have also offered to put the car title and insurance in their name until we get to the States and then switch it over to my name. One Suzuki and one Subaru, both really nice and about the same price. We have pretty much decided on which one we would like, but we don't want to rush to any decisions about which one to get if it is even either of those until we have some type of time frame for when we will be moving to the States. And hopefully, one of both will still be available when it comes time for us to buy a car.


    Well, that's all for now. Enjoy!
  4. Timberwolf
    Well, we are slowly getting things done in real life and I am getting things done here at NL.


    IN REAL LIFE


    I have filled my taxes for 2008, even though they are a little bit late, you get an automatic 2 month extension when you live out of the country, and I don't owe any late fees.


    We've made an appointment to go talk with an U.S. Immigration lawyer in Bangkok on July 20th, so we can find out our options. We had a bit of a scare concerning immigration just the past week. We contacted an immigration lawyer that was supposed to be here in Chiang Mai, they have an office here, but the lawyer doesn't come up here, and she told us that it will take about a year and I will have to make almost 4 times what I do now . But we are talking to the original lawyer and we are going in to talk to them and find out what he has to say.


    Also when we go to Bangkok, I will be able to talk to my former employer and hopefully get something saying about how much I made a month from them, so I can file my past taxes, and get that taken care of.


    ON THE NORTHLANDS


    I have finally finished something I've been working on here for a special foxy friend and I can start working on Original NL Skin, Wolf & Goddess Skin and the 18+ Skin, which I'm excited to be working on.


    Sorry everybody, there isn't a lot in this post, but I just wanted to give an update, lol. Enjoy
  5. Timberwolf
    Tracy ( @hirondelle) and I have been doing a lot of talking about when we move to the States, and things are just messed up to say the least. First, we are having an issue with getting a mortgage, which I touched on before in a previous blog post. We can't get a mortgage until I've moved to Minnesota and I've got a job. I can't get a job until I move to Minnesota. Our contracts aren't up until September. We can't move until our contracts are up, as we don't want to break the contract because the British Council will pay for the move, or at least a good chunk of it, including flights. So that's just kind of funky right now and more on that later.

    Just last week, we had some really messed up issues at work, and policies need changed, but they won't be changed, and this guy was really kind of a little kid about the whole thing, and just made it worse for himself, and decided to take off for the weekend, so I had to pick up an extra class, which is good for the money, but hard on a Saturday as I already teach 6 hours of kids that day, so it ended up being 8 hours.

    While this is going on, Tracy ( @hirondelle)comes to a conclusion about the whole move thing. I should move out early, get a job, get THE house, and she will ship everything out to me. That really kind of threw me for a bit of a loop, and I was kind of upset about it. I don't want to leave her for a month. Hell, the two weeks she would take to go to England were hard enough. This will be at least a month. Well, the more I thought about it, the more I've come to realize, it's actually better that way. But, it's still stressful.

    25 June 2009

    Today we find out that it looks like I will have to leave around August - September time and Tracy ( @hirondelle)won't be able to come out until after Christmas, because of the processing for her visa and everything. One of the nice things though, is that it looks like she will be able to work when she does come out.

    And on top of all that, I didn't think about doing my taxes, as I haven't been living in the U.S., so I didn't really think about. I knew that I had to do it, but I figured I could just get it taken care of once we move back. Well, I have to have it done before I leave. So, that's about 4 years of back taxes. The nice thing is that I don't make a lot, and the earned income tax credit for living over seas, if I read it correctly is over $87,000.00, and I am no where even close to that. Oh well. I will be going to a tax lawyer on Monday to check it out.
  6. Timberwolf

    Feel The Love (Repost from 17/06/2009

    By Timberwolf,


    The Northlands
    Over the last few days, while I've been working on The Northlands, I've noticed something special. It always amazes me every time I notice it. And it all started back in 2004.

    I was at FE and posting mostly in The Woods and for one reason or another, the board got nuked. While we were waiting for the FE to come back, which it would for a bit and something would happen and it would go away again and come back. Somebody made a post about how stupid it was that the admin couldn't keep the board up and running, and the admin flipped out and shut all of FE down.

    A number of us went over to PI to post and I started talking to some people and found that they were tired with the way some of the things were run, just like I was.

    So I talked to a friend of mine and decided to open my own board. That was Northlands Fantasy. A number of people joined us there and started setting up what I thought was a good community. It actually inspired other members to set up their own communities, and I helped them with that.

    In about 2005, something happened and I decided to totally walk away from all the online communities. I was away for about 2 years.

    During that 2 year period, I would pop in and take a look at Northlands Fantasy, and I noticed that for whatever reason, it just wouldn't die. People would come back and make a post here and a post there and just keep it ticking over with just enough to keep people, like myself, checking to see what was going on. Thank you Moonhawk.

    Well, one day, Tracy ( @hirondelle ) and I decided to give it kick in the pants, change the name and change the look. This was in late 2006 early 2007.

    The Northlands was born!

    But we felt that wasn't enough for those people who stuck it out and who came back and the new members, as The Northlands started to become a family. So we purchase a board with all the bells and whistles and set it up. And everybody loved it! Some people left, but for some reason, most people found it hard to stay away. Including myself.

    Then we lost the board

    And we waited, and people offered to help us with getting the board back and with getting a new board. We decided to wait and ended up waiting about 5 months but the old board never came back. We finally got tired of waiting and decided to purchase a board with all the bells and whistles again. And again a number of the family offered to help.

    Once we got the board up and working and invited you all here, you flooded the place with your happiness and love, and showed us how much you loved The Northlands! And some of the family members who never went to the Original Northlands came back to this one.

    At least once a day I hear from a member how much they love The Northlands, or how much they love us.

    We decide to create a donate button for those people who wanted to help out The Northlands and before we had it finished we had donations. We couldn't believe it! And then just today, I had new member of the family tell me that all the good members of FE came here. That's why this place is great. I would have to agree with that member.

    Thank you all.

