So it’s been just over a year that I have lived in another country.  The experience is something I would never trade for anything.  I still walk down the street and think “Wow, I am living in a completely foreign country.”  I don’t think it’s something I will ever be 100% not surprised at as life goes on.  It’s like suddenly realizing that you are living in part of a dream you had always wanted to live in.  Opportunities have come that far exceed anything I ever planned for and experiences are something now that I crave and look forward too all the time.  I now think “I want to do X just because it’s an experience.”

Let’s sum up a few things that has happened/learned over the last year.

• Getting here was an adventure in of itself.  10,000 total flying miles was a big part of that.
• There was getting my first haircut as well.  Boy did I ever learn that ‘setting #3′ here is NOT the same as in Canada.
• I also learned that Koreans are very serious about their Coffee places to hang!
• As with any foreign place, you get to see a lot of strange things.
• Then I found out that I am an Alien!  (Ha!  I knew I couldn’t be related to my brother!)
• I saw a Demilitarized Zone that had more fortifications that I have ever seen!
• I found out that you can bring beer into a movie theater.
• I like KPOP Music.
• You can read a comic while waiting for subways.

What will the next year bring?  Not sure.  I have been rather quiet on the blog recently, having been posting more on Google+.  It seems Google may be forcing my hand to leaving their waste of time and come back here.  Might do that any ways, same for Facebook.

I do plan on making a trip back to Canada next year just not sure when.  I am thinking  maybe Aug/Sept but my wife is thinking Christmas.  Will have to wait and see how this plays out and will have a better idea early next year.

To sum up my year in a couple of words?  It’s been awesome.

A G+ user (+Christina Trampolino) has commented about her apparent dilemma about using FB and how noisy it was, and then commented on how she used G+ and FB differently.  Having gone through much of what she describedf (the typical FB Wall noise), I added in my own experiences.

“+Christina Trapolino I went through a transformation almost a year ago. I quit Facebook when I moved to South Korea. I found zero use for it and like you, saw way too much noise. I had announced my move to another country 4 months in advance and 3 weeks before I left, a friend of mine asked me ‘where are you going?’. Proof to me that people allow the noise to fill their FB feed and not really pay attention to people that are closer to them than ‘FB friends’.

After I got to South Korea, I decided to setup a Remote Computer Support business for foreigners (lots of English teachers here who have laptops and desperately need help). The downside to that, they all communicate on FB. So I set up a new FB account with the sole purpose for keeping in touch with clients/potential clients.

I would seriously prefer Google+ but that mindset has not perculated down to the FB masses yet and so any ‘conversion rate’ to get people to even use it (let alone switch) is still pretty minor. The only people I know who are on both my FB friends list and G+ circles are a couple of computer-savvy people. Which has been noted that the early adopters of new technical things have always been us Geeks :) (Keep in mind that there was a huge typo in the Bible…”The Geek shall inherit the earth”).

So now I am in both worlds. Google plus is still my more techie-related info, FB for client-interaction and right now, Twitter for happenings around the world.

Once G+ become truly transparent to either of those others (as well as my WordPress blog), I will be glad to stick with one platform.”

Google + is still a better platform, mostly because FB has simply become noisy.

Funny that Google+ suddenly had a “There was a problem saving your post. Please try again” message when I tried to post this on G+. So screw them, it’s here now.

What the? “Your profile is suspended

After reviewing your profile, we determined that the name you provided violates our Community Standards. ”

Oh geeze. Google being a knob about my profile?? Let’s take a look at these “Community standards” shall we?

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?answer=107107

*Nudity and sexually explicit material*
- nope, none of that in my profile. Trust me, anyone who wants to see ME nude is in a very deranged category :P

*Hate Speech*

- not that either. Unless it’s comments for stupid people who make stupid claims about profiles……

*Impersonation*
- ha! I have enough with my hands full just being ME. Don’t have time to waste trying to be someone else.

*Private and Confidential Information*
- nada. I ain’t publishing anyone’s private information that they don’t already post up here, thus waiving any rights to their own privacy :P UNless Google doesn’t like me reposting some personal vacation photos that +Robert Scoble or +Guy Kawasaki are already posting….

*Copyright*
- in order for me to violate copyright I would have to post something that is supposed to be non-publishable as well as claim it as my own. Anything I have posted has been found on the web (mostly by Google itself…).

