Settling In...

Ok, so haven't quite gotten to the relaxed state of this friend I met on the beach last night, but I'm getting there. My hotel is great (it should be at $55/night, including breakfast!), and I'm learning my way around. Signed up for a 4 day scuba class yesterday and started today. Finished the "classroom" session today, hit the pool tomorrow, then 2 days of boat dives. I'm the only person in the class, which is a great student-teacher ratio, but sort-of lame as I was hoping this my be my first chance to actually meet some people. The instructor seems good though (Nick, a young-ish French guy) and there should be others on the boat dives. I bought a SIM card for my Thai phone number, but haven't had a chance to try it out yet to see if it works. Skype is working great though. Thanks for the voicemail Nathan!

I went into Patong (the "party" beach) last night and it confirmed that I had the right decision to not stay there. Holy crap, what a crazy and bazaar scene! It was like a major red-light district of Bangkok was ripped out of the city and plopped down on the beach. It went on for what seemed to be miles in all directions. I'm gonna go see if it's the same deal tonight (just kidding...).

Today it did rain most of the day. Not a problem when I was in the classroom and it also had the positive effect of convincing me to take a nap this afternoon. The rain shouldn't really be much of a problem for me for the next 3 days either as I will be in the water anyway.

Internet cafes are pretty cool here btw. This one has quality computers & monitors and sells beer. I haven't had any yet here today (not sure why, now that I thing about it...) but look for the tell tale signs of (even more) typos and embarrassing stories in future posts.

Ok, getting hungry. Think I'm gonna hunt out some Tom-Ka-Gai soup. Perfect thing for a rainy Thai night...

-erik