    Thank you all. You all mean so much to us!
  7. Timberwolf
    Date:
    15 June 2024
    Time (Estimated Length):
    120 min (151.5 km)
    People on trip:
    @Timberwolf & @hirondelle (Suzuki V-Strom 1000), Australian David and Poppy (Royal Enfield 350 Meteor), Robin (Triumph Speed 900)
    Trip Checklist
    Tire & PSI:
    Good
    Fluids:
    Full
    Lights:
    Good
    Lic. & Reg.
    Good
    Weather/Temp:
    Sunny (37 C)
    Route:
    https://riserapp.com/trips/845893
    https://riserapp.com/trips/845650 Type of trip/Ride:
    Lunch run with friends
    Points of interest:
    Montreux Café and Farm
    Motorcycle Performance:
    Excellent
    Why?
    It has been a long time since I’ve done an extended ride and it felt really good.
    Departing KM
    41,792
    Ending KM
    41,942
    Will I do this ride again?
    Yes
    Why?
    It was a nice ride out of town.  Not too much traffic and some nice stretches of open road.
    Memorable events/notes
    We started off again at The Deck (Big Mike's restaurant), which I feel is a great starting place.  I just feel that if we get about 10 people, parking might become a problem.  We started off a little late, but not bad.  The plan was to meet at 10:00 am and KSU at 10:30 am.  I really like the KSU idea as it prompts us to leave at a specific time so we aren't just hanging out chatting, which is good, but also, it's nice to get out and ride.  Robin joined us on this ride, which is his first ride on his new bike.  We rode for almost an hour and I decided to take a break, because David and Poppy were on new seats and they hadn't been broken in yet and since we were doing a longer ride this time, it would be better for them and this is also Robin's first big ride.  We weren't quite out of the city yet, but I pulled over for us to stop and have a bit of water and a bit of a break.  I informed them that once we start out again, we would be doing a bit of a loop and then it would be pretty much a straight run to the restaurant and we would be able to get up to about 90 kph.  Once we got back on the road and hit the bit I thought would be good, we opened it up a little bit and I pushed to about 95 kph, and David started falling back, but I believe it was because he was keeping his eyes on Robin, which is good.  I watch David and David watches Robin.  That's how it's supposed to work.  Out side of being quite hot, it was a really nice ride there.  Once we got there, we thought we would have a nice cool place to sit, but ended up finding out that if we wanted to eat anything, we needed to go out to the restaurant part, which was outside.  Food was pretty good.  Then after we ate, we saw that hey a little pop gun shooting range, and David and I decided to have a bit of a go, but neither of us won a prize.  On our ride back, after about an hour, we decided to stop after about an hour and have a drink at an Amazon Cafe.  Once we finished, we got back on the bikes and headed back and didn't get separated until about thirty (30) minutes later when we got separate from David, but Robin stayed with us almost the whole way.  Over all, it was a great ride, just wish we had more with us, but more will come as we keep riding.

     

     


  8. Timberwolf
    Date:
    12 May 2024
    Time (Estimated Length):
    51 min (29 km)
    People on trip:
    Dom & Tracy (Suzuki V-Strom 1000), Australian David (Royal Enfield 250 Interceptor), Tall David (Honda CB 650 Naked Street Bike), Jessica (Honda Click 125), Wonder (Honda Rebel 500), Harley Dave (Harley Davidson Road Glide 1950)
    Trip Checklist
    Tire & PSI:
    Good
    Fluids:
    Full
    Lights:
    Good
    Lic. & Reg.
    Good
    Weather/Temp:
    Sunny (37 C)
    Route:
    https://riserapp.com/trips/799807
    https://riserapp.com/trips/799981
    Type of trip/Ride:
    Lunch run with friends
    Points of interest:
    Sailom Bang Pu Restaurant
    Motorcycle Performance:
    Excellent
    Why?
    It has been a long time since I’ve done an extended ride and it felt really good.
    Departing KM:
    40767
    Ending KM:
    40825
    Will I do this ride again?
     No 
    Why?
    Most of the ride was going down Sukhumvit road and the traffic was bad.
    Memorable events/notes:
    This time we started from Big Mike’s restaurant, The Deck, which is a great restaurant.  Tracy and I were a little bit late, but only Australian David was there, so Tracy and I ordered breakfast while we waited for the others to arrive and chatted with Australian David.

    Next to arrive was Tall David, and we chatted to him a bit.  Next to arrive was Wonder with her new friend, Harley Dave.  
      We had a plan for kickstands up (KSU) at 12:30, and we almost hit the mark this time.  Jessica, our last scheduled person to show up, arrived at 12:28.
      I learned a valuable lesson with this trip.  Do not travel down Sukhumvit road at all cost.  Traffic is terrible and it’s so difficult to get beyond 60kph.  Since we couldn’t really get any speed, at that time of day, it made it super super hot.  
      I really liked starting off from The Deck.  It felt like having a home.  
      The destination restaurant wasn’t so good either.  That was a bad choice.  In the future, I will choose places North, East, and West of Bangkok and stay away from South as we would spend too much time on Sukhumvit.  
      As a first ride, I felt it went really well, and we left at around the time I wanted and got back in plenty of time.  
     
     

  9. Timberwolf

    Motorcycle Rides

    By Timberwolf,


    Motorcycle
    On July 15, 2023, I purchased a new bike for me.
     
    Before I tell you about that though, I want to tell you what led to this bike.  
     
    2018 Honda Rebel 500  
    2018 Honda Rebel 500
    Back in 2018 I bought a new 2018 Honda Rebel 500 to replace my Honda Phantom 200.  This was a great bike, and we did a lot of rides on it, lots of lovely trips.  The first trip we did on this bike was a trip from Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to Sangkaburi to Sai Yok to Nakhon Prathom to Bangkok.  It was such a lovely trip to get used to the bike.  We have also done multiple trips to Khao Yai and a trip to Sukhothai and a number of lunch runs with friends and multiple safety courses with Honda.  
     
    This was a lovely bike, which I loved to ride, with lots of memories.  The whole time I had this bike, I only dropped it twice.  The first time was when I did a slow u-turn in the middle of a major road here in Bangkok and the person on the back of the bike wasn't paying attention to what I was doing and leaned over and I wasn't expecting it and the bike fell.  The second time was when I was on one of the safety courses, and it was late in the day, I lost concentration on what I was doing and I leaned the bike over too far and then felt the bike start to go, gave it a little extra throttle to set it back up, but the back tire broke loose and then I caught the platform and the bike went down hard.  
     
    One thing was, after owning the Rebel for about six (6) months, I started looking at other bikes.  One of the youtubers that I follow, Ryan FortNine (https://www.youtube.com/@FortNine), rode a 2015 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 and he did two reviews on in.
     
     
     
     
    Because of these two videos, I started looking at the cost of the Suzuki V-Strom.  One of the things I noticed, at the time, is that they were a little bit cheaper than the Honda Africa Twin.
     
    2024 Honda Africa Twin When my Honda Rebel 500 was almost paid off, I decided to sell it and get a bigger bike.  I felt like I was ready.  I was at the local Honda dealership and they showed me a Honda Rebel DCT 1100.  I took it. for a test ride, and it felt nice.  I went home and talked to @hirondelle about it, and she said that if we were going to get another bike, she didn't want another Rebel, because after about thirty (30) minutes on the back of the bike, she starts to not feel so good, and at about forty-five (45) minutes, she needs a break, and an hour, she needs at least a thirty (30) minute break.  It had a lot to do with the leg position for her on the back of the Rebel.  So we looked at what Honda bikes would be good for a pillion rider, and it was recommended an Africa Twin.  I started looking hard at Africa Twins.  I took a couple for a test ride, and I had @hirondelle go with me for a test ride.  She actually loved the feeling of riding on the back of that big machine.  We talked about what we needed to do to get one, and crunched some numbers.  We originally decided to get a new one, but then later on, we decided to get a used one, and save quite a bit of money.  
     
