Rockin' with MiG Ayesa

We Will Rock You, the Queen musical, TOTALLY ROCKS!!!! We went to the second last show of the international tour last Saturday night and had a really awesome time. I wanted to stand up and dance for most of the show and Sean said that every time he looked at me I had a huge smile on my face and was all wide-eyed. It was really great. Have I said that already?

For those of you who were not obsessed with Rockstar: INXS when it was on t.v., MiG Ayesa made it to the final three but was eventually beat out by that guy who won...what was his name??? No idea...although I did see him front INXS when they played Mile One in St. John's. ANYWAY, point is, MiG was on that show but BEFORE that he was playing the lead in this musical during the London production. Thankfully, he continued in this role during the international show. I've re-kindled a little crush on him now that I've seen him rock through Queen's discography...but Sean understands. He thought he was awesome too ;)

Surprisingly, a lot of the songs they did I knew and loved, but had no idea they were by Queen! LOL. I kept saying to Sean "Queen wrote THIS?!". It was great though, because at first I wasn't sure if I'd know much of the music. We tried to buy the c.d. after the show, but they didn't have any. I'll have to track it down online - I've had those songs in my head all week!

Well anyway, enough gushing from me. I get really excited about musicals - I just love them. So much fun! It was disappointing at first when we realized that Bangkok really doesn't have much in the way of concerts, musicals, theater, etc. But this performance made up for the previous 8 months of missing the arts.

Next up: Mamma Mai the movie...can't possibly beat the stage show, but i'm sure it'll be entertaining.

APAC travel

Last week, I had to do some travel for work to Jakarta and then Kuala Lumpur. Meg accompanied me to KL since she had to renew her Thai visa. The trip didn't start out as well as we'd hoped when Meg lost her wallet on the plane. Luckily, we've hoping to get it back this week as the airline did find it.

Our couple of days there were uneventful for the most part. Meg might disagree with that statement though as she spent most of her time shopping. This was very exciting for her since finding clothes in Thailand is very difficult for foreigners (the Thais are so tiny). We snapped more pics of the Petronas Twin Towers - considering the number of times we've seen them, I think we have pics from every angle. Here is Meg trying out a popular Asian pose:



Besides Meg's shopping, the only touristy thing we did was to go to the Batu Caves, a very popular Hindu shrine located 15km to the north of KL (probably one of the most popular outside of India). It involved climbing 272 steps, which were quite steep.



As if the hike weren't treacherous enough, there were macaque monkeys running up and down the steps trying to get food from people. I even saw one violently grab at a woman's sari although she laughed off the assault. So don't let this innocent looking monkey fool you....

Queen & Avril

First off, the exciting news: the international production of We Will Rock You (the musical based on Queen's songs) is coming to Bangkok this month, and we have tickets! Woot woot. Going to be super awesome fun times. Unfortunately, for a big city, Bangkok is definitely lacking in major productions, concerts, theater, etc. So this will be the first big show we've seen since being here. Very exciting.

Now for the bad news: Avril Lavigne is doing a bunch of Asian Dates on her latest world tour but is skipping over Thailand :( And the funny thing is she's playing in St. John's for two nights and then going directly to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - the city we're in right now! So we'll miss her in St. John's and in Malaysia. What's up with that? Maybe I could convince her otherwise, you know, Canadian to Canadian...and then she could bring me some treats from home...hmmmmm, I wonder ;)

Emma sitting

This weekend, Angus and Oh went to Singapore so Meg and I had the exciting opportunity to puppy sit Emma, their Pekingese. It was great having a pet running around the apartment again as we dearly miss our fun-loving cats (thanks Crystal for being a kitty mommy) and crazy Hershey. Emma did not disappoint. Despite her small stature, she keep us busy doing laps around the apartment. And who would have thought the little ball of fur loved vegetables so much?! Not me. But here she is, dragging around some long green beans, which she devoured in a matter of seconds.

The Name Game

Sean and I have lots of nicknames for each other...but the latest is definitely blog-worthy. We were our for lunch with Tui and Bryan when I happened to ask about the Thai word for chillies. Tui responded "Prik". Bryan and I immediately giggled....yes, giggled. C'mon! It's funny! And so, somehow we ended up calling Sean Khun Prik for the rest of lunch (Khun is formality - sort of equal to Mr.).

That night we had our Thai lesson. By some strange coincidence our teacher asked us if we'd been given Thai nicknames yet (it's very common to have a short nickname). I sort of laughed but said no. But then Sean spoke up and said "Yeah, actualy, Meg started calling me Prik today!". The teachers eyes lit up..."Prik! Chillie! Like, you're spicy!!!!". LOL! We tried to hide the laughter and just nodded along. For the rest of the lesson she referred to him as Khun Prik. And yes, I laughed every time. Our friends are loving this. Tui now calls him P'Prik - basically Big Prik. LOL!!!!!

Love learning Thai! So many funny moments and misunderstandings! hehe.

Karaoke Superstar

Sean has created quite the name for himself over here. He's now well-regarded as a karaoke superstar among my (female) co-workers. After our first karaoke night out he earned the nickname Sean Bon Jovi for his rendition of It's My Life - a performance that apparently warranted a standing ovation and lots and lots of high-pitched screams. Our friends Tui and Bryan solidified the nickname when they put it in chocolate for Sean's 30th birthday:


This past weekend we were again invited to karaoke. With his new hair cut and clean-shaven look I knew Sean was going to knock em' dead, as they say. Tui echoed this thought when, upon seeing him the day before the karaoke night said "Wow Sean. You look good in black! You should definitely wear that tomorrow night - the girls will love it!" or something along those lines ;)

Sure enough, Sean was once again a Thai karaoke superstar. Unfortunately I didn't get video of the Bon Jovi (my mission for next time). But I did catch him rapping...check out the video. But first up is Bryan singing his favorite Thai song Mai Chai, Mai Chai (No, No). Look how much fun he's having!!!!!




And finally...a group shot :)

A New Woman

No, I haven't started dating someone else. Meg recently got all of her hair chopped off and has a completely new look. It looks fantastic! I had to blog about it to show her off. :)



P.S. Happy Canada Day everyone!