*Illegal Activities*
- yeah, as if anyone was dumb enough to post illegal activities on such a public forum. Well, at least I ain’t that dumb even if I DID anything illegal. Wait! Does this mean I can’t plan a rebellion against the ‘establishment’ like George Washington did? Dammit!

*Spam, Malware and Phishing*
- as if! Have you read my posts on http://www.dragondon.com lately?

*Display Name*
- allow me to quote: “use the name your friends, family, or co-workers usually call you”. That is EXACTLY what I am doing.

*Profile Picture*
- Unless my profile pic is considered a bad version of the black spy in Spy vs Spy, there is nothing wrong with it.

So, unless Google wants to qualify WHAT the problem is, there is ZERO way to fix it? You guys really need to get your act together. Telling me that my profile is suspended is like me telling a mechanic that my car ‘won’t work’ and then letting him figure it out.

OH wait….it seems that you have to click further to get any details from Google.

“If you believe that we have mistakenly suspended your profile for having an unauthentic name, please fill out the form below.”

Ah, so we now have confirmation that it IS the name that Google is having issues with.

Well, since they have not launched their business profiles, does this mean I should be reporting every single one that does not have a ‘real name’ too? I mean, unless you were born with such unfortunate names like +Ford Grafx or +News Cafeicultura or even +Ford Group I doubt that I am somehow on the side that needs to be singled out.

There has already been talk about this issue fairly recently too.

http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/07/25/google-is-learning-lessons-from-google-fake-names-debacle/

So, off to go through the ‘appeal process’ they seem to have in place now. Part of the process they ask for some sort of photo ID. Riiiight. What part of “please use the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you” does phto ID help serve? And really,Google wants to “help fight spam and prevent fake profiles”, what makes them think that my profile if fake or causes any sort of spam??

According to an interview +Robert Scoble had with +Vic Gundotra “He says it isn’t about real names. He says he isn’t using his legal name here. He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like “god” or worse.”

So, again, how does this have anything to do with me? Has +Vic Gundotra even USED Google to check me out? Go ahead, do a Google search on ‘dragondon’. Know what you will find? You will find my in 7 of the first 10 results listed! And that includes me taking up spots 1, 2 3, and 4!

Another part of this process includes providing links online “Please provide us with a link to a reputable website where you are referred to by this name. Examples include Facebook, LinkedIn, a school or university student directory, or a news article.”

Sure thing Vic. In fact, let me give you 8 different places where you can find my name mentioned on the web.

http://www.dragondon.net

http://www.dragondon.com

https://twitter.com/#!/DragnDon

http://dragondon.449983.free-press-release.com/

http://www.free-press-release.com/news-get-expert-technical-help-wherever-you-are-1306198753.html

http://www.free-press-release.com/news-richelieu-of-new-york-and-johnny-powers-team-up-1250090930.html

http://www.free-press-release.com/news-johnny-powers-presents-the-royalty-of-pop-1250124477.html

http://kr.linkedin.com/in/dragondonbelmore

Oh, should I even bother to mention that I was COMPLETELY UNAWARE that my profile was blocked? Would have been nice to have been informed of this Vic.

Do I even need to mention that I registered dragondon.net almost 8 years ago? Nah, they’ll figure it out.

Today we have only one thing planned. A dinner cruise at 6:30pm. Heavy rain started at 5:45pm but lightened by 6pm.

Although the early part of the day was kinda sunny. We just wandered around a few street, taking a different from any other walk. I have seen that the lottery here is serious business. Its not like in North America where Government controlled corporations and their appointed agents, are the only officially licensed placed to get tickets. Here you will see everyday people set up with a board and a bunch of tickets to chose from. Very strange. We also saw this whole big tented area where there was nothing but lottery tickets to buy. I am going to take a wild guess that the people selling the winning ticket must get some sort of bonus otherwise why so much competition unless there was some sort of promised dream attached to it?

Everyone who told me “don’t stay in Bangkok for more than a day ” was right. The place feels like a ‘has been’. Like there was a great time to be here when it was fresh and new. When the streets were clean and ‘Armani’ suit hawkers didn’t call you ‘boss’ every 50ft that you walked.

Bangkok has slipped into a grimy future and is limping along on trinkets and tattoos. While I am certain that this may not hold true for all of Thailand, it does paint a poor first impression. I keep hearing good things about the northern area.

Oh good, the rain has picked up again. Well this will make the boat dinner cruise interesting to say the least.