    Triumph Tiger 1200 One day, I had a Triumph Tiger come up in my feed on Facebook, so I looked at them.  Even the second hand ones were coming up as more expensive than a new Honda Africa Twin, but something weird happened when I was doing that.  I was reminded of all the research I did on the Suzuki V-Strom 1000.  So I decided to go back and take a look at the research I did on the V-Strom and the videos that Ryan FortNine did on the Suzuki V-Strom.
     
    This convinced me to take a second look at the V-Strom.  While I was doing that, @hirondelle looked for bikes that are comfortable for the pillion rider.  She shared with me four (4) lists.  On those four lists, the Honda Africa Twin wasn't listed at all.  The BMW GS1200 (a bike my friend owns) was listed on two lists (2), and the Suzuki V-Strom was on all four (4) lists, so this kind of convinced me to start looking at them.  I looked at the Suzuki web site and saw that their bikes were about the same price as the Honda Africa Twin.
     
    Buying a 2018 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 I decided to look at used bikes.  The Honda Africa Twin was going for about 370,000 Thai Baht, which is about 10,500 USD, and the Suzuki V-Strom was running about 320,000 Thai Baht, which is about 9000 USD.  The day I started looking at used Suzuki V-Stroms, I found a 2018 Suzuki V-Strom 1000 for 270,000 Thai Baht, which is about 7,500 USD.  I left it for a couple of weeks to see if it would go, and told @hirondelle about it and showed her pictures.  She liked how the bike looked, and we both liked that it came with a top box on the back.  After a few weeks went by, I reached out to the seller and asked for a discount, and he knocked of 10,000 Thai Baht for me, about 300 USD.  Didn't seem like a bad deal, so I asked to go have a look at it.  Tracy went with me to look at it and for me to test ride it.  I started it up, and the motor sounded good, no strange noises or anything.  I took it for a test ride and it rode smooth and felt really comfortable.  I made him an offer, that he said he couldn't do as he was selling it on consignment, so the best that he could do was 260,000 Thai Baht.  @hirondelle and I talked about it and we felt this was a good price.  Put a down payment on the bike and came back a month later to pay it off and rode off the lot with my new motorcycle!  
     
    This bike is so comfortable for me, and for @hirondelle.  Our first big trip on it was a trip to Hua Hin, and it was so nice.  @hirondelle also said that she felt really good on it.  We both had to learn a new way to mount the bike as it was so tall, but now it's so natural for use to get on the bike this way.  We have also done a number of lunch runs with some friends on this bike and we love it.  

    I have been keeping a journal for the rides that I have done on this bike, which is something new for me.  To go with that, recently, I have started using the Riser app, which a great app for riding mapping motorcycle rides and also diving directions.  You can decide if you want a curvy route, a supercurvy route or a direct route, which is pretty good.  Also, there is an option to add friends when we ride together so nobody gets lost.  I haven't tested this part yet, but I plan on it.
     
    So, my idea is I will be making journal entries of my rides here, and I will also post my route, so people can have a look on Riser to see where I went.  I'm quite excited about this.  When I have a chance, I will post my journal entries here, but they won't have the map, but all rides after this will have the map and any images I take.  I'm really looking forward to it.  
     
    Always Remember:  Ride your own ride, not somebody elses rides.
  10. Timberwolf

    Sukhothai Motorcycle Trip 2022

    By Timberwolf,


    Travel
    @hirondelle and I had been talking about doing a trip to Sukhothai for quite a few years, but we never actually sat down to plan it.  Mostly, because my schedule is pretty busy.  This year, I ended up having a five (5) day weekend, so we decided to go for it.  
     
    Now, before we get started, to give you an idea of how far this trip actually is, it was just shy of 851km (just shy of 529miles) round trip.  That’s about 425.5km (264 miles) to Sukhothai from our home.  We decided it would be best to break this up over two days, which is something we would normally do.
     
    One more thing before I get started with this journey.  Once we got started on this journey, for our first stop, we stopped at a PTT gas station and almost all PTT gas stations have an Amazon Café.  Amazon Café has OK coffee and good iced lemon tea.  But it’s one of those things that is just special for when you travel.  It’s a nice little rest area.  They have a covered area outside that you sit and relax while you have a break, and some locations have an inside air-conditioned area to relax in as well.  This has become our favorite rest stop in all our journeys since this trip.  
     
    Just to put things into perspective, when we used to do our road trips around northern Thailand, we would go from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai to Chiang Saen to Thaton to Chiang Dao to Chiang Mai, about 565km (351 miles).  The trip we did right after we bought the Honda Rebel was Bangkok to Kanchanaburi to Sangklaburi to Saiyok to Nakhon Pathom to Bangkok which is 699km (434 miles).  So, this was our biggest journey on a bike to date.  
     
    When we were planning, we decided that would we stop in Nakhon Sawan, which is about four (4) hours out of Bangkok, 239km (149.5miles).  One thing that happened early on, when we made one of our stops, we realized that @hirondelle had forgotten her phone.  There was a bit of a panic at first, but we decided that we would just continue on without it.  Also, during this portion of the trip, we were on a nice stretch of road where the traffic was flowing quite nicely.  There was a section that I was doing about 130kph (81mph).  While doing this, there were a group of bikes that passed us and not thinking, I just picked up the pace a bit.  Before you know it, I was cruising along at 147 kph (91mph).  It was at this point, I decided to let go of some of that throttle and we continued coasting at between 120kph (75mph) and 125kph (78mph).  We stayed at a nice hotel there called The Paradiso JK Design Hotel.  Once we stopped, we headed to the local mall to get some drinks and snacks and then back to the hotel.  We had dinner at the hotel, which was some delicious Thai food.  They also had a very good breakfast, which was nice.  The staff were really friendly and helpful.  
     
