A Thai Week: When Bangkok Smiles

I don't wanna be too elaborate on this. I have already made up a 55 min film on my trip to Thailand 8 months ago (March 2008), but I don't mind sharing some of those moments here on this journal. Next time I promise to write on my journeys in real time and not some months after. I'm gonna divide these Thai photos in posts!

Here are some 4 not-so-intimate pics from me and two of my fellow chums (Mohammad and Mehrdad) as we took them wandering around the Thai cosmos.

This is our hotel The Menam Riverside and the picture you see is the front yard pool, we did a lot of swimming and drifting over here. Very heavenly indeed.

This impressing "Lucky Rider" was taken by Mehrdad right on time.

Language is possibly your weakest link when traveling to East Asia and in addition to that, this shop owner is least likely to attract any tourism as we'll probably never find out what this mysterious shop was about. What the hell are they selling?

It's not really far from reality: Thailand is the country of smiles. Look at the colors to find that out for yourself. The city was unbelievably alive. Maybe that's the point according to Dalai Lama:

I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.

I'll be back with more Thai stuff.
p.s. Enjoy my new music player on the journal.
Thank you 8Tracks!

Us Iranians & Internet | A Walk w/ Mom

This is somewhat interesting: During the past few years I have almost been everywhere on this global village: Orkut, Yahoo 360!, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Last.fm, Tumblr, Blogspot, Wordpress, Weebly and so on. And what did I honestly get from all this hype? Absolutely nothing! If there was something to accomplish, I did it all by myself. I started out my indie music blog and wrongly expected support from my own friends (I didn’t have much e-pals back then). I also started a blog exclusively for my gang of intimate blokes and called it Olive Island! And started posting and posting. Nothing could stop me indeed. What is the feedback you get when you’re on internet? What was the name? Oh yes, COMMENTS. That’s every blogger’s Achilles’ heel. Exactly! Nothing was all I got. And you know what? No one has ever supported me in writing. In fact, nobody gives a damn. So is this something cruel?
When I ask my friends “So how’s the blog?” which is pretty routine for any online citizen, these are the answers I get:

• My internet connection is pretty messed up lately.
  
• I still haven’t found time to check my email in 3 weeks.
  
• I usually don’t hang out that much. I merely check my mail,
  
• I’m too busy you know!
  
• Which one? That one? Oh yeah, I think it’s great.
  

Comments? Ideas? Criticism? Objection? Any kind of reflection that means “I Was There @ Your Place”? None. And that’s where you become completely pissed off numb. I know I’m doing my best to make sense but I never know if anyone reads my nonsense. It’s a delicate thing and the fact is that 1 person out of every 100 visitors leaves a comment on your blog. I think my statistics are way lower than the average. When I check out my blog’s traffic, I see visitors from Kuala Lambour, New Delhi and Alberta, Canada and sometimes my last.fm droogies pals (who honestly have been kind enough). Who’s leaving a comment? [whistling]. Thank you! But I don’t think it’s that black and white outside my country i.e. Iran. Friends leave comments, people reflect their feedback. So what the hell, man? I don’t know much but some vivid facts are for certain in our Iranian culture. The Studying/Reading average in Iran is less than one second. Wow! I take it all back folks. No complaints. But these are what Iranians usually do when they connect to the Internet:

• Open up their messengers to chat w/ total strangers;
  
• Sign in to their social network to see some total strangers stripping up their bodies to add friends and do their biz (you know what I mean by that!);
  
• Visit the Iranian rap/pop websites and downloading the latest crap out there;
  
• Check their emails to see if there’s any notifications from those total strangers everywhere;
• Looking for software hacks and new updates

But on the other side of the planet, there are people looking for news, articles, art and some other useful stuff. I didn’t create this journal to become an exception. I started this to simply join those who care and those who want to share something more than their body parts and their fetishes. And I promise I’m gonna see the glass half full. I think Karl Marx is right:

Anyone who knows anything of history knows that great social changes are impossible without feminine upheaval. Social progress can be measured exactly by the social position of the fair sex, the ugly ones included.

K, I guess that’s enough. I went to walk with my mom the other day around our vicinity in Jahanshahr, Karaj. That was actually the first time I go out walking with my mom. Jahanshahr has become such a mess since rural idiots have chosen it for their F1 rally race, but it’s not bad in early mornings. At the end of the boulevard I received some positive vibrations and I think I’m gonna walk more. There’s also a cycling park near our house. I’ve asked several friends to join me: no comments.