The dinner cruise was quaint. There was about 30 people all told. I chose the traditional Thai menu (more meat) and my wife got the vegetarian one. Originally we were supposed to be on the 6 – 8pm cruisebut somehow that got translated to the 8-10pm one. So we were a wee bit hungry by time the boat actually got to the dock we were waiting on.

We were greeted by some girls in traditional outfits and we got this little flower garland. Not something you could wear but more of something you would hang somewhere. Then they splash some water on it/our hands as part of the greeting. We were then directed to our seats and waited for the rest of the boat to board and head out.

They brought the food out in curses and there was a lot of it. Still too many veggies for me but that’s ok as there was enough meat and the guy running the show was more than accommodating for both of us.

I will list food here once I have it handy.

There were acouple of ladies who danced to some Thai music while we ate.

2 hrs later and we were back at the dock and made our way to our waiting mini-van.

It was just about 11pm when we got back to our hotel. We took our showers and went to bed.

This morning we wanted to try some crepes at a restaurant that we saw last night. We get there and them get told “we no have”. Umm maybe they meant it’s not a morning thing. Ok fine we’ll settle for the pancakes. I ordered the banana and home and my wife wanted the mixed (meaning pineapple and banana) . They said they “no have”. Huh? Eventually we learned they don’t have any pineapple. Ok then we settled for just banana and honey. It was ok.

As for coffee, they make it rather strong. It took quite a bit of sugar and milk to make it palatable. I was hoping it was just the Indian restaurant that made it strong. Ah well.

We walked around our area looking for souvenirs to buy for other people. Once you understand the conversion rate you begin to realize just how much they are ripping you off for given the prices of things like food and taxis (to some degree, even they think they are making a killing when you rent a taxi for your person limousine service for an hour and only pay about $10).

Here, like any other tourist trap, vendors hawk their stuff and many of them are quite militant/insistent on you buying something. Especially the guys selling custom suits. I’ve seen tailored suits being a big thing in Korea but here there is a custom suit shop every 100ft or so. They try everything to get your attention. Not really surprising but is surprising is that they are all run be East Indians or Nepalese people. We met one ethnic Indian Guy who was born here.

It is surprising how many people we have met are, and I believe this is the right term, 3rd culture generation. Basically people who’s origin is of one country but lived the majority of their life in anohr and are now in a 3rd country for work. It would be a quirk if it was only one or two people, but we have met 10 people like that. Its like a whole new culture of “world citizens” that really don’t call any one place home save for the room they are sleeping I’m at the moment. I believe I can honestly say that is what we are rout now. World Citizens.

We get to the “bus” (read oversized minivan) and its filled with Koreans! Talk about funny!

These trips usually encompasses a bunch of stops. The first one is called the Train Market. This is because it is set up on the side of train tracks. Active train tracks. They simply pull back their awnings and food wait for the train to go by and then put everything back again. Video will be here shortly :)

While that was entertaining for all of 10min, it as still just a food market like any other. Fruit, vegetables and fish stuff lined the tables. Not much to see. When you’ve seen one market in a mildly undercivilized country, you’ve seen them all. Just the the ones with fish smell worse than ones that aren’t so seafood rich.

We walked around the immediate area. More market stuff, more trinkets and jewelry to buy. More strange food being sold and no body to tell you what you migth be eating. We played it safe and bought some fried chicken. Well it was at least in the shape of a chicken leg. We opted out for the deep fried food option.

Next we finally got to the floating market area. We arrived at 4pm but weren’t getting in a boat till 6:30pm. This being a Friday, the tourfuide assistant informed us that most shops are closed during weekdays. Great. Well we walked around and there were some shops open to give us an idea of the place.

When we finally did get on the boat it was an enjoyable ride. I originally thought the point of the floating market was that you went out on the boat to shop for other things on boat. At least that’s what some of the pics i saw seem to imply. Nope, not at all.

There are some boats that float over to certain areas and these boats have stuff for sale on them. Veggies, fruit, BBQ meat of some sort (seafood, beef and such) .

We were also told about fireflies. Apparently the Thais think that going on a boat tour to see fireflies is a big deal. Now I will admit that it did Lockhart neat as some trees looked like Christmas trees by how many fireflies there were blinking away. I think the Bret part was simply being in a boat relaxing and chatting with the Koreans behind us.

So once you see these pics, it is safe to ignore this trip if you ever come to Thailand. Unless you do this on a weekend when there will be more stores open and maybe somemore interesting things to see. Or maybe more trinkets that say “I {heart} Thailand “.

A 2hr drive back to hotel and we were done for the day.