    After breakfast, I packed up the bike and we headed out for our next stop.  Sriwilai Sukhothai Resort and Spa.  This portion of the trip was a little over 3 hours, 190km (118miles).  There were some scenic bits of this road, which was nice. Nothing too fast again, just cruising between 100kph (62mph) and 120kph (75mph).  We pulled in to Sriwilai Sukhothai Resort and Spa in the early afternoon.  Sriwilai Sukhothai had this amazing lily pond, which was huge!  They had four building that surrounded it, one of which was the building we were in.  Once we got to our room, @hirondelle relaxed for a bit, and I went and had a massage.  One of my favorite things while on holiday.  Once that was done, we had dinner then headed out to Sukhothai Historical Park to see the ruins at night.  It was supposed to be amazing, and it sure didn’t disappoint!  It was beautiful and we got some amazing pictures.  After we wondered around the lit-up parts of the park, we headed back to our resort.  In the morning, we got up and went to have breakfast, and that turned in a big pain in the ass.  We went to the restaurant, gave them our room number, found a table, and went to get our food from the buffet.  They approached us and said we couldn’t eat there.  There was some confusion about us having breakfast there.  Long story short, there was some mess up in the booking and we didn’t book breakfast and ended up having to pay for it.  Whatever.  We then went back out to the historical park and had a look at it during the day and took a lot of pictures.  It’s really cool.  Some of the best ruins in Thailand, in my opinion.  We then went to this lovely little restaurant the was kind of dead, and once we sat down, people started coming in and giving them business.  After lunch, we headed back to the resort and got massages and finished off the day with a nice dinner.  
     
    We got up in the morning and headed back to Bangkok, with us deciding to stop in Sing Buri, which was almost five (5) hours, 281 km (175miles) from Sukhothai.  We booked a room at Zen Garden Resort.  Oh was, was this place bad!  The room they gave us smelt like feet, didn’t look very clean, had no food or restaurant or anything.  We were almost tempted to stay there, but in the end, we just couldn’t do it.  We left and found this amazing little resort called Je t’aime café & villa.  They had four (4) rooms.  Of course.  Room L, Room O, Room V, Room E.  We had Room E.  They had a nice little restaurant there, and we had dinner and ordered our breakfast.  The only bad thing was that the beds were so small, but we did sleep together in the same bed.  
     
    We had a lovely little breakfast in the morning and then packed the bike to head to Bangkok, which was just shy of three (3) hours, 141km (88miles).  The last stretch is always the worst.  You want to stop, and have breaks, but you don’t want to stop, because you’re almost home.  It’s so hard.  We took breaks, but I think we just didn’t rest enough, and the very last bit was agony.
     
    Outside of the last little bit, the trip was actually really good.  I really enjoyed making that trip on the bike.  Makes me want to do more long trips on the bike.
     
    Always Remember:  If you really want to go someplace, set time aside to go.
  12. Timberwolf
    Over the last few days I've been kind of busy here at The Northlands. I've been fixing the blogging skins here. For some they are missing some images and for some, the coding for IE was all messed up. Over all, I've gotten it all cleaned up. I've got the missing images taken care of, and I've worked out how to add personal logos for all our hosted blogs. The Northlands is starting to shape up and look the way I want it to, so I'm feeling really good about all this. I've created personal logos for my blog here with a logo for each skin, so when you look at my blog with one skin, you will see one logo, and when you look at my blog with another skin, you will see another logo.

    Next step is to clean up all the emotes for the dark skins. They look great on the light skins, but on the dark skins, some of them look really bad because they have white lines around them and makes them looks dirty and messed up. So that's my current task for The Northlands. I really enjoy doing all this for The Northlands and it's members, I just need to remember that I also need to post and talk to people. I hear that they miss me, but I can't always figure out why, lol, J/K.


    But I will try to be around more, and keep make blog posts. Just remember that if I go over a week, somebody give me a kick up the backside and tell me to make a blog post.
  13. Timberwolf
    Well, yesterday was pretty good. Only had a few times where I really craved a cigarette, was a little sore from working out the day before with my buddy, and I got a lot of work done on the new thing for The Northlands.


    Today I go back to work. But how am I doing?  Well, I feel good about getting things done with the new thing for The Northlands, I'm feeling a little bit more sore from working out, lol. It usually takes two days. But I feel frustrated and full of anxiety. Everything our cleaning lady does, seems to drive me up a wall. I mean, from the beginning, she wasn't like one of my favorite people, but today it just seems a lot worse than normal. Now, I know this has to do with quitting smoking. I haven't snapped at her or anything, and I'm trying to be good, but sometimes it's really hard. To give an example, I was looking for some scissors so I could cut open the packaging of the patch I'm using to help me stop smoking, but the scissors weren't where they were supposed to be, and they weren't where they have been. so I got a little upset about it, and made a really snide cutting comment about not wanting to wear the patch anyway, thinking she had moved the scissors, she tends to move things, and here @hirondelle had actually moved them. Now I feel bad about making the comment, not only because it was @hirondelle who moved the scissors, but also because I know it's the way I'm feeling because of quitting smoking. It's nobody's fault I'm all wound up tighter than shit on the inside. I just need to find a way to release it some how without picking up another cigarette.


    Hopefully it will start getting easier again, lol.
  14. Timberwolf
    Well, as some of you have read, @hirondelle and I have decided on a few things for New Years. First and foremost, is that we plan on quitting smoking. I would also like to get back into shape, bring my weight back down to what I think it should be, and also start studying martial arts again.


    I'm going to try and keep a bit of a travel log of how things go here.


    As of today, we have quit smoking. I always forget how hard the first day is. So what I'm trying to do is keep my mind busy by doing a few different things. I'm listening to some good music, working on some new things for The Northlands, and a friend of ours is coming down and he would like to go to this open park and work out a little bit. So this here is the start of things.


    Wish us luck.
  15. Timberwolf
    Some of you may know this, but @hirondelle recently "retired" from her position as Academic Manager at the British Council, and she really needed to relax, so we had decided to take a trip to Pai, Thailand for a few days. Everybody here has talked about how great Pai is, and neither of us has been there, so we decided why not.


    Now we've both heard all kinds of things about Pai. One was how relaxing and beautiful it is, and another was how openly people smoke weed there, so we kind of figured we would see people walking down the street or sitting in the coffee shop/restaurants smoking. Much to our surprise, we never saw it. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let me start from the beginning.


    We decided that since Friday (today) was a public holiday and @hirondelle didn't have to work at all this week, we would leave Chiang Mai on Sunday and drive to Pai and stay there until Thursday. On Sunday morning, we go and have breakfast, come back home and finish up the packing and load up the bike. We got started at about 12 noon. We turn onto Highway 107 and it's a fairly straight road once you get out of the city and just start cruising along. It's a nice stretch of road once you get outside the city. No sharp turns, just straight road with nice sweeping bends so I can open the bike up a bit, which I love doing when I can. After about an hour, I turn onto our next road, which is the road that leads to Pai. We stop to have a bit of a break, because the road looks a little twisty and it goes through the mountains, so we stop at this little shop and relax a bit before we continue on.


    To say that the road looks a bit twisty is like a huge understatement! From Chiang Mai to Pai, they say there are 762 bends and curves in the road. All this with going up and down mountains. After about an hour we had to take a break again, because it was kind of getting to us. So we stopped and had some coffee. When we continued on, we had to stop again after about an hour because not only was the road twisting and turning, Thai drivers like to try to pass you on the bends and if another car/truck is coming, they tend to move over, so you either get pushed off the road or have to fall back quickly! The place we stopped had a great view, so that was nice and we relaxed some more and calmed down a bit. Also, on the way to this stop, there was this couple that pulled out in front of us and after little while, they started weaving all over the road and looking over their shoulder at us. As I got closer, I could see huge smiles on their faces, but the way they were driving, I thought it best we pass them at the next passing point. As we are passing, they start waving at us and asking where we are from. I yell back that I'm from America and they yell back ... "I love America!!" which was really cool. When we stopped at the next place with the great view, they rode by on their bike and waved. When we were back on the road again, we saw that they had stopped and were taking a break and we beeped and waved at them. When we stopped just out side of Pai one last time, they passed up and beeped and waved again. It was a lot of fun.


    We found Spa Exotic Home, a place that a friend of ours recommended to us. They have a round bathtub with hot water from a local hot spring, so the first thing we did was have a bath together. It was really nice. But, the place looked like it had seen better days. The porch outside our front door, the wood looked rotted to the point where I might fall through by just walking on it. The screens didn't quite seem to fit the windows, and there was no AC. There was just a fan the blew straight down on the bed. The driveway looked like it used to be really nice, with nice brick work, but it hadn't been maintained, and it was all muddy. Our friend told us that it had a nice restaurant and the Lonely Planet also said it had a nice restaurant. When we checked in, I asked what time they started serving dinner, and they said the they didn't have a restaurant any more. So we had to head into town to get something to eat, which was OK.


    When we rode into town, it had just got dark, which is normally no big deal, but there were no street lights, the road wasn't very wide and in poor condition with a lot of curves and hills, and we were a good distance from town. When we did finally get into town, we found this great little Italian restaurant that made great little personal sized pizzas. After dinner, we decided to walk around and look for a place that served fresh coffee. While walking up the road, we ran into two of my old students (a mother and daughter) and they introduced us to the husband and brother. That was really nice. We found a really nice coffee shop on a corner, and there were a few parade like things going on, so we got to see them. We decided to buy some shorts, because we figured we might decide to wade in one of the many hot springs in the area. The ride back to Spa Exotic Home was a long dark ride. We decided that we would try to find a place closer to town in the morning.


    The next morning, we had an OK breakfast, and bad instant coffee. We headed out to find a place that looked like it might serve at least decent coffee. We found a place named Pai Best Friend's Coffee [sic]. The coffee there was really good. And right across the road was a really nice place to stay, called Pai Baan Thai Resort, so we decided that after coffee we would walk over and see if they had any rooms available. As luck would have it, they did, and we booked a room for the remainder of the time we would be in Pai. And the nice thing, the town was right down the road, not far at all. We headed back to Spa Exotic Home and checked out, and I explained that we decided to stay closer to town, and the lady at the desk was OK with that.


    After putting our things in the new room, we decided to relax some, and play some cards. After awhile, we headed into town to try and find a place that gave foot massages, and scout a place for dinner. We found a decent place and got a foot massage and then walked around town for a bit. We found a place for dinner for later that night, and decided to walk on and find a place to have coffee. We found this great place called Cake Go "O" that served great coffee and had the most amazing cakes!! While sitting there enjoying our coffee and cake, I saw one of our Teaching Assistants coming down the road on the back of a bike with this really shocked look on her face. She didn't see us though, and the look on her face was so funny. Her and her friend continued on down the road, and we finished our cakes and coffee. After we finished, we walked back to the bike and headed back to the room and play more cards until it was time for dinner. We had dinner at this nice little middle eastern restaurant, and as we were finishing our dinner, the Teaching Assistant the we saw earlier (New New) saw us from across the road and ran over to say hi and see how we were doing. We talked a bit and then walked around town again. Pai is a great town to just walk around, mainly, because the town is small and there are so many strange and interesting different characters. We found this place that looked like it would have decent coffee, so we stopped and had coffee, which ended up being really bad, because they put sugar in my coffee and didn't tell me. It was nasty!!


    The next day, we had breakfast and went across the road to have coffee at Pai Best Friend's Coffee, but they didn't have any power because there was work being done on the power lines down the road. So we decided to head into town for coffee and had some OK coffee at a nice little place. After our coffee, we decided that we were going to ride around and look for this massage place called Pai Traditional Thai Massage (PTTM), that the Lonely Planet raved about, which is also a traditional Thai massage school. We found it and decided to have a traditional Thai full body massage which was for two hours. OMG, it was amazing! And they worked out a knot that @hirondelle had that she didn't realize she had from when her back was hurting. It was incredible. We felt so relaxed afterwords! We decided that we should have Thai food one night, so we ate at the resort and they made the Thai food Thai style, which I love! I hate when they Westernize Thai food, because they take out all the chillies. God it was so good. After dinner, we went back into town and decided to walk around and find @hirondelle a necklace. We found a little place that had some hand made necklaces and we got one for @hirondelle and one for a friend of ours. They are beautiful necklaces.


    The next day, we decided to find the gas station, so we knew where it was for when we were ready to leave and I can fill up the bike. @hirondelle wanted another Thai massage, and I decided I wanted an herbal massage. I'd been hearing rave reviews about how good the herbal massages were, so I figured I would get one at PTTM. Another great massage! After our massages, we wanted coffee again, so we went back to Cake Go "O" (one of our favorite coffee places in Pai) and we saw more people from work, so we walked over and said hi. That night we had dinner at Amido's (the great little Italian restaurant) again. They ave really great pizza! We walked around town again, and we found some T-shirts for me and one for our cleaning lady, and finished the night off with coffee at that nice little corner coffee shop again.


    Thursday was time to head back home, so we had breakfast, packed up the bike and went to Cake Go "O" for our final coffee in Pai. Fueled up the bike and headed back to Chiang Mai. Lots and lots of curves, with Thai drivers passing going through the mountains again. We stopped at the nice look out place again, and stopped at the nice little coffee shop and then at the little road side shop for a final stop before we got back onto 107 and back to Chiang Mai.


    Once we got back onto 107, I got the bike upto 110 km/h and was cruising down the highway when this guy on a little bike decided he was going to meander across the road and wobble from one lane to the other, giving us a fright. From that point on, I kept the bike at about 100 km/h and played passing tag with a sungtao with the back full of westerners smiling and waving at us.


    All in all, it was a great and relaxing trip, but it was nice to come home and have Fon, our cleaning lady, drop off Spike, so the family could be home together again for the first night back.
  16. Timberwolf

    Going Back To Karate

    By Timberwolf,


    Karate
    As most of you know, back in March, I had knee surgery, which I wrote a blog post about back on September 14th, 2020.  Since before that, I've thought about going back to martial arts.  There is a place near me that teacher Brazilian Jiujitsu (BJJ), but to I have a few issues with going to that place, which I won't get into here.  To go along with that, I really wanted to go back to karate. 
     
    There are basically two (2) different disciplines in karate.  There is Japanese karate and Okinawan karate.  Here is a one of my favorite youtube people for martial arts, Jesse Enkamp, talking about 10 differences between Okinawan karate and Japanese karate.
     
     
    Now, there isn't anything wrong with Japanese karate or Okinawan karate, it's just that Okinawan karate was where I got my start when I still lived in the States.
     
    Now, in Thailand, I studied Japanese karate.  To be more specific, I studied JKS Shotokan Karate, which I really do enjoy.  I studied for about 3 years.  You can see my belt tests here with these videos:
     
    10th kyu (White belt) to 8th kyu (Orange belt) test:
     
    8th kyu (Orange belt) to 5th kyu (1st purple belt) test:
     
    5th kyu (1st purple belt) to 4th kyu (2nd purple belt) test:
     
    4th kyu (2nd purple belt) to 2nd kyu (2nd brown belt) test:
     
    2nd kyu (2nd brown belt) to 1st kyu (3rd brown belt) test:
     
    1st kyu (3rd brown belt) to Shodan (1st black belt) test:
     
    I felt so honored when I achieved my Shodan belt.  The problem was, my life got busy, and I moved away from karate for a bit, and when I did come back, I didn't agree with some of the things that I saw happening at the dojo, and I had a really hard time with that and I ended up walking away from the dojo.  I came back a year or so later, and it was pretty much the same, just fewer students.  
     
    Fast forward to November 2020, and I feel like I'm ready to go back to karate, actually, I'm kind of craving it.  So I went back to karate on October 22nd:
     
    https://www.facebook.com/Timberwolf1771/posts/10157352946052676 <=== My FB post about it.
     
    I have since done a total of 4 classes, with last night being my 4th class.  Now, I can't do as deep of stances as I used to, not yet anyway, and I can't quite move the way I used to, but I will get there.  It's just going to take some time, and I need to be patient.  Katas are slowly starting to come back, and I'm seeing different layers of the katas again which is nice.  Also last night, we were recorded doing the kata teki-shodan.  
     

    teki-shodan.mp4  
    I'm really happy to be back doing karate, and I'm looking forward to doing more.  I'm really looking forward to doing more karate.  I don't know if I will do any more tests, but I will keep learning and finding more and more layers to the katas.
     
    Always Remember:  You should do the things you love, even if you don't get the chance to do so in the autumn of your life.  Still do it, because you love it.
     
  17. Timberwolf

    Krabi 2019-2020

    By Timberwolf,

    This year, for New Years, we decided to do something special.  @hirondelle, Stef and I decided to spend the turning of the decade at one of @hirondelle and mine favorite places.  We wanted to go down to Krabi to Railay.  One of the nice things about Railay is that it is on a peninsula where you can walk from the east side to the west side in about 5-10 minutes, so you can get amazing sunrises in the morning, hang out at some awesome beaches and then get an incredible sunset.
    @hirondelle and I have been to Railay two other occasions.  The first time was when @hirondelle took me there 14 years ago before I started working in a school for the first time.  We went there in May, which is the end of the season, so there were very few people.  We stayed at Railay Bay Resort & Spa.  The first time we stayed there, it was so basic.  They had like 3 or rows of cottages/bungalows and a row of multi-level suites.  There was a dirt path that ran down to the beach.  The beach was amazing, and on our second day, we found this lovely little coffee shop that made fresh coffee.  You could hang out there, and if you didn't have something to read, they had a shelf full of books for you to take a look at.  The second time we went, it was in October, which was the end of high season, and we stayed at the same resort, Railay Bay Resort & Spa, but everything changed so much.  the villas were much nicer, and most of the villas had their own private out door jacuzzi.  It was still really nice.  
    This time, when we decided to go, we looked at Railay Bay Resort & Spa, but it was so expensive, we decided to stay at a resort just north of Railay Bay & Spa at a place called Railay Phutawan Resort, which is in the mountains a little bit, which was cool.  They also had a lovely little cliff/mountain that people could learn to climb on, which was pretty cool.  I took a great nighttime photo of it.
    One of the lovely things about staying at Railay, is you can't drive to it.  You have to fly into Krabi town, go to the shore, and get a boat to Railay.  So we arrived at Railay Bay East, and climbed into a trailer attached to a tractor and drove us up to the resort.  When we got up there, our room wasn't quite ready yet, so they had us go up to the bar area, which kind of over looks all of Railay East and West.  Beautiful view.  We sat there for a bit and had a drink and relaxed.
    Our first day in Krabi, we spent just unwinding and recovering from getting up so early for our flight to Krabi.  It was nice though. 
    Our second day, Stef took us to this beach that previously could reach by taking a sea kayak to.  Apparently, they made a walk way from Railay Bay East to this beach just south of Railay Bay East and West.  All I can say, is this is the most packed I've ever seen this beach to be.  I couldn't believe it.  I've not seen this many people on a beach since I'd been to Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island back in the early 90's.  We did eventually find a nice place under some trees back up from the beach.  Stef and I did have a quick swim in the sea, but Stef was being stung by jellyfish larvae, so we decided to get out. 
    After a bit, we decided to go have some pizza at a place Stef knew about on the East Bay.  We some pizza for lunch and some beers and relaxed.  I got some some great pictures of Stef and @hirondelle while we were at the pizza place.  I tell you, I'm one of the luckiest men in the world.
    After we finished our pizza, Stef wanted to take me to this massage place that she went to the last time she was in Krabi, but it was closed, so we wandered back up East Bay and found another place.  We both got oil massages and they were really good.  After our massages, Stef and I headed back to the hotel to get @hirondelle to go have dinner.  Stef fancied a burger, so we found a place on Walking Street that did burgers with a guy that playing guitar, so we decided to eat there.  The music was decent, but the burgers were kind of shit.  First, they didn't have cheese, and then when we got them, they were really small.  At least I had some great company.  ❤️ 
    The next day, we hung out around the resort mostly, but then in the evening, we decided we wanted to go have pizza at the pizza place again for dinner.  The reason why we decided on the east side, was because there were some Muay Thai fights going on at one of the local bars, and we wanted to go see them.  Once we finished dinner, that's where we went.  We saw a few fights, and they were pretty good.  No knockouts that we saw, but still really good.
    For our fourth day, we walked around a bit, but we had decided to have dinner at Railay Bay Resort & Spa.  When @hirondelle and I stayed here before, it was one of our favorite places to eat, because they had the best food really. and they usually have a great seafood spread.  Sadly, they didn't have have seafood, but we ordered some good food, and I got some great sunset pictures.
    The next day, was our final day.  It was New Years Eve, and our resort said we could book a table at their New Years Eve dinner, so we decided to have dinner at the resort, but I also wanted to try the kra paow burger at our coffee place, so we decided to go there for lunch.  That burger was awesome!  That night, we had dinner at our resort.  The food was really good and after dinner they had a fire show.  The fire show was cool, but the show was done with like teenagers.  Was still cool to watch.
    After that, we worked our way down to the beach to watch the New Years fireworks display.  The three of us hung out and chatted while we waited.  The fireworks were awesome!  I loved them.  Once the firewoks were done, we headed back up to the room.
    The next morning we caught our boat and headed back to Krabi to catch our flight back to Bangkok.
  18. Timberwolf

    Polyamory

    By Timberwolf,

    Tracy and I have made some changes to our life and relationship over the past six months.  Well, I would say more in the past year.  Let me start from the beginning.
    About a year ago, Tracy and I decided to explore our kinky side a bit more.  In doing so, we joined a kinky community to get to know others that were already kinky.  We did some research and found out that there was what's called munch.  Basically, a munch is a place for people to meet up at a normal place, like a bar, pub or restaurant.  It's a place for people to feel comfortable and chat about things and get to know each other.  The community was very welcoming, and we met some really interesting people.  Not long after the event, Tracy and I went to England on holiday.  When we got back from England, we went to a couple more munches before we were invited to a party, which wasn't even a kink play party, it was a welcome back party for a friend of the community, at a house of one of the members of the community.  So we arrived, and we were welcome with open arms by the host.  Everybody was very friendly with us, and we made some really good friends that night.  One of those friends was somebody we reacquainted ourselves with, which was Stef.  Of all the people in the community, we started to develop a close friendship with Stef.
    Over the next 6 months, Tracy and I started talking about maybe opening up our marriage, or more to the point, inviting a woman, and try a threesome.  One of the most important things, for the both of us, was that the person we decided to try this with really needed to be attracted to the both, not just me, and not just Tracy, but both.  The one person that we thought would be good for us, if she liked us, was Stef, because we had already built a friendship with her.  During a birthday party at Stef's house, Stef approached me and let me know that if Tracy and I wanted to, she would like to play with us.  A little later in the night, Stef also talked to Tracy about.  She told us how she thought both Tracy and I were cool and how much she liked us.
    After the party, Tracy and I went home and we talked about it a little bit.  Both of us were quite excited by the idea, but we made sure not to make any decisions then, and went to bed and let things settle in our head.  The next day we talked about it off and on, and decided that would like to try it.  I contacted Stef, and we made a date.  The original plan was that we were going to have Stef come to our place, but we had some issues, and we moved the date to Stef's place.  We arrived, and Stef's, and had dinner just chatted for quite some time.  Don't worry, I'm not going to give you all the gory details or the play by play.  Let's just say that we had a really good night and if anything, it brought the three of us closer.  Over the next few days and weeks, we talked about it, and decided that we wanted to do it again, but this time, do a weekend thing.  This time, Stef came to our house.  We went to a restaurant near us and had a lovely dinner and talked a lot.  We went back to our place and chatted and got closer.  We spent Friday night, all day Saturday and Sunday morning.
    About mid December, I found out that Tracy was going to Hong Kong for work during my birthday, and she asked me if I would like to go, and then a few days later, she asked if we should invite Stef, so when we went to a party at Stef's place, early in the night, we asked Stef if she would join us in the kitchen for a moment, and asked her if she would like to go to Hong Kong with us.  This was a big step for us for a few different reasons.  First, Tracy would already be in Hong Kong, so Stef and I would fly out together.  Second, Tracy would have to stay in the hotel her work paid for on the Thursday night and work on Friday, so Stef and I would spend the night together in the hotel together, alone and part of Friday together alone until Tracy could join us later in the evening.  Stef loved the idea agreed.
    Christmas was fast approaching, and Tracy and I wanted to spend it with Stef, so we asked her if she wanted to have Christmas with us, and she accepted, and we arranged another multi-day.  On Christmas Eve, we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Bourbon Street, which does a Cajun Style Buffet which is just delicious.  Sadly, they made a mistake and didn't have our table that we booked, but they made up for it by putting us in a private area, so it was just the three (3) of us, which was really nice.  After dinner, we got a taxi back to our place and opened gifts.  We spent Christmas Day together, just relaxing and played a really interesting game.  On the 26th, we had a nice breakfast and then Stef went home.
    Also, we weren't just getting together for dates.  If there was a munch or a party, or an art night or something, we would see Stef at these.  Stef also wanted us, and those close to her to meet her parents.  This was a big step for Stef, because although her parents knew she was polyamorous they hadn't met everybody together at one sitting.  We got to meet them and they met everybody and we had a lovely dinner and chatted and got to know them.
    The following Monday, Tracy was off to Hong Kong, and I had until Thursday to get to get things organized in my head to go to Hong Kong with Stef on the following Thursday.  I got approval from my school to leave after lunch on Thursday, so I could take care of any last second things, and at 4:00 pm, I headed off to Makasan Station to meet Stef, and we boarded the Airport Rail Link and headed to the airport together.  Once we were all checked in, we sat down for some snacks and beers and Stef gave me my birthday card with a lovely picture in it.  We boarded the plane and off to Hong Kong.  Once in Hong Kong, things were a bit hectic as we had to find the hotel, but it wasn't too bad, and we checked into the hotel, went to the room relaxed.  The following morning, Stef and I went out and about, and I won't go too much into the Hong Kong trip as you can read all about it in the blog post titled Special Birthday Gift.
    Next up was Stef's birthday, which we celebrated a two in one birthday on Tracy's birthday.  Stef booked a lovely dinner at the Sofitel Rooftop Restaurant where we had mussels for dinner and then we went back to Stef's place for a nice night together.  In February, we had quite a few dates.  First, as I said was Tracy's birthday, then we got together on the on the 8th, we had dinner together on the 14th, with Stef spending the night, and then we had another weekend date near the end of February after the Poly munch.  
    In March, five (5) of us went to Pattaya for a dive weekend.  It was our friend Colin and his girlfriend Emma, Tracy, Stef and I.  It was a lovely weekend and we really enjoyed it.  On March 8th, we had our 6th month anniversary, and we celebrated it together.  We also had a date on the 22nd, which was the Thai Election day, and we jokingly called Erection day.. .well, because obviously.
    When all this started out, we didn't think it would be where we are now.  I think the three (3) of us just thought it would be a night of sex, one time, maybe more if we all enjoyed it.  What we didn't expect was that the three of us would end up falling in love with each other.  It's been an amazing ride, and maybe I will right another post about it when we hit the one year mark.  I'm not sure yet.  We are just playing things by ear, and one of the most important things is that we don't want any of the three of us to change.
    Always Remember:  Always follow your heart, it will never lead you wrong. 
  19. Timberwolf

    Special Birthday Gift

    By Timberwolf,

    This year for my birthday, Tracy decided to do something really special for me.  See, Tracy's work was having her go to Hong Kong for a work.  She would have to fly out on Monday the 14th, and she asked me if I wanted to fly out on that Thursday, my birthday.  I'd never been to Hong Kong, but it's one of those places I wanted to visit.  I was really excited about this. 
    After we had agreed on this, Tracy asked me if I would be OK if we decided to invite our friend, Stef, to go with me.  So Stef would fly out with me on Thursday night, and we would spend the rest of Thursday night together, and half of Friday, until Tracy finished work in the afternoon, then we would spend the rest of Friday together and all of Saturday and fly back together on Sunday.
    I was all for this, and excited, and Tracy told me she was also very excited about this, so we decided to bring this up to Stef.  When we brought this up to Stef, she was also very excited about it, which made it more exciting for us.
    So the big day arrives.  My birthday.  I finished work early, and headed home to do the last minute things I needed to do before I headed to the airport.  At about four o'clock, I head out for the airport.  On the way there, I met Stef, and we went to the airport together.  While we waiting for our flight, we had shared a couple of jogs of beer and she gave me a lovely birthday card.
    Next up was flight to Hong Kong.  It's not a long flight, only about two and a half hours.  Once we got going, I started watching the movie Papillon (2017).  It was a really good movie, but I didn't have time to watch the whole movie, but I got to watch the last part of it on the way back.
    We arrived in Hong Kong at about 10:30, and made it to the trains before they stopped running, we eventually made it to the area of our hotel, then we had to find our hotel.  LOL.  Quite an interesting journey at that time of night, but it was fun walking around Hong Kong at that time of night.
    When we got up on Friday morning, we headed out to find breakfast.  We walked around Hong Kong for a bit, enjoying the city for my first tie, taking some pictures of interesting things that I saw.  We finally found a place for breakfast and had a really good breakfast.  After breakfast, Stef and I decided to walk around Hong Kong some more so she could show me around Hong Kong as it was my first time.  We saw some really interesting shaped/styled buildings.  There was this one that looked like it would topple over if there was a strong wind.
    I also saw this building that looked like it was made of puzzle pieces, which was really cool.
     And next to this building was a gold building.
    In our wanderings, Stef took me to Hong Kong Park which has some really cool things.  In the outdoors bit, it had some ponds with waterfalls, but then they also had this conservatory in the park.  In side this conservatory, they had some really cool things and a few funny things.  They had a few different rooms areas.  One of the areas was the arid area, and they had these funny little statues in there, which I had to take pictures of, you can find those in the Hong Kong 2019 Gallery.  Outside, we got a closer look at the ponds and waterfalls, and they flowed from one pond to another.  At the lower ponds, they had koi fish and so many turtles.
    After we finished at the the Hong Kong Park, we wandered around Hong Kong a little bit, looking for a bank so I could change money from Thai Baht to Hong Kong Dollars.  All the banks we went to wouldn't exchange the money for me unless I had an account with them.  We did eventually find a currency exchange so I could change my money. 

    It was about this time that Tracy messaged us to let us know that she had finished work and that she was going to go to the hotel that her work had booked her in, check out and meet us at our hotel, so Stef and I hopped onto the tram and headed back to the hotel.  One of the cool things about the trams in Hong Kong is that they look so old.  It's like thrown back about 40 years or so.  Once we got back to the hotel and met up with Tracy, we brought her suitcase up to the room and headed out.
    There was a "Christmas" fair that was going on, but it had been extended to Chinese New Years, so it was still going on when we got there, so we decided to go and check it out.  The fair was situated near the ferris wheel that Hong Kong has which is like the London Eye, the only difference is, it isn't big enough for you to stand up in and you are supposed to remain seated for the whole ride.  I took quite a few pictures from the ferris wheel that you can find in the photo gallery for this blog post.
    After the ferris wheel ride, we decided that since we are at a fair, we needed to get hotdogs and beer, so we found a stand where we could get hotdogs and a different stand where we could get beer.  The bad thing was, we needed to buy tokens to get the beer and the hotdogs, so we went and bought tokens and had beer and hotdogs.  Well, Stef and I had beer, Tracy and a soda.  
    After this, we had some extra tokens so we wandered around looking for things to spend our tokens on.  We found one of the rides, I think it was called White Water Rafting or something like that.  Each boat had four (4) seats, which was perfect for us.  It was a lot of fun.  After that, we decided to head off to get dinner. 
    We decided to have dinner at this Brussels restaurant that mussels.  It was my first time having mussels.  I decided to go with a spicy one that had chorizo sausage, and they were delicious.  Then we headed back to the hotel.
    For Saturday, we decided that we wanted to head over to Kowloon.  To do that, we had to head across Victoria Harbor, so we decided to take the Star Ferry.  I don't know if you know the movie Chungking Express, but it's a movie about this place in Kowloon that is like this apartment complex, with everything you need just in there.  It's actually a really good movie, so it was pretty cool to see the real place.
    While we were in Kowloon, we wanted to check out a couple of sex shops.  I've been to a few in the States, and a few in the UK, so I thought it would be interesting to see what one was like in Hong Kong.  It was packed full of things, and not as spacious as the ones I've been to in the States or in the UK but it was pretty cool.  So many different things.
    After the first shop, we stopped and had lunch, then off to a stationary shop.  Can't pass up a good stationary shop and this was supposed to be one of the best in Hong Kong.  Wow!  Did that have some stuff.  Everything you can imagine stationary wise, for art, Legos, teaching, for learning, games, pens, you name it, it had it!  It was huge.  Like seven (7) floors.  Incredible!  I ended up buying Tracy her birthday gift there.  
    Next up, we decided to find what was a really highly rated shop in Hong Kong, but on the way I saw this, which has lots of rope and lots of bamboo, oh the things I could do with this!   Once we found the shop, it was in a little mall, but it wasn't really that great, but we did see another one, and that was a bit better.
    Once we were finished there, we hopped on the underground and headed back across the harbor to head up to the Peak and have dinner.  We had made a booking through the hotel so we needed to get back.  We hopped into a taxi and he took us up the Peak.  We were a little later than we wanted to be, so we didn't get to explore the Peak very much, but we the view of the night skyline of Hong Kong with the mountains overhead was just incredible!  Then we went to the Peak Restaurant.  I decided to have a steak sandwich that was delicious.  
    Another great day in Hong Kong, so after dinner, we headed back to the hotel for the night.
    Sadly, that was our last night in the hotel, and in the morning, we packed things up and headed for the subway to head to the airport.  For my first trip to Hong Kong, it was amazing and I have to thank both Tracy and Stef for an amazing birthday.
     
    Always Remember: If there is some place that you really want to see, make sure to make the time to it.  You won't regret it.

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